The Baby Arrangement Read online

  With a glass of whiskey in hand he stood at the window of his hotel suite, disgruntled, a sense of dissatisfaction settling over him. In his mind he returned to an earlier time. The moment he’d known that he and Mallory were heading for divorce. He’d been in a hotel similar to the current one, away on business and dreading going home.

  He’d had a woman invite him to spend the night with her earlier in the evening. He hadn’t done so, of course. He’d taken his marriage vows seriously and would never have cheated on Mallory, just as he’d been certain she’d never cheat on him.

  But he’d been tempted. God, he’d been tempted.

  Which was how he’d known.

  Sipping from his glass, he dropped down to the sofa, still facing the window.

  In the beginning, though, when they’d first found out they were having a baby, there’d been nothing like it.

  She was experiencing that same feeling now.

  While he was back in a hotel room. Planning to sleep with Anna as soon as he told her that Mallory was pregnant.

  Funny how life seemed to go in circles and still got so screwed up.

  * * *

  The first thing Mallory told Tamara about, when the woman showed up at her door Sunday rather than just returning her call as they’d discussed, was Braden’s offer for expanding The Bouncing Ball business with a second daycare in his L.A. complex.

  Tamara hadn’t needed to come, but Mallory understood why she had. Mallory had made similar visits to the home Tamara shared with Flint Collins and the precious little baby sister he’d inherited, and she would continue to do so whenever Tamara called her.

  They were two strong women who’d suffered debilitating grief but were determined to live happy lives. They shared things that most people who’d never lost a child would ever fully understand.

  “Did you tell him you’d do it?” Tamara’s expectant expression settled her a bit. She could have looked worried. Or horrified.

  Bringing glasses of tea out to the small patio off her kitchen, she handed one to her friend and sat down with her at the round glass table. “I told him no,” she reported happily. Then she amended her response. “At first I said yes, but when I thought about it and the things we’d talked about, I knew that I was doing it for the wrong reason.”

  “Which was?”

  “To continue to be a part of his life. I’m using him as a crutch. Preventing myself—and him—from moving on.”

  She had more to say. A lot more. But she wanted this part cleared up first.

  Because it really mattered.

  Being a mother was only part of her life. Something else she’d learned the hard way. When she’d lost Tucker, she’d lost herself. She’d had her own identity so wrapped up in his—her only known biological person in the world—that she’d almost lost her own life. Had her son lived, her being so consumed by him would not have been good for him. Though she didn’t ever see herself marrying again, didn’t see herself being successful at being both mother and wife, she still needed to have healthy adult relationships. For her own sake and that of her child.

  “When he made the offer, I wasn’t sad anymore about his plans. Which told me that I’d wanted to be a part of them.”

  Tamara was frowning now.

  “And before you say it, don’t,” Mallory said. “He wasn’t offering for the same reason. We aren’t two people who are still in love and meant to be together.” Ever since Tamara had opened up her heart and fallen in love again, she was seeing true love everywhere.

  Mostly, Mallory found the characteristic endearing. Except for now, when it was turned erroneously on her.

  “Braden was just being Braden. He had a whole list of reasons why joining him would be good business. Good for me financially, too.”

  When Tamara asked what they were, she listed them all, almost verbatim as Bray had presented them to her. “Besides,” she added, “he’s seeing someone again.”

  Tamara frowned again.

  “What?” Mallory asked her.

  “If he’s involved, and his reasoning is sound, are you sure you aren’t letting your past rob from your future?” she asked, her gaze steady.

  “I’m confused.” Mallory stared back. “Isn’t that what I’d be doing if I accepted his offer?”

  “Is it?”

  She’d like to have been able to get irritable with her friend and move on. But that wasn’t why she’d called Tamara.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I turned him down. Thursday, at lunch. He told me he was leaving the door open. He reiterated all the reasons it was a good idea. He said nothing had to be done for a few months and just wanted me to think about it.”

  “So are you?”

  Obviously she was. She had some pretty incredible news to share, and here she was, rehashing the whole Braden thing again.

  “I want to do it,” she said. “I just want to make certain I’m doing it for the right reasons.”

  “Then take the time he’s given you. Revisit it from time to time over the next couple of months. See if your feelings change.”

  She smiled, feeling her clarity returning. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.” Tamara smiled back and made a crack about being glad to have the excuse to get away from cleaning out the shed. The baby, Diamond Rose, was spending the afternoon and evening with her paternal grandparents. Tamara just wanted to be home in time for bath, bottle and bedtime.

  Mallory grinned. Hugely. She couldn’t help it.

  “I have other news,” she admitted, sitting forward. “I’m pregnant.”

  “You’re what?” Tamara squealed loudly enough for all of the neighbors to hear. Jumping up, she tilted the table and spilled tea from both of their glasses. “You’re pregnant?” She stood there, hands on her hips, staring at Mallory, who nodded, still grinning inanely.

  “But...who’s the father?”

  She didn’t even hesitate as she told Tamara about her plan to have a child. The trips to the fertility clinic. The decision to use insemination.

  “You’ve been working on this for months and never said a word?”

  “I didn’t need clarity,” she said. “When I was ready, I just knew I was ready.” She stood and Tamara grabbed her up in a nice long hug. One she’d been craving since she heard the news.

  “You want to see the nursery?” she asked, taking her friend’s hand and leading her back into the house, through the living room and down the hall. “It’s been hard not telling you, but I wanted to wait until I was pregnant first. They said it could easily take up to six months and there was no point in anyone else wondering and waiting every month.”

  “Except that I would have been happy to share that with you, so you weren’t going through it alone.”

  She hadn’t been. Braden had known.

  But Braden’s part in the process was the one thing she hadn’t shared. Nor did she share it as her friend oohed and ahhed over the nursery, lingering a bit as she touched the crib, the swing cover, causing Mallory to wonder if maybe Tamara was thinking about trying one more time to have a child of her own.

  “Just don’t hold out on me when the fear hits,” Tamara said, standing close as she held Mallory’s gaze. “You know it’s going to come.”

  “It’s already started.”

  “Don’t go through it alone.”

  “I won’t.”

  “No matter what time of day or night.”

  She’d answered a couple of middle-of-the-night calls from Tamara during the past months.

  “I promise.”

  She swore she’d call her friend anytime she needed her, then answered all of Tamara’s questions about the insemination process, the doctor’s instructions, her due date. The one thing she still didn’t do was tell her friend that Braden was her sperm donor.

  Because it wasn’t cri
tical. The sperm was from a donor. She’d just chosen to use a donor whose family history she knew. For safety’s sake. And one who’d offer another kind of insurance as well—a biological family for her child if anything should happen to her.

  It was all just science and legalities.

  She had clarity on that.

  Chapter Twelve

  Braden was on his second whiskey, paperwork spread out in front of him on the coffee table in his suite, staring out the window as dusk fell over the city, casting shadows on mountains in the distance, when Mallory called him back.

  “Sorry. Tamara stopped over,” she said, dissipating his growing sense that she really was avoiding him.

  Nonsense was what that was.

  But Tamara... Mention of the other woman made him tense. Mallory and Tamara didn’t go shopping or to the theater like other friends. No, they only got together when one or the other of them was on the brink of an emotional meltdown.

  It wasn’t like he found anything wrong with that. In truth, he found it admirable. It just made him uncomfortable to the point of drinking more.

  “Is she okay?” he asked because it was his duty to be polite.

  “Yeah. I called her.”

  Oh.

  “You’re struggling?” Already. “Because of the baby?”

  “No.”

  Oh. Well then... “I was calling to ask your opinion on something,” he said, watching as lights slowly popped on in the distance, thinking it would be one hell of an onerous task to count them all.

  And then he wondered what it said about him that he spent so much time paying attention to the lights outside his window.

  “Of course.” Mallory’s reply was steady. Easy. Kind. She didn’t sound like she was close to any kind of breakdown at all.

  Relieved, he took a sip of whiskey and said, “I think it’s only right that I tell Anna that you’re pregnant, and that I am your sperm donor. I was hoping you might have some suggestion about how I do that.”

  “You don’t do it.”

  “Of course I have to let her know that—”

  “Braden, the whole point here is that you just donated sperm. Period. I’m not having your child. I’m having my child.”

  Standing, he left his glass on the table and walked over to the window. “Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “What?” A definite tone of wariness entered her voice.

  “I think you should put my name on the birth certificate.”

  “Wait. Are you’re trying to tell me that you want to be the baby’s father?”

  “No! Of course not!” Dear God, no. But he couldn’t help wondering... Had her voice changed yet again, as though she was open to the possibility? Or had that just been incredulity at his presumptuousness? “I’m not going to renege on my agreement to support you in raising a child on your own,” he quickly assured her. “But I was thinking about what you said, about knowing that I’d take the child if something ever happened to you, so that your child would have biological family other than you.”

  “What does that have to do with your name on the birth certificate?”

  “I wouldn’t have to prove paternity. The child would come to me immediately.”

  He didn’t know if her pause was good or bad and he didn’t like not knowing. He probably should have waited to have the conversation face-to-face so he’d at least have a chance at reading her expression.

  “We could have papers drawn up immediately with me giving up all custodial rights to you—”

  “I don’t—”

  “Think about it, Mal. What if down the road something happens to you and I’m not in the picture? I don’t know about it and they give the kid to social services.” The idea set off a maelstrom of quandary inside him.

  He didn’t do quandary. He found logic, made plans, acted.

  “You’re planning to lose contact with me?”

  That wasn’t what he’d said. She was doing that thing again where she read emotional impact into words that weren’t at all intended to deliver a punch.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of you choosing not to be in touch, for whatever reason. Or the two of us drifting apart as a mutual thing.”

  Another pause. How had things gotten so out of hand?

  He returned to the couch and took another sip of his second shot. He’d probably be feeling a whole lot better if it was double that.

  “Look, it just occurred to me that my name on the birth certificate would give you further peace of mind,” he told her. “Because you put such weight on the fact that I’d be willing to step in in case of emergency. I was just trying to make that a foregone conclusion for you. You’d never have to worry about me changing my mind or getting married and having a wife who talked me out of keeping my word to you. Which is also why I thought I should tell Anna.”

  “You’re thinking about marrying her?” The question ended on a high note.

  “No! Not anytime soon at any rate. We’ve only been on two dates. I just... I like her. And my point in being here in L.A. is to get on with my life. I made a promise to you that I would be a father to that child if anything happened to you. Which means that any woman who is sharing my life would have to be willing to take that on.”

  Or she wouldn’t be sharing his life.

  “If you’re on the birth certificate you’d be responsible for child support.”

  He didn’t give a damn about the money.

  “We could set up a college fund.”

  “You can’t pay for my baby’s college.”

  “I’d have to pay if something happened to you. Consider it the alimony you wouldn’t take during the divorce.”

  He’d offered. Many times. Pushed, even. And lost unequivocally on that point.

  “Give me time to think about it, okay? I’ve got another eight months before the birth certificate will be an issue.”

  “But you’ll think about it?” He dumped the rest of his glass of whiskey down the sink at the bar and grabbed a bottle of tea from the refrigerator.

  “Of course. You’ve asked me to, so I will.”

  So Mallory. She’d accommodate a scorpion if it had a way of communicating its needs to her.

  “And, Bray? Seriously, I’d hold off on saying anything to Anna. At least until you know that you want to marry her. This is my business, too, and I definitely don’t want every woman you date to know about it. I don’t want anyone to know, which was the whole point of insemination to begin with. I get your point. You’re right that your wife would have a right to know about your promise to me. But can we at least wait until you know for sure you want to get married before you say anything?”

  She hadn’t asked him to donate his sperm. He’d pushed. The ball really was in her court.

  “Fair enough.”

  Mallory thanked him, wished him good-night and hung up.

  So did that mean he was now free to sleep with Anna?

  She’d made it clear she was free that evening. And open to deepening their relationship.

  Setting the tea on the table by his business papers, Braden sat down and got to work.

  * * *

  Other than Tamara and Braden, Mallory didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant during the next two weeks. The ultrasound with her own OB in San Diego loomed and she wanted to make certain that everything was okay before she spread her news.

  There’d be a lot of questions, “Who’s the father?” being number one, she was sure. And, if something was awry, there’d be a lot of sympathy. She was prepared to answer the questions when the time came. She’d made a conscious choice. There would be those who didn’t understand. She wouldn’t hold their lack of understanding against them.

  She talked to Braden a few times during those two weeks. Mostly just touching base. He’d mentioned Anna a time o
r two, so she knew he was still seeing the other woman. Might be a record for him, she thought.

  Not that it concerned her.

  And yet...she found herself obsessing about the other woman when she was too tired to control her thoughts. Who was she? Where did she come from? What did she do? What did she look like? Was she good enough for him?

  Of course not. That last answer she had, unequivocally. She didn’t know how she knew the answer, she just did. And she would be relieved when he called to say that it was over.

  He always did.

  But what if this time he didn’t? He’d been staying in L.A. almost full-time. What if dating this Anna person really was him moving on with his life?

  Well, she was moving on with hers, she reminded herself as she checked in for her ultrasound that third Thursday in April. At only six weeks she wasn’t showing at all, nor did she have any signs of morning sickness yet, either.

  She’d had it bad with Tucker, for about a week. Hadn’t been able to keep anything down. Poor Bray had been so worried, standing there over the toilet with her, holding her hair back, giving her cool washcloths when she was done puking her guts out.

  He’d tried. He’d really tried.

  She hoped Anna got that about him. That he tried.

  So what was wrong with her that trying wasn’t enough? What had she expected—perfection?

  “Mrs. Harris?” the technician called her name. Mallory saw no reason to correct her title to Ms. Harris was her married name.

  Thinking about names got her to the hallway. Then she had little to distract her from the fact she was about to go in for a test that could show something wasn’t okay.

  She’d built her nursery. She was building her new life. So “they” would come, right? Her baby—he or she—would have a safe little home in there.

  “If we’re lucky you’ll be able to hear the heartbeat this morning,” the technician—Adelaide her nametag read—told her as they entered the room. “I don’t know if they told you that or not.”

  She shook her head as she climbed up on the table as directed.