The Movie Star's Designer Baby: A BWWM Pregnancy Romance (5 page)

“Well, I’ve never been one to go against all-knowing advice,” said Derrick as he climbed on top of her and sealed her lips with his.

Chapter Five

The next morning Gracie was on a plane back to Carolina feeling both elated and downhearted. If all had gone as planned, she would be getting a million dollars in nine months’ time; all she had to do was carry to term the baby that their day of passion had created. But at the same time Gracie felt she had lost something. Even though they had only just met, she felt like she and Derrick had bonded in some way that was more than sexual. She missed him already. She would just have to keep telling herself that it hadn’t been real. She was strong; eventually she would be able to forget him. Little did she know that at that moment Derrick Stone was on a plane headed in the opposite direction but thinking the exact same thoughts.

After returning from their trail ride, Derrick had disappeared to take care of some business. He would also be leaving the following day for a shoot in Canada and had a lot to settle at the ranch before taking his leave. But that night he had come to Gracie’s room where they made love for the third time and she had spent the night sleeping in his arms. The next morning neither of them knew quite how to act. Had this been a love affair or a business meeting? It was almost as if they had spent the weekend in some kind of blissful drunkenness. Now it was the classic morning-after syndrome and they both felt like awkward teenagers. Derrick had hugged her heartily and she had promised to call (his lawyers, that was) as soon as she had news. And that was that.

When the plane touched down on the east coast, Becca was waiting at the airport and beside herself with anticipation. She was the only person who knew about Gracie’s journey and she couldn’t wait to hear the details. She reminded Gracie of some excited little dog,  a Chihuahua or a dachshund,  whose owner had just come home from a long trip, begging for attention. Gracie wasn’t ready to divulge it all, though. The weekend had felt like some special dream and she didn’t just want to dish like it was common locker-room gossip. But in all their long years together she had never kept anything, big or small, from Becca- and vice versa- so she shared the general details about the ranch and the things she and Derrick had done together. She gave Becca the G-rated version, though, leaving out the sex parts.

“So he’s just, like, a regular guy?” said Becca, sounding disappointed.

“Yep,” said Gracie, thinking
he’s anything but regular, he’s kind and funny, and sexy, and when I’m around him I feel like I’m whole.
“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know, I guess I expected movie stars to be all arrogant, and condescending around plain old nobodies like us. I mean all that stuff they say in
In Touch
…”

“The stuff they say in
In Touch
is crap,” said Gracie, a little too quickly. She was thinking about how Derrick had joked unflappably about what the rags had said about his scandalous divorce.

“Geez, tell me how you
really
feel.”

“All I’m saying is, despite all the fame and the money Derrick is just a regular, down to earth guy who likes the same old things we do. He was really a lot of fun to be around and he never made me feel like I was beneath him. But anyway, it’s all done with now.”

“You sound a little disappointed,” observed Becca, raising one eyebrow.

“I guess I am. I mean, it’s not like I get to spend every weekend living like a movie star, staying in a fancy house and being waited on and all. I’m going to miss that.”
Screw living like a movie star, I’m going to miss
him.

They rode on in silence for a while before Becca spoke again. “Okay, so I know you’re avoiding it, but come on! Was the whole trip a success or not? You know, Main Operative, Mission: Make a Baby?”

“I guess we’ll see in a few weeks,” said Gracie simply. Becca may have been like a dog with a bone, but she knew her best friend well enough to see that on this front Gracie wouldn’t be moved.

Roughly two weeks later Gracie found herself waiting in an exam room at Genesis Women’s Care, the gynecology/obstetrics practice that Maxwell, Maxwell and Goldstein had set her up with all those months ago. Back at the beginning of the application process they had studied her family history with a fine-toothed comb to search out any red flags, performed any number of tests on her body, blood, and urine, poked and prodded her in the most private places, and calculated her menstrual cycles down to a science. Now she knew how the stinkbugs she had studied in Virginia must have felt. The powers that be must have found her up to par because it had all culminated in her trip to Derrick’s ranch. Now she was here for a pregnancy test. They had taken a urine sample and a blood sample for backup. The results would be sent to Derrick’s lawyers; now Gracie was impatiently waiting to hear for herself.

She felt like she had been sitting on this cold plastic exam bed forever, the paper sheet crinkling annoyingly with her every move. Funny how doctors’ offices always stressed that you arrive right on time just so that they could make you wait to be seen. Gracie had never been a big fan of doctors, and the string of impersonal, strictly clinical doctors she had seen at Genesis hadn’t helped sway her opinion. Along with that same hospital nervousness, she felt the butterflies in her stomach that had been with her on the plane to Montana. Her head was in turmoil. It had been fifteen days since she and Derrick had copulated (to put it in scientific terms) and she hadn’t had her period yet. So things were looking good. If she was, indeed, pregnant that would mean that the Main Operative
,
as Becca had put it
,
had been accomplished and she had proven to be the good little breeder animal that was expected. All she had to do was carry the baby to term, happy and healthy, and the million dollars would be hers. It wouldn’t even take a year of her life. But on the other hand if she wasn’t pregnant, that would mean she would see Derrick again…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft tap-tap on the door followed by Dr. Harris’s entrance- today’s doctor on the docket. Gracie’s heart was in her throat at the doctor shut the door behind her and took a seat in the chair to Gracie’s left.

Without glancing up from her clipboard, as if it held all the answers to the universe’s toughest questions, she said, “Well, Gracie according to the urine test it looks like you are
not
pregnant. It will be a few days until we get the blood test back but I can tell you right now that these results are pretty conclusive.” She glanced up from her notes and must have seen the crestfallen look on Gracie’s face. “I’m sorry, have you and your husband been trying long?”

Husband
. That was a joke. Gracie felt a sudden disdain for this woman and all the other doctors here who had treated her like a lab rat for the past so many months, scrutinizing her reproductive health and her sexual history, but never even bothering to notice if she wore a wedding band. She simply said, “No.”

“Well, the good news is you’re still fairly young and you have lots of time to keep trying. You know what they say, back to the drawing board.” Dr. Harris gave a tight-lipped attempt at a smile. Gracie didn’t know who
they
were, but they were right. How had she let herself hope that it would all work out perfectly after one try (or three)?

“I’m guessing that your missed period is just a result of stress. You should start any time in the next few days. However, if you’d like I can prescribe you something to prompt your menstruation.”

“No, thank you,” said Gracie. Her periods had always been like clockwork; she didn’t want any pills messing with the plumbing now. The doctor was right, she had had a lot on her mind the past few weeks, it was probably just the stress getting to her.

Gracie thanked the doctor and left the hospital feeling both empty and strangely optimistic.   If at first you don’t succeed, was probably Dr. Harris’ other stock motivational phrase. And try, try again was what she would have to do. She couldn’t say that the prospect upset her.

That night Gracie dreamed that she was in a stark white laboratory. The rows of fluorescent lights sent blinding reflections off the chrome
counter tops
and an array of stainless steel tools that she couldn’t recognize. Gracie had spent lots of time in labs, only she was usually the one wearing the white coat. In this dream she was in a big metal cage and she was completely naked. She tried the door and shook the cage walls but there was no way out. Three giant doctors entered and crowded around her, speaking to one another in some language she couldn’t comprehend and taking down notes on their massive clipboards. They pointed at her and made gestures, but no matter what she did they didn’t respond to her pleas for help.

Suddenly a set of giant hands came down and placed someone else in the cage with her. It was Derrick, and he was also naked. Relieved, she tried to speak to him, but he didn’t seem to be listening. Instead he slowly inspected the four corners of the cage before approaching her. She tried to hold out her arms to him, but he grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around. Pressing her against the side of the cage he inserted himself inside her began to pump against her. She was surprised to find that she was wet and ready for him and moved along with his thrusts. All the while the giant doctors commented and took down extensive notes. On the verge of climax, Gracie glanced down to see a horrible sight. Visible in the chrome tabletop, as clear as a reflection in a mirror, was an image of her and Derrick. Only instead of humans she saw two fat, hairy rats, one black and one white.

Gracie woke with a gasp. Her body was quivering and she could feel moisture between her legs. What had that been all about? She knew that dreams meant things, that they were the brain’s way of communicating unconscious fears, needs, and desires. She’d had sex dreams before, but never anything like this. Today’s trip to the doctor must have had a bigger effect on her than she had  thought. Gracie got up and went to the bathroom to splash water on her face. She realized then that she had started her period. There was her definite proof that there was no baby. And that meant that she would be seeing Derrick again, to play the role of lab rat and conceive his child. But after a dream like that, what was her brain trying to tell her? Could she still go through with it?

Chapter Six

Not her. Not her. Still not her. Damn.

Derrick could hardly contain his impatience. He felt like a teenager, anxiously waiting for his prom date to walk down the stairs in her taffeta glory. Dozens of women in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors came down the concourse from the arrival gate. Some of them were undeniably attractive and a past Derrick would have entertained the idea of walking up to one of them, introducing himself as A-list actor Derrick Stone, and taking her home. But that was a distant past Derrick; he liked to think he had grown out of that stage sometime in his twenties. Today he only had his mind on one woman, and not just because she was a guaranteed sure thing. He couldn’t deny the fact that he had missed Gracie.

Over the past month he had thought of her often, in spite of himself. Even when he had escorted pop princess Gilesa to the People Magazine Awards he had been thinking of Gracie. For all her pageantry and blatant sexuality, Gilesa had turned out to be a self-absorbed, whiny bore. He had wondered how Gracie would look in that barely-there sequined gown and concluded that her natural curves would have filled it out better than his stick person of a date. The thought of Gracie in Gilesa’s Versace had slightly turned him on, but when the pop star,  nearly fifteen years his junior,  drunkenly threw herself at him at the end of the night he respectfully declined. A past Derrick would have never done that. There was obviously something wrong with him.

Finally he saw her pass the security gate and head toward where he stood at the baggage claim. His heart leapt in his chest at the sight of her.
Down boy
, he though. She looked terrific in a blue and white striped sundress and denim jacket. It was no Versace, but Derrick thought it was the most perfect dress he had ever seen. She stopped and looked around, probably searching for George Jones or someone holding up a card reading
Gracie Johnston
. He knew she wasn’t expecting him. He had told his driver to take the day off, claiming that he had to go downtown anyway and was perfectly capable of handling the pickup himself. This was highly unprofessional and Al Maxwell would probably throw a fit if he found out, not to mention his agent Gary Carlisle. Carlisle believed in keeping his highest-profile clients cloistered like nuns, no fraternizing with the public. He hated when Derrick tried to do things for himself and insisted that that was what
employees
were for.

But today Derrick was in disguise, or so he thought. He wore his favorite faded jeans and a open-collared shirt, along with a battered leather cowboy hat pulled low to hide his face. He looked like any other Miami guy, maybe even a tourist. He had found that in public places people were less inclined to approach celebrities. It was the whole hiding in plain sight thing. No one expected to see a movie star hanging out in Miami International Airport alone on a Thursday afternoon, so nobody did. They might comment to their companion, “Hey that guy looks kind of like Derrick Stone.” And the companion might say, “Yeah but the nose is all wrong.” So far it was working for Gracie, she continued to scour the crowd but her eyes never landed on him.

He stood for a moment and enjoyed the sight of her before approaching. “Excuse me darlin’,” he said in his best Southern drawl, “but don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Before turning to face him Gracie began, “No, I’m sorry I don’t think…” Her eyes widened with recognition and her face lit with a wide smile. “Derrick! I didn’t expect you to be here. Where’s George?”

“I gave him the rest of the day off,” Derrick said. “You’re not disappointed I hope?”

“No, no of course not. I just didn’t think they let you mingle with the peons like this.”

Derrick laughed. “I do a lot of things
they
don’t approve of. If, that is,
they
refers to the people I,  for some reason,  pay to manage my life.” He wanted to hug her, but didn’t know if it would be appropriate. After all, they were still practically strangers, only meeting for the second time. The only reason for this second rendezvous was that their efforts had been unsuccessful the first time. Nothing more, nothing less. Instead they stood in awkward silence for a moment, taking each other in, until Gracie stuck out her hand.

“Good to see you again,” she said.

“Likewise. Anyway, I had to come downtown to do some errands, so I figured I could scoop you on the way. Plus I’m famished and there’s this great little cantina in Little Havana. I’ve been craving their boliche since last time I was in town.” Which was true but really he had just wanted to spend that little bit of extra time with her. He wanted to see her out in public, not just have her driven up to his estate like some kind of concubine. He wanted to hang out with her like normal people would. And for some reason he knew that the boliche would taste even better when he shared it with her. 

“Boliche, huh?” Gracie said as if she could see through Derrick’s lame excuse. She played along. “Cuban food’s not really my specialty, I’m more of a soul food kind of girl, but I’ll try anything once.”

They gathered Gracie’s luggage, more than just a carry-on duffel this time, loaded into his Jeep, and headed down the Dolphin Expressway. Derrick had suggested that she stay longer this time, not just a quickie weekend. This time he wanted to be sure she was pregnant before she went home. Two weeks would give them more time to work on their goal, and she would be there to take the pregnancy test instead of going home and having the results sent to him through his agents. It would also give him more time to get to know her but that part he didn’t mention to Al Maxwell. Maxwell had already balked enough at the idea. It wasn’t as if money was an issue for flying her all over the country to meet him, and Maxwell argued that taking up two weeks of Gracie’s life went beyond the parameters of the contract. Especially if Gracie didn’t agree to the arrangement. But she did agree, eagerly. A cousin of hers was home from college for the semester and would take over Gracie’s spot at the diner so Gracie could take a
vacation
.

At the cantina they ordered boliche with rice and fried sweet plantains. They both agreed that the boliche - a marinated chorizo-stuffed beef roast - was, in fact, delicious.

“I need to get this recipe!” claimed Gracie between bites. “Becca would just die.”

“The chef here is pretty tight-lipped with his recipes but my cook at the estate is Cuban and I bet he could give you something that equals it. He won’t be back in until Monday, though. This is another reason I wanted to eat out. I can make peanut butter and jelly, but that’s about it.”

              “I could cook for us,” Gracie offered. “As you can probably tell, I love food. It’s something I inherited from my Nana. She taught my brother Jerome and me everything she knows in the kitchen. He actually does most of the cooking in the diner now that Nana’s getting up there in years.”

“Well if you’re as good in the kitchen as you are in the bedroom…” Derrick started before remembering his manners. He cleared his throat and looked down to spear another bite of beef.

Gracie raised an eyebrow seductively, “Oh I excel in every room in the house, you can bet on that.”

Derrick nearly choked on his boliche.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Derrick nodded, reaching for his water.

“Thank goodness, that would be the second time I’ve nearly killed you.”

They were too busy laughing to notice the trio of Japanese tourists approaching their table.

“Excuse me?” said the tiny Asian woman. “Autograph?”

Oh no
. Derrick groaned inwardly. He thought he wouldn’t be recognized, especially here of all places.
Might as well grin and bear it.
He looked up with his best people-pleasing smile, but the woman walked right past him.

“You are, famous actress, yes? Halle Berry?” said the woman.

“No, no, no! I’m not Halle Berry, I’m sorry.”

“No Halle Berry?” said an equally diminutive Asian man, confused.

“No, not Halle Berry, sorry. I’m Gracie from North Carolina.”

“Oh so sorry!” The trio backed away, and Derrick and Gracie broke into a new fit of laughs.

“I thought for sure they had spotted me.” Derrick said.

“I guess you’re not as popular as Halle Berry in Japan!”

Without thinking Derrick leaned over the table and kissed her. The kiss was quick, he had taken her by surprise, but it was deep. “Halle Berry’s got nothing on you, Gracie.”