Page 4 of The Pakhan’s Hidden Heir

She picks them up and holds them against her chest instead, and I know that look she’s giving me. “You’re moving into a stranger’s house to have his baby. Say it out loud to yourself one time and tell me it sounds sane.”

“It sounds like a million dollars.” I take the books out of her arms while she’s busy being horrified, and I set them in the box myself.

“He’s a total stranger. You know nothing about him!” Her protest hits its target, but I have to remind myself aloud of the real reason.

“Fifty thousand in cash the day I move in. Four hundred and fifty more the day I’m confirmed pregnant. The last half million when I put a healthy baby in his arms, Lada. The fifty alone is enough to hire someone to move the rest of my stuff, so I don’t have to ask you to break your back on my furniture.”

I want to be annoyed with her right now, but I know she only means well. In her mind I’m throwing my life away, though she hasn’t given definitive reasons why it’s so bad.

Women play surrogate all the time—not usually by natural conception, but it is a thing.

I’m not going to pass on a chance to set myself up for a good future, no matter how emotionally difficult the process may be.

“Raina, please…” She huffs out a sigh and groans as she crosses her arms over her chest.

All I can manage is a shoulder shrug, but I do avoid eye contact. One small mercy to my stained conscience.

Everything I need fits in two boxes and a duffel bag. This tiny studio apartment is barely affordable, and it’s not nearly enough.

When Lada looks at this place and thinks my “life” is being thrown away, I wonder what sort of life she thinks I want to live. I look around this place and I know this is the right choice.

When the phone rings I silence it without looking. Soon my grandmother’s bills will be paid and the debt collectors silenced. My life will be my own again.

“How many times a day do they call?” she asks, and her voice has taken on a reserved tone now.

“Four or five, okay?” I turn and grab the last stack of sweaters I own and shove them in the bag as she scoots forward on the bed.

“Raina, you don’t have to do this.” I’m sure if Lada could pay all my bills off to save me from this mess she would, but my mind has already gone beyond being out of debt to what it might be like to thrive.

And not just me—her too.

With a million dollars I could set us both up for life. Sure, we’d have to have jobs and work hard still, but we’d never struggle the way most women do.

“You’re not going to change my mind.” The zipper sticks as I tug it shut and she frowns at me.

“And when you hold that baby?” she asks. “You carry it for nine months, give birth to it, and then what? You think you can give a child away and walk away happy? You? The girl who cried for a week over the neighbor’s cat?”

“That was a good cat.” Lada has no idea that week was just exceptionally hard for me because it was the anniversary of when my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and that cat died of cancer.

Someone who has never lost a loved one will never understand how weird your emotions can get, and I shouldn’t have to defend my feelings.

“Raina.”

“I’m not going to fall apart over a baby. Okay?” I say it firmly enough that I almost believe it.

I just have to tell myself from the beginning that it’s nothing more than a job and when it’s over my life will resume, more comfortable and secure than ever before.

She looks up at me, hands knotting in her lap. “What if he’s dangerous? He’s wealthy, Raina. You know nothing about him except that he’s rich enough to buy a person. Men who can do that don’t see the rest of us as people. What if you get out there behind his wall and he’s a monster?”

I can’t really answer her question because I don’t know. Wealthy men do strange things with their money, but I understand his reasoning. As for whether he’s dangerous, I can’t say that either.

If he wants a child born healthy, he’d never lay a hand on me. Besides, if I let my brain go down that path, I’ll talk myself out of this. I really need that money.

Lada sees a cage.

I see a door being held open for me, and I’m not going to stand in this room and argue about whether I’m allowed to walk through it.

I can make my own choices, whether she likes that or not.