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“She hopes to stay about a month. If that’s all right?”
“Why didn’t you talk this over with me first?”
She heard a long sigh and knew that Aidan still didn’t get it. He was determined to act without her input. He was so sure he knew the outcome, knew how to make the situation bend to his will. But she didn’t care what he did anymore. He had tramped all over her feelings and her concerns and now he was moving strangers into their home—his child and her nanny.
“I thought you’d understand. We’ve been over all this. We have a little girl. We’re a family. Let’s concentrate on that for now.” He lowered his voice to a soft, intimate tone. “Honey, once we are all under the same roof together, loving and caring for each other and Emma, we will be happier than we’ve ever been in our lives. Please trust me on this. I want you to be happy and to have a family. Emma is only the beginning.”
So, now that he’d had a taste of being a father, he believed that they would proceed to have more children. She fully expected him to bring up the subject of adoption in his excitement about being a parent.
“Is this how it’s going to be, Aidan? You make all the decisions where our marriage is concerned, where my life is concerned?” Her hands trembled so much she could hardly hold the phone.
“Grace, honey, please don’t be upset. We’ll be there in a few hours. You and I will sit down together and talk about all of this.”
Tears began their steady movement over her cheeks, down into the corners of her mouth, tasting salty on her lips. “We’ll talk, will we? Like the last time?”
“No. We will really talk. I promise.”
Funny thing how easily her world had shifted. She had wanted to talk things over since the beginning, but only now, when he was on his way back here with his daughter—putting her in the unbearable position of having his child in her home—did he think about her and her feelings. “Aidan, you can do whatever you like. I won’t be here.”
His abrupt intake of breath reached across the connection. “You don’t mean that. You wouldn’t leave me. I love you with my whole heart. Look, whatever it takes, I’ll do it. I—”
“I’ve heard you say those words repeatedly since that first hideous phone call, but nothing has changed. I’ve seen so little effort from you and you continue to make decisions to suit you, without consulting me. So I’m not sure we can, Aidan. I’ve waited my entire married life to have you show as much enthusiasm for having a child with me as you have over your child with another woman. I can’t listen to your excitement and your plans anymore just because suddenly you see what it means to be a parent. But you have a baby that is yours…not ours.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SOUND OF the dead connection stabbed Aidan like a knife. This couldn’t be happening. What was he going to do without Grace? Glancing around at the messy counter and the load of laundry sitting by the door of the laundry room, he felt adrift and lost. He’d never faced anything like this. Even the loss of his parents hadn’t been this painful.
Why had he rushed this? He could have stayed here for a while and given Grace time to adjust. Maybe he could have even gone home for a few days, talked to Grace and gotten caught up at work. After all, she’d been here twice, which proved she cared. But Grace had made it clear from the start she didn’t want him to bring Emma to their home.
He should have given her time to adjust to his plan. What was going on with him? In hindsight, choosing to take Emma home so soon was a little erratic, but he seemed to be doing a lot of things lately that were not like him.
The real truth was that he wanted his little girl in his life so badly that he couldn’t think of anything but her and what he wanted to do for her. Everything else paled in the face of those feelings.
