corporate affairs [Niall Horan AU]

T W E N T Y N I N E

"So tell me all about the honeymoon!"

"It was beautiful. You really should consider Greece for yours, you know?"

"If I ever get married," I groan, half kidding.

She rolls her eyes. "Anyways, I wished we'd never left. Though I didn't see much of the country, just the pool and the hotel room."

"Why you little harlot," I tease before taking another bite of my croissant. As I'm chewing, a sad look befalls her face. "Are you okay?" I ask.

"Um, can I tell you something that you promise to keep between us? Just between us," she emphasizes, her tone serious.

"Of course," I tell her. It's quiet in the flat so I assume Zayn is still asleep or not home yet from Elouise.

"Liam and I have been trying really, really hard to have a baby, but we're not--" her face crumples, her eyes watering. "I'm infertile." She bursts into full sobs then, drawing her hand up to grasp at her chest, as if the pain would somehow come out of her.

"How do you know that?" I ask, pulling her head into my arms. I stroke her hair gently, hating the pain she's in.

"We got tested. We'd been trying before we even got married, and then on our honeymoon we were at it so often it was just impossible for me to still not be pregnant. So when we got back, I made Liam get tested with me. I just want a baby, El. I want to give Liam a child, and I can't."

"Oh, Calinda. You still can. Maybe it won't be genetically yours, but the child will be yours as much as one with your genes would be." I rub her back, thinking about children. Did I even want one? I'd always been good with them, especially Theo, but I'd never really wanted to be a mother. There was something scary in the possibility of leaving my child potentially motherless, the way my mother had left me. "You have so many options. Have you thought about a surrogate?"

She nods. "Yeah, and as stupid as it sounds, I just can't think of my child being birthed by someone else. I just, I want to be the only one who has that experience with him or her."

"It's not stupid, it's important to you. I understand." We sit there for a while, my hand on Calinda's back, gently rubbing circles into the area around her spine.

***

The weeks before Christmas moved quickly, in a somewhat satisfying routine of nights at Elouise, drunken, lazy nights in Hugo's bed, and weekdays helping Zayn interpret business talk and investments and whatnot. I'd be lying if I didn't miss being busy, I missed the coffee in the mornings, I missed the sharp clack of my heels against the sidewalk, bossing scared little interns around. Helping Zayn gave me that feeling of importance again. I avoided that brown paper package like a plague, keeping my mind as far as possible from all things Irish and CEO-like.

"Alright, that's it until the new year! Are you ready?" Zayn asks, slapping his laptop shut and pulling at his cashmere jumper.

I save the last of my report, shutting my laptop down as well. "Yep, though I'm abandoning you at Paddington station." I tell him as we head out of the dim office above Elouise and into the cold December night.

"Why? Another date with Hugo?"

"No, Mark's back from New York and he wants to sit down and catch up."

"Convert you to the dark side," Zayn mutters under his breath.

I elbow him. "Hey, I thought you liked Mark."

"I like him fine, I just don't want to see you as a personal assistant again, you're more important than that."

"Well, I hate to break it to you, Z, but that's basically what I do for you now."