Baby Trapped by the Billionaire novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Fee
Vera begs a hospital for her sister's trial slot, a stranger overhears, and he offers to pay it all for a baby, with a lawyer and a clinic and nothing else.
The woman in the finance office slid a tissue box across the desk before I'd said a word.
That's how I knew it was bad.
"Ms. Hruska, the committee approved your sister Tuesday morning," she said.
"That's good news," I said, because I wanted it to be.
"The trial slot is held until Friday at five."
"And the deposit?"
"Four hundred and ten thousand dollars."
I had eleven hundred in checking and a Honda with a cracked axle.
I laid Mila's two insurance denials on the desk, flat.
"The company says the therapy is experimental," I said. "The hospital says it's her only option."
"I know. I'm sorry. I've called them myself."
"What if I pay you back over forty years?"
She looked at me with real pity, which was worse than a no.
"We can't hold a slot on a payment plan, Ms. Hruska."
"Then what do I do?"
"I wish I knew."
My sister is nineteen years old.
She's bald under a yellow beanie and she draws cartoons on her arms with a ballpoint pen.
This was her second relapse, and the doctors had stopped using the word "cure."
I walked out of that office with my jaw so tight my teeth hurt.
The hallway had a vending machine and a row of plastic chairs, and I sat in the last one and stared at my shoes.
I was still in my diner uniform, because I'd come straight from the lunch rush.
A man sat three chairs down, reading nothing on his phone.
He wore a charcoal suit with the sleeves pushed up, and his left forearm had a shiny burn scar down the inside.
I'd noticed him when I walked in.
He had noticed me too, which I hated.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I wasn't trying to listen."
"Then you shouldn't have sat in a hallway with walls."
"Four hundred and ten thousand by Friday."
"You were listening."
"My grandfather has a heart appointment upstairs. I've been here two hours."
He stood and came one chair closer, no nearer.
He was tall and lean, with black hair going grey at the temples and eyes so dark I couldn't find the pupils.
He did not look like a man who was often turned down.
"My name is Gavin Brennick," he said. "I run Brennick Glass."
I knew the name.
It was stamped on the bottom of every plate at my diner.
"Congratulations," I said. "I'm Vera, and I'm busy."
"I can pay the deposit today."
I laughed, once, an ugly sound.
"In exchange for what?"
"A baby."
I stood up so fast the chair scraped.
"If you're about to say what I think you're about to say, there's a vending machine right here and it sells hot coffee."
"No."
He said it flat, with no heat.
"It would be a clinic and a lawyer. I need a woman to carry my child. I will not touch you, and nothing in the agreement asks for that."
"Why me?"
"Because I watched you try to buy a trial with forty years of your life and not ask for a single thing for yourself."
"That's not an answer."
"The others I interviewed asked about the money first."
I sat back down, slowly, because my knees had stopped working.
"There's more," I said.
"There's more."
"Say it."
"My grandfather is eighty-four and he won't sign over his shares to a man with no one at his table. I need him to believe you and I are together."
"A fake girlfriend and a real baby."
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Until the birth."
I thought about my sister's arms with their little pen cartoons.
I thought about Friday at five.
"The hospital gets paid before I sign anything," I said. "Directly. Not to me."
"Agreed."
"If I walk, the money stays spent. You don't get to take Mila's slot back."
"Agreed."
"And I'm not your friend. I'm not your date. I'll play your girlfriend in front of your family and I'll be good at it."
"Agreed."
"One more rule."
"Name it."
"Nobody falls in love."
He tilted his head.
"I carry your baby, I hand it over, I take whatever the lawyer writes down, and I go home with my heart where I left it. Whoever breaks that rule loses the birth money."
"That," said Gavin Brennick, "is the easiest thing you will ever ask of me."
He held out his hand, and I looked at the burn scar before I took it.
His palm was warm and dry and it did not linger.
"Give me your sister's account number," he said.
I wrote it on the back of the second denial letter with the pen from my apron, and my phone number under it.
He took a photo of it and walked down the hall, already speaking into his phone.
I stayed in the plastic chair and didn't breathe.
Twenty minutes later the finance counselor came out of her office with her reading glasses pushed up in her hair.
"Ms. Hruska," she said, and her voice shook. "The deposit was just received. In full."
I put my face in my hands, in a public hallway, in front of a vending machine.
My phone buzzed against my knee.
It was an unknown number.
"Sunday, six o'clock, Sewickley. My grandfather wants to meet you. You have been my girlfriend for eight months. Wear something that doesn't look like a waitress."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend