Page 20 of Nine Months to Bear

Now, I’m no better than Walsh. Just less successful at the game.

“I never meant to offend you,” I say quietly. “I was trying to find a solution that worked for everyone.”

Ms. Chopard’s eyes narrow. She doesn’t buy my bullshit for one second, and I can’t blame her. “My lawyer will be in touch about transferring my files to Dr. Walsh’s clinic. She may be a shark, but at least she’s honest about her teeth.”

The door slams hard enough to rattle my framed medical license. I sink into my chair, nausea and shame warring in my gut.

When did I become this person? This desperate, grasping, cloying, wheedling person who would use others for my own gain?

I drop my forehead to my desk with a loud thwack. It hurts, but I deserve it.

Camille winces from where she’s peeking through the doorway. “That bad?”

I don’t bother looking up at her. “Worse. Chopard is going to Walsh.”

Camille steps fully into the office, closing the door behind her. Her lab coat is as pristine as always, smooth and sharp over her polka dot dress. She’s a stark contrast to my disheveled state. Even in crisis, Camille maintains her composure—one of the many reasons I hired her straight out of her fellowship.

“I heard most of it,” she admits. She perches on the edge of the chair Ms. Chopard just vacated, but she doesn’t sit down fully, like she’s scared she might get scorched by the woman’s leftover rage. “But listen, we still have options. There are always people emailing us, making offers to be surrogates, to deliver their samples—” Camille shivers, and I know she’s thinking about the man who carried in his own sperm sample in a Tupperware container a few weeks ago, expecting cold, hardcash in exchange. “Maybe we could approach one of them with a discount if they?—”

“No.” I peel myself off the desk and fix her with a firm stare. “I’m not having another conversation like that one. Ever. Never, ever, ever.”

Camille’s worry lines soften. “It wasn’t that bad an idea, Liv. Just… hastily executed. Ms. Chopard wasn’t game, but there are women who genuinely want to be surrogates. We could set up a proper program, connect families like the Chopards with willing candidates.”

“With what infrastructure? What legal team?” I gesture around the office. “Walsh has a whole division dedicated to surrogacy contracts. We can barely keep the lights on.”

“We have time before payroll, before rent is due,” Camille insists. “Maybe we could?—”

“Sell the ultrasound machines? Pawn the frozen embryos?” I instantly regret my tone when Camille flinches. “Sorry. It’s just… I’ll figure something out.”

But the truth curdles in my throat: There is nothing left to figure out.

She knows it. I know it. We’re both just biding our time until there’s no more denying it.

Camille shifts, twisting her necklace around her finger—a nervous habit she’s developed since joining my sinking ship of a clinic. “Maybe go back to Safonov, see if there’s something else he’d be willing to try? He could invest in us the way people invest in Walsh. Maybe he’d give us the money first, and then we’d give him the baby.”

The memory of Stefan Safonov’s blue eyes sends an unwelcome shiver down my spine. “I already bent the knee once. I won’t do it again.”

“At this point, does it matter? Money is money.”

I look at Cami—really look at her—and see the dark circles under her eyes, the tension in her shoulders. She has a mortgage. Medical school bills. Dreams that don’t include going down with my boat that’s rapidly taking on water.

“Go home, Camille,” I say softly. “Have a glass of wine. I’ll handle this.”

“But—”

“Please.” I force a smile. “I just need to think.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Camille nods and stands. “For what it’s worth, Liv, I think you’re ten times the doctor Walsh is. And a hundred times the human being.”

The compliment stings worse than Ms. Chopard’s insults.

At least those were deserved.

When Camille closes the door, I pull up our financial spreadsheets again. The numbers haven’t changed in the last two hours, unfortunately for me. It’s mostly masochism that has me looking at them again. God knows there aren’t any easy solutions to be found.

I close the spreadsheets and rest my forehead on the cool surface of my desk once again.

“Think, Olivia,” I whisper to myself. “Think.”