Page 113 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Faye’s insides clenched painfully. This man had made her want to dream of that again, of the possibilities. Even if she would never actually give birth.

He was still talking. ‘There’s IVF, Faye. We could use my sperm and egg donation...find a surrogate.’

Without even thinking about it, Faye heard herself divulging, ‘I harvested some of my eggs...’

‘What?’

She nodded. It was as if that piece of information had always been there, but she’d pushed it down so deep because she’d never thought it would be of any use.

‘After I had the operation, my ovaries were...arestill intact. I was advised to freeze some eggs because I was so young. To be honest, I was so traumatised at the time that I hardly noticed the couple of months they spent stimulating and then collecting eggs. And I still have my ovaries, so even if those eggs aren’t viable any more I could go through the process again.’

Primo looked shocked. ‘But do you not see that this gives us a chance to have a child of our own, Faye? How could you not have realised that?’

‘Maybe because when it was offered up to my husband as an option he dismissed it out of hand, saying, “I’m not having some stranger give birth to a child of mine.” He had a similar opinion of adoption.’

She looked at Primo.

‘After the divorce, I shut down. I buried any hope of having a child and kept my relationships strictly superficial, so it never came up. And then, when you and I married... I just assumed it wouldn’t become an issue because we would be divorcing in six months.’

Without even realising it Faye had retreated back behind her desk, as if seeking protection.

Primo came closer...to the other side of the desk. ‘First of all, your husband was a prize idiot. And I hope I never meet him because I’ll be tempted to do him some damage. Secondly, I can understand why you behaved the way you did... But we have a chance, Faye, aren’t you willing to explore that?’

Faye could see the satisfaction on Primo’s face: problem sorted. And, yes, she could acknowledge that there might be a chance for them to have a family... But he hadn’t lived with the demise of a dream for ten years. He had lost the possibility of having a family with her for only a week. And now he was learning that there was hope.

Part of Faye was angry with Primo—totally irrationally—because he wouldn’t ever understand the pain of her grief. The devastation.

‘Primo, it’s not that simple. Just because the eggs exist, or can exist, it doesn’t mean that we can create successful embryos or even find a surrogate.’

‘There’s adoption...’

Faye shook her head. ‘Are you really willing to bring up someone else’s child? And what if nothing worked and we were still alone? Without a family? Then what?’

He came around the desk, even closer. ‘Then we’d have each other.’

Faye shook her head, terrified to let herself believe that for a second. ‘It’s not enough, Primo. We’ve been together a month. We still don’t really know each other.’

‘I know you better than I know anyone else in this world, and I know that you know me.’

‘It was intense between us—’

‘It’s still intense, Faye. It’s not going anywhere.’

She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. She was aware of every minute movement he made. Every inflection of his voice. The humming electricity between them.

‘Primo, I can’t do this...’

He moved even closer, and now nothing separated them. If he touched her—

Faye sat down.

Primo went down on his haunches before her.

‘Faye, what I’m trying and failing to say is that if we ended up alone then that would be okay. Because I don’t want a family without you. It’s you or no one. The dream only exists because of you, and that dream can be just the two of us, if that’s what’s meant to be.’

Faye’s eyes prickled. ‘You can’t say that for sure, Primo, because we’re not facing that wasteland. But I know. It wrecked my first marriage. And I’ve heard stories all my life about failed IVF, about adoptions that go wrong because people aren’t honest about how much they want their own DNA in their children. It tears relationships far stronger than ours to shreds. You’ve only just decided that this is something you want...and you should have it. But not with me. There’s not enough to sustain us if it doesn’t work.’

He took her hands and looked at her. ‘I love you, Faye.’

---