Page 16 of Owned

What about the father, though? The man Charlotte expected me to marry. Who was he? Presumably conception would be via sperm donation because there was no way I was sleeping with a complete stranger. The very thought of it?—

“Rowan?” My mother’s soft voice came from the doorway behind me. “I smelled burning.”

I closed my eyes a second, trying to pull myself together, because I couldn’t tell Mom that her mother had just called, wanting to pay me money to be a surrogate. No, I couldn’t breathe a word of it to her, not when her mental health was so fragile. She was doing pretty well at the moment, but who knew? The very mention of the Hamilton name might send her into a decline.

I was going to have to keep this to myself for the moment and think of any questions I might have for Charlotte, because despite my misgivings, I already knew I was going to La Chouette. I needed to see her face to face, decide if she was on the level, and hey, just meet my grandmother for the first time. Also money….

“It’s just your eggs, Mom.” I straightened and turned around to face her.

She was standing in the doorway, wrapped in one of her old silk dressing gowns, this sleeve hems frayed, the pretty pink silk faded. She must have dyed her hair recently, because there were no silver threads in it, and that was a good sign. When she didn’t dye her hair, things were really bad mentally for her.

“Sorry,” I said. “I burned them. But don’t worry, I’ll make you some more.” It would mean being late to work for creepy Ben Jordan, but maybe that didn’t matter as much as it had ten minutes earlier, when I didn’t have fifty grand in my account.

Mom gave me that sweet smile that made my heart feel full and painful, that told me she appreciated what I did for her, even if she didn’t understand quite how much I did for her.

I smiled back, then went to the fridge to get some more eggs.

6

Atlas

La Chouette was not my favorite place to eat. Not that I didn’t appreciate good food, it was more the ambience that got under my skin.

Rich pricks talking to other rich pricks about money and how to make it, braying to each other in loud voices and boasting about labels. A constant game of oneupmanship. One that I refused to play.

It reminded me too much of my childhood, or rather, my father.

Charles Blackwood the third, head of Blackwood Bank. Self involved and self important, narcissistic in the extreme. Who expected his family to be immaculately turned-out every day, because what was the point in being rich if no one knew about it?

I’d hated that attitude, so I wasn’t best pleased when Charlotte informed me that we would be meeting Rowan there for a ‘nice little chat’ as she termed it, before the wedding.

I got the need for one. There were some preliminaries to talk through. Charlotte had assured me that contracts would be drawn up to protect all concerned, especially considering a child was part of the process.

Still, I was cynical about Charlotte’s motives. I’d tried to press her for what she’d offered Rowan in order to get her agreement, but she wouldn’t answer, telling me that was one of the things we were going to ‘chat’ about at lunch.

That forced me to conclude that regardless of what she said this lunch meeting was about, she had another agenda and she didn’t want to talk about it. An agenda that included Rowan, who’d apparently accepted this farcical deal.

Another thing I wasn’t happy about, not at all.

Rowan was young and the thought of her being caught up in the machinations of an older, rich and manipulative person didn’t sit well with me. Dad had done the same thing to my mother when she’d been even younger than Rowan. He’d married her for her family connections and she’d fallen pregnant with my brother North pretty much immediately, then with me a few months after North’s birth. She’d loved Dad, but he’d hidden his dark side from her and it was only once she’d had his heirs, only once she was trapped, that he revealed it to her.

I didn’t want that to happen to Rowan and had debated hunting down her number so I could talk to her myself, but I knew she wouldn’t welcome it. She hadn’t been able to get away from me fast enough back in Arcadia, and I wasn’t going to push myself onto a young woman who clearly didn’t want my company.

Still, I had my suspicions. If I knew anything about rich assholes like Charlotte it was that they threw their money around like confetti at a wedding and likely she’d offered Rowan a decent amount to be her surrogate. And if Rowan had accepted the deal, that meant she needed the money. After all, I couldn’t imagine her accepting it otherwise.

Still, she had accepted it, if Charlotte was to be believed, even knowing who the lucky father of the baby was going to be.

Yeah, I didn’t like it. Not one fucking bit.

I stalked into La Chouette, ignoring the suit and tie dress code since I couldn’t be fucked with dress codes. I also ignored the maitre’d, who made a cursory attempt at protesting my jeans and T-shirt, but left me to make my way through the tables to where Charlotte was sitting.

He knew who I was.

Everyone here knew who I was.

The restaurant was all white, with huge windows that let in a lot of light. Tables were covered in white tablecloths and wait staff were also dressed in white. So much white in a restaurant seemed like a recipe for disaster to me, but if there was one thing I knew about up market venues like this it was that style was the only thing that mattered.

I strode through all that white like a mountain climber forging through snow, watching heads turn as people glanced at me and my offensive leather jacket.

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