Read Surrogate and Wife for Free Online

guest. But I’ve got to warn you, in your condition, I don’t really think you should be sleeping on the sofa, and there’s only one bed. I may be willing to give up my social life for this, but I’m not willing to give up my bed.”
    Her mind reeled as he babbled on about the comforts of his bed. He wanted them to live together? How could she possibly maintain her equilibrium—her emotional distance—with him living under her roof?
    â€œNo. Absolutely not.” She shook her head, hoping she sounded very judicial, hoping her tone brooked no argument. “Cohabitation has disaster written all over it.”
    Either he didn’t pick up on her no-one-argues-with-the-judge attitude, or he just didn’t care. Because he said, just as firmly, “No, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right. If we’re legally married, but don’t live together, that’s way too suspicious. Hatcher—or someone else—will figure out something’s wrong.”
    â€œYou’re right, of course.” She sighed with resignation. “So what now?”
    â€œWe’ll need to have a real ceremony,” he said. It doesn’t have to be in a church if you don’t want it to, but we’ll both have to invite some friends. Preferably friends from work, so that plenty of people will know. We’ll need a story for how we met and why we’re getting married so quickly. We can mention the baby if you want, but we don’t want it to look like that’s the only reason we’re getting married.”
    â€œNot the only reason? You can’t expect people to believe we’re actually in love.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I expect them to believe. For this to work, we need to make people believe it.”

Four
    I n less than a week she’d be married.
    They’d tentatively scheduled the wedding for Friday at the courthouse. She’d make the appointment Monday when she went in to work. Sure, being married by a J.P. lacked romance, but in this case that wasn’t a bad thing. Besides, it had the added benefit of guaranteeing that everyone she worked with would know about the wedding within hours, Hatcher and the other district judges included.
    But no matter how many times she told herself this was the only solution, it did nothing to diminish the sinking feeling in her belly. Or her racing thoughts. She was getting married. To Jake Morgan of all people!
    Sunday night, as she lay in bed, trying to sleep, she couldn’t keep that one terrifying thought from pounding through her head.
    She’d gone to bed early, exhausted from spending theday emptying out her spare room for Jake. Despite her protests, he’d insisted on giving up his apartment entirely, since it would look suspicious to keep it. So all of his furniture would be incorporated into her house or kept in the storage shed out back. After all her work she’d been sure her fatigue would take over and allow her to sleep. Yet here she lay, eyes wide open, heart beating too fast, thoughts racing too quickly for sleep to settle over her.
    She felt so jittery, she actually jumped when the phone rang. Alarm shot through her as she snatched the phone from its cradle.
    â€œStew?”
    â€œNo, it’s Jake.” His voice sounded low and lazy through the phone lines. “Were you expecting Stew to call?”
    Soothed by the tone of his voice, she sank back against her pillow. “No. But usually no one calls this late, so…never mind. It’s silly.”
    â€œSo you assumed something was wrong with Beth?”
    â€œYes.” You only needed one alarming late-night phone call to fear them for life, and she’d had several. Mostly when she was young and she and Beth still lived with their mother. She didn’t like that he found her so transparent, so she quickly changed the subject. “Did you need something, Jake?”
    â€œI’m