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“If?” I scoffed, pushing off from the door and standing up straight. “Of course I’m having this kid. It’s a goddamn miracle I’m pregnant in the first place. Why would you even say that?”
He sighed exasperatedly, his eyes rolling. “I didn’t mean it like that and you know it.”
“Do I?” I pressed, taking another step toward him. “You said you didn’t want another kid. You made it clear that Jamey was enough, that you didn’t see a need to change that. Am I supposed to just blindly believe that you’re entirely fine with this? That you want to see this through?”
“Yes,” he deadpanned, his green eyes narrowing. “Do you think I’m some sort of heartless monster that would ask you—someone who has had a horrible time trying to conceive, someone who desperately wants a child—to terminate it just because I wasn’t planning on having another kid?”
“No. I don’t,” I admitted. “But I do think that you aren’t exactly thrilled. I do think that you don’t necessarily want it, and that the only reason you want to be involved is because you think it’s the right thing to do, among maybe a few others.”
“That’s not?—”
“I wasn’t planning on sharing this child with anyone anyway.” I shoved past him, my shoulder bumping his arm, and tried not to think about how nice it was to even touch him like that. Opening the fridge, I scanned the shelves for something I could use to make dinner, deciding I was well and truly done with this conversation and that I needed to get on with my evening.
“What do you mean?”
Chicken. Broccoli. Camembert—shit, can’t eat that anymore. “I mean that I’ll be fine on my own, Hudson. I don’t need your help with raising it. You can live your life and I can live mine.”
“But I want to be there.”
I slammed the refrigerator door shut as I turned to face him. “Do you? Or do you just want to be around me so that you can fuck me?”
His eyes widened as he took a step back. “Jesus, how much of an asshole do you think I am?” He snapped, dropping the fisted fabric back onto the table.
“I don’t know, why don’t you ask your cock? It seems to be the only brain you have.”
His jaw hardened as he turned his gaze from me, toward the door. “Why are you shutting me out like this? Why do you desperately want to believe that I don’t want to be there through this?”
“I don’t.”
“You do, Sophia,” he snarled, whipping his head back toward me. “You know damn well that I’m a good father, at least as good as I can be. Why would I abandon a child that I helped create?”
I nibbled my lower lip as I stared at him. Words became stuck in my throat, too harsh, too scared to crawl out. This was all too much for me to even try to comprehend right now, not when I had so much to be happy about and focused on. For all the times I wanted him around me, I wanted him gone ten times more at this moment.
I wished we’d never had sex. I wished I’d never ended up at his clinic, as his neighbor, as his nanny. I wished we’d never crossed paths.
“I need you to leave.” I leaned forward onto the counter, dropping my head so I wouldn’t need to look at him. “Go be that stellar father to the child you already have, Hudson. I need to be alone.”
The silence fell heavy around us. I heard him breathing, the rustling of his scrubs as his chest rose and fell, the slight whistle as the air blew from his nostrils. Then, the shuffling of feet, hard footsteps against tile turning soft as they landed on the mat in front of my door, the sound of the handle turning and the door latching shut as he left. Then, the sound of my tears hitting the pale white countertop, of my nails scratching against it as I curled my hands into fists.
I should be happy. I should be ecstatic. But all I felt was dread and resentment, fear and anger, so palpable I could feel it boiling in my veins.
Why did it have to be him?
Chapter 25
Hudson
Friday
“Idon’t want to go to Grandma’s all weekend!” Jamey whined, his little voice carrying from the back seat of my Land Rover. “I want to see Sophie.”
He’d been upset ever since I told him Wednesday morning that my mom was going to be watching him instead for the foreseeable future. I didn’t know when Sophie would want to come back to work, if at all. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, though.
“I’m sorry, bud. Uncle Nathan and I have errands to run.”
“Errands?” Nathan chuckled from the passenger seat. “That’s a funny way of saying?—”
I shot him a glance that said do not say another word. If Jamey found out we were going to an MMA match today, especially to see our favorite, Dylan Mitchell, he’d be furious. He also wouldn’t shut up about it for the next few days and I desperately didn’t want to deal with that.
