The elevator's doors opened with a low noise, allowing Lacey to walk through the corridor which led to Gold's office. She stepped out, inhaled deeply and went straight to the counter where a beautiful blonde woman was. Biting at her lip, Lacey stood in front of her, expecting to get her attention, but she seemed too preoccupied with the papers she was flipping through to see her. The brunette waited for another couple of seconds before cleaning her throat and making the assistant look up.
"Can I help you?" She asked, her badge indicated that her name was Ashley.
"Yeah, I need to see Mr. Gold."
Putting the papers aside, the assistant moved to the desktop and tipped something, opening some kind of virtual schedule, before turning back to her. "Do you have an appointment?"
"Mm, no," the brunette contemplated. "My name is Lacey, I'm a friend of his."
"A friend?" Ashley chuckled, looking her up and down as if she had decided that Lacey definitely wasn't the sort of person Gold would have as a friend. "I'm sorry, but if you want to see him, you need to book an appointment."
There was a small part of her conscience telling Lacey that she should do as the girl was saying and go home without causing a scandal in the office of the most incredible man she had ever met, but this voice belonged to her old self, the one who would curl on her bed with a book and cry all the day after the terrible week she had, her newest self was the one who cared about nothing else right now but getting to see Adam, whatever the cost.
"Really, do you want me to start screaming his name until I'm heard?" The brunette coerced.
And in that moment the doors opened, and Gold stepped into the waiting room with a tall man by his side, too distracted with their conversation to notice her presence at first.
"I'll see you as soon as all the documents arrive, Mr. Humbert, and…" he trailed off, training his eyes on her, standing in front of the counter. "Lacey, what are you doing here?"
From behind the counter the blonde attendant seemed to shrink. "I'm sorry, Mr. Gold. I've tried to tell her that you don't see anyone without an appointment."
He waved his hand at the attendant, dismissing her, and fixing his gaze on Lacey, admiring how pure, clean, and shiny she looked. That night they spent together at the bar and the library, she was all made up and dressed for a night out, but today she seemed to be trying very hard to look better than that. Her dark-blue dress was still very short but it wasn't as tight as the other, and she was wearing a cream colored jacket that matched her small high heels.
"It's alright, Ashley, cancel the next appointment, I'll talk to Lacey," he said with a smirk, walking towards the brunette and placing his hand on her back, nodding to his other client. "Good afternoon, Mr. Humbert."
He opened the door, leading Lacey through the corridor until they reached his office, a spacious room with an oak desk, a row of bookshelves and comfortable velvet armchairs. He gesticulated for her to sit in a chair adjacent from his desk.
"Thank you, for having me," Lacey smiled nervously, taking a seat and crossing one leg over the other.
"I have to confess that I didn't expect to see you here," he spoke as he reached for the coffee pot, pointing to it. "Coffee?"
Shaking her head, the girl declined his offer. "No, thanks."
He got a cup for himself before sitting in front of her with that welcoming smile that made her heart race. "So, what brings you here?"
She felt as if she was going to throw up and considering that it had already happened a couple of times that week, she didn't doubt she wouldn't. Her glance fell to the paper bag in her hands, and she took a deep breath before placing it on the desk between them.
"I'll get straight to the point, so open the package, please."
Gold raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he picked it up and opened the bag, taking the small box out. His breath got caught in his throat as he reached for the contents in the box - a thin stick with the two faint pink lines.
"A pregnancy test," he mumbled under his breath.
"Yes," Lacey confirmed, grasping at the arms of the chair, her palms growing damp with perspiration. She was waiting for a big reaction, she thought that he might scream at her or immediately throw her out of his office, but Gold was calm, even though she could see something that resembled panic in his brown eyes. "If you don't know the meaning of the signal - "
"Oh, I know the meaning, sweetheart, that's for certain," Adam assured her, placing it back on the desk and looking straight at her. "This is from that night at the library?"
And though she'd despaired over her situation, he still managed to make her smile. Her hand gravitated to her flat stomach, and she was glad that out of every man she knew it was Gold who had fathered the baby she was carrying.
"You have a peculiar way of trying to ask me if the child is yours without offending me. But I wouldn't be here if I wasn't sure that it was," Lacey said sincerely. "However, I'll understand if you want to take a paternity test after the baby is born."
"Your word is enough for me," Gold assured her. "So…"
He couldn't manage to complete a whole sentence anymore; he was stupefied, both wanting to slap himself for being so stupid and impregnating a twenty-five-year-old girl he met at a bar and wanting to hug her and kiss her, assuring Lacey that everything would be fine and they would have a beautiful baby that he would love very dearly. The words just wouldn't come while he was still in shock, but when she started to speak, he decided that it was better if he didn't say anything at all.
"Look, I've been thinking about this ever since I found out some days ago, and I can't do this Gold. I can't be a mother; my life is too screwed up for that. A kid deserves a happy childhood."
Gold swallowed, trying to understand what she'd just said. "I – I thought we were keeping it."
Lacey breathed in, and he could see the shattered girl from the bar coming to surface. "Well, I'm here because you already have a boy, so I guess you like children, so if you want it, I'm giving this baby to you the moment he or she is born. But please, don't feel pressured to do it. I've read a lot about the adoption system, and they can do the work as well."
"Great," he grumbled with a gasp. "I truly don't believe what I'm hearing."
For six weeks, he had been trying to cope with the fact that his ex-fiancée didn't want custody of their son and preferred to see him during the weekends, and now he sat in his freaking office, hearing this girl tell him she was thinking of giving his unborn child away. This couldn't possibly be real.
"You don't need to feel pressed," Lacey repeated.
"Yeah, I don't, but you come here and tell me that you're expecting my child and want me to analyse the situation coldly?" He shouted back at her angrily.
"Mr. Gold - " Lacey muttered, shrinking.
"Adam," he corrected. "You called me Adam that night, call me Adam now."
"Adam, right," she nodded. "I'm just offering you another solution if you don't want it."
An offer, he asked himself if it was all for her or if she was just hiding herself under her shell again. But he couldn't evaluate it properly right now. He was too pissed off, and he was too worried about what he should do next.
"The mother of my first child just left me at the altar six weeks ago; I'm trying to deal with my own problems, and you want me to decide if I want to raise two children all alone or throw an innocent babe into the system?"
"I'm sorry, it was a mistake," she said grabbing her purse and standing up, tears shinning in her eyes. "I shouldn't have come here."
Eyes closing for a brief moment, Gold commanded: "Lacey, sit, please."
When he looked at her again, she was sitting, tears running down her cheeks, her trembling hands gripping nervously at the handle of her purse.
"I know what you think," Lacey started, "but I'm not being selfish, if I was I would have been looking for abortion clinic on the internet, instead of coming here to humiliate myself and ask if you want this baby, but I want our child to live, and I really wanted to be able to be its mother, I'm just not the motherly type."
"Oh, Lacey," he whispered, fighting against the urge of going to her and pulling her into his embrace. Now he had some priorities. "Have you drank anything these past few days?"
She shook her head. "No, I haven't drank anything ever since that night."
"Why not?" he asked, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.
"I didn't feel like I wanted to," Lacey shrugged before pointing at her belly. "And then, this happened."
"Then this happened," Gold repeated, looking down at the pregnancy test on his desk with an idea coming to his mind. "I'll offer you a deal. You go to my house and stay there until the baby comes; I'll provide you with everything you need during that time, and I'll make sure you won't go near a glass of whiskey."
Lacey laughed weakly, still shedding some tears. "After that, you get the child?"
"Yes."
"And you'll raise it and love it?" She questioned, catching her lower lip between her teeth.
"Aye," Gold agreed. "Do we have a deal?"
He wasn't sure if she was going to accept that, given all his conditions, but if they were going to do this, then he would make sure that his child was safe and healthy from the very start.
"We do."
"I'll make a contract," Gold said, opening his laptop.
"A contract?" Lacey inquired. "I thought my word was enough for you."
"It is, but if the child is to be mine, I need a paper signed that guarantees me of that."
With a nod, she agreed, though she felt it was wrong.
…
Lacey went straight back to Gold's office after she closed the library. She had spent the day trying to convince herself that she was doing the right thing by making this crazy contract with him, but she was still uncertain. When she let herself fall into a chair in the waiting room with a loud sigh, Ashley looked at her inquisitively, but didn't say a thing, only plucked a piece of chocolate from her purse and took a bite of it. Gold appeared a whole hour later, carrying a laptop bag.
"You're here," he said as if surprised.
"We have a deal," she reminded him. "You said that I should go to your house tonight."
"Yeah, right. We shall stop at yours first, so you can pack some things."
Lacey nodded, standing up to follow him to the elevator. There wasn't a single part of her that wasn't nervous about his. Some weeks ago, they were having a half-drunk conversation at a bar that led to some incredible sex in the library and now they were here, their lives turned upside down more than ever before.
"Have you spoke with the runaway bitch?" She said in an attempt to alleviate the awkwardness of the situation, but her words seemed to startle him.
"Her name is Milah."
"I know, I just - " Lacey shook her head. "Forget it."
The elevator's doors opened, and they went straight to Gold's car, which was parked in front of the building. He greeted the security guard before opening the door for her, and allowing her to settle herself inside. For some reason, she suspected that if she wasn't expecting his child, they would have never seen each other again after that night at the bar. They didn't speak during the car ride to her house. She only opened her mouth to say the address and then the car was drowned in silence, her thoughts making her compare how different their lives were. Gold had been at that bar out of sheer coincidence. She had been there for too long, drinking to forget all of her problems.
As they stopped in front of her house, Lacey looked down at her belly and sniffled, remembering that she hadn't yet told her father that she was pregnant, but now he would probably be too drunk or passed out to mind her presence at home.
"Are you sure your father will be alright with you leaving?"
"He won't even notice," she muttered bitterly. "As long as I come here once a week to bring food, I could move to California, and he wouldn't realize that I was gone."
"I know how it feels," Gold said emphatically, but she didn't know exactly what he meant.
Opening the car door, she went inside the house, finding Moe sleeping on the couch, her eyes narrowing as she felt the nauseating smell of beer all around the living room. There were three empty bottles on the floor near him, but Lacey bet that he had way more than that. She sighed and walked towards the hallway to her room, packing some essentials, before going back to the car, with only one suitcase.
"That's all you have?" Gold asked, glancing at her bag when she placed it in the backseat.
"Obviously not," Lacey answered with a roll of her blue eyes, "but I don't have any more suitcases, and I can always come here to take more clothes when I need them."
He nodded wordlessly and started driving again. Lacey pulled her jacket around her lithe frame, feeling cold as she leaned her head against the window, watching the landscape swiftly passing by.
"We need to find a doctor to check on you," Gold stated in a low voice. However she was so sleepy by the lulling of the engine that she didn't realise that her eyes were almost closed. "I want to make sure that this baby is fine."
"As you wish, Mr. Gold," she muttered.
"And there is something else," he added, "my son will definitely not understand this situation. He is four and just watched his mother move away with her boyfriend, so I don't want him to be confused about us too."
She snorted at the thought of such a young boy having such a tough life. But she didn't let her bitter tone show because of it. "Alright, so I shall hide in your attic and only come out when he is not around?"
"That's not what I meant," Gold defended himself. "I'll tell him you're a friend of mine who is helping me to give him a little sibling."
"Yeah, that explains everything perfectly as long as he is over the old stork story," she mocked. "But seriously, Adam, I'll do whatever you want to keep this deal up, I just really want to have this child instead of putting it up for adoption."
Lacey meant every single word she said. He had a stable life, money, was maybe still heartbroken over all the things that had happened lately, but for the short time she had spent with him, she could say that Adam had a big warm heart with enough love to father a child. And if she wasn't sure that she would ruin the kid if she was around after the birth, she acknowledged that he was already a good father, and he didn't need her. She would only make things worse if she stuck around.
She had an amazing mother for years and knew how to distinguish what was a good childhood and what wasn't. The life Lacey had to offer to her child now surely didn't fit into the good side, and as a girl who had dealt with an alcoholic father for years, she wasn't going to give herself the chance of becoming the female version of Moe French.
Glancing at Gold out of the corner of her eyes, she saw that his lips were pressed into a thin line, but he tried to give her a half smile, though he appeared to be terribly haunted, he still looked handsome. "Well, prepare yourself to meet my little Baden."
