All Chapters of The Perfect Match; Billionaire's Surrogate Mother : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Louisa's point of view We drove home in silence. Not the tense kind. Something quieter than that — worn thin, both of us hollowed out by everything the warehouse had taken out of us. Damien kept his eyes on the road, one hand loose on the wheel, and didn't ask me a single question the entire way, which I was grateful for more than I could have said out loud. The city passed by in a blur of light through the window, and I watched it without really seeing any of it, my hands still faintly trembling in my lap. Not from fear. Damien said he'll have someone clean up Jude's body. Just was just a body now, a body that had no control over me anymore. I had killed him. And Damien was so calm about it. He had killed people too. I turned to face him for a moment. We were terrible for each other. Two killers shouldn't be together, who would check who? But again, I had lost the child. He would soon let me go. The end of us. It was only once we were back inside, the door shut behind us t

Louisa's point of view Grief, it turns out, doesn't wait politely for you to be ready for it. It had been almost two weeks, and I still woke some mornings forgetting for one merciful second, before it all came rushing back — the rooftop, the blood, the specific silence of a body that should have still had two heartbeats and only had one. I mourned my baby in pieces. In the baby aisle I hadn't meant to wander into at the store, standing frozen in front of tiny onesies I had no reason to still be looking at. In a stray ultrasound photo I found tucked in the bottom of my bag, one I didn't even remember keeping, that undid me completely for the better part of an afternoon. In the particular ache of Damien's hand resting on my stomach one morning, gentle, like he was checking for something that wasn't there anymore either, something that had never happened. Something I wished had happened when I still had the child. And underneath all of that, quieter, messier, harder to admit even

Louisa's point of view I woke up the next morning still turning it over in my head. What did it even mean to not be in a contract with Damien. Not a contract version. Not a surrogate-and-billionaire arrangement with a signature at the bottom. Are we going to be waking up in the same bed and having it mean something, him texting me during the day because he wanted to, not because there was a doctor's appointment to confirm. Having sex with him to have a child together, and not because I was just high on lust. Would I still be with him after the child? Raise a family with him? I didn't have a manual for that. You can't have a manual for something you aren't sure what it was. And I'd need to respect his history with Caroline. To accept that the person I was with would always love someone who wasn't me. Would Damien come to love me? Would I come to love him? Did I already? I lay there staring at the ceiling long enough that I heard him moving around downstairs — the clink of a mu

Louisa's point of view Today was going great. Pretty well. Perfect, even. Working with Damien was easier than I would have expected, or maybe it was the change in our relationship that made it easy. I was back doing what I liked, and my time was too full to leave room for mourning the child I never got to meet. Damien had promised I'd join the other marketers tomorrow, have my own desk. I knew I hadn't gotten the job purely on merit, but I still wanted to be treated like any other employee, as much as that was possible. "We should get going, it's getting late." Damien called out from across the room. It was already almost nine. "Oh, sure. Give me a minute to finish up." I didn't have much left to do, but I liked order, and I wanted my things arranged properly for tomorrow. "Mm-hm." He mumbled, packing up his own things. "You know—" My sentence got cut off as the door swung open. "Damien!" The voice was high-pitched, carrying a flirtatious smile that came through even before I

Damien's point of view The bathroom door adjoining the office was cracked open, steam curling out into the room. I watched Louisa scrub away the seed I'd just sprayed all over her. I probably shouldn't be wasting it, not when we were actively trying for another baby. “Should I join you?” I didn't wait for an answer before stepping inside. I wrapped my arms around her waist from behind, my dick immediately springing back to life. “Are you ever not hard?” she asked over the sound of the running water. I pressed a kiss to her damp shoulder blade. “You really didn't expect me to remain calm while you're standing in front of me naked, did you?” She melted back against my chest. I slid a hand down, cupping her mound. “Still so wet for me, even inside a shower,” I murmured, teasing her slick folds. “Shut up.” She tried to step away, but I hauled her back, pressing her flush against me. “Hold onto the wall,” I whispered. She obeyed without a question, needing this release just as muc