He turned away, dragging his fingers through his hair uncomfortably.
“But you don’t want to be a father,” she finished.
He looked back at her angrily. “God, Kate, what kind of father would I be? No kid deserves to have someone like me for a dad.”
He didn’t see it. He would never see it. But Kate had always known in her heart that once he held their child in his arms, he would love it just as much as she did.
He would have been a great father to their daughter. But now that could never be.
Because of her. Maybe this was her punishment.
She looked up at him. “You’ve never been curious how I got pregnant? I was on birth control.”
He frowned, obviously surprised by the change of direction in the topic. “I assumed it was an accident.”
“Right. Everyone knows birth control isn’t one hundred percent effective, but I had an IUD and that is pretty darn close.”
Colt was watching her strangely. Clearly he hadn’t guessed where this was heading. Maybe he trusted her more than she realized.
“IUDs expire,” she said. “I’d had mine for seven years. My doctor kept sending me reminders to have it changed, but I kept forgetting to make an appointment.”
“For how long?”
She didn’t flinch from his gaze. “A year.”
Colt’s expression was like granite. “Are you saying you got pregnant on purpose?”
Kate wanted to cry. “I don’t know. Not consciously. But unconsciously maybe. I was fighting to hold on to our marriage. I thought that once you saw the baby—our baby—you would experience that kind of unconditional love and then...”
Her voice dropped off.
“Then what?” His voice was as tight and steely as she’d ever heard it.
She looked up at him. “Then you would know how to love me like that, too.”
He flinched almost imperceptibly. Knowing how ridiculous and pathetic it sounded, she hurried to explain. “It’s a horrible reason to bring a child into the world. So what kind of person does that make me? To try to hold on to her husband with a child he never wanted. And now...” Her eyes were burning with unshed tears as her hands twisted in her lap. “You were right about karma.” Her voice was practically a whisper.
But he heard her. He took her by the arm and hauled her up to face him. He looked as fierce and angry as she’d ever seen him. But it wasn’t with her. “I was lashing out, Kate, trying to hurt you because I thought you didn’t want me anymore. I didn’t mean it. What happened was an accident. It didn’t have anything to do with what you did—consciously or unconsciously. You are not being punished because you wanted a baby, okay?”
She nodded, and he let her go. They stood facing each other for a long, painful heartbeat. It was as if neither of them trusted themselves to say anything for fear that the chasm between them would only grow wider.
As if that was possible. But now, he knew he wasn’t the only one to blame.
“Why is a baby so important to you?”
Kate was taken aback by the question. “I don’t know.” She just knew that it was.
His voice was as grim as his expression when he finally spoke. “I think we both need time to think. We can talk more in the morning.”
Kate nodded, but she knew there was nothing more to talk about. They’d said everything that needed to be said.
Nothing had changed. Colt was her past, not her future. Except now she knew the full tragedy of that future in trying to get over a man who would always hold her heart.
Seventeen
After making his call, Scott didn’t seem to be in any rush to eat so they took their time. He practically forced her to have dessert. “It says Annie’s apple pie is ‘famous.’ How can you skip it?”
He’d apparently never stepped on a scale and seen it three pounds heavier at the end of the day than when he’d woken up.
