Chapter Five
Luna rubbed her head hard as Tucker watched her. She still couldn't get over what had happened that afternoon, what was going to happen now. She could feel an ache rising up behind her eyes, as if there was a headache coming on, but she refused to look weak or frail in front of this man. Looking weak or frail in front of Tucker Keene, she decided, was decidedly a mistake.
“But why?” she asked, aware that she sounded slightly hapless. “Why do you need someone to do this at all?”
“I believe the paperwork made everything quite clear,” Tucker said with what was, for him, extreme patience. “You are going to act as a surrogate, and you will carry my child. After that child is born, you will be given your pay in exchange for relinquishing all custody of that child to me.”
“Yes, with that ugly little rider stating that if the kid's a boy, there's a bonus in it for me, right,” she said, unable to hide her distaste at the idea. “But what you haven't told me is why. Why do you need a surrogate?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. Ever since his little bombshell a few hours ago, she had gotten a very quick but very thorough education on Tucker and what he did. It was hard to understand that she was sitting across the desk from one of the most rich and powerful men in the country, but there it was. The fact that this man could buy her city block a thousand times over felt incredibly abstract to her. Instead, she concentrated on trying to understand the inch-thick wad of papers in front of her.
“You mean, why don't I adopt, why don't I simply get married and have children the old-fashioned way, why don't I do something that does not involve impregnating a surrogate in exchange for what I remind you is an obscene amount of money?”
“I know how much money this is,” Luna said, shaking her head. “Believe me, I know, and I know what a million dollars could do for me. It's just... why? Why, when there are so many other ways to get what you want?”
He stood and started to pace. She had another moment to realize how very tall he was. He looked every inch the rich and powerful man he was as he turned towards the window, looking out over the city that sprawled below.
“Because the name of the game is control, Luna,” he said, and there was a thread of iron that ran through his voice. “Because at the end of the day, in any of those other situations, someone else would have a claim to the child in question. That is abhorrent to me. What I want is to have a child that is completely mine, that I will raise and care for.”
Luna stared at his back, her head tilted to one side.
“That sounds...”
“Creepy?”
He glanced over her with a slight smirk. She could see where that smirk had gotten him just about everything that he wanted from women in the past. She could feel her own heart start to beat a little faster, and she told herself that that was foolish and dangerous to say the least.
“No,” Luna said when she knew that she could speak without her voice trembling at all. “Just lonely.”
There was a split second there where the charming mask cracked and she glimpsed something that seemed real, perhaps a little too real, underneath. Luna caught a moment of doubt, a moment of hesitation and something that looked like a great deal like longing underneath before he hid it away again.
“I am sure you know what this could mean for you,” he said smoothly, as if they had not had that small divergence. “With a million dollars, you could start that... what was it that you wanted, a candy shop or florist or something like that?”
“I want to start my own line of jewelry,” she said, refusing to back down from his condescending smile. “It's what I've always wanted and yes, a million dollars would absolutely get me there.”
“So what's the problem?” he asked. “Sign the damn paper and we can get on with things.”
Luna could have torn her hair out at his flippancy. Didn't he know what this all meant? He was proposing to change both of their lives forever, to actually create another life, and all he could say was for her to get on with it? She could have shouted at him, but she had the idea that many people shouted at Tucker, and it made no difference at all.
But...
She did want her jewelry store. She did want to realize a vision that she knew all too well would only come with having enough cash and enough credit to get her where she needed to go. She was painfully aware that if she let this deal go by, she might be looking at years, even decades of poverty before she could even begin to realize her dream. She knew all of that, but if it was only that, she might have chosen to walk away anyway. After all, she had been prepared to simply be poor until her dream was realized anyway. She had starved before.
The thing that truly kept her from doing that, however, the thing that made her pull back from simply rejecting all of this outright for the lunacy it was, was that touch of longing in Tucker's eyes. There was something there that spoke to her, that called to her, that told her that there was more to this man than the simple arrogance he had shown her, that she guessed he showed the rest of the world as well.
“Tell me something first,” she said. “Do you want to be a good father?”
He looked at her, and he was frankly shocked.
“It's not a hard question,” she said. “Will you love a child? No matter what else, will you fight for your child and make sure that he or she has the best, and that they feel loved and supported no matter what?”
Luna wasn't sure what she was looking for in that moment. However, in that unguarded moment, she knew that no one had dared ask Tucker Keene this question before. She knew that no one had ever questioned him like this, and what came out of his mouth she felt was the truth, felt it somewhere deep in the very marrow of her bones.
“Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, I will do that.”
“All right then.”
Luna didn't know quite what she was doing when she picked up the pen, but she signed the paper in front of her with a flourish. There was no doubt in her, none at all. That would come later, but right now, she knew that this was what needed to happen. It felt as if the tides of fate were swirling around her, tugging at her and making her want to shout. There was something here that she could not truly see or understand, but she felt it at work.
After a moment, Tucker reached for the paper, and he signed as well. His signature was an elegant dark scrawl, and something about seeing their names together made Luna's heart squeeze. Then she looked up into his eyes and gasped.
There was such a burning victory there, such a triumph, that she took a step back. His amber eyes were bright with a kind of conquering fury, and as if Tucker sensed her alarm, he nodded.
“Yes,” he said, not bothering to hide the need in his voice. “You belong to me now.”
***
An hour later, Luna had been sent home with clear instructions and Tucker stood alone in his office. He gazed out over the spread of the city beneath him, and there was still something elated in him. It felt as if his heart had sprouted wings and would now very much like to flee his body. He felt... light, somehow, and he didn't understand it.
He typically didn't like things that he didn't understand, but there was already something inside him whispering that he did like Luna Madrigal, perhaps liked her a little too much?
It didn't make sense at all. Perhaps it was all that red hair that made people look up as soon as she entered a room, or perhaps it was those flashing green eyes. The thing was that that didn't even cover it. Tucker had romanced and been seduced by some of the most stunning women in the world. Luna might have been a spitfire, and she might have had a mouth on her that could drive a priest to sin, but she certainly did not compare.
Why then, was she the one to whom he had offered the contract? Why was she the one who had refused to leave his mind? The truth was that ever since he had met her in his office, ever since their kiss that she had ended so quickly, he had stopped looking at other applicants. There was no one else who could compare to her, who could hold his attention.
The truth was that there were better candidates. He knew that. Ones that he could feel knew how to play the game, who would be pleased to deliver a child to him and leave, never looking at him or the child again. Others had had children before, meaning that physically it would be easier and a more predictable process. However, once he had seen Luna, all he could imagine was a little boy with her flashing green eyes and courage, a child that would fight with a fury that came from both parents.
Tucker had not gotten this far in a very tough world by lying to himself. There was something else at the bottom of all of this. He knew it. There was something deep down that told him that he needed to hang on to Luna and never let her go. It practically screamed for her until he could hear nothing else, and then he shut it away.
No.
Luna was simply the perfect woman for the task. He didn't know how, and he didn't know why, but it was her, and no one else. He refused to question it a moment longer, and he folded the thought away.
After all, there was a great deal to look forward to.