Chapter Three #2
Caesar gives a short laugh. I frown at him. “What’s so funny?”
He sits back in his chair. His hair’s sticking up the front where he’s run his hands through it.
“The other day,” he says, “at the ball… Wren Carter asked me to father her child.”
I inhale and stare at him.
Aurelia laughs. “What? You’re joking?”
He shakes his head, lips twisting. “Nope. She’s fed up with dating, and she doesn’t want another relationship. But she wants a baby. So she asked me to donate for her.” He blows out a breath. “It would be one way to get an heir, I guess.”
I don’t move, although I’m breathing fast. I hadn’t had the chance to ask Caesar why Wren wanted to see him, but whatever I thought the reason was, I hadn’t considered this.
A brief flare of relief that she doesn’t want a relationship with him is followed by a searing burn of jealousy. She asked Caesar, not me. For fuck’s sake.
“I understand why a woman might want an arrangement like that,” Aurelia says. “The dating pool can be vicious, like swimming with sharks.” She gives him a curious look. “Did you say yes?”
“I said I’d think about it and give her an answer after Christmas.”
My eyebrows rise. “You’re making her wait?”
“It’s not an easy decision. There are factors to take into account.”
“Like…”
“I met someone,” he says. “On the night of the ball.”
I think about the way his buttons were done up wrong. “Yeah, I remember. But what’s that got to do with Wren?”
“I liked her.”
“Wren?”
“No,” he says impatiently. “The mystery girl.”
Aurelia’s jaw drops. “That’s why you missed the photo shoot with the mayor? Because you were getting laid?”
He gives a sheepish look. “Kinda. In my defense, she was hot.”
“So who was she?” she asks.
“No idea. That’s the problem. She wore a mask the whole time. And a wig. I have no idea who she was.”
“So she might have been a ninety-year-old cleaner?”
“She didn’t have the body of a ninety-year-old cleaner.”
“How do you know what the body of a ninety-year-old cleaner looks like?”
“Good point.”
We all fall quiet. We’re using humor, as always, to cover the uncomfortable truth. Dad’s thinking of selling the company. And it’s our fault.
I love our company. I’d do anything for it, and the thought that Dad’s considering selling it to the worst man in New Zealand is tearing me apart.
But even so, right now, the reason my heart feels as if someone’s squeezing it in their hand has nothing to do with Tom Rutherford, and everything to do with a tall, beautiful blonde who, yet again, has passed me over in favor of my brother.
“So you liked Miss Mystery,” Aurelia says to Caesar. “I still don’t understand what that’s got to do with Wren’s request. There’s a two-year waiting list for sperm donors if you’re a single woman.”
“I’m not going to ask how you know that,” Caesar says.
“Yes, I am aware, and I feel for her. But it’s not like I’d be going into a clinic and jerking off into a cup with no idea who’d end up with my baby batter.
I’d always know that her child was mine.
I mean, I love Wren. I’ve known her for a long time.
But I’ve never had romantic feelings for her. It’s just… weird.”
“First of all,” Aurelia replies, “‘baby batter’? Yuck. Second, it’s not weird at all. Donating sperm is a really nice thing to do for a friend.”
“You wouldn’t mind if your husband donated sperm to a woman you knew?”
She frowns. “You’re not married.”
“No, but I’m just saying, if I was to meet someone and she found out that another woman was pregnant with my child, I wouldn’t be shocked if that upset her.”
“But I presume Wren is saying she doesn’t want you involved,” Aurelia persists.
“Yeah.” Caesar fiddles with his pen. “She said I don’t have to be on the birth certificate.
She’ll even sign a contract to that effect.
She doesn’t want money, either, she made that very clear.
” He looks at me. “You’re very quiet. What do you think?
Would it solve our problem? If I acknowledge the child, I mean, made it my heir?
It would take the pressure off us, right? ”
The thought of Caesar announcing that Wren is carrying his child makes me nauseous.
I want to yell at him to stay the fuck away from her.
But I don’t want to give away my hand. Instead, I say as calmly as I can, “I don’t think it’s quite what Dad had in mind.
And I can’t imagine the board being happy with it, either.
It doesn’t prove stability, or responsibility.
It looks like a stunt, which is essentially what it would be. ”
He studies me for a moment, lips pursed, as if he’s trying to work out if there’s an ulterior motive to my reply. Eventually, he says, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“You should still do it,” Aurelia says. “For Wren.”
I glare at her, wanting to tell her to mind her own business.
“I’ll think about it,” Caesar states. Then, moodily, he pushes his empty cup away. “This is a fucking mess. I resent being treated like a medieval heir.” He glares at me. “Don’t you?”
I shrug. “Dad gave us Roman names for a reason. His legacy was important to him even before he became successful. He’s not threatening to take the money away.
Let’s face it, a sale would mean more money for the three of us.
We’d be safe and settled for the rest of our lives, and so would our offspring, should we have any.
He’s saying that if we want to keep the company, we need to grow up. And he’s probably right.”
Caesar looks at Aurelia. “You’re the woman. You’re supposed to love kids. Can’t you find yourself a rich sugar daddy and pop out an heir by next Christmas?”
Aurelia sticks her tongue out at him. “It might have been normal to have your children by the time you were twenty-six in the nineteenth century, when Mum was young, but it’s hardly the norm now.
Most modern businesswomen are older than thirty.
And I’m not going to ruin my figure just so you two can continue to sow your wild oats. ”
“Caesar is free to do whatever he wants with his whole grains,” I state, picking up my phone and getting to my feet, “but one of us needs to man up and do the right thing. And I’m not prepared to let this company go to Tom Rutherford while I have air in my lungs.”
They both stare at me. “What are you going to do?” Caesar asks with some amusement.
I slide my phone into my inside pocket.
Wren asked the wrong brother.
Time to fix that.
“I’m getting married,” I say.
I walk out of the boardroom to stunned silence.
It’s impossible not to smile as I let the glass door swing shut behind me.