And relieved. Definitely relieved.
I should not be this relieved. Shit.
She shrugged. “I’ve been busy taking care of Juni.”
“And before that?”
Maren was quiet for a moment. “Before that I was almost engaged. Or so I was told. A mutual friend of mine and my almost-fiancé’s said it was obvious, and honestly, I think she was right. We had a trip to the Bahamas planned. I had a feeling he was going to propose there.” She paused. “Then Mira’s accident happened and of course we cancelled the trip.”
Colin waited.
“He was understanding at first. Perfect boyfriend, very supportive, said all the right things.” Her voice stayed neutral, but her jaw tightened slightly. “Right up until he realized I was the only one who could take Juni. Then he tried to be subtle about talking me out of it, which he really wasn’t. He told me I was too young to become a mom. That I had my whole life ahead of me. What if I wanted kids of my own someday.” She gave a short, quiet laugh. “Like the kids that came out of my body would matter more than Juni, or I’d suddenly love her less.”
Colin’s hands flexed on his knees.
“When that didn’t work, he told me I was going to waste my life. Serious guilt trip.” She tilted her head. “So I ended it. And in hindsight, Juni was the best thing that ever happened to my dating life. Saved me from marrying an idiot.”
“He was a complete prick,” Colin said.
Maren looked at him, surprised, and then laughed—a real one, unguarded. “He really was.”
“You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
Her laughter faded. She looked at him sideways, the corner of her mouth curving up. “It’s a shame you’re not crazy about kids, Colin.” There was no bite in it.
Tell her.
“That’s not—” He stopped. Started again. “That’s not the whole story.”
Maren nodded, listening.
“I do like kids,” he said. “I just—I had a reason to stop letting myself think about it.”
She didn’t say anything, didn’t push, and he was grateful for that.
Colin looked at his hands. “Her name was Lindsey. We met about four years ago, dated for about eight months. It was—it felt real, so I proposed to her and she accepted immediately. A couple months later she told me she was pregnant. I—” He exhaled.
Maren stiffened beside him. She reached out and took his hand. “Did you lose a child, Colin?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not…not like that. Lindsey carried to term.” He squeezed her hand, loving the warmth of her palm against his, the intimacy of it. “When she first told me, I was terrified and then I wasn’t. I was so excited. I wanted a child, it didn’t matter that we were doing things backwards. I started building the whole thing in my head. The kid, the marriage, the life together.” His jaw tightened. “She moved in with me. There were times when I felt like I was more excited about this baby than she was, but I chalked it up to nerves and her just being tired from the pregnancy. I did everything to make it easier on her. I turned the spare bedroom into a nursery.”
He swallowed. This was the hard part. The part he’d told almost no one. Mac knew, and his family. He’d never told a woman he was interested in, but then again, he hadn’t stayed interested long, not after Lindsey.
“Then one day I came home and she’d packed her bags. She’d gone in for an ultrasound. She was having a little girl.” He paused. “She. Not us, not me. Because the baby was not mine.”
“Oh, Colin, I’m sorry.”
“She’d known since before the proposal. She’d been seeing someone else behind my back and the baby was his. He hadn’twanted to be a father when she first told him, but now he wanted to be.” Colin shook his head. “She tried to tell me she was sorry, that she was leaving for the baby’s sake.”
“She totally used you.”
“She did, yeah. But the thing that…” Colin stopped until he found the words. “The thing that broke me was that I’d already decided I wanted a baby. I wanted to be that girl’s father. The whole thing had been a lie, and I just…” He shook his head. “ So I lied to myself. It was easier not to go back there. Easier to say I don’t do kids than to explain that I wanted one so badly I didn’t notice I was being lied to for months.”
“Colin.” Maren’s voice was quiet. “You didn’t miss it because you were careless. You missed it because you trusted her.”
“Same result.”
“Not the same thing.” She turned to look at him fully. “That’s not on you. That’s on her. I know something about being lied to by someone you trusted,” she said. “Even though I was right there helping her with Juni, Mira was leading a double life. She was my twin, and after she started at LRH, I always felt like she was shutting me out of some part of her life. I made excuses for her. I blamed myself. I spent so much time thinking I’d done something wrong.”
