The Baby Arrangement Read online

  Living with her anger afterward had convinced him of that one. It wasn’t something he’d ever choose to repeat.

  But...twins. She was having twins.

  Braden was still chewing on the thought long after he’d left her at her car and returned to his condo for the night. He’d half thought about driving back to L.A., seeing if Anna was available for a drink. But he didn’t really feel like entertaining or being entertained.

  What he felt was empty.

  Which told him he needed a good night’s sleep in his own bed.

  So he got one.

  The world and its problems could wait until morning.

  * * *

  Mallory didn’t see Braden before he left to head back to L.A. He called her, though, to let her know that twins did indeed run in his family. His paternal grandmother had been a twin. Having never known the father who’d run out on them, he hadn’t known that.

  She’d asked if his mother had made a huge deal out of him asking, but he’d had that covered, as of course he would have. He’d told her that he was having his DNA ancestry run and the question had come up. He’d said his mother tried to press him, but he’d made shutting down his family’s drama an art form. One at which he excelled.

  Braden checked in with Mallory a lot more often after that night. By text, if not a phone call.

  At her eight-week checkup she heard two heartbeats very clearly and sent him a recording. And by sixteen weeks she was showing. Braden was still seeing Anna, but he hadn’t slept with her yet. Why he’d felt the need to tell Mallory about that, she wasn’t sure, but she reacted as she always did around him—with kindness and support.

  Though how you supported your ex-husband on choosing the right time to sleep with his new girlfriend, she wasn’t sure.

  The whole thing was starting to drive her nuts. To the point of wondering if she should offer to sleep with him just so he wouldn’t do it with Anna. The fact that she’d had the thought scared the hell out of her. But she had it more than once as May moved into June.

  San Diego’s weather didn’t vacillate drastically, but it was a hotter-than-normal summer so far and Mallory had taken to wearing sundresses to work. Her employees and parents all knew she was expecting. In the newsletter she handed out to parents as they dropped off and collected their children, she’d written a note explaining that she’d made the choice to be a single mother and had opted for insemination. For the most part, she’d been met with congratulations and support. Any who hadn’t understood seemed to have kept their comments to themselves. She certainly hadn’t lost any business over the matter.

  To the contrary, her waiting list for students was growing.

  Which made her think more and more about expanding with a second site in L.A. Not that her San Diego requests would get use out of an L.A. facility, but if she could double her income, she’d be a fool not to. She was having double the babies she’d originally intended, which meant double the future financial need.

  It would take extra time. She wasn’t kidding herself about that. She wasn’t going to be getting a lot of sleep in the foreseeable future. Nor would she have much time apart from work and babies, but she didn’t want or need any, either. She loved her career and she needed a family. Those two things were her joy.

  She was reminding herself of that fact as she ran out to her car the first Wednesday afternoon in August to retrieve from her trunk the month’s decorations she’d made the night before. She wanted to get them up that evening so she could sleep in a little later in the morning and not have to come in early.

  “Hey, I was just getting ready to call you!”

  She jumped, hitting her head on the roof of the car as Braden’s voice sounded behind her. She’d seen his car in the parking lot that morning, but it hadn’t been there when she’d headed outside just before.

  Turning, she saw him, still in his SUV, stopped in the aisle behind her, calling to her out of his window. He always let her know what city he was in. That night he was supposed to be back in L.A.

  “What’s up?” she called over her shoulder.

  Instead of answering, he pulled around and parked, getting out and reaching to help as he saw her lifting things out of her car.

  She wasn’t ready to take them in. She was sorting through them, arranging, so when she got inside she could go directly to the room for which the decor was intended. She’d have done so before she loaded them into the car if she hadn’t been so darn tired the night before.

  Carrying two babies was vastly different than having just one growing inside her.

  She turned as he approached and saw him staring. “You’re huge!”

  “Hardly,” she chuckled.

  “You barely showed at all last time when you were four months.” He stopped talking but kept looking and coming closer.

  Before she realized what he was doing, he’d put his hand on her stomach. “Can you feel them yet?”

  Their eyes met and though neither of them looked away, his hand dropped away.

  He used to love feeling Tucker kick from inside her. She’d forgotten that until right then. The look on his face the first time he’d felt their son had been like he’d seen God face-to-face. He’d been so fascinated by that proof of the life growing in her and he’d wanted to know how it felt.

  Was he remembering that now?

  “I haven’t felt them yet,” she said. “But the doctor says it could be any time.”

  He nodded, looking uncomfortable, so she did what she knew to do.

  Bring them back to his comfort zone. Business.

  “I’ve reconsidered and I’ve decided to accept your offer to take The Bouncing Ball with you to L.A.”

  “Oh, good!” He grinned. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ll have my contractor contact you with any questions he has when he gets to that part of the building. It’s being framed now, but the basic building will be just like here, and electric will run the same as well, so your outlets will be in the same places. But if you’d like door placements changed or anything, you’ll have a chance for input on that.”

  She cared about the fact that he’d instinctively wanted to feel her baby kick. Not about doors. She cared that his lips looked like she had to touch them with hers.

  And while he talked about countertops and light fixtures, she wondered what he’d do if she quieted him with a kiss wet and hot.

  Then he reached into her car for the entire pile of decorations, lifting them up and out, waiting for her to lock up before he followed her inside.

  * * *

  Braden was halfway back to L.A., looking forward to a quiet dinner with Anna, when Mallory called.

  “You said you were just getting ready to call me, but never said what for.”

  He had, in fact, said that when he’d seen her in the parking lot earlier. But all too soon what he was about to say hadn’t mattered as much as getting the hell out of there. He wasn’t sure what it was about her these days, but every time he saw her he was out of sorts. Not himself.

  She was having a baby without him. Kind of what she’d done the first time around, too.

  “I was going to ask if you’d had any further thoughts about putting my name on the birth certificates. I know there’s still plenty of time to decide, but if we’re going to have legal things drawn up, we should probably start thinking about hiring someone to do that.”

  He’d just lied to her. That wasn’t what he’d intended to call her about at all. He’d been going to tell her that he’d be back in town midweek if she’d like to schedule a meal together. And at the meal he’d have brought up the other topic.

  “Now that there are two babies, it just seems more pertinent that we get this settled. You don’t want to take any chances that they get split up.”

  He was pressuring her. He could see it, but it kept coming out.

  �
�I’m just not sure it’s fair to you,” she said. “It leaves the door open for all kinds of things to get messy down the road.”

  “Not if we neatly and legally tie up all ends beforehand.”

  “What happens when one of them needs to see their birth certificate for something, like getting a marriage license or a driver’s license or a passport, and sees your name? What if he or she decides they want to meet you?”

  She was planning to tell her children that they’d been conceived by artificial insemination by a donor. How confusing would it be to have a father’s name on the birth certificates?

  “I was thinking about that, too,” he said, tense and wanting a shot of whiskey. Since he was driving, he’d have to settle for ordering one at dinner.

  That would amount to him having more whiskey in the last four months than he’d had in the last four years. This woman and her babies were driving him to drink.

  “You were thinking about them wanting to meet you?” she prompted him.

  “Thinking about them not knowing about me. Don’t you think, if something ever happened to you, it would be better for them to have heard that I exist before they’re suddenly faced with being uprooted and having to come live with me?”

  “If they know about you they’ll want to see you. This is why I didn’t want to do this to begin with. It’s already getting too complicated.”

  He’d talked her into it. Promised her it wouldn’t be complicated. That he’d let her do her thing.

  “You’re right,” he said, and meant it.

  But he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he was going to have two children in the world who might one day find out that he’d known about them and then think, by his lack of participation, that he hadn’t wanted them.

  True, he’d had no plans to have children, at least not then, and not with their mother. He’d donated his sperm for Mallory because she’d wanted a baby and his sperm gave her the security she wouldn’t have had with an unknown donor.

  His intentions had been good, but he couldn’t have his own children thinking he didn’t want them.

  Except that he had no other choice.

  He had to find a way to let this go.

  * * *

  The nights were the worst. She knew this. Clarity was less prevalent in the dark. When one slept, one let go of one’s control of rational thought. And Mallory’s uncontrolled, irrational thoughts were the stuff nightmares were made of.

  She’d had more than she could count since she’d found out she was pregnant.

  She’d been prepared for them, she’d thought.

  But the night after she saw Braden, after his phone call, she had a doozy of a nightmare. The twins—they’d been a boy and a girl—had disowned her because she’d smothered them. At first the smothering had been emotional. She’d just been trying to be a good mother, but somehow she’d become needy and controlling, with no life but them. And then suddenly she was outside with flashers blinking around her house—rescue and police vehicles—and her babies were inside, smothered in their cribs. She’d been sobbing, looking at their window, knowing that she’d done it.

  As soon as she woke up, trembling, sweaty, with her heart pounding fast and hard, she got out of bed and went to the kitchen to brew a cup of chamomile tea.

  She grabbed her phone as she sat down at the table with her drink. This was a time to call Tamara. But her friend would be in bed with Flint. The call might wake up little Diamond Rose.

  And she didn’t really need Tamara. She knew what was going on. The fear didn’t have her in its grip.

  She was in her own grip.

  Braden wanted to have a place in the lives of his children. She didn’t know how she was so certain, but she knew.

  She’d cut him out of Tucker’s pregnancy and much of the five months of his life, too. Not purposely. Not knowingly. Not even wanting to. But she’d done it.

  It hadn’t been healthy for her or Braden, and had Tucker lived, it wouldn’t have been healthy for him, either.

  Most likely he’d have been the product of divorced parents, living in two households.

  She didn’t want that for any child. And certainly not hers. She’d always promised herself, if she ever had a child, she’d make certain that home was one place that didn’t change and that didn’t end. For as long as she lived, her child would always have a home to come to.

  Somehow she’d failed to include Braden in that plan.

  He’d failed her, too, in many ways, but this...this was on her.

  Braden might not have planned to develop feelings for the babies she was carrying. And maybe saying he had feelings was going a bit far. But he felt a responsibility toward them. Felt accountable to them.

  Legally she had every right to deny him access, even with the birth certificates. Even ethically she probably had the right, based on how his sperm had come to be involved.

  But morally?

  Could she deny her children the right to know their father when the man was someone who would bless their lives? Someone who would always be there for them? Whether she met an untimely demise or not.

  Certainly they were going to know Braden. It wasn’t like the two of them were going to suddenly stop being friends.

  Sipping tea, she shivered. Everything was such a mess.

  As she’d known it would be.

  And she’d agreed to use his sperm anyway.

  Because in the long run, what had mattered was the security of her children. And two biological parents who’d want them were better than one.

  Braden had been right about that.

  Picking up her phone, she dialed him. He was keeping her up nights, so he could get up, too. It was only when she heard his sleepy hello that she wished she’d thought a little longer before making the call. Like maybe until he was back and they were having lunch?

  She didn’t want to give herself time to change her mind.

  But now a thought struck her. “Are you alone?”

  His pause told her he was not and she hung up.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Pulling the hotel coverlet with him, wrapping it around his boxers like it mattered if the world saw him in them, Braden went out into the living room of the suite and called Mallory right back. She wouldn’t have called if it hadn’t been an emergency.

  His head pounding, he cursed the fact that he’d allowed Anna to talk him into drinking more than he knew he should. She’d met him at his hotel for dinner and then engaged him in a where-is-this-going conversation. That had led to the fact he’d just seen his ex-wife and had some things to work out with her first, at which time she’d started drinking more than she should, too.

  “Mallory, pick up,” he said when her machine answered, aware that Anna was probably awake in the bedroom behind him. “Please. It’s not what you think. Call me.” He ended the call.

  It’s not what you think? Like he was some cheating husband who’d just been caught?

  He was divorced for Christ’s sake. Had been for years.

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t had sex during that time.

  But he hadn’t had it with Anna that night. Or yet.

  Back in the suit she’d worn from the office to his hotel, she came out of the bedroom, looking better than he felt.

  “I’m sober enough to make it home,” she said, going for her purse. “I’m really sorry to have passed out on you. That’s just not my style.”

  He’d carried her from the couch to his bed, thinking she’d be closer to the bathroom if she got sick, and he’d be close enough to help her get there.

  “It was a rough night,” he conceded, speaking as much for himself as for her.

  “So...is this it, then? I shouldn’t sit around expecting a call from you?”

  Watching her, he wanted to be able to give her what she wanted. Thou
ght he’d be able to. As soon as he got the thing with Mallory under control.

  And he told her so.

  “So...call me,” she said.

  “I will.”

  He meant what he said, but didn’t bother going to the door as she let herself out.

  * * *

  Embarrassed beyond anything she could ever have imagined, Mallory didn’t answer any of Braden’s calls over the next couple of days. She texted him to let him know that she and the babies were fine. And almost texted to cancel their lunch set up for the following Tuesday.

  They’d been through much worse. Their friendship, which had taken three years to build, was the envy of many. She wasn’t going to lose him now.

  But the thought of him with another woman cut deeply. All she wanted to do was cry. In fact, she was afraid that she would do exactly that when she saw him, which was why she seriously considered canceling.

  It was just because she was pregnant. She knew that. She’d been extra teary with Tucker, too, and figured, carrying two, maybe she’d be twice as bad this time around.

  But how humiliating to be calling him to give him what he wanted and have another woman in bed with him.

  Every time she thought about it she wanted to curl up in a corner and hide her head.

  In one sense, her life was fuller than she’d ever thought it would be again. And in another, she’d never felt more alone.

  She’d be a mother, but not a partner.

  Her choice, she reminded herself. And knowing herself, she figured it was a good one.

  So why did it hurt so much?

  She was trying to tell herself it didn’t when she entered the restaurant where she and Bray had agreed to meet. It was a different place—Mexican, which she loved—and a bit further from work. He’d had an appointment nearby and had thought it looked nice.

  He’d been right. Inside, the decor was colorful and bright, and the people were friendly. She felt at home as, at her request, they walked her through the inside to a private patio off the back. Completely enclosed by trees and greenery, the area hosted eight or so tables, with umbrellas over them. In the middle of them, a tall rock fountain, with flowing water, gave a feeling of privacy and peace.