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He grinned, softening me up even more. “Then maybe I should keep you hungry if it means you won’t yell at me anymore.”
“I didn’t yell; I spoke passionately,” I said.
As I cut into the juicy mango, he kept pulling out different items and started putting together a proper meal for us. The first bite sent my eyes rolling back in my head, and when I opened them, I found him staring at me with a bit of a disconcerted look on his face.
“They’re really expensive,” I said with a shrug. “I hardly ever get to eat them.”
He frowned, like what I’d said was really the saddest thing he ever heard. “The fruit sucks in Moscow in the winter, so I know what you mean.”
“Liar,” I said mildly. Rich people never knew what it was actually like to go without things, not even during a Moscow winter.
“But back to the yelling,” he said as he chopped vegetables at the counter. I was impressed at his skill with the knife. I certainly wasn’t a great chef. “I’ve been reading a lot of parenting books, and they all seem to stress about never raising your voice. But in my family, we always shouted at each other.” He turned around to look at me. “Not berating each other, not like that. I get how that’s wrong. But like you said. Passionately speaking. Do you think that’s so wrong?”
I shrugged. “It’s going to be your call,” I said. “It’s your kid.”
“But what would you do if it was yours?” he asked.
I got that he was just making conversation, and it was charming that he was so serious about gaining parenting knowledge. “It’s not my kid,” I said curtly.
“And what about languages?” he asked. “This baby will learn both Russian and English and maybe something else if it’s smart that way. Mandarin, maybe?”
I stifled a laugh and continued stuffing my face with the mango until I felt like I might pop. It was pretty sweet how excited he was for the baby. Maybe he’d be a good single dad after all. When my stomach was full of my favorite treat, and I had a gorgeous man rolling up his sleeves and cooking for me, it was easy to forget about reality. He asked if I spoke any other languages.
“I know twenty words in Spanish,” I said.
His eyes lit up with sincere interest. “Oh yeah? What are they?”
“Uno, dos, tres, quatro…” I trailed off as he burst into laughter. “I’m not smart like that,” I told him. “Sorry if you were looking for a genetic boost.”
“Ah, I don’t care about that.”
It didn’t seem like he did. The surrogate questionnaires were so involved, with pages and pages of questions. I was sure prospective parents went in with just as long lists, but I could imagine Leo walking in and saying, “Give me someone nice.” He was just easy and simple like that.
I almost asked him what he’d wanted in a surrogate, maybe fishing for a compliment or an ego boost. Thankfully I kept my dignity and didn’t grovel for a kind word from him. He kept chatting about different things he’d read while he cooked, and I refused to offer any opinions. I didn’t even want to think about it abstractly, about some distant baby in the future that would be mine. This baby wasn’t mine.
He finally put a salad in front of me with grilled chicken breast, mixed greens, pomegranate seeds, and beets sauteed in butter. I thought I was full of mango, but this beautiful dish reawakened my hunger. When Leo sat across from me and smiled expectantly, another hunger welled up. This was like one of my daydreams. Yes, I’d let myself have a daydream about Leo a few times before, wondering what it would be like to date a high-powered software executive.
Now that I knew the truth about him, I, unfortunately, didn’t find him any less attractive. His handsome, chiseled face, mischievous green eyes, and tall, muscular form were all just written invitations to lust over him. I reached across the table and smoothed my hand across the top of his bristle brush hair, smiling at the feel of it against my palm. Oh, that smile of his. What was he doing to me? I’d just lost control and rubbed his head.
I dropped my gaze to the salad. “This looks fantastic.”
He took my fork, speared a beet, and held it out to me. “Try it.”
I opened my mouth for the bite, and his eyes locked with mine as I closed my lips around it. I was starting to feel overly warm, and it wasn’t from being in the kitchen or the Florida heat.
I looked down at my plate, the food going blurry under a film of tears I wouldn’t let fall. This wasn’t real. It wasn’t even one of my silly daydreams. Every moment I was here, my real life got more screwed up.
“I can’t be here,” I said, so low he leaned across the bar to better hear me. “I can’t miss work, Leo. These are the crappy kind of jobs where they’ll replace you if you miss even one shift, but I need them. We rely on every penny.”
“What about the surrogacy money? I thought they paid very well.”
Once again, he was worried I wasn’t being treated fairly. “They do. And that would have made a huge difference, but…” I trailed off, not wanting to burden him with my problems.
“Tell me,” he commanded.
“My grandma’s sick. The surrogacy money won’t last as long as I hoped with all those bills.”
He was silent, and I looked up to see him giving me a look I couldn’t read. “Don’t worry about that,” he said.
