Page 27 of The Green Card Baby Deal

“So it’s Luis’s baby?” Dawn said when she was sure no one had followed them in. “Was it planned?”

“It is, and not at all,” Clara answered with a laugh. “I really didn’t think I could get pregnant easily, which is why we didn’t bother with precautions. The whole thing took me completely by surprise.”

“So it was a surprise pregnancy.” Dawn leaned in. “But was it unwanted?”

Clara didn’t hesitate before shaking her head. “Oh, it was absolutely wanted! Are you kidding? I’m so beyond ready.”

Dawn laid a hand on Clara’s shoulder. “Just tell me this isn’t the reason you’re marrying him. I want a fairy-tale romance for you, Clara. You never have to marry someone you don’t love, got it? No matter how rich he is. Your family, including me, is here for you. That’s the whole point of family.”

Clara looked her sister in the eye and lied to her. “It isn’t the reason I’m marrying him. I love him.”

It was only a partial lie. While she had agreed to marry Luis in order to have a child, she hadn’t spontaneously decided to marry him after an accidental pregnancy, which was definitely the question her sister wanted answered. Clara knew, though, that Dawn would not approve of her agreement with Luis either way, so she wasn’t about to share it. Anyway, it seemed like a secret she should keep for Luis’s sake, too, not just her own.

Dawn frowned at her, clearly sensing the deception. It had always been especially hard to lie to her twin sister. No matter how many times Clara tried it, she was never able to keep the truth from Dawn for long. But Dawn didn’t push the matter. She seemed to sense that there were things Clara wasn’t ready to say just yet.

“Okay, Sis,” Dawn said, giving Clara a quick squeeze. “I’m happy for you either way. I’m so excited for us to raise our kids together. They’re going to be the best of friends. I just know it.”

Clara started rinsing the dishes she’d brought in, partly to help, but mostly to keep herself busy. She was too tempted to tell her sister everything, to just unburden her whole self onto the person she considered to be her better half.

Dawn helped, and while they washed up, the two of them chatted and laughed about the “joys” of early pregnancy. Now that they had this in common, it felt like they were in their own little club. Aside from the lies she knew she would have to keep telling, Clara had never been happier. Her life was finally moving in a direction she wanted it to. It may not have been perfect, but at least she had some measure of control. That’s what she told herself anyway.

They finished up the dishes and joined their family back outside. Stan nodded to Dawn like he knew exactly why she’d asked her sister to help with the dishes. And Dawn nodded back. They had the kind of wordless communication between them that Clara had only ever had with her twin sister. She was sad to think she’d never have that kind of closeness in a marriage. Then again, she would never have to worry about money. Then again…

CHAPTER 15

CLARA

Clara and Luis stood in the penthouse in front of a wall covered in little square samples of paint. They had set aside the day to turn Luis’s office into a nursery at Luis’s insistence. It amazed Clara that he wanted to be part of it so badly that he set aside a full day of actual work to spend on it. He had told Clara that family was deeply important to him, but she hadn’t really seen evidence of it before today. They were both sipping on glasses of sparkling cider because Luis had insisted on celebrating the launch of the nursery, but he refused to drink if Clara couldn’t. Her determination to not fall for this man was in deep, deep trouble.

“Okay,” Luis said, pointing to the wall of samples. “First choice. Are we going blue or pink on this one?”

Clara eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t know anything you don’t know, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Not at all.” Luis smiled. “It’s just a bit of a gamble. Do you want to put money on one or the other. Don’t worry if you lose. You have plenty where that came from.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, and she scoffed playfully. “Ah, nothing’s ever enough for my lady.” He strode closer to the wall and looked over the shades of pink.

“Were you hoping for a girl, then?” Clara asked. “I thought you’d be getting excited for a son.”

“Why?” He whirled on her. “Because of my heritage? Don’t you think that’s kind of problematic?” He was playing with her, clearly, trying to make her blush. It was working, but Clara didn’t mind. She knew him well enough. It didn’t hit her until she actually had the thought, though. She knew him, and he knew her enough to joke this way. And that meant something, didn’t it?

“All right,” Clara said, playing along. “I’ll see your point and raise you my own. The gender binary is outdated and unfashionable.”

He arched one eyebrow. “Well, well, well. I see what you did there. And I meet your challenge with yellow and green.”

Clara took another sip of her sparkling cider and stood back to stare at the whole wall. “Purple and gray would be far edgier, don’t you think? We should be ahead of the times. What if our little one is punk or goth? Are we just going to teach our new human that those aesthetic choices are inferior? Is that an acceptable precedent to set?”

“Now you’re getting smart on me,” he said with a playful grumble.

“I’ve been smart this whole time,” she countered. “You just couldn’t see it because of all that rampant sexism getting in the way.”

He gasped melodramatically. “How dare you. I don’t have a sexist bone in my body. Do you have any idea how many women I’ve championed in the beer industry?”

“What like five?”

“Oh, that does it.” He picked up a can of black paint — why did they even have that paint? — dipped his hand in and began finger-painting over all the other colors. “You want edgy? I’ll give you edgy. We’re going full Addams Family here. I’m perfectly fine with Rosemary’s Baby, aren’t you? Let’s tell our kid they can grow up to be whatever they want by giving them the ultimate blank slate.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Clara set her drink down, too, and picked up a small can of white paint. She then began finger-painting alongside him, faster than he was, to win what she now perceived to be a competition. “White is the ultimate blank slate. That’s why blank canvases are white.”

“Slate,” Luis said, smearing his paint over hers to create a messy, marble gray, “is dark gray. Much closer to black, you see? So ‘blank slate’ is a phrase that is definitely not referring to any shade of white at all.”

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