“Sean knows?” He grabbed an envelope off the breakfast bar. It was the interview schedule from Harvard’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.
For the job I applied for two weeks ago. Seeing that photo of Jason and Everly had clarified my thinking. I would never be what he wanted and I needed to focus on my strengths. My career and the baby.
“I haven’t been happy at Lakeshore since Dr. Bilson came on board. His actions have been curtailing my research freedom and ability to do things my way.”
“God forbid anything curtails your ability to do things your way, Francesca.”
All these men, looking to control my decisions. “The contract specifically said my career might take me out of Chicago. You knew that, but you still went ahead with the baby plan.”
He was pacing again, hands on hips. “The contract said, the contract said. Sure, I went ahead because I wanted a kid. But I thought we’d still talk about the big decisions, the ones that affect our child. I thought we’d co-parent like mature adults. But this has always been your deal, hasn’t it, Francesca? You’ve never seen me as a partner in this. I’m just the stud.”
He sounded so wounded. Maybe he was right. Maybe I felt more ownership over this because it started with my heartfelt wish. I had the spreadsheet and the thermometer and the syringe. He merely arrived on his white charger, dick out, ready to deliver.
But the last few months had shown me the side of him I craved in a partner. In the man with whom I had fallen hopelessly in love. He might say he wanted us to move forward with respect and affection, as a family unit, but that could only take us so far. My research was important, too. I never planned to be the kind of woman who stayed in the background, supporting the man’s supposedly more important job.
“Of course I see you as a partner. But our child needs stability, and when the parents aren’t a couple, then one person has to step up as primary caregiver.”
His color was high. “And that’s supposed to be you? The woman who would rather spend time with snails and slugs than the people who are supposed to be the most important in your life? Mothers are supposed to make sacrifices, but you seem to think you can carry on like nothing has happened. Move across the country, take a new job, leave everyone you know behind. You’ll birth a baby and then it’s back to what’s important—your career.”
As if every choice I made was for me and me alone, instead of with my child’s future at the forefront.
“And I thought you’d be supportive. But what you really want is a hot WAG back home, two steps behind her man, popping out all those babies to make the perfect family your father denied you. The who doesn’t matter.”
He looked like I’d bashed him in the sternum with a hockey stick. His expression shifted from storm to ice.
“Well, it sure as hell looks like you’re right. I don’t mind saying it, Doc. We are not compatible. You’ve had the truth of it from the beginning. I don’t know why I thought we might be more than co-parents, not when you are so damn determined to do it all by yourself and screw everyone else.”
“That’s your job. Off you go and find another incubator for your spawn. This one’s already occupied.”
He shook his head, grabbed his duffle bag, and stormed out, at which point I burst into tears because hormones, and?—
Well, there could be no other reason.
It couldn’t be because my heart was broken, and I had only myself and my foolish dreams to blame.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Jason
* * *
When I was pissed off, I ran. The lake path, the park, a track. If it gave me a good stretch of road, I ate it up. But it was kind of toasty out there and I didn’t want to run into any fans or paps, so here I was on the treadmill in the Rebels gym, hopeful for some alone time to marshal my spiraling thoughts.
Franky and I had reverted to our small talk method of communication. Just enough to ensure our contractual obligations were fulfilled, but not enough to have a real conversation about why we had fought.
I didn’t think I was wrong. I had told her that she was not what I originally had in mind for my baby’s mother. That I wanted a family and saw a chance to get it. That my feelings had changed and I wanted to make a go of it with her. Make it real.
Those were all facts. As a woman of logic, she was supposed to love the facts!
I had also told her I was pissed about her trying to take my kid to live in another city. Hell, I just left Boston! And she was considering leaving everyone who loved her in Chicago and starting over solo? Put her career before my chance to be a great dad all because there weren’t enough snails around the shores of Lake Michigan? That made no sense.
And that business with Everly—absolute bullshit. I wasn’t going to lie and say that Everly getting married and pregnant so soon after we broke up didn’t hurt. Maybe it had influenced my offer to father a child with Franky. But that was where Everly’s influence ended. As if she could hold a candle to the doc. No other woman turned me on like Francesca did. That brain, that mouth, that body—the pregnant and the not pregnant versions. I loved her glasses and her messy hair and those full lips and the freckle on the nape of her neck. I loved talking to her about her work and hockey and how brilliant our kid was going to be.
Was that the same thing as “being in love”? I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care, because what we had worked. The doc was acting like we weren’t compatible, and while I might have agreed in anger because she was being so damned difficult and opinionated about it all, I didn’t truly think that. We were different, that was for sure. But incompatible? Not a chance.
Setting aside the career advancement opportunity at Harvard, which she had mentioned was a possibility, what was our basic problem? She had said I wanted a picture-perfect family, a woman to push out the kids and keep the home fires burning, and she didn’t fit that mold.
Sure, I wanted to fill my house with laughter and joy and cats and dogs. When I had originally imagined those things, I had conjured up some blonde cheerleader type, like Everly or that Farrah chick who bored me to tears in Dallas.
