1. The problem

Love has no cure, but it is the only cure for all ills. Leonard Cohen.

It seemed stupid to her to be forced to have a child. Having to prove to his father that he could have a genetic inheritance was not something Ayden Emory cared about. It was enough that he was one of the best businessmen in the United States, awarded many times for his business skills, and to top it off, he was running the family company with excellence.

Wasn't that enough?

Ayden laughed as he left his father's office, he may be an excellent businessman and have many awards, but he knows what good is nothing when it comes to negotiating with the man who taught him everything he knows.

“Katty, call my lawyer,” he ordered over the loudspeaker to his assistant. Tell him to meet me at my house in an hour.

He hangs up.

She doesn't wait for them to say okay, much less say thank you. After all, they are just employees and do as they are told. He gets into his car and drives from his father's mansion on the outskirts of the city to the heart of Manhattan along 5th Ave.

He slows down upon arrival and hands the keys to his Aston Martin to his doorman for safekeeping. Likewise, he goes up to his apartment and searches directly on the internet for something that will give him an answer to what he needs, a son.

“I'm old and sick” he remembers his father's words as if he were standing next to him.

“Old blackmailer” solves out loud.

He leaves his laptop on the table and walks straight to his bedroom, takes off one of the hundreds of suits he wears daily, and leaves his chest bare, wearing only a tracksuit. He goes to the floor of his gym and stares at himself in the mirror.

“My body is mine, I'm fine, this is mental,” he says to the image in front of him. My body is mine, I'm fine, this is mental.

He repeats this over and over until the doorbell rings. He goes down to the second floor and opens it for his flamboyant and arrogant lawyer.

“Daniel, it's good to see you here,” he greets, opening the door. Come in, I've ordered pizza. It doesn't take long to arrive.

Daniel, who knows perfectly well Ayden's secret, waits for him to advance so as not to invade his personal space.

“That's nice, but tell me, why did I come here?” One of Daniel Cheng's qualities is that he doesn't beat around the bush.

Ayden walks to his kitchen table, picks up his laptop, and sits down right in front of his lawyer in the living room. She puts the screen in front of him and Daniel looks at it carefully, as if studying it.

“Do you want to adopt?” He asks, confused.

“No, that's not an option,” he clarifies, remembering that his father demanded that having an adopted child was not a possibility. He wanted to carry on the bloodline and have his grandchild inherit absolutely everything from them. I need a surrogate.

Daniel blinked, understanding his favorite client's words. She was making him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

“Are you convinced this is what you want?” his lawyer asks hesitantly.

“No, but it's what I need to get my father to leave me the whole company,” he clarifies, causing Daniel to be surprised. “He is dying, and he wants me to assure him that the family inheritance will not be lost in a government fund. He wants me to get married and have a family. You know about me…” he pauses, for he would rather not say out loud what they both already know. “It is more than clear that I will never be able to be intimate with a woman so. This is an option.”

“But what about your brother?” He might be able to give him the grandson that old Gerard wants.

Ayden stands up, laughing at that comment.

“Well, you know my father barely tolerates it… and the truth is that I don't either,” he confesses without any shame.

All those short answers make Daniel understand the situation better. He was unaware that Gerard Emory was dying. He would have to ask his father if he already knew. Having Emory as clients were no accident. The Cheng had made a name for themselves in the city thanks to both father and son working as their lawyers.

“I have to be honest Ayden, you are single and that is a big problem when it comes to finding the right woman. You have no references for what kind of women you like because you've never been in a relationship,” he says, recalling his last surrogacy conference in New York State. "You need eggs, and I'd like to know if you want the mother to donate them or do we have to get them."

Ayden hadn't thought about it, so she hesitates for a moment.

“If the mother donates them, does she have to be involved after the birth?” She asks in the hope that this is not the case.

“Of course not, we can define the contract to be as you want it to be.” she clarifies, making Ayden hopeful.

“Okay, look it up, offer a good sum,” he warns, hopefully. I want to clarify that once I have my son, we will not see her again.

“Okay, I'll put my people to work,” Daniel says, standing up.

“No, I want this to be private, I don't want anyone to know,” he remarks ostracized. And one more thing, I want to interview her personally.

Daniel has hundreds of other questions, but he doesn't ask them, he knows just enough to look for that surrogate. How he will raise a child who needs to be carried when he will not tolerate being touched is none of his business.

The pizza arrives, and both men savor it while clarifying some other clauses of the contract. Like the care, the hospital, and the needs of the mother, from clothes shopping to body massages.

“I really want to pamper the woman who will carry my child in her womb,” assures the millionaire. I only ask that she be an intelligent woman, preferably, and that she doesn't have degenerative diseases. Look for her.

☆ﾟ･*:.˛˚ღღﾟ~εïз~ ღღﾟ･*:｡.･*.･*.☆

Arya lies excitedly at the university's awards ceremony, the I* Nobel. Everything seemed to be going for the best. The prize around psychology was about to be named when a call on her cell phone interrupts her musings about the future winner.

“Hello,” he answers as he picks up the call.

“Are you Arya Harley?” asks a female voice on the other end of the line.

“That's right.”

“Your mother, Mirella Harley, has suffered a mishap at the mall. She collapsed and has been taken to the Carney Clinic,” the woman explains calmly.

“Is she all, right?” She asks, feeling fear creep up her spine and breaking out in a cold sweat.

Her heart is racing, and she is afraid for her mother. She is the only person who loves her unconditionally. She is his anchor.

After knowing the basics, he hangs up to head to the clinic.

“Hey, wait!” asks her best friend when she sees her slipping out of the crowd to leave.

“I can't, I have to go, my mother is sick! Arya declares, leaving the room and leaving behind the long” awaited prizes.

As she moves to the clinic, she cannot stop thinking about her mother's well-being. She has been ill for months, but due to the lack of good medical insurance, she has not been able to be treated as she should.

When he arrives at the clinic, he is informed that his mother is in a delicate but stable condition, which somehow reassures him. When he can see her, he enters the room to find that his mother is asleep, resting.

There was a time when his family was doing well, his father was a great protector and provider. His brother was loving and caring to the women in his family, and his mother baked pizzas every Saturday night. She missed those times when they lived in Cary, North Carolina.

Everything was perfect, until the mobile technology company his father worked for closed. He was transferred to one of their branches in Boston, but a car accident, while they were on vacation, damaged his eyesight and he could no longer work.

He fell into excesses. Bankruptcy soon came, and they had to move neighborhoods, thus arriving at their current residence. His brother began to associate with bad company and his father began to disappear. They were already seven years old and living in deplorable conditions. Her mother's health was declining, and her depression from her experiences prevented her from even going out to work.

Arya felt on the verge of collapse and sometimes thought it would be best to take her mother and disappear altogether. After all, her father and brother didn't care about them.

Waiting for her mother to wake up, she rereads the mail from a few days ago. She had been accepted as an exchange student in her last year. She was to go abroad, specifically to Germany. Not only that, but she was happy and worried at the same time; she would rather not leave her mother alone.

Furthermore, she imagined her life in Germany, away from her family problems and meeting new people. Besides the experience of learning about German medicine, which is said to be very sophisticated.

“How will I pay for the semester?” She asks no one in particular, looking out the hospital window.

All her life she had wanted to enter that university and now that she has finally achieved her dream, it appears that life has been determined to snatch it away from her.

“Miss Harley?” asks a doctor as he enters the room. Arya only nods and approaches him, who guides her on her way to the corridor. Perhaps so her mother won't hear.

“Are there any other family members with you?”

“No, it's just my mother and me. Are you going to tell me what happened?” She takes a brief look at her mother.

“She had a cardiac arrest; she is feeble and needs surgery.”

Arya feels her whole world collapse.

The doctor starts talking and explaining what can happen, she as a medical student is aware of the terms, they tell her, and is aware of the pros and cons.

Arya had hundreds of questions, firstly, about her mother's health and then the cost of all the procedures they do on her. It is impossible for her to cover that totality. She doesn't make enough money cleaning houses, and then there's college and the overseas exchange.

“God, I'll have to drop out of school,” she thinks to herself.

“Wait, how much will all this cost?”

The doctor looks at her carefully before answering.

“I don't know if you have insurance, but if you don't, this will cost you a fortune,” he says bluntly.

“How much?” Arya asks again.

“They will tell you later”

“Please, I need to know!” The young woman with faded and tousled hair begs.

“At least fifty thousand dollars because as I said, he may need surgery if he gets worse. If not, it could cost you a few thousand dollars,” she says in a low voice, and then leaves for good.

Arya walks to the nearest chair and lies down in it. She calls her friend, who had previously told her about how her cousin had made a fortune doing nothing.

“Maybe what she did will help me in some way,” she thinks as she texts Eleanor.

She has no options, it would be whatever it was her friend's unknown cousin did or whoring herself out for a long period of time. And even then, who would want to have sex with a scruffy, skinny girl with no outstanding physical appearance beyond the freckles under her eyes?

Eleanor arrives as quickly as possible, concerned for her friend. Arya relates to her what happened, as well as her supposed exchange abroad. She cries inconsolably, as she feels sad, lonely, and devastated. She knows she must be strong, but she doesn't know how to be.

“Would you tell me what your cousin did to earn money?” Arya finally asks. “I'm desperate, Eleanor,” she declares in a whisper as she sips.

“What would you be willing to do to get the money you need?” She asks carefully, the last thing she wants is for her friend to see her as a madwoman.

“I'm desperate, at this point I'd do anything, we have nothing to eat,” the frustration was almost palpable in every word.

Eleanor takes a breath and searches for the right words to tell her friend. The look of desperation on her face is what convinces her.

“My cousin has earned her money by being a surrogate mother, she has had a surrogate pregnancy,” she emphasizes the word money to make it more appealing to Arya. Her friend looks at her with disbelief and even disgust, how does she think she would lend herself to such a thing? The baby's parents paid for everything, food, doctor's appointments, prenatal therapy, travel, everything, moreover amount. That could get you through your senior year of school.

“Eleanor, I'm a senior, do you think I would have a child just to get money? That's so far” fetched in so many ways.

Arya stands up feeling insulted, when she said “whatever” she meant legal things.

“It wouldn't be yours…” her friend clarifies from her place, as she gathers everything. You would only lend your womb to gestate the baby. The egg is already fertilized.

“I know what the process is, I remind you that we studied medicine,” she says, raising her voice. But can you imagine having to spend the last year pregnant? That's crazy.

“Well, I was only giving you a choice,” Eleanor says, standing up and walking next to her friend. I know you're having a hard time; I've seen you not eating and how thin you are, I know you're having problems at home and if I could, you know I would help you more.

“I know, and I appreciate your good heart, but I have to be able to do something, I will think about it and I will find another solution,” she says without the certainty that this will be the case.

After talking a little more about it, Eleanor goes back home, leaving the matter gnawing at Arya's mind. Then she remembers her scholarship, the one that would give her the semester's tuition, money for her mother, and her pass abroad.

“Maybe that will be enough to cover mom's expenses, the rest can wait, it's not the end of the world,” She thinks to herself as she leaves the clinic searching for the nearest ATM.

He had only set aside ten dollars to pay for one of his mother's medications, and the rest was saved. He enters his password and then it hits him.

She feels her heart skip a beat and tears slowly fall as she sees her account at zero. Everything she had been stolen.

“How is this possible?” he asks nothing.