Chapter 17
Hanna
God, it had felt so good to tell him no. The last time we had been together, my body had yearned for his so badly, I’d tossed all my plans aside. I knew I couldn’t do that again. He looked so incredible in his outfit for the cocktail party, and I knew he was just as excited as I was, but I was the one who had the demands. The expectations. The control. If he wanted me, he’d have to give me what I wanted.
I wanted a child. I wanted to be a mother. I wanted to be strong and energetic and full of life so I could take on all the responsibilities that came with that child, and I was ready to take that on. I knew I was. I was ready for the long nights and the tantrums and the diapers and the bottles. I was ready for the growing up and the milestones and the beginnings of making my own family. I was ready to hear my child tell me they loved me for the first time. I was ready for his or her first words. I was ready for the nights when my child couldn’t sleep and wanted to crawl into my bed because they felt safe with me.
With Mom.
But what I wanted was more specific than that. I wanted Kason’s baby. I wanted him to be the father of my child. I wanted my child to have his eyes and his smile. I wanted my child to have his ingenuity and his determination. The child we created would be beautiful and have all the best traits of each of us. I trusted him. I trusted him with my body and I trusted him with my plans. My future. It wouldn’t get any better than this. There wasn’t any other man I’d ever come across who I would trust enough and find attractive enough to father my child.
Plus, the sex was incredible. I’d had sex a few times before him, but my partners had all been so selfish. They wanted in as fast as they could get in before they got theirs and got out. It hadn’t taken them more than a few minutes to get what they needed, and then they’d rolled off me and fall asleep. They were boys compared to Kason. The multiple orgasms and the electricity that flowed through my body and the fire he set in my pelvis…I’d never felt anything remotely like that before, and I knew that meant we were compatible. I knew that meant my body had chosen who it wanted to father a child with.
I trusted my gut.
I had walked out of that room with my head held high while Kason had fallen to his knees. I’d crumbled the sexiest, most intelligent man on this planet, and there was something satisfying about that. Every time I turned on a television or talked to Marcus, Kason had some new flavor of the week on his arm. To think that I could bring such a playboy to his knees was nothing short of empowering. I chatted with people during the rest of the cocktail party, wondering exactly what Kason had done in that room. The mere thought of him having to relieve himself before being presentable was enough to make me shiver.
I had brought the billionaire to his knees for my own pleasure. I had something he wanted desperately, and I could use that as leverage to get what I wanted.
It had been close, though. The moment I’d heard his buckle come undone, there had been a part of me that had wanted to do it. A part of me had wanted to cave again. Men like Kason always carried condoms, and I knew if I caved, he would have one ready so he could take my body again. The idea of his raging cock filling me time after time was enough to make my nipples pucker beneath the beautiful dress my mother had bought me. The idea of him pinning me to the wall and snapping his hips into mine until I orgasmed around his dick made the insides of my thighs warm. He would’ve pressed his hand against my mouth to muffle my sounds. He would’ve sank his teeth into the meat of my breast, marking me as his own before he covered it up with my dress.
God, if I didn’t stop thinking about him, I’d have to excuse myself to the bathroom.
The cocktail party was boring, and Kason did everything he could to avoid my presence. It became a little game of cat and mouse. I’d find him in one room and smirk when he left. Then I’d conveniently find him in another room and he would make an excuse to leave. He couldn’t fool me. I knew he wanted me as badly as I wanted him.
Once the cocktail party was over and everyone had dispersed, I got my answer.
I’d walked back home after helping Mrs. Marx break down everything. When I got to my bedroom, my phone was vibrating on my nightstand.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hello, Hanna.”
His voice sent shivers down my spine, and I closed my eyes before I took in a deep breath.
“Hey there, Kason.”
“I’ve been thinking about your offer,” he said.
My body came alive and my soul took flight. My ears perked up and tears of happiness lined the rims of my eyes. Was this it? Had I found the perfect man who would agree to give me a child? Had Kason Marx—the boy I’d crushed on since middle school—finally decided that having a child with me wasn’t as bad as it sounded?
“Yes?” I asked.
“I was wondering if you had some time to talk about it over dinner. We could tell your parents that we’re going to iron out the details of your internship.”
“Couldn’t we do that anyway?” I asked.
“I can place calls to HR and my accountant and have the details ready to be talked about, yes.”
“Then I don’t see why we couldn’t have dinner and talk about both of our respective offers.” I grinned. I felt like a kid on Christmas. The hottie from high school was asking me out for dinner, and we both had things we needed to iron out. We were approaching this like a business deal, and it made the blood in my veins boil with anticipation. The idea of having Kason’s perfect child growing inside me was enough to force tears of happiness down my cheeks.
“When would you like to go to dinner?” I asked.
“How about in 20 minutes? You can keep your dress on if you’d like.”
Wait, what? He wanted to do dinner now?!
“I thought you said you had some calls to place,” I said.
“I own the company. Really, all I’m doing is informing them of the change. I’d come with the employer paperwork in hand, ready for you to fill out and designate a start date. We can negotiate wages and everything while we’re there.”
“I can be ready in 20 minutes,” I said.
“I’ll come over in a few.”
I hung up the phone and squealed in delight. I rushed to the bathroom and freshened myself up a little bit before running downstairs and telling my mother that I was going to dinner with Kason. My mother hugged me and my father asked what was going on. I told him Kason finally had the details of my internship and that he was willing to make it a paying job.
“I’m so proud of you, honey. So very proud,” my father said.
Twenty minutes later, I was in the car with Kason and we were driving into town. We didn’t talk too much—I could tell he was deep in thought—but everything inside me told me I was mere minutes away from getting everything I’d ever dreamed of.
And all with the perfect man.
He was an absolute gentleman. He opened my car door and ushered me calmly into the restaurant with his hand on my lower back. He pulled out my chair and even ordered what he thought I would love off the menu. Everything was absolutely stunning. A man would only do this for a woman he was about to make happy, and I was about to burst with joy.
“Which topic would you like to broach first: the internship or your offer?” Kason asked.
I grabbed my drink and brought the straw to my lips before I leaned back in my chair. I felt like a business mogul brokering the biggest deal of my life. My legs began to tremble with nerves.
“My offer,” I said.
“Then I’ll get straight to the point.”
He leaned onto his forearms with that sly trademark grin of his on his face. His eyes sparkled in the candlelight, and the shadows of the restaurant were etched deeply into his features. The moment the words flew from his lips, I was ready to tug him into the bathroom and start fulfilling our deal. The moment he made me the happiest woman alive, I would be ready to throw all caution to the wind and tell him to take me any way he pleased.
Any way that got me what I wanted.
“I’m not willing to get you pregnant, Hanna,” he said.
All at once, my world shattered around me. The confidence fell from my body and slipped out onto the floor. I set my drink down on the table while I tried to choke back tears of disappointment. Why would he do this? Why would he bring me to this wonderful restaurant and treat me with the utmost respect if he wasn’t going to give me what I wanted?
What the fuck was the point of this dinner?
“Kason, I just want the child. I don’t need the father,” I said. “You’ll get to go back and live your life! What more could you want?”
“I can’t let you do that to yourself. Hanna, you’ve glamorized being a single mother, and it’s one of the most difficult jobs there is. Those Dove and diapers commercials, that’s not what parenting is like.”
“Oh, and you’d know?” I exclaimed. I crossed my hands over my chest and shoved my breasts together. His eyes flickered down to my cleavage.
“Not a chance,” I snapped. “You know I’ll be fine, Kason. I always am. I don’t want a relationship with you. That’s not what this arrangement is.”
“Then I’m not sleeping with you if that’s all you want,” Kason said.
Wait a second. He was stealing my line!
“If it isn’t you, then it’ll be someone else,” I said.
“I’m not doing that to you, Hanna. I’m not getting you pregnant and then leaving you to be a single mother. I’m not ruining your education like that, and I’m not ruining your life either.”
“Having a child is hardly ruining someone’s life, Kason! With that kind of talk, you’re better off with this deal! You can spread your seed and get some wicked sex, then have nothing to do with the beauty of the child you’ve created.”
“The answer is no,” he said sternly.
“Then why the hell did you bring me to dinner, huh? You could’ve just told me no over the phone. There was no reason for the pomp and circumstance.”
Tears rimmed my eyes but I didn’t give a shit anymore. I felt embarrassed and led on. At least I’d been honest with him about my intentions from the beginning. What he was doing was cruel!
“Because I enjoy the time I spend with you and I’d like to convince you to continue using protection so I can continue to be with you.”
“I’m not just having sex with you, Kason. I have a goal and I’m sticking to it.”
“Why is this really happening, Hanna? Why are you so hell-bent on having a child before you graduate college?”
I sighed. “Kason, I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Try me.”
I panned my eyes over to him and felt globs of tears spill over onto my cheeks. His eyes were hooked on me, ready for every worth that poured from my lips. For whatever reason, I couldn’t hold myself back.
“Because my mother is graying,” I admitted.
“You want a child because your mother’s getting older?” Kason asked.
“If they ever knew,” I said, choking back tears.
“Talk to me, Hanna. Open up to me. Tell me what’s going on,” he said.
“Marcus got the best of them, you know,” I said.
“How so?”
“They were young when they had him. Marcus has all these stories. Stories about him and Dad going camping. Of him and Mom baking in the kitchen. Of them taking him to the pool all day and walking with him on the beach at night. They’d spent afternoons in the sun just to watch him run around. The way he lights up about it, it’s just… wonderful, you know?”
“And you don’t have those memories?” he asked.
“Not the way he does,” I said. “My memories are of rocking in the chair with Dad while the sun shone outside. Of hearing Mom say ‘no’ when I wanted to help cook because she was cooking for too many people. Of sitting on the balcony when we went to the beach because Marcus was old enough to go play but they didn’t have the energy to go to the beach that day. They did the best they could, they really did. And I love my parents, I really do. But, I want children. I always have. And I can’t do that to my child.”
“You want to have children now so you can give them what they gave Marcus,” he said.
“I don’t know why being a mother is such a bad thing,” I said, grabbing my drink. “Mom loves it. I watched her move around the kitchen cooking for her family. I watched her set up for the holidays to surprise my father when he got home. I watched her support him all throughout his life—support all of us throughout our lives-- and I want that. I want to be that for my child. But, I can’t be that for my child if I’m tired from my own old age, Kason.”
“But, you also can’t be that if you don’t have a man, either, Hanna,” he said.
“Well, people compromise all the time in their lives. This is my compromise. Having the energy to run around with my child and be there to watch my grandchildren be born is more important than wasting more time cultivating a relationship with a man that might not even work,” I said.
“Is that a smart compromise, though? Hanna, you’re an intelligent woman. Just take a deep breath and think about it.”
“That’s the thing, Kason. The thing no one seems to understand,” I said. “I have thought about it. A lot. Frequently. I see it when I close my eyes at night. I see it when I should be studying for tests. I watch mothers with their screaming toddlers in the store as well as the mothers cradling their newborns and I get the same sensation. I don’t crinkle my nose at one but love the other. I want it all. Every single part of it,” I said.
“And no one’s questioning that,” Kason said as he reached for my hand.
My neck was soaked with my tears and my mind was lost in my own reverie. Kason was destroying everything I had set my mind to, and I was angry with him. I was angry and I hated him.
In that very moment, in that restaurant full of people, I hated him.
“But you have to understand,” Kason began as he took my hand, “there are so many things you aren’t thinking about. Things that you don’t see in those snapshots you are privy to. There are sleepless nights when you have no help. There’s medical bills you’d have to pay on your own and hospital visits you’d have to brave by yourself. You’d be alone giving birth and you’d search for schools on your own. You’d have to be both the caretaker and the sports fanatic if you had a boy, both the makeup connoisseur and the harsh appraiser of boys if you had a girl. You’d be their parent, not their friend, which would mean punishments and time-outs. You’d be solely an enforcer for the first few years of their life. And what happens when your child first tells you they hate you? It happens. I yelled it at my father more times than I care to count when I was a teenager. Are you telling me you want to do all that on your own?”
My chest was hiccupping with the sobs I was trying to keep at bay. I ripped my hand away from his. It felt too good to have him touch me, and I knew if he continued talking to me the way he was—comforting me the way his was—I’d go back on everything.
Everything I’d put my mind to.
“Yes,” I said.
“You don’t seem too sure of that,” he countered.
“Well, who the hell is sure of anything?” I exclaimed.
“I’m sure that I want to spend time with you,” Kason said.
“Whatever,” I said.
“Can’t you at least see how confused I am? Just a little?”
I thought long and hard about what he had said, and when he put it that way, I could see how weird it sounded. Maybe if I was in my thirties and hadn’t settled down yet, people would be more willing to accept me as a single mother. But, no one around me liked older mothers. There was this massive double standard in the way I was raised. It sucked, but it was there. Younger mothers were praised for their bravery and selflessness, but older single mothers were seen as people who prioritized everything else over a family. They were branded terrible mothers before they could even give birth to their child.
I understood the reasons why my mother wanted me to have children young. She was being protective the only way she knew how. She wanted me to have my dreams and wishes without living with the notion that people would look down on me for my choices. And I was in her corner. She didn’t have to worry about me not wanting children.
But I could see how Kason—or anyone else for that matter—might find it was odd that I was seeking this out before I’d even graduated college or found a career.
Or had a home of my own.
“I suppose…”
“Look, just…stay on birth control. You’re on the pill, right?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“Stay on the pill and let’s just have some fun. I love your body, and I can tell by the way you look at me that you love mine. So let’s just have some fun while we’re home. Take the internship, fill out the paperwork—we’ll work out a pay scale at a later date—and let’s just enjoy one another, Hanna.”
I blushed at his comments, but when my eyes flickered to the employee paperwork, Kason handed me a pen.
“They’re yours if you want them, the internship and my body.”
I shocked even myself when I agreed to his terms.