The Billionaire's Surrogate: A BWWM Pregnancy Love Story (3 page)

“
Yes?
Who is it?” she asked a bit curtly.

“
Gra,
it's me,” Christine said, her voice sounding tinny and far away
through the intercom. Martha pressed the button to let her in to the
building and then called downstairs to the concierge to let her come
up. She was waiting at the door when the elevator stopped at their
floor.

“
What’s
wrong?” she asked tensely.

Christine smiled. “Why
do you think anything’s wrong?” she asked walking into
the spacious foyer and placing her coat on the priceless seventeenth
century table like it was a fifty dollar coat rack. Martha moved to
pick up the coat and hang it up in the closet near the door, there
for just such a purpose.

“
You
don’t just show up at my work unless there’s a problem,”
Martha said turning around to face Christine.

“
That’s
because you usually come home at night. I haven’t seen you for
two days,” Christine said in a tone that could be construed as
whining if one were being picky.

“
You’re
a big girl Chris, you don’t need to see me everyday,”
Martha said with a snort, leading the way to the kitchen.

“
Usually
grandmothers say the opposite thing,” Christine replied and
then putting on a high whiny soprano she continued. “You never
call me; I don’t see you anymore,” she said before
returning her voice to the normal tenor that it was. “That’s
what you’re supposed to say.”

“
Well
I see you a lot more than never; seeing as we live together so that
would just be stupid wouldn’t it?” she said opening the
kitchen door and strolling toward the coffee pot. She didn’t
turn around to see if Christine was following.

“
Christine,”
a deep voice called from down the hall.

Christine turned around
to see Max walking toward her in his pajamas and the most comfortable
pair of house slippers she’d ever seen. He was looking right at
her as he walked and she paused to wait for him.

“
Hello
Max, you’re looking better than the last time I saw you,”
she said coolly.

“
Huh,
so it was you who rang? I thought perhaps Andrea had gotten past the
Gestapo at the gate and gained entry,” he glanced at Martha as
he said Gestapo.

“
Nope,
just lil ol’ me,” Christine said trailing in her
grandmother’s wake to the kitchen but not wanting to enter
until Max took himself off somewhere else. She did not want to be
caught in a three way discussion with her grandma’s boss. That
would just be awkward.

“
How
kind of you to come see how I’m doing,” Max said.

Christine raised an
eyebrow. “Now why would you think that’s why I came?”
she asked.

Max shrugged. “I
don’t know, I just figure that beneath all the veiled hostility
is a heart that beats wildly for me,” he grinned as he said it
anticipating her ire. She just glared at him though, swirled past him
and into the kitchen.

“
Gra
your charge has awoken,” she declared knowing that Max had
followed behind her.

“
Good
morning Max; are you ready for your breakfast?” Martha asked.

“
Only
if the pair of you will join me,” Max said quite charmingly.

Martha was already
nodding her agreement so Christine couldn’t exactly tell him
where he could put his invitation but only because she was very well
bred.

They sat down to a
fruity breakfast; after Max had consumed his customary cup of coffee,
Martha handed him a vegetable smoothie to cleanse his palate. He
grimaced over it and insisted that if he had to have one then so did
Christine.

“
How
old are you? Five?” Christine snorted as her grandmother placed
another smoothie firmly on her place mat.

“
Isn’t
that how old you usually say I am anyway?” Max said with a
grin. “Anyway, jokes aside I need to speak with you both and
there is no time like the present.”

Christine opened her
mouth to point out that she was not his employee and therefore did
not need to hear his directives or whatever but her grandmother
narrowed her eyes at her and she shut her mouth.

“
I
might have prostate cancer,” Max began and Christine’s
urge to be a nuisance instantly faded away. It was just a reflex
anyway after all these years.

“
I’m
sorry,” she said. Her grandmother said nothing.

“
The
doctors have advised me on treatment and my prognosis, which is
fairly good. However, after treatment, I might end up sterile or
impotent…maybe both,” he said looking down at his
smoothie.

“
Ouch,”
Christine said.

“
Yes,
well I don’t tell you this for your sympathy. Martha you know
that I want children,” he said. Martha nodded her head.

“
Well
that desire hasn’t changed but my ability to have them soon
might…” his voice trailed away uncertainly.

“
What
do you need from us?” Christine asked briskly.

“
I
grew up with the worst mother, both of you know that. I don’t
want to subject my child to that. But I also don’t want to
condemn them to having no mother at all.”

“
Uh
huh?” Christine said brow furrowing in confusion. She could see
why Max had wanted to talk this over with Martha, after all, she’d
literally been the only mother figure he’d ever known. But why
her?

“
I
also…well finding the right surrogate in my position is not an
easy thing but last night I thought about something which I wanted to
run by you,” Max was looking at Christine as he said this and
she did not know why.

“
Go
ahead,” she said.

“
Will
you carry my child?” he asked.

Christine dropped her
glass of smoothie…although that might not totally have been by
accident.

“
What?”
she asked.

“
Hear
me out,” Max said hands spread placatingly.

“
I
am,” Christine replied calmly.

Max opened his mouth,
and then closed it again. He took a deep breath and started again,
“You and Rudy-“

“
Don’t
talk about Rudy,” Christine cut in curtly.

“
Okay
then, all I meant to say was I know he hurt you badly and you haven’t
gotten involved with anyone else since,” he hastened to speak
as she opened her mouth to protest. “I’m just saying that
you…and I are
both
damaged goods; we’re both protecting ourselves from hurt and
disappointment but we both want to have a family. I know you do
because you told me.”

“
What
has this got to do with-“ Christine bit out, her face
thunderous and glowing with emotion.

“
You
could have a child, with me. I’m not asking for happily ever
after here. I’m just saying this is one dream we both have that
we could fulfill for each other.”

“
You’ve
lost your mind,” Christine said, glancing at her oddly quiet
grandmother, surprised that she hadn’t jumped in here.

“
No
I haven’t. But I
will
lose my ability to have children pretty soon,” he said.

“
You
don’t know that. You’re not even sure it's cancer,”
Christine protested.

“
Am
I going to wait until they put the results in my hand and tell me we
have to go into surgery fast before I do what needs to be done? What
if there is no time after they find out what’s wrong? I gotta
do this while the getting’s good otherwise I might not have
another chance.”

“
But
what if it turns out that what you have is perfectly treatable and
curable without taking away your ability to have children? What
then?”

“
I
still want to have kids. I
know
you’ll
make a good mother simply because your grandmother is a great mother.
I’d still want it to be you.”

“
But
what if I don’t want to be the mother of your children?”
Christine asked. There was a lump in her throat that she didn’t
know why it was there.

“
Rudy
is no longer available Chris,” Max said, a tad cruelly in
Christine’s opinion.

“
Don’t
call me that,” she said.

“
Will
you at least think about it?” he asked.

Christine sighed and
looked at her grandmother, waiting for some clue as to how to
proceed. Her grandma looked impassively back, leaving the decision
entirely to her.

“
I
will try to think about,” she said at last.

“
Thank
you Christine,” Max said standing up to leave the table. He
bent forward and planted a kiss on her cheek and then went around the
table to do the same for her grandma. Christine was royally confused.

*****

“
So
you’re just going to sit there and not say anything?” she
asked her grandma when Max’s footsteps had stopped echoing in
the hallway. He must have reached his bedroom.

Martha shrugged, “You
know I try not to come between you kids. Your fights are always too
brutal for me.”

“
This
isn’t a fight and we’re not kids. What Max is suggesting
is far from kiddish…even if it
is
to do with kids. And it's madness. You know this. Why didn’t
you speak up? He’d have listened to you,” Christine said
chidingly.

Martha studied her. “If
you think that, why didn’t you just say no?” she asked
impassively.

Christine widened her
eyes at her, “Are you kidding me? Of course I didn’t say
no. He could have cancer!” she exclaimed.

“
Yes.
But whether or not that is true, if you think the idea is madness
then you should shoot it down. You say you’re not kids, but you
still want your gra to tell you what to do…”

“
That
is not fair,” Christine frowned at her.

“
You
can’t have your cake and eat it Chris; either this is madness
in which case you need to shut it down, or else it’s an idea
worth considering in which case it's your decision.”

Christine glared at
her. “I really hate that you’re so wise,” she
grumbled.

Martha
smiled and stood up to head back to the kitchen. “I’ll
pack you a nice lunch. Why don’t you head to the sunroom, it's
gorgeous this time of day. Perfect for thinking,” she said.

Christine made a face
at her behind her back but then stood, went to the side board to pour
herself some coffee and then headed to the sunroom to think.

*****

She
thought about her relationship with Rudy; they had met on the first
day of college at MIT; they were the only two black students in the
Electrical Engineering Freshman class and so they naturally
gravitated toward each other. The stress of college and their natural
competitiveness might have torn them apart instead it made them
closer. Unlike Christine’s humble roots however, Rudy came from
a well off New York family who, if not outwardly hostile, were still
ambivalent about having her in his life. Christine had hoped that
once they got to know her…especially after Rudy
proposed,
that they would soften up.

It
was Max who had dropped the truth bombs on her. He’d told her
that they would never accept her, that she would never be good enough
for the likes of them, that Rudy would break her heart…she’d
hated him for it. And hated him even more when every one of his
predictions came true. Rudy left her at the altar for a white woman.
He hadn’t so much as tried to fight for her against his family.
Christine had wanted to stay and fight but Max had whisked her off to
an island on the Caribbean with her grandmother. They kept her there
for three weeks, plying her with alcohol and good advice; trying to
get her over the bump. All she’d wanted to do was leave, to run
to New York and Rudy; to make him see that they were meant to be. But
there was no way off the island except Max’s private plane –
and that was not available to her until Max said so. She had cried
and pleaded and begged but neither Max nor her grandmother listened
to her. They just plied her with more drinks and more soothing words
while she felt like she might go crazy if she didn’t
move
.

Once the turmoil in her
head calmed down a little though, she decided that the best strategy
to ensure she got off the island was to pretend to be better. She
tried to smile; she toasted to her Rudy-free future, she audibly made
plans to move on. The more she did these things, the more relaxed Max
and her grandmother became. After a week of visibly relaxing she said
she should get back. She had her last semester of college to attend
and she needed to prepare for that. Rudy would still be in her class;
she would have to deal with that and not let it affect her grades.
She’d worked too hard to achieve her dreams to let this little
snafu trip her up. Martha and Max cheered her on, promised they would
do anything they could to make life better. Max even offered to get
Rudy expelled…though she was eighty per cent sure that had
been a joke.

They left the island
that week and once they got back Christine made no sudden moves, just
got on with the business of returning gifts – even though her
grandmother offered to do it – and writing thank you notes to
anyone who had been of help to her or sent her a gift. Once she was
through with that, she made preparations to go back to school. It was
her last semester and most of the work was done. Her project was
almost complete and she was on the fast track to graduating as an
electrical engineer. Rudy would not be able to avoid her in school;
she would make him see the error of his ways. Christine was still
young at the time, only twenty three; she’d thought there was a
chance for them. In spite of everything he’d done to her, she
still thought she could turn things around.