by Amy Star
She supposed that meant she had made up her mind.
She dug her cellphone—a positively ancient flip phone with a crack across the screen and a penchant for typing the same number more than once—out of her pocket, along with the paper with Atticus’s number on it, and though it took three attempts before she got her phone to cooperate and dial the correct number, soon enough, she was holding it to her ear as it rang, the sound tinny and slightly muffled with ever-present static.
It rang four times before a deep voice answered on the other end of the line, “Atticus Grevieux speaking.”
And suddenly, Casey found herself struck shy, as if just hearing his voice had suddenly opened the floodgates, dumping the enormity of the situation on top of her.
“…Hello?”
“H-hi,” Casey mumbled into the receiver. “I, uh… I’m… This is Casey Madison?” she finally managed, though it came out more like a question than a statement. “I met with—”
“Trust me, I am aware of who you are,” he assured her, sounding very business-like about it. She supposed that made sense for a businessman. “I take it you’ve made your decision?”
Her voice was still a low mumble as she said, “Yes. I would like to take the offer.”
There was a moment of silence, followed by a sigh that sounded slightly relieved. “Good. Very good. When would you like to meet?”
“I’m off work this upcoming Tuesday,” she replied, finally finding her voice. “We could meet that afternoon?”
“Great. I’ve got just the place in mind. I’ll text you the name and address, and I’ll see you then.”
“Sounds good,” Casey murmured into the receiver, and after a faltering farewell, she hung up the phone.
She wondered if this counted as being engaged.
*
The café was nothing truly spectacular. It was quirky more than anything, decorated with multicolored fairy lights, whimsical paintings of giant candy, and braided rugs in every color. The tables and chairs were clean and in good condition, but the couch and the armchairs gathered in a half-circle around the fireplace were tattered and had seen better days. It was cozy, all things considered.
And it had some of the best coffee Atticus had ever had, which was the important part. He sat at a table by a window and sipped his coffee leisurely.
She was a pretty young woman, Atticus reflected, as he watched her through the café window as she loitered by the door, evidently working up the nerve to come in.
She was a bit taller than average—5’6” or so, maybe—and pale enough that she looked as if she had never seen the sun. Her complexion was flawless. Her hair was such a pale shade of blond that it was nearly white, and it went clear down to her backside. Just based on the way it was frizzing slightly and how it seemed to drift around her, he could only assume she had very fine hair. Whatever color her eyes were, he couldn’t tell (blue, perhaps?), but they were pale enough that they almost looked colorless. She was thin—a bit too thin, maybe—with long, slender limbs and a rather modest bust.
Her clothing was simple, aside from the rollerblades dangling from one hand, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. It gave the illusion that she was plainer than she really was. Granted, he had barely spoken to her. For all he knew, she was plain. Not that he would complain if that were the case, but he rather hoped she wasn’t.
He supposed he would know soon enough.
*
After loitering outside the door and gesturing people in ahead of her for nearly seven minutes, Casey finally took a deep breath, wrapped a hand around the handle, and let herself inside.
She spotted Atticus immediately and bustled over to him, dropping her skates beside the table’s free chair and moving to pull the chair out. True enough, the café smelled amazing, but she didn’t like to spend money on things that weren’t essential, so she could live without getting her own cup of coffee.
And then, Atticus handed her a twenty-dollar bill and waved her towards the counter. She accepted the bill warily, fingers curling around it as if it was a snake that was going to bite her if she didn’t handle it properly; then, she turned and headed towards the counter.
There were two people in line ahead of her, and as she waited, she used it as a chance to observe her… date? She wasn’t sure if that was the proper term, but then again, she wasn’t too fussed by the terminology.
She had already known what he looked like, of course; she had seen pictures of him before, on magazine covers while she waited in line in the grocery store and in the newspaper from time to time. But she had never seen him in person.
He looked like he would be tall, with broad shoulders and a trim waist. His skin was tan, though she wasn’t sure if it was natural or if he used a tanning bed; it didn’t look like a spray tan, at least, and that was a relief. His hair was short and neatly trimmed, and a shade of brown dark enough that it verged on black. His eyes were the dark, nearly-black brown of freshly brewed coffee.
He was wearing a dark, charcoal grey polo shirt and dark slacks. Maybe that counted as “dressed down” for him. Casey couldn’t say that would surprise her.
Behind her, the barista cleared her throat, and Casey turned towards the counter, stepping closer to it to make her order.
When she returned to the table, it was with a very well-foamed dark chocolate mocha in a cheerfully bright green mug. She put it on the table and sat down, and for a moment, the two of them sat in silence, sipping their coffee.
Eventually, Casey spoke.
“So,” she began, addressing her mug more than Atticus. “You want me to have your baby.” To her relief, she sounded remarkably calm as she made the observation.
“If you’re agreeable to the idea,” he replied simply.
“Can I ask why?” she wondered, leaning an elbow on the table and propping her chin up in one hand. She stared down at her mug like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, absentmindedly tracing the tip of her finger around the edge of it.
Atticus cleared his throat. “Some rather… impolite rumors have been circulating about why I haven’t started a family or had any kids yet, when my family is known for being rather… well, family-oriented. I would like to nip the rumors in the bud before they start reflecting poorly on the rest of the family, and the simplest way to do that would seem to be to acquire a baby.”
Well, that was one way to phrase it.
Slowly, Casey wondered, “If we wind up breaking up, wouldn’t that just lead to more rumors?”
Atticus seemed rather dryly amused as he returned, “I can tolerate people assuming I’m simply disagreeable. That would be preferable to the rumors that I am literally an inhuman monster.”
Her eyebrows shot up towards her forehead, eyes widening slightly. “That’s, uh…” She trailed off as she tried to think of the words to describe it, though she came up short.
“Exactly,” he returned. “I’m hoping that sort of nonsense will stop after this.”
“Would it, uh…” Casey cleared her throat. “Would it be an actual wedding, or what?”
“Just signing some papers at the courthouse,” he replied. “You’ve no experience with the media, and I see no reason to throw you straight into the middle of it five minutes after meeting you. There will be talk of it being a shotgun wedding if you come up pregnant basically immediately afterwards, but—”
“You can tolerate people assuming that?” Casey guessed.
Atticus smiled, small enough that it was barely noticeable. “Precisely.”
She darted a brief glance towards his face and then down to her coffee again. She busied herself taking a sip of it before she wondered, “Can I ask why you picked me?”
“It’s not a particularly romantic reason,” he cautioned plainly.
She shrugged one shoulder and drummed her fingers along the side of her mug. “You’re paying me to have a baby and marry you. Nothing about this is particularly romantic.”
“Fair enough,” he conced
ed with a nod. “I needed someone likely to agree, and the closer the better. You’re young, not particularly well-off, and reasonably isolated. You seemed the most likely to agree. And if you decide you’re not interested, I’ll just move down the list.”
“You seem to know a lot about me,” she pointed out faintly, curling both hands around her mug.
“Money goes a long way,” he informed her. “But I only know some basics; I wasn’t interested in prying into your personal life.”
She nodded slowly and glanced up at him again. “Can I take a bit more time to think over it?” she wondered cautiously.
“Of course,” he assured her, before he picked up his mug and finished the last of his coffee. “Thank you for considering it and for meeting with me. It was very nice to meet you.”
He left a few dollars on the table for whoever cleaned it later, pushed his chair out, and stood up. He held a hand out for a brief handshake, and with that done, he was on his way.
The bell over the door chimed merrily as he left, and Casey’s thoughts raced like a thoroughbred’s as she finished her coffee. She had a lot to think about.
*
Casey’s best friend was a young man only a few months older than her. His name was Jason, and they had known each other since middle school. Much like her, he had not grown up with a lot of money, but unlike her, he had lived with a herd of siblings rather than just one. She acted as his safe haven when he needed space to breathe, he kept her safe from the kids at school who tormented her, and they had been close ever since.
He lived in the same apartment building as her, and though his wife was frequently absent—taking care of an ailing father clear on the opposite side of the country—she still left her mark on their apartment, her touch keeping it from looking like the landfill it probably could have qualified as.
“You’ve been pacing through my living room for the past ten minutes,” Jason stated blandly, watching her as she paced back and forth and back and forth. He was average height and slightly bronze-toned, with brown eyes and brown hair. There was nothing about him that particularly stood out.
Casey snorted and reminded him, “This doesn’t qualify as a living room,” though she did finally stop pacing. “I’m just… thinking through something, and I can think better here than at my apartment. My faucet keeps dripping, and it smells weird.”
“Buy an air freshener,” he suggested flatly. “Or several, probably.”
Casey held one hand up, her middle finger extended. “You aren’t helping,” she huffed.
“I don’t even know what the problem is,” he reminded her. “You just sort of barged in and started pacing like a caged tiger.”
“I could make a lot of money,” she spat out suddenly. “Like, a lot, a lot.”
Jason’s eyebrows rose. “Doing what?”
“Marrying a guy and having his baby.” It sounded sort of crazy when she put it that way, but there it was.
Jason groaned, his head falling back against the couch cushion. “Ah, Christ, first my sister, now you. I’m going to be alone in my little gutter at this rate.”
“I didn’t say I was going to do it,” Casey protested, though she wasn’t sure why she was protesting.
“But you should,” he reasoned. “I mean, no one really deserves to live in this dumpster. If you get the chance to get out, you should. Assuming you don’t mind having a baby.”
“And you know, he never said I couldn’t share the money he gives me with my friends,” she mused, tapping her lower lip with one finger.
“You know I don’t like handouts,” Jason reminded her sharply. (Despite that, Casey was pretty sure he was still annoyed that his sister hadn’t at least offered any since coming into her own fortune. Casey wasn’t going to pretend Jason made sense one hundred percent of the time, but she was also used to him not always making sense.)
“It would be a gift, not a handout,” Casey stated primly. “Besides, I’m sure I could think of something for you to do that I could justify paying you for. You couldn’t really complain about that.”
Jason shrugged stiffly, warily conceding the point. “Sounds like you’ve basically made up your mind,” he observed. “Are you going to go through with it?”
Slowly, Casey sighed. “Yeah,” she decided after a moment. “I think I’m going to. It all seems… pretty reasonable, I guess. Or at least as reasonable as this sort of deal can be.” She scratched the back of her neck. “Can’t say I was expecting to be a wife or a mom, but I guess life goes in strange directions sometimes.”
“Just don’t forget about us little people once you’re rich,” Jason joked, and if he sounded a bit too bitter underneath the joking tone, then Casey charitably refrained from mentioning it.
She supposed she really had made up her mind. She would just need to call Atticus back and let him know.
C HAPTER TWO
“I look okay?” Casey fretted, turning this way and that in front of the mirror. “I don’t look too… I don’t know, cheap?”
“You look fine,” Annie assured her. Her sister was well used to her anxiety over most things. And despite the seriousness of the situation, she seemed as calm and light as a spring breeze, green eyes serene and long brown hair pulled back into a perfectly smooth, tight ponytail. There wasn’t a drop of sweat on her slightly tanned skin. If not for the fact that it was sort of comforting, it probably would have been sort of infuriating. Casey felt like a mess. It wasn’t fair that Annie was not equally a mess.
Casey supposed she probably did look just fine, though. Her dress was the nicest one she owned—a white, deliberately wrinkled, strapless mini-dress with flowers in all sorts of colors scattered across it—and Annie was letting her borrow a pair of teal ankle boots to go with it. Annie had also done her makeup for her, as it was a skill that Casey had never quite grasped. She supposed she would have to at some point, if she was going to be getting cameras shoved in her face.
“Now, stop moving,” Annie instructed sharply, and once Casey was standing still, Annie finished braiding her hair, coiled the braid elaborately against the back of her head, and pinned it in place with enough bobby pins to keep a dance troupe satisfied, before she finally finished it off with a teal, jeweled hairpin.
Casey turned in front of the mirror one more time before Annie grabbed her wrist. “Stop preening!” she huffed, and with a tug at Casey’s wrist, she began dragging her out the door. “You’ve got places you need to be.”
With that said, Annie burst into a jog, forcing Casey to keep up.
*
Getting married by just signing a contract seemed a touch… clinical. Casey couldn’t say she had been expecting it to be a particularly romantic process, but just standing at the desk and signing on the dotted line seemed so removed from the idea of marriage that it was almost surreal. Casey brought her sister as a witness. Atticus brought a stylish young woman who wore a watch that likely cost as much as a sports car.
They were only there for a short time. As it turned out, just signing a piece of paper didn’t take that long.
Casey didn’t feel particularly different afterwards. Atticus gave her a ring—a simple rose gold wedding band—but she still felt more or less the same as she’d felt the day before. Annie made a valiant effort at trying to get Casey excited about it but with only middling success.
Two days later, it was time for her to move out of her apartment and into Atticus’s house.
*
‘House’ didn’t quite seem like the right term. ‘Estate,’ maybe. Even that didn’t quite seem to cover it. There were acres of land surrounding the house, and ninety percent of it was covered by trees and wildflowers, save for the paths that wound through the woods and the winding driveway that had to have been at least half a mile long. The house was three stories tall and looked like it was made of more window than wall, and it was framed on either side by a chimney.
Casey didn’t bring much with her. She brought some photographs and knick-knac
ks she couldn’t bear to be parted from and some of her favorite clothes. It all fit into a single suitcase. Everything else stayed behind.
Atticus showed her to her room—maybe they would sleep together eventually, maybe they wouldn’t, but Casey didn’t want to leap into that immediately—and then he excused himself, saying he had to get to work.
Casey took the chance to explore the house. Her room—her suite, actually, with a bedroom, a sitting room, and a bathroom—was lavish and comfortable and her old apartment would have fit in it with room to spare, but she would need to add a few touches to make it look like it was being lived in. It was on the second floor, so she started there in her explorations, finding three other bedroom suites, two bathrooms, two studies and a sitting room off to the eastern side of the house, with chairs, a couch, and a rug arranged around a fireplace.
