Three days later, Lateisha received the call from the doctor’s office. She had a clean bill of health and was obviously not pregnant. Now all she had to do was call Bryce. With a rapidly beating heart, which she brushed off as nerves related to the surrogacy, Lateisha dialed the number on the business card he gave her.
“Mr. Henderson’s office.” Fuck. It was the snooty blond bitch of an assistant.
“Hi,” Lateisha began, ignoring the woman’s haughty tone, “May I speak to Mr. Henderson. Tell him it’s Lateisha Aaron.”
“And what may I tell him this is in reference to, Ms. Aaron?” She asked, saying Lateisha’s name as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.
Lateisha sighed. “He’ll know,” She said with irritation.
The woman made an unladylike harrumph, and put Lateisha on hold. Bitch, Lateisha thought, strumming her fingers on the kitchen table as she waited for Bryce to pick up the phone.
“Lateisha?” Bryce breathed into the phone and Lateisha gasped.
He said her name as if he had been waiting to hear from her for days; almost as if he missed her. No, who was she kidding. He was Mr. Prim and Proper Billionaire and she was a fast food employee with barely a dime to her name. The desperation she was detecting in his tone must have come from his want for a child.
“Yes. I heard from the doctor and all is good. I told them to fax you the reports so you could see for yourself.”
She heard Bryce release a breath. “Great. I’d like to meet with you tonight, if you aren’t busy, to sign the contracts. I can meet for dinner downtown if you are free.”
Nerves assailed Lateisha at the thought of dinner with Bryce. It wasn’t a date though, but a business dinner. Another wave of nerves assaulted her stomach when she realized she couldn’t possibly have anything appropriate to wear to a dinner with him. He would pick a fancy and expensive restaurant, she was sure of that. With little money to get her car fixed let alone go shopping, Lateisha was going to have to resort to borrowing something from Becky. She padded down the hall and knocked on the door gently. Becky was on night shift this week and even thought it was about two p.m., she was still asleep, especially since her shift didn’t start until six.
“Come in,” A groggy voice answered.
“Hey Beck. Can I borrow a dress?” Lateisha asked, hoping she wouldn’t ask what for.
“Why? Do you have a date?” Becky asked excitedly, sitting straight up in bed.
Lateisha shook her head slowly, “No, nothing like that. I’m meeting Bryce for dinner downtown to sign the contract.”
Becky’s face turned cold. “Oh. Well in that case, no,” she snapped.
Lateisha frowned. It was no secret how Becky felt about Lateisha signing a contract to ‘sell’ her body and baby, as Becky put it. But Becky had a great job and was making a decent amount of money. Lateisha wasn’t in such a great place financially and just wanted something to help her along so she could quit her job at McDonald’s and search for the perfect job. If there was such a thing.
“Beck…” Lateisha started.
“Don’t ‘ Beck’ me. I told you how I felt about this and I am not going to help you along with it,” Becky said with anger, climbing out of bed and pulling on a large hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants.
“Please, Becky. This is the last favor I will ask you about this whole situation. I promise,” Lateisha begged, “I really need to do this.”
Becky sighed, “Fine. Let’s look in the closet. You are a good deal shorter than I am so we will have to find my shortest dress.”
For the next forty-five minutes Lateisha tried on dresses from Becky’s closet and despite their size and height differences managed to find one that fit. It was a short, black wrap dress that dipped at the neckline to show off Lateisha’s ample cleavage. She turned to look at the back of the dress in the full length mirror and liked what she saw.
“I may give you that dress. It never looked that good on me. And you fill out the top so much better.”
Lateisha chuckled, “If you’re sure, I’ll accept the hardship and take it off your hands.” Both women erupted into a fit of laughter, for Lateisha it was mostly nervous energy and for Becky it was likely from lack of sleep.
Checking her appearance once more in the mirror, Lateisha nodded. This was the perfect dress. Now if she could just calm the butterflies that rioted in her stomach. Didn’t they know this wasn’t a real date?
*****
Promptly at five, Lateisha exited the cab, because she was too dressed up for the bus, in front of a fancy Italian restaurant. She took a deep breath, the damn butterflies not getting the memo and dissipating like she had ordered them to do. Lateisha entered the restaurant feeling a bit out of place. This restaurant was somewhere she would never have set foot in before she met Bryce. Bryce told her he would meet her in the front by the hostess desk but when she looked around she didn’t see him. Maybe he changed his mind?
Not allowing herself to digest the meaning of her disappointment, Lateisha took a seat at the bar with a class of wine; a very expensive glass of wine. Shrugging off her discomfort at spending that amount of money on wine, Lateisha sipped and watched the door. Five minutes later Bryce walked in and all of the air left Lateisha’s lungs. He looked gorgeous. In a navy suit with a crisp white shirt and deep red tie he could have easily stepped out of the pages of GQ. The suit fit him like it was made for him specifically, which it very well could have been. The jacket hugged his biceps in a way that Lateisha could tell he worked out. It was buttoned at the waist and she could tell he was lean underneath all of that fabric. Before her thoughts could travel any further south, Lateisha stood and walked toward him, her wine glass grasped between her fingers.
“Hey,” she breathed, unable to catch her breath.
“Hi,” Bryce said, his voice sounding just as breathless as hers.