Peyton closed her eyes, trying to calm down. This had been a huge mistake. Peyton tried to breathe through the pain, the fear, all of it. At this point, she would have given almost anything for someone to be here with her, but she hadn’t wanted to put her mother through the agony of seeing her only daughter in so much pain, and since she didn’t know who the baby’s father was, she’d been reluctant to approach either of the possibilities.
Please don’t let it be Troy’s, she thought for what had to be the millionth time since she’d found out she was pregnant. Sharing custody with sweet, sexy Ryder Kingston wouldn’t be easy, but it had to be better than sharing anything with Troy. The plan was to have a DNA test done as soon as the baby was born, but that would require getting a DNA sample from one of them. Unfortunately, she had zero desire to ever talk to Troy again, and admitting to Ryder that she’d hidden her pregnancy from him was probably going to be as hard as labor.
“Push, Peyton,” Dr. Garzo urged her. “Let’s do this.”
Peyton wanted to say something snarky, but the next contraction was the most painful yet, and she wanted to get this over with. She closed her eyes and pushed for what would hopefully be the last time. There was an explosion of pain and then there was nothing but relief. It was as if all the pain and misery of the last eight months had left her and she was blissfully relaxed.
“You have a little girl,” Dr. Garzo said softly. “Would you like to hold her?”
Peyton forced her eyes open and looked down into her daughter’s tiny little face. She was absolutely perfect, and for a moment, she forgot all about how hard it had been to get to this point on her own. But she’d done it, and now she had a beautiful baby girl in her arms.
“Hello, Stella,” she whispered. She’d had two names picked out since she hadn’t wanted to know the sex of the baby ahead of time, and the little angel in her arms looked just like a Stella. She hoped so anyway.
* * *
It seemed like hours before she and Stella were cleaned up, moved to a private room, and she could finally relax. It had been after midnight before Stella was born, so she must have dozed off because the next time she opened her eyes, her parents were in chairs by the window, Stella in her mother’s arms.
“Good morning.” Her mother smiled up at her. “She’s so perfect, Peyton.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You want to hold her?” Her mother started to get up but Peyton shook her head.
“I need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back.” Her father held out a hand to help her out of bed but she felt surprisingly rested and refreshed. It was probably because she was thirty pounds lighter, or at least close to that, and she quickly did her business, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. Her hair was a rat’s nest but she hadn’t thought to bring her brush into the bathroom so she padded back out to the room and rooted around in her bag for it.
“How do you feel?” her father asked.
“Better than I thought I would,” she admitted. She tugged the brush through her tangled hair and finally put it back in a ponytail. “And I’m starving.”
“Breakfast should be around soon.”
Peyton got back on the bed and her mother came to put the baby in her arms.
“She’s beautiful, just like you.”
“Thank you.” Peyton smiled down at her daughter, wondering what kind of life she was going to have. It would be good, she’d make sure of that, but the question of her paternity was an issue that had to be resolved sooner rather than later.
“When are you having the test done?” her mother asked softly, as if reading her mind.
“ASAP. I don’t want to wait.”
“Why won’t you tell us who the other person is?”
“Because I didn’t want it to be a thing while I was pregnant.”
“So it’s someone we know.”
Peyton sighed. “Yes. Not someone you know well, but someone we all know.”
“One of Donovan’s friends.” Her father was no dummy and he fixed a pointed stare in her direction.
“Yes.”
“Oooh, which one?” Mom seemed overly delighted with this news and Peyton resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“It won’t matter if Troy is the father.”
“Troy is so dark,” Mom murmured. “Black hair, dark eyes, and Stella is going to have blue eyes. Just like you and Donovan.”
Ryder’s eyes were light, Peyton thought to herself. “Babies’ eyes change,” she said aloud. “You know that.”
“I’ve had two and both of my babies’ eyes were blue from the beginning and stayed that way. You can tell when it’s the blue eyes that are going to change. You’ll see. Bet you five bucks.”
Peyton laughed. “You’re on.”
“What will you do if Troy is the father?” Dad asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and lightly fingering the baby’s cheek. “We’ve talked about it for months but you never gave us a real answer.”
Peyton looked up guiltily. “I know I’m a horrible person for this, but I don’t want to tell him. I’m not putting his name on the birth certificate either. He hit me—which tells me the potential is there for him to hit her. How do I do that to either of us?”
Dad sighed. “It was only the one time. He’d been drinking. Maybe—”
“It was more than once, but even so, you’re saying once is okay?” Peyton demanded.
“You know I’m not, but if she’s his…even an asshole has a right to know his daughter.”
“You know him,” she whispered, suddenly sad. “He might fight for custody since he’s in Chicago and I’m here in Ann Arbor. What then?”
“We’ll fight back.”
“And waste thousands of dollars we don’t have when I could just not tell him.”
Father and daughter glared at each other.
“All right, we have a few days to think about this,” Mom interjected softly. “She just had the baby, hon.”
“She’s had almost nine months to think about this and she’s still waffling.”
“I don’t have to make a decision until I know who the father is,” Peyton said, breathing deeply. “Please, can we just not argue today? I want to enjoy her.”
“All right.”
* * *
Peyton napped on and off during the day when Stella did, and tossed and turned all night. Her body was tired but her mind was on high alert, thoughts spinning as she pondered what it would be like to share Stella with fucking Troy. He was such a prick. He’d lied, cheated, and then had the audacity to hit her when she’d refused to sleep with him after she found out about his infidelity. Not only that, he’d thrown her out of the apartment she’d paid for. In a panic, she’d called her brother and he’d sent his buddies, who happened to be in Chicago, to help her.
She hadn’t planned on sleeping with Ryder, but god, between those gorgeous eyes and broad shoulders and soft-spoken voice, she’d been lonely and vulnerable. And she’d wanted desperately to erase the memory of the last time she and Troy had sex, since everything about the breakup was so humiliating. She’d never told anyone the full scope of his abuse, so they didn’t understand the extent of her distaste for Troy or the idea of him being in Stella’s life.