“The Aviston… Yeah, it’s all right. One of the best in the area, even if the name is a little…”
“Pretentious?” I offered, teasing experimentally.
“I couldn’t have put it better,” he chuckled. “The menu is a bit pretentious too, but there’s not much I can do about it.”
“Do you have an abrasive artistic temperament like those reality TV chefs? Throwing tantrums when people don’t do their jobs well enough?”
“I do not tantrum,” he declared with mock severity. “I motivate.”
I laughed appreciatively, pursing my lips when his jaw clenched a little. The heat in his dark eyes seemed to intensify for a moment, and it became difficult to breathe properly. We gazed at one another as though caught in some sort of trance, but my self-consciousness eventually won out. I was the first to look away, sipping slowly on my coffee as I tried to gather my scattered wits.
What was that?
The burning stares and sexy smiles continued as our conversation flowed effortlessly from one topic to the next. I learned that he was very close to his older sister and that he’d gone to culinary school in Miami. I tried to keep the guilt from my expression as I handpicked a few details from the backstory I’d created for Emma only minutes before he’d approached me.
Oddly, Donovan seemed to hang on every word, and it fed into the role I was playing. Emma could hold a man’s attention in ways Kennedy couldn’t, and I began to truly feel like someone else. Someone prettier, smarter, braver, sexier…
When a momentary silence stretched between us again, the staring contest recommenced. He was holding me captive in his gaze, as though daring me to look away while simultaneously preventing me from doing so. I felt the facade of Emma and her confidence fall away, and for a moment, I was just Kennedy. Staring into the eyes of a man who had confounded every expectation I’d formed about him.
He wasn’t arrogant or vain. He didn’t seem shallow, and he didn’t act like a player. I was ensnared by him, and not just by his gorgeous face. Donovan was sexy, funny, charming, polite… And he was interested. It seemed strange, impossible even, but the truth of it was all over his face.
Except it wasn’t Kennedy he was interested in.
Fuck.
I somehow managed to defy the magnetic pull of his dark eyes to glance at the screen of my laptop. We’d been sitting there much longer than I’d realized. My thoughts must’ve been transparent in my features, because Donovan was suddenly looking equally disappointed.
“Do you need to be somewhere?”
“Yes, actually. Sorry, I didn’t realize so much time had passed. I’m sure I’m keeping you from something.”
“I do have to go home and change for my shift, but I’d much rather spend the rest of the afternoon talking to you.”
“Running for Employee of the Month, are you?” I teased, as though I weren’t just as reluctant to leave. I closed my laptop and shoved it back into my bag.
“I just know how to prioritize,” he grinned, pulling a cell phone from his pocket. “I’d really like to see you again, Emma. I’d like to see you a lot more. Can I have your number?”
Donovan’s use of my pseudonym brought me up short. It was a reminder that I’d spent the last hour lying through my teeth about who I was. How the hell can I tell him the truth now? He’ll think I’m crazy… And maybe he’d be right. Still, I couldn’t turn him down without offending him, and as much as I hated it, there was really no other option. Cringing internally, I took the phone from his hand and did something I’d never done before.
I gave the hot guy a fake number.
“Thank you.” His brilliant smile made my heart clench with remorse. “I’ll call you later? Maybe we can get dinner sometime before you leave town? I could probably answer some of your questions about moving here.”
“Sounds great,” I managed through a painfully awkward smile.
Donovan held the door open for me as we left Cafe Moda together, and yet another part of me died a little as I checked another item on my imaginary Dream Guy checklist. Before we parted ways, he caught my hand in his and lifted it to his lips in a gesture so prosaic that I actually stopped breathing for a moment.
“Until next time.”
Two
Kennedy
“What about this one?”
I turned toward Miranda’s voice and assessed the dress she was holding up. It was a black cocktail dress with a lot less material than I usually preferred, and I winced as I tried to picture it on my body. There was no way in hell my tits were fitting in that thing.
“Where’s the rest of it?” I joked. Miranda rolled her hazel eyes in exasperation.
“Oh, come on. You have a great figure. You could totally pull this off. At least try it on!”
I’d met Miranda Cortés through a hotel front desk job I’d worked during college. Despite the six-year age difference between us, we’d bonded almost instantly, and our friendship had only grown stronger in the five years since. Miranda was thirty-two and had a sweet, playful personality. She was always willing to listen and offer advice on any subject, be it something as trivial as shoe selection or as troubling as my shitty relationship with my mother. She was insightful and kind, even if she did need to be reined in now and then when it came to her ambitious fashion choices.
“I’m not even sure how to get it on,” I frowned, examining the dress more closely. There seemed to be multiple sections of material missing. “How is anyone supposed to get their boobs to stay put in a dress like this?”
“Well, you know, letting the girls out to play once in a while wouldn’t kill you,” she sassed, dancing away as I swatted at her. “You’re twenty-six. You only have so many more years to enjoy them before they get fed up with you and go their separate ways.”
We laughed together as she added the cocktail dress to the ever-growing stack of garments folded over her arm, nudging me toward the fitting rooms.
“You make it sound like I’m some virginal spinster. We can’t all marry our soulmates at twenty-two.”
“I’m not saying you have to get married, but seriously, Kenn… When was the last time you even flirted with a guy?”
“Last week,” I gloated, smiling at her surprised expression. She stopped mid-stride to commence her interrogation.
“What? You met a new guy and didn’t tell me? What’s he like? Did you give him your number? Are you seeing him again?”
“That. That right there is why I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t a big deal, and I’m not going to see him again. But I definitely flirted.” I knew the secretive smile on my face only made Miranda more desperate for the details, but I couldn’t help it.
“Was he hot? Nice? Single?” I nodded, and she raised her manicured eyebrows incredulously. “Then why on earth aren’t you seeing him again?”
“He doesn’t even know I exist.”
I ignored the confused expression on her face, collecting my outfits and moving to an empty fitting room. I closed the door behind me and shrugged out of my shorts and t-shirt. The stripper dress mocked me from its hanger. I’ll save that one for last.
“Okay, rewind. I don’t get it,” Miranda said predictably, now talking over the partition of the cubicle to my left. “What do you mean, ‘he doesn’t know you exist?’ You said you flirted with him.”
“Yeah… It’s complicated. Well, not really. But it’s embarrassing.”
“You’re not making me want to hear about it any less.”
I sighed, wishing as I often did in Miranda’s company that I’d just kept my mouth shut.
“I was at that coffee shop downtown. The one by the Hilton. I went to do my character-building thing, and he was in line behind me.”
“You mean your thing where you pretend to be someone else?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay… Sorry, I’m still not following.”
“Well…” I hesitated, feeling embarrassed all over again by my own behavior. I finished buttoning the firs
t of my selections and opened the door just as Miranda emerged from her own fitting room. “When he came up to me, I’d been writing for a little while and had a really good baseline for the character. I was completely absorbed in what I was doing. So, when he read the name on the coffee cup and assumed it was my real name… I just went with it.”
Her eyes were wide with disbelief and amusement.
“Holy shit. You never gave him your real name?”
“Nope.”
“How long did you sit there talking to him?”
“Almost an hour.”
“Oh, my God!”
“I know… I don’t know what I was thinking. Then, when it came time to leave and he asked for my number, I figured he’d think I was nuts if I came clean after all that. So, I gave him a fake one.”
“Holy shit, Kenn. I guess I don’t blame you, though. Even if you’d given him your real information at that point, you’d probably never hear from him again. Still, I can’t believe you came up with an hour’s worth of bullshit just to talk to a hot guy. Only you would get yourself into a mess like that.”
Tell me about it.
Miranda continued to chuckle as she turned a little circle in front of the large mirror. She’d recently gotten her dark hair cut into a short, layered style, and it suited her very well. She was a few inches shorter than my own five-feet-seven inches, but she rarely wore a pair of shoes that revealed her true height. I looked at the outfit she was trying on and used it as an opportunity to change the subject.
“That’s really cute. You and Gabe have date night plans this weekend?”
“Kind of. We’re having dinner Sunday with Donny and my parents, but we need some down time too, you know? The fertility drugs just aren’t working, and we’re both getting frustrated with the whole process.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I sighed, deciding to address the easier topic first. “You haven’t mentioned your brother in a while. Everything okay with him?”
“Hell if I know. The little punk hardly answers his phone these days. Donny’s probably just busy with another one of his bimbos, and after the last two, I’d just as soon not meet her. Hope he doesn’t bring her to dinner.”
Even after so many years of friendship, I’d yet to meet Miranda’s younger brother. His typical choice of companionship seemed to be a constant source of irritation for her, and she’d complained about it on more than one occasion. To me and anyone else in a twenty-foot radius.
“Are they really that bad?” I asked, continuing the conversation as we worked through our individual piles of clothing.
“Ugh, yes. It’s always some airheaded, two-faced bitch who turns into a catty mean girl the second Donny’s out of earshot. None of them last longer than six months. I guess it wouldn’t bother me as much if he at least cared about them, but most of the time, he doesn’t even seem all that interested. It’s like he’s just dating them because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to do.”
“And you’re sure he’s not gay?” It wasn’t the first time I’d asked that question.
“I really don’t think so. His personality is too direct for him to stay in the closet, and he knows no one in my family would care. Hell, my mom’s church group walked in the parade at Pride this year.”
“Maybe he just hasn’t met the right woman yet, then,” I shrugged, adding a flowy teal dress to my ‘maybe’ pile.
“I suppose. I really need to introduce the two of you. He needs to date a woman who isn’t a vapid narcissist.”
Hah.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass. He sounds like a player, and you know I hate that crap. But I hope your weekend goes well, irritating brothers and catty bimbos notwithstanding. Maybe a little break from everything would do you and Gabe some good.”
“That’s what I think too. He was kind of a mess after our last doctor’s appointment…”
I kept mostly silent as we finished our shopping and made our way to a nearby restaurant for a quick dinner, allowing her to vent freely. Miranda and her husband Gabriel had been trying to conceive for the better part of three years. They’d tried a variety of fertility drugs and were now looking into alternative options, but her doctor was doubtful that even the more invasive procedures would be successful.
“Have you guys given any more thought to adoption?” I inquired hesitantly, avoiding the question I truly wanted to ask.
“Of course, but it can take a long time. It’s so expensive too, and that’s not even counting the typical costs of raising a child. We could foster, but it would be so heartbreaking to have to give a child back, which happens a lot with the foster system.”
“Yeah, that would be rough,” I winced empathetically. “I can’t imagine getting attached to a kid and then having to watch someone take them away.”
I went silent again, debating whether or not to bring up the offer I’d made to Gabe and Miranda the year before. Watching my best friend fall apart each month when her period came was difficult to say the least, and I knew it had to be even harder for Gabe. They’d both dreamed of having a family for so long, but nature was simply not cooperating. After supporting Miranda through one particularly brutal breakdown, I’d been desperate to find some way to help.
To say they were shocked by my offer to be their surrogate was an understatement, but they hadn’t refused it outright either. They’d tabled the discussion in favor of exhausting other fertility methods first, but it seemed they might have finally reached that point. My willingness to help them hadn’t changed.
“What about… what we talked about last year?”
Miranda sighed heavily, looking back at me with an expression just as cautious as my own.
“Gabe and I haven’t discussed it in a while, but I’ve definitely been thinking about it. I wasn’t even sure if the offer was still open…”
“Of course it is. I wouldn’t have suggested it if I hadn’t considered it from every angle, and nothing has changed for me.”
“Seriously?” A glimmer of hope sparked to life in her eyes.
“Yes. I know there’s a lot to think about, though. We don’t even know if I’d be a candidate or if anyone would work with us since I’ve never been pregnant before. Then, there’s the legal stuff to consider…”
“I’ve looked into it,” she admitted reluctantly. “Most of the fertility clinics won’t work with a surrogate who’s never had a baby before, but there’s an OB over in Clearwater who will consider it if everything else checks out. And if everyone involved signs a waiver acknowledging the circumstances, of course.”
“Okay… What about the legalities? I’m assuming we’d have to get a lawyer to draw up certain contracts, and I’m sure the doctor and insurance companies would have a lot of requirements too.”
“Well, surrogacy isn’t very regulated in this state, which would work in our favor to some extent. Your medical insurance probably wouldn’t cover it, so we’d have to take out a separate policy for the IVF procedure and the pregnancy. We’d cover those expenses, of course. And our insurance would cover the baby right away.”
Damn. She’s done her research, I thought, impressed.
“Okay, so… You’ve been reading up, which tells me you’re seriously considering it. What else have you found? What kind of odds are we looking at?”
I sat up straighter in my chair and gave her my full attention, only slightly surprised that Miranda had gone to the trouble of doing so much research since the last time we’d talked about it. She was the type of person who planned almost everything in meticulous detail, almost to the point of what I would call a compulsion. But I also knew how careful she was with her optimism. She’d had her hopes dashed too many times not to be wary of potential disappointments.
We sat for a long while and went through every bit of information Miranda had unearthed so far, and she was able to answer most of my questions about the technicalities of the process. Her doctor had already put her and Gabe through multiple tests to identify the factors cont
ributing to their fertility problems. An IVF procedure using their own sperm and egg to create the embryo had a high chance of success up to the point of fertilization, but apparently, Miranda wasn’t a good candidate to actually carry the child. She’d had endometrial polyps removed years ago, and the procedure had left scar tissue that made implantation difficult. Having all of that information before delving into the surrogacy process was helpful, but I knew I would still have to undergo some testing as well.
“Just so I’m clear… I would just be the oven in this scenario. The bun would be completely yours, right?” I smiled a little at the colloquial terminology, and Miranda smiled back.
“Right. It’s called gestational surrogacy. You wouldn’t be genetically related to the baby.”
Good, I thought. I don’t think I could handle it if the baby was mine in any way… I nodded in satisfaction and felt myself growing more excited at the prospect of helping my friends. It was a delicate situation, though, and I knew we still had a lot to discuss. Gabe needed to be part of that discussion, for sure.
“Are you really sure though, Kenn? This would be huge. I wouldn’t blame you at all if you’ve changed your mind since last year. It was amazing of you to even suggest it then, and— ”
“I haven’t changed my mind,” I interrupted, keeping my tone gentle but firm enough to reassure her. “Are you really okay with it? Is Gabe? Your baby would be carried by someone else… That’s bound to come with some emotional fallout.”
“Not just for us,” she countered. “You’d have the hormones to deal with on top of everything else. All the physical changes, people making assumptions and rude comments, your family’s reaction… Are you truly willing to do all of that? To carry and give birth to a baby and then give it away?”
I could see the doubt in her expression and maybe a little fear too. I couldn’t deny that both our concerns were valid, and I took a moment to consider my answer carefully before I gave it.
“It wouldn’t be my baby. True, I might get a little attached, but… It’s not like I’d never see the baby again. I’ll get to be a part of its life.”
Chance Encounter (Fates Aligned Book 1) Page 2
