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“Ah.” He approaches me and pries my hands from my face, forcing my gaze up to his. “Take all the time you need to figure this out. I understand what I’m asking and how that’s no small thing. That said, I’d greatly appreciate you giving my offer genuine consideration.”
He makes it sound like a job proposal. Which I suppose in a fucked-up way it is.
Still, having a baby with Bennett is like winning the genetic lottery. At least looks wise. His personality is a bit of a cartwheel, but I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he feels like his life is falling apart or was ripped away from him. I get that. Hell, I’d likely be worse than him if I were dealt his hand.
My hands drop to my sides, and I blink, studying him with the same focus I gave my medical boards. “You really want to do this with me? Have a baby together? You’ll be stuck with me for life as the mother of your child?”
“I really want to do this with you,” he says in no uncertain terms. “All of it. The making the baby, the carrying the baby, the having the baby, the raising the baby. And just to get this out of the way, I’ve been tested and can show you the results. I’d never touch you if I wasn’t. And I’m happy to undergo any genetic screening you’d like, but off hand, I don’t know of any preexisting genetic conditions in my family.”
“I was tested after Zane,” I tell him, since that’s the weird direction this weird conversation has taken. “And he was the last person I was with. As for genetic testing, I think I’ll leave that up to my OB since they’ll test me for stuff. As you know, I’m a type 1 diabetic, so it seems my genetic lot is worse than yours.” Wow. I’m actually having this conversation with him.
He gives me an impish grin. “Looking at you, Katy, knowing what I know, from where I’m standing, you’re perfect to me.”
I blush. It comes out of nowhere, but I totally freaking blush. He catches it and the way he’s looking at me… the way it makes me feel…
I clear my throat and all that girlish gah! away. “I don’t know if it’s smart to try naturally with you.”
He licks his lips and nods. That’s it. Yeah, I started something that’s a bit hard to undo. Because I want sex with him, and he wants sex with me. That much is obvious. But wanting sex to scratch an itch because the guy is sexy and it’s been too long since you’ve gotten any, and having sex to make a baby are two totally different things, though both a minefield in their own right in this situation. I digress.
“What about the boss thing?”
He hitches up one shoulder. “For me, it’s as bad as it gets. I’m not on probation per se, but the board and my boss made it very clear when they hired me that I can’t have any indiscretions or I’m out, which is why I shouldn’t be doing this with you at all. But here I am, and I don’t want to pull back regardless of the risk. Maybe I’m nuts, but I think we could make it through the next year or two without it interfering with our work while managing to keep it a secret.”
A secret. As in we live two different lives, one at work and one here in his house.
Hmm. Okay then.
I mean, I’m not sure how well things like that work out, but then again, I don’t exactly hang out with anyone in the general surgery or trauma departments, and I also don’t get personal with them. The only people I’m personal with are my family, and they’d never tell anyone. It’s not like I have to tell people who the father is, but then again, he’d be the father, so?—
“But,” he tacks on, interrupting my thoughts. “I realize the tricky nature of that, and if we do manage to get pregnant and this does all work out, I will speak to the head of surgery about it and make sure if our secret gets out, it’s not as scandalous as it could be. I can’t have that happen. For either of us. It’s more of a risk this year leading up to the fellowship. After that, not so much, especially if we’re not together.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re taking the sexy, forbidden element out of this for me.”
He laughs, the sound cracking through some of his stiff armor. “You sound like my mother.”
“I was thinking about the title of the book I saw you reading.”
“Now you know why she picked it for me to read to her. But that’s fiction, Katy, and this is real life. We can keep it a secret until we have something that requires telling. And we won’t fall in love with each other like they do in romance books.”
Fair enough.
“I need to think about it.” A lot. “I should go.” Because even though having a baby with a gorgeous billionaire doctor sounds perfect, as he said, this isn’t fiction. This is something I’ve wanted for a long time. Something I wasn’t always sure I’d be able to have with my medical issues. So bringing someone else into my life, into my future planning, is a huge deal.
“Can I drive you home?”
Home. I don’t even have a real home. I’m a thirty-year-old woman trying to be a single mother sleeping on a goddamn pullout couch at my friends’ place. I’m a cliché. I also think I’m having some sort of existential crisis. Or maybe just a mental WTF.
“Sure,” I utter because my thoughts are too chaotic right now, swirling in a thousand different directions and scrolling through a million different variables and scenarios. This day took an unexpected turn on me. It’s making my head hurt and my stomach queasy.
I have him drive me to my uncle Callan’s and Layla’s house instead of Kenna and Keegan’s place. Cal and Layla are away right now, staying at my uncles Oliver and Luca’s place in Italy for two weeks and then floating around Europe for another month or so after that. But this is the house I came to after my parents died. The house where my uncle took me in and did everything he could to make me feel loved and wanted.
And with that, it’s where I need to be tonight.
Not with my cousins seeking me out to ask questions.
I need to be alone where I can absorb and work through everything Bennett offered tonight.
Only the moment I enter the house, the freaking mass alarm sounds. In a flash, I punch in the code and then answer the person who comes through the intercom asking for the password along with my name. The alarm shuts off, but then my phone immediately rings, and I groan.
