I hung up the phone after talking to Marley. She was the woman who would be carrying my child as long as she passed the medical assessment. Marley is married to one of my employees and I knew that she had been a surrogate three other times. She and my employee Jeff have two healthy, very beautiful children of their own. Jeff’s a highly paid executive so the money is not a big draw for her or them as a family. She does it because she says everyone has a right to have a child and it’s her way of “giving back.” I would still pay her handsomely and take care of all the expenses, but I decided this way would be a lot less stressful than the old fashioned approach that I’d tried to take with Holly. Women have a hard time with detaching the emotion from sex. I had been a bachelor long enough that I should have considered that before taking Holly into my house and going to her bed every night.
Marley always did it the insemination route. She was twenty-nine and from what she told me, she was in excellent health. She would be going in for insemination weekly until she conceived. All of her others had been conceived quickly and I was really tired of waiting for this to happen. I am a patient man, but the debacle with Holly had taken a lot of my patience away. Marley did mention the possibility of multiple births doing it the insemination route, but I didn’t even care about that, as long as I got my heir.
I had waited two months with Holly before she left, patiently, I thought. I could very well have taken advantage of her and had sex a lot more often than late at night. But I was a gentleman whether she believed it or not, and as mind-blowing as the sex was, I just didn’t think that would be right.
She had been gone a little over a month now, and I had waited all of that time thinking she was going to come back. I should have moved forward with Marley weeks ago, but for some reason I couldn’t make myself believe that Holly was gone for good. I called her every day and left messages. She never called back. I talked to her friends and although I was sure they had to know where to find her, no one would tell me where she was staying. If this damned city wasn’t so big I would have gone hotel to hotel looking for her. One thing that made Holly hard to track was that she didn’t use credit at all. She paid for everything with cash.
She never came back, nor did she even call me but for some crazy reason even as I hung up the phone with Marley, I was still holding out hope that she’d walk back in the door. My head seemed to hurt all the time lately and my heart felt like it was racing and I was also having a terrible time sleeping at night too. It was all out of character for me and it actually pissed me off to feel this way.
One night when I couldn’t sleep I went into her room. I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. It still smelled like her perfume and the fragrance filled my senses and lulled me to sleep. When I woke up later in the dark, I was disoriented at first and I thought she was there with me. The disappointment was bitter when I woke up enough to realize that she wasn’t. I thought about her all the time and it was driving me crazy. I realized that I’ve never felt this strongly about anyone, not even my ex-wife. When my she left me, I was angry with her and it hurt to find out that she hadn’t really loved me in a long time before it was over. Mostly though I was devastated by the loss of the boy that I thought was my son. But I still didn’t miss her like this. It felt like when Holly left she took a part right out of me with her and now I had this gaping hole in the center of my chest that ached continuously. I think I was falling in love with her, but that wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to be just any other employee. I suppose the having sex with her part blew that, but it still wasn’t supposed to involve love. Before she left, I had begun to think she had those feelings for me as well. But you don’t just walk out of someone’s life if you love them. You stay and fight if you have to, but you don’t walk away.
I grabbed my aching head and sat down on the sofa. I knew that I was contradicting myself. Her walking away had actually been in our contract. I’d expected it to happen a lot later than it did, after she’d had my child, but I was the one who had planned for her to walk away in the first place. Now I was the one whining because she did.
I had to find a way to put Holly in the past where she belonged, and I thought the best way to do that would be to move forward with my life and my plans for an heir. I just needed something else to concentrate my energies on besides work. I had talked to Jeff about it and he was happy to talk to his wife. She was the one I’d been talking to the day Holly had overheard me. At that time, I’d just been thinking of her as a back-up plan and now, I’m glad I did. Like all of the other women in my life, Holly had left me. Like all of the other times, I knew that I would get over it and move forward, stronger than ever. Marley had just told me she met with the lawyer and signed the contracts today and I was ready to call the doctor to get things moving on the medical end.
I dialed up Dr. Lewis. He came on the line sounding very jovial.
“Well, Aiden! It’s been a long time. I was actually just thinking of calling you today.”
“Really?” I asked, thinking it was curious that he was going to call me. “I guess great minds do think alike. Hey Doc, I need to arrange an assessment for a young lady named Marley. She’s agreed to be my surrogate and she is willing to do it by insemination. I believe that she is pretty healthy, and she’s done this before, so she understands it all very well. I want her assessed medically just to be sure though when you have the time please.”
“You want a new woman assessed?” Dr. Lewis sounded surprised, or concerned.
“Yes, is that a problem?” I asked him, confused myself now.
“I’m sorry, I’m just a bit confused I suppose. I was planning to call you today to ask if things were okay with Holly. She was pretty excited about all of this the last time she was here; I’m surprised that I haven’t at least heard from her. She’s long overdue for her next appointment…”
“Holly’s gone, doctor.”
“Gone? Oh my, you mean she…?”
He thought I was telling him that she died. I had an actual sick feeling in my stomach just at the thought.
“No, no she’s not dead. She’s gone…she moved out, I have no idea how to contact her, and she’s changed her phone number…”
“Oh, I see,” he said. I could tell there was more to it. He was acting very strangely. I had to wonder what he wasn’t telling me.
“Doctor, when was the last time you saw Holly?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer because now that I really thought about it, that was when she started acting strangely as well.
“About six weeks ago,” he said. That was the last appointment. The one when she told me that she still wasn’t pregnant…
“And how was she? Was everything normal?” I was starting to feel sick again. I didn’t want to believe that she’d lied to me.
“She was…well, everything was…well,” he said. He was confirming my suspicions with his hesitancy.
“Doctor, if you look in that chart I know you’re holding right now, you will see that she signed consents for me to obtain medical information about her. It’s part of the contract that she signed, and I was with her when she signed those as well.” He was silent and I heard paper shuffling.
“Yes, Aiden, they’re here.”
“Good, now, would you like to tell me what’s going on?”
“Holly’s pregnant, Aiden. We’re you not aware of that?”
“No, unfortunately she chose not to share that fact with me. I guess we’ll put a hold on the other assessment for now until I find out what’s going on. Doctor, how far along is she?”
“About six weeks at that check-up so that would put her at about eleven weeks now.”
I dropped the phone. My head was suddenly pounding. I was immediately thrust back to the day when Cecile, my ex-wife walked out with my son in her arms. He was reaching for me and crying. My heart felt like it was going to explode, my chest hurt so badly. It hurt all over again now. Holly lied to me, just like Cecile had and then she stole my baby and I just let her walk away.
I suddenly had to run to the bathroom and vomit. I didn’t think I was going to stop. When my stomach was finally completely empty of both food and stomach acid I pulled myself up to the counter and looked at my face in the mirror. I wondered what it was about me that made women lie to me and made them think I would be such a terrible father. One was bad luck; two meant that I was doing something wrong by choosing the women I chose.
I stood there, holding onto the counter until my breathing was back under control. Then I splashed cold water on my face and brushed my teeth. I was beginning to not even recognize myself. I had dark circles underneath my eyes and I wasn’t taking care of myself the way I usually did. I finally tore myself away from my sallow appearance and stopped wallowing in self-pity. Action was what I needed now. Taking my cell phone into my den I pulled up the name and number of a private investigator I’d used once before and called him. I wished I’d thought to do it sooner.
“Hey Zack, it’s Aiden Scott.”
“Aiden, hello. How are you?”
“I’m not great, Zack. I need your help if you’re available?”
“I’m sure I have the time to help you out. What do you need?”
I didn’t tell him the whole sordid story, but I did tell him that Holly was pregnant with my child and made sure he was aware that we’d had a contract so he didn’t just think of me as a creepy stalker. He took as much information as I had on her and told me he’d be back to me as soon as he could.
HOLLY