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“When we landed on the boat. You were the guy diving into the ocean with a spear. You caught three lobsters.”
“Four,” Pierce replied with a small smile. “I caught a live one with my bare hand.”
“You own this yacht, but you catch your own meals?”
Pierce’s emerald gaze narrowed. “I’m not sure I understand the question.”
Tristan cleared his throat. “May I suggest we return to the subject at hand? The second contract.”
I looked back down at the contract, though I wanted to continue examining the strange billionaire across the desk. “You said this contract is unorthodox. What’s unorthodox about it?” I asked. The stack of papers inside looked thicker than the first, so I didn’t bother opening the folder. “Is it the payout structure?”
Pierce exchanged a look with Tristan, who was still standing next to the desk, watching passively.
“Not exactly,” Pierce said slowly. He maintained an intense amount of eye-contact, but I refused to look away. I wouldn’t be intimidated by someone just because they had money. “I know quite a few people who have tried, and failed, at surrogacy.”
“It’s not a guarantee,” I said. “Surrogacy success rates are around 75%, I’ve come to learn.”
Pierce nodded. “In addition, I believe there are other drawbacks to IVF pregnancies. I won’t elaborate on my opinion at this time. But the point I’m driving at is that everything is so artificial these days.”
“Artificial?”
“Nothing is real anymore,” Pierce explained, his deep voice full of emotion. “Everything is a pale imitation of how it used to be. Instead of getting together in person with friends, we interact on social media. Rather than going for a jog through a neighborhood, we run on treadmills with computer screens to pretend like we’re actually moving. We have pills to fall asleep, pills to keep us awake, pills to get our dicks hard. Vitamin-D supplements instead of time in the sun. Multivitamins instead of a balanced diet.”
He shook his head and stared off. “Nothing is real anymore. And it gets worse every single day.” It sounded like the kind of rant he’d made before, every beat and emphasis well-practiced.
“I don’t disagree, I guess,” I replied carefully. “But what does this have to do with me?”
Pierce let out a long breath, and regarded me once more. “With so much falseness in the world, I don’t want my child’s life to begin artificially. I want my child to be conceived naturally.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in.
“Wait, what?”
I heard the door behind me open, and Andrew walked in with a tray of drinks.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
“You will find that I am, if nothing else, a serious man,” Pierce replied dryly. “All the details are contained in the second contract.”
Tristan reached out and tapped the folder for emphasis.
And in the blink of an eye, all of it made sense. The lack of a wedding ring. All the mentions of Mr. Benning, but never Mrs. Benning. Being flown onto a goddamn yacht off the coast of Rhode Island. He wasn’t trying to impress me because I was a potential surrogate: he was trying to impress me because he wanted to sleep with me.
I turned to Andrew, who was placing glasses of cucumber water onto coasters on the desk. “You flew me here to be a glorified prostitute for this man?”
He chuckled. “That seems like an oversimplification…”
Oh my God, I thought. My mom was right. This was a mistake.
“I warned you that this was an unorthodox proposal,” Pierce said.
“It’s more than unorthodox,” I shot back. “It’s fucking insane!”
“Such language,” Tristan murmured.
I whirled toward the man, my anger rising.
“If you choose the second contract,” Pierce continued, “you will stay with me for a period of six months, or until such a time that you become pregnant, whichever comes first. There is also an option to extend this period to twelve months.”
