Jamaica’s eyes widened a moment and she felt a shiver of shock move through her. “Engaged?! No! No… of course not! I mean, I’d like to be, but Andre hasn’t brought that up at all. We’re just… we’re an official couple as you know, but we’re not talking about marriage yet.”
“…but you want to talk about marriage with him?” Penny asked with a surprised tone. Jamaica looked around them and saw that they were alone, and waved at Penny to follow her into her classroom. When the door was closed, she let out a soft sigh and sat in one of the chairs at a table in the room.
“I would like to get married and have a family. Every time it comes up though, Andre changes the subject. I don’t know if it’s going to be him, I don’t know if we’re going to be anything more than what we are or what. It’s just not clear,” she admitted with a frown.
Penny watched her and nodded. “Okay, so there’s no engagement right now. Well, that’s good, because I need some help.”
Jamaica tilted her head slightly. “What do you need help with? You know I’m glad to give you a hand whenever I can. What’s up?”
With a serious look on her face, Penny wrapped her arms around her friends’ shoulders snugly. “I need a good wing-woman. My dating life has taken a seriously sour turn for the worse, and I need to hit the dating pool again. You’re gorgeous. You’ll attract the guys, and then when they find out that you’re taken and they can’t have you, they will go for me, and I can take my pick of them.”
Jamaica laughed and nodded. “All right, all right. You know, I don’t really think that’s the best way to do it, but I love you and you’re asking for help, so I will be there for you. On one condition…” she trailed off looking back at Penny with her own serious gaze.
“What? What’s the condition?” Penny asked with slightly narrowed eyes.
“The condition is that we don’t tell Andre what we’re doing. He would be really jealous of me doing that with you, even if it’s just you that’s guy hunting. He wouldn’t be okay with me going out to help you find a guy.” Jamaica looked at Penny closely.
Penny frowned deeply. “That’s terrible! What, he doesn’t trust you? You can’t go out and help me find a guy? Does he think that you’re going to wind up with one yourself and that you’re going to cheat on him? What kind of relationship is that? Honey, if he had confidence and trust in you and in himself, then he wouldn’t be jealous and he wouldn’t be worried about you going out with me. I mean, does he think that just because you’re out there and some other guy might hit on you that you’re so weak you’d fall right over there underneath the guy or dump him for someone else? Is he seriously that insecure?” She groaned and rolled her eyes in severe disapproval.
“Well, it’s just that I’d prefer to skip the whole conversation or argument with him altogether, no matter how he looks at it, and yes, I think he’s afraid I’ll leave him for someone else, or something. I don’t know why he’s so jealous. He shouldn’t be. In any event, the best thing that we can do, and my one condition to help you, is that we go out and call it a girl’s night out, which isn’t really a lie, because it is a girl’s night out, it’s just that it also happens to be a guy hunting night for you, but that really isn’t anything I’m doing, I’m having a girl’s night out. So, if you wouldn’t mind, that’s what we’re going to call it, and that’s where we’re going to leave it, because I don’t want to hear it from him later. Is that okay please?” Jamaica asked, hoping that Penny would be willing to go along with it.
Penny nodded. “It’s a deal. I think you’re not in a great spot with him if you can’t just be honest with him and tell him right off what you are doing and what you think, but whatever. That’s your business. If I have to glaze over it all and just call it a girl’s night in front of him, then fine. That’s what I’ll do. It’s a girl’s night. But… seriously sister, you need to think about making things honest between you two, or finding someone who isn’t so insecure and jealous. I don’t think he’s worth it.”
Jamaica sighed. “I’ll have to give that some thought, but in the meantime, let’s just let that go and focus on your fun night out looking for a hot new guy, and we’ll leave it at that. Girl’s night out officially. Right?”
“Right.” Penny grinned at her and then hugged her around the neck. “I owe you one sister, and I know it. So we’ll go out tomorrow? Can we do that?”
“Tomorrow works!” Jamaica answered happily.
“Thanks!” Penny bubbled, and let her go, giving her a quick kiss on her cheek before she turned and headed out of the classroom. Jamaica watched her go and gave a soft laugh after her.
Andre was waiting for Jamaica when she got home that afternoon, shortly before four o’clock. He was sitting on her front porch on a chair, his feet propped up on a plant table opposite him, with the plant residing on the table pushed slightly aside.
Jamaica had worked hard to get her own place, and she loved it. It was a sweet little house in a good neighborhood. She had a white picket fence and a green lawn. There were flowers growing all over and there was a row of tall pine trees growing all along one side of the house and across the back fence. The trees kept the wind and very rare snow from her yard. There was a proliferation of growth all through her garden and flower beds because of the heavy amounts of rain that fell all the time, but it all looked good, especially when the sun was shining, as it was when she walked up her sidewalk and sat beside Andre on the porch. It looked like the Garden of Eden then.
“I got your text, baby, so what’s up? What did you need to talk with me about?” he asked, looking over at her with a dubious expression.
She reached for his hand and he stayed where he was, watching her, not giving her any kind of romantic greeting. She swallowed and pulled her hand back to her lap and took a deep breath.
“I had a phone call, an unexpected call, I guess. It’s kind of a big thing, and I wanted to talk with you about it before I take the next step with it.” She knew that it was going to be a big surprise for him.
“Yeah? So, who was this call from?” he asked, eyeing her intently without shifting at all in his seat.
“Well, before I tell you that, I guess I should tell you that when I was twenty and in college, and broke and trying to make money to pay my way through school, I did something a little… different.” She cleared her throat. He watched her silently. “I uh… I entered a program through a fertility clinic where they were looking for young women who might want to be surrogate mothers. It was supposed to pay well if you were chosen for a case, and I was going to use the money to pay for school, but I was never chosen for a case and I was about to be finished with the program next week, I guess, so I never thought I’d hear from them.” She drew in a long slow breath and watched him.
Andre was a big guy: thick almost everywhere, from his neck to his shoulders and arms, his midsection, and his legs. He seemed to be a massive wall of human man. He had short hair and rounded cheeks, and a usually serious and stoic expression. There were no smile lines on his face anywhere, but neither were there frown lines.
He frowned slightly. “What is that?” he asked blinking as he peered at her.
“What is what?” she asked him back.
“Surro… whatever you said. What is that?” he repeated with slightly more clarification.
She swallowed again. She didn’t know why she had thought that she might be able to talk to him about possibly taking on the job that Cara had called her for to carry another man’s baby when she knew he wouldn’t even like it if she went out with one of her best friends to help her find a guy. He was jealous and insecure, and carrying another man’s child was at the extreme end of the scale.
Jamaica cleared her throat and answered him. “It’s surrogate. It means that another couple would hire me to go to a doctor and the doctor would put the couple’s fetus in me, and I would carry their baby for them until I gave birth to it, and then I would give them the baby and they would pay me, and then I would be done
with it. I’m also signed up for in-vitro fertilization, and that means that I would have to contribute the egg, and carry the baby, and then when the baby is born I would give it to the couple and be paid.”
She waited as she sat there in her chair and watched him work out everything she had told him in his own mind. His brow sank lower and lower on his forehead as his eyes narrowed menacingly. “Wait a minute… you said you might have to contribute the egg. Does that mean the kid would be half yours?”
She nodded subtly. “Yes. Biologically it would be half mine, but the agreement going in is that I would give it up to the couple and not see it again. These are procedures that are done for couples who for one reason or another cannot have their own children. I’d be helping someone else have a family.”
When she spoke the words aloud, the deeper meaning of what she was considering doing touched her heart, and she remembered that there was a lot more to it than just being paid a large amount of money. There was the fact that she was helping to create a life and a legacy for a couple who could not have children without her help. It was selfless, caring, and compassionate work. She felt a surge of pride and goodness rise up in her.
Andre sat up in his chair and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked at her. “You’re telling me that you want to get pregnant with some other guy’s kid, and you’re going to carry it for nine months, and it may or may not be your kid, and when it’s born, you’re going to give it up to them, they’re going to pay you for it, and you are going to just give up the kid like that and let them take it away and you’re going to take your money and leave, and that’s it?” he asked, his dark eyes locked on her.
Jamaica nodded. “Yes, that’s pretty much it.”
He shook his head. “I’m not having it. I’m not having my girl getting knocked up by some strange dude and carrying his kid around and then giving birth to it. You’d probably want to keep it then and that would be a huge mess. Chicks don’t like giving up their kids once they have them. It’s not happening.”
Andre was adamant. A series of emotions flashed through Jamaica. She was miffed that he would tell her what to do. She was proud of wanting to do it. She was afraid of doing it. She was angry that he was so defiant and unwilling to even consider it. She was uncertain of how much his opinion in what she did with her life and her body should really matter to her. She was many things, positive, negative, and almost the full spectrum in between.
“Andre, you can’t do that. You can’t tell me what to do with my body and my life. You’re my boyfriend, not my owner. We’re not even engaged.” Her mouth formed a solid line as she looked back at him.
“So, what… you’re saying that you definitely want to do this? You want to have some other guy’s kid? What if you and I do get engaged? Huh? What then? I don’t want kids. I don’t ever want to have kids, and here you are sitting here telling me that you’re about ready to go off and have some other dude’s kid! How do you think I’m going to react to that?” his voice grew sharp and loud.
She sat up straight and lifted her chin. “I expect you to talk with me about it like a mature adult. We haven’t discussed our future because you won’t discuss it with me. Every time I bring it up you change the subject and you don’t want to talk about it. So now we’re talking about it, so let’s discuss it. You just said you don’t want to have kids. So… is that like, ever? You never ever want to have kids? No family for you?”
Her heart was beginning to pound and her blood started to rush through her. She hadn’t considered that he was never going to want children.
“No, I don’t ever want kids. I want you and that’s it. Just us. I’m not even sure I want to get married, but that’s nothing that we need to talk about right now. That’s something we can leave for later. Right now, we’re talking about you having some other guy’s kid. I don’t want kids. Not now, not ever. I don’t want to be a father. I don’t want to be with some chick who has kids from another guy. I ain’t raisin’ no other guy’s kids. So that gives us a problem. Let’s say you take this crazy-ass job that you’re thinking about and you get knocked up for this guy… God, it’s like being a hooker, like being a prostitute almost… you’re getting paid to have some guy’s kid. Anyway… let’s say you get knocked up for the money and then at the end you decide you want to keep the kid. Where does that leave us? It leaves us broken up and done, ‘cuz I already told you, I ain’t raisin’ no one else’s kid. You’re my woman, and you need to keep your body here at home for me. I can’t even believe you’re thinking about doing this. It’s the craziest thing I ever heard of.” He shook his head in disgust and looked away from her as if he couldn’t stand to have her in his sight.
She felt fire beginning to burn within her. “I can’t believe you don’t ever want to have kids, and I can’t believe that you’re having such a hard time wrapping your stubborn head around this. I told you, I don’t keep the baby. It’s agreed upon and all settled at the beginning. I’m just carrying it for them to help them. That’s all. Some women have a hard time with pregnancy and they can’t carry their own babies, so they hire someone else to do it for them. That’s all that I would be doing… Helping out another couple. Carrying their baby for them and then giving it to them when it’s born. They take the baby, I take the money, and that’s it. There’s nothing else after that. I only signed up for it in college because I needed the money then, and I didn’t want to have any student loans or debt or anything, and I definitely didn’t want to have a kid back then; I was focused on school.”
He turned and looked sharply at her, and she went on with what she was telling him. “And by the way, it does not make me a prostitute, or anything like one. How dare you talk to me like that! I’d be getting paid to help them have a baby, and there is nothing at all wrong with that. Actually, it’s a noble thing to do. You’re making it sound cheap, and it isn’t. I don’t want you to worry about this at all. If I do decide to do it, you’re not going to be troubled at all, you’re not going to be saddled with someone else’s baby, you’re not going to be inconvenienced whatsoever! So I don’t even know what your problem with it is!”
Andre narrowed his eyes more at her. “Oh, I’ll be inconvenienced. My woman will be knocked up. You’ll be going through a whole pregnancy and I’ll have to deal with that, and I shouldn’t have to deal with that. I never wanted a pregnant chick. What am I supposed to do with you in the bedroom while you’re pregnant? You going to be giving me head for nine months? You going to be pleasing me and just holding back for yourself? Because I’ll tell you something, I’m not about to screw my chick while she’s carrying some other guy’s kid. That’s disgusting. I’m not going anywhere near you like that, and that is inconvenient as hell for me, because I’m not going nine months without some satisfaction from you, but I’m sure as hell not going to be in between your legs for anything!”
She felt sick to her stomach. She knew that there was no way around intimacy and being pregnant with another couple’s baby. He had a point and there was no argument to it. Things would be different between them in the bedroom if she was pregnant. “You know,” she began in a quiet voice, “as I understand it, women can have sex while they’re pregnant, so if you don’t want to be with me during the pregnancy, then that’s your own choice, but it’s not something that we’d have to stop doing unless you wanted to stop. That’s all on you.”
He shook his head and sneered. “I’m not doing it. No way. You got some other guy all up in you like that, I’m staying out until it’s done and gone. That’s disgusting,” he reiterated.
She sighed and looked away. “I haven’t even decided whether or not I’m going to do it. I told the lady that I’d meet with her tonight, but I wanted to talk with you before I saw her. I only put myself in the program to begin with because I needed the money. I don’t need the money now, but it would be really nice to have it, and nine months doesn’t seem like it would be that long. I think it would fly right by.”
&
nbsp; He sat in angry silence for a long while and then looked over at her. “I can’t even believe you’re considering this. How much money is it anyway? What amount of money would even make you think about doing something that sick?”
She turned her head toward him and spoke with a poker face. “Five hundred thousand dollars,” she answered in a level tone.
He froze and stared at her. Birds chirped in the trees above them. Cars sounded in the distance of streets a short distance away. “Five hundred thousand dollars?” he repeated in disbelief. “You’re telling me that some guy is going to pay you a half a million dollars to carry his kid around for nine months?”
She turned her head away from him and looked out at the street before her home. “Yes.”
Andre whistled long and low, shaking his head as he sat back in the chair. “Well now… that might be a little bit different,” he said quietly. Looking back at her he raised his chin a little.
“So, you go to the doctor, they put the fetus in you, you carry it around for nine months, have the kid, they take the kid right away, and they give you half a million dollars.” He said it slowly and purposefully, as if he didn’t want to leave any part of it out.
Jamaica looked back at him. “That’s exactly it.”
He gave a nod. “All right then, you can do it, but only if you never bring that kid here, and only if you get paid that money. You bring the money home to us, and you make sure you get rid of that kid as soon as it’s out of your body. You do that, and I’ll be okay with it. I still ain’t touching you while you’re knocked up, but you can do it. You have my permission.”
She glared hotly at him. “I don’t need your permission!” she snapped at him.
He stood up and shot her a nasty look. “You do if you want to keep me around,” he said quietly, and then he turned and walked off of the porch and down the sidewalk to his car. She watched him go, seething inside as she watched his car disappear.
The Billionaire's Twin Fever (MANHATTAN BACHELORS Book 1) Page 20
