The Baby Shower

by Tasha Blue et al.

  His advisers tell him that the only way to repair things is to become a family man and ditch the bachelor lifestyle. Having never had time to find love this is going to prove tricky.

  As a way of fixing this situation, David is introduced to a beautiful business woman named Elise. This would be a standard marriage of convenience for 3 years with Elise getting a huge pay off at the end.

  However, there is one caveat...

  They need to have a baby also.

  Neither David nor Elise are looking for love but could the bond of a convenient baby be something that potentially changes everything?

  Chapter1

  The San Francisco sun radiated warmly off of the top of one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city, shining in through the walls of glass and steel that enclosed the office of the president and owner of one of the most powerful media corporations in the world. Though the glass was tinted, the light stole in and illuminated the walls and desk, and the faces of two men sitting across from each other having a serious conversation.

  The older of the two men, the one with the receding hairline, the paunch belly and the second chin, looked over the top of his glasses at the younger, handsome man who was sitting behind the desk.

  “You’ve got to do something. You can’t just let your public image tank. This isn’t like you being caught with a hooker or someone finding out you did something like smoking pot. This is serious. This doesn’t go away and it’ll get worse. Much worse. This will take down your companies.” The older man spoke gravely and leaned forward, tapping the tip of his finger on the younger man’s desk. “David, this will be a watershed of your career.”

  The younger man stood up and walked to the glass wall of his office, looking down over the city, teeming silently below him. His gaze wandered over the traffic and buildings to the silver blue bay shimmering in the distance. “I assume you have some sort of idea, Carlson? Some plan to make this work out?” David said, sliding his hands into his pockets with a sigh.

  Carlson turned slightly in his seat and looked over his shoulder, his eyes on David’s slumped shoulders. “I have one, but you might not like it.”

  David turned his head to look at Carlson over his shoulder but his body remained stationary. “Well? What is it?” He had trusted Carlson with nearly every legal aspect of his company for years, and he knew that even if he didn’t like what the head of his law team had to say, he had better listen to him and at least consider it. Carlson was one advisor that knew everything there was to know about what he did, and David had not yet seen him come across an issue he didn’t already know well or that he hadn’t handled before.

  Carlson looked at him, unblinking, and drew a breath. “I think you ought to get married.”

  David turned around fully and stared at him. “What was that?” he asked with wide eyes.

  “I said, you need to get married. Your public image would be much more appealing if you were coupled with a good woman. To do this right, she would need to be black. That would send the message that you are a solid proponent of equality among races, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a child with her as soon as you can, before the tarnished edges of your image burn you and create your downfall. It’s the best way but you don’t have much time. Your image, David, is the only thing that may save everything you’ve worked so hard for. I think that calls for taking any action necessary to save it, and that includes the idea I just shared with you.” Carlson continued to watch David over the top of his glasses.

  The hair on David’s arms rose slightly. “Marriage. To a black woman.” He bit his lip and narrowed his eyes in deep thought. He took his time and walked around the room, stopping beside the long dark leather sofa and touching his fingertips lightly to the arm of it.

  “I’ve always thought I would marry one day,” he said quietly. “I haven’t thought about it in a long time. I get so busy with my work here and everything else I do that is tied to the company, that I guess I lost track of that whole notion.” David rubbed his forefinger across his chin and sat down on the sofa.

  Carlson laughed at him. “You must be kidding. You’re the most eligible bachelor in this city. Surely that couldn’t have escaped your attention.”

  David shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it doesn’t stay at the forefront of my mind that much, to be honest. What in the world would I do with a wife and a baby?” He stared in wonder at the glass wall, looking at the blue sky beyond it.

  “You would save your life and this company that you have worked so hard for, that’s what you’d do,” Carlson said, twisting around in his chair the other way to keep his eyes on David.

  David pursed his lips and stood up, walking slowly and thoughtfully toward his desk. All the while, Carlson watched him. David was not an easy man to read, even for those who knew him well.

  “I'd always thought I would marry for love,” David said, leaning back in his chair and looking intently at Carlson.

  The older man shook his head. “You don’t have to marry her for love. It would be a business arrangement. You marry her just long enough to show everyone that you are the most racially neutral man in the nation, say, three or four years, and you both agree to it at the beginning. You get married, you have the kid, you show the world what a great guy you are, and then you get divorced after all of their attention has turned to other things and your situation has faded away.”

  David looked at him and raised one eyebrow. “You think this is going to fade away?”

  Carlson nodded seriously. “I think it can, if you handle it right.”

  “What’s the point of having the kid?” David asked, tilting his head curiously.

  The older man sighed and waved his hand in the air. “Security. Who can argue that your marriage is a publicity stunt when you have a child from it?”

  David nodded his head. “Well, well, a marriage of convenience. What a strange thing to do.”

  “People get married every day for much crazier reasons, David. You’d be saving your own skin, it’s true, but you would also be saving the lives of every employee in your company, and ensuring that your hard work goes on to better the lives of all of the untold numbers of people that it touches every day. This isn’t just for you.” Carlson leaned forward again, his gaze locked on David.

  David thought hard on it. He had thought he would get married one day, but he had never had a relationship last long enough with a woman to get to a point where marriage was a possibility. He was always married to his job, and none of the women that he had been in relationships with had liked that, so none of them had stayed with him, no matter how good he was to them.

  His public image had recently come into serious jeopardy and he knew that Carlson was doing everything he could to manage the fallout from it. He knew Carlson had his best interests and the best interests of the company at heart.

  Then, he thought about the child. He had always believed he would have a family with his wife, whenever that might happen but he realized that at the rate he was going, that might not happen until he was close to retirement and then he would have missed out on a lifetime with the family he hoped to create.

  He reached over and pressed the intercom button on his phone. “Mary?”

  “Yes, sir?” came a pleasant voice over the intercom.

  “Would you send Jason in here, please?” He let the button go and looked at Carlson, who smiled at him.

  “That’s a good move, David, a very good move.” Carlson leaned back in his chair and rested his hands on his knees.

  “That will remain to be seen but I think you may have something here, and I have to take the chance that you’re right. We have too much riding on this not to try every valid avenue we can to get things fixed. I only have one shot at this,” David said in a quiet tone.

  Carlson pulled papers from the briefcase sitting beside his feet and began to take notes. “I’ll get the details all sorted out for you. We’ll arrange a prenuptial agreement and a payment for the woman at the end of th
e marriage so it will be more like a situation of employment.”

  “How much should we pay her, Carlson?” David looked at him quizzically. “What’s the going rate for a wife and child? Who would get the child in the end?”

  Carlson’s pen flew over the paper and he wrote without looking up at David. “I’d give her a million. That’s a hell of a task, being married and having a child. You two can agree to a shared custody right from the beginning if you want to work it out that way, or if you don’t want the baby, you can let her take it. I’m sure you’d probably want to retain some rights to any baby you’d have.” Carlson flipped the page and kept writing.

  “I would want to keep shared custody,” David agreed, “if it was my child.”

  The door opened and a thin young man with dark hair and glasses came in with a tablet in his hand. David motioned for him to sit down and he took the seat beside Carlson.

  “Good morning, sir,” Jason said in a friendly manner.

  David nodded. “Good morning, Jason. I have a special task for you; this one is extremely important. You must handle this with the utmost confidentiality.”

  Jason flipped his tablet open and looked up at David, ready to work. “Yes, sir, of course. Everything I do for you is confidential, always.”

  David just watched him for a moment, knowing that what Jason had just said was probably true, but he also knew that an ounce of prevention was worth far more than a pound of cure. “Jason, for reasons we will not go into, I want to find a wife.”

  The young man blinked at him in surprise. “A wife, sir?”

  David smiled a little. It wasn’t often that he could surprise Jason, and he had managed to do it. “I want you to look around the city and do a search for a woman who is smart, dedicated, loyal and single with no children. It wouldn’t hurt if she was good looking and had a good sense of humor, either.”

  Jason entered the information into his tablet and looked back at David. “What other variables, sir?”

  “She needs to be close to my age, she needs to be able to have children, she needs to have a totally clean record and she needs to be black.” David said simply.

  Jason looked up at David in surprise and David smiled to himself. He had done it twice.

  “Black, sir?” Jason asked in a whisper.

  David leaned forward and looked at his assistant. “African-American.” His eyes were serious and Jason nodded and took the information down.

  “Yes, sir. What else?”

  Carlson continued to write on his legal pad and spoke to Jason without looking at him. “She needs to understand that this is a job. It’s a contracted position for which she will be paid. She will be expected to be married to David and to have a child with him as quickly as possible.”

  Jason turned his face toward Carlson and looked as though he had several questions that he swallowed rather quickly. “Yes, sir.” His hand moved over his tablet quickly. “What is the rate that she will be paid?” He looked between the two men he sat with.

  Carlson’s pen had still not stopped. “It’ll be a million.”

  Jason drew a deep breath and touched the screen of his tablet again. “When do you want to hire her?” he asked.

  “As soon as possible,” Carlson said, finally looking up at Jason, as Jason’s head swiveled quickly toward him. “We don’t have time to weed through a bunch of girls, Jason, you find the right one, you find her fast, and you get her in here for a meeting with us so we can see if we like her.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jason replied. “Anything else?” he asked, looking from one to the other of them.

  “Nothing except your word that you will not breathe a word of this to anyone, ever, or losing your job will be the best part of what happens to you.” Carlson’s eyes bored into Jason’s, and the younger man nodded vehemently with wide eyes.

  “Oh, of course not, sir, not a word. Not ever. I’ll get right on this.” He stood up and vanished from the room, leaving David and Carlson to look at each other with little smiles.

  “He’s a good kid,” Carlson said with a chuckle.

  David shook his head. “I think you scared him again. Why do you do that?”

  Carlson shrugged. “I’m a lawyer, David, it’s what I do.”

  David smiled. “You don’t scare me.”

  Carlson nodded. “That’s one of the things I like best about you. Let me know when he finds the girl. I’ll be working on this and all the rest of it.” He stood up and shook David’s hand and then left.

  David walked back over to the window and looked out at the city once again, wondering incredulously at the turn his life had just taken. Somewhere out there, in the mad chaos of San Francisco, was a young woman he had never met that he would be marrying soon, and she had no idea.

  He let his thoughts drift to that foggy future. A wife and a child for the next three years; what kind of a life would that be? What kind of a woman would agree to marry a complete stranger and have a child with him?

  Chapter2

  On the other side of the city, standing in front of a counter covered in chocolate truffles, were two women. One was short, round and very sassy. She was helping box up several of the chocolates while nipping a few to taste as she worked. Her name was Sarah, and she was the best friend, soul sister and confidante of the woman she was working with. The other woman, several inches taller, several inches slimmer, and a bit more reserved than her friend, owned the little café and chocolate store they were working in; her name was Elise.

  They had been boxing chocolates for a few hours and Elise hadn’t said anything about Sarah popping a few of them into her mouth, but as the afternoon wore on, she realized she might have to say something.

  “Honey, you can’t keep eating those like that. They’re not good for you,” she warned in a friendly tone.

  Sarah smiled and winked. “I know they aren’t good for me. That’s why I like them so much. Anyway, I’m helping you for free, so a few chocolates here and there is a good payment. I’ll take it and you need the help anyway.” She held one up to Elise. “You want one, too?” she offered.

  Elise shook her head and kept setting the little truffles into the boxes before her. “No, I try not to eat too many of those. Once in a while I’ll have one, but not all the time.”

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “Alright, I’ll have to eat it for the both of us, then. These are the sacrifices I make for our friendship. I just want you to know that.” She popped it in her mouth and went back to working. Elise just laughed at her.

  “I talked to the bank today about opening up another store.” She spoke with a quiet voice, and one that indicated that it hadn’t gone quite as she might have hoped it would.

  Sarah looked up at her and folded boxes. “You did? What did they say?”

  Elise pouted a little. “They said I don’t have enough equity in this place to open up any others. They said I have to run this shop for a few more years so they can see a more solid history with me.”

  Sarah frowned. “You sell tons of coffee and chocolates. In fact, there’s practically a line out of the door every time I come over here. Why wouldn’t they want more of that?”

  Elise sighed and looked down. “Well, they love the money I’m making, they just want to see the shop earn consistently like that for years to come. Then they will talk with me about a loan to open more shops.”

  Her friend frowned and scowled. “That’s just stupid. Think how much money you would lose in the years they want you to wait, when you could have a few of these places up and going and making money all over town instead of just here in this one spot. It’s just silly.”

  Elise nodded. “I know. I tried to tell them that but they wouldn’t listen. I’ll just have to work on it some other way.” She bit her lip and sighed. “I just want this so much, Sarah. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it would mean to me to be able to see this grow! I’ve worked so hard to get this shop off of the ground and it’s doing so well! I wish the bank could s
ee the potential here that I see. I had to hire another girl to work here on weekends, did I tell you that?”

  Sarah grinned and shook her head. “No, you didn’t. That’s wonderful, Elise!” She looked at her friend proudly.

  Elise continued with lines of frustration crossing her brow. “I could do more than this. I could make this so successful if I just had the financial backing to do it. It’s so hard to see it come so close and then be held back. It drives me up a wall. I worked night and day to make this place a success and here it is, thriving on its own and ready to burst at the seams but no one will help me take it to the next level and it’s ready to go there!”

  Sarah nodded empathetically. “I know. I’ve watched you do it all these years. I have seen how this place has grown. I know you could really make something of it if you had the chance to.”

  Elise sighed. “Well, the bank might not be too far off, I guess. I’m still paying on everything here, and while I’m making really good money, I certainly don’t get to keep any of it. There are some months when I just barely get by. Everything and everyone is paid but there’s just not that much left at the end of the month for me.” She looked up at her friend. “I’ve even considered trying to find a way to make a little more money just to get me by until everything is squared away here. I’m really close to having a lot of this paid off, and when that happens, my profit margin is going to explode. I just need a little more money and time to get myself and the shop to that point. It’s hard being so close to the next goal and not being able to just reach out and grab it.”

  Sarah nodded and slipped a caramel into her mouth. “You work so hard in here. I wish somehow you could get a break. What else you got going on? You still on any of those dating websites?”

  Elise had been hoping to meet a man she liked for a long time, years in fact, but she had never met anyone who she would want to spend the rest of her life with. “No, I gave up on that a while back. There just wasn’t anyone out there that wasn’t crazy or possessive or controlling. You wouldn’t believe some of the guys that I met. It was kind of nuts.”