His Pretend Baby

by Theodora Taylor

  It must help, because when he speaks again, his voice is once again level. “I know I’m not the easiest man to deal with, so if there are things we need the other to work on in order to make this relationship viable, then—”

  “We work on them as the relationship progresses?” I finish for him.

  “No,” he answers, tone glacial. “We put those things on the table, and both obligate ourselves to work on them.”

  “So, it sounds like you might already have some things you want me to work on,” I say, trying not to laugh. “Okay, if that’s how you roll, throw something in there about me sticking to your plans.”

  “And reading them,” he adds.

  “I can almost already guarantee that’s not going to happen. You have no idea how much paperwork I have to deal with at the shelter. I’m not even trying to bring that into to my personal life.”

  He stares at me for a long, frustrated beat and then says, “Okay, new tactic.”

  Setting his face into a conciliatory expression I’m sure he must have learned in some kind of Social Skills 101 workshop, he asks with a strained but pleasant tone, “How about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, I’m sure there are some things you want me to work on. Things we could put into our relationship contract.”

  “Wait, you want me to sign a relationship contract, too? Is that like a thing you do?”

  “Nyla, obviously there are quite a few things you don’t understand about a man in my position. I have a board, and a business worth billions of dollars, and competitors—lots and lots of competitors. There are people who would do anything, pay anything, to bring me down. So yes, I don’t engage in relationships without first having women sign an NDA and a contract that guarantees we both try to implement certain changes before entering into a relationship.”

  I scrunch my nose, not liking the smell of these words at all. “But I’m not going to change. That’s, like, my base principle. I don’t change how I look or what I am for a dude. And more importantly…” I look up at him now, all humor fading from my tone. “I wouldn’t want you to change or try to change yourself. I’d never ask you to do that.”

  He blinks, his anger fading into something that looks a lot more like distress.

  And I have to ask, “Why is what I’m saying upsetting you?”

  “I’m not upset. I’m not. It’s just no one’s ever said that to me…” he trails off and shakes his head. “Every relationship contract I’ve ever signed has included change requests.”

  I suck on my teeth, not loving the sound of Go’s ex-girlfriends.

  “Well, then you’re signing relationship contracts with the wrong people,” I inform him. “Yeah, maybe you’re an asshole, but if that’s who you are, and you’re not hurting anyone by being this way, then you should focus on building relationships with people who accept you as you are. Or even better, inspire you to want to be a better version of yourself.”

  He blinks at me again, obviously distressed, but this time, when I ask, “What?” He says, “Nothing,” his voice quieter than I’ve ever heard it. He shakes his head, as if forcing himself out of a daze. “If you have any other questions for me, you should probably ask them now.”

  I don’t realize I do have another question for him until I’m asking, “What about you?”

  He scrapes a hand over his beard. “What about me?”

  “I get you’re committed to helping your parents, but if you go through with this, you’ll not only have to raise a kid who isn’t yours, but you’ll also have to marry me, someone who’s, like, allergic to plans. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Am a sure I want to…” A shadow crosses over his face, and even though he’s sitting perfectly still, it feels like he’s pointing at me as he says, “Before you go any further, let’s make one thing clear. This baby might not be mine biologically, but I will consider it mine in every other way. After we sign these papers, there will be no more discussion on this subject. This baby will be mine in every way but one—and only the two of us will know about that.”

  “Okay,” I say, a little taken aback by the passion in his answer, “but how about the part where you give up your freedom and the chance at a potential soul mate in order to enter into a loveless marriage with me?”

  “I don’t believe in soul mates,” he answers, tone clipped, as if I’ve brought up the subject of Santa Claus.

  “Well, how about a loving and happy marriage like the one your parents have? Don’t you believe you can have that? If you marry me, you’ll be giving up your chance to have that.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Something changes in the air between us at that moment. It suddenly seems like there’s an electric fence dividing us, crackling with a new kind of tension, and I have to ask, “What do you mean, not necessarily?”

  Go looks away from me, and I can swear I see his jaw working underneath his beard. “I’ve read a few things over the years, and from what I’ve read, someone like you might be good for someone like me.”

  “Someone like me?” I repeat, not really understanding.

  He keeps his eyes trained on his hands. Rocks in his seat, once, twice, then just stops, as if making a mental decision to restrain himself.

  And as clearly as he’s spoken throughout most of the conversation, his next words come out in a rushed mumble, “Someone with a background in psychology. Someone accepting. Someone I believe when she says she prefers to be honest. Someone who doesn’t run out of the room when I’m honest. Someone who is brave. Someone who is interesting for me to look at.” He tries and seems to fail to look up at me, shifting his attention to the red table between us instead. “Someone like you might be good for someone like me. Maybe.”

  There is no reason that list of reasons should completely melt my heart, but it does. It totally does. I release the breath I don’t realize I’m holding, a warm feeling rushing through me.

  “So,” he says, finally glancing back up at me. “Are you still willing to onboard with my plan?”

  7

  “I think she’s hyperventilating,” a voice says above me. Priscilla, I think. She sounds more annoyed than worried.

  “No,” I say, panting. “I’m just…it’s just really hot in here. I need…”

  An ice pack wrapped in paper towels appears out of nowhere, and I immediately apply it to my forehead.

  “We need her back out there. There’s going to be questions,” the voice says again. Yeah, that’s definitely Priscilla, the head of GoRobotic’s PR department.

  “Get out of here. Give her some room,” comes Go’s clipped response. “Close the door behind you.”

  The sound of heels, sneakers, and wingtips fill the room, and then the door closes behind the circus. Relief hits me like a gust of desperately needed cool air.

  “Thank you,” I whisper to Go when it’s just him and me in the conference room.

  “This wasn’t part of the plan,” he answers. Tone just as clipped as it was with his employees.

  “Yeah, I know…” I answer. Voice barely above a whisper.

  I can hear all the reporters on the other side of the door, yelling questions at Priscilla. I can also feel him studying me as I sit there with the ice pack, doggedly trying not to faint.

  He squats down in front of me, his face filling up my previously carpet-only view. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, voice weak.

  He regards me for a long, sober beat, then asks, “Full disclosure? Is this in response to the question about how it feels to be married to me?”

  “No, that’s not why.” I make myself meet his agitated gaze from under my ice pack. “I just hate lying. I mean seriously fucking hate it. And the only thing I hate more than lying is having a bunch of people stare at me.”

  With a shiver. I remember the hospital. The Perezes, the social worker, the nurses, even the damn doctor, all staring at me.

  “You hate having people stare at you,
” he repeats. Behind his glasses, his eyes cut to the side in that weird processing way of his, as if he’s analyzing the data on what I’ve just said. Then he says, “That’s why you have all these piercings, because you don’t like to be looked at.”

  At first I think he’s making fun of me, being sarcastic. But then I realize… he actually gets it. Really gets it.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly it,” I answer, reaching my free hand under the sleeve of the peach lace peasant wedding dress to rub my bare arm.

  I find myself telling him a story I’ve only ever told myself before: “When I was in the group home, I was always trying to dress normal, act normal, be the kind of girl a family would want. They’d bring the parents around to look at us, and I’d spend all this time beforehand in front of the bathroom mirror. Trying to make sure I was dressed right, flat-ironing my hair, so I looked like someone a normal family would want to adopt. But it never happened, and when I aged out of the system, I swore I’d never try to please anybody other than myself with my looks again. At least that’s what I told myself…”

  It’s my turn to be the one who can’t look him in the eye now, and I keep my gaze trained on the knees of his black chinos as I confess, “But I guess you’re right. It’s kind of become this armor I wear.”

  He nods. “So no one sees the real you. It’s a defense mechanism. But it doesn’t really work with a bunch of reporters in your face.”

  “Wow,” I have to tell him then with a wry smile. “For a rich asshole, you’re pretty intuitive.”

  His beard quirks to the side on a smirk. “Reading people and predicting what they’ll do next is Visionary Leader 101,” he answers. “If you don’t have that, you don’t have what it takes to run a successful company.”

  “So you predicted I was going to pass out while we were telling a room full of reporters we just got married?”

  “No,” he admits with a wry look of his own. “You’re turning out to be very unpredictable, Nyla, and this is obviously a big disruption in The Reveal Plan.”

  Oh, yes, The Reveal Plan. Basically a big old ball of lies cooked up by the GoBotics PR department to spin our wedding as a modern fairytale. Weird Tech Billionaire Is Introduced to Punk Rock Do Gooder over Thanksgiving (nearly a month late, but that was the last time Go was actually in Indiana). They Have a Passionate Love Affair and Decide to Get Married After an Insanely Hipsteriffic Photo Shoot.

  “You two actually look really good together,” Priscilla told us after the last shoot of the day at an organic farm in North Portland.

  We’d spent our wedding day hitting some of coolest venues in Portland, following a highly-conceptualized photo shoot/Instagram plan, which featured us standing on either side of a bartender with a handlebar mustache in Downtown Portland, a redwood in Forest Park, the entire Portland Trail Blazers basketball team in front of a brick wall, and finally a pig on an organic farm.

  In the back seat of Go’s Tesla, I watched over Priscilla’s shoulder as she uploaded the last of the photos to the company’s Instagram, and I’d been surprised to see she wasn’t just blowing smoke. At least in the photographs, Go and I made a kind of sense. Him with his shoulders hunched, arms crossed, and his hands tucked under the armpits of his white tuxedo hoodie. Me in my vintage dress and piercings. On opposite sides of a huge pig. We both looked bemused and out of our element.

  The Freak and The Geek, I thought to myself as the Tesla ferried us to the GoBotics building.

  But the photo shoot, funnily enough, had not included an actual wedding. That took place back at headquarters with no cameras and only the Mayor, Priscilla, and both of Go’s assistants in attendance. Go’s family had been informed about, but not invited to, the wedding. They hadn’t fit into Priscilla’s PR plan, and as fine as Go seemed to be with lying, I don’t think he particularly wanted to do so to them.

  After that we’d come out to the GoBotics lobby, now filled with various local media bloggers, to announce that we were officially married with a baby on the way.

  At least that had been the plan.

  When a reporter asked me how it felt to have snagged one of the most eligible bachelors in tech, instead of answering the question, I’d pretty much collapsed into my new husband’s side.

  And now I was in one of the GoRobotics conference rooms, feeling seriously fucking faint at the thought of going back out there.

  “No, I didn’t predict this,” Go says to me now, “But Nyla, look at me.”

  I glance up at him and meet his cool gaze.

  “I see you,” he informs me, somberly. “Even when you fall off the plan.”

  He squeezes my arm firmly. It’s nowhere near a gentle touch, but it’s somehow tender. I suspect this is the way he likes to be touched. And my heart trembles at the thought of the question I didn’t ask during our negotiation in his conference room.

  The one about sex.

  Suddenly, I’m actually wishing I had bothered to read the Ten-Year Plan after all. Maybe there’d been something in there about this thing that keeps popping up between us. Does he feel it, too? I wonder. Does he even want that with me?

  In the days since I’d agree to go along with his plan, he’d barely had contact with me. And as clever as those wedding photos had been, I couldn’t help but notice they’d all had one important thing in common.

  No touching.

  In fact, him squeezing my arm was the closest we’d come to touching since—well, since that kiss. At his dead brother’s funeral.

  So long ago, I have to wonder if it wasn’t a byproduct of Go’s grief. An impulsive action, so out of character, he’d never do it again.

  Even though I want him to do it again. Like I really want him to. So much so, I find myself leaning forward in my seat, seeking more than an arm squeeze from him. Seeking…

  A knock sounds on the door, and I jump back. Go’s hand falls from my arm, and we both look to see one of Priscilla’s PR minions sticking his head in.

  You can tell he’s in PR because he’s wearing a hoodie just like everyone else in the company, but his hair is well-combed and styled with enough product in it that he could easily be mistaken for an I-Banker with a simple wardrobe switch.

  “How are you doing?” he asks me in that overly sympathetic way of people who don’t really give a fuck how you’re doing because they’re in too much of a rush and shit needs to get done.

  And I start hyperventilating again.

  “New plan,” Go says, standing up. I watch his black chinos move away from me as he walks out with the PR boy, closing the door behind them.

  Soon after, a hush falls over the crowd outside, and the next thing I hear is Go saying, “So I assume many of you are likely very interested in our plan to have children…”

  He’s making the announcement by himself, I realize. He’s not going to make me go out there and lie my ass off, while a bunch of people I don’t know stare, wondering how a freak like me managed to land a billionaire like him.

  I am so relieved, I flop backwards in my chair with a happy sigh, no longer feeling even remotely faint. Not only did Go see me, he gave me exactly what I needed.

  However, as I listen to him tell the world about our unintended pregnancy, I also can’t help but notice with an uneasy heart…

  He was right about one thing: he’s a lot better than me at lying.

  8

  “Nyla Weathers-Gutierrez has entered the master bedroom.”

  How does it feel to be married to a tech billionaire? Well, just a couple of hours after arriving at Go’s super contemporary home in Lake Oswego, I’m kind of over it.

  As pretty as the waterfront stone and glass manse is, with its views overlooking the Willamette River, none of that can make up for the fact that the house is watching me. Literally.

  I walk over to Go, who’s typing on some kind of exercise bike laptop set up in one corner of the bedroom. He’s been up here since we arrived home after a well-photographed tasting menu dinner reception at a hip downt
own restaurant stocked with a mix of GoBotics employees and local Portland celebrities. And now he’s so intent on his work, if not for the tux hoodie he’s still wearing, you wouldn’t know he got married today.

  “Is your house seriously going to make an announcement every single time I enter a new room?”

  “Yes,” he answers, without looking up from his typing. “It’s a smart house, and I don’t like being surprised.”

  “So there goes my plan to sneak up and tickle you.”

  He actually stops typing. “I think you’re joking, but just in case you aren’t…”

  “No tickling,” I guess.

  “No tickling,” he confirms. “I have thirty more minutes of things to do, and then I’ll join you in bed.”

  “Am I sleeping in here?” I ask him.

  “Yes, of course,” he answers. “Your things are already in the closet. Right off the master bathroom.”

  “Nyla Weathers-Gutierrez is entering the master bathroom,” the house announces as I follow his directions. Just as promised, I find my duffel bag on the floor to the left of a large room which, despite it’s full settee lounge and plush carpeting, I can only assume is the closet since Go said it was. Also, there’s like a billion hoodies and blazers hanging on the right side of the room, along with some seriously custom glass display cases, featuring rows upon rows of sneakers.

  Not going to lie, even after unpacking my duffel bag, which has been serving me just fine since my days of following Death Buddha around on tour, I’m feeling a little intimidated by his side of the closet. Especially when I realize I don’t have anything special to wear for our wedding night.

  I’m now kind of wishing I’d taken Sam up on her offer to come out here and support me during my wedding. But she has three kids, one of whom is still breastfeeding. And I’m already feeling bad enough that I’m basically lying to her—even if it is to make sure her dreams come true.