Fifty grand was on the table though. What would I do for that much money? I looked at the ad while sipping my coffee. Fifty big ones. I took my phone out and snapped a picture of the ad, then left to go back to my desk.
3
Charles
“Do you realize what kind of position you put me in?”
“Mother, I…”
“Honestly, Charles. It's embarrassing. These women aren’t just girls I pick up off the street. Their parents know about the dates. Do you realize how humiliating it was when Denise Barringer called me to say you walked out on her daughter and said she’d always be a spinster?”
“I didn’t call her a spinster, I said I was going to be the spinster.” I paused, rubbing a hand over my face. “I just said I didn’t think it would work and I’d be better off single.”
“You left the girl alone on a date. Someone might have seen her,” she said.
“I know what I did was wrong. I’ll apologize to her personally, okay?”
“What was wrong with her?” she asked.
“What? Nothing. She was fine. She’s beautiful. She just isn’t for me.”
“Young people these days, I swear. It’s the diet of fairy tales you’ve been fed your whole lives. There’s no such thing as fairy tales, Charles. There are no soulmates. You meet someone you like, whose values you share, and you learn to live together.” More like you meet a rich woman of similar social standing whose parents I approve of and you marry her for the reputation of your family and wealth maintenance.
God, how bleak was that. I didn’t want a roommate and I didn’t want to marry someone because she came from the right kind of family. I didn’t want someone that I tolerated. I wanted to love my wife. Was that too tough an ask?
“I’m sorry mum, I wouldn’t marry a woman unless I loved her. I’m not going to.”
“You’re not like everybody else, Charles. You aren’t common. You have responsibilities. You have your title. You have your estate. It’s your job to make sure they are passed smoothly to an heir…”
I put the phone down and let her keep talking. I had heard this speech before. I had a duty to my family and my name before I had a duty to myself. I had to think about what my father would want and to carry on his legacy. Blah, blah, blah. I knew it was classless walking out on Annaliese like that. I really was going to give her an apology but if I had known that this was on the horizon, maybe I would have waited it out until dessert.
Mum was really mad this time. It felt like it got worse. In the beginning, when I’d turn down one of her handpicked beauties, she’d try and convince me to go on a second date with them. Now she was using straight-up shame tactics. What next? She’d set me up and I’d show up for the date and it would be at a chapel where she wouldn’t let me leave until I signed a marriage certificate?
“… do you understand?”
“Huh?”
“Not ‘huh’. Say ‘pardon’,” she said. I rolled my eyes.
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“I was saying you’re going to have to come over this summer.”
“To London?” I asked stupidly. Of course, to London. Where the hell else? I didn’t want to go to England for the summer. England barely got a summer. Summers in New York were hotter than the devil’s ballsack, but at least it didn’t rain every damn day.
“You’ll attend parties, socialize, network. If you take this seriously, you can end up with someone with a title.”
A title wasn’t anywhere on the list of things I wanted out of a partner. I didn’t care whether she was directly descended from the queen or if her family lived under a bridge. No, scratch that, I did care.
I just wanted her. I didn’t want a woman who was not her. I peered at the time on the phone. Almost four in the afternoon. My mother was probably going to keep this going all day if I didn’t stop her.
“Mother? Hey… hey mum? Mother!”
“What?” she said, finally stopping.
“I have a meeting in ten. I have to go.” I hung up before she could stop me. I was going to hear about that when we talked again but I couldn’t do it right now. I wasn’t getting married. I couldn’t look a woman in the eye and make a vow to her if I didn’t mean every word that I said. The most important thing was securing an heir. I had already talked to my legal team about what a surrogate delivery would mean when it came to inheritance and it seemed that the title and the child’s ability to inherit would not be affected.
Desperate times. If it was a baby they needed, I could get one.
I buzzed my driver and met him in front of the office.
“Where to, Mr. Hampton?” Barry asked.
“Nova Fertility,” I said. They were the most expensive clinic I could find in the city. The price wasn’t an obstacle, what I wanted was the discretion that came with that kind of price tag. They wouldn’t even tell me the kind of clientele that they had worked with but I could hazard a few guesses. They provided the whole range of fertility services. In vitro fertilization, intrauterine insemination, hormone therapy and of course, surrogacy.
I was the only single man in the waiting room, everyone else was coupled up. It looked like a boutique. The couches were plush and the décor was white and Tiffany blue. It looked nothing like a medical facility but maybe that was the point. With me were three more couples. A couple of the women smiled when our eyes met; the smile that said ‘I know what you’re going through’. I caught one of the men looking at me. He gave me a small nod like we were in the same boat. We weren’t though. He was here with a woman that he loved trying to have a child together. I was sorry that they seemed to be having difficulties but at least they had each other. I was about to fork over a large sum of money to a stranger to essentially rent her womb.
“Patient twenty-three?” That was me. This place was so exclusive they didn’t even call you by your name. I got up and followed the nurse to an office, just as beautiful as the waiting area we had just come from. A woman sat at the desk in a lab coat who looked more like a model than she did a medical practitioner. She invited me to sit.
“How are you Mr. Hampton?” she asked.
“Pretty good until I got here, to be honest,” I said. She made an exaggerated sad face.
“Surrogacy is unpopular and misunderstood but many people have built happy families through the help of a surrogate,” she said.
“So, what do I do? Do I have to pick a woman out of a catalog or what?”
“No, no. You tell us the traits of the person you are looking for and we will match them for you. I understand that you are looking for both an egg donation as well as gestational carrier services. That is something to consider while you are making your selection.”
“I don’t get to see pictures?”
“No. The women who offer their services have a right to their privacy as well. We use our discretion to match you once you have given us your specifications. All our women are screened for physical and mental health, including their family history of hereditary conditions so you don’t need to worry about that.”
Lucky me. This felt so weird. It felt like a weird kind of eugenics, just listing off the traits I wanted in the mother of my child and having that exact person delivered to me. There was only one person I could imagine having a child with.
“Dark hair. Almost black. Green eyes. Not too tall. Maybe around five feet and seven inches. Curvy woman, not skinny. Smart, obviously. Funny. Good sense of humor. Confident. Strong-willed. Loving.” I stopped because I wasn’t sure they screened for all those things. The woman looked up at me.
“Anything else?”
Yeah. If they could get me Brenna Andrews, the girl I fell in love with seven years ago, that was who I wanted to have a baby with.
“Kind and hardworking. I want her to be the kind of woman that I would want to raise a child with in real life. I don’t want this to just be a job for her.” The woman nodded, taking notes.
“Is that everything?” she asked
.
God, this was awful.
“Yes. That’s everything.”
“Wonderful. Now, for payment. Usually, we take check but cash and card are accepted too.”
I had the check ready. I was doing this. I couldn’t deal with any more dates. If this was the only thing standing in the way of my mother leaving me and my love life alone, then I was doing it. Once the responsibility was gone, I was free.
I went straight back to the house instead of going to the office. I felt numb the whole time. The place was massive. Five bedrooms. Enough room for a family bigger than the one I was planning.
Ha. Family.
It was going to be me and the kid. I didn’t even know whether that counted as a family. That was the way my mother and I were after dad died, but he had been around for a while first. I’d probably have to hire someone. I’d definitely have to do that. What the hell did I know about taking care of kids? Maybe two. A day shift woman and a night shift woman. A nice, feminine presence so that the baby didn’t grow up feeling the absence of motherly love.
The thought made me want to curl up and die. How depressing was that? Being raised by the hired help and a father who had had a baby just to satisfy his family’s rules of inheritance?
I walked into one of the empty rooms. All of the rooms, occupied and unoccupied were furnished. This place was a guest bedroom for guests I rarely had. The king-sized bed had never been slept in and the fifty-inch television on the wall had never even been turned on. Any one of the guest rooms could be turned into the baby’s room. They’d need a nursery to start with. I’d be hiring someone to do that too.
This wasn’t what it was supposed to feel like planning for a kid. If I had someone to do it with… if Brenna was pregnant and we were picking out what kind of wallpaper to put in our nursery, this wouldn’t feel so fucking empty. If Brenna was pregnant, I’d actually be looking forward to having a child. I’d know they were going to have a mother who loved them. I’d be getting to raise a child with someone I loved, not just a woman who I paid per hour to take care of them.
When are you going to get over it, huh? Who the hell told you she wasn’t married and raising her own kids by now?
Just because I had spent the last seven years thinking about her didn’t mean she had. For all I knew, that summer meant nothing to her. She had moved on and all I could do was keep wishing. I walked out of the room.
4
Brenna
I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have to but out of all the things that I could be doing for money, this wasn't actually that bad.
Seriously. No, really.
I cast a nervous glance over at my phone. I had been staring at it, waiting for it to rain all day. Nothing yet. if someone told me one day that I would be seriously considering becoming a surrogate, I would laugh in their face. And then I would have to swallow my words because not only would they be right, I would have already sent tons of applications in order to do it. I had covered both Manhattan and Brooklyn; cast a wide net and all that, you know? Turns out, being a surrogate was one of those jobs where the acceptance rate wasn’t very high.
It seemed like easy work so everyone, and I do mean everyone who had a womb and some time applied. I had spent the last few days researching it; how popular it was, what it usually paid, how to get into it, scandals. I had come across more than one story about women who agreed to be surrogates but refused to give up the babies when they were born. Apparently, your body did everything it could to help you bond with the baby hormonally. Celebrities coming out about using surrogates had made it less weird and controversial lately but there was that one little barrier of entry being that it was so damn expensive. It was still pretty weird though. Maybe weird was a bad word for it. It was just a little extreme.
Carrying a baby was one of the most dangerous things a woman could do. It was also one of the most personal and intimate things that a person could do.
Imagine going through that only to give the baby away.
At least they got paid. You could pay people to do anything for you, touch you, feed you, fuck you, also carry your baby but a lot of people wanted to do that last thing themselves. I had read accounts online from women who were surrogates or who had been surrogates in the past. Naturally, the woman who gave birth to a baby was considered to be the mother which was what made surrogacy such a legal minefield. I couldn't say that I wouldn't become one of those women who wanted the baby after nine months of carrying them, but for fifty thousand dollars I had no choice but to take the risk.
My mother's health was worth it. I knew that if I turned down an opportunity like this, I would regret it. Acceptance rates were low and they tended to go for women who had delivered healthy babies in the past already and I hadn’t. There was a good chance I wasn't going to get in but as long as I tried. I had to do something. None of the fertility centers had gotten back to me except to say that they had received my application and they were looking over it. How was it that I was more nervous about this than about any test I had taken in my whole life?
My mind wandered. I grabbed for my phone, then forced myself to put it down because I was getting distracted. My whole day at work today had been a record low for productivity. The chances were I wouldn’t get the surrogacy gig so I couldn’t fuck up the job that I did actually have because of it. I needed the money that Jameson was and wasn’t giving me. I was putting the phone down when it started to vibrate suddenly. I didn’t recognize the number but I picked up.
“Hello?”
“Is this Brenna Andrews?”
“Yeah, speaking.”
“I’m calling from Nova Fertility. Are you available to talk?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“We may have been able to match you with someone,” the woman on the line said. I sputtered.
“A match?”
“Yes, we have a client whose needs match your profile. They are a high-value client with a number of extra stipulations and precautions. They require the utmost discretion. If you agree to work with them you will need to sign a nondisclosure agreement.”
“Sure, yeah, that’s no problem,” I said.
“Can you come to the clinic later this afternoon to meet and discuss things?” she asked. Whoa, already?
“Meet the client?” I squeaked.
“Yes. They want to expedite the process as much as possible.” I wasn’t expecting it to happen that fast. It was just after lunch but I could probably get Jameson to let me out early. I was not risking the chance to make fifty thousand dollars.
“Uh, sure, definitely. I’ll come by.”
“Great. We’ll see you at three,” the woman said. She read the address out to me and I took it down. When she hung up, I realized that I hadn’t asked her just how one of these meetings went. I didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t really give me a lot to work with. She didn’t mention whether it was a couple looking for a surrogate or a single woman trying to have a baby. Even single men used surrogates sometimes. I didn’t have the option to be picky with whose baby I was going to be carrying but it would have been nice to know. Was I nervous?
I was nervous. What if they didn’t like me? What if I didn’t like them? What if I met them and they were assholes and I didn’t want to have the baby for them anymore?
Fifty thousand dollars Brenna. Fifty thousand dollars.
I got up and walked to Jameson’s office. He’d understand. He was a reasonable and flexible guy and I had never given him a reason to think I was unreliable. I had only made requests like this about my mother in the past and this one was about my mother too in a round-about way. He’d understand. I knocked. He told me to come inside. He was at his desk as usual.
“Hi, Mr. Jackson,” I said, coming in.
“Brenna,” he said. “What brings you here today?”
“I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be heading out of the office a little early today. Medical appointment,” I said.
“O
h. You didn’t mention anything like that earlier,” he said. “Feeling sick?”
“It was sudden. Just a follow up on some tests I had done,” I said. There was enough of the truth in there to make me feel like I wasn’t lying. It was a follow up but of a different kind. I was sort of telling my current boss to let me leave work early to go and interview for a new one.
“Oh, well that’s okay. No problem. You can head out whenever you need to. I’m glad you’re here though. I found a project that I think you would be perfect for. You said you were interested in getting a raise. Working on this would definitely help my case when I talk to the higher-ups.”
“That’s great, Jameson. Thank you,” I said.
“We’ll be working closely together. I’m looking forward to it,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m looking forward to working with you too.” His eyes moved down my body, stopping at my breasts again on the way back up. It made me a little ill but that was the extent of his attention. In addition to that, he seemed to be trying to get me the raise I asked for. He was on my side. I just hoped that he never made me regret trusting him.
I left work a little under an hour later. I was going to Tribeca. I didn’t want to leave fate up to the MTA so I splurged on a cab and told my driver the address.
“Expecting a baby?” he asked. Wasn’t it rude to ask women whether they were expecting? More importantly, was that a dig at my weight?
Admit You Miss Me: A Surrogate Pregnancy Romance (Irresistible Billionaires Book 1) Page 3
