Summer of Love: The Billionaire's Baby (BWWM Pregnancy and Marriage Multicultural Love Story)

by Imani King

  "No, I don't have a date! I'm meeting the couple about the surrogacy and I want to look...ladylike."

  Rosa studied my face, looking for signs of dishonesty. I don't know why I lied about meeting Blake with his wife when it was just going to be the two of us. It made me feel guilty and I turned away from Rosa as soon as I could.

  "The surrogacy? Oh damn, are you finding out today?"

  Before I could answer, there was a knock at the door. It was the driver and I saw Rosa's eyes widen when she realized someone had sent a car for me.

  "Hmmm. You better tell me what's going on when you get home, Nat, because something is definitely going on."

  I gave her what I hoped was a friendly but noncommittal smile and left, feeling her eyes on me the whole way as I walked down to the car.

  Blake was inside. I hadn't been expecting that and I think he saw the surprise on my face.

  "Oh, Natasha, I'm sorry - I thought we could just go to the beach and have lunch there - I brought food, look," he held up two black bags with 'Urasawa' written on them and I immediately recognized the name of the best sushi restaurant in town, one I had only ever dreamed of eating at.

  "You like Urasawa?"

  I got into the back seat, chuckling a little at the assumption that I had ever managed to eat at one of the hottest places in town:

  "Well, I love sushi and I've always wanted to try Urasawa but - well, I could never afford it."

  For a second, Blake looked surprised - and I in turn was surprised at his surprise. I knew his background, but surely he realized there were a lot of people in Los Angeles who couldn't afford to eat at Urasawa, let alone convince the famously talented Japanese chef to prepare them a to-go meal?

  By the time we got to a fairly deserted beach in Malibu, my stomach was growling. Without saying anything the driver reached back and handed a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses to Blake, who put them both on, pulling the cap way down in the front so it almost met the top rim of the sunglasses. Of course. He didn't want to be recognized.

  "What do you say - sushi on the beach?"

  What I said to sushi on the beach was yes. Part of me understood the oddness of a beach lunch date to hear the results of an interview, but it was Blake and I probably would have agreed to lunch at McDonald's if he'd suggested it. When we got to the beach I bent down and slipped my shoes off so I could feel the fine, warm sand against my bare feet and we found a spot to sit down.

  It truly was one of the most thrilling afternoons of my life. I was having lunch with Blake Charlton, my teenage crush. Not only was I having lunch with him, I was waiting to hear whether or not I'd gotten the job as surrogate for him and his wife.

  "So, I suppose you're wondering what's going on," Blake said, popping a whole piece of sashimi into his mouth and closing his eyes with pleasure. God, he even looked sexy when he ate.

  "Uh, yeah!" I replied, awkwardly trying to keep things light even though, if everything went as I expected them to, this could very possibly be one of the most important conversations of my life - as well as his.

  "Well, I've discussed it with Vanessa and we've decided to go ahead with you, if you're still interested."

  I couldn't stop a big smile breaking out on my face at the news. The feeling of the weight of student debt and financial troubles lifting off my shoulders in an instant was incredible. I knew that a hundred and fifty thousand dollars wasn't a large enough amount to allow me to buy the little house with a view that I've always dreamed of, or any really extravagant treats, but I didn't care. To be debt-free, to have a cushion of about a year so I could focus on building my career without the constant stress of worrying about where the rent money and phone bill money and the grocery money was going to come from - it was excellent news.

  "Are you happy?"

  Blake was watching me, smiling at my reaction. I caught his eye, laughing a little and nodded:

  "Yes, I'm happy. This is - I don't know if I could explain it to you but this is going to improve my life so much. How about you? Are you pleased?"

  He looked away from me and out to where the waves were crashing onto the shore. I couldn't read his expression, but his emotional state didn't seem to mirror mine, at least not right away. He actually looked pensive for a few seconds before closing his eyes and grinning back at me.

  "Yes."

  "Good. Let's eat sushi and talk about baby names. What are you and Vanessa thinking of?"

  There was something off about Blake that afternoon. I didn't know him well but he didn't have the demeanor of a man who has just settled an agreement that was going to get him the one thing he wanted in life - a family. He seemed subdued, almost wistful and it confused me.

  "Mmm, we haven't really discussed names. I like William but Vanessa doesn't."

  "Really? I think William is lovely, it's traditional but not uptight."

  We ate our sushi in thoughtful silence, stopping every now and again to try and wipe off the tiny grains of sand the wind kept blowing onto it, failing and then making faces when we felt the grittiness in our mouths. Not that I cared - it was by far the best sushi I've ever tasted and I was actually a little worried about indulging in it, knowing it might ruin me for all other sushi forever. Finally, I couldn't contain my curiosity any longer.

  "Is something wrong? I thought you would be more excited than this?"

  "Yeah," Blake replied, "I don't know, I think maybe it hasn't sunk in yet."

  Then he said something else - something that gave me one of my first clues that maybe all those 'trouble in paradise' tabloid stories might not have been entirely wrong.

  "You'll get paid either way, of course. If we go through with it or not, you'll be paid the full amount."

  Up until that point I hadn't even considered the possibility of Blake and Vanessa not going through with it.

  "Oh, well, er, OK," I replied, not sure if asking a follow-up question was appropriate.

  Blake ran his fingers over the warm sand and I inadvertently caught myself staring at his hands again. They were big but not bulky or worn - aristocratic hands. It was impossible not to feel a little bloom of warmth inside me at the thought of him reaching over and just putting one of those hands on my knee.

  "It was Vanessa's idea to get a surrogate but she doesn't seem very enthusiastic about it lately. Perhaps she's just adjusting to the idea? We haven't been married for very long and this is my first marriage, I'm not sure if I'm doing it right."

  There it was again, that unexpected edge of vulnerability. For a second I thought he might be asking me for advice, which was impossible because I was ten years younger than him and had no experience with marriage.

  "Well, whatever the two of you decide is fine with me, you shouldn't do something this serious if you're not sure about it."

  Blake turned to me and looked right at me. His eyes were intensely blue, I almost had to look away so I didn't embarrass myself.

  "That's the thing - I am sure. I'm more sure about this than I have ever been about anything. Even as a kid I wanted a family. A happy family. An odd dream for a little boy I admit but I suppose we can't control what we want."

  I got a crazy urge to hug him but I held back, unsure of how it would be received. For his part he seemed slightly embarrassed by what he'd said and proceeded to change the topic abruptly.

  "So, Natasha, how is your work going? Have you sent out any more resumés?"

  We'd talked a little about my fledgling career during the drive back to my apartment from the lawyer's office. I gave him my thoughts on my dream job, explaining that it's one of those things that involves luck and talent, and although I wasn't terribly insecure about my talent, so far, luck hadn't been on my side.

  "I know a lot of people in the business. If you have anything specific you want looked at I'm sure I could pass it on to a few people - if you're comfortable with that."

  Ha! Of course I was comfortable with it and something told me that my 'luck' might improve if one of my scripts ca
me with Blake Charlton's recommendation attached to it.

  At one point Blake took off his socks and shoes and then rolled the cuffs of his pants up almost to his knees. He did the same with his shirtsleeves, pushing them up over his lightly tanned, muscled forearms. I sat there beside him the whole time, looking for all the world like a girl involved in nothing more than a casual chat with a friend. In truth, I could hardly contain myself. Blake was so undeniably sexy I could barely keep my eyes off him. When he lay back on the sand, propping himself up on his elbows and chuckling at something I'd said, it was all I could do not to climb on top of him and bury my face in his warm neck, kissing his lightly stubbled cheeks and wrapping my body around his until I couldn't breathe.

  The conversation flowed easily, which is something for me. I can be a little awkward with people I don't know very well. We talked about movies, screenwriting, childhood pets (he seemed baffled by the fact that I hadn't had any), where to get the best ice-cream in L.A., favorite books and any number of other things. At one point we happened upon the topic of fame.

  "I've come to think of fame as a paradox - necessary but useless."

  "How do you mean?" I asked, curious to hear about fame from the perspective of someone who actually had it.

  "It's necessary because without it I wouldn't have a career. No one would see my movies, which means no studio would hire me. But it isn't something to strive for in and of itself, like so many people seem to think of it these days. On a personal level it's just weird and it makes me feel like an alien."

  "Yeah," I mused, "I knew a girl at college who was dead set on being famous. Not for anything in particular, just...famous."

  "I know!" Blake sat up, adorably energized by the topic, "That's just it! So many people want to be famous and I just want to ask them why. It can be an ego boost sometimes, but you don't have to be a genius to realize how empty that is, how unrelated it is to who you are as a person. People don't beg to take selfies with me on the street because of who I am fundamentally, as a person. They do it because I'm in this movie or I was on that talk show. It's not about me."

  "Well," I started, "To be fair, a lot of people want to be famous because of the money, and you never needed that part of it."

  "You're right, Natasha. Ugh, I probably sound like a huge jerk to you."

  I laughed. "No, you don't sound like a huge jerk. You just sound like someone who's never had to think about money before."

  "So in other words, a huge jerk?"

  We sat there on the sand talking and laughing for a long time. It was surreal. For all his humanity I still couldn't quite manage to let go of the fact that he was Blake Charlton, that I was sitting on a beach in Malibu chatting to Blake Charlton about life like we were old friends.

  The sun was setting when we walked back to the car, carrying our shoes in our hands, and I got the distinct impression that Blake didn't want to leave - in truth, neither did I. When he dropped me off at my apartment he paused for a few seconds before wishing me a good night and I knew - I just knew - he didn't want me to go. I'm not stupid. I was well aware that he was married and nothing we'd done so far could have been considered wrong, but what I felt inside wasn't platonic or friendly. Having his blue-eyed attention focused on me was indescribably sweet. It made me feel fizzy with excitement and I wasn't naive enough to be unaware of what that meant. My crush on Blake Charlton was well into the process of moving out of the realm of silly fantasy and into the one of concrete reality.

  Chapter 4: Blake

  I'm an idiot. Someone saw me and Natasha at the beach. I don't know why I ever thought taking her there - somewhere public - was a good idea. The baseball-cap-and-sunglasses thing rarely works - in fact it's more of a wishful 'I don't want to chat or sign autographs' signal than it is an identity concealing device, and it doesn't even work too well for that.

  I was eating dinner alone when Vanessa walked into the room with her tablet in one hand and a huge plastic cup of iced coffee in the other. We'd been to the clinic that very morning to start the egg-retrieval protocol. Vanessa had sat in a chair playing with her phone the whole time while the nurses gave us instructions for the daily injections and showed us how to administer them. When I looked up from my dinner - handmade gnocchi in a burnt butter sage sauce made by Paolo, our personal chef - I could see something was wrong. Vanessa's lips were pursed hard and although the Botox - Botox she didn't need - was preventing her from fully owning the glare she would otherwise have been aiming at me, there was no doubt in my mind that she was angry.

  "What's up, Nessa?"

  She walked up to me and put the tablet down beside my plate, saying nothing. I looked down at it and sighed.

  "Vanessa, I told you I was meeting Natasha to tell her we'd decided to go with her."

  Vanessa's tablet was showing a series of grainy, long-lens photos of Natasha and I on the beach in Malibu - some bitchy gossip website must have paid for them. They were accompanied by a detailed story that included quotes from "witnesses" who said we appeared to be "very cozy" and "familiar" and that we had spent "over four hours" together (had it really been that long?). The headline read:

  "Blake Charlton: 'Date' With Mystery Woman?!?"

  "For four hours, Blake? What the fuck? Why would you humiliate me like this?"

  I looked up at my wife and was a little surprised to notice that I actually felt angry. Vanessa doesn't usually make me angry. She could exasperate me, she could make me feel sorry for her, but rarely did she ever make me mad.

  "Ness, what exactly is the problem here? You knew I was meeting with Natasha."

  "On the beach? For FOUR HOURS?!" Vanessa's voice was rising in tone and decibel level.

  "It wasn't four hours," I stated calmly, deliberately keeping my voice even, "And I had a meeting in Malibu so the beach seemed like the obvious place."

  I was lying. It was out of character and realizing I was doing it threw me off. Nothing untoward had happened with Natasha Ray. So why was I lying to my wife about it?

  "I've changed my mind. I don't want that bitch to be our surrogate."

  Vanessa's moods are as changeable as the weather. From the very beginning I've been the stabilizing force to her volatile storms-and-sunshine personality. That night, though, for some reason I couldn't just sit there and let her tire herself out one more time.

  "It's done, Vanessa. The papers are signed. I don't even know why you're constantly on those websites, it's like making a conscious decision to torture yourself."

  "I mean it, Blake. She's not our surrogate. Do you think I want some homewrecker to carry our baby?"

  I put my fork down and turned my whole body to face my wife. She was wearing a pristine white tracksuit that on any other woman would have highlighted curves but on her just emphasized how tiny she was. I knew that was the effect she was aiming for, too.

  "Vanessa, can I ask you a question?"

  She paused for a few seconds, not sure how to respond and then just shrugged her shoulders slightly.

  "Why would you even care? Let's say I keep it on the down-low, no one ever finds out, it never makes it into the gossip magazines - would you even care if I was sleeping with other women?"

  I watched Vanessa roll the question over in her mind, weighing out how to respond.

  "Blake are you being serious right now? Why would I care? Because you're my husband, that's why. Because you took a vow to be faithful, that's why."

  "So just to be clear, Nessa, it's not because you actually want to have sex with me, is it? You wouldn't be jealous of another woman, would you? Your pride would be offended but that's about it."

  I kept going as Vanessa stood in front of me with her arms crossed looking equal parts surprised and pissed off.

  "I haven't slept with anyone else since I met you, Nessa - and you know I have opportunities. I haven't slept with anyone else because I take my vows seriously - I'm starting to get the feeling that you might not feel the same way."

  At that point, t
hat was as far as I'd ever gone in terms of openly questioning our marriage. And as soon as the words were out of my mouth I was glad of it. There had been far too much silence in our house as of late and it was only upon breaking it that I realized how utterly sick of it I was.

  Vanessa was almost instantly enraged. If there's one thing she doesn't like, it's being questioned. She slammed her coffee down on the table hard enough to spill it everywhere and whirled around to go back upstairs.

  "No!" I yelled, laying my napkin over the spilled drink and pushing my plate of gnocchi - which was now swimming in cold coffee - away from me. "Stop being such a coward, Vanessa! Stop walking away whenever things don't go your way. You want to talk about our marriage? Then let's talk about our marriage - and not just the parts you don't like!"

  She stopped in her tracks, unused to being called out so pointedly, and marched back into the kitchen, yanking a chair out and plopping herself down on it, staring at me.

  "Fine, Blake. What do you want to talk about?"

  Her tone was different now, flat and bored. I wasn't going to be put off that easily, though, my blood was up.

  "Vanessa, you're the one who came down here with baseless accusations, so don't act like I'm forcing you into a conversation you don't want. I'm just a little confused lately about why, exactly, you married me. You don't even seem to like me these days."

  She rolled her eyes and said nothing.

  "Well? Why is everything so different now? We haven't even known each other for a year, Ness. You never want to have sex with me anymore-"

  Vanessa cut me off. "Oh, is this just about your dick, Blake?"

  I could feel myself getting even angrier at her dismissive attitude.

  "No! This isn't about my dick, Vanessa and you know it. This is about everything. Forget sex, you don't even seem to want me to touch you anymore - you shrink away from me like you're disgusted if I even put my arm around you. You barely talk to me. What's happening? How did we get here?"

  Vanessa had spent the first months of our acquaintance fucking me like a bunny rabbit, constantly wanting sex, always up for it. If I'm perfectly honest with myself my feelings for her probably developed partly because of it. I have a very high sex drive. Sex has always been one of the main ways for me to bond with women and I was over-the-moon to have met one who seemed to share my ravenous carnal appetite.