Chapter12
Luke listened as Elizabeth got out of the shower in the master bathroom and smiled slightly to himself. They’d had sex twelve times in forty-eight hours, and now--after they both had finally gotten a full night’s sleep--Elizabeth was taking a shower, and then they would have breakfast, and she would go home to get back to a project she was working on. For his own work, Luke had to meet with his accountant and do some checking on the cryptocurrency markets to make sure everything was going the way that it should.
Within weeks, he hoped, they would know whether or not Elizabeth had become pregnant; she was supposed to have her period in the next two weeks, and technically pregnancy tests could find out up to a week before that, but it wasn’t as reliable, and they wanted to wait until they could do a test at the actual doctor’s office.
Elizabeth emerged from the bathroom wrapped in one of his towels, and Luke felt his cock starting to stir at the sight of her, but he knew neither of them had the energy or enthusiasm for another round of sex.
“So, I guess it’s back to normal life as much as possible after this,” Elizabeth said. Luke shrugged.
“I mean, it’s not like we’re going our separate ways,” he pointed out. “Besides, we should see each other while we’re in the waiting period before we find out. It’ll make it less awkward if we have to start having sex several times a week next month.” Elizabeth snickered.
“Considering we just had sex twelve times in two days, I kind of feel like we’ve gone beyond awkward,” she said.
“Do you think you’re going to be pregnant?” Elizabeth let the towel fall away from her body, and Luke couldn’t help enjoying the sight of her, naked in his bedroom. Even though he knew there was no more sex for at least a couple of weeks, Elizabeth’s curves were distracting; she was every bit as appealing to look at as she had ever been.
“I have no idea,” Elizabeth said with a shrug. She started getting dressed, pulling on a pair of panties and a bra that she’d brought with her, and Luke watched in fascination. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t even feel symptoms for another couple of days, and even then...from what I’ve read, the early symptoms of pregnancy feel like you’re coming down with a flu or something like that.”
“I didn’t know that,” Luke said. “I’d heard about morning sickness, tenderness in the breasts, and all that.” Elizabeth shrugged again.
“A lot of women, even before they get those, feel tired and rundown and achy,” Elizabeth explained. “But those are the same feelings you get when you start getting sick, so you don’t tend to notice.”
“Well, if you start feeling like you’re coming down with something, maybe that’ll be a good time to take a pregnancy test,” Luke suggested.
“You really want this baby ASAP,” Elizabeth said, pulling a dress over her head and smoothing it over her curves. Luke smiled.
“I do,” he admitted. Elizabeth sat down on the edge of his bed and looked at him frankly for a moment.
“You know, I have to wonder why you didn’t sign up instead for some kind of matchmaking service,” she said. “It seems like it would be a lot easier to find someone to be a good wife than someone to give birth to a kid for you.” Luke considered that for a moment.
“I actually did try a matchmaking site a while back,” he said. “I’ve dated a lot of women. Don’t get me wrong; it isn’t like any of them were bad or anything like that. It was just that...I just never felt that thing. I never felt like I’d fallen in love with any of them.” He looked over Elizabeth’s body, covered as it was in the dress she’d thrown on.
Deep down in the darkest depths of his mind, he had already started to wonder if that wasn’t changing; he had more of a feeling for Elizabeth than he’d had for any of the women he’d dated in the past five years. That’s probably just because you know she’s going to be carrying your child, he told himself. But that excuse didn’t seem to wash.
“You’ve really never been in love with anyone?” Luke shrugged at the question.
“The closest I think I came was with you, back in high school,” he said quietly. “But I don’t know--would you call what we felt for each other back then, love?” Elizabeth looked away, and Luke could see the thoughts flickering across her face.
“I think it was a kind of love,” she said slowly. “I mean, we were kids. We never even got to the point of having sex. The last time we even saw each other was during winter break our freshman years.” She met his gaze. “We definitely had feelings for each other, though.”
“We did,” Luke agreed. He wanted to ask if she felt the same way in that moment as she had with him in high school, but he knew it was a stupid question; it was one he didn’t even really want the answer to. If she didn’t feel the same way, then he knew it would bother him, though he couldn’t say why. If she did feel the same way, then Luke knew that it would just open up the dangerous question of how they were going to manage to disengage from each other at the end of their contract.
“I think it’s okay to have feelings,” Elizabeth said, as if she’d divined something of where Luke’s thoughts were. “I mean, we’re making a baby together. I would feel gross and used if there were no feelings between us after having a bunch of sex.” She gave him a wry smile.
“So, you do have feelings for me right now?” Elizabeth shrugged and nodded at the same time.
“I like you,” she said. “I like being around you, and you are definitely great in bed.” She rose to her feet and moved a little closer to him on the bed. “Are you afraid of developing feelings for me or something?” Luke hesitated, not wanting to make Elizabeth alarmed at the possibility that he would back out; no matter what, he knew, he would still want the child they made.
“I am a bit, I guess,” Luke admitted. “After all this time of not falling in love with anyone, to the point of just...giving up hope on it, I’m a little worried that things are going to get complicated between us.”
“They don’t have to,” Elizabeth pointed out. “I mean, we can have feelings for each other and not let things get complicated. We know that the plan is for me to get pregnant and have a baby for you.”
“But if we get feelings for each other, that’s going to make things complicated no matter what,” Luke countered. “I just think...maybe we should disengage a little bit. Keep things in perspective.”
“I think that sounds a lot like running away from what’s going on,” Elizabeth countered. “I mean, feelings don’t just go away.”
“I just don’t want this to turn into a thing where, at the end of the whole ordeal, we have regrets,” Luke said. “The point of this was to get a kid, someone I could form a bond with.”
“And you’re still going to have that,” Elizabeth said. “Why would it be bad if you formed a bond with me too?”
“Because you’re going to go back to Portland. And do you really think that you’re going to be fully willing to just go back to your old life when this is over if you have feelings for me still?”
“Do you think it’s going to be easier for me to be pregnant and give birth with no emotional support?” Elizabeth gave him a wry smile. “I mean, if you don’t have feelings for me at all, that’s fine. I can deal with that.
But if you’re deliberately pulling back from me emotionally just because you’re worried about what might happen between us at the end, then…” she sighed. “I don’t know if I can keep things going with that. And it would kind of suck to be stuck here in Chicago for a year by myself, because I signed a contract with you and left everything behind in Portland.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Luke insisted firmly. “Look, we don’t even know if you’re going to catch this time. Let’s leave this issue to the side for right now. If you’re not pregnant this month, then next month we can talk about whether we want to keep going or whether we want to part ways, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to put you back in your regular life, if we decide to just call it quits.” Elizabeth’s eyes welled up, and she looked away for a moment.
“If that’s what you want to do, then that’s what we’ll do,” she said, her voice tight. “But I think you’re making a huge mistake.” She rose to her feet and turned away from him, walking out of the bedroom. Luke wanted to go after her, but at the same time, he knew that if they tried to talk it out just then that there would be no way for them to find any kind of agreement. They would both be stuck in their positions, and it would be even more likely for him to end up agreeing to something that would only hurt Elizabeth’s feelings worse.
He let her leave, following her downstairs at a distance, saying a quick goodbye in response to her offhand comment about catching the train back to her apartment. He didn’t even offer her his driver, knowing she would turn it down and that it would just make things worse between them.
Did I do the wrong thing? The question loomed hugely in his mind as the silence of the townhouse settled around him. Luke knew that the feelings he had already started to have towards Elizabeth were dangerous, but he couldn’t understand how she couldn’t see it. There was the temptation--obvious as it was--to give into what she’d pointed out, about her need for emotional support when it came to actually being pregnant and delivering the baby.
He’d fully intended on being present for all of the doctor’s visits and for the delivery of the child when that time came, but if he was emotionally distant from her, trying to keep his feelings contained, would he just be making more stress for the woman carrying his child, whom he already knew he had feelings for?
Luke went into the kitchen and started to make a desultory breakfast for himself, thinking that it would be easier to figure out what to do about the situation if his stomach wasn’t empty. Why hadn’t he offered Elizabeth breakfast too? It was one of a few meals that he could make on his own; they’d ended up having takeout for most of the past forty-eight hours, though Elizabeth had insisted on making pasta the night before.
It had been one of those moments where Luke could actually imagine what it would be like to have not just a child but the full picture: the loving wife, the warmth of a shared home, a family. It had been that, as much as anything else, that had led him to try and push the feelings out of the picture that morning.
As Luke sat down in the living room with his eggs and toast and sausage, he thought to himself that, ultimately, Elizabeth was right. If they’d been total strangers, and if he’d been committed to using in vitro fertilization to get her pregnant, that would be a whole separate situation. If he had had no feelings for her whatsoever, it would have been easy for him to offer her emotional support--it would have been totally impersonal.
But knowing that he already had feelings for her made it hard for Luke to know where the line should be. He didn’t know if he would be able to disengage at the end of their contract, once his child was in his hands. He didn’t know if he even would be willing to, and he couldn’t make Elizabeth abandon her old life completely.
He couldn’t ask that of her, and he also knew that he wouldn’t be willing to move to Portland. He had too much going on in Chicago; too much of his life was there. It seemed like there was no way for the situation to end except for poorly.
“Well, maybe she won’t get pregnant,” he said. “Maybe she’ll get her period in a couple of weeks, and we can discuss how to fix this next month.” The thought comforted him, but it stung at the same time. As much as he’d wanted to push Elizabeth out of his life to make things less complicated--and maybe even find another surrogate, one he definitely didn’t know, to carry the child he sought--imagining his life without even the prospect of Elizabeth in it hurt.
It was insane to him; how could he already have such strong feelings for someone he’d only spent a few weeks with? You have history. But that didn’t explain it. There was just something about the way Elizabeth was, about who she was, that appealed to him in a way that none of the other women he’d dated since they split up had done.
“Hell of a time to finally catch feelings,” Luke muttered to himself. The irony wasn’t lost on him at all, but the humor in it was bitter. He turned back to his breakfast and told himself that he would find a way to make things right between himself and Elizabeth. He didn’t know how he would do it--but with billions of dollars to his name, there had to be a way to mend fences with her.
Maybe they could even come to some kind of agreement about the eventual pregnancy and how they would strike the balance between being there for each other and getting uncomfortably close. It didn’t have to be complicated, did it?