The Family They Chose / Private Partners: The Family They Chose / Private Partners

“Would you please explain where the eggs you offered me came from? Whose eggs are they?”

He looked at her as if she had two heads. As if this was painfully simple and she should understand. “They’re donor eggs. Ovum we paid for so we could help women like you who can’t produce eggs of their own. Pardon me for trying to help you.”

His words were a low blow even if they were true. He must’ve seen it in her face because he softened his tone.

“The ones I offered you are from our ‘egg bank’ and are absolutely free and clear. They do not ‘belong’ to anyone but the future recipient.”

He regarded her for a moment with piercing brown eyes. The longer he stared at her, the smaller Olivia felt.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything. But I still don’t understand why you implied there should be so much secrecy around giving me the eggs? Changing the files so that everyone thought they were mine rather than donor eggs? I mean, Derek, come on, you have to admit the allegations in the exposé mirror your offer.”

Derek sighed and rolled his eyes.

“There is no similarity whatsoever. The secrecy was simply for your and Jamison’s benefit—for privacy. As I said, I was just offering you away to save your marriage and a means of keeping up appearances. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get back to work.”

He got up, walked to the door and opened it.

Olivia exited his office. When the door clicked behind her, she was in greater turmoil than when she’d entered.

She dialed Jamison’s cell, but got his voice mail. Again.

She was tired of pretending their marriage was solid. Would having a baby actually save their troubled relationship? For the first time ever, she wasn’t so sure.

She heard footsteps down at the end of the hall and looked up. It was Chance Demetrios. The man with the results. The answer that was key to the rest of her life.

“There you are.” His voice was maddeningly neutral. Neither happy nor sad. “I got your test results back. Why don’t we go to my office and discuss them.”

They walked in silence. Olivia was glad he didn’t try to make conversation, because she was still suffering aftershock from the conversation with her brothers.

“I have news,” he said. “And I have better news. Where would you like me to start?”

Olivia sighed. “Give me the better news first. I think I need to start in a good place.”

When Chance nodded, Olivia noticed that he looked solemn. Her gut clenched and she laced her hands protectively over her belly.

“When I was reviewing your file, I saw something I’d overlooked. Apparently, the doctor you saw before I arrived at the Armstrong Institute harvested and flash-froze a couple of emergency stashes of your eggs.”

Olivia tensed. So Derek had gone through with the egg transfer after all, even though he hadn’t mentioned it earlier. She hadn’t really given him a chance to get a word in.

“I’m guessing that despite his not indicating it in your file, the doctor must have suspected there was a problem with egg production since he had the foresight to freeze thirty eggs. That gives us enough for three more in vitro procedures.”

Three more.

Suddenly, with a breath-stealing blow, it dawned on her where this conversation was going.

“What’s the other news you mentioned?”

She braced herself, knowing what he was going to say and feeling queasy because of it.

“I’m sorry, Olivia.Your tests prove that your ovaries have stopped producing eggs. I hate to be so blunt, but if you want to have a baby, I suggest that we start the procedure as soon as possible since you’ll need to be on the hormones for about three weeks before we can fertilize your eggs and implant the embryos. Would you like to start the hormones today?”

Tongue-tied and shaken, she stared at him. She hadn’t been prepared to act this quickly since she thought they’d simply be discussing the test results.

“So, you’re saying I don’t have any time to waste?”

Dr. Demetrios rubbed his chin with one hand as he regarded her.

“I suggest you not let too much time pass. But if you need to think about it, or perhaps discuss it with your husband, we can start the hormones on your next visit. It’s up to you.”

Why was she hesitating?

Why was she so conflicted?

The need to have a child had driven her here today—without her husband. Was it her conscience, or simply self-doubt making her waver? She wanted a baby more than anything. Yet a little voice deep inside her was whispering that if she walked out that door without setting the process in motion today, it might be hard to come back.

Dr. Demetrios smiled at her. “What would you like to do, Olivia?”

Chapter Nine

Jamison used the flight to Boston’s Logan Airport and the subsequent ride home to mentally prepare himself for seeing Olivia.

He’d had the days since seeing the photos to weigh all the options, to look at the situation from all angles and to think about what he would do when he saw her.

It had opened up childhood wounds he’d thought had healed over the years, brought back memories of his distraught mother crying over the telephone, desperately trying to track down her husband. In those days of no cell phones or pagers, when a person wanted to get lost, it was a lot easier than it was today.

Judson Mallory would sometimes get lost for days. His staff would cover for him, inventing meetings that Helen had no way of confirming or disproving.

Of course, Jamison had been too young to know what was really going on when his father would disappear. All he knew is that there would be long stretches of absence during which the household staff would care for him and his brothers because his mother “had taken ill.”

As Jamison got older, it didn’t take long to realize his mother wasn’t really sick at all. She was either too drunk to function or too hung over from the benders brought on by her husband’s going MIA.

It wasn’t until years later, long after his father had died, that once-faithful friends and confidants crawled out of the woodwork offering tell-all books detailing that all wasn’t as rosy as it seemed behind the manicured Mallory hedges.

Piece by painful piece, Jamison learned about a much darker side of the man he and an adoring public had idolized. The havoc that his father’s womanizing had wreaked on their family and the subsequent betrayal by friends was enough to convince Jamison that he would never live his personal life the way his father had—fathering six boys he’d never wanted and leaving all responsibility for them to a mother who was unable to cope.

Jamison did want a family … someday. But he didn’t want to repeat his father’s mistakes. He wanted to wait until he was ready. Obviously with the way he was waffling back and forth—one minute ready to do it because it would make his wife happy, but the next minute feeling so unsure about his marriage, which in turn made him feel uncertain about having kids—meant that he wasn’t.

In the same way that he’d committed to marriage once he’d pledged his life to Olivia, he felt that strongly about waiting until his marriage was on firmer ground before having children. Especially now that there was the possibility that his wife had strayed.

On the car ride home from the airport, he thought about the photos and what might have driven Olivia into another man’s arms. He knew he’d been a little selfish over the past couple of years, a little insensitive to her needs. The purely rational side of him that could separate facts and emotion—the attorney in him—had leveled the verdict that maybe this had driven her to another man. But that was about as far as the rational side went. The thought of her in another man’s arms nearly drove him over the edge. So he clung to the last shred of hope he had. That even though the photos showed Olivia in Demetrios’s arms—in an embrace that looked intimate—there wasn’t a single shot of them kissing … or worse.

The fact that there was no kiss left a huge gray area open to interpretation. That’s when common sense dictated that he had to give Olivia the benefit of the doubt. And he still needed to see her face—her eyes—when he presented the photos. That would be key.

He knew her, and he’d be able to recognize if she was lying about something. But at least he’d had time to figure out that he was willing to fight for his marriage if Olivia was willing to meet him halfway.

Of course, they’d be back at awkward square one. Another thought that remained constant in his mind as he sorted out everything was that he was glad there were no children involved.

So, despite his earlier, impulsive change of heart, essentially they were back at the starting line. He’d have to insist that they mend their marriage before they brought a child into their world. He’d grown up in a broken home and, above all else, he’d vowed to never put a child of his own through that hell.