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“You were incredible today,” he told her for about the tenth time.
“It was really fun,” she said. “I was surprised. I didn’t think I could be good at that kind of dancing. Not that I am - just, you know, I did it. That’s all. And it was fun.”
“I’m so glad you did,” he said.
“You’re a really good teacher,” she told him. “You’re going to make a great dad.”
She almost hadn’t said that last part. But he was going to make a great dad. She was counting on it, or she wouldn’t be able to go through with any of this.
“Thanks,” he said, his voice suddenly deep with emotion.
“Do you have a lot of family around?” she asked suddenly. “You know, to help out?”
“My parents stay pretty busy with the diner,” he told her. “And I was an only child, so there won’t be any aunts and uncles. I’m planning to hire a live-in nanny.”
She willed herself not to overthink that. A nanny was a luxury few could afford. Any child would be lucky to have a loving, successful father and a full-time nanny attending to their needs when he worked.
“You were an only child?” she asked, latching onto the other thing he had said.
“My parents weren’t able to conceive,” he said, shrugging. “I was adopted. But Maltaffian adoptions are expensive and complicated. They like to say I was enough.”
He was smiling fondly, and she smiled back, glad he had a loving relationship with his parents and that they had been open with him about his origins.
“Did you ever get to know your birth family?” she asked.
“My birth mother left me on the doorstep of the local Intergalactic Council when I was just a few days old,” he said, his smile fading. “When I was a teenager, I told my mom I wanted to find her, and she helped me.”
“Wow,” Alexis said. “She sounds like an amazing mom.”
“She’s the best,” he said. “Anyway, my birth mother had gotten married a year or so after she had me. She had two other kids, not so much younger than me, and she seemed happy and comfortable.”
“How did that make you feel?” Alexis asked carefully.
“Conflicted,” he chuckled. “I had imagined her alone and destitute, missing me, wondering about the life she left behind. I thought I would be comforting her. Instead, it felt like she had given me away so she could get to the life she wanted. And she had no regrets.”
That was the way these things were supposed to work, as far as Alexis understood it. His mother had surrendered him so that she could provide better for the family she would eventually have. But it still hurt him, and she understood his pain. No one wanted to feel disposable, even if they had ended up in a loving home.
“But I realized that I was happy for her,” he went on. “It was really cool of her to let me into her life. Cool of her husband, too. And I liked the idea of having siblings, even if we barely knew each other. We only got together the one time, but we sent Hearth Day cards for a few years afterwards. It was kind of nice.”
“I’m amazed that you were able to deal with those feelings at such a young age,” Alexis told him.
“A couple of years later, when I started becoming successful in my fighting career, things changed,” he went on, his voice turning dry and bitter. “At first, it was just one of her kids, then the other, asking me for money. I wasn’t sure how to react. Then it was her too. I had seen for myself how they lived, and they were fine for money, better off than my parents.”
“Wow,” Alexis breathed.
“When I won my first championship, they filed for the courts to recognize the familial bond, so they could have the rights to inheritance,” he said, pain evident in his voice. “And according to Maltaffian law, they now have a direct line to my estate.”
Was this the only reason he wanted a child? To block his birth family from his assets when he died? She felt cold all over.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he told her. “But no, inheritance laws are definitely not the only reason I want a baby. I want a family of my own. And since I haven’t been blessed with a mate bond yet, I’d rather do it alone than initiate a marriage contract that could fall apart if either of us finds our mate.”
“A mate bond?” she echoed curiously.
“Every Maltaffian has the capacity to form a mate bond,” he told her. “It’s what Terrans might call asoul mate,but it’s more than that. More real. There’s a physical component that’s basically undeniable. Many Maltaffians never find a true mate. But those who do are helpless to resist, even if they are already in a marriage contract with another.”
“Oh,” she said, thinking about the impossible choice he had in front of him. Would it be better to remain alone than risk destroying a family?
“But don’t worry, Alexis,” he told her, his green eyes serious. “I will love this baby enough for two. And I would never,everbring a child into the world and then turn my back on it, like my mother did.”
