“What will happen to the horse?” I asked. “Will he freeze?”
Poor horse. He was cute.
Connor shook his head. “He’s perfectly safe in his stall,” he promised me. “He’s going to be just fine. There’s a gas heater in there. I turned it on last night.”
“You got up?” I asked.
He nodded. “You eventually fell asleep.”
“Isn’t the horse still cold? And hungry?”
I didn’t want that horse’s death on my conscience. He didn’t deserve any of this.
“He’s fine,” Connor repeated. “Horses are a lot tougher than us.”
I sighed. “Well then, what do we do?” I asked. “We need to get back. I need to get home.”
Connor frowned so deeply a little line appeared between his bright blue eyes. “How about we have some breakfast first before tackling that problem?”
My stomach growled. Fair point. I was hungry. “Is there food here?”
“Yes. Sit.”
“I’m not a dog, Connor,” I snapped. “Sit. Stay. Have a baby,” I mimicked sarcastically. “Jesus Christ, don’t you have any manners?”
“Sit, please,” he amended. He actually looked halfway chastened.
Connor pointed at the bed and I sat down on it obediently and wrapped a blanket around myself and glared.
“I want to go home,” I said, watching him poke around in the kitchen irritably. “How long are we going to be trapped here together?”
Connor shrugged. “Probably not that long. I’m sure Luc and Jimmy will start looking for us soon. They won’t find us as long as it’s snowing, but as soon as it clears up, they’ll see the smoke from the chimney…”
“Where are we? Are we close to the road?” I asked. I didn’t want to set foot in Connor’s creepy-ass castle ever again.
“We’re about midway from the house to the main road.”
“I almost made it,” I said. My voice was wistful. “I almost got away.”
“You almost died.” Connor said. He’d located some coffee and a bag of oatmeal and was staring at me again with that undecipherable face. “Do you still want to get away from me?”
“Connor, what do you think?” I asked him. “We wouldn’t be out here right now if I was a happy little surrogate, would we?”
He looked away. “Do you want some oatmeal and coffee?” he asked instead. “It’s all we’ve got other than some beef jerky. Oh, and Slick.”
I nodded. “Sure.” Then paused. “Slick?”
“Slick is the horse.”
“We aren’t eating that horse.”
“If you insist.”
He was probably joking, but I didn’t want to chance it. There was a gun on the wall and an awful lot of knives in the kitchenette. This was a hunting cabin.
I was glad we weren’t talking about my imminent departure from Connor’s shitty boredom castle. If he didn’t want to talk about it, then neither did I. I’m sure my feelings were completely obvious at the moment. We lapsed into quiet.
“Do you really want to leave?” he asked, totally ruining the silence. “Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay?”
I nibbled on my lower lip and stared at him. He was standing there, making me breakfast, and being, well not totally normal, but normal for him. More normal than I’d ever seen him. If he’d been like this from the start, and talked to me, maybe things would be different. But as it was… “I don’t see how I can stay. You treat me like an object. And not one you particularly like.”
“Is this because I scared you?” He asked. “Because I yelled at you?”
I shook my head. “Only a bit. Mostly it’s because you’re treating me like a broodmare.”
“I am?” He raised an eyebrow. “Slick out there? His mother was a broodmare. I guarantee I’m treating you better than her. She didn’t have the chef.”
I sucked in my breath. “I don’t want a chef. I want freedom. I have no freedom in that house, and I’m lonely.”
“Of course, you have freedom.” He was staring at me like he honestly didn’t understand my concerns.
“Of course, I do?” I exclaimed. “Where have you even been these last three weeks that you’ve been seeing me have this incredible freedom? I’ve been climbing up the walls. I feel like I’ve been under house arrest. I have nobody to talk to. The WiFi only works like a third of the time. And Luc and Jimmy are driving me nuts. I can’t do this. I can’t just sit around and grow a baby. I’m not an incubator. I’m a person.”
Connor swallowed. He was cooking now. I was surprised he could cook. Then again, he’d been in the military. They probably taught him. They were probably also the ones that taught him how to ride a horse, track someone through the snow, and stitch up a wound. “I never meant to treat you like an incubator.” His voice was mild, like I was the one who was unreasonable. “I know you’re a person.”
“I have to be free,” I told Connor. “This isn’t working. I know you wanted a certain type of surrogate. One who would obediently sit around for nine months and make a baby. But I’m not that girl. I don’t think she exists, but if she does, you didn’t find her. I can’t sit around all day. It’s making me crazy. I hope you understand that a crazy surrogate is worse than a busy one.”
“What can I do to make you happier?” he asked.
I gaped at him. “Now you’re open to compromise?”
“I don’t want you to leave,” he said, stirring the oatmeal as insolently as someone can stir oatmeal. “I’m willing to compromise if it means you might stay.” He sighed. “Tell me your demands.”
“You make it sound like I’m holding you hostage.”
“Aren’t you?” he groused.
God, he was so fucking immature. I wanted to punch him in his pretty, immature face. If I could even reach it. He was probably too tall. I’d need a stepladder.
“No,” I snapped. “You were holding me prisoner. All I’m asking for is some basic, human freedoms.”
“Well, I’m listening now,” he replied. He still sounded irritated. “I want you to stay. I never meant to get in such a big fight with you last night. I didn’t realize you were so unhappy or angry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I made assumptions and they were wrong. So yes, I’m listening to you right now, Isabelle.”
I blinked. “Well, that’s a start.”
19
Connor
The Negotiation
Being trapped in a tiny, remote cabin with a beautiful, desirable, tantalizingly underdressed woman was a reliable old fantasy of mine, but not like this. Never like this. Isabelle was as frustrating as she was tempting, and I had to avoid scaring her or pissing her off if I was going to have any chance of getting what I wanted.
Which wasn’t sex. It wasn’t. Okay, it partially was. But mostly it was Isabelle’s cooperation with the contract.
I’d maybe slept for twenty minutes last night. I was officially running on empty. Couple that with an aching ankle, fresh set of stitches, not enough food, and the sexual frustration of Isabelle’s warm, soft body pressed up against mine all night, and I could barely function.
“I need to be able to come and go as I please,” she repeated. She was wearing my shirt—another complicating factor—and she picked at the hem uncomfortably. “And eat what I want. Whatever I want. Look. I know neither of us were expecting me to take the half-price surrogacy option within the first month, but I think it’s better.”
“It’s not better.” I sighed. “It’s not better at all.”
I had a whole plan for Isabelle’s pregnancy. She needed an optimal environment. I’d done a lot of research, consulted some very excellent doctors, and even had a comprehensive menu, exercise plan, and activity plan written up. But apparently, I’d underestimated the social needs of a young, healthy woman. “You have a boyfriend you miss, don’t you?” I paused. “Or maybe a girlfriend,” I admitted.
She blinked at me in shock. “What?”
“That’s why you’re being like this, is
n’t it?” I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Of course. It was the obvious answer. She missed him. I was keeping her away from him, and she was furious.
Her eyes narrowed. They flashed angrily at me. “No. I don’t have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, although that’s not really my thing anyway,” she stuttered. “You’re a jerk, Connor Prince.”
I was. I was a jerk. Everyone said so. It must be true.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I don’t care. You can tell me. I never said you couldn’t have a significant other.” I shrugged my shoulders and it only seemed to make her angrier.
She hissed in her breath. “Oh really? How generous,” she said sarcastically. “Well, for your information, I don’t have a boyfriend. Believe it or not, I barely even have regular friends. But I still can’t live in total isolation. Don’t you understand? I’m lonely. And I’m sick of kale.”
“Lonely?” I hadn’t meant to make her lonely. The kale I wasn’t that worried about. But I knew loneliness would be bad for Isabelle. She might get depressed.
“Yes. Lonely. Do you even know what that is?” she asked. Her head was cocked to the side like she was staring at an alien.
“In theory, sure.”
I didn’t understand though. I didn’t have friends either, not beyond Luc and Jimmy, but I wasn’t lonely. After the life I’d led, I liked my solitude. I needed it. But I wasn’t incapable of empathy. I could understand that a twenty-three-year-old woman might have different social needs than the ones I had. Or didn’t have. Whatever.
“In theory?” She shook her head. She’d let her hair out of the braids last night, and the soft brown curls bounced over her narrow shoulders. “I don’t even want to know.” Her eyes looked at the window, still displaying whiteout conditions, and then back to me. “Just let me leave. I can deal with the half payment.”
“I can’t.” I shook my head. “I just can’t.
“Well, it isn’t up to you.” Her expression closed down. Her mouth twisted into a frown. “I don’t want to live here for the next eight months. I refuse to live under your thumb.”
“The contract—”
“Fuck your contract, Connor,” she snapped. “I won’t do it.”
I spread my hands peacefully. “I was going to say that the contract can be modified.”
She blinked. “Modified how?”
“However you need it modified to give you more freedom,” I said. “But I want you to stay here, live here. I want you to try and stick to my plan for the pregnancy as much as possible. But I see now that it was too restrictive to demand that every trip get my permission.”
Her mouth dropped open. She gaped at me for a full ten seconds before answering. “I could come and go as I pleased? Go down to the town? Visit my dad? Eat Cheetos.”
“As much as you want.” I sighed. “Just promise you’ll come back here at the end of the day. And maybe don’t eat too many Cheetos. Maybe, like, eat an apple now and then. And still take your prenatal vitamins…”
“How much is it going to cost me to do it this way? Because if it’s close to the half price discount deal, I might as well—”
“I’ll still pay you the same.” I swallowed. This wasn’t how I wanted it, but at least if she was here, I could keep an eye on her. The idea of her leaving made me feel ill. “Just stay.”
She stared at me in disbelief. “Why would you do this? Why would you give me my freedom now? You were paying a premium to make me stay here in your cage until the baby came.”
“I never meant it to be a cage.” I sighed. “I just want you here.”
“So that you can ignore me and let me go slowly crazy.”
“No. So I can keep you safe. Keep the baby safe.”
“Because you don’t trust me to keep myself safe. And you definitely don’t trust me to keep the baby safe.” She stared at me like I was a jailer. But I wasn’t. I was just trying to protect her. And the baby.
“The world is dangerous,” I told her.
Isabelle stared at me. “Fine. But retreating from the world and refusing to live is worse.”
I laughed. “That’s incredibly naïve. Who told you that?” I shook my head at her.
“My mom did. As she was dying.” Isabelle got up and walked out into the snow. “I need some time to think.”
“Don’t go far.”
“Where the hell would I go? It’s a blizzard out there.” Isabelle’s voice was resigned. She looked out the window longingly.
She was right though. I let her go. She couldn’t run away in a blizzard. The farthest she could go was Slick’s stall.
20
Isabelle
The Horse
Slick wasn’t a horse-flavored popsicle. He was completely fine in his little stall. Just like Connor said, he had a gas heater, food, and water. He whinnied lightly when I came out to visit him. At least somebody was in a good mood. Because I wasn’t.
“Hi there, Slick,” I said to him. “If I knew how to ride you, we’d leave Connor here and make for the road, blizzard or no blizzard. We’d ride off into the sunset and be free.”
Slick lifted his big head and looked sidelong at me. He was really a pretty horse. Very beautiful. Very large. Very wild. Very dangerous. Just like Connor.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to do it,” I told Slick. “I don’t know the first thing about horses and it’s snowing.” He continued to stare at me. Was he skeptical? Can a horse even be skeptical? “Look, I know you’d probably throw me off and kill me. Connor, who knows how to ride, got hurt riding your evil horsey butt in the snow. I’m not that dumb.”
I wished I had something to offer Slick as a treat for listening to me babble. But I didn’t have anything. I extended my hand though, and he pressed his soft mouth against my fingers and made a snuffling noise. It tickled.
“I made a few impulsive choices over the past twenty-four hours,” I told Slick when he got tired of my hand. “Bad ones. Dangerous ones. I could have gotten myself really hurt. Or I could have hurt the baby. I know that was dumb. I just wanted to get out of here.”
My body felt drained. I leaned against the side of the stall, hoping that I hadn’t done anything to put the pregnancy at risk. I felt fine now, and the pregnancy was so new, but who knows? Pregnancies, especially new ones, can be delicate. Worry twisted in my gut.
“I never meant to put the baby at risk,” I told the horse. For some reason it was much easier to be honest with him than with Connor. But mostly, I just really needed to talk to someone. After two weeks of house arrest, I’d probably talk to a stuffed animal. “I wouldn’t do that. I would never do anything to hurt it. Ever. Also, I shouldn’t call the baby ‘it.’ I think it’s a girl,” I said. “I don’t know how I know that it’s a girl, I just know.” I shook my head. “She’s a girl.”
Slick didn’t reply, since he was a horse. I just kept talking.
“I like babies,” I told him. “I thought doing this would be a good way to connect with my mom, you know? She loved all babies and kids so much. I miss her. I can’t believe she’s been gone for so long. Half a year already.” I fought back tears. “I think she would like that I agreed to this. She would want me to help someone have a family who couldn’t do it on his own. She’s not like my dad about people. Not at all. She believed that people can change. She wouldn’t judge Connor by what the internet says about him. She would say that if he wants to start a family then he should. Even if he is scary. Even if he almost killed someone that one time. That’s in the past and he’s paid his consequences long ago. I should help him now. Right?”
Slick looked at me compassionately. At least, I thought his expression was compassionate. He could have just needed to poop. I wouldn’t know the difference.
“I thought I could use the money and maybe start a practical effects company of my own,” I told Slick. “She’d like that. And my dad would like it too. And I’d be good at it.” I sighed. “I don’t want to see practical effects disa
ppear. CG is great and all, but there’s something about seeing and interacting with something real. It’s better. I thought this was such a good plan.”
Slick bobbed his head up and down like he thought it was a good plan.
“You don’t know this, because you’re a horse, but I’m good at what I do. I like it. I make things with my hands and my imagination and then they get put in movies. You know, like monsters and aliens? I make big puppet monsters out of foam, and paper mâché, and 3D printing. My dad is better at it than I am, but he’s not a good businessman. You think I’m impulsive?” I giggled. “He’s impulsive. I’m the level-headed one. Actually, my mom was the level-headed one. But she’s gone. So, I have to become better. I’ve got to see this through. I guess I’ll give this one more try.”
Slick didn’t react to my long, emotional monologue. But his eyes twinkled.
“He’s good looking, isn’t he?” I asked Slick. “Connor, I mean. He’s something. I hope the baby gets his looks. He wouldn’t need a girl like me to have his baby if he’d wash his hair and shave once in a while. And maybe work on his manners. I wonder what happened to him? I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s not my job to fix him.” I shifted uncomfortably. It was getting cold and I should go inside. “None of that matters. I’m just here to do a job. Better not to think of him like that, huh?” I laughed at myself. “Nothing is ever going to happen. I’m just an incubator to him. Plus, he’s dangerous. I’m as scared of him as I am attracted to him. He’s an attempted murderer. Or he was.” I took a deep breath. “Do you think I should stay here?” I asked Slick. “Do I try this again? Live here in Connor’s creepy-ass castle until the baby comes?”
“I think you should,” Connor said, and I whipped around. He was wrapped in the thermal blanket, since I was wearing his clothes. He looked even more wild and feral than usual standing in the snow. He’d found extra boots somewhere in the cabin. And he’d been listening. How long had he been listening? “Also, my castle is not creepy. Also, do you really think it’s a girl?”
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