forth in front of his desk. Suddenly she stopped and said in a rush, “I have an appointment with a fertility clinic in Atlanta. The timing is critical because everything depends on my ovulation cycle. Once I arrive in Atlanta, the clinic advised that I’ll need two days of complete rest to get over any jet lag my ovaries might suffer. Then it’ll take a week to go through their process, and that’s followed up with two weeks of, well, rest and waiting.”
Aidan’s eyes widened. He shook his head. Had his ears plugged up suddenly? He couldn’t have heard what he thought he’d just heard. Ovaries? Good grief. Fertility?
He glared at her. “What in the world are you talking about?”
Wearing a serene smile now, Ellie sat back down in her chair. “I’m going to have a baby.”
There. She had finally said it out loud.
Ellie tried to appear calm, tried not to squirm in her chair as Aidan stared sharply at her. Well, it was his own darn fault for pushing the point, she thought. Honestly, she had tried to soft-peddle her vacation plans, tried to avoid explaining all the gory details, but she should’ve known Aidan Sutherland wouldn’t let things slide. He never let things slide.
Yes, she usually planned her vacations a year ahead of time. Yes, she was highly organized, detail oriented, never impulsive, always in control. She didn’t do anything without preparing a spreadsheet first. But come on, once in a while a girl had to be spontaneous. That’s what she’d heard, anyway. Ellie was pretty sure she’d never been spontaneous in her life. Until now.
She watched Aidan’s gaze narrow in on her. He turned his head slightly and leaned forward, almost as though he’d experienced a hearing loss. “Say that again?”
Ellie sighed. She and Aidan had a fabulous working relationship. She thought of him as her best friend at work, even though he was her boss. And even though he was rugged and gregarious, athletic and tanned. And gorgeous. Handsome. Downright sexy. But she was getting off track.
The fact was, she’d liked Aidan from the first day she started her job at Sutherland Corp. The two of them shared a lot of the same interests and as business associates, they’d traveled together on dozens of occasions. Together they had closed numerous deals and even a bar or two when the negotiations turned out to be rougher than they should have been.
It didn’t help that she had developed a ridiculous schoolgirl crush on Aidan shortly after she started working with him. It didn’t matter though, because she would never do anything so stupid as to act on her feelings. Not only would it destroy their relationship and mark the end of the best job she’d ever had, but it would make her feel like the world’s biggest fool. Ellie had never been a fool.
She knew Aidan’s question was coming from a decent place inside him, and she had already decided to be completely honest with him if he forced the issue, so she repeated, “I said, I’m going to have a baby.”
“Next week?”
“Next week is when the process starts.”
“You can’t put it off an extra week?”
“No,” she said, fighting to maintain her calm. “I’m usually as regular as clockwork so once I get to Atlanta, I’ve allowed myself a three-day window during which I should start ovula—”
“Stop.” He held up his hand. “We’re venturing back into the dark realm of too much female information.”
“But you keep asking.”
“I just want to know why you have to do all this starting next week.”
“Because I want to have a baby and I’m not getting any younger.” She had no intention of telling him anything more than that.
“But—” He scratched his head, clearly confused. “You’re going to a sperm bank.”
“I prefer the term fertility clinic. But yes, that’s where I’m going.”
“But why?”
“Why?” she said, her voice rising as her serenity tottered on the edge of annoyance. “Seriously, Aidan? You want to know why I’m going to a sperm bank—I mean, fertility clinic? I’ll go out on a limb here and take a guess that you are aware of what happens in those places.”
He huffed impatiently. “Of course. But what I mean is, why don’t you just do it the old-fashioned way?”
“Oh,” she said slowly. “That.”
“Yeah.” He folded his arms across his chest. “That.”
“Well, it’s because…Hmm.” What was she supposed to tell him? The truth? Because the truth was that she would have preferred to get pregnant the old-fashioned way. With a man she loved, someone wonderful who wanted to live the rest of his life with her.
Recently there had been one man who’d expressed some interest in her. She had dated him for a few weeks, but as soon as Ellie brought up the subject of children and family, he’d made himself scarce. That was before they’d even had sex so she’d missed out on that, too. She just couldn’t get a break.
Even though there were plenty of opportunities to meet eligible men on the island, none of them ever seemed to want to take the next step. One problem was that most men came to Alleria to party-party-party. They weren’t interested in a relationship if it looked like it might last more than a week.
The other problem was that while Ellie knew men thought she was pretty enough, she also knew they found her a little intimidating. And even though she recognized the problem, she didn’t know what to do about it. It wasn’t that she had an overpowering personality. That would’ve been an easy fix. No, Ellie’s problem was that she was just too smart. She couldn’t help it. She seemed to have a photographic memory and she loved learning new things. She retained information and was cheerfully willing to share it with others any time a subject came up. Some people didn’t take that well.
And sadly, Ellie didn’t have a clue when to keep her mouth shut and let a guy live with the illusion that he was smarter than she was. Men were so odd.
These days, though, Ellie refused to allow that to bother her. Happily, Aidan and his brother appreciated how smart she was and she loved her job because of it. They accepted her and needed her, and that meant a lot more to Ellie than having a man in her life who might cause her to lose too much of herself.
But meanwhile, without a man in her life, there was no one who was willing to make a baby with her.
So after a lot of studying the pros and cons and debating it with herself, she had decided to use artificial insemination to achieve her goal of motherhood.
She was secure in her job and very well compensated. She also had an excellent benefits package, so the idea of raising her child on her own was a reasonable one. She was also lucky to have developed strong friendships with several women on the island, too, and knew they would always be around when she needed them. So she wasn’t worried. She and her baby would comprise the perfect little family she had always wanted. Now she just needed some time off to get the job done.
“Ellie, are you going to tell me why you can’t just do it the—”
“Yes, yes, the old-fashioned way.”
