Page 16 of Nine Months to Bear

“Oh, sure, sure.” Camille closes the door and drops into the pink velvet visitor’s chair. “That’s why you’re all scrunchy-faced and frowny and smell like you just had sex with a musket.” She pauses. “Wait. Did he actually?—?”

“If you ask if I had sex with a weapon, you’re fired.”

Camille’s brows lunge upward, asking the question her mouth no longer can.

“He had a private shooting range in his basement.” My sigh turns into a hollow laugh. Talk about a red flag. “Apparently, I needed lessons in self-defense before we could discuss business.”

“Because of Frederick?” Camille shivers as ifshewas the one twice assaulted at the gala last night. “God, what a creep. Not Stefan—Frederick. You get it.” She waves an impatient hand at me and herself. “Anyway. Well?”

“And I learned that Russian billionaires have interesting ideas about foreplay.”

“So youdidhave sex!”

“No!” Heat crawls up my neck as Camille’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “That was a joke. It’s not— I— He just showed me how to shoot. With his hands on my—” I stop, trapped by Camille’s knowing smirk. “Can we focus on the actual problem?”

“You mean your inability to tell a compelling story?” She groans. “I’m getting absolutely nothing over here. Where are the raunchy details?”

If I still have a business in two months, I should invest in an HR department. This place is toxic.

“The actual problem is that Stefan Safonov wants me to traffic him a womb, Cami.”

“Ooh, trafficking! That’s new. Black market or white glove delivery?”

“This isn’t funny. And it’s not a joke. He wants me to find a woman to give him anheir.” I shiver at the words, as if saying them will summon Stefan like the Russian Beetlejuice. “That isn’t our business model. It’s the literal exact opposite of our mission statement.”

I spent weeks drafting and rewriting the “About Us” section of my website. I can still rattle off the first paragraph by heart.

At Aster Fertility Solutions, we empower women to take control of their reproductive journey on their own terms. We believe that creating a family should never be limited by circumstances, but guided by personal choice and supported by compassionate expertise.

Or, in this case, it can be guided by financial desperation and the whims of a billionaire. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

Camille sobers up, at least insofar as she ever does. “Gross. Imperial surrogacy with an extra side of ethical nightmare.”

“Basically.” I pull Stefan’s proposal from my bag and slide it across the desk. I watch Camille’s expressions do a downward spiral as she reads the taped-together pages.

“So we’re talking fullHandmaid’s Tale, but with better tailoring. What’d you tell him?” Camille asks.

“To choke on it.”

“Classy. And how’s that working with—” She flips open my laptop, revealing another overdraft alert. “—our imminent bankruptcy?”

In case I doubted the universe’s sense of humor, an email hits my inbox at that exact moment. It’s a new message from Dr.Walsh’s office—Thank you for referring Mrs. Alvarez!Attached is a photo of my former client grinning beside Walsh’s gold-embossed sign in her foyer.

I feel sick.

“Goddamn vulture,” Camille mutters over my shoulder. “She poached Alvarez? That’s our third traitor this week.”

“Fifth, actually.” I massage my temples, trying to work away the perma-headache that lives behind my eyes these days. “The Vasquez twins went over to the dark side yesterday.”

“Jesus. I didn’t know about them.” Camille collapses back in her chair, looking downright dejected. “They were weirdos, but they were our big break. Everyone wanted to know about the identical twins who wanted identical babies.”

“Well, now, they’re Walsh’s newest testimonial.” I pull up their joint Instagram account, a feed dedicated to matching outfits and the identical sister-cousins I should’ve helped them create. But the most recent post shows both sisters tagged in a glowing review of their “new fertility journey” with Walsh’s clinic. “She offered them a two-for-one discount on their next round.”

“How can she even afford those rates? She’s practically giving treatments away.”

Camille is fuming, but I already mourned this loss in the bathtub this weekend. I drowned my denial in bubbles and my rage in a bottle of pinot grigio.

Now, I’m in the barren wasteland of acceptance. It sucks here.