Her tank top is tugged down in one spot, revealing a hint of a lacy white bra barely containing her spilling cleavage, but I do my best to keep my eyes trained on hers.
“I didn’t want to meet you,” she says. “But running into you now—it’d be weird not saying something, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Rhonda said you wanted to meet me. I told her no, but …”
My heart hammers in my ears as I stitch this together. “So you’re the recipient.”
Her pink lips press into a hard line as she scans the parking lot. I follow suit. We’re alone. Thank God. But for how much longer is anyone’s guess.
“I love my life.” Her left hand splays over her heart, and I can’t help but notice there’s no ring. Not that it matters. It’s merely an observation. “Exactly the way it is. I don’t want any part of it to change, so that’s why I said no to meeting you. But since you’re here, standing in front of me, I just wanted to take the time to say thank you for the beautiful gift you’ve given me.”
Before I have a chance to process her words, she unlocks her car, climbs in, and starts the engine.
Strutting up to her door, I rake my hand across my jaw, smirking. So … she doesn’t want to meet me because she thinks I’ll upend her life?
I rap on her window. She slides her scratched sunglasses over her perfect nose before rolling it down.
“So … if you didn’t want to meet me, why were you here?” I ask.
“They wanted me to sign an NDA.” She exhales. “I was meeting with their legal team.”
“And did you sign it?”
She winces. “No.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sigh. I’ve a feeling this is going to go exactly how I originally imagined, but I’m willing to hear her out.
“So let me get this straight, they tried to buy your silence, you refused, and on top of that, you refused to meet with me?”
The woman nods. “The offer was laughable. Insulting, really.”
Yeah, tell me about it …
“I can’t possibly imagine what reason you’d have to meet me.” She runs her hand along the steering wheel, staring forward.
“How do you know I wasn’t going to offer you some kind of financial support,” I shouldn’t plant the seed, but I doubt the thought hasn’t already crossed her mind.
“Why would you do that? You have no legal obligation to support this child,” she says. “I don’t want your money. And honestly, the clinic can take their sorry offer and …”
She bites her lip, silencing herself.
“You didn’t do this,” she continues. “You didn’t sign up for fatherhood, so I don’t expect you to suddenly be a part of the baby’s life.”
Baby.
I hadn’t thought about the age of the child.
“Honestly,” she continues. “I wish I could unlearn this information. It was a lot easier when you were just some nameless, faceless guy that I didn’t have to think about.”
“So you don’t want anything from me?”
“You’ve literally asked me that how many times now and my answer hasn’t changed.” She half-laughs, though I suspect there’s an undercurrent of annoyance there. “Almost feels like you’re interrogating me.”
Sassy.
I can respect that.
“Anyway … I need to get home.” She checks her watch before shifting into reverse, but I’m not ready for this to be over. I don’t even know her name—or the sex of the child we share. Granted, the kid is hers, and legally I don’t have a right to know anything about it. But now that it’s all within arm’s reach, I know I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering. One of these days, I might kick myself for not asking when I had the chance.
“Boy or girl?” I ask.
Head tilted, she flattens her pretty mouth. “Does it matter?”
“Of course not,” I say. “Just curious.”
She hesitates, knuckles turning white as she grips the steering wheel. “Girl.”
“Does she look like me?”
She exhales, pausing again as she stares straight ahead. “Spitting image. Eyebrows and all.”
“Healthy?”
“Extremely,” she answers.
“What’s she like?”
Her lips begin to move, but then she stops. Flicking her sunglasses over her head, she angles her attention my way. “I saw an interview you did once. The lady asked you something about when you were going to start a family and you stormed off the set. I guess I’m just confused as to why you’re suddenly interested in a kid you never knew existed … and you don’t even want kids in the first place.”
Ah, yes. The Katherine Kingman Show a few months back. In the pre-interview, my team had informed her on numerous occasions not to mention my engagement (which was already on thin ice), only the defiant gossip queen proceeded to not only bring up the impending nuptials, but she then took it a step further and brought up children—a hot button topic between my then-fiancée and me at the time.
Saying on camera that we weren’t going to have kids would’ve started WWIII at home.
Saying we were considering it would’ve given her false hope.
No matter what answer I gave, I’d have been fucking myself over.
So rather than respond, I tore off my mic pack and exited stage left. I wasn’t going to sit there like a doormat and be disrespected by a spray-tanned, fake-toothed woman gaming for ratings at the expense of my personal life.
Although I have zero desire for a family of my own, storming off her set had absolutely nothing to do with my feelings toward children and everything to do with respect.
Respect for myself, for my relationship at the time, and for the boundaries that woman crossed without a second thought.
“I’m navigating this minute by minute—just like you,” I tell her. “Half the time, I don’t know what to think.”
“I just think maybe it’s not a good idea to talk about her anymore.” She bites her lower lip and offers an apologetic expression. Cupping a hand over her heart, she says, “Thank you again, Fabian.”
Her car begins to roll backwards and she glances in the rearview.
“Wait.” I hook my hands on the frame of her open window. “I don’t even know your name.”
Looking away, she drags in a breath so hard it lifts her shoulders. “And we should keep it that way.”
I release my hold on the door and watch the nameless mother of my child drive away, her license plate so dusty I can only make out three letters—SRY.
Sorry.
Yeah, me too.
An empty, dented soda can rolls past me, coming to a stop in the grass. I scoop it up and drop it in a trash can on my way back. Never in my life have I related to a piece of garbage before, but I can’t help but notice the hollowness in the center of my chest that wasn’t there an hour ago.
Heading back to the conference room, I walk back into a war zone, both sides quarrelling over ethics and legalities, spewing threats and ultimatums.
I tune them out, focusing on the window that showcases the parking lot, replaying the last few minutes’ events in my head on a loop. That hypnotic blue gaze. Those bitten-pink lips. The soft curves. And the sass. All of that and she’s the mother of my child—a part of me grew inside of her.