Page 9 of Surrogate for the Bratva
Once she had driven off, I called my right-hand man.
“Maxim, look into this person.” I gave him the woman’s description and license plate number. “Find everything you can.”
“On it,” he said.
Right now I was intrigued. Vulnerable and emotional and intrigued as hell, but knowledge had a way of cooling my interest and I knew it would be no different with the petite blonde with expressive green eyes and pouty pink lips.
Chapter Seven
April
“What is wrong with me?” I asked that question over and over as I scrubbed the living room floor in Jacob’s living room. He was—hopefully—coming home today and the place needed to be dusted and vacuumed. “There is so much wrong with me where do I even begin?”
Great, now I’m talking to myself.I couldn’t stop thinking about the handsome man from Rutherford Mansion, which was completely ridiculous because he was a total stranger. Two days had passed since that encounter. Two days since the most magnetic, magical, powerful interaction of my life and I could not stop thinking about him. Wondering about him and his life.
How did he spend his days? Was he a criminal or worse, a corporate executive type? His expensive suit could go either way and this was Georgia where plenty of people carried a gun so that didn’t give me any clue either. And it shouldn’t matter because it was just a night, a really weird night where I bared my soul to a weird yet gorgeous man. “Stop it!”
I couldn’t waste time focusing on a man whose name I didn’t even know, not when I had to finish cleaning the houses and then myself before I left to pick up my brother. Once his place was spotless, I locked up and went next door to shower and change. The hot shower felt amazing, but I couldn’t linger so I rushed through and quickly dressed in dark jeans, a dark red blouse and my favorite—okay, my only—black ballet flats and rushed out the door. Or I would have if there wasn’t a giant mass of hot, hard flesh pressed against my face. “Oh, um, excuse me.”I stepped back and looked up and up, and up, into deep brown eyes. “Can I um, help you?”
The man was big enough to literally classify as a giant. His shoulders blocked out all traces of the daylight I knew was behind him because it was just before noon. His legs were like tree trunks, and his arms were slightly terrifying. “Are you April Stone?”
I took a big step back and slammed into my door, suddenly on edge at the big man’s presence. “Who’s asking?”
“Ma’am, are you April Stone?”
His accent was familiar but not and before I realized it, I was nodding. “Yes, I’m April. Why are you asking about me?”
“I have something for you,” he said and shoved a thick envelope at me with enough force that I would’ve been knocked over if not for the door behind me.
I didn’t take it because I didn’t know what it was, and my mom always told me to steer clear of taking things from strangers. “What is it?”
“Please,” he grunted, seeming annoyed. “Just take it.”
I refused. “Just tell me what it is!”
“A very generous offer which my boss wants you to consider. That’s all. Just papers for you to read.”
Papers? “Who is your boss?”
“He is a very powerful man. Powerful and wealthy.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I waved away his words meant to impress me. “He’s rich and powerful. Is he anything I give a damn about?”
“His name is Roman Stephens. Just read the damn papers, please.” He turned and walked away, his big body made the stairs creak. “I’ll be back later tonight for your answer.”
“Answer to what,” I called out.
“Read the papers and you will know everything.”
Damn.A quick look at my phone told me that I needed to get to the hospital, but my curiosity was piqued. I knew how the hospital operated so I tossed the papers on my passenger seat and high-tailed it to ATL General where I sat in the parking lot and read through the papers while I waited for Jacob to be discharged.
“What?” I read them again because there was no way in hell that a man I’d never met in my life wanted to pay me to rent my womb for his rich kid. Why not just go to one of those agencies that catered to rich people?
Did it matter?
Nope, it absolutely did not matter to me because the answer was clear. No, I wasn’t interested in being a rent-a-baby to some rich guy who thought he could buy whatever he wanted.The nerve of that guy, Roman Stephens.I never heard of him, and I hoped I wouldn’t hear from him ever again. How the hell had he even gotten my name anyway?
With that settled, I made my way into the hospital to get my brother and go home. “Hey Jacob. Ready to blow this joint?”
