Not the me that I like being, anyway.
I like giving people the benefit of the doubt and smiling and laughing my way through my mornings with Bash. Feeding the chickens and collecting their eggs. Washing Bash after he cracks too many eggs all over himself. Waving at my neighbors while we walk our pet chicken. Being a calming presence in my office when clients suddenly have need for me in stressful situations. Volunteering at events at Sabrina’s café and other places around the community while my friends and family play with my son and give him the sense of belonging that he deserves.
I donotlike being a grouchy mama bear who has no intention of giving this man an inch for as long as I can hold him off.
And I know being a grouchy mama bear won’t get me what I want, but I’m too on guard to benice.
Judging by the extra wariness settling into Jonas’s eyes, he’s ready for me to turn into aferalgrouchy mama bear.
“I—I don’t know,” he finally says. “I didn’t stop to think when I finally got your emails. I just came here.”
“When you figure it out, you can have your lawyers contact my lawyers.”
Dammit dammit dammit, Emma.
I’m nice. I’m too nice.
Always.
But apparently not today when it matters so damn much that I charm him.
Feral grouchy mama bear is ready to fight with everything I have in me to make the rest of my life just as peaceful and happy as it was twenty-four hours ago.
Seeing him again after all this time has apparently not only sparked overprotective instincts that I’d finally started feeling like I didn’t need, but also a few latent feelings about the way he left me and ignored me after fucking me in Fiji.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m eternally grateful to have Bash, and I know I wouldn’t without Jonas’s contribution to the whole baby-making process.
But that doesn’t excuse the fact that he didn’t even say goodbye.
“I’m sorry.” He says it so earnestly, so easily, that I don’t know if he’s said it often enough in movies that it’s second nature or if he means it.
But I absolutely mean my entire answer with my whole heart. “I’m not. I have a good life. I’m giving my son a good life. He’s happy. He’s loved. I’m happy. I’m loved. We have the best friends and family we could ask for. And we have everything else we could possibly need. So thank you for coming. Thank you for apologizing. But I sincerely mean it when I sayyou can go. We don’t need any more from you than what you’ve already done for the past two and a half years, and I’m happy to sign anything necessary to absolve you of any responsibility here.”
His lips part and move like he’s working through how the script flipped when he wasn’t looking.
His cheeks turn a shade of pink that I’d call honest embarrassment if I trusted him.
Bash’s little voice goes whiny.
I have to get back inside.
Time for mama to rescue him from his crib and give him morning snuggles and song time and breakfast.
“Can I meet him?” Jonas asks.
My heart splits in two.
If we hadn’t met in Fiji, if we hadn’t had those days together, I wouldn’t have Bash.
Jonas gave me a gift that I will move heaven and earth to protect.
But he also left. I tried to get in touch as soon as I found out I was pregnant.
I didn’t want to. Not when I knew the same thing that I know today—that any child Jonas Rutherford publicly acknowledged would grow up under scrutiny and have to deal with the reporters and the social media rumors and the whispers that I’d already endured after my wedding video went viral.
But it was the right thing to do.
And I got silence in return.
