Page 112 of South Beach Bodyguards

And just like that, I was hard as a fucking rock.

I had thought about how I would ask Alejandro for his sperm for months and never had I rehearsed saying it in the hallway of the arena with tons of people milling around. God, why did I just blurt that out like that with no warning?

A lot of people laugh when they’re nervous. But I really laugh. Like cackling that I can’t stop. I heard it coming from my mouth and my cheeks heated up. This was so important to me and here I was messing it up from the start. But I hadn’t expected to see Alejandro tonight. His presence had caught me off guard completely.

“Surprise!” I said, trying to lighten the mood but just coming across as manic. “I’m ready to be a mother and I don’t want to wait around for a relationship that may never happen.” Simple, right? Except I was asking him to get busy with a plastic cup and then disappear for the most part. I winced inwardly. This wasn’t no big deal.

He didn’t say anything. Not a word. He was frowning. I fought the urge to blather on and try to convince him, make him understand.

I forced myself to shut up and wait. He needed a second. This was quite a request, especially considering I hadn’t seen him in over three years.

But Alejandro wasn’t saying anything and Bill, Lola’s head bodyguard, was getting impatient. He reappeared and frowned. “Let’s go.” He pointed me to the doorway that led down to the garage. I went, because I had to and the silence had drawn out long enough to be awkward. I glanced back to make sure Alejandro was following me. He was, in all his muscular sexy swagger.

Damn, Alejandro had grown up in the last few years. I had first met him when he was a teenager. He’d been quick with a grin and had plenty of youthful cockiness. He moved differently now, like a tiger. Confident, muscular, the ultimate alpha male. His grin now was more sensual and charming versus mischievous. I hadn’t expected to be attracted to him, but holy shit, he had gotten so hot. I spent plenty of time around good-looking and built guys. There were half naked dancers around me on the daily. But Alejandro had something special. He was gorgeous and a hell of a lot of fun.

He was no doubt a chick magnet. And he knew it.

After opening the door to the car for me, Alejandro stood there while I climbed in, his foot tapping hard on the asphalt. He bent over, his head appearing in the doorframe, his nostrils flaring. “You asked me your question,” he said. “Now I have one for you.”

I stared up at him, my heart racing in my chest. I shivered from the air conditioning the driver had blasting in the luxury sedan. “Yes?”

“Why me?” he asked. “Think about your answer.”

Before I could respond he slammed the door shut. He walked around the back of the car while I struggled to figure out what to say. I couldn’t tell him the truth. That I wanted his sperm because he was Max’s brother. That really, ultimately, I had always wanted a baby with Max, but couldn’t because Max was dead. Or presumed dead. No one wanted to hear they were the next best thing. I also couldn’t tell him that I often wondered how stupid it would have been if I had gotten pregnant with Max. That I regretted my naiveté. Which made me feel a deep crushing sense of guilt.

I had thought about this endlessly, how to answer the question that anyone would ask. That I knew Alejandro would ask. I owed him a decent answer. I was asking for an enormous gift.

All my rehearsed answers seemed stupid and trite. I tried to dry my damp palms on my bodysuit but you can’t dry anything on sequins. When he slid into the back seat next to me and turned to stare at me expectantly I swallowed hard.

I ended up with the most simple and straight-forward answer. “Because I love you.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “Like a brother. You love me like a brother. And siblings don’t have babies together.”

He had a point. Alejandro and his parents had been a huge part of my life for years. They were family. “But this would be my baby, my responsibility. I’m just asking for you to… donate.”

At that, I saw my driver glance at me in the rearview mirror. Shit, he was listening to every word. Awkward. But I was in this far, I had to keep going. Think about the ultimate goal—becoming a mother.

“So you want my sperm and then you don’t want me involved at all?”

An edge had crept into his voice.

“I… want you to be as involved as you want to be. As a friend. Not a father.” I needed to be clear on that point. I couldn’t co-parent with Alejandro. That would be a minefield I wasn’t prepared to navigate. “So will you help me?”

“I watch reality TV,” he said, inexplicably.

“What?” I asked, startled. Out of all my scenarios I had played out, Alejandro either said yes or no. He didn’t go off topic. “So?”

“On those shows they are always hiring surrogates and they become best friends and everybody squeals and shit when she’s pregnant like it was a job promotion instead of an actual creation of a human being. Or a lesbian couple asks a guy friend for his sperm and he says yes in like two seconds like it isn’t a big deal.”

I had a sinking feeling the longer he talked. “Okay.”

The hotel was only around the corner. We were already pulling up in front.

“This isn’t reality TV. I’m not giving you an answer right now. In a car. Three minutes after you tossed this at me.”

Yep. He was angry at me. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t be able to tell. Alejandro didn’t get sour or frown. He continued to smile. If anything, he smiled bigger, which was frightening as hell. I should have waited instead of blurting it out like that. I should have taken him to lunch like I had originally planned. Caught up on our lives first. Then said, “Hey, let’s make a baby.”

This was me though. I always got ahead of myself. I didn’t think of it as impulse so much as enthusiasm. I got carried away. Max used to say I was like a perpetual five-year-old. Except he never said “perpetual.” More like, “Mandy, you’re like a fucking five-year-old. So damn cute.”

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