The Billionaire's Surrogate: A BWWM Pregnancy Love Story (12 page)

Despite
all her bravado, Max knew she still hurt for that bastard Rudy’s
rejection; she was still a fragile petal – easily broken. He
had no intention of breaking her…so maybe having sex with her
like that had been an extremely bad idea. Max gave a shrug; it was
way too late to unspill that milk so all there remained to do was
find a way forward; out of this quagmire. Or maybe it didn’t
have to be a quagmire? Maybe it was just a natural progression of
their relationship. They were to be married after all…that’s
what it came down to. He needed to get that prenup signed so she
couldn’t back out. If he’d succeeded in spooking her; she
would
back
out. She couldn’t though; she already carried his child. And
they had agreed even without signing anything. She was a woman of her
word; she would not back out now….would she?

Max walked out of the
room, his head spinning. He crossed to his room and picked up the
phone from his dresser, dialing without thinking.

“
This
better be life and death young man. It's two o’ clock in the
mornin,” Martha growled.

“
I
just had sex with Chris,” Max replied without preamble. “What
should I do now?”

Martha was silent on
the other end. “I don’t believe this is my area of
expertise,” she said slowly.

“
You
know her, you know me; do you think she’s gonna run in the
morning?”

“
Where
is she now?”

“
Passed
out on her bed.”

“
Okay
then. I suggest you get some rest and have a rational discussion with
her come daylight. And the next time y’all indulge in whatever
behavior,
do not call me in the middle
of the night,
” Martha said before
hanging up.

Max stared at the phone
and then dropped it on the bed. Well that hadn’t been as
helpful as he’d hoped. He gave himself that shrug again and
decided to take her advice anyway; he’d sleep on it and see
what happened in the morning.

*****

The puking woke him up
in the morning. For a moment he wondered if he’d picked up some
random drunk model who was now puking her hangover into his
facilities but then he’d remembered exactly why his dick felt
misused and sat up quickly. His door was open, and so was hers and
that’s why he could hear the sounds of last night’s
dinner hitting the toilet bowl from here. His rooms tended to be
quite sound proof otherwise. He ventured out of bed and padded over
to her room, knocking tentatively at the door before letting himself
in and crossing over to the open bathroom door. Christine’s
dark head was so far down the toilet bowl it had almost disappeared
and her whole body was heaving.

Max wanted to ask her
if he could be of assistance but he was afraid she was puking because
of what they did last night. If that was so, he didn’t want to
be a reminder that would make her throw up more.

Eventually, her head
came up out of the bowl and she crouched back, breathing hard as she
tried to get her bearings. He walked silently to the sink, wet a
towel and brought it quietly to her. She took it and wiped off her
mouth and then handed it back to him.

“
You
alright?” he asked tentatively.

“
I’m
peachy,” she said standing up and crossing to the sink to wash
her face and rinse out her mouth.

“
Is
there anything I can do for you?” he asked again.

“
No.
Well, yes. Get me a glass of orange juice if you can,” she said
and he hurried off to the kitchen to do as he was told. Christine
drank it down and then asked if there was any bacon for breakfast,
with some sausages, some eggs, hash browns, and one muffin…or
two.

Max took that for the
order it was and went to see what the cook could rustle up. Unlike
Martha, he lived in, in the ‘service wing’ upstairs so he
was on call at all hours. He got right on that as Max went back to
report that her breakfast was on hand.

“
Thanks,
now would you excuse me? I’d like to change.”

“
Yes
of course,” Max replied and went to his own room to have his
own shower. he was hoping that by the time he came out, Martha would
have arrived to tell him what to do next.

Pregnancy was hard; no
in fact it was impossible. The mood swings, the constant pendulum
between hunger and nausea, the heightened emotion; it was making
Christine feel like a crazy person. If she wasn’t careful she
was going to end up killing somebody one of these days. Today was one
of those days that she really needed everybody to stay away from her.
she’d arrived at work to find her co-workers huddled in a
conspiratorial group; clearly gossiping about something. It didn’t
take long for her to find out what the gossip was about. Leandra came
by fishing for the tea, asking her about her love life and who she
was seeing these days. Christine just glared at her. Just because
they were the only two female engineers in their department didn’t
give Leandra the green light to know everything about her. It was
still none of her damned business.

“
Don’t
you have work to do?” she snarled. Her stomach was burning like
she had hyper-acidity or something. She really was not in the mood to
be diplomatic with anyone.

“
Okay
girl, be like that. I’m just sayin though, if you wanna have a
secret romance don’t do it with a famous dude and then let the
paparazzi take photos of you,” she said.

“
What.
The fuck. Are you talkin’ bout Lele?” she asked or rather
demanded.

Leandra hurried over to
snatch the paper (Christine could see that is was a local tabloid)
out of the hands of two interns and brought it eagerly over to her.
She folded it solicitously so that Christine could clearly see the
picture of her and Max at the supermarket looking over ice cream
choices.

“
Y’all
look so cute together. I didn’t know you were into the white
meat. How come you refused to go out with my cousin Carlos when I set
y’all up last year?”

Christine looked up to
glare at Leandra, wondering what was the best way to tell her to fuck
off.

“
It's
really none of your business you know,” she said handing the
paper back to her. “Who said I’m even dating that guy?”

“
Y’all
looking all terribly familiar and all. What? You gon’ say he’s
just a friend?” Leandra was smirking. Christine was not in the
mood to tolerate smirking.

“
Think
whatever the fuck you like. I got work to do,” she said shoving
rudely past the other girl as she headed to her locker to get her
uniform out. She knew that she hadn’t heard the last of it but
she just did not have the time right now. Her stomach was beginning
to feel queasy again. She was afraid for a moment that she would
upchuck her breakfast right there in the locker room, in front of her
subordinates. She grabbed her uniform quickly and hurried off to the
ladies wanting to get out of sight just in case her body betrayed
her. Just as she closed the door of the stall behind her and began to
undress, she was startled badly by her phone ringing. The ringtone
was ‘beautiful loser’ by Bob Seger so she knew it was Max
on the other end.

“
Did
we decide what we were going to tell people?” she asked without
preamble.

“
Er,
no. But tell them whatever you want,” he said, French accent
coming through loud and clear. It thickened when he was under stress.

“
What’s
wrong?” she asked.

“
We
need to talk. Soon,” he said.

“
What’s
happened?”

“
Not
on the phone. I’ll pick you up at lunch time.”

“
I
don’t know where I’ll be at lunchtime.”

“
That’s
why you have a phone, and I have a phone and we can call each other
and find out.”

“
Don’t
be rude.”

“
Don’t
be difficult.”

“
I’m
pregnant, I’m allowed to be difficult.”

“
I’m
sorry, you’re right; you’re pregnant and crazy which
translates to difficult. I’ll try to deal.”

“
You’re
talking yourself out of that lunch date bro,” she warned.

“
Trust
me, you don’t want to stand me up,” he said and hung up.
Christine sighed. She could spend the whole morning worrying and
giving herself more heartburn or she could eat chocolate and pretend
that everything was awesome. She chose option two just cause it
involved chocolate and she had some in her pocket. Also, she didn’t
really have much fondness for worrying – too many years of her
life had been wasted on that. Now she just wanted to get through this
pregnancy without becoming 5150 and that would mean making healthy
choices. Like chocolate.

It
wasn’t helpful that they hadn’t discussed the incredible
sex they’d had the night before. Granted, Christine was up
early and puking her guts out which Max might have taken askance.
Perhaps he thought she was disgusted by his behavior last night? She
didn’t know how she felt about it, but it definitely wasn’t
disgust. Or maybe
he
was disgusted…Maybe he needed to give her The Talk; the one
where he reminded her that this was a marriage of convenience and she
shouldn’t read too much into last night. Like she would.
Obviously it was a booty call; inadvertent maybe but by now she knew
how those worked. The guy appeared in your room in the middle of the
night and he was gone by morning. Just like what had happened last
night. She wasn’t dumb, maybe she was slow but she’d
gotten it eventually with Rudy. She didn’t need a second
lesson.

Christine finished
changing and got on with her shift. She was on half day today because
next week she’d be on night duty. She wondered if she should
inform HR that she was pregnant…she wasn’t familiar with
what the protocol was but she didn’t want to involve herself in
situations that were dangerous to her child. Christine resolved to
look those up as well because she wasn’t sure what was
dangerous and what wasn’t.

“
Hey
Chris,” Fred Jones murmured to her as they passed each other on
the stairs. “How’s tricks?”

Christine looked into
his face to see if there was more to the greeting than just…greeting
but couldn’t read much in his impassive face.

“
Good,
good. You?” she asks in return.

Fred shrugged, “Night
shift man.”

Christine nodded
because she knew how those could be sometimes; they could go from
excruciatingly boring to reluctantly exciting. Christine was strongly
in favor of the former. She walked on to her work station and got to
work, dismissing all the things swirling in her head; for now.

*****

Max took her to a
semi-fancy restaurant and explained to her that it has the widest
menu of any place he’s been to in the city. So whatever she
felt like eating, they’d probably find it. Christine was
grateful because she’d been thinking about chicken nuggets all
morning but also fried fish. She studied the menu and saw that they
have both these items much to her delight, plus some baked potatoes,
baby carrots and salad. She figured that would do…to start
with.

“
God,
I’m going to weigh a ton by the time this kid is born,”
she wailed.

“
No
you won’t because you’re on your feet all day and you’ll
work it all off,” Max consoled, patting her hand.

“
Yeah
okay, we’ll go with that version,” Christine agreed. “Now
I want to enjoy my food so how about you tell me why you brought me
here so I can know?”

Max took a deep breath
looking solemn. “I received a call from a lawyer this morning,”
he said watching her.

“
And?”
she asked sipping on the water that had been placed on the table.

“
And…he
represents a couple of clients who know about our deal and are
threatening to take it to the press unless we pay them off,” he
finished.

Christine froze,
looking up at him. “Who are these people?”

“
He
wouldn’t say. But he did give me enough detail for me to know
that they are for real. They know about our deal.”

“
Who
do you think it is?” Christine asked, her heart speeding up.
She has a very bad feeling about this.

Max shrugged. “I
have no clue but I can get investigators on it.”

Christine thought hard.
“Give me a day or two first before you do that. I might be able
to get to the bottom of this without it getting messy.”

“
Okay,
if you think that’s best,” Max said.

Christine was surprised
at his unprotesting capitulation but since it's what she wanted, she
was not about to argue.

“
Okay
then,” she said with a nod.

The waiter brought the
first course and she dug in.

*****

The
tabloids were full of stories and conjecture about the mystery girl
Max Lestrange was dating. She didn't remain a ‘mystery girl’
for long. Somebody spilled; her name, where she works…not much
else so Christine guessed it's probably Leandra or someone else from
the office. She was pissed about it but there was very little she
could do. She was more taken aback at all the fake stories that now
abound about her ‘relationship’ with Max. Everything from
her age to her ethnicity was altered to fulfill whatever fantasies
the tabloid wished to conjure up this week. In one story she was a
stripper who Max met and was smitten with and she’s now his
official mistress as if they’re living in eighteenth century
England, in another she blackmailed him into being with her because
she knew secrets about his past that he doesn’t wish to come
out; in some she’s desperate to marry him for his money and is
twisting his arm by trying to get pregnant – that one was
uncomfortably close to the truth for comfort – so as to force
him into matrimony. Christine felt like leaving town.