She gave me the evil eye and went back to eating.
I sighed. “I don’t want a wife, Anne. I want a child. I know you think I’m a big lout, but I value family. I raised Harper from the time she was fifteen. You might think I’m overbearing, but you can’t deny Harper has become a remarkable woman.”
“A woman that you don’t trust to make her own decisions in her life.”
My jaw tightened. “The only thing I’ve interfered in her life about is her safety. Need a I remind you that she had a stalker. Not some whiny admirer, but a stalker who is now in jail for kidnapping a woman.”
She shrugged. I figured that was about as good of acknowledgement as I was going to get that Harper had been underestimating the danger.
I sat back and studied her. “You’ve been good friends with Harper long enough to know about her childhood. What has she told you?”
Anne shifted in her chair. “That it was a good one. She wasn’t sure how solid your parents’ marriage was, but they’d both been attentive to the kids.”
I nodded. “True, although my father worked a lot on the business and my mother liked playing the socialite.”
“Is this where I’m supposed to admit that you looked out for Harper.”
I nodded. “Yes. I took her to her dance classes and recitals once we stopped having a nanny. I held her hair back the first time she got drunk and puked her guts out after a beach party. After our parents died, I was the one who helped with homework and filling out her college admissions forms. I taught her to drive. And yes, I punched Dirk Bennett for spreading lies about her. I suppose that was the overprotective part of me you two don’t like. Of course, at the time, Harper liked that I’d given him a black eye.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“I’ll be a good parent.” It was ridiculous how important it was that she realize that. I knew she saw me as an uncaring brute. But I’d already partially raised my sister. I knew I could raise a child.
She studied me again. I wished I could figure out what the hell she was looking for.
“Well, if I’m giving you a year of my life, what is that really going to entail besides carrying your baby?”
“I want the health of this baby to be your number one priority. I’m paying you to devote all your time to ensuring that. On that end, it will be like you’re an employee. You will be working for me and need to be on call at all times for anything baby related.”
She arched a brow. “That comes to just over a thousand dollars an hour. At a regular job that would be very good pay, but you’re asking me to carry a child. That comes with health risks, you know.” Emotion filled her eyes, but only for a second, as she looked down into her plate of food.
I frowned, wondering what that moment of vulnerability was about. “Today’s modern medicine means that the risk to you would be very little assuming that you are in good health to start with. That would be one of the first things we want to make sure of.”
“It’s still not a lot considering the physical requirements of the job.”
I took her statement as a positive sign. She wasn’t saying no. “If you don’t feel ten million is enough for the year. What do you suggest?”
She thought for a moment. “Sixty million. Five million for each of the twelve months. It’s not like you can’t afford it.”
My lips twitched in amusement. “You’re right, I can afford it. But I don’t like to overpay.”
“Except you’re not paying just for me. We all know that you think I’m lower than pond scum—”
I frowned. That wasn’t right.
“But clearly your child is worth sixty million, more even.”
She was right that my child was worth a great deal more. But in this case, I had to put a price on becoming a father. “Twelve million. One million for each month.”
“Fifty million.”
I realized that I’d won. She was going to do this for me if I came up with the right price. “Twenty-five million. That’s my final offer. As I said, there are other women I can hire for much cheaper.”
“And yet you’re here paying me ten thousand dollars to have dinner with you to convince me to be the one to carry your child.”
“Touché.”
She cocked her head to the side. “What about Harper? How are you going to explain this to her? She’ll think we’ve both lost our mind.”