Nine Months to Bear By Nicole Fox - 7

7

“A surrogate,” Stefan corrects, like he’s explaining something to a particularly slow child.

I shake my head to clear the cobwebs. “You want me to find you a surrogate?”

“In a manner of speaking. I suppose you were right at the start. The surrogate is a means to an end. I want an heir.” His voice is matter-of-fact, as if he’s ordering coffee, not a human being.

“What kind of business do you think I run, Stef—” I catch myself. “Mr. Safonov?”

The almost-familiarity charges the air between us. All I can think is, This must be a mistake. Actually, everything about this interaction has been a mistake. The shooting lesson. The proximity. The moment our eyes met and I thought⁠—

Well, what exactly did I think? That there was something other than self-interest driving his decisions?

“I know exactly what kind of business you run. Your clinic has resources. Contacts. A reputation for discretion.” He leans against the stall divider, but his eyes never leave mine.

“My clinic helps women with fertility issues,” I correct. “We’re not a—a breeding program for billionaires playing eugenics bingo!”

My indignation rises to fill the space where my professional composure should be. This must be why he insisted on the shooting lesson first: to get me off-balance, to create false intimacy, to make me malleable.

The worst part is that it almost worked. For half an hour, I forgot who and what Stefan is.

A man who thinks everything has a price.

“Your high horse is adorable, Dr. Aster,” he says, pulling up his phone. “But let’s discuss reality.”

On the screen are my clinic’s financials—every overdraft and denied loan highlighted in red. My stomach drops to my scuffed shoes.

How on earth did he get this information? What else does he know?

“Your clinic is months from bankruptcy. Dr. Walsh is circling like a vulture. You know what you need to do to get out, which is why you’re here. The Mass Gen partnership you’re chasing?” His smile is cruel now, nothing like the almost-warmth I thought I glimpsed earlier. “It could be yours. I could hand it to you on a silver fucking platter without even blinking. Or it could vanish. Without me, everything you’ve built collapses within six weeks. It’s your choice: financial ruin, or one simple favor.”

My nails bite into my palms as I weigh his words. Six weeks. That’s all I have left before my dream crashes and burns.

For one shameful moment, I consider it. How easy it would be to just say yes. Just forget my principles for long enough to save everything I’ve built—what’s the harm in that?

I could play the game the way Dr. Walsh did when she pretended she cared, when she walked alongside me as I conducted my research and built my client roster, only to steal it all out from under me with a smile on her face.

“You don’t understand,” I had told her then, watching her pack up my life’s work. “These aren’t just patients. These are women who trust us. People who have put their faith and their families in our hands.”

“No, Olivia,” she’d replied, scorn and pity in her eyes. “You don’t understand. Money is the only language that matters in this world. You speak it or you die.”

Standing before Stefan Safonov, I see the same devil’s bargain in front of me. The same invitation to compromise wrapped in the guise of practicality.

And for a heartbeat, I waver.

I think of my last patient—a waitress with PCOS who wept when she saw her viable embryo on screen. “That’s my baby,” she’d whispered, hope blooming in her eyes for the first time in years.

She came to my clinic because we don’t cut corners. Because we don’t see women as walking incubators. Because we believe every woman deserves the chance to make her own choices about her body, her future, her family.

That’s why I didn’t crumble when Dr. Walsh stole everything. And it’s why I’m not backing down now.

I will not pimp out wombs to mobsters playing Dynasty Tycoon.

“You want a child?” I grab the contract, my resolve hardening with each syllable. “Try Tinder. But if you think I’ll sell my soul for your checkbook…” I rip the contract in half. The sound is supremely satisfying in the quiet room. “Think again, Safonov.”

Shadows gather in the hollows of his cheekbones. “You’re making a mistake.” He rises, looming over me, close enough that I can see the individual bands of color in his heterochromatic eye. “I’m offering you everything you need. You need me, Dr. Aster. I don’t need you.”

“No.” I stand my ground, even as my knees threaten to buckle. “You’re offering to own me. My clinic helps women take control of their fertility. Their choices. Their futures. I won’t compromise that. Not even for you.”

Something flickers in his eyes—respect? Frustration? But his voice stays glacial. “Then I suggest you start looking for new office space. Commercial rent in Boston is brutal this time of year.”

I shouldn’t feel betrayed. I’m no worse off than I was thirty minutes ago. He is exactly what I knew he was—exactly like all those other people at the gala.

“Goodbye, Mr. Safonov.” I turn, proud that my voice doesn’t shake. “Thank you for the shooting lesson. Next time someone tries to strong-arm me, I’ll know exactly where to aim.”

I don’t run. I don’t look back, either, but as much as I’d like to pretend otherwise, I can’t help but acknowledge the weight of his stare and the way my hands still tingle where he touched them.

It’s not until I’m in my car that I let myself tremble. The memory of his warmth bleeds into the chill of his threats. I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles whiten, trying to forget how right it had felt, being in his arms.

For one dangerous moment, I’d wanted to lean back, turn my head, and find out if his mouth would be as gentle as it looked or as cruel as I’d heard it can be.

I start the engine. Time to go back to reality. I’ve got a struggling clinic and endless paperwork and patients who need me to be strong.

I need to forget Stefan Safonov.

But as I drive away from his house, I can still smell gunpowder on my clothes. I can feel the phantom press of his palm against my stomach. Hear his voice, rough with approval.

Good. You’re a natural.

Some lessons, it seems, are harder to unlearn than others.

And some men—the most dangerous kind—make you wish, just for a moment, that you were the type of woman who could say yes to the devil.