July, two years ago
A D D I E
The last thing that I wanted to be doing on a Saturday evening, was making a brief appearance at some swank event on Rodeo Drive where there'd be more celebrities than the Met Gala. That might have sounded a bit backward. Don't all women in their early twenties want to be rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous at designer store openings?
Perhaps not all. But the odds are favourable. I was required to be here though. Even if just for a few minutes. I did put the whole thing together after all. It was custom to come and be sure that things were in order. The smell of rich fabrics and wine lingered in the air. Music rattled the clothes hangers on their steel racks, and I winced at stilettos piercing the brand-new wooden floor.
"Addison!"
I'd been hoping to slip out before the client caught me. However, at the sound of her harsh nicotine damaged voice calling me, I turned around and found Klarise Klauden approaching. She glittered with diamonds and stunk of four-hundred-dollar champagne. Still, I let her give me one of her awkward half hugs that made it quite clear, she preferred her personal space too.
"This is perfect," her frosted fingertips wiggled as she waved around the room. "You've made an impression too. There have been whispers circulating. You could make a lot of connections here. People want to hire the Addison and Margo May. This'll do wonders for the business sweetheart."
"It's just Addie," I gave her a polite nod and watched her touch the piercing on her thin nose. "You have our card, Klarise. So, whoever's interested, just pass the information along."
Her brows pinched, like she'd heard a bad joke and she was contemplating how to react. "Yes well, I think that's your job sweetheart. You have all of this potential. Don't leave it to someone else to give you a break."
She wasn't wrong. But she also wasn't desperate to get home, wrap up in a dressing gown and read the latest novel by Colleen Hoover. It didn't matter that it was July in Beverly Hills. I wanted bed. I wanted books.
My shared business, May We? Was well known in California. Margo and I had inherited the business from our parents and re branded it, and ourselves, in order to make it our own. Our workload had tripled since we took it over. Margo and I weren't lacking in clients but the more that we had, the better and Margo would be furious if I didn't at least attempt to expand our client base. She was the one who came to most of the events. I preferred the office work. But I granted her the night off so that she could go on a date. It better have been worth it.
I turned on the best fake it until you make it smile and proceeded to take a few laps around the store. In the dark, the walls were glowing from neon lights that were fixed behind the boards. It was cute and enchanting. Posters of models in the brand items were hung and mannequins were dressed in their new outfits.
And then, as I was about to make a graceful exit, I saw him. That monster. That insufferable prick. That lowlife, worthless shrimp dick.
Not that I would know for sure if he was a shrimp dick. He was my sister's ex-husband after all. But she'd used the phrase more than once.
I considered slipping out, slow and without a scene. But somehow, I found myself standing in front of him with a glass of champagne and a brutal bitch glare in place. Ignoring the couple that he was having a conversation with, I cleared my throat and smiled at him. The smile was laced with disgust and sarcasm. Which I think he received when he finally looked at me.
"Addie," his brows shot up in a sign of surprise, but nerves weren't slow to seep in and I watched that familiar red rash crawl across his throat. He might have been a heartless bastard, but he didn't have an ounce of confidence either. Not the sort that was needed to survive in this world. It was no wonder he lived behind a desk.
He swallowed and his nervous laugh showered saliva. I recoiled with a scowl as he waved his hand at the man and woman behind me. "Addie, this is Cecilia and her brother Tom. Cecilia is. . . well, we're engaged."
Oh, I had that wrong.
When I first approached, I hadn't paid a moment of mind to the couple. But now, I turned around and looked at the woman. Her elegance was striking. Her beauty wasn't blatant. It was subtle and it took a moment of staring to appreciate her regal features. A strong nose, prominent cheek bones and a soft gaze which seemed to all work rather well together. The part of her that I was most interested in, was her protruding stomach.
He'd separated from Margo less than twelve months ago. Their divorce wasn't even official and here he was with a new fiancée and a child on the way. It wasn't that surprising when I thought about it. Pete was never one to deliberate on his choices. He made decisions fast and . . . well, some might say, smart.
If there was a choice on where to eat for dinner, he gave it two seconds of thought and then chose based on distance. If Margo was considering switching to a new brand of washing detergent, he chose based on price. When Margo told him that she couldn't have children, he weighed up how his life would look having to go through the hassle of IVF, adoption or surrogacy, and he left.
See, efficient.
I suppose when he'd met this Cecilia woman, he was fast to deduct where their futures sat and he wasted no time beginning his family. I couldn't understand why he wanted to be a father so much, his detachment to emotions wasn't going to provide the most affectionate upbringing for a child.
"You don't waste time," I turned around, threw the champagne at his face and marched on out through the frosted glass revolving doors. I might have been quite the opposite to Pete. I didn't calculate choices as often as I should. I made them without a lot of thought at all sometimes, hence why I just made a scene at an event that I organised.
To be fair, he'd had that coming for quite some time.
Out on the footpath of Rodeo Drive, I scanned the row of private vehicles parked beside the sidewalk and knew that I should have arranged a driver. Instead, I'd waved it off with the intention of calling a cab. At the time, I'd wanted one less thing to organise.
The after dark summer breeze was comfortable enough to begin a light walk downtown, however, the six inch rose gold platforms that I was wearing, were not. I leaned against a tree trunk that was emerging from a concrete cinder block and frowned, there was something rather disappointing about trees emerging from the footpath. I thought back on the detailed stories I read, the scenes of a vibrant lush green field of flowers and forest and I now stood firm on the belief that this environment was not as beautiful as trees could potentially be.
With a finger tucked into the back of my heel, I began to pull it off and heard heavy footsteps jogging toward me. "Addie," Pete thundered. It was a light thunder though. As stated, he was not a confident man. "Addie, what was that for?!"
"Use those analytical powers of deduction and figure it out, Pete," I grumbled, dropping my now bare foot. The arch ached as it flattened after being in an unnatural position all night.
"Look, Margo and I . . . that's over. What am I meant to do? Never move on?"
"You should move on all you like," I said, having removed the other heel, I now stood at the natural five feet and two inches that God had given me and stared up at Pete with a heel in each hand. "It's the fact that you left my sister at all which deserved the glass of champagne being thrown. You left her because she couldn't have children. You're. . . awful."
He ran his hand across his thick beard. Admittedly, he wasn't unattractive, what he did made him hideous to me, but superficially, he was good looking. Not a lot taller than me or Margo but that was fine because we were both small. He had a nice figure and a big eyes and a nice head of hair. But he was still a piece of shit and that was all that I could ever see after what he had done.
"I just knew that it wasn't going to work. I wanted kids of my own. I'm forty-three. It wasn't a malicious break up. . . it was just doing what was best for me."
I had the strongest urge to stab him with my heel. "Surrogacy could have meant having a child of your own. There are options. You both had a decent income. Admit that you just didn't love her anymore and this was a good excuse to leave."
He lowered his gaze and I let out a harsh laugh.
"Coward."
No more time was wasted on the discussion. There was no point. He could justify himself until he was blue in the face and I still wouldn't forgive him for hurting the one person I loved more than anything in this world. She deserved better and I hated that he was getting what he wanted, and she was still going on dates with drips in the hopes that she would find her Mr Right.
The condo that I shared with Margo was on the second floor. We had a cute awning covered in lustrous green vines over the front gate, a digital code for access and gorgeous potted flowers along the short footpath that led us to the front door. As soon as I walked inside, the sound of Whitney Houston blasted through the small two-bedroom home and I rounded the foyer wall to find Margo standing in the middle of the living room, belting the chorus out at the top of her lungs.
"And I-i-i-i-i-e-i-i-i will always loooooooooove youuuuuu-ooooo—"
"What is happening in here?"
She paused her solo and fixed me with a grin that I knew well. Pride. I'd seen it a lot over the course of my life considering she had been raising me from the time that I was thirteen and she was twenty-nine. So, the privilege of telling me how proud she was at the achievement of my milestones, fell to her. She'd never let me down. I couldn't have asked for a better caregiver. Now at twenty-two, she was still being the parent that I needed.
My heels fell to the hardwood floor with a thud as she skipped forward, held up her phone and pressed start on a video. The music faded as the video began and the surround sound was soon filled with the chattering and laughter of the party that I had just been at. To my shock, there I was on screen, flinging a glass of champagne at Pete's face.
"How—"
"It's not viral. Irie was there," Margo explained, locking her phone and tossing it onto the sofa. I did remember seeing her super model best friend but had done a good job of avoiding talking to her. Irie is fine and all, just a bit overwhelming at times. "She told me that she saw you storming over to Pete and hoped something would go down. She had her phone ready just in case."
"I shouldn't have done that."
"No, probably not. But what's done is done," she pursed her lips, but her eyes were full of mischief. Much like mine must have been when I tried and failed to hide a giggle of amusement.
Margo and I were a lot alike in the sense that we both had golden, tanned, Italian skin, long dark hair and almost black eyes. But Margo had angular more chiselled features, a sharp jaw and cheekbones, thin but beautifully shaped lips, crow's feet around her eyes and laugh lines around her mouth. I had the advantage of being sixteen years younger than her but regardless of age, she was gorgeous. We differed where she had definition, I did not. I had never grown out of my baby face, round and soft with a curvier waist and legs.
Margo and I constantly grappled over each other and wished that we could trade bodies. Of course, neither of us had the height that we envied in other women.
She wandered over to the sofa and fell into it with an exasperated sigh. She no longer cried over her ex-husband, but I knew that the wasted six years of marriage hurt her, a lot. After watching what she went through, after watching a 'perfect' marriage crumble right in front of me, I'd become skeptical about the notion of investing in a relationship that could implode no matter how well I believed it to be going. She knew how I felt too, I think that's why she was so cautious about showing her pain in front of me.
"You met Cecilia then."
I sat beside her and pulled my legs up underneath me. "You knew?"
She nodded. "I ran into them last week and he introduced me to her, told me all about their soon to be new-born."
"You didn't tell me."
She rolled her head toward me and fixed me with a narrow stare. "I was afraid that you would be out for blood. If I'd known that all I had to be concerned about was a face full of champagne, I'd have mentioned it sooner."
"He deserved more than a face full of champagne. A face full of fist. Or hot coal."
She waved a dismissive hand. "He's not worth it. I want to forget that he was ever part of my life. He's just another human being as far as I'm concerned. Tell me how the event went."
"Fine," I shrugged and reached out, running a hand down the large leaf of my peace lily plant. We had a lot of house plants scattered throughout the condo. A little slice of nature in our suburban jungle life. "Tell me about the date."
"Same old, same old."
I pouted at the fact that Margo had endured another dead-end date. If it had gone well, she'd have never waited this long to talk about it.
"Addie, I just want to be a mom," she stared at her thin fingers in her lap. "I'm going to be thirty-nine in a few weeks. I never, ever thought that I would have waited so long to have a child."
My heart squeezed for her. Margo had been a mom from the moment that our parents died, but I knew that she wanted her own baby and if it was possible, she'd wanted it even more after she found out that she couldn't carry a child. I subconsciously pinched the skin on my wrist and mumbled. "I wish— if I'd—"
"Don't," she cut me off. "Don't think it. Don't speak it."
I was getting a headache. That was no surprise though, it was almost guaranteed to happen when we discussed my sister's short comings. She deserved so much more than she'd been given.
"I've been thinking about— a surrogate," she swallowed and pinched her lip, a nervous habit that made the skin dry and chapped. "Forget about a man, right? What if I just do it alone."
My sister was one of the most selfless people that I knew. She'd put aside her entire life and stepped up to raise a teenager when she was in the middle of living her own life and running her own business and meeting men that might have been her future but she'd settled for Pete after a while because she didn't have time to date around.
If there was anything I could do, to thank her for her sacrifice, I would do it. "I'll be your surrogate."
Her mouth fell open. "What?"
"I'll be the surrogate. I'll carry the baby for you."