It was ten minutes before eight p.m. at a high-rise bar we’d agreed to meet at in downtown Miami, and I was already on my third drink. I was trying like hell not to get myself so drunk that I made an ass of myself, but seeing as how I’d gotten there an hour earlier to make sure nothing got in the way, and that I wasn’t even trying to get drunk, it just so happened my nervous sips turned into two and a quarter drinks finished.
I’d literally spent the entire day after Burke had messaged me his interest getting ready. I’d taken the longest shower of my life—and I fucking loved a good shower. I tried on about a half-dozen outfits. I never acted like this for any man, but when you knew the man you were about to meet was literally going to—hopefully—agree to give you his DNA, well, the stakes got raised just a tad. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to ask this man to do this.
And now, as I sat there, anxiously waiting for the clock to strike eight—knowing he would appear on the dot—I tried to remember what I could.
Frankly, it was all kind of a blur. I saw him from a distance, and the whole thing had gone down so fast it was impossible to have picked out particular details. He was bald then. He also had a thick black beard. White skin.
But that was literally it. I think he was wearing camo that day, something that wouldn’t repeat itself today. Though maybe I was wrong? Maybe a guy like Burke was so focused on his job that he had no idea how to dress for the real world.
It was mostly a feeling rather than a memory that I was left with, which was sort of problematic. I had to find a way to calm myself, but biology and the culmination of many things were making that tough.
Earlier today I called my OBGYN, Rachel Needham, on standby.
“Dr. Needham, just confirming—”
“Yes, Emily, I’m still here,” she said in the kind of patient but annoyed tone that all doctors had utilized at some point. “I will be here ready to help as soon as I am needed.”
“Great, sorry to bug you.”
“No worries.”
It was no worry because I was paying her a lot. I wasn’t going to go broke setting this up—I was fortunate to be able to say it would take an awful lot for that to become a real problem—but boy was I certainly spending a lot of money just to say I was having a kid. And the funny thing was, the most expensive part of this deal wasn’t even a guarantee to happen—it was just a clincher I had in my back pocket. Nor was it something that would involve the exchange of any money, but I knew some people’s jaw would drop if they heard I’d given it away for a kid.
I looked down at my watch. Two minutes to go. Still no sign of Burke. I tried to tell myself that was no problem, but maybe he was also a guy who liked to arrive to things early—which would have meant that he was not coming at all.
What if this doesn’t work? You know he’s committed to the DOM lifestyle and it’s assumed doesn’t even want a family. You know the rules: No friends, no family, no commitments…
Which is why you’re doing this IVF style. He signs away parental rights, has no obligations, and gets millions of dollars out of it. What’s the problem?
The problem is that—
That he’s here.
I gulped and felt a flood of excitement course through my body when I saw him. He didn’t flinch when he saw me, but we both just knew that it was the other. It was one of those instantaneous connection deals where you didn’t have to say anything, whether because of body language or some other reason, it was just readily apparent that Burke and I knew the other the instant we saw each other.
And let me tell you, seeing this man up close, compared to seeing him in the snow-filled land of Colorado, gave me a much better look at him. And boy was he fucking hot.
Yes, I was right. He had a beautiful head of hair and no beard this time. He also had a scar running across his brow that I hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world, but it also wasn’t something you’d miss standing this close to him. I wanted to know more about the scar, but I figured it was better to ask more appropriate, casual questions before possibly opening up a Pandora’s Box of a war story.
He wore a white button-down shirt with black pants, a pretty standard look. But more than any physical description I could give, the thing that I could say most was that he just had a presence to him. I didn’t know how to define it, because it was sort of this intangible quality to him, but it was like everywhere he went, he knew he could do whatever he wanted. No one was going to stand up to him, but he also wasn’t going to make people cower. He was just present, unafraid but also not arrogantly pushing himself on others.
He also had a hard expression on his face, like he’d just come from a war zone. Maybe that was literal. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know the answer. But the hard expression certainly played a part in his attraction, for he was likely not a man that suffered fools.
“Burke?” I said.
“Emily,” he said, a sort of tone of…interest, perhaps, in his voice? Authority, certainly. Not desperation or concern by any stretch of the imagination. “Fortunate that you to live in
