Love's Ultimatum - Chapter Two
February
The pencil snapped in Chuck's fingers Monday morning. Ledgers forgotten, he rose with the phone still pressed to his ear and walked around his desk to close his office door. He leaned against it. No one on the sixth floor of Bass industries needed to hear what he thought the women on the other end of the line had just said or his reply to her statement.
"I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?"
"I'm Lauren from Manhattan Fertility Clinic. Your wife has asked to be inseminated with your sperm," a cheerful female voice enunciated precisely as if he was an idiot. At the moment he felt like one.
His wife? He didn't have a wife. Not anymore. A familiar hollowness settled in his chest.
"Do you mean Blair?"
"Yes, Mr. Bass. She is asking for your sample."
Head reeling, he tried to break down this crazy conversation and make sense of it. First, why would Blair try to pass herself off as his wife when they'd been apart seven years? She'd been the one to file for devoice the minute the one year waiting period had passed. And second, there was the donation he'd made a on stupid dare from his friend Nate, years ago. Linking the two separate incidents boggled his mind.
"My 'sample' is ten years old. I thought you would have disposed of it by now."
"No, sir. It's still viable. Semen, if properly stored, can last beyond fifty years. But you did stipulate that your specimen not be used without your written consent. I'll need you to sign a form to release it to your wife."
She's not my wife. But he kept the rebuttal to himself. His company dealt with some extremely conservative clients. He had worked had to change his image over the years. One whiff of this story getting out and he could lose business - not something Bass industries could afford in these hard economic times.
He scanned the office - the last happy project he and his ex-wife had completed together. He and Blair had chosen the glass desk, the pair of cream leather sofas and the profusion of plants. Plants he'd managed not to kill - unlike his marriage. He and Blair had been a good team.
Had been. Past tense.
He intended to get to the bottom of this fiasco, but one thing was certain. Nobody was getting his frozen, ten year old sperm.
"Destroy the sample."
"I'll need your written consent for that , too," the faceless voice quipped back.
"Fax over the form. I'll sign it and fax it back."
"Give me your numbers and I'll get it right to you."
Chuck's mind raced as he gave the numbers by rote. He tried to recall the awful months surrounding Blair moving out, but much of it was a blur. He'd lost his hotel, his place as Bass industries CEO and his wife all within six months. A year after Blair had moved out he had received the divorce papers, reopening an unhealed wound. The old anger returned - anger toward Blair for giving up on them so easily and toward himself for allowing it to happen. He detested failure. None more then his own.
The fax machine in the corner beeped, signaling an incoming letter. He checked the letterhead. "It's here. I'll return it before the ink dries."
After ending the call, he whipped the sheets off the machine, read, signed, and then faxed them back.
His last memory of the divorce papers was of his brother promising to mail them after they'd sat on Chuck's desk for a month because Chuck hadn't had the heart to mail them and break the final link with Blair. What had happened to the documents after Eric took them?
The back of Chuck's neck prickled . Wait a minute. He didn't remember receiving a copy of the divorce decree. Hadn't his mother said something about getting an official notification in the mail?
He was divorced, wasn't he? But if so why would Blair lie to the clinic?
Lead settled in is gut. Blair had never been a liar. He reached for the phone to call his lawyer, but stopped. Todd would have to track down information and call back, and Chuck had never been good at sitting and waiting.
Eric was closer.
Chuck yanked open his door so quickly he startled his PA. "Joan, I'll be in Eric's office."
"Do you want me to call and see if he's free?"
"No. He'll make time for this." He'd damned well better make time.
Chuck's feet pounded on the black oak floors as he strode down the hall to the opposite side of the sixth floor and Eric's west corner office. He nodded to his brother's executive assistant, but didn't slow down as he passed her desk. Ignoring her squeak of protest, he barged into Eric's office without knocking.
His brother, with the phone to his ear, looked up in surprise, then held up his finger. Chuck shook his head and made an x with his forearms in the universal 'shut down' signal, then closed the door. Eric wrapped up his conversation.
"Problem?" he asked after he'd cradled the receiver.
"What did you do with y divorce papers?"
Eric jerked back in his chair. Surprise filled eyes that turned into wariness.
Chuck's gut clenched. "You did mail them, didn't you, Eric?"
Eric rose, exhaling a slow breath. He unlocked and opened a file cabinet drawer, then withdrew a sheaf of papers and swore under his breath. "No."
Shock rattled Chuck to the soles of his feet. "What?"
"I forgot."
His heart hammered in his chest and in his ears. "You forgot? How is that possible?"
Clutching the back of his neck, Eric grimaced. "I stalled initially because you were so broken up over losing Blair that I hoped once you two calmed down you'd resolve whatever issue drove you apart. Like you always had before."
Chuck's legs went weak. Flabbergasted, he sank into a leather chair and dropped his head in his hands.
Married. He was still married. To Blair.
A confusing swirl of responses swept through him. Tamping them down , he focused on the facts.
If Blair was passing herself off as his wife, then she must have known they weren't divorced. The question was, how long had she known, and why hadn't she called and chewed him out for not mailing the forms, or at the very least, set Serena on him?
"Chuck, are you ok?"
Hell no.
"Of course." he answered automatically. He'd never been one to share his problems. He wasn't going to start now.
As his shock slowly subsided, a completely different emotion took its place. Hope. No, it was more than that. Elation filled him like helium, making him feel weightless.
He and Blair weren't divorced.
After years of silence, he had a reason to contact her. A reason besides finding out why she'd tried to pull a fast on with his sperm. But for now it was enough to know they weren't divorced and she wanted to have his baby.
The surreal feeling left him reeling, "I'll call my lawyer and find out where I stand. I'm going to take a few days off."
"You? You never take time off. But as much as I hate to say it, now is not a good time."
"I don't care. The situation has to be dealt with. Now."
"I guess you're right. Again I apologize. If you'd ever demonstrated any real interest in another women, maybe it would have tripped my memory. Maybe not. It's a lousy excuse, but there it is. What brought on this sudden interest in your divorce? Serena didn't mention anything about Blair meeting someone new.
Chuck flinched. Logically, he knew Blair had probably dated since their separation, as had he, but the idea of her with other men filled him with a possessiveness that should have died long ago. He rose to his feet and took the document that should have ended his marriage and made an instant decision not to share the sperm news. His family was better off not knowing. If only to keep Serena from giving Blair a head start.
"I don't know Blair's plans. I haven't seen her in years." She'd wanted it that way. But now he would see her. His pulse accelerated at the prospect. He returned to his office and crossed straight to the shredder. Through the window above the machine, the sun glowed just above the roof lines in the distance. The symbolism of a new day and a new beginning didn't escape him. Losing Blair had been the biggest regret of his life. His younger brother's negligence had given Chuck the perfect opportunity to see if the attraction was still there and if so to win her back.
He fed the papers through the slot one page at a time, enjoying the whine and grind of the machine turning his biggest failure into crosscut paper fragments. When he finished he felt like celebrating. Instead, he sat down at his computer.
He needed to locate his wife.