Читать книгу Expecting the CEO's Baby - Karen Rose Smith - Страница 9

Everyone was staring at her!

As the receptionist showed Jenna Winton into the large conference room, a frisson of foreboding skipped up her spine, and she protectively laid her hand over her rounding belly. She’d been awakened this Monday morning by a few kicks from the child who was already the center of her world. More was right with her world now than it had been in the year and a half since B.J. had died. Still…

Before she’d even dressed, she’d received a phone call from the Emerson Fertility Clinic, the clinic that had implanted her with her deceased husband’s sperm. She’d been summoned here to a meeting this afternoon, and the receptionist wouldn’t tell her what it was about.

Now as Jenna looked at the faces around the table, recognizing her doctor, his nurse and two more men she didn’t know, her heart pounded and she told herself to stay calm. There was no reason for alarm. Maybe they just wanted to discuss her payment plan. She was behind a month.

Her physician, Dr. Palmer, gave her a smile that was perfunctory at best. With silver hair and in his fifties, he’d always welcomed her with a smile and a paternal attitude that had made her feel comfortable. She expected him to state the reason the clinic had called her, but instead, one of the men she didn’t recognize smiled a plastic smile.

“Good morning, Mrs. Winton.” He extended his hand to her. “I’m Tom Franklin, the director of Emerson Fertility Clinic. Beside me is Wayne Schlessinger, the clinic’s counsel. I think you know everyone else.”

“Yes, I do.” Jenna was becoming more concerned by the minute. The atmosphere in the small room was charged, and she didn’t understand any of it.

“Please have a seat,” Mr. Franklin invited, motioning to a chair beside his at the head of the table.

Everyone was still watching her. As the director’s gaze passed over her shoulder-length, light-brown hair, her white knit T-shirt under the pink maternity jumper, she sensed he was sizing her up and she didn’t like the feeling.

Gripping her straw purse, Jenna slipped into the chair gratefully, uneasy with being the center of attention.

Mr. Franklin hardly gave her time to take a breath before he began, “You’re probably wondering why we called you here today.”

“If it’s my late payment, I’ll be sending it to you within the week.”

“No, no, nothing like that. And let me assure you there is nothing wrong with your pregnancy, either. According to your chart, everything is just as it should be in your sixth month.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

He rubbed his hand across his forehead. “There’s no easy way to say this, Mrs. Winton. A mistake was made the day you were inseminated. Instead of being inseminated with your husband’s sperm, you were inseminated with another man’s sperm, Blake Winston’s. When the technician checked the names on the canisters, she removed B. Winston’s canister rather than B. Winton’s canister. Both men are from Fawn Grove, and with the likeness in the names, she selected the wrong one.”

Her heart racing, Jenna knew she must have misunderstood Thomas Franklin. “I can’t be carrying someone else’s child! You froze B.J.’s sperm before he started chemo because we thought he’d get better and we wanted to have children.”

Franklin’s hand covered hers. “I know, Mrs. Winton. I also know after your husband died, you came to us and Dr. Palmer decided to go forward with you to help you conceive your husband’s child. Unfortunately, the technician was overwrought the day you were inseminated. Her own husband was critically ill and her mind was on getting back to the hospital to see him. I’m sure you can understand that.”

Jenna understood all too well.

“This type of thing has never happened here before and we will take precautions to make sure it never happens again. We’ve terminated the technician.”

Everything he’d said was beginning to sink in, and Jenna felt overwhelmed with the enormity of it. “Why didn’t your technician admit her mistake sooner?”

As Franklin looked to the clinic’s lawyer, Wayne Schlessinger explained, “The day after the procedure she realized what had happened because she noticed the wrong vial was marked that sperm had been removed. But she has two children, and hers was the only salary. With her husband in the hospital, their bills had mounted up. She was afraid, and rightly so, that she’d lose her position here if she confessed.”

“Why did she confess now?” Jenna almost wished she hadn’t, then she could have gone on, blissfully ignorant of this terrible mistake.

“Her husband is back at work now, and the burden of carrying this knowledge was too great. She couldn’t keep her secret any longer. She wanted to tell you all this in person, but we thought it was better if she didn’t appear here today.”

Jenna didn’t know if Mr. Franklin was right or wrong about that. Maybe it would have been easier if she could have put a human face to this mistake. The more she thought about all the details surrounding it, the less she had to face the fact that the baby she was carrying wasn’t B.J.’s.

Schlessinger added, “The clinic will take full responsibility for its employee’s error. We asked you here today to forestall legal action. We don’t feel that would be beneficial to either of us. If you will sign the proper documents, in exchange, we will give you a settlement of one hundred thousand dollars. We have that check here for you today.”

Sliding a legal-looking form before her, he held out a pen, obviously fully expecting her to sign it.

Anger and frustration at Emerson Fertility Clinic rushed through Blake early Monday evening as he climbed the outside steps to Jenna Winton’s second-floor apartment. The early June late-day sun shone brightly, but Blake hardly noticed it or the crumbling stucco in the stairwell of the apartment complex located in an older section of Fawn Grove. His thoughts swirled around the meeting he’d just had at the Sacramento clinic and the revelation that there was a woman in Fawn Grove carrying his child. Franklin hadn’t wanted to give him Jenna Winton’s address, but the board at the clinic knew the kind of influence he could wield.

Reaching the second floor, Blake found apartment 112-C and pressed the doorbell, not exactly sure what he was going to say. He was about to press the bell a second time when the door opened.

He’d been given the details, and he knew Jenna Winton was six months pregnant. Yet when he was suddenly confronted with her pretty but obviously worried face, her wavy light brown hair caught in a gold barrette above her right temple, her dark brown eyes filled with questions because a strange man was at her door, he lost his grip on the confidence and power that usually got him what he wanted when he wanted it.

As her gaze passed over his hand-tailored charcoal suit, his black hair, the lines and creases that thirty-seven years had etched onto his face, she asked, “Can I help you?”

Her rounding belly was lost in the folds of her pink jumper. Blake had a visceral reaction to the idea that this woman was carrying his child. Frozen emotions began to thaw and a corner of his heart opened. Jenna Winton, who looked wholesome, innocent and vulnerable, shook the foundation of his world.

“Do you always open your door so readily to strangers?” Fawn Grove, located about a half hour from Sacramento, was growing quickly. Its small-town innocence wouldn’t last forever.

Without becoming defensive, Jenna gave him a tremulous smile. “This is Fawn Grove, not Sacramento or L.A. Are you checking security in the building?”

Ironic that she should think that. After all, security systems and strategies had made him the success he was. “I wish it were something that simple,” he told her, struck again by her delicate beauty, her pregnant radiance that he’d never seen on a woman before. “I’m Blake Winston.”

At that, Jenna Winton’s face paled and her troubled brown gaze studied him. “I’m not sure we should talk. I just got off the phone with my lawyer and—”

“Mrs. Winton, we have to talk. I’m the father of that child you’re carrying. You can’t expect me to leave here without discussing this.”

After a few moments of hesitation, she stepped back inside the apartment to let him pass. He caught the scent of a light, flowery perfume—lilacs—as he stepped into her living room and realized it was as hot as blazes in there. He ridged his starched shirt collar with his finger.

Noticing, Jenna apologized. “I’m sorry it’s so hot in here. The air-conditioning broke down last night. The landlord is attending to it.” She’d opened two windows that looked out onto the back courtyard, but not a wisp of a breeze stirred.

They stared at each other for long, silent moments, and Blake could feel a different kind of heat in the air. She was looking at him with those big brown eyes…. The stirring of desire had to be in his imagination. He wasn’t attracted to women like Jenna Winton. He went for leggy blondes who knew the score.

Suddenly his gaze dropped to Jenna’s hands. She was twisting the gold band on her left ring finger—her wedding band.

“Why did you come?” she asked, looking fearful but a bit defiant all at the same time.

He’d come to get a look at her, to see if she’d be a suitable surrogate. He hadn’t intended to hire one for a few more years, but faced with the reality of what had happened, he had no choice but to look at the situation realistically now.

“Why don’t we sit down,” he suggested, taking charge, hoping to put both of them a little more at ease.

She looked grateful he’d made the suggestion. As she sat in an old wooden rocker with carvings on the back, he took the opportunity to glance around at the brightly flowered chintz sofa covering, the lace curtains at the windows, the bookshelves and the desk where she probably prepared her lessons. He’d learned from a swift computer background check that she was a second-grade teacher.

Settling himself on the sofa across from her, he tried to be casual about the situation that was anything but casual. “I just came from a meeting at the clinic.”

She swallowed hard. “I guess it was quite a shock for you, too. I’m still having a difficult time believing this. B.J. and I wanted a child desperately.”

“B.J.?”

“My husband. His name was Barry Jacob but everyone called him B.J.”

“I understand he died a year and a half ago.” Blake knew he didn’t have the capacity in his heart for much compassion anymore. He’d hardened himself to the cruelties of life. Yet with Jenna Winton, he found a corner of it aching for her.

Meeting his gaze courageously, she nodded. “He had cancer and we had his sperm frozen before treatments started, fully expecting he’d recover. We always wanted a family….” She cleared her throat, trying to stave off emotion. “But B.J. didn’t recover. After he was gone, I decided having his child would always keep him alive in my heart.”

What would it be like, Blake wondered, to have a woman love him with that much fervor and faithfulness? He’d learned as a teenager a woman’s loyalty only extended as far as her selfish interests. He was hoping that would be the case with Jenna Winton, also. Sentiment didn’t pay the bills. According to the databases he’d accessed, she was deeply in debt for the hospital expenses her insurance hadn’t covered when her husband was ill, as well as for the insemination procedure. “The clinic told me you didn’t accept the settlement they offered.”

“I know better than to sign anything without consulting a lawyer. Fortunately I have a friend whose husband practices law. Did you accept the settlement?” she asked, surprising him.

“A settlement isn’t what I’m after.” As he studied Jenna Winton now, he knew instinctively she’d be the perfect surrogate. All he had to do was convince her of that. “I want the child you’re carrying.”

She looked stunned by his announcement and appeared to be speechless.

“I suppose you’re right to hold out for a bigger settlement from the clinic,” he continued. “They owe you big-time. But if you act as my surrogate…”

He took a check from his inside suit-coat pocket and offered it to her.

Her eyes widened as she noted the figure.

“That should cover your medical and hospital expenses, time off work and a little extra for going through the whole ordeal. If the amount is suitable, we can sign the papers and at delivery, you’ll give the baby to me.”

As they’d talked, heat had been building in the small living room along with the tension. Jenna’s brow was damp and she swiped her hand across it now as she stared at the check he was holding.

Then in a matter of moments, she went from speechless astonishment to fiery indignation. It flared in her beautiful brown eyes as she jumped to her feet, glaring at Blake as if he were crazy. “I don’t know who you think you are, Mr. Winston, but I want no part of your money. This baby is mine, and I’m not giving her or him up to anyone.”

Pretty before, she was beautiful now, and Blake felt a startling bolt of desire shoot through him that he couldn’t deny. Ignoring it, he stood, too, and faced her. “Why would you want to keep a child by a man you don’t even know?”

The question didn’t throw her as he’d expected it to. “I might not know you, Mr. Winston, but I know this child. I’ve been carrying him for six months. I love this baby. I’ve sung to him, felt him moving inside me. I will never give him up.”

Blake’s shirt stuck to his back, and he could feel sweat beading on his brow. “You might not have any choice.”

His warning rattled Jenna. He could see the fear in her eyes as all the implications of their situation became clear.

Hurrying to the door, she opened it. “I think you’d better leave.”

No one dismissed Blake. After Preston Howard—the father of the girl Blake had imagined himself in love with—had done that to him nineteen long years ago, Blake had vowed no one would ever dismiss him again. Standing his ground, he said evenly, “With the money I’m offering, together with the settlement from the clinic, you’d be set for a while.”

Her spine straightened and her shoulders squared. “Obviously, Mr. Winston, you don’t know me. If you did, you’d realize I’m more sentimental than I am practical. Bonds and family mean more to me than money ever could. So don’t bother making your offer again because I won’t accept it. Please leave or I’ll call the apartment complex manager.”

This time he did as she demanded because he could see her hands were shaking and her chin was quivering. She was pregnant with his child, and he didn’t want anything to happen to the baby or to her. Yet he couldn’t let her think she’d won, either, because she hadn’t.

Before he crossed the threshold, he looked her squarely in the eyes. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

When Jenna closed the door behind Blake Winston, she almost collapsed against it. The emotions from everything that had happened today, along with the heat, seemed to press against her, making her short of breath. She knew she couldn’t let her emotions affect her physically. She had this baby to protect, and she would do that with her dying breath.

Closing her eyes for a few moments, thinking of the ocean and sand and waves, she calmed herself and her breathing became more even. Spinning around, she peered out the peephole. Blake Winston had indeed left. Not wasting a moment, she crossed to the cordless phone, picked it up and went to the window to catch a breeze. She pressed redial and hoped Rafe Pierson hadn’t left his law office. She hoped he wasn’t with a client. She hoped he could allay her fears. When she reached his receptionist, she gave her name again and the woman put her through.

Jenna had met Rafe’s wife, Shannon, through the elementary school where she taught. Shannon was a psychologist who used equine-assisted therapy to help troubled children. Three years ago, Jenna had heard about her success rate and recommended her services to the parents of one of her students. Shannon had invited Jenna to the Rocky R to give her a glimpse into her methods. She’d stayed for supper and gotten to know Shannon as well as her husband, Rafe, and their two girls. Grateful for the friendship that had begun before B.J. had died, Jenna couldn’t imagine discussing all of this with a complete stranger. Her upbringing as a minister’s daughter had taught her to keep her own counsel, to watch whatever she said and did because it would reflect favorably or unfavorably on her father. She’d never wavered from that course until she’d decided to be artificially inseminated with B.J.’s sperm. Her father had disapproved, but this time his disapproval hadn’t mattered.

“Jenna?” Rafe asked, his voice carrying honest concern. “What’s wrong? Has the clinic contacted you again?”

“No. Blake Winston has. He made me an offer he thought I couldn’t refuse to become a surrogate for him.”

Rafe swore. That was the first time Jenna had ever heard him use a vulgarity. As a former D.A., he usually kept his temper well in check. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him the child is mine. It is, isn’t it, Rafe? He said his lawyer would be in touch. He can’t really take this baby away from me, can he?”

There was a long moment of silence. “This is an area of the law that’s changing day by day. I can’t tell you Winston doesn’t have a leg to stand on because in reality, he is the biological father. If this was anyone but Blake Winston…”

“I don’t understand. Do you know him?” Rafe hadn’t mentioned knowing him in their last conversation.

“No, I don’t know him. I know of him. He has plenty of money and just as much influence. He grew up in Fawn Grove, then made a fortune in L.A. in security systems. He’s the CEO of a company that not only installs security but arranges it for politicians and stars.”

“And he lives in Fawn Grove?”

“He returned about three years ago and set up a branch of his company in Sacramento. He bought the Van Heusen mansion.”

Truth be told, Jenna didn’t read the paper often. As a teacher, her nights were spent correcting papers or doing lesson plans. Nevertheless, she knew the Van Heusen house and grounds. It was located at the northern end of town. As a child, she and her brother Gary had taken walks past it, wondering what it would be like to live in a house like that.

“And you believe his money will make a difference?” she asked, more than worried now.

“It’s not his money, Jenna. I’m just as concerned about his influence. Hold on a minute. Donna is passing me a message that came in on the other line.”

Jenna wondered how a judge would look at Blake Winston’s money and his mansion, as well as what he could offer a child.

“Jenna?”

“Yes, I’m still here.”

“The clinic called and they want a meeting.”

She’d given the clinic Rafe’s name and number, knowing she was going to let him handle this for her. “What kind of meeting?”

“They didn’t say, but I’ll find out. Are you free tomorrow?”

School was closed for summer vacation and her only commitment was filling in for her father’s secretary when Shirley left on vacation at the end of the week. But she’d fit in this meeting anytime. “Yes, I’m free.”

“Good. I suspect Winston and his lawyer will be there, too. In the meantime I’ll research case law on this. We’ll go in there as prepared as we possibly can be.”

“Rafe, I know I should give you a retainer or something—”

“Right now I’m your lawyer because I’m your friend. If it gets drawn out, we’ll talk about retainers. Okay?”

“I really don’t know how to thank you.”

“I’ll tell you how you can thank me. This has been a rough day for you. Get yourself a lemonade, put your feet up and try to do something mindless until tomorrow. I’ll get back to you with the time of the meeting.”

After Jenna had thanked Rafe again and given him her cell phone number, she hung up knowing she couldn’t stay here in the apartment in the heat. She’d stop at the ice cream parlor for a frozen lemonade and then go to the library. Maybe there in the air-conditioning, she could use their computers and do research concerning custody cases on her own. What bothered her the most about all of this was the quickening of her pulse and the roller coaster waves she’d felt when she’d looked into Blake Winston’s eyes. B.J. had been the salt of the earth, the consummate common man. He’d been a roofer and never aspired to more than that, living each day as it came. Through their years together, he’d convinced Jenna to do the same. She’d loved him with all her heart.

But she’d never had the reaction to B.J. that she’d had to Blake Winston. This rich man, the father of her child, made her pulse race in a way that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. That troubled her, almost as much as Blake’s warning that she’d hear from his lawyer.

As Rafe escorted Jenna on Tuesday afternoon into the same conference room where the bomb had been dropped on her yesterday, her gaze passed over her physician, Dr. Palmer, the clinic’s director, Thomas Franklin, the clinic’s counsel, Wayne Schlessinger, and a man she didn’t know. Then her gaze locked to Blake Winston’s. His smoky-gray eyes told her he was a complicated man. The fluttering of her stomach, which she’d like to attribute to anxiety and fear—but couldn’t if she wanted to be honest with herself—told her something else entirely. Seated at the end of the conference table, he was wearing a light blue polo shirt, navy casual slacks and supple leather loafers. Just noticing all of this made her feel as if she were betraying B.J.’s memory. Yet noticing Blake Winston’s clothes was a far better distraction than noticing the width of his shoulders, the beard line along his jaw, the vitality of his thick black hair.

“Mrs. Winton,” Wayne Schlessinger said in greeting.

“Mr. Schlessinger,” she acknowledged, and gave a little nod to everyone else, including her adversary.

After Schlessinger shook hands with Rafe, he motioned Jenna and her lawyer to two chairs on the opposite side of the table from the clinic’s representatives. Jenna found herself seated beside Blake, and an uncomfortable situation became unbearable. She was too aware of his cologne, too aware of his appraising glance as his gaze passed over her white-and-blue smocked maternity dress.

Schlessinger addressed Rafe. “I take it you’ve carefully read our settlement offer?”

“Yes, I have. But I haven’t advised Jenna to sign it.”

“May I ask why not?”

“I want her to be sure that she’s ready to waive her rights to any future lawsuits before she signs anything. It was unfair of you to pressure her to take the offer yesterday.”

“There was no pressure, Mr. Pierson.”

Jenna clasped Rafe’s arm, telling him she wanted to speak for herself. “Having a $100,000 check ready for me to endorse was pressure in itself, Mr. Schlessinger.” She looked at Blake. “Are you taking their offer?”

He repeated what he’d told her yesterday. “The clinic’s money isn’t the issue. My child is.”

“Mr. Winston,” Schlessinger interrupted. “We’ve gathered everyone here today to try to resolve this.”

“Resolve this?” Rafe asked wryly. “My client entered into a contract with you in good faith. She’s carried this child for six months. Do you think any amount of money is going to make up for the mistake your clinic made?” He directed his attention to Blake. “Do you think any amount of money will convince my client to give up her child?”

There was frustration on Blake’s face as well as a blaze of anger in his eyes as he answered. “If money won’t do it, then the law might. I’m the biological father of this child and I have rights. Joint custody at the very least. You’re right about one thing, Mr. Pierson, this isn’t going to be resolved today. Not unless your client is willing to sign a surrogate agreement and give up rights to the child when it’s born.”

Feeling as if she’d been struck by a lightning bolt, Jenna realized her child meant so much to this man that he’d use all of his power and influence to take away her baby. Although she’d been dealing with the situation since yesterday, she suddenly felt overwhelmed by it all. The information she’d read on the Internet hadn’t been encouraging, and the idea that she was having a child that wasn’t B.J.’s filled her with the same grief she’d experienced after he died. In the midst of the grief, she heard her father’s voice warning her against being artificially inseminated because it wasn’t natural.

Now she was going to have to tell her father she wasn’t even carrying B.J.’s child! She was carrying a stranger’s child, and this stranger wanted to take her child away from her—or at the very least, share custody with her.

Tears she’d been holding at bay for more than twenty-four hours sprang to the surface. There was no way she could hide them. Yet she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself in front of all these people.

Pushing away from the table so fast her chair tipped over, she fled the conference room. She heard Rafe’s voice but didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop…not until she’d rushed through the waiting room, pushed open the door and fled around the corner of the building to the parking lot. There under the shade of a live oak, she let the tears freely fall while she covered her face with her hands, wishing against all odds that this was a nightmare and she’d soon awaken.

When she felt a hand on her shoulder, she took a breath, choked back a sob and looked up, expecting to see Rafe. But it wasn’t Rafe who stood there. It was Blake Winston, the man who wanted her baby for his own, the man who’d replaced B.J. in her dreams last night.

She turned away from him, trying to hide her tears, trying to hide feelings she didn’t understand.