by Simply BWWM
They ate, and Luke let Elizabeth sip her wine and look over the paperwork he’d had his lawyer and accountant put together for her. Nick, his attorney, had been suspicious when Luke had gone to him with the original plan to find a surrogate. “Can’t you just buy yourself a trophy bride from somewhere else like all the other billionaires and have her bear your children?”
Luke had pointed out that a surrogate would at least save him the trouble of eventually ending up divorcing someone, and Nick had to concede that; but they’d had a lengthy discussion about the complications that could come up even with the simplified version of things: Nick had pointed out that unless Elizabeth signed an ironclad agreement to give up her parental rights, she could come after him in court any time in the child’s life, and that could--and probably would--make his, as well as his child’s, life much more complicated.
“So far, this looks pretty much exactly the way I expected it would,” Elizabeth noted, taking a break from her reading to enjoy some more of her meal. Luke sat back slightly in his seat and watched her, intrigued.
“I was hoping we could talk about a schedule for--ah--conception,” Luke said. It was, he knew, an awkward topic: to try and plan out their sex lives for the next month or two--maybe even three months--as a matter of making sure they optimized when Elizabeth would be most fertile.
“Well, I just finished my period,” Elizabeth said. “So, I should be ovulating within about a week, according to the tracker.”
“Within a week--wow,” Luke said. He had thought--he had, to a degree, hoped--that there would be more time to relax before they started on the “work” of getting Elizabeth pregnant.
“Yeah, I mean...I assume you wanted to get started as soon as possible,” Liz said.
“Of course,” Luke said, nodding. “And you really don’t mind being...exclusive, not getting involved with anyone else for the duration of the time you’re my surrogate?” Elizabeth shrugged.
“I mean, it makes sense. You want to make sure that the baby I have is yours,” she said. “I haven’t been with anyone for about six months, so we’re in the clear on that.”
“I just find it hard to believe that you’ve been single for that long,” Luke told her with a little smile.
“I’ve been single for longer than that,” Elizabeth countered with a wry grin. “Dating in Portland is a bit...weird.”
“It’s not that much better in Chicago, from what I’ve seen,” Luke admitted. Elizabeth chuckled.
“Okay, that would explain why you’re outsourcing someone having a baby for you,” she said.
“So, you’re really on board with this?” Luke almost couldn’t believe it, and he wasn’t sure why he was pushing the point so hard. Why wouldn’t he just accept that Elizabeth was going to go through with what she said she would?
“I mean, I wouldn’t have moved halfway across the continent if I wasn’t on board,” Elizabeth pointed out. Luke had to admit that she had a point.
They finished up their meals, and Luke grabbed the check from the waiter before Elizabeth could even look at it. He barely spared the total a glance before shoving his card into the slot for it and handing it back.
“Still feel like checking out Millennium Park?” Elizabeth nodded.
“I feel like I’ll need to, to walk off this big meal,” she said. The waiter quickly brought the folder with his receipt back, and Luke scribbled in a 50% tip under the subtotal and signed it.
“Let’s go then,” he suggested.
Chapter7
“So, you’re really okay with this,” Luke said, making it not quite a question as they walked along the boardwalk through Lurie Garden. Millennium Park was bigger even than Elizabeth had imagined, broken down into its different sections, a combination of art and nature.
“Why do you keep asking? Are you getting cold feet?” The prospect of discovering that Luke had backed out--or him suddenly deciding that he didn’t want a child after all--filled Elizabeth with a kind of dread. Why had she moved halfway across the country if not to become pregnant and carry a child for someone?
Her mind rapidly did the calculations: her rent was paid for an entire year, so that wouldn’t be a problem, unless Luke did something to get his money back--canceled the payment or something. She didn’t know if she would be able to pay for the apartment herself; she had no idea what the rent even was, but considering that it was in the city proper, Liz didn’t think the rent could possibly be cheap.
“No, I’m not getting cold feet,” Luke said as they came to the end of the gardens. They both turned to skirt the great lawn, headed in the direction of the rest of the park proper, and Elizabeth looked at Luke intently. “I’m not. It’s just I want to make sure you’re good with everything.” Elizabeth nodded.
“I mean, it’s pretty close to what I expected to do,” Elizabeth said. “Apart from the sex part--that I was not expecting when I signed up on the site, but I already know you, so it’s not that weird.”
“I would have hoped it wouldn’t be weird at all,” Luke said wryly. Elizabeth shrugged.
“I mean, it’s weird to have scheduled sex with someone I’m not in a relationship with, for the sake of getting pregnant,” she pointed out. “But considering that we both seem to be pretty good in bed, at least it will be fun.” She grinned at him.
“There is that,” he admitted, returning her smile.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s actually on your mind, Luke? If we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to be honest with each other,” Elizabeth said, coming to a stop just as they emerged into the main area of the park. She turned to face Luke fully, not giving him the chance to walk past her or look away.
“We have history together, even if it’s old history,” Luke explained.
“Okay, so what does that have to do with anything?” Luke took a deep breath and exhaled a gusty sigh.
“I’m just worried one of us might like...catch feelings or something,” he said. Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
“Luke, if you think I catch feelings for every man who happens to be good in bed, then you are severely mistaken about how feelings work,” she told him with a smile.
“It isn’t just the sex,” he said. “I’m just saying, this could get pretty complicated--with us having been together in the past and all. And I want to make sure that you’re not going to put yourself in a position to feel like I’m cheating you out of something when the time comes for us to part ways.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes again.
“Lucas. I know what I’m agreeing to. We’ll have sex until I conceive, and then…” she shrugged. “I guess at that point, there won’t be much reason to keep doing it.”
“Well, they do say that continued sex during pregnancy helps to make sure your body doesn’t reject the fetus for having DNA that’s too different from yours,” Luke pointed out playfully. Elizabeth laughed.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she suggested. “But in the meantime, the plan is that we’ll have sex on the schedule until we confirm a pregnancy, and then we’ll see each other for doctors’ appointments and maybe the occasional dinner or whatever. Not a whole lot of opportunity to catch feelings there, you know?”
“Fine, if you’re all good with it and you’re sure you won’t find yourself regretting it at the end of the year…”
“I won’t, and if I do, then it’ll be my own fault,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Are you worried that you’ll have feelings for me?” She raised an eyebrow.
“It hasn’t really happened with anyone else,” Luke said candidly. “And I’ve tried. I really have. I wanted the whole deal: loving wife, big family, living out in the suburbs on my fortune…” He put his hand over his heart, looking up at the sky dramatically, and Elizabeth laughed again.
“I didn’t know you were such a romantic!” They began walking again, idly, along the promenade.
“Well, I’m having to settle for just the kids part,” Luke said. “Fortunately, I found the perfect surrogate.” Elizabet
h snorted.
“I don’t know if I’m the perfect surrogate,” she pointed out. “But I’m willing to go along with natural conception.”
“That makes you the perfect surrogate,” Luke countered. “This way, I probably won’t have to go into a fertility clinic somewhere and jerk off into a little cup.” Elizabeth grimaced.
“I could see why that would be an issue,” she agreed.
“So, I guess you’ll probably want to go to the doctor and get all the tests done tomorrow or the next day, since you’ll be ovulating soon,” Luke suggested.
“Oh…yeah, I guess this would be good timing,” Elizabeth said.
“And then...I guess we can plan to have sex every night while you’re ovulating?” Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat.
“I mean--it’s a seventy-two-hour timeframe,” she said, feeling the heat in her cheeks as the blood flooded into her face.
“That’s what I mean,” Luke said. “I can schedule to not have much to do during that three-day period, and make the most of it. And then next month, we can do the same if we don’t catch it this month.”
“So, something that I didn’t really remember to ask during dinner when I was looking over the paperwork…” Elizabeth said, glancing up at the trees as they passed under them. “I was wondering when the payments actually start.”
“Oh! Yeah, as soon as I get your paperwork to my accountant--probably tomorrow or the next day--he’ll start the first transfer,” he replied.
“Wow--I had thought...I had thought it would probably wait until I’d conceived,” Elizabeth said, feeling a mixture of pleased surprise and something like anxiety.
“It just seems more straightforward to start up immediately, and then if you need more when you get pregnant or down the line in the pregnancy, we can make tweaks then,” Luke said.
“Why would I need more down the line?” Elizabeth frowned.
“If you’re not able to work or something,” he suggested.
“I guess I hadn’t really thought about that,” Elizabeth said, slowing down. She felt Luke’s gaze on her and managed a smile. “I’m still okay with everything,” she added.
“Good,” Luke said. They both came to a stop, looking around the park. “Why don’t we head back to my place? I could show you everything, maybe we could have a drink or two?”
“That sounds good,” Elizabeth said, smiling. Who would have thought that it could be more awkward the second time we meet up than it was the first time?
Luke took out his phone and sent a text message to his driver, and they made their way slowly to the entrance of the park where he would meet her. “I just realized how weird it’s going to be to get home,” Elizabeth said, remembering the fact that she’d nearly missed the correct stop on her way to the restaurant.
“I’ll have David drive you home--don’t sweat it,” Luke said, putting his arm around her waist. All at once, the awkwardness evaporated, and Elizabeth fell into step with him, feeling her heart beating faster in a way that had nothing to do with nervousness. She thought that there was--in fact--a possibility that more than some casual scheduled sex would happen between them, but knowing that there was a definite end to their relationship, such as it was, made it easy for Elizabeth to tell herself that it was just a fling. We’ll have some sex, I’ll get pregnant, and then nine months after that, I’ll give him his kid and go back to my real life. It was like taking a year abroad, in a way.
“I have to see something,” Luke said, stopping just short of the entrance to the park. He turned Elizabeth towards him and looked down into her eyes. “Do you mind if I kiss you?”
“No,” Elizabeth said, feeling her throat go dry with sudden anticipation. Luke leaned in and brushed his lips against hers, barely kissing her at first and then deepening it after a few dozen heartbeats. Elizabeth leaned against him, feeling lightheaded and giddy.
“Just as I thought,” Luke said, barely breaking away from her lips.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Luke chuckled softly and kissed her on the lips lightly one more time, holding her steady even as he pulled back.
“I was wondering if the way that things were between us that first meeting a couple of weeks ago was just a fluke,” Luke said. “I was pretty sure it wasn’t. And I was right.” He reached down and took her hand in his, and Elizabeth felt her fluttering heart slow down just a little bit as she relaxed. It was strange the way that she felt so nervous around Luke, right up until he touched her; Elizabeth pushed that observation out of her mind.
“Let’s go check out how a billionaire lives in Chicago,” Elizabeth suggested. Luke grinned at her, and she wondered if he was thinking the same thing that she was: that even though she wasn’t scheduled to ovulate for several days, it might be a good idea for them to get a jump on the high point in her cycle.
“David should be up front, so let’s go meet him,” Luke agreed, giving her hand a quick squeeze. Elizabeth nodded and fell in step with him, moving towards the entrance of the park, thinking about how good it would be to finally get her shoes off.
Chapter8
When they reached Luke’s townhouse in the suburbs at the edge of the city, Luke tried to decide whether or not he wanted to make a move on her again. His body insisted that he definitely wanted to, but his brain kept telling him it was a mistake.
“I’ve got a few bottles of wine hanging around,” he told Elizabeth as he led her through the front door. “We could pop one, and you could do the paperwork here if you wanted to.” Elizabeth considered that for a moment.
“Sounds good--if you’ve got some white wine?”
“I’ll do one better: I’ve got a bottle of prosecco in the fridge,” Luke told her. He kicked off his shoes, closed and locked the door behind them, and watched as Elizabeth followed suit, pushing her shoes with her toes off to the side where they wouldn’t be in the way. Luke went into the kitchen, the lights coming up automatically as he did, and headed for the fridge.
“Are all the lights automatic?” Luke lifted one hand and tilted it side to side.
“The ones in the bedrooms and bathrooms are on a slightly different system,” he explained. “In the master bedroom, if I’m not moving for more than about twenty minutes, the system switches over to ‘sleep’ mode. Same if it doesn’t register a presence in the room for twenty minutes.” He opened the fridge and took out the bottle of prosecco he’d bought a month before when he hadn’t even known Elizabeth would be in his life again.
“Sounds like you’ve done a lot with the place,” Elizabeth commented. Luke shrugged it off.
“I had money to play with. I got this place for a steal,” he said. “It was a little under two hundred thousand, about half my budget, so I decided to plow the rest of the money I’d set aside for it on making it a palace.”
“And now, you’re going to bring a kid into this,” Elizabeth said, making it not quite a question. Luke chuckled, opening the bottle of prosecco carefully and taking down two champagne glasses from the cabinet.
“There’s a spare bedroom next to the master, which used to be an office space for me. I’ve moved all the office stuff into one of the bedrooms down here, and I’ll be putting in all the baby stuff there,” he said.
“Sounds practical,” Elizabeth said. She’d taken the folder of paperwork from him before they’d left the car; Luke found her seated on his couch in the living room, her feet tucked under her legs, looking so perfect there--as if she were in her own home--that for a moment, something stirred in him, though he wasn’t quite sure what it was. He turned on the light directly over the couch, so she could see better, and sat down on the other side of the L-shaped couch, the bottle and both glasses in his hands.
“Anything you want to change in the paperwork?” Elizabeth’s gaze was on the papers, and she shook her head without looking up.
“Everything looks just about the way I’d want it to be,” she said absently. She looked up finally and smiled.
> “It is kind of a thing, isn’t it? Actually signing?”
Elizabeth lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug and let it fall.
“I mean, it just feels final to do it, but that’s not a reason not to,” she said. She reached for her purse and rummaged inside it for a moment. Her expression tightened, and Luke wondered for a second why, but then she smiled and produced a ball-point pen.
“Do you want to cheers before or after you sign?” Elizabeth grinned and held out her left hand for a glass.
“I should probably sign this on a steady surface instead of against my leg,” she said, looking around the room.
“Gotcha,” Luke said, rising to his feet to retrieve one of the pull-over TV tables he kept off to the side of the room. He positioned it over her lap, and Elizabeth shifted, freeing her legs more, somehow managing not to reveal too much of what lay underneath her skirt in the process.
Luke couldn’t help wondering if she was, once again, wearing a matching bra and panty set; when they’d been involved in high school, he remembered Elizabeth had been the kind of girl who always liked to be “put together,” down to even her underthings--though of course then, most of what she’d owned had been strictly utilitarian, colored cotton prints ridged with lace. A pretty far cry from the racy set she’d worn the night of their meeting.
Luke shook off his memories of what Elizabeth had been like in high school and pushed the thought of their tryst out of his mind. He could have sex with her again soon enough; she would be going to the doctor within the next two days, and she would be ovulating within a week--that was plenty of opportunity to have sex with her, and if he was serious about keeping things more or less professional between them, Luke told himself, he didn’t need to be looking for extra chances.
Elizabeth signed each of the required pages quickly with decisive movements of the pen against the paper, nodding to herself as she re-skimmed everything she was agreeing to. “Okay, so that takes care of the contract stuff,” she said, looking up.
“Cheers, then,” Luke said. He raised his glass, and Liz carefully clinked her own against it, smiling at him.