Say My Name (Chicago Billionaires #9)

Elena

On the morning of my thirtieth birthday, Chicago Cryo Clinic wants to know whether I've picked a sperm donor, and my ex-boyfriend posts a photo of his newborn daughter.

Happy birthday to me.

I push the uncomfortable thoughts aside and stare down at the voicemail that I see transcribing across my screen. I don’t know why I choose to listen to it, it’s the same voicemail every time.

“Hi, Miss Vale, this is Greta from Chicago Cryo Clinic. Sorry I missed you again! I wanted to follow up on the files we sent over and see whether you've had a chance to look them over, or if you'd like to talk through next steps. You can reach me at—”

I hang up before Greta repeats the phone number. She's called three times now and she leaves the exact same message every time, which is fine, that's her job, she's lovely, but the clinic's been in my contacts since February and she knows damn well I’m still stalling.

So I do the thing I do every morning while my coffee's still too hot, which is scroll social media until my brain turns on and that's how Daniel Weller's wife ends up on my screen at 6:42 in the morning holding her newborn.

I pause when I see it, my hand frozen, my cup of coffee halfway to my lips.

The photo's good. Annoyingly good. Clearly someone brought a real camera into a hospital room and had a full-on photo shoot.

“Of course Daniel would,” I mutter to myself, aware of how bitter I sound.

His wife looks wrecked and gorgeous. The baby's in one of those striped pink hospital blankets with a fist jammed up under her tiny chin. I stare at her a second too long and feel that familiar pull of sadness deep in my belly.

I skip the caption, I don't need the caption, I just swipe until I find Daniel, and there he is in the chair by the window holding her like she might come apart in his hands, smiling in a way I never once got out of him in four years.

Well. Fuck.

I don't want him back. I want to be clear about that, mostly with myself.

I remember loving him and I also remember what I turned into while I was doing it, which was smaller, and very agreeable about it.

His plans stayed his plans, and mine turned into a series of extremely reasonable compromises until there was nothing left of me.

But he described this to me once, the house, the kids, all of it, and he was so sure about it that I let myself hear a promise instead of a fantasy.

I guess he did end up building that life. Just... not with me.

I put the phone face down next to my coffee and it lands crooked so I straighten it, and then I notice that I straightened it, so I knock it crooked again on purpose and manage to leave it that way for maybe nine seconds. Then my phone buzzes and I fix it anyway.

DRIVER ARRIVES IN 12 MINUTES.

Underneath the notification my day is already carved into perfectly timed, color-coded squares.

Budget review, department meeting, acquisition call, lunch at my desk, which I have labeled ‘desk availability’, and yes, I hear it, second acquisition call, ninety minutes for revisions that three separate people will try to steal before noon.

The one thing my calendar can't do for me is pick the man whose DNA is going to make me a mother.

I've done the work. God, I've done the work and then some. I’m not at the overdoing-it point where I’ve managed to overthink myself into not making a decision.

Success rates, procedure timelines, screening standards, donor-identity law in three states, and things I honestly never even considered before.

The binder in my work bag has medical histories and family backgrounds and physical descriptions and enough color-coded comparison notes that the coordinator at the clinic went quiet the first time I set it on her desk.

What it doesn't have is a name circled, because circling a name makes this entire thing...

real. The second I do that I'm not researching anymore, I'm committing.

Although, waiting around for a morning where I feel absolutely confident in making the decision and finally pulling the trigger has turned out to be a fantastic way to keep waiting. And one thing I’m usually not a fan of is procrastinating, but in this situation, I can’t seem to stop doing it.

I've wanted to be a mother since before Daniel, and that desire never dissipated, even through the years it took to put myself back together after him. Over the years, the desire has only gotten stronger and I want it now more than I did at twenty-five.

At thirty I've got an executive title I earned, money nobody can take from me, a place with my name on the deed, and a future that doesn't depend on somebody continuing to love me. A donor means I get to be somebody's mother without handing any of that over to a man.

It’s practical really. That's the word I use most often. And most mornings I believe it.

DRIVER ARRIVES IN 8 MINUTES.

I pour the rest of the coffee into my mug and attempt to chug it in one swallow but just end up burning my tongue instead.

I put the mug in the dishwasher and turn the handle to match the one next to it then roll my eyes at myself.

If there’s one thing that I know I have a problem with, it’s letting go of any sort of control.

I’m working on it but so far, I’m still failing… miserably.

In the bedroom my hand lands on the ivory silk blouse I laid out last night and I stand there like an idiot for a second, staring at it, reliving the memory of the last time I wore it.

My boss, Dominic Rowe—a man who doesn’t just look and sound like every possible female-centered fantasy come to life—watched me take apart an acquisition proposal in front of nine senior executives while I was wearing this blouse.

After the meeting, everybody cleared out.

He looked at the projections on the overhead screen, then at me, and told me I had been dangerously persuasive.

He meant the argument. At least, I have been telling myself he meant the argument since October, and it'd be far easier to believe if he hadn't slowly dragged his eyes up my body in a lazy, delicious fashion that had my toes curling inside my Manolos.

It also helps that he just so happens to be the best friend of my older brother.

Dominic notices everything. Sometimes I almost question if the man has a hidden camera in the office that follows me around.

I own an unreasonable number of turtlenecks because of it.

I'm his executive vice president, he's my boss, he's my brother's college roommate, he's eleven years older than me, and he's known me since I was in high school, so what he thinks about this blouse should be somewhere in the neighborhood of irrelevant.

I almost put it back in the closet… almost. But in the end, I wear the blouse.

My driver says happy birthday when I get in and I thank him and mean it, and I'm on a call before we're out of the neighborhood. Out the window the lake's doing that flat pewter thing it does in April, making it look like a sea of diamonds against the morning sun.

“Morning,” I say when the voices connect. “Let's start with the revised numbers.”

By the second call Daniel's buried under the agenda, the clinic's a task I promise myself I'll handle by Friday, and Dominic is securely placed in the boss category inside my head. Morning: handled.

That lasts until I get to my office.

By ten I've got two meetings, a call with legal, and a corrected projection model behind me, and the world's back in a shape I recognize.

I’m about to pick up the phone when my petite assistant Maya comes through my door behind a flower arrangement that’s about as big as she is.

“Okay so.” She's steering by tilting her head around the vase, pink and ivory roses shoved up through white hydrangeas.

“These were sitting in the lobby and Reception was going to just leave them there, which, no. Absolutely not! Do you have any idea how heavy—” She clips the doorframe with a hydrangea but keeps walking toward my desk.

“Anyway, I'm invested now! Who sends this many flowers?”

She gets the vase onto my credenza, blows out a breath, and steps back to look at it.

I lean back in my chair. “I’m sure they're from a client.”

“Or.” She holds up a finger. “And hear me out. A sexy secret admirer.”

“I don't have one.” The words come out clipped, sharper than I intend. The last thing I need today is a fantasy man when I'm one circled name away from a clinical one. I hold my hand out for the card.

“That's exactly what a woman with a secret admirer says, that's the whole deal with them; they're secret.” She holds up the envelope and presses it flat against her chest. “Although honestly, for his sake, I hope it's a client, because you'd have him identified and background-checked and in a spreadsheet before the second bouquet.”

“Card.” I snap my fingers at her.

“You're no fun.”

“Ask finance.”

“Finance is scared of you.”

“That's a kind of fun.” The smile doesn't quite reach my eyes. It's a reputation I've cultivated, a shield made of competence. Most days it works. I take the envelope from her hand.

Happy birthday, Ellie.

You taught me girls rule and boys drool. Guess I can forgive you for spending thirty years proving it.

Love, Cliff

Oh, that jerk.

I wipe at the few stray tears that have already tumbled over my waterline and smile at the card, reading it again.

“Oh, that's disgusting,” Maya says over my shoulder. “That's so sweet! Now I can't make a single joke about overcompensating.”

“It's from my brother.”

“I know. I read it. I'm grieving that it’s not a secret admirer.” She flops into the chair across from me, her usual sign that she’s about to launch into some reason as to why I need to get on the dating apps or let her set me up on a blind date.

I prop the card against the vase. My guess is Cliff let his wife Rachel handle the actual order and pretended he didn't, guaranteed.

“What are you doing tonight?” Maya asks.

“Going home.”