by Tasha Blue
The realization of it infuriated her. She pushed herself up off the sofa and faced him, squaring her jaw as she gazed at him coolly. “I choose my babies. If that means it’s over between us and you’re out of here, then that’s what it means. You can leave if that’s what you choose, but I’m not asking you to leave. I’m asking you to work this out with me. If you walk out of that door because I’m keeping these babies, then that’s all on you. That’s your choice.”
A wave of shock flashed over his face as her words took hold in his mind, and he gave his head a shake. “My god… you’re serious,” he barely whispered. “Fine!” he raised his voice, shouting at her. “Fine!” he repeated. “You chose them, so I’m out of here. That’s it. We’re done!”
He turned on his heel and stomped to the door, yanking it open and shouting a few obscenities before he went through the doorway and slammed the door behind him. The windows in her little house shuddered and a tremor moved through the living room.
She stared at the door and felt a few tears rising up in her, but she shook her head and swallowed them back down. She wasn’t going to cry over him. She refused to cry over him. He simply wasn’t worth it. If he had cared about her and made her a priority then he might be worth it, but he never had, and she was done with him.
Reflexively she placed her hands on her belly and rubbed it. Her voice was soft as she spoke to the babies. “It’s all right little ones. It’s all okay. I’m here and I’m taking care of you. You’re never going to have to be around anyone like that in your own home. Don’t you worry. Your lives will be beautiful, and you won’t see anything like that growing up.”
It was a promise that she knew she would do anything to keep.
Chapter7
Swallowing hard, Jamaica pushed the button on the elevator and watched the doors as they closed. She hadn’t seen Cara Landers since the day she met her for coffee to be interviewed for the position. Cara had called her a few times during the pregnancy to check on her and see if there was anything that she needed, but there had been no other contact. The doctor and nurses had been good about sending all the information about the babies and the pregnancy to Cara and Henry Ellison, and there had been no need for her to contact them.
The elevator seemed to go upward forever and after a long while it finally came to a stop. She took a deep breath and walked through the doors, relying on her determination to get her through the conversation that she knew she was going to have to have with Cara.
The room she entered was luxuriously appointed. She couldn’t remember ever having been in an office that was so beautifully decorated. There was a large dark wooden desk across the room from the elevator, and on it sat a stained-glass Tiffany lamp, a telephone, and a desk blotter. No one was seated at the desk.
She looked around and saw that it was the only desk in the room. There was only one other door leading out of the room and it was slightly opened. She could hear someone talking in the room, and it sounded as if the conversation was on a telephone because she couldn’t hear anyone speaking in return to the first voice.
Jamaica thought about sitting down in one of the chairs and waiting for Cara to come back to her desk. Her name was stenciled in gold on a bar on the desk, so Jamaica knew that it was hers. She didn’t want to sit, and she definitely didn’t want to wait. She didn’t want to lose her nerve.
The only other option was to see if Cara was in the room with the open door. She heard the voice in the other room go silent and guessed that the phone call had ended. Tentatively she stepped up to the door and knocked. There was a momentary silence and then she heard a deep male voice call out for her to come in.
She swallowed again and walked through the door. The man sitting behind the desk lifted his head and looked up at her, and in that moment, she felt her breath catch in her chest. It was almost as if everything inside her stopped and froze instantly. She paused in mid-step and blinked.
He was staring at her. She felt as if he could see right through her. She realized as she stood there that the man she was staring at was Henry Ellison. It was the father of the two babies she was carrying in her.
She had seen photographs of him online, but nothing she had seen could have prepared her for what he looked like in person. He was beautiful. There was no other word for it. He was breathtaking and beautiful. She felt heat flush her cheeks as everything in her began to rush and her heart began to pound.
Blinking and trying to steady herself, she walked slowly toward his desk. “Henry?” she asked quietly, and he stood up and stared at her as realization dawned on his face. His eyes grew wide and his hand flew to his mouth, covering it as she reached him and he gasped quietly, staring at her.
“Are you… are you Jamaica Franklin?” he asked in a quiet whisper.
She nodded. “Yes, I am,” she answered with a slowly growing smile.
He laughed softly with sheer joy and his eyes fell to her belly. “That’s… those are…” he said quietly.
“Yes,” she said quietly. He lifted his eyes to meet hers again and shook his head once in amazement.
“I wasn’t expecting you! Cara didn’t tell me that you were coming in! Wow… it’s incredible to have you here! Please, have a seat,” he said as he hurried around his desk and reached for one of the chairs before it, pulling it out for her.
She sat down carefully in it and he reached for her to help her. It felt strange to have his warm soft hands on her arm. When she was seated, she looked up at him and saw that he was totally focused on her. It was almost as if everything in the universe had suddenly disappeared and all that remained was her and the two babies in her belly.
“Can I get you anything? Juice? Water? You should have some water. It’s important for you to stay hydrated.” He rushed over to the bar in the corner of his office and poured her a glass of ice water, bringing it back to her.
As she took it from him and thanked him, he sank into the chair beside hers, never taking his eyes from hers. “This is amazing,” he said quietly as he gazed at her.
Jamaica laughed a little, feeling some of the nervousness in her subside a little. “It’s really nice to meet you Henry,” she told him with a growing smile.
“It’s incredible to meet you, Jamaica,” he answered with a soft tone filled with wonder.
“You could call me Jami. My friends call me Jami,” she told him sweetly. She couldn’t get over how gorgeous he was, and how nice. She wondered why in the world a successful, wealthy, good-looking man like him would ever need anyone to have a surrogate child for him. There had to be women pining away left and right for him, and how he hadn’t married was beyond anything she could imagine.
He nodded. “Jami it is, then.”
She took a long drink and set the half empty glass on his desk. He kept his eyes on her face.
“I came in today to talk to Cara, but I guess it would probably be all right if I talk to you instead, wouldn’t it?” she asked politely.
He nodded emphatically. “Yes, of course! I’d be glad to talk with you. Whatever you need… It’s absolutely fine. What can I help you with?” He asked looking as if concern was edging into his thoughts.
Jamaica bit at her lower lip, and as she did she saw that his eyes dropped to her mouth and then back up to her eyes again as she began to speak.
“Well, you see the thing is this: I know that we have an agreement in place already. I am supposed to carry the babies to term and then give them to you and leave and not have any interaction at all with them after that, but something has changed. I really thought I could do it that way when I started, and give you what you originally wanted, but as this pregnancy has progressed, things have changed for me a bit. I’ve grown really close to the babies, and I tried not to connect with them, but I have. They are half mine at least biologically, and I don’t think that I can just let them go when they are born. I really want to be part of their lives. I really want to help take care of them all the time and watch them grow up and be the
re for them as their mom. I realize that’s not what we agreed to, and that you were going to take them and raise them on your own without me in the picture at all, but I’ve changed my mind, and I wanted to come to talk with you about it. I wanted to know if there is any way that we can work something out so I can be around the babies. I want it… no… I need it so much. I know it isn’t what we agreed to, but please consider it.” She had just poured her heart out to him and she was desperately hopeful that he would find a way to let her have at least some time with them.
He blinked and she saw deep puzzlement spread over his face. He seemed to fumble for words, trying to find the right ones to use for whatever it was that he was going to say to her. “Uh… Jamaica, I’m not sure what it is that you’re talking about. I’m sorry but, you were always supposed to help with the babies once they were born. That was the arrangement. You would take on the pregnancy, carry the babies, give birth to them, and then come to live either in the house with me and them, only in your own area of the house so you could maintain some independence, or you would be given a private house near mine where you could live, but you were supposed to help me raise them for the first two years of their lives, and then you were going to be done with the contract and you could leave. I was going to pay you five hundred thousand per year each of the first two years in addition to the original five hundred thousand that I was giving to you for carrying and delivering the babies.” He seemed totally astounded. “I’m not sure where the confusion came in. Why did you think I didn’t want you to be around after they were born?”
She stared at him. “You can’t be serious,” she said in a low voice. “This is the first I’ve heard about anything you just said, except for carrying the babies. Everything else you said is completely new to me. I haven’t heard anything about any of that before this moment.”
“How is that possible?” he asked in utter confusion. He was amazed that she thought she was going to deliver them and then leave, and that wasn’t the only thing that he was amazed by. Cara had never told him that Jamaica was black. He had never seen her photograph. He knew nothing about her, and he realized as he sat there that he should have been centrally active in choosing the mother of his children, and that he shouldn’t have left it all to Cara, but he had to admit to himself that Cara had gone far above and beyond the call of duty in choosing a woman who was arrestingly beautiful. He had no doubt in his mind that their babies were going to be gorgeous children.
“Well, that’s what Cara told me. That’s what was on the contract that I signed. I was to deliver them and then give them to you and never see them again. It was the last of it. A clean cut, I guess. You didn’t know that?” she asked, trying to wrap her mind around what it was that Henry was telling her.
He shook his head. “But that can’t be…” he said in a soft voice.
She shrugged. “I’m sorry, but that’s exactly what I agreed to. That’s why I’m here to talk to her. I want to be a part of their lives. I don’t want to stick to the original arrangement where I lose them as soon as they are born. I couldn’t take that. I really want to be a part of their lives. That’s why I am here to talk to Cara, or you I guess… To sort that out because I want to be with them.”
Henry sighed in exasperation and looked down at the floor as he raked his hand through the golden-brown waves of hair on his head. “This is so strange. This is the first I’ve heard about it from your side. I gave her explicit instructions that she was to do precisely what I just told you. Would you mind holding on for a moment please?” he asked her kindly as he looked at her with hopeful eyes.
“Yes, of course,” she answered.
Henry stood up and walked across the room, out of the office, and she heard him as he opened file drawers near where Cara’s desk would be in the other room. A few minutes later he walked back in with a file open and laying on his arms, his eyes scanning the pages in it as he crossed the room again and took his seat beside Jamaica.
His eyes widened and his mouth fell open slightly as he read through the contract that Jamaica had signed, and he saw all of the details.
“I can’t believe what I’m looking at. I mean, I know I’m looking at it, but this isn’t at all what I told her, and I know that she was clear about what I wanted, because we talked about whether you should stay in the house with me except in your own quarters, or if you should be given your own home a little distance away from mine.” His voice was quiet as he read and pondered it, shaking his head and trying to figure it out in his mind. “This is utterly bizarre,” he said almost under his breath.
Jamaica watched him as he read through it three times and then finally gave up on reasoning through it and closed the file, setting it on his desk. He looked back at her seriously and leaned forward, folding his hands in his lap as he looked at her.
“Well, it’s obvious that this is something that we need to work out and soon, because as I understand it, we only have about three weeks left, am I right?” The worry on his face was temporarily changed to a wide grin as he looked down at her belly, and then the shadow of concern slipped across his face again as he looked back up at her.
“That’s why I’m here,” she replied, feeling uncertain about the fact that she had signed a contract that was written one way when the father of the babies she was carrying was sure that it was written another way. It was an uncertain surprise.
“Yes, we do need to work it out. I want to be sure that we are all on the same page. So, I’ve explained to you just now what it is that I wanted from you after the babies are born. I want you to move into the house in your own quarters there, and nurse the babies and help to raise them. At some point, we’ll move you into your own home a short distance from the house. You can stay there to help raise them until they are two, and then you would be free to leave and go do whatever it is that you want to go do, and the children would stay with me. That was the original plan. That was what I initially wanted and was hiring for. I’m sorry it’s coming to you so late now, really late now, and as such a surprise.” He looked miserably sorry that she was finding out what he had originally wanted at such a late point.
She looked down and chewed on her bottom lip a little bit. “Well the whole thing sounds good except for the part where I give the kids up when they turn two. I mean, I didn’t think that I was going to be attached to them at all while they were growing inside me. I was so sure that I could just give them up to you and walk away when they were born, before I ever had a chance to build a bond with them or any kind of memories, and now that I’m talking about this with you and you’re telling me that you would want me to leave when the babies turn two years old, I don’t know if I can agree to that. By that point I feel like I’d be a lot closer to them. I wonder if that’s something that we can find a way to work out at some point.”
He pursed his lips thoughtfully and she saw a little dimple in his chin that appeared as he was thinking on what she had said. He looked back at her and gave her a nod. “That’s a good point. I’ll give it some thought and I promise you that we will work out a solution that has a benefit to the both of us. I don’t think that it’s anything that we will work out today or even before the babies are born, but will have time in the future to work it out.”
Jamaica didn’t know why, but she felt that she could trust him. There was honesty in his eyes, and a genuine tone in his voice that told her that he meant exactly what he said. “Okay,” she agreed. “We can work it out later. I’m going to hold you to that.”
She tilted her head a little and gave him a questioning look. “Can you tell me why Cara would have me sign a contract that stated that I was going to give the babies up immediately after their birth when you had other plans in mind? I mean, I wouldn’t have known that you wanted it this way if I hadn’t come in today. I’d never have known. I’d have handed them over to you and left and that would have been it. I had no idea that you wanted it any other way until just now, and I’m relieved to hear it, but why would C
ara have me sign something like that, knowing that you wanted it another way?”
He couldn’t quite hide the consternation in his expression, but he looked away from her and shrugged. “I’m not sure. I am going to talk with her about it though. In the meantime,” he looked back up at her and his face softened into a smile again, “is there anything that you need? Anything that I can do for you?”
She smiled back and shook her head. “No, I’m just fine, thank you. I am ready to have these babies, I’ll tell you that much.” She laughed, and was just about to stand up when she looked back at him and added one more thing.
“I will let you in on a little secret though.” She winked at him.
He looked excited to hear it. “What’s that?” he asked curiously.
“I’ve already come up with names for them. Oh, I know you probably already have names chosen and that’s fine, but there are names that I call them by right now.” She laughed softly as she admitted her little secret to him.
Henry smiled widely. “I love that. I don’t have names chosen yet, actually, but I would be glad to hear what you call them.”
She felt surprisingly shy and giddy all at the same time, like she did when she developed her first crush in high school. She made herself ignore it. “I call the boy Casey, and the girl Beth,” she told him. “Those names came from a dream.”
He laughed softly and gave her a concentrated look, almost as if he was looking through her. “Was it a good dream?”
It surprised her that he asked her that. “Yes.” She laughed a little. “It was a very good dream.”
“I’m glad to hear that. They are sweet names,” he told her as he stood up and reached out to hold her arms and help her stand up.