I was ready to talk to him about keeping things strictly professional between us. It really shouldn't have bugged me what he was doing at the charity thing, but just the fact that his mother wanted him to go specifically to meet a woman really got to me. And then he fucking went. What the hell was I supposed to think?
It was good, very good but last night probably shouldn't have happened. I didn't know how far he intended to take his mother's orders. Whatever he decided to do, I didn't want to end up looking and feeling dumb. I mean, why take a couple of really good hookups and turn them into something when the guy you hooked up with was steady being set up with actual princesses by his mother?
I did like him though. That, unfortunately, had not changed. Maybe if we just kept it up until the baby came? Was that feasible? We were going to be living in the same house and I had heard that a woman's libido went up when she was pregnant. We got along, and the sex was great so maybe we could just go with the flow until the baby got here and then I could get out of his way so he could marry a Hilton. Nothing wrong with keeping up the illusion. It seemed to be what he wanted, sending me the car today and everything.
Yeah. Yes. Everything would be fine. I would see Charlie at some point today and I would tell him what I was feeling. Or maybe I wouldn’t? Whatever. At the moment, thankfully I had bigger things to worry about.
I tried to walk into work like I wasn’t late. Maggie saved me, slipping me a granola bar so I wasn’t running on empty and got to work. I forgot about Charlie pretty easily while fighting my way through Excel. Jameson scared me when he popped up as I was engrossed in my assignment.
“I didn’t startle you, did I?” he asked.
“Yeah, you did, actually.”
“You weren’t looking at something you weren’t meant to be looking at, were you?” he asked, trying to crack a joke. I giggled nervously. Jameson and I were on good terms but we were not friends by any stretch of the word. Between that and the looks I often caught him giving me, I didn’t have friendly feelings towards him. Strictly professional, that was what we were. Was that what I wanted with Charlie?
I pushed the thought away.
“On the clock? Never,” I said.
“Good, good,” he laughed. “I have some news about that project I told you about. Actually, could we have a short meeting right now? My office?” he asked.
“Oh, that sounds great,” I said, standing. This was the meeting that was going to give me the raise. I contractually had a million dollars coming my way but I knew better than to go into this blindly. All these months fighting my mother’s cancer had told me that things could change in the blink of an eye and you never wanted to be caught off guard. Very many people had no plan B. I wasn’t putting my trust in Charlie where my mother’s life was concerned. Therefore, Jameson and I had some things to discuss.
I followed Jameson to his office. He held the door open for me and closed it once I was inside. It looked different in there. It took a second for me to realize it was because the chair that was usually on the other side of his desk had been moved next to the one that he sat on. He went over and sat first, motioning for me to join. He turned his computer so I could see the screen.
“Okay, so none of this stuff should be out of your reach. We’re going to go through some budget projections, then after that, we have to put together some synopses. They’re supposed to reflect expected profits from possible product lines in the next fiscal year.”
“Sounds doable,” I said to him.
“You need to know these things like the back of your hand. I’m going to go through each one,” he said.
Unnecessary. I went to school for this and had years of experience by now. If I needed guidance, I would know who to call but I didn’t need nearly as much as he thought I did. I didn’t want to get combative straight out of the gate and in the interest of being professional, I shut my mouth. He started talking. I did my best to listen to him tell me things I already knew when I felt something on my leg. I looked down. It was his hand. I was so shocked I couldn’t even jerk away. I looked at him to see whether he’d at least stop because he realized that I had noticed, but he didn’t.
Maybe he didn’t? Maybe he hadn’t realized that he was feeling me up?
I didn’t know whether that was possible, I was just exploring the possibilities here. Jameson had had his moments; a lingering look here and there which at the very worse skeeved me out but nothing else. He had never struck me as the type to request a sexual favor for career development. I was still sitting there, shocked, trying to believe it wasn’t happening when his hand started to climb up my thigh. That was it. I stood up so suddenly he whipped around to look at me.
“Thanks, Mr. Jackson but I can figure out the projections myself. I’ll come to you if I need any help.” I scrambled out of his office as he was telling me he would send them my way. I passed my desk, got into the elevator and kept walking until I got to the deli. I felt queasy.
That did not happen. That did not just fucking happen.
I had had my fair share of harassment, it seemed like every woman I had ever talked to had at least one story. Jameson had always been kind of suspect, but he never crossed the line. His eyes lingered a little long from time to time and he sometimes made these double entendres which I never took to heart because we were colleagues. I felt… I felt violated. Ten, maybe even fifteen minutes had passed but I felt like his hand was still there. Like there was this grime or film stuck to me now where he touched me and I couldn’t get it off.
Lunch? Our usual? I texted Maggie.
So early? Did you run away lol? She texted back.
Something happened, I said. I didn’t reply to her next text, just waited for her to show up. She appeared as soon as lunch started. I was waiting with our orders when she came up and sat.
“I practically ducked out of work just now. What’s going on?” she asked. My food was in front of me but I hadn’t touched it. I felt not only sick but half-crazy thinking about what to do now. I needed to talk to someone just to get my own voice out of my head.
“Jameson touched me.” Her eyes almost fell out of her head.
“He what? When? Where?”
“His office. I asked him for a raise, right? Well, he said he’d be happy to give me one if I worked on this new project with him. Cool. Sounded like a perfectly reasonable exchange. So, he tells me today that we’re going to start and we have to have a short meeting. I go to his office and the chair that’s usually opposite his at his desk is on the other side, next to his. I don’t think much of it and I sit.” I was talking so fast I wasn’t even sure I was making sense, but Maggie never stopped me.
“So, he’s talking and I feel his hand on my knee. Maggie, I completely froze up. I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe he didn’t realize that he was touching me. But then he ran his hand up my thigh.” I stopped because I grossed myself out. That lunch was not getting eaten. I wouldn’t be able to keep it down.
“Say something, Brenna,” Maggie said.
“To who? His word against mine, who is going to win?”
“Then what are you going to do?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Quit then.”
“What?”
“Quit. You have the surrogacy money coming in, right?” she asked. I had opened up to her finally about my little arrangement with Charlie, as much as I could tell her contractually, at least. I shook my head.
“I’m not risking anything. I don’t want to burn this bridge and then have to come crawling back because something went left.”
“Do you think something might end up going left?” she asked. I thought about telling her what happened last night, but I couldn’t. I hadn’t even made sense of it myself yet.
“This guy is rich and powerful, I don’t want to risk anything because he would have the upper hand no matter which way you slice it.”
“Well, it can only get worse from here. Jameson is only going to keep
taking liberties with your body if he knows you won’t try and get out of this job.”
“I know, I know,” I said. I had to figure something out that didn’t mean I was pinning all my hopes on Charlie giving me the money. Things with Charlie at the moment were… questionable. One thing was for sure, contract or no contract, I could not blindly trust him.
19
Charles
I looked at the time on my phone. Almost seven. Where the hell was she? She was supposed to be home by now. I paced the floor of the living room. I thought I’d just wait in there for her with a book or something; maybe check the news but I couldn’t stay still. If I paced this room anymore, I’d wear a hole through the damn carpet.
Brenna wasn’t answering my texts and she never told me whether she had something after work. It wasn’t like I told her what she could and couldn’t do. That wasn’t it at all, I just wanted to know when she’d be late. She didn’t live alone anymore. It wasn’t like I was going to tell her not to do things on her own, I just wanted her to let me know when she did it.
The door opened, finally. I waited in the living room for her. She slowly emerged from the entryway.
“It’s about time,” I couldn’t stop myself from saying. She looked at me blankly.
“What?” she asked.
“Where the hell have you been?” Her face hardened.
“On the goddamn moon. Where do you think I’ve been?”
“I don’t fucking know. You wouldn’t reply to my messages,” I said.
“Sorry, I’ll make sure I check with you whenever I decide to head somewhere that isn’t your home after work.” I cringed a little bit. Never had I ever stopped her from going anywhere and she knew that. I never would. Was she trying to start a fight with me? I didn’t want to argue about that. I changed the subject.
“Why didn’t you take the limo?”
“Because it’s a limo. The most ostentatious car in the world. People notice. I can’t go from using the subway every day like a regular person to showing up in a limousine. People are going to talk and they’re going to have questions which your NDA won’t let me answer.”
“You took it today with no issues.”
“I ask Barry to stop a block away from my building so no one sees me coming out of it. Today was different anyway. I was running late so I had to. Under regular circumstances, I just organize myself around the MTA’s schedule, like a normal person.”
“I don’t like you using the subway.”
She huffed. “So, what am I supposed to do about that? There are rats and it’s gross but it’s the city’s main mode of transportation. I haven’t died yet.”
“It’s dangerous and it's dirty.”
“I’ll give you dirty but it’s much safer on the train than it is on the road.”
“No, you’re my child’s mother and I don’t want you in that environment.”
“I’m not riding around in your limo. I’ll look like a lunatic.”
“I’ll get another car if you don’t like the limo.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been using the subway for five years. Driving in New York is unreasonable.”
“No,” I said again. “You’re carrying our baby. I don’t want you on that filthy, inefficient, germ incubator.”
“Jesus Christ, I can’t have this conversation with you,” she said, walking away from me. I followed her, grabbing her arm at the foot of the stairs.
“Why are you so determined to defy me?”
“Because you aren’t making any sense.”
“I want to protect you and our baby. I want to make your lives as comfortable and as safe as possible. Why won’t you let me do that?”
“Your baby. I’m just the surrogate, remember? If it wasn’t me, your doctors had a whole list of other disposable wombs-for-hire on standby.”
“Brenna…”
“I signed a contract to do this and I haven’t deviated from it once. Please, leave me alone.” I dropped her arm. She took off up the stairs and shut herself up in her room.
Disposable. Womb-for-hire. That was what I thought about surrogacy in the beginning too, but we didn’t go through the artificial insemination process. But then I showed up at the center and the doctors had managed to select the love of my life as my surrogate. That was the moment she stopped playing that role, honestly. She was not just an incubator for the baby. We had sex and conceived our child naturally. I wouldn’t be doing this without her. I didn’t have a baby, a future or the life I wanted without her. Disposable?
I ran up the stairs to her room. I knocked on the door. She didn’t say anything. I had to talk to her. I couldn’t let that conversation be the last one that we had together. I opened the door.
She was on the bed. Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks were flushed. Perfect. Well fucking done, Charlie. Go ahead and make the mother of your child cry. I never wanted to see her like that. Even more, I never wanted to be the reason she was like that. I walked in and sat on the bed next to her. We sat in silence for a few moments. I wanted her to know that I would leave if she asked me to, but she didn’t. I wrapped an arm around her.
“Can we talk about what’s wrong, babe?” I asked. She sniffed. I got up and grabbed a Kleenex box from the vanity and brought it to her.
“What’s going to happen between us, Charlie?” she asked.
“We’re having a baby, Brenna.”
“I realize that. That’s the problem,” she sniffed, dabbing her face dry.
I stopped. “Aren’t you happy about the pregnancy?”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said, grabbing another Kleenex from the box. “I’m pregnant. The baby’s going to be here in nine months. Have you told your mother yet?”
“Brenna, don’t…”
“Don’t tell me not to worry and don’t tell me everything’s going to be okay. Your mother is never going to accept me. We both know that.”
“Why are we talking about my mother all of a sudden?”
“I overheard your conversation when she came over. Everything she said about finding you a suitable woman? She didn’t mean me, Charlie, and don’t try and make me feel better by saying you can change her mind.”
“Let me deal with my mother,” I told her. She shook her head.
“I… I need this to work. If this falls through in any way, I’m screwed. I don’t think I’m going to have my job for much longer so this has to work.”
“What do you mean you won’t have your job for much longer?”
She shook her head again and waved a hand. “Forget about it. Basically, I need this to work.”
Something was going on with her job and she didn’t want to tell me. I hated that resistance from her. Hated it. I wanted her to feel safe telling me anything. Everything. But I couldn’t force her to get to that place. I had to show her that it was safe to be that vulnerable and let her do it herself. I pulled her in. “Brenna, you’re here because I don’t want you to worry about anything. Whatever happens, I am going to take care of you.”
She shifted away from me. “I don’t want your charity, Charlie.”
“I’m not offering it.” She sniffed and looked at me.
“You’re paying me, Charlie.”
“The money has nothing to do with it. I’d hand over anything for you. You’re the most important person in my life. Nothing, nobody, no amount of money could replace you,” I said to her. She wasn’t crying anymore but I couldn’t tell what she was feeling. I cupped her face and leaned in, kissing her. She kissed me back.
I hoped she believed me. I needed her to. A sign, any sign at all that I wasn’t in this alone and she realized how important this and she were to me. I cupped her face, then my hands run down her body. She grabbed one of my hands so I cupped her breast. My cock came to life. She broke the kiss and stood up.
“Could you unzip me please?” she asked. I got up and unzipped her dress, running my hands over her exposed shoulders, sliding it off. She shimmied it off o
ver her hips, stepping out of it. She was in a simple matching thong and bra set but seeing her undress and knowing what was coming next were making my mouth water. I started on my clothes, taking them off while she watched, taking her time with her own. she climbed onto the bed and waited for me, unhooking her bra.
I went straight for her breasts when I was naked. I kissed and sucked each one reverently. The day I got tired of her body was the day that the sun rose from the west. I wasn’t a breast man or an ass man, I was her man.
I got in between her legs.
20
Brenna
My back arched and I cried out. He raised his head, looking at me from between my legs.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” I gasped, grabbing his head and pushing him back down so he could use that mouth for different purposes. Things were just a little more sensitive down there. Must have been a pregnancy thing. Whatever it was, I didn’t want him to stop. I was delirious with the pleasure. He was so, so good at that. He was one of those guys who seemed to enjoy going down on a woman as much as she liked to have him go down on her.
“Just like that. Right there,” I whispered. He moved his tongue in firm, steady, side to side movements. I cursed. I wasn’t going to last if he did that. I didn’t want to. Both my hands were lost in his hair, holding him right there so he didn’t even think of moving before I…
I came so hard I bucked off the bed. Charlie held me down, working me over with his tongue. I had to push him away when it got to be too much. I lay back on the bed, panting, waiting for my eyesight to straighten out. He rose from between my legs.
“Good?” he asked, grinning, knowing my answer but just wanting me to say it out loud. I didn’t give him the satisfaction. I just pulled him in and kissed him instead. He chuckled, getting on top of me. I raised my legs wrapping them around him. His cock slid easily between my slick lips.
Admit You Miss Me: A Surrogate Pregnancy Romance (Irresistible Billionaires Book 1) Page 12