Page 6 of Pregnancy Clause in Their Paper Marriage
Having her tell him point-blank she wanted his baby had created a sudden, surprising, seismic shift inside him. He’d been fine with the no-child clause because he’d assumed, on a fundamental level, that he couldn’t be a good father. He wouldn’t be emotionally available; he couldn’t let himself care about someone that much. And then Lana had said she wanted his baby, and something in him had crumbled—or maybe exploded. His first thought had been, quite simply, Yes. Yes, he wanted this. He wanted a child. A family. A second chance, a do-over for all the mistakes he’d made with his own family. He was wiser now; he could handle it, he wouldn’t let their baby down the way he had his mother, his sister. And he wouldn’t do the dangerous thing of falling in love with Lana.
It was perfect. At least, it could be.
‘What,’ she asked tentatively, ‘do you want to know, exactly?’
‘Well, everything, really,’ he replied in the same easy voice, although keeping that light tone was taking more effort. Part of him wanted to grab her by the shoulders and demand what onearthshe was thinking, to suggest something so—sooffensive. Or did she not even realise it was? Could she be that oblivious, that ridiculous? ‘How do you envisage this all working?’ he asked.
Again, that look of relief, a gleam of confidence in her eyes and she straightened in her seat. ‘Well, it’s simple, really,’ she said.
The tone she took was one he imagined her using in a business meeting, when she told one of her eager clients how she was going to polish his tarnished image, turn him into someone new and shinily improved, his company intoFortune 500material.
‘What we’re going to do is this...’
No. Way. Not this time. Not with him.
‘Yes?’ he prompted, his tone scrupulously polite.
‘Um...yes, sorry.’ She gave a little laugh as she shook her head, tucking a strand of strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear. ‘Sorry, I didn’t expect you to agree to it quite so quickly.’
‘I haven’t actually agreed,’ he pointed out. ‘I just want to hear the details.’
A faint blush touched her porcelain cheeks. ‘Yes, of course. Well, like I said, I’d want to go with IVF. According to the consultant, my condition has been caught early enough that I should have a fairly good chance of getting pregnant if I can within the next three months or so.’
‘Three months,’ he mused, nodding. A relatively short window. ‘Go on.’
‘Since I have no other, um, fertility issues, IVF has a better chance of being successful.’
‘Presumably,’ Christos remarked after a moment, ‘you’d have an even better chance of getting pregnant the old-fashioned way.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose, technically.’ Once more a faint blush touched her cheeks with pink, reminding him of a sunrise. ‘But obviously that’s not something we want to—to consider.’
‘Obviously,’ he agreed, dryly. When Lana had first proposed their paper marriage, she’d made it very clear,veryclear, that sex would never be part of their deal.
‘I just find it complicates things,’ she’d said bluntly, without any emotion, her gaze unflinchingly direct, so much so that he’d wondered what experience she’d had to feel so firm about the subject. ‘And there’s no need to complicate what is meant to be a very simple solution.’ Then she’d suggested he have affairs, as long as they were discreet. At the time, bemused but not entirely opposed since they were both being so open-minded, Christos had chosen to be amenable.
He’d been tired of the rigamarole of relationships, of women expecting things he simply didn’t have it in him to give. Every time he’d told a woman he would never love her, marry her, or even see her for a fourth date, she’d chosen to see it as some sort of challenge. But not Lana, not in the least. At the time, the novelty had been refreshing, liberating. Three years on, it wasn’t quite so much any more; he was starting to realise he wanted more. How much more, he couldn’t yet decide, but he knew it was something. Maybe even this—a child. A family.
‘So, IVF,’ he resumed as Lana gazed at him, seeming torn between uncertainty and hope. ‘And that part for me is, I presume, pretty self-explanatory? Self-induced, as it were?’
Her blush deepened but her chin tilted upwards to that determined notch. ‘Yes, that’s how it’s usually done with IVF.’
‘I see.’ He was afraid he saw all too clearly. She wanted his sperm in a test tube, and that was it. And what did he get in return? Absolutely nothing.
‘And after the baby’s born?’ he inquired politely. It was difficult now to keep an edge from his voice but he thought he just about managed it. ‘No involvement then, either, by the sounds of it? This baby of ours won’t know I’m his or her father, you said?’
‘Not if you don’t want them to.’
He let a pause settle between them for just a few seconds. ‘And if I did?’
She hesitated, and he could tell by the confusion that crossed her face she hadn’t thought this part through clearly, or even at all. She’d assumed he wouldn’t. ‘Well...of course, I mean, that would be...that would be...acceptable, I suppose.’
Acceptable, if only just?Maybe?What an insult. A surge of rage fired through him, and Christos tamped it down. He wasn’t going to get angry. Not yet. ‘And if I wanted to be involved?’ he asked. ‘As this child’s father? What then?’
Lana looked so surprised, he almost laughed. It was as if such a thought had never even crossed her mind. What, he wondered, had ever given her the impression that he would be a willing sperm donor but an absent father? He might have agreed to her no-child clause, but did she really think he was that sort of man? Three years they’d been together, in a manner of speaking anyway, and she didn’t have the first clue about who he was as a person. As a man.
‘Well, I...’ She licked her lips, shifting in her seat, her long, golden legs revealed as the slit in her dress climbed higher.
Christos yanked his gaze away, kept it on her face. ‘Yes?’ he prompted.