“What is this job anyway?”
“It’s paying me enough to take care of the bills and by the end, we’re probably going to have enough to move out of here and into a place with more than a couple square feet of kitchen,” I said. I was trying to sound upbeat but it wasn’t moving my mother. She felt bad about being sick. She thought that I thought she was a burden but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Doing this for her was going to be hard but I’d do it again if I had to. I would do it a thousand times. Nothing mattered to me as much as her health and wellbeing.
I knew exactly the conversation we would have if she found out that I was providing surrogacy services for money. She would lose her mind. She wouldn’t understand and worst of all, she would refuse to take the money. I needed to keep her in the dark for this for her own good. I loved her too much to let her stop me. I didn’t need her permission for me to try and save her life. I just hoped that if the truth of what the job was ever did come out, she would understand and not feel guilty.
“I don’t like this Brenna. I don’t want you working yourself sick just for this.” I stood up and kissed her on the cheek before heading to the sink to pour out the coffee I had been unable to drink. Tears stung my eyes but I blinked them back.
“Don’t worry mom. You’re more than worth it. This year is probably going to suck, not going to lie to you but after this, I think we’ll be completely debt-free.” That part wasn’t a lie. I believed that after this year, everything was going to turn around. She would be cancer-free and we would be living in a new, bigger apartment. This whole episode would be behind us and we could live happily ever after.
I took two bags with me and left for work. I figured that I could come back if I ever needed anything else and it wouldn’t look weird if I did. It would probably make my mother worry less to see me around from time to time. Oh, I was not intending to stay the entire nine months away from her. If Charlie had something else in mind, he had another thing coming. I hadn't asked him for much in return in this little arrangement of ours but that was where I drew the line.
Besides, if I carried everything along with me now, I didn’t have to pass by the house to say bye to my mother again, it would hurt too much. Work passed by without me noticing. I was distracted all day. If Jameson was looking for an excuse not to give me a raise today, he would have found it. Nobody knew what I was doing. I hadn't even told Maggie that I had made the agreement and everything was going through. She noticed that I was off when we had lunch together but since I was a liar nowadays, I just told her it was nothing.
If she didn’t believe me, she left it alone instead of probing harder. I left later than usual and went straight to the address that Charlie gave me to his home. Soon, we pulled up in front of a townhouse in Chelsea. My emotions had come full circle and I was numb again. I walked up to the door and rang the bell.
Oh well, here went nothing.
11
Charles
I swung the door open. There she was. I had to see her with my own eyes to make sure that this was all actually coming true.
“Brenna,” I said.
“Were you waiting on the other side of the door for me?” she asked. I ignored that a little bit of snark. I let it slide since there was probably a lot more where that came from. I looked at the couple of bags she had with her.
“Is that all you have?” I asked her.
She crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “I thought you said that you would be buying me maternity clothes. What's the use of bringing everything I own if I won't even be able to fit into it in three months.”
“You know, you could act a little bit more excited to be moving in with me,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “for all I know, this place is a dump. All I have seen is the outside. Are you going to let me in at some point?”
I moved to the side and helped her with her bags smiling behind her back. I knew that I was excited to finally be in the same space as her, but I didn't know dealing with her smart mouth and constant snark would make me this glad.
“I can carry my own stuff you know,” she said.
“Nonsense. You're my guest.” She shot me a tired look. I smiled at her. She wasn't my prisoner. My number one priority having her here was to make sure that she was comfortable. It was also for my peace of mind, considering the baby and her pregnancy, but I was going to enjoy every single second of having her in my sight. She followed me into the living room, looking around.
“You like?” I asked. She glanced at me over her shoulder. For the first time since moving in here, I worried whether somebody else approved of the way it looked. I hadn't played that much of a part in the interior decorating, mostly just hired someone to handle that for me, but that worked because I was the only one who was staying here. I had brought the decorator back in to do Brenna's room. If I had my way, we would be sleeping in the same room, same bed, but that would be too much to spring on her right now. I liked how the place was decorated but it wasn’t my opinion that mattered right then. Perfect, now I was nervous. She turned around and faced me.
“You live here alone?” she asked.
“No. We live here together.”
She rolled her eyes. “Kind of big for one person. Big for two people too.”
“We're having a child, Brenna. We are going to need the space.”
“We?”
“Think of it this way,” I said, “the bigger the house, the more places you can get away from me.”
She smiled slightly at that. “So, where do I sleep?”
“Come on, let me show you around.” I led her up the stairs instead of starting with the floor that we were on. The first floor up had three of the five bedrooms in the house. On the one above that were the other two bedrooms and terrace.
“How much room do you have in this place?” she asked.
“Well, on the first floor is the kitchen, living room, library, my office, and guest bathroom.”
She scoffed. “Yes, and on this floor is the room where you keep all your gold cufflinks, right next to the room where you keep all your diamond cufflinks. Where do you keep all of the portraits of your dead relatives?” She pushed open the door to one of the guest bedrooms and looked inside. “Is all this furniture in here for people to actually use, or are they like art pieces for people to look at and not actually sit or sleep on?”
“Don't you think I get any guests?” I asked her.
“No,” she said grinning, “never.”
I took her from room to room, nervously trying to gauge her reaction to each one. The place was objectively nice. It was a high-end place, and I had moved in and fully renovated it. There were two bedrooms and a living room on the highest floor where the terrace was. There was furniture and a hot tub up there. Every single bedroom had an ensuite bathroom and walk-in closet. It was a nice place, but if it was going to be Brenna's home for the next nine or more months, I needed her to want to live here.
I led her back downstairs, we toured the library and finally came to the kitchen. Two women and one man were waiting there for us. Staff. I hired staff. I had grown up with a fully staffed household my whole life, but finally moving out on my own, I hired cleaners and caterers on an as-needed basis. I lived alone and there was never all that much to do when I was on my own. With Brenna and the house, I wanted a chef on call at all times to make sure she was eating right, and to help her meet any pregnancy cravings she might have. The housekeeper was to keep things running for both of us. Last, was Iris. Brenna smiled politely as I introduced the older woman with salt and pepper hair.
“This is Iris. She is your doula.”
“My doula?” Brenna asked. “Oh, you don't want to turn this into some sort of home birth experience, do you?”
“Well, if you want to, that can certainly be arranged,” Iris said, her smile not dropping for a second.
“I think I'm good,” Brenna said.
“She's here to aid with the pregnancy proces
s,” I said.
“Aid in what exactly?” Brenna asked.
“Week by week, I'm going to be examining the growth and health of the baby, as well as yours,” Iris said.
“Every week?” Brenna asked.
“Yes, every week,” she said. “The closer we get to the birth, you will have 24-hour attention.”
“It's just a baby, I think I can handle it.”
“Nonsense,” Iris said. “Pregnancy and birth can be very difficult and delicate times for both mother and baby. It's in my best interest that both of you arrive on the other side healthy and safe.”
“I guess I can't really say no, huh?” said Brenna. Iris laughed.
“I'm honored for the opportunity to be part of your journey,” she said. Brenna smiled and thanked her, but I could tell from the look in her face that she was a little shaken. It was a lot. I just wanted the household to be as comfortable for her as possible. Hell, maybe the additional people in the house would make her feel more at ease so it wasn’t just her and me. I thanked Iris and told her she was free to go. While we finished up the tour, the housekeeper took Brenna's luggage up to her room. I showed her up when we were done.
“Right next to your bedroom?” she asked.
“Yeah. Is that going to be a problem?” I asked.
“Just don't turn it into one.” She closed the door. Not going to lie, I was a little nervous about what her reaction to our rooms being directly adjacent would be. I realized that there was a chance she might not want to be that close to me, but I could control myself. If she wanted to switch, all she had to do was say the word. I was about ready to build an additional extension for her to live in if that was what she wanted, as long as we were under the same roof. I knocked at the door.
“By the way, tomorrow morning my lawyers will be coming and we're going to be signing the contract,” I said through the door. I heard footsteps and the door opened again.
“Thanks. Anything else?” she asked. I tried to read her expression. I knew that I would be out of my depth in her position. She was making huge sacrifices for me just hoping that the money would be worth it. I didn’t want her to regret agreeing to do this for me. I didn’t want to be a person that she regretted coming back to.
“Nothing else. I’m one door down. Just let me know if you need anything.” She thanked me again and closed the door. I left her alone to get settled in. I felt like I should have been able to relax now that we were under the same roof together but the relief just didn’t come. I wasn’t over any hurdle yet, this was just the first step. Who knew the way things were going to change when she was actually pregnant.
Another thing I didn’t anticipate was the frustration. She was literally right there now. She was one room away from me, living with me, I would potentially know where she was all times of the day but there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t touch or kiss her no matter how close she was. This was going to be hard, but it was going to be worth it.
I looked up hearing footsteps walking into the kitchen.
“Good morning,” I said. She was in her pajamas, shorts with a loose t-shirt. Her hair was tousled and her face a little puffy from just having woken up. She was cute, I had never seen her first thing in the morning.
“Hi,” she said, coming up and sitting at the breakfast table next to me. I had to stop myself from leaning over and kissing her. I had never wanted a roommate before but waking up and seeing Brenna was going to become my favorite part of the day.
“Sleep well?” I asked.
“Yeah. When are those lawyers showing up?” she asked. She paused when the chef appeared and offered her coffee. She took it sheepishly.
“In an hour. Did you want to talk about something before they come?”
She sipped her coffee. “No. Just want to get it over with.”
“Pancakes, Miss Brenna?” the chef asked her. She looked slightly taken aback again. She wasn’t used to having people serve her. She said she’d just have a couple and eat them in her room, declining the trimmings and offers of fresh fruit and yogurt that the chef made to her. She scuttled up to her room with her food. She was still a little out of her depth.
You want to maybe stop watching her like a hawk now? I thought. It’s been one day, how do you expect her to feel being here with you after walking away from her normal life?
An hour later, the lawyers showed up. Right on time, Brenna came down to the office. I introduced everyone. We sat at the table, me and Brenna on one side and the lawyers on the other.
“I suppose everyone knows why we’re here,” one of the men said. His name was Kingsley and he had been the family attorney in the States for decades. His associate Moren was my personal attorney.
“Both of you should have looked over the documents by now. It’s our job to clarify anything that needs more explanation,” he said.
I looked at Brenna. She was silent and her expression was blank.
“Mr. Hampton?” Kinsley asked.
“No. I’m fine,” I said.
“Wonderful. We’ll start with Ms. Andrews. Please put your signatures here and here.” I watched as Brenna legally bound herself to me for the duration of her pregnancy, all stipulations included. This wasn’t the way I felt this would go down. I couldn’t read the way she felt. I signed after her and then it was over. We were legally bound together until the baby was born. I showed the lawyers out and came back to the office, finding Brenna on her way out.
“Hey,” I said. She stopped and looked at me.
“Yeah?”
“In the office just now,” I said.
“The guys just left, is there more paperwork? I thought this was over,” she said. It was. She still wasn’t giving anything away. Not anger, fear, annoyance, nothing.
“It is. I’ll see you later.” She left. I watched her until I couldn’t see her anymore. I walked back into the office. More and more this felt like the wrong way to do it. She was giving me zero feedback, but I couldn’t needle her just to see her jump. That would make her edgy and at worse, it would make her run. She was apprehensive. I couldn’t make her let her guard down. I could only make her want to do it herself.
12
Brenna
I walked into the kitchen. I could smell what was cooking from upstairs. Jerry the chef looked up at me and smiled. Just Jerry. The kitchen was completely empty otherwise.
“Did you have a good night Miss Andrews?”
“I did Jerry, thank you. What are you cooking?”
“Spinach and sundried tomato frittata,” he said. “Coffee?”
“Sounds good, I’d love some,” I said, sliding into a chair at the breakfast table. It wasn’t weird anymore. No, it was still a little weird but it wasn’t that bad anymore. Whenever I wanted to do something on my own, Jerry or Freya the housekeeper would jump in and stop me. It had been a week and I was finally getting used to it. I felt a little guilty, to be honest. My mother would deserve this a lot more than I did. I wasn’t even pregnant yet.
I thanked Jerry as he placed the cast iron skillet with the food in it on the table in front of me. He produced a basket of muffins out of somewhere too. It all smelled delicious. My place was so small that home-cooking was more stressful than it was fun and inevitably, a delivery man was going to be showing up with prepared food. Everything that Jerry had put in front of me since I had been here was incredible.
“Mr. Hampton’s already eaten, I suppose?” I asked.
“He left about twenty minutes before you came down,” Jerry said. Missed him, again. It had been like this for the last week that I had been here and I was getting a little worried. After seeing him the first time at Nova Fertility, I felt like all I did was see him after that. We didn’t just wander back into each other's lives, we crashed back into each other's lives. Now that I was in his house, we were actually one room apart, I had barely even heard his voice through the walls.
I kind of missed the guy. Not that I was going to admit it to him if he aske
d or anything, but it was weird. I thought the point of being in the same house was so he could make sure I was living up to his standards or whatever. Not smoking crack or eating too many Hot Cheetos, or whatever he thought I would get up to when left to my own devices. I ate a mouthful of the frittata. It was fresh and light. I’d choose this if it was ever an option for me before. Being in his house hadn’t been that bad.
The house was beautiful, not creepy or haunted at all. I could come and go as I pleased and as much as I wanted to see Charlie more, I didn’t feel lonely or isolated. I thought something would have happened by now. The way Charlie was about getting me into his house, I would have thought that he was in more of a hurry to get things cooking. We hadn’t been back to the fertility clinic. He hadn’t even talked about what we were going to do to get me pregnant. I didn’t even know what that conversation would look like.
I had been briefed on IVF and intrauterine insemination already at the clinic but I had been alone then. This kind of stuff could take long; couples tried and failed to conceive through these methods over several cycles that each lasted months. How long was I going to be staying here? I had been betting on a little less than a year but that only covered the time it would take to carry the baby and a little recovery time after. We needed to talk.
It was a Saturday. I had no idea what Charlie did all day, but Freya told me he’d most likely be back early at night. I spent part of my day at the house and then met Maggie in the afternoon for lunch. After coming back home as night was falling, I took a shower and came back downstairs with a book. He couldn’t miss me if I was waiting for him, could he? I had legitimate concerns and he wasn’t doing enough to make me feel comfortable or informed.
I waited for about an hour before I heard the door being opened. I checked the time. Just after nine. I was just about to tell him that he had me worried sick waiting up for him when something didn’t fit. He was blond too but it was darker than Charlie’s. He was just about as tall but he was in a t-shirt and jeans, not Charlie’s usual suit. He strolled into the room and completely ignored me. I put the book down. My usual impulse seeing a strange man stroll into the house I was living in would be panic but the way he moved, he seemed completely at home. He let himself in, first of all. How many home invaders had a house key?
Admit You Miss Me: A Surrogate Pregnancy Romance (Irresistible Billionaires Book 1) Page 7