Baby For The Bear

Chapter 5

With a final sweep of her pen on a final form, it was done.

Samantha could tell how pleased and excited Ken was that she had accepted to be his surrogate. He had gone so far as to cater the filling out and signing of the necessary forms to proceed. When she arrived at his office suite, she found him waiting for her in the “living room” area with a gourmet lunch spread out on the table. Again they seated themselves on opposite sides, but this time it was to enjoy roast beef, steamed and broiled vegetables, sliced fresh fruits, warm bread, and sparkling cider. They dug in, and when Samantha tasted the roast beef she recognized the recipe of the seasoning.

“This is from Metro Foods, isn’t it?” she asked.

A bit sheepishly, Ken admitted, “Yes, it is. All of it. I thought it might be appropriate, but suddenly it occurs to me that it might be a reminder. I hope you’re not offended…”

“No, you’re right,” she said. “There is something kind of…I don’t know…symbolic?…about having a lunch catered by the place where I worked before…you know…”

“Yes, I know,” Ken said. “I don’t usually make faux pas like that. There are a dozen other places in the city that I could have called to cater this…”

“Do you own them too?” asked Samantha, a little more pointedly than she thought she should. Uh-oh. Have I just blown this whole thing by asking that? Does he think I’m getting snarky with him?

To her relief, Ken responded only with a little chuckle. “No,” he replied, “Metro Foods is the only business of that kind that we own—here. There are other places that we either own or have an interest in…” He trailed off for a bit. “It really was a bit thoughtless of me, but the whole thing just came together so well: the whole circumstance of how you came to answer the ad and everything, and the fact that we own Metro Foods. And my…responsibility for your situation. And my being so excited that you were willing to be my surrogate…considering.” He paused, giving himself just a beat to admire the way Samantha’s hair fell over her shoulders. She was just so beautiful. “This is a special thing for me and I wanted it to be a special thing for you. And I wanted to show my appreciation for what you’re doing for me. If you think I should have called someplace else…I apologize.”

Again, he was surprising her. He really wasn’t at all the beast who had taken away her job and tossed her out. For a man who was also a bear, Ken was so…human. And so beautiful. It was all Samantha could do to stop herself from staring at him. She felt as if she could just sit and look at him all afternoon. And imagine all the things she would want him to do to her, and she would want to do to him, if he were just a man that she was fortunate enough to meet.

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “I really think there’s something…right…about having food from Metro when we’re just about to start this. It kind of…I don’t know…means something, because you buying the company is what brought us together.”

Samantha stopped talking at that moment and looked down awkwardly at the deliciousness on her plate instead of over at the deliciousness on the other side of the table. It was her choice of words that was making her feel awkward now: Brought us together? Did she really have to put it that way?

“I’m glad you think so,” said Ken. And it was all he could do to stop himself from reaching across the table and lifting her face back up to look him in the eye again. That face should always be looking right at him with all that blonde loveliness. Something was stirring inside Ken, something besides the usual all-consuming arousal that he felt in the presence of females like Samantha. There was something about this female, of all females, being willing to do for him what Samantha had committed herself to doing. There was not a part of this room where Ken had not been naked with some female, on her back with her legs in the air, submitting to his impassioned humping and thr*sting. He wasn’t about to bring it up to her, in light of what their relationship would be, but Ken had so much more to offer this Samantha Vance than just the compensation specified in the contracts she would be signing after lunch. So much more…

They finished lunch talking about other things. Ken tried to steer the conversation away from himself and take an interest in her, but Samantha’s curiosity asserted himself and she asked him things about where he’d gone to school, how he had come up in the family business, other things his family owned. It pleased him that she wanted to know more about him, as much he wanted to know more about her. For a while there was no more talk of Samantha’s situation or her forthcoming experience with this scientific matchmaking of her eggs and his sperm or, eventually, as the expectant mother of his cub. All of that waited for the end of lunch, when Ken had a Brecker company intern come in and clear the table—and then he returned to his desk and produced the paperwork and a pen for Samantha.

“I’ll go over to my desk so I won’t be sitting here, hovering, watching you fill these things out,” said Ken, putting the documents and the pen on the table. “You can stay here and work on those, and if you have any questions I’ll be right over there.”

Samantha picked up the pen, sizing up the task sitting in front of her: legal forms, medical forms, a work contract, a form for the direct deposit of her stipend and eventual fee. She had her work cut out for her with them. “Okay,” she softly said. “I’ll just get started, then.”

“Good,” Ken said, stepping away, back towards where they had talked the first time.

He settled down behind his desk and brought up some work on his computer, and resisted the temptation to watch Samantha from the corners of his eyes; an effort in which he was only partly successful. Over at the table, Samantha likewise made herself concentrate on the forms on the table and not the handsome, hunky form in the business suit on the other side of the suite.

And with one last signature on one last piece of paper, she was finished.

Putting down the pen, looking up and over at him, she called, “All done…Ken.” There, she’d called him by his first name again. Calling him by his first name felt better than it had any business feeling. Ken. It was so short, so right-to-the-point, so perfectly male. He was just such an absolute Ken.

Smiling, he returned to the table and accepted the papers back from her. He leafed through them, his smile carrying on, and said, “It looks like everything is in order, Samantha. It looks like we’re ready.”

And he moved his eyes from the documents to Samantha, sitting there looking up at him. He offered her his hand, and she took it and stood up. The strength she sensed in his hand, she knew, was only a hint of the strength that lurked in the muscles under that suit.

“The appointment with the fertility center has been made for tomorrow,” he told her. “With the forms in place, we have everything we need. All that’s left is the procedure.”

“Right,” said Samantha. “The procedure. I guess…you won’t be needing me for anything else ’til…tomorrow.”

Ken nodded. “Yes, that’s all I’ll be needing…for now.”

It was then they both noticed Samantha’s hand was still in his. Ken blinked at their clasped hands and let go. There were any number of other things he might “need,” but they were quite outside the scope of the agreement they’d just made.

To divert their attention from the moment, Ken said, “I’ll be sending someone to pick you up for our appointment in the morning. I’ll call you and let you know when they’re on their way.”

“You don’t need to go to the trouble,” said Samantha. “I can drive myself, no problem.”

“I insist,” he told her. “For something as special and important as this, I want to make it special as it is. Be ready in the morning and I’ll let you know when the car is there.”

The memory of her hand in his lingered as if it were still there. Something in his voice sounded like his touch. “All right,” Samantha said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”