Jaycee did see Guy at work, but he didn’t speak to her. He didn’t seem to be going out of his way to ignore her, but he didn’t reference their meeting. Things had gone back to how they were before the staring began. And she was ok with that… she thought.
The care home that her grandmother was in was good. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst either. Jaycee had been to a few places to check them out when it became obvious that she couldn’t care for all her grandmother’s needs on her own anymore. She’d tried her best for a long time, but couldn’t work and be in the apartment to look after her Grandma Mavis. Jaycee had hired care staff to be with her grandmother when she was working, but in the end, the costs and all the equipment rentals ended up being about the same as a care home was, and her grandmother had liked the idea of having friends her own age around because she’d always been a social sort.
The first stroke had scared them both, and her grandmother’s confidence took a bit of a knock. The second one was worse and Mavis Kirk spent more time in hospital after. Jaycee was still paying the bills that weren’t covered by insurance and her own insurance had lapsed long ago, she just couldn’t afford to keep paying everything.
Sitting beside her grandmother’s chair in the care home room, Jaycee was helping to cut her food. Mavis experienced weakness all down her left side, some days it was better than others, but it did lead to her wonderful grandmother having trouble with simple tasks.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Mavis said. “You should take your pastels down to the shore.”
Another downside, her grandma occasionally got confused. “I can’t draw, gamma,” she said, helping Mavis take hold of her fork. “You’re the artist in our family.”
Mavis was slow as she fed herself. Jaycee was tempted to help her and often had to stop herself from leaping in to take over. She just hated to see the woman who’d given her everything, weakening. Mavis had grown up near the beach, but there was no shore around here. Jaycee had no time to take off to the beach either; she was due at AD in less than an hour.
Some days were better than others. When Mavis was tired, the slur in her speech was much more pronounced, as were the issues she often had with memory. Sometimes she was sharp as a tack, other times, Jaycee left the room fighting tears. All she wanted to do was make everything better, just like Mavis had always done for her.
“I need…” Mavis put down her fork and lifted a shaking hand toward the plastic cup beyond the plate.
Jaycee picked it up and wrapped both of Mavis’s hands around it, keeping it secure in her own too because if Mavis spilled or dribbled sometimes she got angry or upset and Jaycee’s heart would just break if she had to walk away from her grandmother while she was upset.
When she was finished with the drink, both women set the cup back down and Jaycee helped Mavis with the fork again. “I can’t come over tomorrow,” Jaycee said. “I have a new client, and I can’t make it over here before the bar… But I’ll come on Tuesday, I promise.”
“You work too much,” Mavis said, listening although Jaycee could see that her grandmother was concentrating hard on her food.
Her grandmother didn’t have a clue about the financial trouble they were in, and that was just the way Jaycee wanted it to stay. One day, she might have to be honest. Mavis would become a ward of the state if Jaycee couldn’t care for her anymore.
Biting her lip, she didn’t want to be the cause of her own upset. Mavis had fought so hard to make sure Jaycee didn’t become a statistic, an anonymous child in the foster system, known to authorities by a number. Her parents had abandoned her and it had been her grandmother who’d stepped in to give her love and a home.
Disappointment didn’t come close to what Jaycee would feel if she failed her grandmother by resigning her to that fate in her golden years.
“I love my work,” Jaycee said. That had been true when she was doing it for the love. Sometimes it felt like she was paddling upstream and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed… anything.
“You’ll never meet a nice man if you’re working all the time.”
Men. Jaycee had never seen her grandmother with a man; her grandfather had died before she was even born. When she was a pre-teen, she’d never really thought about it. As a teenager, she was too caught up in herself to wonder about her grandmother’s love life, plus, it was gross. It was only as she got older that Jaycee recognized the sacrifices her grandmother had made to give her a good life.
“Who needs a man?” Jaycee asked, picking up the napkin to wipe food from the corner of Mavis’ mouth.
“You do,” Mavis said, making slow eye contact. “Who will look after you when I’m gone?”
Sucking in a breath, Jaycee straightened. “Don’t talk like that,” she gasped.
There should’ve been something funny about Mavis suggesting she was the caregiver in her current state. Except Jaycee would always rely on this woman, no matter how physically strong she was or wasn’t.
Jaycee got her tenacity from Mavis. Got her guts and her attitude from the woman who had battled through every tribulation in her life.
“You need to think about what comes next,” Mavis said, resting her fork on the plate.
“What’s next?”
“Children of your own.”
Shaking her head, Jaycee took the fork from Mavis to feed her another bite. “You know how I feel about that. I’m not having children.”
“Because you don’t trust yourself not to turn into your own mother,” Mavis said. “You could never be her. You don’t have a hateful bone in your body. Your mother was all hate.”
Yes, she was, and her father hadn’t been much better. But they didn’t often talk of her father. Not so much because there was any great denial, but because Mavis blamed herself for the kind of father her only son turned out to be.
“Is… it painful?”
“Is what painful?” Mavis asked, using her stronger hand to take the fork from Jaycee.
“Giving birth.”
Mavis stopped what she was doing. Her initial shock became a smile. “They have all kinds of wonderful drugs these days.” Laughing, Jaycee supposed that was an answer. “Why? Are you considering it?”
“My genes aren’t bad. Everyone’s always been healthy,” she said, stroking Mavis’ wiry white hair from her temple. “It’s bringing them up I’m afraid of.”
The red bills were piling up. In a few months, she’d have to admit defeat. Would she give up a year of her life to save this incredible woman?
It was almost a ridiculous question.
Jaycee would give up her life for the grandmother she adored, so what was a few months of pregnancy if it kept them solvent? Nothing, that’s what. An easy sacrifice. Mavis’ heart was so good that if Jaycee could trade physical bodies with her, she would in a heartbeat. Doing this, giving birth for money, seemed like a small price to pay.
Watching Mavis struggle to pick up the fork once, then twice, tears sprang to Jaycee’s eyes and she slid a hand over her grandmother’s to help her fingers move around the handle. Jaycee couldn’t let the government stick this once invincible woman in a backroom care facility somewhere to be ignored until she died.
It broke Jaycee’s heart to see her grandmother here. She had a wide window in her room with a view of the grounds and the trees beyond, so it wasn’t a bad life, but it was less than Mavis deserved. She had to find a way to keep her grandmother here in this place that wasn’t the best.
Her grandmother deserved the best, but Jaycee couldn’t afford that. She sure wouldn’t be able to bear seeing her grandmother in anywhere worse than this.
Money was the only obstacle to her giving Mavis everything she deserved.
That was it. Money.
If she had money, she could show Mavis her gratitude; reward the wonderful woman for caring so selflessly for her and giving up her life for the grubby little granddaughter who’d had no one to love her until her grandmother took her into her arms.
The decision stayed with her all night.
At first, Jaycee told herself to be patient. To think about it. To reflect. But in truth, there was no choice. She’d finished her second singing set and was due to start her last set in just a few minutes.
As she stood in front of the bar, slugging water from the bottle she’d just been given by Pete, Jaycee noticed Guy in the middle of the room. Scanning the patrons, he was doing his job, making sure there were nothing but smiles and fun surrounding them while looking for warning signs that something might be about to go down.
There weren’t often fights in here. But artists, by their very nature, tended to be a passionate bunch. Nonchalant for ninety percent of the time and then someone would insult one of their ideals and boom, suddenly it was on.
Jaycee had never really looked at Guy before, not as a whole package. At about six-three, he was taller than most of the people in the room, giving him a good vantage point to keep an eye on things. Would he be a good father?
Damn, she was thinking about this.
She was going to have that guy’s baby.
Resolved, and determined not to chicken out, she slammed the plastic bottle on the bar and began to wind her way through the tables and bodies of the customers between them who had no idea what a profound diversion both of their lives were about to take.
Jaycee walked up to him—right up. She had to because there wasn’t much space around. And when her chest made contact with his torso, he lowered his attention slowly. Guy noticed her and then picked up his chin again to keep an eye on the room, like he’d identified her and dismissed her as no kind of threat. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask her why she’d just marched up and barged right into him.
It had been a week since he’d first put the suggestion to her, so maybe he was pissed at her for refusing him or it could be that without her acceptance, she was nothing to him. Yet, she was the one who’d walked up to him, if she had something to say, she should say it, it wasn’t his place to start the conversation.
For a second, she thought maybe he hadn’t heard her. The music wasn’t loud, it was just a background track she’d put on to keep the atmosphere alive. But the conversation was lively, so the noise level was high.
When he slowly lowered his gaze, she saw through his narrow inspection. Oh yeah, he’d heard her all right.
Grabbing her shoulder, he took her by surprise when he dragged her to the edge of the room and crouched to line his face up with hers. “What did you say?”
“I’ll do it,” she said.
Her heart was doing a samba and her skin felt like it was a fire-ants’ dancefloor, but there was also something else, a prickle of almost excitement beneath all the apprehension. Pregnancy, babies, yeah, terrifying, but the freedom it could give her… If this guy was for real, and he could provide funds for her, then damn, she’d be able to breathe again.
“You’ll… you will?” he asked and exhaled his surprise in a single burst. Scooping both hands under her jaw, he pulled her closer and grinned.
Hell.
She’d never seen him look like that before. He was happy. More than happy, he was overjoyed. After appreciating her face for a second, he pulled her into his arms and squeezed her so tight that she had to hit his ribs a couple of times to request release.
Guy stopped squeezing, but kept hold of her shoulders as he bowed to meet her eyes again. “Come back to mine tonight and we’ll figure it all out.”
Tonight.
So soon?
Oh… oh, damn. Right. Yes… Ok.
She just managed to nod when Brik, one of the other bouncers came up behind Guy and touched him to get his attention. As soon as Guy turned away, she bolted.
Yes, she’d do it. But hell, did she have to do it right this minute? She hadn’t even shaved her legs today.
“You’re nervous,” Guy said as he brought her a glass of wine.
Yeah, maybe because she’d had no idea this crazy bastard drove a big scary motorcycle. One that he’d put her on the back of to drive her through the city streets like they were in a disaster movie trying to outrun a tsunami.
Taking the wine from him, Jaycee cradled the glass in two hands and ignored him sitting with her on his couch to stare into the cool liquid. “I’ve never agreed to have a guy’s kid before,” she said after her pulse began to recover from the adrenaline shot given to her by that road trip.
“You don’t know what this means to me, Jaycee,” he said, dropping a heavy hand onto her knee.
The fabric of her dress was trapped between his palm and her skin, but the heat of it warmed her, proving it was there… and that she was here. Near this man who’d asked her to carry his child. Her heart began to race. So soon? Did he have to touch her just like that? Like it was no big deal?
Oh damn, she got another chill.
“I have a lot of… questions,” she said, pushing his hand away from her leg. “Before we think about anything else. We have to get a few things straightened out.”
“Ok,” he said, twisting his body toward her and resting his beer bottle on his knee. “Like what?”
“I have to know you’re a decent guy. You’re asking me just to hand my kid over. Whether you want me to sign a legal, whatever, it would still be my egg, my child.”
“Biologically, yes,” he said. “I’m glad you’re asking about me, shows you have good character.”
“I don’t need your approval,” she said, pissed at herself for getting defensive. “But I do need you to prove that you can hold up your end of the deal.”
“My sperm count is—”
“Not that end,” she said. “The money. I won’t do this for cheap. You’re asking to rent my body for a year, but I’m taking a risk, there can be all kinds of complications with pregnancy. There are medical expenses and—”
“Everything medical will be taken care of,” he said. “I will cover all your expenses until the baby is born. Everything. You can stay here and—”
“Here?” she asked. “Why would I live with you?”
“Because I want to be involved,” he said. “It’s your body, but this is my kid. He’s going to ask me questions and I want to be able to tell him if you got sick or had cravings. Stuff like that.”
This was becoming real. Guy was talking about a human, the real person that she was going to produce. “He’s going to hate me,” she whispered, focusing on her wine again. “He’ll think I just abandoned him.”
Sliding those long fingers under her chin again, he picked up her head to marry their eyes. “No,” he said. “He’s going to know that you gave me the most special gift. You’re not going to be hated around here. I’m so grateful for this, Jayc, so grateful… I won’t let the little guy say one bad word about you, ever.”
Pushing his hand away again, it was easier to maintain distance when he wasn’t being sweet. “You’ll cover all my grandmother’s expenses,” she said. “Everything. The home, the medical, everything.”
He nodded. “For as long as she needs it.”
It was an amazing relief to hear someone say it would all be taken care of. Jaycee could feel the weight of worry lifting from her shoulders. In the research she’d done about surrogacy, this was a damn good deal. Most surrogates got a one-off payment, and although the amount varied, that one payment would only cover her grandmother’s costs for a year at most, two at an absolute push. Here was Guy promising to take care of her on an indefinite basis, Mavis could live another month or another two decades, she was only seventy-seven.
While it seemed that he was saying the right things, Jaycee couldn’t relax yet. “Guy, how can… Do you know what you’re committing yourself to? Taking care of her expenses, my medical expenses, and the expenses of a baby? That’s a huge commitment.”
“I know, don’t worry, you don’t have to worry about money.”
Again, so sure, and this place was nice, but she still had no clue how he was planning to cover the costs. Jaycee couldn’t get pregnant and then find he’d run out of cash. “I don’t mean to be rude, but… Do you sell drugs or something?”
His smile flashed for a brief second again, he’d been more relaxed tonight than she’d ever seen him. “You think I’m a criminal?”
“I think if you are, I won’t be carrying your baby, and if your story isn’t believable enough, I’m going to assume you’re lying.”
Jaycee was willing to bust his balls, if she had to, but when he inhaled and turned himself even further toward her, he didn’t look worried. “Ok, before I tell you how I can afford this, I need your word that you’ll do it. Your word is enough for me.” She was going to object before he carried on. “Providing I’m not a scumbag criminal who wants to beat or exploit our child… promise me that you will do this… Jaycee I’m putting a lot of faith in you here, there are only four people in the whole world who know the truth. I’ve done my research, I trust your integrity… I just need your word.”
This was the point of no return. If he was legit and she said yes, there was no backing out. Picturing her grandmother being bundled into some charity minibus with her clothes in tatters and tears in her eyes was enough to give Jaycee the impetus to say, “You have my word, Guy.”
But he didn’t look pleased or happy, in fact when he swallowed, she’d say he looked nervous for the first time tonight. “Ok,” he said and cleared his throat before and after emptying his beer bottle into it.
“Oh God, are you in porn or something?” she groaned. “You have some depraved studio upstairs that—”
“Studio, yes, depraved no,” he said.
She was confused. “I don’t understand what—”
“I’m Beckett Trent,” he said, and his assessing eyes landed on hers as he monitored her reaction.
Except, she was blank. “The painter?”
He nodded, then lifted a hand to the back of his head. “And I’m Kett Smith.”
“Kett… the sculptor?”
Again, he nodded, then he breathed in without breathing out again straight after. “And I’m Trenton Guy.”
“The… the urban landscape photographer?” Pause. Uh… what the… “Didn’t… Didn’t Beckett Trent sell a piece last week for thirty million dollars?”
“Thirty-six-point-three,” he said like it was no big deal and screwed up his face a fraction. “But I don’t see all of that.”
Jaycee was numb, like a person might be if they’d just stumbled across an alien who said they’d just swung by the planet to pick up a plain ol’ soda. “Course not… Kett Smith did that… commission for Central Park… That’s huge, how did he—”
“I did it in sections,” he said and shrugged. “It’s actually a pain in the ass when they give you precise dimensions, no more than, no less than… guaran-fucking-teed you’ll be like a centimeter over… and they will bust your chops for it, even if the fucking thing has been the bane of your life for three years.”
This was… surreal, sitting here watching him try to tip beer into his mouth only to be reminded that his bottle was empty. “Uh… huh…”
Jaycee managed to make the sounds, but still couldn’t quite bring herself back into reality.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, leaving the couch to head toward the kitchen.
Hungry? No. No, she definitely wasn’t! She was high… he must have spiked her or something. “I used to have a Trenton Guy on my wall,” she muttered into the ether.
“Oh yeah? Which one?” he called back to her. “If I have the original upstairs, you can have it.”
Panting out a single breath, Jaycee didn’t know what the hell to feel as she surged to her feet. “I… I think I have to… I should go.”
She started for the door.
“Go where?” he asked. “Where are you sleeping tonight?”
Slowing down, she eventually came to a stop. She’d planned to ask one of the AD staff for a bed. But when Guy had told her to come to his, Jaycee couldn’t bring herself to tell their colleagues she was coming to his house and would show at their door to wake them up at some unknown, ungodly hour.
“I’ll get a motel,” she said, as was usually her last resort.
“There are three bedrooms down here,” he said. “And there’s an office, a den, and two bathrooms… I have a bed upstairs too… It’s a bad habit, sleeping in my studio, I know. No one should sleep where they work.”
He retrieved another beer from the fridge, took a drink, and laid a hand on the kitchen island. So, this was it. This was how he could afford to pay for everything without breaking a sweat. “Anonymity,” she said. “That’s why you can’t just go out there and get any random girl pregnant… You need someone to keep your secret and a messy relationship that has the potential to end badly would be a risk… A major risk.”
He tipped the neck of his bottle toward her. “Different people know me by different names. Most people don’t know my real name at all. Different names go on different paperwork and the doctors won’t know the same names as the lawyer… it’s complicated, but yeah, that’s what it comes down to… anonymity.”
“And why am I different?” she asked. “How do you know I won’t go call the papers and sell the truth to them for a hefty price?”
“Because our deal covers eventualities that they won’t… it covers future expenses, not just current ones. Because I’ve checked in to the way you live your life, the way you care for your grandmother…” Yeah, she was a regular goddamn saint. “And because you’re the same Jaycee Kirk who refused to give evidence against William Howell.”
“Oh god,” she said, her whole body loosening to a slump. “This is about Liam? That was years ago!”
“You could’ve gone to jail for him.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding as she went to the kitchen island to dump her hands onto it. “But I didn’t, and you don’t have a damn clue why I did what I did.”
“It doesn’t matter. You proved your integrity.”
“It was a witch hunt! No one knows what Liam went through. What he did for…” Sighing, she took a minute to calm herself by licking her lips. “How do I know that you’re telling the truth?” He frowned. “Everyone knows that Beckett Trent is anonymous, he goes to great lengths to hide who he is… I could be Beckett Trent.”
This tickled him, though he didn’t go as far as actually laughing. His reaction was better than screaming at her. Jaycee waited and he nodded at the coffee table. “Grab your wine, girl.”
Jaycee didn’t even realize she’d left the glass of wine on the table, she didn’t remember putting it down, but there it was. “Where are we going?” she asked, hurrying over to grab it as he started to walk.
“Somewhere no one else ever goes,” he said and started up the stairs. “Come on.”