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“What?” I bark, his nervousness seeping into me. It’s rare to see Jace in any other way apart from his cool, collected self. Nothing fazes him, so seeing him like this has me on major alert mode.
He stops pacing and comes to stand in front of me. “How did the surgery go?”
“Better than expected. She’ll be able to conceive and carry a pregnancy, but I’m sure that’s not the reason you look so fucking nervous.”
He places his hands on his hips and looks away before swinging his gaze back to me. “You’re right. Before I tell you what’s going on, I want you to keep in mind that everything is under control.”
“Just spit it out, will you?”
“Okay,” Jace says and holds my gaze. “Remember when we were experimenting with the new storage facilities, and we used your sperms as a test?”
A cold feeling of dread settles in my stomach. “Yes?”
“We were supposed to destroy them after, but somehow we forgot, and life moved on,” he says. “A mistake happened, Alec. A woman was given your sperm by mistake, and now she’s pregnant.”
“What?” I shout. “What kind of fucked up crap is this? What do you mean by mistake? Everything is labeled and stored correctly. We do not leave space for errors.”
Heat flushes through my body, and my heart thuds louder and louder as the implications of what Jace is saying sink in. There’s a woman out there carrying my child. A child I never intended to have. Ever.
I made a decision years ago. Long-term relationships are not for me. I love women like any other hot-blooded male, but I like them in short doses. When they come into your life, they interfere with everything, including your work. For me, my work comes first. It always has, and it always will.
Now, this. A baby does not figure anywhere in my life.
“Fuck.” I pace the hallway while I think. I stop and return to where Jace is standing, looking nervous. “What’s the plan?”
“A termination has been suggested, and she said she’ll think about it,” Jace says. “We’re waiting to hear from her any moment.”
“Think about it?” I shout.
“Hey, keep it down,” Jace says, flashing a smile at one of the nurses as she passes us. “Nobody can know about this. It would tarnish the clinic’s reputation. We can’t afford a scandal.”
“I know all that. But what is there to think about? She’s been implanted with the wrong sperm.” Any sane woman would want to get rid of that pregnancy as fast as they can. What is wrong with this one who needs to think about it?
“Or does she want a baby so badly that she’s willing to have a baby from a donor she did not pick?”
“That’s the thing. The baby is not hers. She’s surrogating for friends of hers. The eggs are hers, but the sperm was meant to be the man’s.”
“So, you’re telling me that the baby is half hers and half mine?”
Jace nods. “Yes.”
“What happened, Jace?” I ask, feeling suddenly exhausted. We’ve worked hard to develop a system where there’s no chance of such mistakes happening. Our clinic’s success depends on us maintaining a pristine reputation.
“We’ve seen the loophole, and we’ve sorted it out. It’ll never happen again,” Jace says. “I’m so sorry, bro.”
“Let me know as soon as she calls,” I say curtly and turn to return to my office.
I hate incompetence, and there’s no other word to describe what has happened. In the privacy of my office, I can’t settle down enough to update my files. I keep thinking of that woman who is right now carrying my baby.
What if she refuses a termination? No, she won’t. Not if she was a surrogate mom. There’s money in most of those arrangements, and she won’t forgo that to have a baby from someone whose identity she’ll never find out.
A termination is the only logical choice she has. That settled, I manage to focus and update Rebecca’s file. Just as I’m done, my phone rings. I pick it up, and my secretary tells me that Jace wants to see me.
“Let him in.”
One look at Jace’s face tells me that all is not well. “What did she say?”
He shuts the door and enters, sitting on the visitor’s chair. “She’s not going to terminate the pregnancy. She wants to keep the baby.”
