Does a part of me want to have a child because I miss my mom?
His hand gently curls around my hip, then settles on my belly. A hot brand where I want him to fill me up.
“It’s complicated,” I whisper.
“Try me.”
I blink my eyes open again. The wood paneling on the wall is blurry now, tears obscuring it, but I try to focus on it, anyway. This room is a safe space, of a sort, and the worst he can say is no. “I’m bound by a very strict financial trust. It was originally constructed by my grandfather to control my mother, and she didn’t have it re-written before her death, so the same rules apply to me. We don’t get control of the trust until our twenty-eighth birthday. But the trust is also built in a way that passes the bulk of the holdings to the next generation, at birth, and it’s designed so the parent of any recipient becomes their trustee. So, ergo, if I have a child, I will become the trustee of their portion of the trust.”
“Money is set aside for your children?”
“It’s… yes. It’s complicated, but basically the bulk of the money would move from being entrusted in my name to being entrusted in their name, and I would get the monthly allowance to doll out to them instead of my mother’s estate controlling it for me.”
He takes a minute to process that, the longest minute of my life. I swear I can hear the seconds ticking by. “Do you not have lawyers who can take that apart? It doesn’t sound legal.”
“It’s been through the courts. And I find all of that exhausting. I just want to live my life.”
“Do they control more than money?”
“The trust controls everything. Where I live, who works for me—which includes who feeds me, so ergo, what I eat—, my proxy votes for the board of directors, and how I travel. I had to fight to get a cell phone when I turned eighteen.”
“So, how did you end up here?”
“I saved money from my allowance every month. Which is generous by any measure. I have money. But I don’t want to abandon what is rightfully mine, either. I have opinions about how my family’s legacy should be shaped, and I won’t get to voice them for another six years.”
“Abby, that’s no way to live.”
“I know. But it’s not forever. I will gain control of my trust when I’m twenty-eight, if I don’t have a child before then.”
“Six years is a hell of a long time to wait for independence.” He rubs a gentle circle, his hand big enough to cover most of my abdomen. “But that’s not a reason to have a child.”
“I know.” A terrible ache blooms in my chest. “It sounds all kinds of wrong. But I will love them with my whole heart, I promise.”
He kisses my shoulder. “And then there’s another factor.”
“What?” My voice cracks.
“I finish inside you once, and I will want to claim you, mate you, for life.” He shakes his head. “You can’t have the baby without the bossy SEAL husband.”
I blink furiously, new tears falling, so confused. “What?”
“Would that be so terrible?”
I laugh, a helpless outburst, because it would be the opposite of terrible. It’s just so…impossible. Unbelievable.
And yet…
“Turn over,” he murmurs. “Look at me.”
I’m shaking as I turn in the circle of his arms. His face is stern, but his eyes are warm. “You might not need to be married—to escape your current predicament—but would youliketo be married? Have a partner to help raise the little hooligan?”
“Why would my baby be a hooligan?”
“Because he’ll be my son, and I was a fearless monster.”
“And what if I have your daughter?” His eyes flare on the last two words, and my voice wavers.
“Then she’ll be beautiful, just like her mother.” He strokes my cheek. “But still an absolute handful, because you’ll teach her how to pick locks at an early age. Someone will need to be the heavy when it comes to keeping our children from being lawless monsters, Abby. That person is going to have to be me.”