The Surrogate

Can He Convince Her?

Seb drops her credit card onto the table, "you left this at mine."

She's astonished, she hadn't even noticed that her card was missing from her purse, "you flew here just to give me my credit card back?"

"And to tell you how sorry I am, it was stupid of me, I know I've massively overstepped a line and I've fucked up everything but I don't want to lose you."

"I'm not yours to lose," she sighs and tiredly rakes a hand through her hair. Not too long ago she'd been telling Ester how she'd been trying to call him and wanted to talk to him but now he's here in the flesh and still looking gorgeous and she's not ready to talk.

"You know what I mean," he steps closer to her, "please tell me that it's not all off."

"I can't," she shakes her head but inside this is killing her. She can't tell him that there's still a chance but at the same time she can't say that there isn't. She points to the sofa, "let's sit down, I'm exhausted Seb."

He puts his rucksack down on the floor, he's hoping that she'll let him stay the night here so that he hasn't got to looking for a hotel room and get spotted by members of the public. As he sits down he notices how white and bright and clean her apartment looks, it's clearly always been a child free zone which is ironic considering what she does. He can tell just by the area of London that she's in and the size of her apartment so far that she's done well from surrogacy, financially. "We were getting on so well, we've come so far, surely there's a way we can resolve this," he says as she sits down at the other end of the sofa, making sure to keep a distance between them.

"You kissed me....we kissed," she corrects herself, "we're supposed to be a team, feelings can't come into this and I'd be going against the guidelines if I let things continue."

"And it was a mistake, we don't have to let feelings come in to this, we can still work together."

"You do have feelings for me, don't you?" She's not sure if she should be asking this or not, it's not like it's going to help matters.

He's torn whether to answer her truthfully or not, unsure as whether his answer will make things worse. "Do you have feelings for me?" he asks instead, turning things back on her.

She knows that she's going to have to admit it, "I kissed you back, didn't I?"

At any time he'd be fist pumping the air or reaching to pull her close, she obviously feels the same way but this could make the surrogacy impossible. "I do have feelings for you," he admits, "and honestly when I chose to have my first child via a surrogate I wasn't doing it to find a girlfriend. I don't want you thinking that's the case."

"And that's why we have to stop this."

"No!" He sounds panicked, "please, no!"

"The lines are too blurred now Seb. I'm sorry, I really wanted to be able to give you a baby but it's not going to work," she stands up, it's time that he left before he talks her into changing her mind.

He wants to suggest to her that they try a relationship if they've both got feelings for each other but knowing how devoted she is to surrogacy and helping other people he knows that she wouldn't go for it. Instead he begs, "please Holly, I'm begging you! There's no one else I'd rather do this with! I know you now and I trust you and believe me, trusting people enough to let them close to me is quite a rare thing. Please, think about this."

She wants to tell him to leave but she can't and so she flops down on to the sofa in a resigned fashion, giving him the chance to plead with her some more.

"As soon as I realised that you'd left this morning I just knew you'd come back here. I drove to the airport to see if I could find you and stop you from boarding the flight but I was too late. So I drove back home, booked a flight, packed my stuff and here I am. I was desperate to talk to you, desperate to tell you that I'm sorry I took advantage of you and to promise that it won't happen again. Surely we can put our feelings to one side and enjoy being friends can't we? We can still make this work. Please say you'll think about it. We've come this far, let's not end this now." He stops and looks to her for an answer or a reaction but she's not even looking his way, instead her eyes are cast downwards and she looks oddly unreadable. "Holly, you're the only I want to help....."