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He was an American. I hadn’t realized it until that moment, but I expected him to be English, like Tristan.
“Please, sit,” he said, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the desk.
Despite his attractiveness and charm, there was something about his smile that rubbed me the wrong way. I realized what it was a second later: it reminded me of the Bobs at New England Digital Marketing. Wealthy men who were used to giving instructions and having them carried out without hesitation. I sat and tried to ignore the pang of anger that I felt.
“It hasn’t been very long,” I said.
Pierce Benning sat in his chair and cocked his head. “Pardon?”
“You and your wife couldn’t have waited a long time to meet me,” I said pointedly. “I was only added to the surrogacy database yesterday.”
He smiled as if that were funny. “You sent in your application to the agency two weeks ago.”
I felt another pang of annoyance. The agency sent him my information before I was officially approved and added as a potential surrogate? That felt like an intrusion of privacy.
Tristan appeared over my shoulder and placed two manila folders on the desk side-by-side. Why two?
“How was your trip here?” Pierce asked politely. “I trust Andrew took good care of you?”
“It was fine,” I replied, looking around. Where was his wife? Every surrogacy experience I had read about involved meeting the couple who I would be a surrogate for, not just the husband.
Pierce studied me from across the desk. There was an intense intelligence in his gaze. A calculating, methodical man.
Why does he look familiar?
“I don’t want to waste your time,” Pierce finally said, “so I’ll get right down to it. The folder on the left contains the standard commercial surrogacy contract from the agency. I’m sure you’re familiar with in-vitro fertilization. Your eggs will be harvested, inseminated with my sperm, and then the resulting embryos will be implanted in your uterus.”
I opened the folder and skimmed the first page of the document. My eyes automatically locked onto the dollar signs halfway down the page:
$15,000 upon implantation of embryos.
$30,000 upon successful pregnancy.
$60,000 upon birth of child.
I re-read the numbers two more times. I had expected to earn around $50,000 for the entire surrogacy, but this was more than twice that amount! Maybe the higher payment had to do with the NDA I signed, and the secrecy that this yacht-owning couple desired.
Suddenly, I stopped caring about how Pierce had access to my information before I was in the database. My instincts told me to sign the contract as quickly as possible before he and his wife changed their minds.
“This sounds good to me,” I said, reaching for a pen on the desk.
Pierce put his hand over mine to stop me. His fingers were strangely frigid. “Before you sign this contract, we have a second offer. If you’re willing to hear it.”
A second offer? Probably related to multiple pregnancies. It wasn’t uncommon for couples to use the same surrogate again after the first pregnancy.
“Okay,” I said slowly.
Tristan leaned over my shoulder and pulled the second folder closer to me. The scent of his cologne hung in the air, subtle yet alluring.
“This contract is…” Pierce crossed one leg over the other and clasped his hands over his knee, searching around for the right word. “Unorthodox,” he finally said.
Only then, with his hands clasped over his knee, did I realize two things. Firstly: he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I hadn’t imagined unmarried couples trying surrogacy, but then again, someone with this much money could do whatever they wanted.
Secondly, I noticed the tattoos running up his forearm.
“You’re the fishing guy!” I blurted out.
“Fishing guy?” Tristan asked, as if he had never heard either word spoken before.
