He met her gaze, but not as openly as he had before. Signaling clear discomfort.
“You need me to talk to her.” She finally got what this meeting was about. He wanted her to talk his female choice into having his baby.
“No,” he said, sitting back, both arms resting on leather, his hands gripping the edges of the chair. His knuckles were white. She stared at them. At their whiteness, as though it was a signal to her, something vital.
“I don’t need you to talk to her,” he continued, paused.
“I need you to be her.”
Chapter Two
“Excuse me?”
Jamie heard his cue, but was too busy fighting an unusual case of jitters to jump in with the explanation he’d mentally perfected over the past few months. The hard part was done. The part he’d found no good way to do—letting her know what he wanted to do.
The rest was supposed to flow smoothly.
And then, perhaps, maybe some nerves would come into play as he awaited her final response.
“I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood, Dr. Howe. I’m not for sale here. Nor is anyone else at this clinic. There are certified, viable clinics that help with surrogacy, but The Parent Portal isn’t one of them.”
The words should have stopped him. Propelled him out the door while uttering an abject apology.
They didn’t. While her shock was evident, he heard no anger in her tone.
“You suggested surrogacy as a possible option down the road. When Emily and I met with you. You said that if it turned out that tests proved her uterus to be inhospitable, surrogacy would be a way for us to have the baby we wanted.”
“It would have been. Still is,” she amended, her expressive eyes wide and filled with compassion. “I’m sorry if I misled you, but I was only listing options, not in any way suggesting that I was available to perform them...”
He nodded. Remained in his chair as he’d started, leaned back, arms down. Mostly because he was a bit uncomfortable with the swarming in his stomach, the way just looking at her started a bit of a maelstrom inside him.
Emily had gotten emotional over everything. He’d always been the calm one.
So now that he was pinch-hitting on earth for both of them, he was suddenly going to be experiencing the emotions his wife would have, as well? The idea, while pleasant in some kind of bonding way, was not one he welcomed. Losing Emily had changed him irrevocably, to be sure, but some parts of himself had to remain as they’d been.
“I understand.” He found his voice, because the only other option was to sit there and let the idiocy tumble around inside him. “I fully understand,” he assured her. “I was just hoping you’d hear me out.”
“I don’t see...”
“Please.” He held her gaze steadily. He needed her to listen.
When she nodded, the odd sensations in his stomach settled.
“I’m not a fanciful man. I’m a mathematician. One who excels at and thrives on proving that everything lines up. And makes sense. There have been a series of events, starting way back when Emily and I were kids, that have all added up to this point. To my being here with you. I’m not about to sit here and tell you that she was some kind of psychic or angel on earth, or anything more than a human being just like you and me, but I can tell you that she’d look at me in a certain way, speak in a certain tone of voice, and whatever she said came to be. I don’t think I realized it when she was alive, but since she’s been gone, when I look back, I see that it was there.”
“That’s not all that uncommon.” Christine’s tone was filled with warmth, but also respect. She wasn’t humoring him as many might have done. He wasn’t at all surprised by that.
But that warmth in her gaze... It wasn’t at all personal, but felt that way to him. His body reacted.
What in the hell was going on?
His life was a neat and clean spreadsheet. Not a jumbled mass of inexplicable impressions. More than that, he honestly liked who he was.
“When one loses a loved one, the past becomes more concrete. It’s a whole picture, not part of a moving and changing one. That life becomes finite to us.”
He recognized the words. “You’ve been through grief counseling.”
She didn’t respond.