The Billionaire's Secret Surrogate (MANHATTAN BACHELORS Book 4)

by Susan Westwood

  “In addition to that, as I do not want you to need for anything or to have any kind of stress during any part of the pregnancy, I would also be giving you a monthly stipend of ten thousand dollars, apart from the payment in full at the end of five hundred thousand.” He stopped then and watched her. “I realize that this may be quite a bit to consider.”

  Kate stared at him. Her mind had been set on fifty thousand dollars because that was the amount that Olivia had mentioned that her friend had earned. It had never occurred to her that she might make a different amount. It had certainly never entered her wildest dreams that it could be half a million dollars. She was completely astounded. The bigger part of her amazement was that the man before her wanted to create his child in an intimate fashion with her. He was planning on having sex with her to impregnate her. That part of the equation was something else that she had never considered.

  “I… I don’t know what to say,” she began, trying to find some kind of answer at the center of her, but the center of her was in considerable turmoil. “I think I’ll have to give this some thought before I can give you an answer. I’m sorry, I understand that you want to do this, but it’s not quite what was in the brochure, if you know what I mean. Would that be alright with you? Could I please have a little time to think this over?” She looked at him hopefully. It sounded like far more than the answer to her prayers; she couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to have half a million dollars, but it was being offered at a steep price. Intimacy with a stranger was something she did not take lightly. She was going to have to think about it.

  “Yes of course, I understand completely.” Pierce gave her a half smile and a nod. “It will likely be awkward for me as well, if you agree to this. The goal however, is the focal point, and the means to get to the goal is not the most important factor, at least from my vantage point. I hope that doesn’t sound too cold.”

  “No, I understand, it’s just… not what I was expecting. Thank you for understanding that I’ll need some time to consider it.” She drew in a long breath and did her best to give him a smile in return. He had been very polite and professional about his request, though his request was as unconventional as she could possibly imagine.

  “Of course.” He stood up and then reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, pulling out a silver-plated card carrier. Drawing a business card from it, he gave the card to her. “Here’s my number. Please call me when you have made a decision.”

  She rose from her chair and nodded to him. “I’ll do that. Thank you for meeting with me and for offering me this opportunity.”

  He thanked her in return and she left. He watched her go, watched the door closing behind her back and he heaved a great sigh. It felt as if he had been holding it in the entire time they had spoken with each other.

  Pierce was more than used to putting on a seamless poker face in business; it was one of the things that had made him a formidable businessman. No one could ever tell just what he was thinking. He left his emotions at the door when he had business meetings, most of the time, and went in with aces in his hands and no trace of them in his eyes. Meeting with Kate had brought out that trait in him.

  He was making a tremendously unconventional offer to a complete stranger and hoping with everything in him that she would take it. He didn’t want to open himself fully to her, to leave himself vulnerable in any way, though he knew perfectly well that he was indeed vulnerable just in asking her to take on the proposition.

  He had only let her in as far as was absolutely necessary. He had to do that so that she could see just enough of his need to feel compelled to do what he hoped that she would do. Having sex with her to get her pregnant was a means to an end. It was nice that she was a beautiful woman, and even that seeing her in person had stirred some heat in the depth of him that he hadn’t felt in a while, but the goal was the baby, and nothing would get in the way of that. He was going to do it his way no matter who the surrogate was, but he was hoping that she would agree to his offer and she would be the mother of his child. She truly was the best suited for it, and she would give him the baby that he wanted; the child in his mind who would fulfill his dreams of becoming a father, and to whom he would want to bestow the entirety of his legacy and life’s work.

  His research had gone much deeper than he had led on. He had learned all that he could about her. He knew that she was a determined and strong woman, that she succeeded in getting what she went after. He knew that she was brilliant and intelligent, that she was a hard worker. He knew too that she was in dire straits financially, and that she wasn’t making much waitressing at the upscale Italian restaurant down the road on Fifth Avenue from where he lived. He wondered momentarily if he had ever seen her in the restaurant and not known it. He shook his head, knowing that was unlikely; he would have remembered a woman who looked the way that she did.

  She was perfect for his endeavor. He had presented it as best he could. All he could do was wait for her to get back to him and let him know if his offer was acceptable to her. Pierce knew from a great deal of experience in the business world that if he was going to have to wait on the other party in the deal to accept his offer, he was going to have to distract himself with other things until the answer came, so he wouldn’t go crazy waiting to hear back.

  He called Matt and got his voicemail. He left a message asking his best friend to go out for drinks, and then he left the clinic and tried his best to put the baby and Kate out of his mind.

  Chapter4

  Kate was not able to get Pierce out of her mind; her thoughts were focused solely on the offer she’d received. She could think of nothing else. She called Olivia and was utterly relieved when she answered the call. Olivia knew right away that something was up and when Kate asked her to meet for coffee, Olivia was glad to go.

  A short while later they were seated at their favorite diner in Washington Heights, and each of them was hovering over their respective mugs of coffee.

  “So what’s going on? You sound like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders!” Olivia asked her with anticipation. “Is it your mom?”

  Kate sighed. “Yes, and no. Mostly yes. Mama isn’t doing so well and she really needs some help. I’m not making nearly enough money to get her the help that she needs. I gave some thought to that crazy idea you had about surrogacy.” She paused and Olivia laughed softly.

  “You did! That’s incredible! So, are you thinking of actually doing it?” Olivia asked in wonder.

  Kate cleared her throat. “Well, to be honest, I kind of looked into it already, and I even have a prospective family. Or… dad, I guess.”

  Olivia was impressed. “Wow! You move fast girl, we just talked about this!”

  “I know. I didn’t have to think about it too long to realize that it was a pretty incredible deal for a quick nine months.” Kate sighed and her shoulders drooped a little.

  “So… what’s the problem? You got an offer and you don’t want to take it?” Olivia guessed, searching Kate’s face.

  Kate bit at her lower lip momentarily. “Kind of.” She let out a long breath. “I met with a guy who is going through the clinic. He wants to have a baby. It’s a complicated situation, though. He’s a single guy; some big shot wealthy guy here in Manhattan. He’s single; no woman around, but he wants to start a family.”

  Olivia frowned. “A big shot… who is it?”

  “Pierce Carrington. His name sounds so familiar to me, but I just can’t place it. I feel like I’ve heard it before.” Kate screwed her face up thoughtfully for a moment, running his name through her memory banks once more.

  Olivia’s mouth fell full open. “Oh my god. You’re kidding! Pierce Carrington? Of the New York Carrington’s? Kate, they’re billionaires! They’re one of the wealthiest families in the country! He’s not a big shot, he’s the biggest shot. There is no bigger shot in this city, except for his father, Carter Carrington. You can’t be serious… are you sure that’s his name? That seems s
o impossible.”

  Kate pulled her cell phone out and typed his name into an Internet search engine, and immediately there were images and articles and businesses flooding the page. She gave her head a shake and held the phone out to Olivia. “That’s him. I just met with him this morning. Not two hours ago, actually.”

  All Olivia could do was stare at the phone and shake her head. “Oh my god,” she said for the second time. “You just fell in a tub of butter. That’s so weird! He could have any woman he wants! He’s about the most eligible bachelor on the whole eastern seaboard. What the heck is he doing looking for a surrogate mother for a kid?” She looked up at Kate in complete confusion.

  Kate shrugged and sighed, taking her phone back and giving his image one last look before she turned the phone off and tucked it back into her purse. She looked over at Olivia again. “I asked him those same questions, though they were worded a little differently. He said he is really busy and he just hasn’t had time to cultivate a personal relationship with any women. He feels like he is running out of time. He wants to have a child now. He seems to feel anxious about it. I can understand that. He wants someone to leave his legacy to.”

  Olivia shook her head slowly. “Wow. This is just incredible. Well he will definitely have fifty thousand dollars to offer you if you have his kid. I just can’t believe it. Pierce Carrington. Wow! Who in the world would ever have guessed!”

  Kate pressed her full lips together into a line and folded her hands in front of her. She leaned in closer to her best friend. “He didn’t offer me fifty thousand dollars,” she said quietly. She couldn’t even think how to tell Olivia the whole thing, but she knew she had to talk to her about it. She needed another perspective.

  With a frown of surprise, Olivia leaned forward as well, coming closer to Kate. “He didn’t? Well that’s strange. What did he offer?”

  Kate drew a deep breath and spoke even softer to keep it just between them. “He offered me half a million dollars at the end and ten thousand dollars a month for each month of the pregnancy, as well as a penthouse condo on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park, plus providing for my every need the whole pregnancy.”

  Olivia’s mouth fell full open. “What? Holy… you said yes, right? Please tell me you told him yes and took that job. I can’t believe that! Hell, I’d do it for that much money, and I bet my husband would let me!”

  With a shake of her head, Kate watched her friend and answered. “No, I didn’t take it.”

  “What?” Olivia was floored.

  “I wanted to talk with you about it first. There’s a caveat, and it’s a big one.”

  “A caveat? What caveat? What could possibly be a justifiable reason for not taking a job that only lasts nine months and pays more than half a million dollars and comes with perks like he offered?” Olivia looked as if she could not be more incredulous.

  Kate cleared her throat. “He wants to ah… to impregnate me himself. As in… the traditional method, not invitro fertilization.”

  Olivia blinked. “What? What do you… wait, he wants to have sex with you to get pregnant?”

  Kate nodded and lifted her coffee cup to her lips to take a sip. “Yeah. He wants to drop in at the condo for conjugal visits until the baby is conceived, and then it would stop and I’d just be there being pregnant and spoiled rotten.”

  “Wow,” Olivia said again. She leaned back in her seat and gazed at Kate. “So, what do you think about that?”

  “I think I need to talk to my best friend about letting a complete stranger have sex with me until I get pregnant. I mean, the rest of the offer is incredible, but I just don’t know about the intimacy.” She took another sip of her coffee and looked around to make sure that no one else was listening to them.

  Olivia inhaled a long breath and let it out slowly. “That certainly changes things.” She looked down at her cup of coffee and pressed her lips together as she considered it, tapping her long nails on the side of her cup softly.

  Kate waited patiently as she watched Olivia roll it around in her mind. Finally, Olivia looked up at her and laid her palms down on the table to emphasize her points. “Okay. So here’s what I think. I think that if there’s no romance and it’s just… clinical, or just physical, whatever, then it would be worth the money. Consider this, you could take your classes online if you wanted to for the next nine months or a year or however long you wanted to, or you could take them in person as long as you were comfortable doing that. You wouldn’t have to work, and you could knock your education out quickly and graduate a lot sooner. You wouldn’t have any debt and you could start working earlier, not that you’d need to for a long while with half a million dollars and change. This would make the biggest difference in your life, and more than that, in your mom’s life. Think about her. Think what this could do for her. My opinion is that you should do it. I’d do it if I was you. People have sex with strangers all the time, it’s called a one-night stand, except they don’t get put up like you’re going to, and it’s not sex for pleasure, although having sex with him wouldn’t be terrible I imagine; he’s gorgeous. It’s sex for pregnancy; to bring a new life into the world, and that in itself is a noble and beautiful thing. The sex isn’t dirty that way; just hot lust, it’s to create life. That’s pretty special, actually, and you aren’t going to continue it after you’re pregnant, so there’s no big deal. You have sex a few times, you get pregnant, you are set for the next decade or longer if you handle the money right.”

  She sat back and folded her arms across her chest, her case delivered to the jury. Kate smiled and nodded. “That makes perfect sense. I hadn’t thought about it that way before. I was getting too hung up on the sex with a stranger part. I bet I’d be pregnant before I know it, and you’re right about it not being like lust, this is to create a life. That’s different. I’m sure it would happen in no time at all and then it would be all pregnancy; awkward stuff gone and done. That’s not a terrible price to pay, and he is pretty gorgeous, so that wouldn’t be the worst thing. In fact, I’ve never had a lover as good looking as he is, not that looks have anything to do with prowess in the bedroom, but it probably doesn’t hurt.” She laughed and shrugged.

  “I think I’m going to talk with my mom about it and get her take on it. I don’t think I’ll tell her all of the gory details, but I will just let her know that it’s a surrogacy opportunity and that’s it and see what she thinks about it from there. How I get pregnant isn’t something I want to discuss with her, but I would like to know what she thinks about the rest of it.”

  Olivia nodded. “That’s a wise move. Talk to your mama and then sleep on it. Your answer will come to you. I know that. If you do decide to do it, you owe me a super swanky dinner out though, because it was my idea to begin with and you’ll be a half millionaire, so that’s worth at least a posh dinner.” She laughed teasingly and Kate nodded.

  “Dinner out as a finder’s fee. You got it. I would be so glad to do that!” She laughed and they began to talk of other things. A few hours later they said goodbye and parted ways and Kate went home.

  Her apartment seemed different to her when she walked into it after having met with Pierce. It seemed like it could be a place where she used to live, rather than a home. It wasn’t a home. It had never been a home. It had just been a place to sleep or eat or bathe, but it had never really felt like a real home to her.

  The possibility of having the means to obtain a real home spilled all through her mind and she bit at her lower lip in deep thought as she walked through the living room and went into the kitchen to make some hot tea. Her whole life would change forever if she said yes. Everything about it would change, but most of all, her mother’s life would change, and she dearly cherished the possibility of that.

  With her cup of hot tea in her hand, she sank down onto her sofa and picked up her phone to call her mother. Theresa answered as she usually did, and Kate smiled.

  “Hey Mama,” she began with a genuine happiness in her heart. />
  “Hi baby! How are you doing today?” Theresa asked her with a solid echo of Kate’s joy.

  “I’m doing really well, how are you feeling?” she asked in return, hoping for the best.

  “I’m having a good day! I’m having a pretty good day honey.” Her mom sounded relaxed, and Kate was happy to hear it.

  “Well I’m glad to hear that. I do have something that I want to talk with you about though. I was offered a sort of unusual job and it would pay me a lot of money. A whole lot of money. I wanted to ask you what you thought of it before I took the job.” She quietly sucked in a deep breath and held it as she tried to think how to posit the opportunity she had to her mother.

  “Okay, what is it?” her mother asked interestedly.

  “It’s a surrogacy situation. There’s a pretty wealthy man here in Manhattan who wants a family and needs a surrogate to help him make that happen. We would go through a clinic, so it’s all legal; nothing shady.” That much was true; they had gone through the clinic, though the baby wouldn’t be made there if she did it.

  “A surrogacy? You mean you’re thinking about carrying someone else’s baby?” Her mother sounded shocked. She had expected it.