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“If he’d awakened and I was there with you crying it would have traumatized him. Is that what you were hoping for? To make him not trust me from the beginning?”
“No,” she denied, looking horrified at his accusation. “Of course not. How could you think that?”
“How could I think otherwise? I have a son who doesn’t know me from a stranger because you kept him from me.”
She winced at his accusation. “I didn’t know where you were.”
“Did you look?”
Guilt written all over her face, she closed her eyes. “No.”
“Then don’t tell me you didn’t know where I was. I wouldn’t have been that difficult to track down. You knew I lived in Atlanta...that I’d been at the CCPO event. All you had to do was ask Agnes and she’d have gotten word to me.”
“I can’t change the past, Trace. I thought you wouldn’t want to know.”
“Why would you think that?”
“You’re the one who told me you didn’t want a relationship, didn’t want children, ever. I was a weekend fling. Someone you’d had a good time with and nothing more. We weren’t dating, or an item, or involved in any way. I wasn’t supposed to get pregnant.”
She was right.
“Did you get pregnant on purpose?”
Her chin jutted forward. “You know I didn’t.”
“Why did you suddenly decide to tell me?”
“It wasn’t suddenly.” She wiped at the tears still running down her cheeks. “I’d been thinking about it since first seeing you in the medical tent again.”
Right. That was why she’d not bothered to tell him while they’d been in Atlanta.
“I’m staying here,” he announced, surprising both him and her with his decision.
Her eyes were wide. “Here as in my house?”
He nodded.
“I don’t think—”
“That’s right. You don’t think. Nor do you get to have a say in this. You have kept my son from me for four years.”
She collapsed onto the sofa as if her legs would no longer hold her. Her head drooped low, the tears starting again full force.
“I am going to get to know my son the best I can in what time I have left before I leave and you’re going to help me do it so it causes him as little stress as possible.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” she asked, looking up at him through her red-rimmed eyes.
“By making me a welcomed houseguest, by being friendly to me so he doesn’t pick up on any negative feelings, by telling him the truth.”
“You want me to tell him that you’re his father?” She sounded horrified.
“You think it better to lie to him and tell him I’m some random guy you’ve decided to let move in?”
“There’s not room in my house for you, Trace.”
He glanced around the living room. “This is a mansion compared to some of the hellholes where I’ve worked over the past four years. I’ll be fine.”
Not that he thought for one second she was concerned about his comfort. She didn’t want him there. Too bad. He wanted every second possible with his son, to get to know the boy and for his son to get to know him. He’d figure the rest out later. For now that was the only game plan he had.
