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“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“I’m not going to have people say I baby-trapped America’s favorite dot-com billionaire.”
He stared at her for one long, fraught moment. And then, “Okay,” he said, and read the document. “Right.” Looking up. “Got it.”
“Read it again.”
“I don’t need to read it again, Romy.”
“Yes, Matt, you do. You make decisions too quickly. And this is important. Important enough that you might want to have your lawyer read it. In fact, you should get your lawyer to read it.”
“I don’t need my lawyer to read it, because I’m not signing it.”
“Well, of course I’m not expecting you to sign it right this minute.”
“I’m not signing it, period.”
“What?”
“Will this make it easier to understand?” he asked—and ripped the page in half, dropping the two pieces back onto the desk.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because if you think I’m going to sit here on a fortune while my kid lives on a budget on the other side of the world, you’ve got rocks in your head. I may know fuck-all about being a father, and we both know I’d be a shitty role model for a kid—”
“You would not!”
“—but one thing I can do, and do easily, is money.”
“I don’t want your money, Matt.”
“The money’s not for you, so get over it. You’re getting just about everything you want out of this deal, Romy, and that’s fine. That’s great. I’m cool with it. But for the love of God, stop rubbing in the whole I-don’t-need-you-Matt thing.”
“Rubbing—? Need—? I don’t—!” She peered at him as though trying to dive into his brain. “I don’t understand. All I’m trying to do is protect you!”
“I don’t want to be protected. I just...” He stopped, dragged in a slow breath. “I just...want to do this.”
“You are doing this. You’re providing half the chromosomes.”
“Yeah, anyone with a dick can do that.”
“But I want your dick,” she said.
They looked at each other in shock—and then they both burst out laughing. And God it felt good. Back to normal. Almost.
“Is that a Freudian slip?” he asked. “Because hey, come on over to my side of the desk.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Look,” he said, “seriously, what difference is it going to make if I fling you a few dollars? I could support a hundred kids and not notice the outlay.”
“It’s not supposed to be about buying a baby.”
“I’m not selling one.”
“It’s not fair to you. Not when you’ll have a real family one day.”
“You are my real family. You, Rafael, Veronica, Teague, crazy Artie.”
“You know what I mean. What happens when you get married?”
“I’m not getting married. No other kids. This is it for me. My one chance. So don’t take it away from me over something stupid like money.”
“Are you blackmailing me?”
“I’m appealing to your kind heart.”
“You are so full of it!”
“Okay, I’ll switch to blackmail if you’re going to be mean about it. I’m making it a nonnegotiable condition of my participation. No money, no kid.” He picked up the pieces of paper. “Now, are we starting negotiations on the same torn page, or not?”
“Blackmail isn’t a negotiation.”
“Ticktock, time’s a-marchin’.”
“Yes, but it’s my clock that’s ticking, not yours. You have all the time in the world to have other kids.”
“Don’t want others. I’m good with clocks. Might as well synchronize my alarm with yours. Are we on? Decide.”
“I don’t—I can’t—I’m not...not like that. I don’t make decisions on the fly.”
“But I do, Romy. And things work out just fine for me. So decide. Now.”
Long, long moment. And then, “Okay,” she said, the word sounding as though it had been dragged out against its will. “I’ll take the money, but I want it tied up in a trust. I mean it, Matt. No sneaky stuff. No saving me from imaginary destitution on the sly. I’m getting my lawyer involved—I’m warning you.”
He dropped the paper pieces. “Just so you know, I’ve already got my lawyer on the case, and I’ll bet she’s scarier than yours. If I want to sneak money to you on the sly, it’ll be done before you know it’s happening and there’ll be nothing you can do about it.”
“Now you see, that’s your inner superhero waving his flag. You think you’re saving a damsel in distress, but I promise you, I’m not in distress.”
“Have you thought that maybe this isn’t about you, it’s about me? How do you know I’m not the one buying a baby?”
“What? No!”
“And if I told you straight out that I am?”
“I guess I’d ask why you chose me.”
Their eyes met. Held. Something flashed inside him. Hot. Vivid. “And I’d answer...because it’s you,” he said. And the instant the words were out, he knew they were true. He was doing this not only for her, but because it was her. Because she was the one pure thing in his life and he needed her and if they shared a child he’d always have her. And his child...? Well, of course he had more to offer his child than money: he had her. Her light, to cancel out his darkness.
“Oh!” she said, blinking furiously.
Shit! “Don’t go troll on me,” he warned.
“I won’t. I promise. It’s just...nice. To hear that.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get sentimental about it. It’s to my benefit to give my kid a good mother. Less chance it’ll want to come and live with me one day.”
“Oh!” she said again, and gave a tiny sniff that freaked him out.
“Jesus, Romy! Get a grip. Are you on hormones or something?”
“No. No, no, that’s just nice to hear, too. In a...a twisted kind of way.”
“That’s me—twisted.”
She gave him that peer-into-your-brain look again. “Why do you always do that, Matt?”
“What?”
“Make yourself something...less.”
He hunched a shoulder. “I’m not doing anything except reminding you there’s something in this for both of us. Right, we still have a hundred documents to get through and I’ll be ripping up any that have a tear splotch on them, so get it together.”
She wiped a finger under each eye. “It’s not a hundred, it’s fifteen.”
“That’s my girl! Precision document preparer.” He laughed. “We’ll get through a paltry fifteen like a hot knife through butter.”
He hoped she’d laugh, too, but she didn’t. She was watching him, her forehead creased as though she wasn’t sure whether or not she should be frowning, and Matt felt panic edge its way up his spine because maybe she was about to call things off—and suddenly, unexpectedly, he knew he’d move heaven and hell to keep the deal alive. “Are we good, Romy?” he asked.
She bit her lip, and he did his best to make himself look nonthreatening. If he could have willed the right response out of her, he would have—he certainly directed every synapse in his brain at her as he silently urged: Say yes...say yes...say yes, damn you.
“Yes,” she said, and his limbs went weak with relief. “Yes, we’re good.”
“So,” he said, as nonchalantly as he could manage. “What’s next?”
She flipped a page, another, another, muttering something under her breath. He knew what she was doing. Sorting the documents, easiest to hardest, building her case. The muttering thing usually made him want to get her in a headlock, rub his knuckles against her scalp and warn her she was talking out loud, not in her head. But not tonight. Tonight, for reasons he did not want to face, it made him want to take her on his lap like he used to do at college when something was worrying her. But this was different from college. Because he didn’t just want to reassure her, he wanted to kiss her.
He forced his eyes away from her mouth to her hands, and the platinum signet ring on her right pinky finger caught his eye. She’d worn it every day since Teague had given it to her for her twenty-first birthday seven years ago, and he barely noticed it anymore. But now he wanted to rip it off her finger and throw it into the fire. What a fucking crazy upended night this was turning out to be.
“This one,” she said, and picked out a page.
The ring caught the overhead light, distracting him. “Huh?”
She held the page out to him. “Timing.”
He ignored the page. He wanted this done. Wrapped up. Settled, before she could change her mind. “Choose any time you want—I’ll fit in with you. Next.”
Flip. Shuffle. She held out another page. “Clinic options in San Francisco.”
He ignored that document, too. “Mark your preferred one and I’ll make an appointment. Next.”
New page—held out. “The process.”
“Fuck, Romy. I grab a girlie magazine and jack off. Do you really think I need instructions? Next.”
She chose a new page, held it out to him, then pulled it back and put it on top of the pile. “You know what?” she said, neatening the edges of her documents as that fucking ring flash-flash-flashed at him. “Let’s stop pretending you’re interested in the paperwork. Just point me in the direction of the kitchen so I can make your fucking paella! And then, since your mind is clearly on what time Camilla’s arriving and not on me, set the table for the two of you, not all three of us, and I’ll go back to my hotel, and that way—”
She broke off as his hand shot across the desk and latched itself around her right wrist, shocking the bejesus out of both of them. He watched her fingers curl, then flex, then curl again—but she didn’t break his hold the way she should have if she had any sense. He imagined her feeling the tremor that was shimmering through him and working out what it meant, then blushing for him the way she had for Lennie. Her slumberous eyes half closing as she offered herself to him. He could see her on the desktop, raising the skirt of her cherry-red dress...see himself taking off her black stockings, sliding her panties down her legs. One lick, to taste her. Do that again, Matt...lick me... I want you to do everything to me...anything you want...
“Matt,” she said, in that same breathy whisper she’d used when he’d hugged her too hard in the entrance hall, and he released her just as suddenly as he had then. He had to get his shit together. Stop the Jekyll and Hyde fuckery.
He put his hands palm down on the desk, ordered them to stay there. Splayed his fingers, then brought them in again, splayed...and back. Breathing, breathing, breathing through the moment of holy-hell panic and trying to remember the last thing she’d said and how he was supposed to respond. Something about the documents...kitchen...paella...Camilla...
“Why would you think Camilla was coming for dinner?”
“Because your girlfriends always do.”
“Point of clarification, Romy—I haven’t had a ‘girlfriend’ since I was seventeen.”
“Well, whatever you call them, they’re always joining us for dinner or lunch or drinks or something.”
“I call them by their name.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Hookups, then. I call them hookups.”
“I’m talking about women who are more than casual hookups.”
“They’re all casual hookups.”
“Um...no! You met Camilla a week before Thanksgiving, and I called you two weeks ago—five weeks after Thanksgiving—and you were still with her. That length of time with someone does not equal a casual hookup.”
“What would you call it?”
“An affair, maybe?”
“Affair? Fuck!”
“What’s wrong with affair?”
“Affair is so bourgeois,” he said, and immediately recognized bourgeois as one of his father’s words. Why be bourgeois, Matthew, when you can be bohemian? How many times had he heard variations on that theme? And now he was parroting his father to Romy! What the hell was wrong with him tonight?
“Well, how ‘bourgeois’ is it to answer a guy’s phone for him?” Romy asked. “Casual hookups don’t answer your phone.”
“Yeah, well, she was on top, it was easier for her to reach it,” he said, goaded by who-knew-what into yet more assholery.
Her eyes went wide. “You spoke to me in the middle of having sex with her? You—you—”
