Mister Diamond
Page 64
“Your father is driving me crazy,” Mom announced, storming into the room. “He won’t stop complaining about his diet.” She dropped her voice to imitate him. “What kind of Italian am I if I can’t eat carbs?”
I turned from the mirror and my mom halted in her tracks. She wrung her hands, eyes filling with tears.
“Baby, you look amazing!”
I went over and hugged her. “I feel amazing. I’m so glad you guys could be here.”
Mom sniffed. “If I’d known that marrying rich would mean the whole family would get flown out to some swanky mountaintop resort, I would have encouraged you to bag the guy from the start.”
“Sure you would.” I patted her back.
“This place has so many good memories for me,” Val said dreamily. “I’m glad you decided to have your wedding here. It’s like I get to experience my own wedding all over again.”
I pulled out of the hug with my mom and smiled at my best friend. “It’s like I get to experience your wedding all over again.”
“Are you ready?” Mom asked. “They’re waiting for you out there.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Let’s go.”
The walk to the ceremony space was familiar from when I did it with Valerie, except now each step was shaky and my heart raced at the prospect of what was waiting for me on the other side of the oak double doors. Mom gave me one final hug before entering the room, and soon after the music started.
Val clasped my hand. “You deserve this, Frankie.”
I squeezed it. And then she stepped through the door.
A few seconds later, so did I.
The first thing I noticed as I walked down the aisle was my gorgeous husband-to-be waiting for me with a stunning smile. Levi filled out his tux sinfully and my mind flashed with visions of tearing it off him later.
Then I noticed that Val wasn’t the only one standing on my side of the altar. I nearly tripped.
I had bridesmaids.
When the hell did I get bridesmaids? I peered at them and my mouth fell open when I recognized the first face. Olive Dennington. I went down the line, putting a name to the face of each of the seven girls.
They were my clients, all my favorite ones. By the time I finished absorbing this information, I had reached the alter, where Levi took my hand and leaned down to me.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “Literally never been better,” I said. “Just confused. Did you invite them?”
Levi’s lips turned and he gently shook his head. “They heard you were getting married and all wanted to be here.” He glanced over my head at the girls, then back at me. “You made their weddings the best day of their lives. I guess they wanted to do the same.”
I turned to face them. I scanned down the line, grinning like a maniac, and mouthed, “Thank you.”
Then I turned to the officiant, who’d been waiting patiently this whole time, and nodded. “Let’s do this thing.”
The ceremony flew by, and it felt like I rode a cloud through all the words and smiles. But when the officiant pronounced us man and wife, time narrowed down to that single second where Levi looked at me with so much love in his eyes that I thought I might burst from happiness.
And when my husband kissed me, “Careless Whisper” played in my head.
I closed my eyes and thought back to our first kiss by the fire, to the journey that had brought us together, and to the adventure that lay ahead.
I opened my eyes to a new world.
Her Baby Donor
CHANCE CARTER
Chapter 1
Casey
I groaned as I looked at the clock on my computer. 119 minutes until the evening admin assistant would be in to relieve me of the front desk.
Minute after minute, day after day, I watch as these women, these families, come in with their excitement and hope and baby bumps.
Why couldn’t I have that?
Half my high school graduating class was already settling down with the loves of their lives, and the other half were on their second or third kid. I never thought I’d have everything together by my mid-twenties, but I’d at least hoped for something, a boyfriend, a fiancé, hell, even just some man candy to help me find my way.
A tall, blonde woman jolted me from my thoughts as she tapped a perfectly-manicured fingernail on the counter.
“Excuse me,” she said, as though I was the bane of her existence.
“Welcome to 6th Street Fertility Clinic,” I said, faking a smile. “I’m Casey. What can I do for you?”
The woman pointed to her protruding belly, as if my question was too ridiculous to dignify with a response.
“Right, of course. Please sign in and take a seat.”
As she slammed the pen against the clipboard with the last swirl of her signature, I decided she was about sixteen to eighteen weeks along. Three years of working at a fertility clinic had given me a myriad of useless skills, like predicting how far along a pregnant woman was, or guessing what men on the train were sperm donors.
There was definitely a type.
I almost felt sorry for whoever the father was of this woman’s child. I’d seen it dozens of times, rich men spending tens of thousands of dollars to give their wives whatever they wanted, as long as it wasn’t the time of day.
This time, it was a child.
Next time it might be a designer poodle, or a luxury cruise, or a new sports car.
Most of the patients we saw at the clinic were actually quite nice. When women came in with their husbands, it was usually because they had been actively trying and both really wanted a child. Those were the ones I felt bad for—that they had to go the fertility route— and I wanted to see them come back several months later with a beautiful, healthy baby bump.
But some women, like the one who’d graced me with her presence on this particular day, only wanted a child as a badge of honor, a trophy to carry around.
I watched from across the waiting room as the woman—Miranda James, as her signature identified her—freshened up her makeup, a small compact mirror in hand. I imagined she was trying to hide any trace of the weird spots and pigmentation that came along with pregnancy. Without the token baby bump, most people would never guess she was pregnant. She had toned arms peeking through her paisley tunic and freshly-dyed hair, telling me she didn’t take doctors’ recommendations seriously.
“Miranda James,” I said, startling the woman, who dropped her eyeshadow palette on the ground. Despite her arrogant demeanor, I knew better than to make a pregnant woman bend down to pick something up. I rushed around the counter and swooped up her palette, setting it in her palm.
She huffed and grabbed her makeup without so much as a “thank you”. Following me up to the counter, she asked, “What do you need?”.
“I just need your copay, Miss James,” I said.
“It’s Mrs. James,” she said, throwing her credit card at me. “Here.”
The clinic had a policy of always calling patients miss. We didn’t know their personal lives—and, quite frankly, it wasn’t our business. This wasn’t the first time, and certainly wouldn’t be the last, a trophy wife had yelled at me for this exact reason. I handed the woman her credit card receipt and told her, as politely as I could, to sit back down until she was called again.
How could the Mirandas, the Traceys, the Merediths, the Tiffanys of the world look so gorgeous and put-together all the time? How did they not only manage to find Mr. Right, but find them with so much money they could buy them whatever they wanted, and so much patience they’d put up with everything they did?
I glimpsed down at my round thighs, tight against my twill pants, and sighed. Beneath the pants were a pair of overpriced panties from Victoria’s Secret that hadn’t been seen by another person in months—maybe even a year. They were the prettiest, sexiest, naughtiest pair I owned, but for all the good they did me, I might as well have been wearing a plastic bag.
What I wouldn’t give for a
strong, dashing sugar daddy to come in and sweep me off my feet, bend me over the reception desk, pull down my twenty dollar twill pants, and slide his long, hard cock deep inside me.
My job was stable, and my bosses were great, but working at a fertility clinic was hard sometimes. All of these happy couples with fairytale endings strolling in and out, day after day, as I just sat and watched them. The closest I’d come to my happily ever after was an averagely attractive boyfriend during my junior year of college. He played too many video games, and his personal hygiene wasn’t the greatest, but at least he kept me company. And at least he loved me.
Or so I thought, until I found him screwing my roommate on my bed. So that ended pretty fast. Since then, I’d been on exactly five dates. Three duds, and two mediocre one night stands.
Even my best friend, Liana, who had sworn to stay single until she was forty when I first met her seven years earlier, was now married and expecting twins. I was happy for her. She’d found a great guy who was smart and sexy and really complemented her personality. At the same time, it stung when I realized we wouldn’t be raising our kids together. With no prospects on the horizon, I was a good few years out from even the possibility of having kids.
I’ll admit that I’d considered doing what quite a few of the women who came into the clinic were doing. Having a child alone. They paid thousands of dollars for the most coveted sperm we had. Of course, these were generally wealthier women who were nearing 40 and didn’t want to go through life childless. Not only was I just 26 years old, but there was no way in hell I could afford the insemination process. I’d been on the other end. I knew all of the extra fees and hidden costs—and I knew there was no promise of success.
There were a few good-looking guys I’d kept my eye on, in case it ever did come to the point where I was seriously committed to artificial insemination with donated sperm. For now, it was just in the back of my mind. I wondered if my bosses would consider an employee discount.
I’d bet they’d never been asked that before!
I wanted a baby, badly. I wasn’t sure what it was that drew me to the idea of being a mother. Maybe it was the fact that I had no real mother figure of my own. Maybe it was that all of my friends, neighbors and colleagues were getting knocked up. Whatever it was, it ran deep. The envy that filled me on a daily basis was enough to make me dread going to work each day. If it weren’t for rent and bills and car payments and train tickets, I’d probably have left a long time ago.
I was stuck.
The bell on the door rattled, and I looked up to see a familiar face—one that I looked forward to seeing each month. His name was Alexander Preston, and I was certain he had no clue what my name was. As far as he was concerned, I was just the girl at the front desk of the clinic he visited each month to donate sperm.
To me, he was the hunkiest sperm donor I’d ever seen at the clinic. He was also number one on my list of dream sperm donors for my imaginary future child. With dark waves of hair that could make any guy envious, he looked like something straight off a magazine cover. Add in his perfectly-chiseled arms, his mess of tattoos peeking out over his starched white business shirt, his charming grin, and let’s just say I’d conjured up some pretty sexy fantasies with him in the lead role.
“Welcome to 6th Street Fertility Clinic,” I said, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. How on earth could one human be so beautiful?
“Hello. Good to see you again,” he said.
Again? He remembered me? I tried not to go into tween girl obsession mode as I asked him to take a seat. I didn’t know what the hell he did for a living, but he was wearing a suit—a form-fitting suit, I might add—that probably cost more than two months’ rent at my studio apartment. I’d never been able to figure out what exactly it was that brought him, rich and handsome as he was, to donate sperm each month, but I was thankful.
I imagined saying, “I want you inside me,” and blushed bright red just from the thought of it.
Alexander stretched his arms over his head, each bulge of muscle moving gracefully in sync. Damn. Now those were some genes I would pay good money for—if only I had some.
Chapter 2
Alexander
I made my way down the street toward the clinic, looking down at my smartphone to avoid the faces of strangers on the street. I had grown accustomed to the confused looks I got as I walked into the clinic each month, a single man with no pregnant woman—or woman at all—by my side.
“Excuse me,” I said to a man as I squeezed around him on the packed sidewalk and ducked into the clinic.
The secretary at the front desk smiled as we exchanged pleasantries. “You can take a seat,” she said. “We’ll be ready for you in just a minute.”
“Not a problem,” I said and offered a cheeky smile.
God was she perfect, with sexy curves she wasn’t afraid to show off. She wasn’t stick thin like the women who usually threw themselves at me. She was womanly, with breasts I imagined sucking on, and an ass I imagined sliding my cock into.
She was half the reason I came here every month. Just one look at her and I was spilling my cum into the plastic cup they gave me. It was the highlight of my month.
The faded blue chair embraced me as I regarded the two pregnant women and one couple seated beside me. There was something about this place that always had me reflecting on my life and what I wanted for the future. Seeing these people who so badly wanted families pulled at my heartstrings. After all, that’s why I was here in the first place. With no prospective girlfriends or wives on the horizon, I wanted to be sure that my DNA was passed down to at least a few children by other means.
With the athletic build and blue eyes that ran in my family, I’d been told more than a handful of times—mostly by happily-married housewives—that my future children would be gorgeous. I suppose that’s what led me to Google search for sperm donation banks in the first place. Though it wasn’t exactly charity, it was my way of doing something for other people. And that was good enough for me, at least for now.
I sat and watched the expectant parents rub their baby bellies and read literature about having a healthy pregnancy. I wondered if I would ever have that experience, or if I was destined to keep my routine of working, gyming, sleeping and eating for the rest of my life. I glanced out the window behind me and saw a homeless man begging for change on the busy Atlanta streets and decided there were worse things than being a bachelor.
“Mr. and Mrs. Johansen,” a nurse called.
The man and woman next to me made their way behind the double doors I’d become all too familiar with. They nearly trampled a scraggly twenty-something who hurriedly dashed straight out of the clinic. I pegged him as a sperm donor, probably looking for some extra cash.
I suppose I wasn’t their normal clientele. When I first mentioned sperm donation to some of my buddies over drinks, they laughed so hard that tears fell from their eyes. It went something like, “Dude, you’re the CEO of a giant company. You have, like, a billion dollars! What the hell do you need to go jack off in a cup for?”.
“Mr. Preston,” the sex-kitten behind the desk called, jolting me from the same thoughts I pondered every time I visited. “We’re all set.”
The way she looked at me gave me an instant erection. She was sexy, but not the kind of sexy that everyone would see. There was something about Casey, whose name I read on her badge as I followed her to the back, that just floated my boat, so to speak.
On one of my visits, I’d accidentally brushed up against her, and I’d inhaled the scent of her intoxicating perfume. The smell drove me wild. I went straight to a department store afterwards and tried to find it. I wanted a bottle so I could smell her whenever I wanted, but it was no good. I must have tried over 200 bottles before finally giving up.
As I walked behind her, I took in every angle of her curves. Today, she looked sexier than ever. I could see the shape of her ass perfectly through her pants. I imagined what she looked like
beneath the fabric. Her two perfect cheeks, separated by a delicious crack that I just wanted to run my tongue down. I wondered if she was wearing a thong. Maybe she was going commando. The idea made my boner surge with desire.
I cleared my throat as my eyes followed the top of her pants. There it was, a little peek of panty line.
“We have the usual selection,” Casey said. “Magazines, movies. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thank you,” I said, glancing around the familiar room, complete with the outdated television and stack of sticky porn magazines.
She was still standing in the doorway when I turned back toward her, and I drank in the voluptuous cleavage that poked out of the top of her blouse. I licked my lips and her cheeks flushed in embarrassment.
I raised an eyebrow, as if to suggest she might want to give me a hand.
She turned and practically fled.
“Alright,” she said. “The room is yours, Mr. Preston.”
As she closed the door behind her, I walked over to click the lock in place. In the months I’d been coming, I’d used all sorts of materials as a source of inspiration—the magazines, a few of my favorite porn movies, my imagination. I walked over and picked up a Playboy magazine. Flipping through it, all the women seemed to pale in comparison to the real-life bombshell that had just left the room.
I pictured her sweet face, her soft, bouncy breasts, her generous ass with the black lace of her thong barely protecting it.
I turned and leaned my back to the door and ripped open my slacks. I let them fall to my ankles, my boxers falling after them.
My cock was long and hard, throbbing with desire already and I grabbed it in my fist and gave it one solid pump.