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“I’m afraid that you’re making a very big mistake—”
“I already went through this with the woman who works at your clinic. I know how difficult it is to be a single mother. I’m not a fool, and I know all that.”
“No one said you were a fool, but people often underestimate the costs and commitment it takes to raise a child.”
I glance at his hand. There’s no ring. “Tell me, do you have a child or children yourself?”
A look of impatience comes over his features. “No, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“I’d argue that it is since you were just telling me how people underestimate the cost of raising a child. I’d have thought you were speaking from personal experience.”
His jaw visibly clenches. Knowing that I’ve gotten under his skin pleases me. Maybe it’s because he’s already judged me by my circumstances. My neighborhood is not the best, but it’s home, and I pay my own rent.
“Look, Miss Martin, this may be a game to you, but to many people, including the clinic, it’s serious stuff.”
Boiling with sudden fury, I step closer to him and jab my finger into his chest. It’s hard. Like a wall of pure muscle. “Who the hell are you to give me a lecture on how serious this is? I’m the one carrying the baby; I’m the one who is going to raise this child, and I’m the one who’ll have to explain to them why I don’t know who the father is.” I’m shouting, but I’m so angry, I don’t care whether the neighbors hear me or not. “How dare you come strolling in here thinking you can tell me what to do with my life? All this is to you is an inconvenience. A situation to contain and make yourself look good at the clinic.”
His eyes turn a deeper shade of blue and go several degrees colder. All expression leaves his face. “You selfish, shortsighted woman! Do you think you’re the only one this affects personally? That is my sperm that went into making your baby, and nobody asked me if I was okay with becoming a father. If you want to know, the answer is no. I want you to get a termination done.”
My jaw drops, and I take an involuntary step back. He is the father of my baby? My chest rises up and down in time with my racing heartbeat. “They used your sperm?”
He looks shocked as if he hadn’t expected to blurt out the news like that. He nods grimly. “It was meant to be destroyed after an experiment years ago. It wasn’t, and somehow, it has found its way into your uterus.”
This man is the father of my baby! A memory comes to my mind. “What did you say your name was?”
“Alec Anderson.”
The Anderson Fertility Clinic. “Are you one of the owners of the clinic?” I knew nothing about that clinic before Mike, Susan, and I came up with the surrogacy agreement.
Alec nods. “My parents started the fertility clinic, but they’re now semi-retired, and my two brothers and I run it.”
“How can they make such a mistake, especially with the owner’s sperm?” I say.
“I don’t know the details. My brother refused to tell me the details, but he assured me that it will not happen again.”
“Oh, how nice to know.”
“Look, this is just as difficult for me. I don’t want a child,” Alec says bluntly.
His words hurt. They shouldn’t, considering he’s a stranger, but they do. Probably because the baby is not hypothetical but a fact. She’s already in my belly.
He shoots me a disapproving look that leaves me in no doubt that I wouldn’t be his choice of a baby mama.
“I’m not looking for a baby daddy,” I spit back. “So, you can just turn around and return to your precious clinic.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you give me a date for the termination. I’ll even do it myself.”
Nausea rises up my throat. I look at him, stunned. “You would do that, wouldn’t you? Your own child. You’re disgusting.”
“At three weeks, what you’re calling a child is actually a ball of several hundred cells called a blastocyte.”
Infuriation comes over me. “Are you even human? Do you possess normal human emotions?”
He sighs. “I just want this over and done with, and the only way to do that is to accept that it was a mistake and clean it up. I’m willing to make it up to you, Ivy.”
“How would you—” I stop short when it hits me what he means by ‘willing to make it up to me.’
“Any amount you want, as long as you’re reasonable.”
