Lucas shuffled around the living room, taking notice of the art on my walls.
“You’ve got a gorgeous place here,” he said. “The décor is lovely.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. These nerves weren’t taking no for an answer.
“Which way is the bedroom?”
Oh. So we were just going to get right down to it? Fine by me.
I pointed down the hallway, and he sauntered in that direction. I followed suit, ignoring the wine I’d set out on the table for us.
Since this wasn’t exactly romantic lovemaking, I wasn’t sure what protocol was. Was kissing a part of the plan? Ripping each other’s clothes off? Or a more clinical approach, stripping naked and jumping right into bed to complete our task?
This had been Lucas’s idea, so I let him take the lead. He slipped off his shirt, revealing his toned abdomen, and cradled my cheek in his hand. He took me in slowly and kissed me.
The sex was even better this time than it had been the first time, and I hadn’t known that was even possible. As much as I hated to admit it given the circumstances, our sexual compatibility was through the roof. He’d seemed to know just what I liked, and I’d been able to reciprocate. Our bodies had moved together as one until we were lying beside one another, sweaty and out of breath.
As we sprawled out in silence, I wondered what the odds were that we’d just made a baby. I’d always been so focused on trying to not conceive a baby while having sex that it felt extraordinarily odd to be hoping for the opposite. I had to admit that, as much as I hoped it had worked, I wouldn’t have minded another round or two of trying things the old-fashioned way.
I glanced over at Lucas and watched his stomach move up and down as he breathed. He truly was a perfect specimen, and the first man I’d brought home since buying the condo two years earlier. While I’d had the occasional one-night stand while out of town, I’d never brought a guy back to my own house. That felt like it was crossing a completely different boundary, and I’d just done that with Lucas.
“Are you pregnant yet?” Lucas joked.
It was a ridiculous thing to ask, but it broke the silence.
“Let me get back to you on that one,” I said with a laugh.
I was inclined to say something about the amazing sex we’d just had, but I wasn’t sure if it was one of those things we were supposed to do but never really talk about. Again, there wasn’t exactly protocol for this, or, if there was, I didn’t know about it.
I felt completely at peace. Everything around us was pure calmness, the kind of pure serenity after sex that made me like all was right with the world. Right now, there was nothing I could do to determine whether or not I’d get pregnant from this, so all that was left to do was soak in the moment.
“Zoe, I need to tell you something.”
I sat up in the bed, clutching the comforter to my chest. “What’s that?” I said. “After asking me to have your baby and co-parent, I’m not sure anything you can say will surprise me at this point.”
“The post-buyout period is over,” Lucas said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I’ve spent my time getting to know Borroni and merging what the company has done with the way Cadieux operates. I’ve spent the past few weeks training the staff and ensuring everything is running smoothly.” He hesitated. “Since everything is good to go, I’ll be heading back to headquarters in Brussels.”
“When?” I asked. I realized how evident the sorrow in my voice was, as if we were some couple who were madly in love and he was about to leave me. We were supposed to leave emotions out of this, so why was I feeling so hurt at the thought of him leaving?
“I have a flight out tomorrow afternoon,” he said. He sat up beside me and took my hand in his. “I probably won’t be back in Chicago for another month or two, depending on my schedule.”
I pulled my hand from his grip and brushed my hair out of my face. What did that mean for us? There was no guarantee I’d gotten pregnant after just one attempt, and he’d made it sound like the plan was to keep trying until we did get pregnant.
I searched my mind for a way to politely ask what would happen next. This whole situation had been weird to begin with, and now he was about to travel halfway across the world with no clue when he was coming back.
“What about this, uh, agreement we made?” I asked. “Odds are, it won’t happen on the first try.”
Lucas stretched out his arms and rubbed his forehead as though he hadn’t considered this. I wondered if that would convince him to stay, if maybe having a child of his own was worth it to him to have to delay his flight back to Brussels.
“We’ll figure something out,” he said.
“What does that mean?” I asked. I didn’t want to sound pushy, but I felt like I was due some sort of answer. I wanted to know what to expect. Had he just been trying to sleep with me again, or had he really not considered that it might take weeks or months of trying before conceiving?
“Maybe I’ll fly back here next time you’re ovulating, or maybe I could even fly you out to Brussels. We have the plane at our disposal, so I’m sure we can make it work.”
The way he’d said the words left a sour taste in my mouth. Making it work sounded so…business-like.
In truth, we had gone about this as a business arrangement of sorts, but it had felt more personal than that to me. I really liked Lucas—as a boss, as a person, even as a lover—but I wasn’t sure if this was going to work out. It was hard enough to think that my future child would be going back and forth from here to Belgium, but now we were going to go back and forth just to try and conceive?
I was tempted to ask Lucas why, out of all the women who surely threw themselves at him, he’d picked me to make this arrangement with, but I knew the answer. We had a connection. We could deny it all we wanted, and we could keep things professional, but it was still there. He probably wanted someone who knew what his work-life balance was like and dealt with the same issues. In fact, I knew that was what he wanted because he’d told me as much. It just felt like a sort of personal rejection that he was leaving.
But the sex. It had been the kind of magnificent, passionate, breathtaking sex I hadn’t known was possible, because I’d never had sex with someone who I had that kind of connection with. As much as physical attraction mattered, I knew that it was more than that. I was attracted to his intellect and his honesty, his drive and his demeanor.
I’d felt on top of the world while we were making love, and now I felt like he’d kicked me to the curb. I knew that wasn’t the case, since we weren’t actually seeing each other, but it stung. I hadn’t expected him to leave so soon, especially with all his talk about making sure he lived up to Mr. Borroni’s high hopes for the business under his control.
“I should probably get going,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, it’s getting late.”
I watched as he stood up from the bed and slipped on each article of clothing. His toned body was a work of art, teasing me because I could only have it when we were trying to conceive. It wasn’t at my beck and call whenever I wanted it.
“Thanks for this.” He gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll be in touch with the specifics for next time?”
“Sounds good,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure I meant it.
I walked him to the door and watched him disappear into the elevator. He’d sounded like a business associate who was waiting to schedule a follow-up meeting. It all sounded so cold and impersonal. I wondered if he’d realized how it had sounded and meant it that way, or if he had simply chosen his words poorly. He couldn’t really have thought saying that he would “be in touch” would make me feel good about my decision, could he?
I had agreed to have this baby with him—to give up the toned figure I’d worked so hard for, to commit to spending pretty much the rest of our lives tied together by this baby, to co-parent across different continents—and he couldn’t even give me the time of day. I had to
admit that I even felt betrayed, hoodwinked, that he hadn’t thought to tell me before tonight that he was heading back to Brussels.
I wondered if that would have changed anything for me. If he’d shown up tonight telling me that he was leaving for Belgium tomorrow and wanted to do the deed before he left, would I still have done it? Or would I have reconsidered? I didn’t want to seem like I was clingy or needy, but I felt like I was owed at least an idea of when I’d see him again. His vague “a month or two” wasn’t really cutting it for me.
My outlook on this whole situation was slowly changing. It seemed as though Lucas really did see this purely as a business arrangement, but his passion during sex had indicated otherwise. I wasn’t sure what to make of it all, but I reminded myself that I’d gone into this thinking of it as a mutually beneficial arrangement, so it didn’t matter what my feelings were.
I had to admit, though I’d initially suggested we have sex as a way of making this whole situation feel more personal, it was suddenly starting to feel a lot more clinical than a visit to the doctor’s office.
Chapter 14
Zoe
If someone had told me a month or two ago that I’d be praying every day for some sort of nausea or cramping, I would have laughed in their face. This was my life now, though, and I was disappointed that I hadn’t been more tired than usual or noticed any unusual pains or aches. There was no way I was pregnant. I should’ve known better than to hope it would work on our first try.
Of course, every woman has her own journey to pregnancy. While Ellie and her husband had tried for a year before conceiving, my cousin Lauren had decided she wanted to start a family last January and had her son, Brandon, by Christmastime. I supposed I thought my situation was different somehow because this wasn’t some romantic conception. This wasn’t the start of a typical family. This was business. This was the sensible route. But it had been an entire month, so, surely, I would have seen some sort of sign of pregnancy by this point. I’d had no such luck.
On the phone last week, Lucas and I had agreed that, due to our busy schedules, I’d delay my trip to Belgium to a later time, and we’d go the route of artificial insemination this month. I couldn’t say I was heartbroken at the idea. Sure, I was bummed that I didn’t know when I’d see Lucas again, but I was starting to notice some doubts lingering in the back of my mind at this idea.
Thinking about it from an unbiased standpoint, it was clear this was crazy: a CEO and his VP of Marketing having a baby together because they each want a child and see no clear relationship with anyone else in the near future. I wasn’t sure what was more bizarre—us sleeping together, or knowing that there was a tube, or jar, or some sort of container with a sample of his “genetic material” waiting for me at the fertility clinic.
It was too late to back out now, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, anyway. Every time I thought about the fact that I could be a mother just months from now, I lit up, and I got butterflies in my stomach. I was starting to realize that there was more to life than my job, and maybe this was meant to be my next adventure. Besides, how awesome would it be to get to raise my child alongside Ellie raising her little girl?
Lucas had found the best fertility clinic in Chicago for me to go to, and, though it was actually a half hour drive from the city, I couldn’t help but smile when I thought about how much effort he’d put into finding the perfect place to potentially start our family—or whatever it was.
I drove the congested city streets, unfazed by the traffic, too consumed by my thoughts of Lucas. I wondered if I had real, romantic feelings for him. It was hard to tell. I’d been thinking about it since we’d made the agreement a month ago, and he’d been on my mind almost every day since. I hadn’t seen him since he’d left from Brussels, but we’d stayed in contact through phone calls and text messages.
Even reading each text he sent me made my heart flutter. I swooned just hearing his voice. When we’d had sex, I had been fairly certain that Lucas had felt the same way, that it was about more than just conceiving a child, but I had no true way of knowing how he felt. With each passing day, I doubted myself more and more.
As enjoyable as sex with Lucas was, I knew that each time I slept with him was another chance for me to fall deeper for him, and I’d promised myself we’d keep this professional. I couldn’t fall for the potential father of my future child. That wasn’t in the plan. As enticing as a transatlantic rendezvous sounded, I knew the repercussions likely would not be worth it.
I supposed that was why I didn’t mind that I was about to have some doctor stick a tube up my lady parts. Was that even what the procedure was? I hadn’t given it much thought. All I’d thought about was getting to hold a baby in my arms someday soon, and that made whatever was about to happen worth it. It would likely be awkward and impersonal, but at least it would keep me from falling even harder for Lucas.
Soon, the distant skyscrapers disappeared from the rearview mirror and my GPS informed me that I’d arrived.
I parked in front of what had to have been the nicest-looking doctor’s office in the state of Illinois then took a minute to close my eyes and take in a deep breath. The reality was, I was going into this clinic with no ties and commitments to a family and coming out with a lifelong commitment to co-parent and raise a child.
That was damn intimidating.
It wasn’t lost on me that most people brought someone with them to this sort of procedure—usually the baby’s father, but I supposed a parent or friend wasn’t completely out of the question. Given the circumstances, it had seemed unnecessary to involve my friends or parents unless it all worked out.
Yup. As much as I hated to admit it, there was a chance that none of this would work, which would probably lead to an even more uncomfortable situation. That was the reality of this sort of thing.
My fate was on the other side of the door in front of me. It was time to face it.
Though I’d never been to this clinic in my life, the staff all knew my name and greeted me when I walked through the door. That had to be Lucas’s handiwork. I hadn’t known such doctor’s offices existed. I was used to crowded waiting rooms and impersonal interactions. Here, I was taken back to an exam room and offered a glass of water in a matter of seconds.
Granted, the glass of water was likely to help produce the urine sample they requested, but it was a nice gesture, nonetheless. A nurse came in first and checked my vitals and drew some blood for testing. Okay. Maybe this would be like any other doctor’s appointment.
“Zoe, nice to meet you,” Dr. Suarez said when he walked into the room. I recognized his voice from our phone consultation the previous week. “Well, meet you in person, that is.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
I couldn’t shake the weirdness of it all. I was seeing this fancy, exclusive doctor who I’d been sent to by my boss, whose sperm was about to be implanted inside me. All I could do was tell myself that, the more awkward I thought it to be, the more awkward it would be, so I needed to cut it out and accept that this was how things had to happen. Babies weren’t always conceived naturally, and that was completely normal and acceptable.
The doctor sat down at his small desk in the corner.
“Have you been doing everything we talked about during your phone consultation?”
His voice was warm and comforting, the kind of voice you wanted your doctor to have.
I nodded. “I have. I’ve kept up with my regular workouts but added in a yoga class for relaxation, and I drank a liter-sized bottle of water this morning.”
“Very good.”
He went through the play-by-play of the procedure, explaining it in terms that even a small child would’ve been able to understand. I had to admit that I hadn’t done as much research as I probably should have and was relieved to learn that the actual insemination process would only take a few minutes.
“I’m just waiting on the all-clear for your test results before we go ahead and start,” Dr. Suarez sai
d. “It should only be a minute.”
“Sounds good!”
“So tell me about your work,” he continued. “Chocolate, huh? It sounds fascinating.”
My instinct was to ask how he knew about my career, but there was only one rational answer. I wondered how much he knew about my arrangement with Lucas, given that Lucas had told him what I did for a living. Had he told him that he was my boss? Had he explained the whole co-parenting thing? I couldn’t imagine that he had, but I also hadn’t expected him to share about work at all.
Despite my surprise, I told Dr. Suarez a bit about the company, and he was completely engrossed in the conversation. For a moment, I forgot I was talking to a doctor and felt like I was talking to a friend. I was feeling more at ease by the minute, as if the quality of our conversation about how much free chocolate I got would somehow impact how good of a doctor he was.
The nurse from earlier knocked on the door and brought in a file folder for the doctor, the one that I presumed held the official go-ahead to do my procedure.
The doctor shuffled through the folder, then excused himself and stepped out into the hallway with the nurse. Beyond the door between us muffling their voices, it sounded as though Dr. Suarez and the nurse had their own language of medical lingo. I couldn’t catch any of what they were saying. I supposed that was the point.
Dr. Suarez reappeared with a confusing smile on his face.
“Zoe, unfortunately, we won’t be able to go ahead with the procedure today,” he said.
My heart sunk into my chest. What could they possibly have found that would disqualify me? And after Lucas had sent his sample all the way over here from Belgium? I hadn’t even considered the possibility that something questionable would come back from the blood work or urine sample.
“Why?” I couldn’t even form a proper sentence.
“Because you’re already pregnant!”
I froze. That couldn’t be, could it?!
The Deal With Triplets Page 10
