“Yeah, pretty quickly, too. Which tells me she wasn’t for me.”
“And you knew about her pregnancy before you offered to be the father of my child?”
He thought on that, probably wondering where I was going. The trap I was setting. My heart thundered while I waited for his answer.
“Well, yeah. But that wasn’t why—Doc, you needed a donor and I needed?—”
“A child.”
He bristled. “I’ve never lied about that.”
“No. But now it reads like you’re trying to prove something to Everly. That you can find someone to have a kid with, too. That you didn’t need her.”
We were merely providing each other with the biological means to create a life that we would both share. A baby, nothing else. It made no sense that I would be upset. He had been honest from the start. He wanted to be a father.
Of course he would rather have Everly as the mother. Maybe more. The family package that once made sense until she hurt him. A proper WAG, a glamorous wife and mom, who met his needs perfectly. Young, dewy, fresh, and able to pump out more kids before the bloom was off the rose.
“I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone. I want this baby. I want this baby with you.”
“And you’ll have her.” I smiled, though it felt wobbly around the edges. “That’s what the contract says.”
“The contract? I think we’re beyond the contract.”
My lip trembled. “How so? You said you didn’t want a relationship. A marriage. A wife. Has that changed?”
He frowned, not liking my tone. All he had to say was, yes, it’s changed. You’ve changed everything for me.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t. “We don’t have to put labels on it. We’re co-parents, with respect and affection. We make a great team, don’t we?”
We did, but one of us had dreamed a little dream. Now she was waking up.
“There’s you. There’s me. There’s the baby. We’re not a family unit, no matter how we try to spin it. Neither of us had the other person in mind beyond what was necessary for this enterprise. Be honest, Jason. If you could have had a baby with Everly, you would have.”
“Yes! That’s what I wanted. Or thought I wanted.” He started pacing, my hotheaded warrior. “But not now.”
“It’s easy to get our emotions mixed up in all of this. I’m hormonal and want the assurance that you’ll be there for the baby, and I’ve mistaken that as wanting you to be there for me.”
“It’s the same thing.”
Oh, but it wasn’t. “You’re excited to be a father and I’m the woman carrying your child. You’re bound to feel certain things, affection and a bond with your child’s mother, but if the baby wasn’t in the picture, you wouldn’t have looked at me twice. In fact, you would have walked to the other side of the street to avoid me.”
Storm clouds skittered across his handsome face. “The baby brought us closer together and made us both see each other in a different light. I’m not going to deny that. Those are facts. But I don’t find you sexy and attractive and goddamn infuriating because you’re pregnant with my kid. Somehow, you’ve managed to come up with that allure all by yourself.”
I didn’t believe him. He was trying to convince me that this was the case to keep me calm and centered in the lead-up to the birth.
“You’re certainly not what I had in mind,” I said.
“Hell, don’t I know it.”
“You’re still not.”
He looked stricken, or at least his ego did not enjoy that. I hated hurting him, but I needed time apart to get my bearings.
“And let’s be honest, Jason. I’m not what you want either.”
“Why, because you’re going to take a job in Boston?”
I snapped my head back. “Who told you that? Sean?”
