3. Laila
3
LAILA
“You’re kidding.”
He’s kidding. He has to be.
He’s kidding and this isn’t real and I’m just part of some weird reality prank show.
It would explain many things, including why Arsen Adamov is Hollywood Hunk handsome. And honestly, it wouldn’t be so bad, actually. If I let them air this footage, maybe I’ll see a cut of the money. A national audience watching my vibrator gleaming on the desk of my potential employer might make me unemployable to every other real job, but the money could tide Mom and I over for the next month.
Lord knows we need all the help we can get in that department.
I look around the office, hoping to spot a few hidden cameras stashed away behind a crystal paperweight or the leatherbound books on the shelves, but it’s just Arsen’s unflinching green eyes watching me. Not a smile to be found on his chiseled face.
“You’re kidding,” I repeat. “… Right?”
Out of all of the theories swirling around in my head for why Arsen Adamov would look me in my eyes and ask me to carry his baby, him being serious is not an option. Frankly, it’s not even in the top ten.
He stares back at me and shakes his head.
He’s really not kidding.
As reality melts down around me, what I want to do is turn around and get as far away from this man, this building, and this situation as possible. I want to run screaming for the hills and alert the major news networks.
Gaping crack in the Matrix right over that way. Just look for the hottie holding the vibrator. You can’t miss it.
What I do instead is drop back down on the chair so I don’t swoon like a Victorian maiden.
“You want me to carry your child.”
“So you were listening. Good.” He leans against the edge of his desk. He’s more than an arm’s distance away and still, it’s too close for comfort. Especially when he’s looking at me like that. Too amused. Too… appraising . “I understand this is a lot to take in.”
I bark out a bitter laugh. “This can’t be happening.”
“I’ll make it worth your while.” My voice is rising into autotuned, Alvin it can’t be his offer. It’s just that walking back down the flight of stairs I summited to get here would be daunting, and I need a break. I need to sit in this soft chair and breathe.
It has nothing to do with Arsen.
I root around inside my bag for my pain pills. “Can I have some water, please?”
He looks at me for a moment. A long, long moment.
Whatever he’s looking for, he must find it, because he nods and turns to fulfill my request.
While he meanders off to the bar cart in the corner, I try to unscrew the lid of the bottle. I get stymied by the childproof lid even on my good days, and today is not a good day.
As he approaches with a glass of sparkling water in hand, I manage to twist the lid off— victory —only for my pills to fly everywhere.
“Goddammit!”
I drop to all fours, frantically scooping pills into a pile like my life depends on it. First, Seth; now, this. My dignity is in tatters on this floor along with the rest of my deep, dark secrets.
Suddenly, Arsen is on one knee in front of me.
“Laila.” He says my name so softly that I think I’ve imagined it. But then his hand lands, feather-light, on my knee. “Leave it. I’ll get them.”
I look up and I’m caught between the pain in my hip and those devastating green eyes. All the motor control leaves my body. My limbs, my face, my words—all of it is stunned, slack, and silent. I can only watch as he gathers up the pills in his huge hands and cups them back in the bottle. All except for one, which he hands to me.
“Painkillers?”
“Long story,” I mumble.
Thankfully, he doesn’t push me.
Instead, he offers me the glass of sparkling water. As I accept it, our fingertips brush together and, like the overflowing fount of grace and poise that I am, I yank my hand back so fast that water sloshes down the front of my borrowed suit.
This whole “clumsy goof” act is getting really old, really fast. I’d like off this ride, please and thank you.
Blushing, I down the pill and take a long draw of water. When I finish, he takes the glass from my hand and stands up. “If you need to leave, I won’t stop you.”
I should leave. It’s what any woman in her right mind would do.
But years of scraping by, stressing about bills and treatment plans and whether my slightly crooked pinky toe would make my feet pictures exotic or unsellable, has left me a woman very much in her wrong mind.
Which is why I stand tall and face Arsen. “I have some questions.”
“Ask me anything.”
Did you buy that jawline or are you God’s favorite?
I shelf that question and snatch at one of the many more relevant ones circulating in my head.
“How would it work? Some fancy doctor would put your sperm and your wife’s egg together and then they’d put the whole thing in me?”
That’s a little off-putting, but it might be for the best. I’d be nothing more than a suitcase filled with someone else’s belongings. This doesn’t need to be personal. It can be cold and clinical.
Business.
For Mom.
Arsen reclaims his throne and leans back, hands folded in front of him. “I’m a busy man, roza . I don’t have the time or the patience to spend in labs and hospitals.”
Roza . He doesn’t even know my name, and he wants me to carry his baby. There’s nothing less personal than that.
Business.
For Mom.
“But you want to have a baby?—”
“The old-fashioned way. It’s simple, straightforward. We’re both young and—” He eyes the pill bottle that I’m still clutching between my sweaty fingers. “—healthy. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of tries to get the job done.”
I shake my head, convinced that the lingering pain the pill hasn’t squashed out yet is tampering with my understanding. “I’m sorry. When you say, ‘the old-fashioned way’…?”
“There’d be no further need for intercourse once you’re pregnant, of course.”
My jaw drops. The pill container slides right out of my hand. It hits the floor and rolls under Arsen’s desk, but I make no attempt to go after it. There are bigger fish to fry at the moment.
“This time, I know you have to be kidding.”
“Let me explain?—”
“No,” I grit out, taking both Arsen and myself by surprise. “Let me explain. Just because I accidentally walked in here with a vibrator does not mean I’ll drop my underwear for some rich schmuck who thinks he can have whatever he wants just by throwing money at it. I may be desperate, but I’m not that desperate.” I swing my bag into my shoulder and glare furiously at him. “And I’m no homewrecker, either!”
“My wife and I don’t have a traditional marriage, Laila. I wouldn’t be cheating on her.” Almost to himself, he adds, “Even if I was, she wouldn’t care.”
“Yeah? Well, I do care.” I storm to the door, stopping for one last look back at Arsen Adamov.
He’s watching me patiently, like he expects my temper to flare out. Like he’s waiting for me to close the door and come crawling back to the desk.
I meet his eyes so he understands exactly how serious I am. “Thank you for the offer, Mr. Adamov, but this is me saying, ‘ Hell no!’ ”