by Mia Carson
“How else do you want me to proceed with meeting you?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light. “It’s up to you, now, to decide if you want to meet. I’m willing to discuss the details of the arrangement, as I did with Bridget.”
He waited impatiently for her to make up her mind, wondering if she’d changed it and didn’t want to do it. If she said no, he would have to start all over again and find another woman who fit what he wanted. If she said yes, he could at least see what this Evelyn Turner woman was about. The day out might do him some good, anyway.
“How about you take the day,” he said when she didn’t reply, “and think it over. I’ll give you my cell number and you can call me, but don’t take too long.”
“Why? You have other women lining up to have your kid?” she asked, and he felt the look of disbelief she had to be wearing.
“No, but if you say no, I’ll have to start looking again.”
“Right, because women find it so hard to be taken in by a local billionaire family,” she mused, but her words were far from snarky. His fingers tapped against the desk again as he scowled. What was her damn voice doing to him? “Alright, give me ‘til tonight and I’ll give you an answer then.”
He rattled off his number and said he would be available to take her call any time. “And be sure to keep those letters away from prying eyes,” he reminded her.
“I will, don’t worry. Can I just ask you something?”
He smirked as he said, “You already did.”
“Ha, you’re a funny guy,” she said with a laugh. “Why does a guy like you need to do this to have a kid? Why not do it the old-fashioned way?”
Bridget had asked him the same question the first time they met, and he hadn’t told her the truth. He wasn’t going to tell some strange woman his darkest secrets over the phone.
“I have my reasons. Call me with your answer,” he said shortly and hung up.
He swiveled in his chair, staring at the name he’d jotted down on the notepad. Evelyn Turner. He’d spent a long time researching the other woman ready to have his baby for him through insemination. He had never planned to take the baby away from its mother, but he wasn’t going to tie himself to someone he couldn’t stand.
Now, though, he wasn’t prepared to spend months meeting with this Evelyn to decide if she was right or not. He’d meet with her, if she called him back, and hopefully, get the process going quickly. Thirty was not the age he wanted to start having kids, but he wasn’t ready to give up on his dream. Not if a chance remained that he could make this work. He pushed back from his desk and pulled out his cell as he paced to the windows. The yard was bustling with activity as men went about their business and trucks lumbered back and forth. If he weren’t careful, this would be his everyday life. No family to go home to. No child to leave a legacy to as his dad had, and his dad before him. The family line would end with him, and that was a weight growing heavier every damn time his parents asked him about settling down.
“Can’t believe I’m going to go through this again,” he muttered and hit his friend’s number on the screen. It rang a few times before Tucker answered, gruff and grumpier than usual. “This a bad time?” Viktor asked smirking.
“It’s always a bad time. Sit down and shut up,” he yelled away from the mouthpiece. “I don’t care. You were caught with it, you’re going to jail for it. Damn, I swear, these assholes get dumber every day.”
“Usually,” he said. “Listen, you can call me back.”
“Nah, it’s good. He’s cuffed. What did you need, man?”
“Background and whatever else you can give me on a woman,” he said.
“Is this another one for the kid thing?”
Viktor affirmed his guess. Tucker was the one person he trusted with this conundrum. It was the only way he got his friend to help him out—that he tell the truth about what type of game he was playing. “Yeah, hope so. The first one, Bridget? She died in a car accident.”
“Damn, I’m sorry, man. I knew you were really excited about her working out.”
He had been, but he pushed his grief aside and told Tucker the name of the new woman. “I know you’re busy, so just whenever you can. It’s not a guarantee I’m even going to meet her.”
“Evelyn Turner. She lives in town, right?”
“You don’t know her?” he asked, surprised. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if Tucker did know her, at least he’d have a reference for her from someone he trusted.
“Not sure, name sounds familiar. I’ll get back to you tonight with what I find,” Tucker said before he yelled at whomever he’d arrested. “Sorry, man, I gotta get this joker to county.”
“Thanks, Tucker. Stay safe,” he told his friend.
“Ha, the day one of these punks gets the drop on me, I’ll have to retire. Later, man.”
Viktor hung up and tucked his cell in his pocket. He made a note to find Bridget’s grave and send flowers to be placed on it. He might not have had a real relationship with the woman, but she’d agreed to be the mother of his child. She deserved to be remembered by him in some way. For now, he’d try to get through his day, wondering if Evelyn would call him back.
***
When late afternoon rolled around, Viktor was getting ready to do his usual walk through the labor yard when his cell rang. He pulled it out and answered. “Hartmann.”
“Hey, it’s Tucker.”
Viktor heard the squeak of a chair. Must be back at the sheriff’s office. “So, find anything? She’s not crazy, is she? Have a record?”
“Not a bad one. It’s the first thing that popped up when I searched her name, but I also remembered why it sounded familiar,” he told him. “She’s the girl who bought that old rundown mansion outside of Bangor.”
“Why the hell would she do that?”
“No idea. They don’t exactly put that in my records,” Tucker deadpanned.
“Right, and the other thing that popped up?”
“She’s been an orphan since she was six. Bounced around a bit, it looks like. The adoption record is sealed,” Tucker said. “This girl, whoever she is, her life hasn’t been easy.”
And he was asking her to have his baby. She sounded fine on the phone, but that didn’t mean anything. “See what else you can find and let me know, Tucker.”
“Will do. Just do me a favor?”
“What?”
Tucker sighed into the phone and grumbled something under his breath. “Just don’t push too hard with this one, alright? People who grew up in foster care… They don’t always have it so good. And you can tell.”
Viktor tugged at his beard in thought. He knew Tucker spoke from experience. “I’ll be careful, don’t worry.”
“Good, that’s good. I’ll call you later, then,” he said gruffly and hung up.
Viktor knew Tucker had been in the system since he was a baby, and there were still days he didn’t talk about what he went through. All Viktor knew was that the man had had a rough life, but he’d turned out damn fine for it. He would reserve judgment for Evelyn until he met her, but if her resolve was half of what Tucker’s was… His worries about her being a good mom and good partner for this deal started to slip away.
Chapter 3
Around nine o’clock, pacing miserably back and forth as she watched the furnace decide if it were going to break on her again, she squeezed her cell tighter before finally unlocking the screen and dialing the number Viktor had given her. Why she was calling him back, she had no idea—besides the fact that she was desperate.
In truth, his rough voice—the way he sounded genuinely upset to hear that Bridget was dead—it tugged at her heart, and she couldn’t get it out of her head. He was the first billionaire she’d ever talked to, and he was nothing like she expected. How bad could it be to talk to him? She had worried all afternoon about what that would really mean for her. As much as she wanted to be a mom one day, she knew it would take far too long for her to trust a man long enough to h
ave a solid relationship. Then there was her other problem, but that was something Viktor never had to know about.
“Hello?”
“Viktor, hi,” she stammered when he answered, dragging her from her more embarrassing musings. “It’s not too late for you, is it?”
“No,” he said, but he stifled a yawn. “I take it you’ve decided?”
“Yes, I… uh, I would like to meet with you. What days are good for you this week?” she forced herself to ask while trying to get her hands to stop shaking. She’d hoped her nerves would take longer to kick in, but she’d never met with strange men, let alone a strange man whose baby she was considering having. Panic swelled, and she thought about hanging up, but then he spoke.
“Any day works for me. My schedule’s flexible. What about you?”
Flustered with the question thrown back at her, she hurried to the kitchen and her calendar. “Um… Right, you run your own company. How about tomorrow? I only work one job in the evening.”
He was quiet for so long she thought he had hung up. “You work two jobs?”
“Yeah. Don’t have much of a choice,” she said, immediately defensive. “Some of us weren’t born into a family like yours, you know. Some of us have had it rough and do what we have to.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, annoyed. “Just asking a question. Besides—just so you have an understanding of what exactly you will be getting yourself into—if you grew up in this town, you know my family tends to be in the limelight.”
She wasn’t sure she liked where he was going with this, but said she knew of them.
“Good. Then it won’t come as a surprise that if you agree to this, you and your life will be in that limelight with me,” he told her in that rough voice she was coming to like, despite how it rubbed her the wrong way when he talked to her like a child. “If there’s anything about your life you don’t want found out, just warning you now, it’ll probably be found out.”
“Oh, and I suppose you’re going to do all the searching?” she muttered.
“No. I have people for that,” he replied, and she heard the smirk in his tone.
“Right, thanks for telling me that you’re basically digging into my life with a fine-toothed comb.” She gritted her teeth and mentally cursed herself for thinking this was a good idea.
Viktor chuckled lightly, the sound warming her in places she forgot she had. “I’m not telling you to scare you off. Just being honest. Can you blame me?”
She really couldn’t. Memories of some of her foster homes flashed through her mind, and her whole body seized with sudden panic. She sucked in air and fumbled with her phone. It clattered to the floor and she heard Viktor on the other end asking if she were alright, but she couldn’t get the words to leave her mouth. After a tense moment of reminding herself she was a grown woman and safe from all that shit, she picked up her cell.
“Yeah, sorry. Clumsy,” she muttered. “Where would you like to meet?”
“How about my office?” he suggested.
Evelyn’s heart thudded louder in her chest. His office, where he worked—where they would be completely alone in a room together. She swallowed hard. “Can we meet somewhere else, maybe? Somewhere a bit more public?”
He grumbled under his breath, but she didn’t catch it. “There’s a café near the center of town. Moosehead? How about there around noon?”
“Got it. I guess I’ll see you there, then,” she said lamely. “I’ll let you go so you can go to bed.”
He laughed again, and she closed her eyes, lost in the sound. “I’m not that old, Evelyn.”
Evelyn smiled. It was the first time he’d said her name, and it flowed across her in the weirdest way until she shook her head and forced herself back to reality. She was over-stressed, that’s all. Nothing more.
“No. No, I guess you’re not. See you tomorrow,” she said before she could say anything else stupid. His age had been mentioned in one of the letters, so she had no need to ask.
The night was still young for her, and since she was off work tomorrow, she knew it was going to be a long night of pacing her new house, listening to music, and wondering what grand scheme she’d managed to get herself tangled up in. She thought of calling Ajay, but he would freak out, and she had promised Viktor she wouldn’t tell anyone about the letters. Evelyn never broke her word, not after having others do it so many times to her.
***
Evelyn didn’t fall asleep until nearly four in the morning and spent the little time she had before meeting Viktor pacing restlessly around her house. He’d texted her, telling her what he’d be wearing so she could find him, and she pictured a very different man than what she’d first assumed. Though this version matched the rough, deep voice instead of a man in a suit.
Red flannel and jeans, that’s what he told her he’d be wearing. Flannel. He also mentioned he had a black beard, so hopefully she would be able to pick him out of the crowd. The café was large and part of an inside shopping area mainly visited by tourists. If she got there early enough, she hoped to scope him out first and give herself time to get over the panic building in her chest.
Meeting new people was not something Evelyn did for fun. She’d had enough of being thrown into a strange person’s house and expected to fit right in and be the perfect child, no matter how terrible it was. Some people should not be allowed around kids, and she had met her fair share of them. She wanted to think she’d let most of that time in her life go, but certain things stuck with her, no matter what she did, and that included her distrust of strangers.
After she parked down the street and stomped down the snow-covered sidewalk, she made sure to keep her eyes peeled for a flannel-wearing, bearded man. She went in through the shopping entrance and wandered slowly through the small crowd—mostly locals, this time of year—and checked her watch. She had about fifteen minutes until he was supposed to be there, so she found a bench out of the way though still in line with the doors.
Her fingers itched to break every nail she had painstakingly painted dark red last night. She finally shoved her hands in her wool coat pockets and glanced around the crowd, debating her decision again.
A baby. Was she ready for that? She’d worried for a long time if she would ever make a good mother, dealing with what she had. She hid scars deep down that only Ajay and her foster parents knew about. Diana and Daniel Turner took in at least six kids at a time and loved them all unconditionally, no matter where they came from. Their home had been the first she was in where she actually felt love—how real parents treated their children—and she had not been easy to deal with when they first took her in.
Kids laughed around her, and she smiled, watching their happy faces as they held hands with their moms and dads, strolling through the shops. She wanted that someday. A little boy or girl she could love who loved her back unconditionally.
Her gaze passed around the shops, and she froze when red flannel caught her eye. The temperature barely hit thirty-five outside and the man wasn’t wearing a coat, but he was definitely wearing a red flannel shirt and jeans. From her position on the bench, she could see how the flannel clung to his broad chest and big shoulders and the jeans hugged his legs as if they were stuck. She knew she was ogling him but her eyes refused to look anywhere else. The beard covered most of his face, but it fit his tall frame well, jet black and perfectly groomed.
She wasn’t sure if she looked good enough for this man and pulled her long braid over her shoulder, running her hands over it nervously. He pulled out his cell and checked it but didn’t look her way, not yet. She’d told him what she’d be wearing, but there were a lot of people passing between them.
Not too late to sneak off into the crowd, she thought, tugging harder on her braid. He’ll never know, and you can text him and say you had car trouble. And maybe that it’s not the right time for you, anyway.
Her feet shifted, ready to bolt, when another voice whispered through her mind.
&nbs
p; Since when did you become a quitter? Are you going to be like your parents and give up every time a good opportunity throws itself in your lap?
The thought made her blood run cold, and her hands dropped her braid, falling to her lap. Was she going to be like her real parents? Diana had told her time and again Evelyn would never be like the woman who’d given birth to her. Too much good resided in her to fall like that, and she was too damn stubborn to give up so easily. But in that moment, she was letting her doubts get the better of her. Evelyn’s stomach twisted in knots, and she fidgeted on the bench. To stay or run?
God, why did I think I could handle something like this? I’ll never be able to trust the man!
Not sure if she should stay but too scared to get up and leave, Evelyn remained on the bench, watching the man through the shifting bodies of the crowd. He nodded and smiled at those who waved at him but didn’t talk to anyone long. Several women glanced his way and sidled up close to him, sending a hot spike of jealousy through Evelyn. The feeling confused her, and she forced her gaze away.
It didn’t matter if other women—really pretty women—fawned over him. She wasn’t in a relationship with this man, and even if she went through with this, technically, she still wouldn’t be. She could give him nothing but a baby.
Everything else had been taken from her a long time ago.
Chapter 4
“Are you sure you’re too busy to have lunch with us?” the blonde asked again, twirling her hair and pressing herself against Viktor’s side. “I’ve heard several rumors about you.”
Viktor smiled as he pushed himself gently away from her. This was one of those times that reminded him why he hated coming into town. “Yes, well, that was a few years ago. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not that man anymore.”
“I’m sure we could help you be that kind of man,” the blonde’s friend said with a wink as she pushed up her cleavage.
Gritting his teeth, Viktor stepped back again. “Listen, ladies, really, I appreciate the attention,” he said amicably, though he hated it, “but I have a business lunch with someone and can’t be late. Maybe another time.” They tried to give him their numbers, but he pushed around them and stood in an open space in the center of the shops.
