Chapter 2
two
HUNTER
A man on a mission,
with no time for distractions.
Even sexy, oddly compelling distractions…
Elaina Murphy is a menace in that bridesmaid dress.
I try to focus on pouring us both a drink, but I can’t help tracking her reflection in the windows as she wanders the living room. The thin silk flows over her curves like water, catching the light with each step. Even with her hair falling out of its updo and mascara smeared beneath one eye, she looks like she just stepped off the cover of a magazine.
But not a modern magazine…
Elaina, with her bee-stung lips and pin-up girl bangs, with her tiny waist and hourglass curves, is the type of woman who would have been painted onto the side of a World War II fighter plane in the ‘40s. She’s got the body of a bombshell, the strength of Rosie the Riveter, and the fire of every take-no-bullshit aunt on my mother’s side of the family.
As a kid, Aunt Esther, Aunt Sarah, and Aunt Bea kept me in line with a beady eye and a single pointed finger.
Now, they’re all gone, claimed by cancer, one by one. The specialists I hired to manage their care hypothesized that the Mendelssohn sisters had been exposed to cancer-causing toxins throughout the course of their childhoods near a toxic waste disposal site in upstate New York, writing the story of their deaths before they were even grown.
My mother was the oldest child. She had seven years of wholesome living under her belt before her parents moved to the suburban hellhole where they were all unwittingly poisoned.
We’d hoped she would be spared the “family curse.”
And then, last summer, the doctors found tumors on her spine. At first, they thought they might be able to operate—especially if the chemo succeeded in shrinking the masses—but six months later, it became clear the chemo wasn’t reversing the growth, only slowing it, and there would be no operation.
She elected to stop treatment a few months ago, the better to enjoy the time she had left without feeling ill all the time. The doctor gave her six months, maybe nine if we’re lucky, but warned us that the end would likely be difficult and painful.
I don’t have much time, and I can’t afford to be out of the city for long. Mom has round-the-clock nurses and a hired companion to attend to her comfort, but I know she looks forward to my visits and our weekly dinner date.
I have to convince Elaina to sign on the dotted line and get her installed in my apartment in the city, ASAP. The better to have her under me as often as needed to achieve the desired result.
To get her pregnant. To put a baby in this woman you barely know, the inner voice pipes up. If you can’t be honest about what you’re doing, not even in your own head, maybe this plan is as crazy as I’ve been saying it was from the start.
Ignoring the logical voice—there’s no room for logic when Death is on the doorstep—I ask, “Olives or onions with your dirty martini?”
“Olives, obviously,” she says, pausing to examine an abstract painting. “And add another splash of vermouth, please. I like my dirty martini soaking wet.”
I glance over my shoulder, certain she’s toying with me—trying to force my thoughts to her soaked pussy and how much I enjoyed taking her in every corner of her apartment, no doubt—but she’s still gazing at the wall.
“Very bachelor pad meets Architectural Digest around here,” she muses.
“Is that a compliment or an insult?” I ask, warning my cock to calm the fuck down.
We have business to attend to before we can even consider pleasure.
I’ve already promised myself—no contract, no fucking. I can’t afford to get distracted by a woman who isn’t on board with my proposal. If Elaina decides she doesn’t want a baby all that badly, after all, I’ll go back to the city and start looking into other options for continuing my family line. I’m sure there are other women who would be interested in my terms, but vetting them will take time.
Elaina has already been thoroughly vetted, not only by my investigator, but by the fact that we have numerous acquaintances in common. And I already know I like her enough to enjoy spending a few months in her company.
Though how much I enjoy being inside her should probably be reason enough for me to pump the brakes on this plan.
Fucking her was addictive. Each time I had her, I was certain that it would take the edge off, but it only made me want her more.
It was part of the reason I left the way I did. I was afraid if I stayed much longer, I might never leave her shabby loft apartment, covered in cat hair. And I’m not that kind of man. I don’t do shabby or cat hair, and I have zero interest in anything long-term with a woman who wants children. My abusive, deadbeat father taught me all I needed to know about being a dad.
Namely, that I never want to be one. I’m not equipped, and I find the thought of raising a child equal parts terrifying and repulsive. The only way my mother’s dying wish for the Mendelssohn genes to live on is coming true is if I contribute nothing but sperm and money to the child’s upbringing.
“It’s fine. If you love Generic Rich Asshole energy.” Elaina turns, and there’s that smirk I remember. The one that makes me want to pin her against the nearest wall.
But then, what doesn’t?
“But the view is nice,” she continues. “I love how the sunset light lingers forever in the summer. It almost makes up for the hellish Maine winters.”
I cross the room, offering her one of the martinis—the “sopping wet” one with extra vermouth. “Well, depending on the choice you make tonight, Maine winters might be behind you for good.”
She pulls in a breath and lets it out in a rush, looking more troubled by the prospect than she did outside by the fire. “You’re really a ‘get down to business’ kind of guy, aren’t you? No foreplay, no romance, just sign away your firstborn on the dotted line and go pack your things, like some ogre in a fairy tale.”
“You know very well that I excel at foreplay.” I arch a wry brow. “And I believe you’re the ogre in that scenario. I told you; I have no interest in being a part of the child’s life. It’s explicitly stated in the contract that I will, in fact, refuse to do so, and that efforts to force me into interaction with the offspring will render all benefits to you null and void.”
Her eyes narrow to slits as she searches my face.
“Something on your mind?” I ask after a moment.
She hesitates before slowly shaking her head back and forth. “No. I was going to ask who hurt you, but I already know you won’t tell me.” Her words connect like a sucker punch, a fact I do my best to hide as she adds, “But like you said, I’m good with people. I’m good at knowing why they do the things they do. And no one goes to this much trouble to have a baby and never see it again without some serious baggage in his past.”
“Or, maybe I simply have no urge to be a father,” I say in my best bored tone, refusing to give her any sign that she’s barking up the right tree. “Maybe I just want to pass on the genes my mother so desperately wants to see made manifest in a new generation, and be done with it.”
“Speaking of genes…” she says, taking a slow, lingering sip of her martini. After she swallows, her tongue teases across the seam of her lips, sending a visceral memory of the way those lips looked wrapped around my cock rocketing through my head.
That’s better. I’ll concentrate on those memories, not the dark ones she came so close to summoning to the surface.
“Cancer on both sides of the family isn’t great,” she continues. “My mom’s was lung cancer, probably from smoking when I was little. But she hadn’t had a cigarette in decades, so there might be a genetic predisposition, too.”
“My mother was exposed to toxic chemicals as a child. So were all her sisters and her parents,” I explain. “The specialists I hired agreed that the contamination in the soil and groundwater is most likely the root of the diseases that plagued them their entire lives. And of the cancers that eventually killed them.”
Elaina winces. “God, I’m sorry. That’s awful.”
“It is,” I say, as dispassionately as if I’m talking about a junky souvenir shop closing down the block. I made my peace with “the family curse” a long time ago, and took my revenge against the people who caused it. Every man who invested a dime in that development, knowing full well their company had gotten the land dirt cheap because it wasn’t fit for human habitation, has faced financial ruin at my hands.
For a while, I considered embracing vigilante justice in more than an economic sense. But if I’d been caught, my mother would have been left with no family outside a federal prison. That knowledge helped keep my darkest impulses in check.
But just barely…
Yet another reason I have no business even considering becoming a parent. Well-adjusted people fit for childrearing don’t so much as flirt with the idea of murder, let alone have to spend a few months talking themselves out of it.
“But prior to exposure,” I continue, “both sides of my family were relatively healthy. Some heart disease, but as far as I can tell, nothing severe or with an early onset.”
She nods. “All right. I never knew my dad, so I can’t speak to that half of my DNA, but I’m healthy so far.”
“I’m not worried,” I assure her, not bothering to explain why .
She doesn’t need to know that my investigator tracked down her father, or that he was a healthy, if irresponsible, man living his best Peter Pan life on a fishing boat in Key West until he was struck by lightning and killed a few years ago. He was relatively easy to find. The fact that she hasn’t tracked him down herself must mean that, deep down, she doesn’t want to know anything about the man responsible for her dark hair and olive skin.
They certainly didn’t come from her red-haired mother…
“Okay.” She drops onto the leather sofa, giving her martini a thoughtful swirl. “So, we’ve covered the nuts and bolts. Should we discuss how absolutely batshit crazy this is, or are we going to skip over that part?”
I ease into the mission-style chair across from her. “Unconventional, perhaps, but not crazy. From a contractual perspective, it’s a straightforward business arrangement with clearly defined terms.”
“Oh, come on, Hunter.” She kicks off her silver sandals and tucks her feet up, making herself at home. “You want me to pretend to be madly in love with you, knock me up, convince your dying mother we’re soulmates, and then have me raise a child alone while you send money from afar like some rich Wall Street creep who got his mistress pregnant and is afraid to leave his wife. That’s the definition of crazy.”
“Only you aren’t my mistress, and I don’t have a wife,” I say. “This won’t be an accident. It will be something we’re both choosing in advance. And yes, I can see that the deception aspect is outside the bounds of most business dealings, but that will only be a concern for a short period of time. She only has six months, nine, if she’s lucky.”
Her brow furrows again. “Jesus. This poor woman.”
“Don’t feel too sorry for her. She’s seventy-four.” I take a drink before adding, “Your mother only made it to sixty.”
Her gaze hardens, her eyes glittering as she asks, “How did you know that?”
“I read about it in the news. I’ve been following the Sea Breeze Gazette online since I finished my work here,” I lie. “I was sorry to see that you’d lost her.”
She nibbles her lip for a beat before relaxing back into the cushions, seemingly satisfied with my response. “Thank you. She would have been horrified to know I was even thinking about getting pregnant out of wedlock, by the way. Even fake pregnant.”
“The pregnancy won’t be fake,” I remind her, needing to make that perfectly clear.
“No, just everything else about our relationship.” She stretches her legs out, and I definitely don’t notice how that dress rides up her thighs. Those thighs that felt so damned good wrapped around me while I rode her like it was the last, best thing either of us would ever do… “Have you considered a surrogate? There are women who do this kind of thing for a living, you know.”
“I prefer a more…personal touch.”
“Ah yes, nothing says ‘personal touch’ like asking a stranger who you ghosted months ago and haven’t spoken to since to have your baby.” She downs the rest of her drink with a gulp and holds out the glass. “I’m going to need a refill to finish this conversation.”
I get up to pour us both another round. “I would hardly call us strangers. If memory serves, we got to know each other pretty well during those three days in your apartment…”
“If memory serves? Oh, please. We spent more time coming than we did talking. And it was…phenomenal.”
I set the glasses on the bar cart and glance over my shoulder to find her nibbling her bottom lip in a way that makes me ache to do the same. She’s right. It was phenomenal, and I’m not the kind who uses that word lightly.
She sighs as she adds, “That’s probably something we should consider before we sign on the dotted line.”
“Consider in what way?” I ask, adding an extra dash of vermouth to her drink.
“With chemistry that intense…” She trails off as I cross the room, accepting her fresh martini before adding, “I just don’t want you to get confused by your rampaging hormones and fall madly in love with me. You’re an okay guy, I guess, but I’m not interested in forever with you, Hunter. No hard feelings. You’re just not my personal ‘forever’ flavor.”
I smile, my first genuinely amused grin of the night. She’s as much of a smartass as I remember, a thing I find more attractive than I probably should. “Your thoughtfulness is touching.”
She grins, her eyes flashing. “Yeah? Are you touched? You look touched.”
“Deeply,” I deadpan. “If I’d had any doubts about the strength of your character, they would be thoroughly assuaged.”
“Assuaged.” She takes a sip of her drink, savoring it before she swallows. “Did I ever tell you that your big, fat vocabulary is sexy?”
“No, but thank you,” I say. “I once had a girlfriend tell me I sounded like a thesaurus.”
Elaina snorts. “Did she mean that as a compliment?”
“No, I’m pretty sure, it was the opposite. We were in the middle of an argument at the time. She also said that she suspected I was on the autism spectrum and would benefit from applied behavior analysis or cognitive behavioral therapy. But I explained to her that I was just a stone-cold asshole and gave her an hour to pack her things and get out of my apartment.”
Elaina makes a woofing sound beneath her breath. “Wow, that was an asshole move. And I agree with your assessment. All the people I know with autism are way nicer than you. More in touch with their emotions, too.” She cocks her head. “But therapy isn’t a bad thing, you know. It might help you process whatever has you so spooked that you’re afraid to have any contact with this child you feel compelled to bring into the world.”
“I’m not afraid,” I say. “I’m realistic. At this point in my life, I’m well aware of my strengths and weaknesses. I’ve thought through this decision carefully and won’t be changing my mind about the way in which I intend to move forward. All that remains to be decided is if you’re amenable to my terms.”
She hesitates a beat before setting her drink on the coffee table between us and extending her arm, fingers wiggling. “Fine. Contract. Let me look at it.”
I rise, fetching the paperwork from my briefcase on the entryway table before delivering it to her on the couch.
She takes it, but only squints at the top page for a beat before tossing the contract onto the cushion beside her.
I arch a brow.
“I don’t have my reading glasses,” she says, sticking her nose up in the air when I smirk at the confession. “And yes, I need reading glasses, but that’s not because I’m old before my time. I’ve always been far-sighted. I just haven’t had my eyes checked in forever, so I use reading glasses instead of a prescription.”
“Why haven’t you had them checked?”
She shrugs. “Vision isn’t covered by my health plan, and I always have something better to spend five hundred dollars on. Like my mortgage or cute dresses and vintage jewelry.”
“Or cats,” I say, with a curl of my upper lip.
She shakes her head, seemingly amused. “How can you hate cats? They’re literally the best thing ever. Especially Captain Crunchypants. He’s the sweetest little guy, and he looooved you.”
I fight a shudder at the reminder of her ancient gray tabby, the one with hip dysplasia that contorted his way across her apartment like something out of a horror movie. He did seem to have a “thing” for me. Every time I slipped into Elaina’s place through the back door, he instantly appeared, purring as he rubbed gray fur onto my black suit pants and rolled over to present his belly to be scratched.
“Which reminds me,” she says, motioning toward me with her drink. “If we go through with this, I’ll need you to agree to cover my mortgage on the cat café for a year, as well as salaries for a full-time baker and an extra person to work the counter. I don’t want to sell the café until I know things are moving forward with the baby. After all, we might not be able to get pregnant, and then I would have given up my safe place in the world for nothing. I can’t afford to do that. I’m the only one watching my back. In a worst-case scenario situation, I have to make sure I’m protected.”
“Understood,” I say. “And not a problem. I’ll call my lawyer tomorrow and have that addendum added. In the meantime, if you’d like to look over the contract and see if there are any other changes you’d like made, I can loan you a pair of reading glasses.”
“You’re far-sighted, too?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m old. Started needing them about a year ago.”
Her gaze sweeps up and down my frame, making my cock perk up for what feels like the hundredth time since I laid eyes on her on the beach. “You’re not old. You’re…” She clears her throat, changing the subject before I can ask her to fill in the blank. “Why don’t you just give me the highlight reel while I finish my drink? I’ll look it over myself in the morning and call you if I see anything else I’d like changed.”
I walk her through the key points—the financial terms, timeline, confidentiality agreements, custody arrangement, etc. She asks sharp questions about everything from medical expenses to education funds, proving she’s as smart and savvy as I thought.
“The timeline is aggressive,” she finally says as she recrosses her legs, treating me to another tempting glimpse of her upper thighs. “You want us to start trying next week?”
“As I mentioned, my mother doesn’t have much time left.”
She nods. Sighs. “Right. Okay, but I need to check with my doctor to see if it’s safe for me to start trying right after my IUD is removed. It’ll probably take a day or two to get into the office for an appointment, and I should take a few days to think anyway. I’m fine with being an impulsive person most of the time, but this is a big decision. I’ll need to talk it over with a friend.”
“The confidentiality agreement,” I remind her. “I don’t want anyone else to know about this.”
“Well, tough,” she says, draining the last of her drink before setting it on the coffee table and popping to her feet. She sways the slightest bit before steadying herself and collecting the contract from the couch cushion. “I’m a verbal processor, and I need to process verbally. My friends are my family. They love me and want what’s best for me, and I trust them to shoot straight with me if I’m being an idiot.”
My lips press into a tight line. I don’t like the thought of one of her friends knowing our secret, but I can see where she’s coming from. I don’t have many friends, but those I do are like brothers-in-arms. I would trust Anthony with my life, and Weaver and I are growing close, as well.
But then, that’s another reason I don’t want Elaina talking to her friends from Maine. If she tells Anthony’s fiancée, Maya, or Weaver’s fiancée, Sully, about this, there’s no way they’ll be able to keep from telling their soon-to-be husbands. Our lives are already too interconnected. It will likely make avoiding each other in the future complicated.
And yes, I’m open to cutting ties with my friends, if that’s the only way to make this work.
But if possible, I’d prefer to avoid it.
“Is there anyone you can speak to who isn’t part of this community?” I ask, following Elaina as she collects her sandals in one hand and starts toward the door. “If we’re successful, I don’t want our mutual friends to know I had anything to do with your pregnancy. That’s why there’s a clause in the contract dictating that you can’t reveal the identity of the child’s father to anyone, and why we’ll need to be discreet while we’re in the city. We won’t draw attention to the fact that we’re living together or spend time together outside the apartment unless we’re going to visit my mother.”
Elaina’s nose wrinkles as she steps into her shoes. “How romantic.” She hurries on before I can speak, “Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not about romance. But I’m not going to sit around your apartment all the time, waiting for you to put your dick in me. I’d go stir crazy on the first day. I will be going out and doing things. I’ll just avoid places where I might run into a friend.”
“That sounds fair,” I agree. “You won’t be a prisoner. But you will make yourself available to me on days when conception is most likely.”
She rolls her eyes before cooing in a patronizing tone, “Yes, Hunter, if I agree to this, I will make myself available to you. I will be so available you can call in sick to work and stay buried in my pussy all day long, if you want.”
Her tone is grating, but the thought isn’t unpleasant.
Not unpleasant at all…
“I make my own hours,” I say, settling a hand on her hip as my cock thickens. “Finding the time to be buried inside you won’t be a problem.”
“Good,” she whispers, the hunger in her eyes making me think she’s finding this conversation as arousing as I am. “See you later, crazy. I’ll have an answer for you by Wednesday, after the wedding. And I’ll find someone to talk to who doesn’t know you or your friends.”
“Wedding?” I ask. “I thought that was tonight.”
“Yeah, it was, but now Maya and Anthony have decided to get hitched while everyone’s here. On Tuesday night,” she says, reaching for the door. “Apparently, they’re knocked up, too. I’m sure you’ll get an invite now that they’ve decided to pull the trigger, since you and Anthony are close. So…yeah, I’ll let you know Wednesday? If that works.”
“It does, but Elaina?” She pauses with her hand on the knob, glancing back at me with an arched brow. “If you need another day or two to consider all the variables, I can give you until Friday. I need you to be one hundred percent sure of your decision before you sign. Once we start this, there’s no going back.”
She nods. “I know, Hunter. I understand exactly how serious this is. The question is—do you?”
Then she’s gone, leaving me with the faint scent of her perfume and the unsettling feeling that she knows something I don’t.
But that’s ridiculous. She’s sixteen years my junior and just heard about this plan tonight. There’s no way she’s thought this through with more attention to detail—and the possible long-term ramifications—than I have.
I’ve covered all my bases.
Now, I just have to see if Elaina’s up for playing the game…