Hired surrogate

Ashley

Oh, absolutely not.

My brain finally sprang into action.

Whatever else happened, I could not allow this situation to escalate before I explained myself.

I had already signed a contract. I had accepted the money. Twenty-five million dollars had already entered my account, and a significant portion of it had gone towards Jason’s treatment.

I could not afford to have somebody misunderstand my presence, report me to the hospital, and create a scandal before I had even completed the first week of this arrangement.

I took a small step forward.

“Wait!”

She paused and looked at me.

I straightened.

“I’m Ashley. I’m the hired surrogate.”

Silence.

For one beautiful, terrifying second, neither of us said anything.

Then she gave a small nod.

“So they’ve moved quickly already.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of that response.

There was no obvious shock. No dramatic gasp. No immediate demand for an explanation.

She simply said it as though she’d expected something of the sort to happen eventually.

But before I could decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, her gaze shifted to Skyler.

Then back to me.

“So why were you kissing my husband?”

My mouth fell open.

“Oh, no! No, no, no. I promise you, I wasn’t kissing him!”

I nearly tripped over my own words.

“I was cleaning his face. He had shaving cream around his mouth, and I was wiping it off. That’s all that happened. I wasn’t kissing him, I swear.”

I lifted the cloth in my hand as though it were evidence in a criminal investigation.

“See? I was literally just cleaning him. I work here. Well, technically, I don’t work here here, but I’m supposed to take care of him, and the shaving cream was still on his face, so I was just trying to—”

I stopped.

Why was I rambling?

Why was I explaining the same thing in six different ways?

And why did I suddenly sound like someone who had been caught stealing from a shop?

The woman looked at me.

Her expression didn’t change much, but something in her eyes made it painfully clear that she wasn’t convinced.

Oh, great.

Fantastic.

I had officially entered the stage of the conversation where the other person had already decided what they believed, and I was expected to spend the next thirty minutes trying to convince them otherwise.

She glanced at the cloth again, then at Skyler.

For a moment, her expression softened.

It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but I noticed it.

She looked at him with a tenderness that hadn’t been there when she’d looked at me.

And that was when the reality of the situation settled over me.

This wasn’t just a woman claiming a title.

Or, at the very least, a woman who had a history with him that I knew absolutely nothing about.

She looked back at me.

“If you’d excuse us, I need some personal time with my husband.”

Her voice wasn’t loud.

She didn’t need it to be.

The message was clear.

I wasn’t wanted in that room anymore.

And honestly, I wasn’t about to argue.

“Of course,” I replied quickly. “Yes. Absolutely.”

I gathered my things, making sure I hadn’t left anything behind, and hurried towards the door.

I could feel her watching me, although I didn’t turn around to confirm it.

The moment I stepped outside, I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding.

Then I stopped walking.

And stared at the wall.

Because—

What.

The actual.

Hell.

Had just happened?

I stood there for several seconds, trying to process the last few minutes.

Skyler had a wife.

A whole wife.

A beautiful wife, at that.

And I was supposed to carry his child.

I slowly turned my head towards his room, as though the door might suddenly open and somebody might emerge to explain that I’d misunderstood the entire conversation.

No such luck.

I was still standing in the corridor, holding my bag, with absolutely no explanation for what had just happened.

And then another thought occurred to me.

Wait a minute.

Why was I being hired as a surrogate if Skyler already had a wife?

Was she unable to conceive?

Was there a medical reason they couldn’t have a child together?

Was this some kind of arrangement they had both agreed to?

Or was there something else going on that nobody had bothered to explain to me?

I thought about the contract.

The confidentiality clause.

The instruction not to fall in love with Skyler.

The fact that his family had arranged for a woman to carry his child while his wife was apparently very much present in his life.

Had she known about the arrangement from the beginning?

Had she agreed to it?

Did she know who I was?

The way she’d looked at me suggested she knew something about the arrangement, but her reaction to finding me beside Skyler had been anything but welcoming.

And if she had agreed to this, why had she looked at me as though I’d crossed a line?

I pressed my lips together.

I didn’t even know what kind of marriage Skyler had.

What if his wife had been desperately hoping to have a child with him, and his family had decided to hire me without properly considering how she would feel?

What if she had been excluded from the decision entirely?

What if this arrangement was going to hurt someone who had done absolutely nothing to me?

I swallowed.

I had spent so much time worrying about whether I could survive the physical demands of the pregnancy, the demands of the job, and the emotional consequences of everything happening in my life that I’d barely considered the moral implications of the arrangement itself.

I’d been desperate.

I still was.

But did desperation excuse everything?

So many what ifs?

There was only one person I could think of who might be able to answer at least some of my questions.

The cold-faced woman.