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PART I
PROLOGUE
Yet, despite the look on my face, you’re still talking.
-Coffee Cup
FOLSOM
“I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”
The life inside of me kicked, and I flinched.
Not because I hated the way it felt but because I’d come to love it.
And loving something that wasn’t yours…well, that was true torture.
“The baby in your uterus is genetically fifty percent yours,” the doctor repeated.
That was what I’d thought she said.
I looked over at my best friend and felt my stomach sink down to my knees.
“What is she talking about?” I asked, voice fragile sounding and so soft.
My “best friend” swallowed.
She looked nervous now.
“We found out that my eggs were incompatible with life,” she said. “I told you that.”
She had.
So, when the fourth contract came, I signed it, hoping for a miracle.
What I’d gotten was a whole shitstorm heading my way like a freight train on the warpath.
Four separate times, I’d been a willing womb for my best friend and her husband’s prospective baby. I’d had her egg fertilized with her husband’s sperm implanted in my body. I’d then taken care of myself for the last few years as I waited for one of those implants to take.
And I’d thought one had.
Only that “one” was actually not her one, but my one.
I was having my best friend’s husband’s baby.
“And you signed the contract,” Lisbeth explained.
I felt sick to my stomach. But not the same kind that I’d felt for the last six months.
The kind where I wasn’t sure what to do.
I’d spent my life trying to make up for shortcomings, and now, it looked like I was going to start paying for other people’s as well.
I licked my lips. “I didn’t give my permission.”
The doctor looked frantic all of a sudden. “What do you mean you didn’t give your permission? We have your signed contract!”
“I wasn’t aware that I was signing anything like that,” I said, shaking my head as I felt the bile start to creep its way up my throat. “When I signed, I was under the understanding that it was just like all the others.”
