Page 4 of The Billionaire's Paradise

You and Surrogacy—Helping You Grow Your Family.

My breath caught. Not in a dramatic, cinematic way, but in a real, stupid way that made my throat do that painful gaspy thing it does right before I cry at insurance commercials.

He had a brochure.

Asurrogacybrochure.

Hehad it.

Not me.

Him.

Which meant he’d been thinking about this. Maybe for a while. Maybe longer than me. Maybe he’d even been waiting for me to bring it up. Maybe we were both standing on either side of a giant canyon yelling the same thing but neither of us could hear it over our own anxiety.

I pressed the brochure back down into the drawer, gently, carefully, likeitwas a baby. Just as I did, the bathroom door opened.

Cal walked out, towel low on his hips, wet hair slicked back, steam trailing behind him. He caught me looking and smirked. “You find a tie yet?”

Blindly I grabbed a tie. “U-huh. This one. It’s perfect.”

Cal raised both eyebrows. “You wanna impress Hal Chambers—one of the richest men on Wall Street—with Angus’s Daffy Duck tie?”

“What Daffy Duck tie?” I looked at the tie in my hand. “Oh, that one.” I quickly tossed it back into the drawer and pulled out a nice pale blue striped tie. “I meant this one.”

He took it with a smile, looped it around his neck, and kissed me on the cheek like I hadn’t just discovered our entire future in a drawer.

“Perfect. I’ll be ready in ten,” he said, walking past me toward the closet. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Okay? Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“You know, after the whole Suzy Shortcake thing. You’re okay to hold off chatting a while longer?”

I nodded, too fast. “Yup. Totally. Look at me, I’m a picture of serenity. Calmer than a National Geographic documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman.”

“You hate those documentaries. You always get upset when the pretty zebras get eaten by the lions.”

“Good point.” I laughed nervously. Excitedly. Trying to keep a lid on what I knew. “But that’s just Simba and the circle of life. Right?”

I suddenly pictured our child’s room packed so high with Lion King plush toys that you couldn’t get the door open, and my heart purred at the thought of our future happiness.

At that moment, it was as if Cal read my mind. “Just don’t mention Lamaze at dinner.”

“Lamaze? Why would I mention that?”

“Because I know you. You’ve got babies on the brain. I told you, we’ll talk about it later. Just not tonight. Not when I need to get Hal on board with his new investments.”

“Of course. It’s a business dinner, I get it. I’ll be all about the lobster. No Lamaze. I promise.”

Busily I started sorting through my clothes for something decent to wear. My heart was still pounding, but for the first time in a long time, it wasn’t from panic.

Cal wanted a baby too.

He wanted itwith me.

And come hell, high water, or the entire Mulroney-Banks-Angus circus… this was happening.

We were going to be dads.