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After she left, I took a long, blazing hot shower and crawled into bed. I couldn’t concentrate on the book I was reading, so snapped off the light and curled into a ball under the covers even though it was nice and warm in my bedroom. Now that I was alone, the sting of Jax’s rejection hit me all over again, harder than before now that the shock had worn off.
I hugged my pillow as loneliness accompanied me to sleep.
Chapter 21 - Jax
It took a week to stop walking around like I’d just been slapped, shoved to the ground, and stomped on, and even then, everything seemed wrapped in a sheen of unreality. How could anything be real? I certainly wasn’t going to be a father, that was absurd. And yet, I couldn’t seem to shake the fact that it was very real. Every evening I walked through the park before I went home, scrutinizing the parents and their small children. Sometimes the kids were pretty cute, sometimes they were utter fiends, but the parents all seemed to take it in stride. Even when I saw one walk straight into the lake to try to catch a duck, the father just laughed and jumped in to grab him. Certainly his expensive sneakers were ruined, and the kid probably temporarily deafened him with his screams when he couldn’t get the duck, but the man seemed fine with it all. He even seemed proud.
That could never be me, could it?
I volunteered to fly to London so Silas wouldn’t have to, and hoped the hustle of meetings would shake me back to normal, but it was wishful thinking. I hadn’t been myself since I agreed to go to that Cary Grant film at a certain doomed theater almost two months ago. When I got back to my office, I found the package I’d put together and sent to Luna on my desk. It was clear that she’d opened it, but it was taped shut and she’d scrawled return to sender all across it.
With a tired sigh, I peeled away the layers of tape and took out the contracts. I thought my proposal was quite generous, offering her child support and a savings account in the child’s name when it had one. I got a twinge, thinking about the name. What would it be? It wasn’t like I could offer suggestions.
She hadn’t signed a single one. No note explaining why. Nothing. With another long suffering sigh, I scrolled to her number, which I’d added back in, just in case. In case of what, I wasn’t sure, since she certainly wouldn’t call me if there was an emergency.
“Hello?” She didn’t sound like she thought it would be. Had she removed my contact information?
“It’s Jax,” I said awkwardly.
“Yes, I know.”
Well, that was something, that she still had me in her phone, but she didn’t say anything else. So, we were skipping pleasantries. I supposed I couldn’t blame her for hating me. I still didn’t like it, though.
“Why did you return the contracts I sent you? Is there something you’d like me to add or take out?”
“I don’t want or need your money.”
Her brusque tone was so unlike what I remembered that I flinched. “Don’t be stubborn,” I said, forcing the irritation from my voice. “I told you I was going to take care of my—” I stopped and looked down at the phone, the silence too total. She was gone. She’d hung up on me. I didn’t know if she heard me call her stubborn or if she was long gone before that. Well, damn.
I angrily slid the papers into the top drawer of my desk. I’d send them back to her after I cooled down. She would come around eventually when she realized how foolish it was to try to do everything on her own.
But wasn’t she already doing everything on her own?
“Damn it,” I snarled to my empty office.
I’d always known Luna was a sincere person, or at least, I’d grown to realize it. I’d continued to keep a guard up, though, and now she’d toppled it by refusing my money. She really didn’t want anything at all from me, except maybe myself. And probably not even that anymore. I should have been relieved. Instead I slammed the top of my desk with my palms hard enough to cause them to sting.
“What’s up with you?” Raylen stuck his head in the door as I was rubbing my hands together and wincing in pain. He surely heard the loud crack of my childish outburst.
It was only a matter of time before they knew. Luna wouldn’t keep it a secret from Harper and in turn, Silas would find out. I took a deep breath and spilled my guts to Raylen.
He hurried in and sat down while I told him everything, all the way down to how Luna had come to New York to tell me because I’d blocked her phone number.
When I was done, he reached over my desk and whacked me along the side of my head. “You’re an idiot,” he said.
“I know I could have handled it better.” I rubbed my temple, frowning at him. Whose side was he on? “But I offered her a lot of money. I don’t get why she’s being so recalcitrant.”
“Recal—” he reached over to hit me again, but I dodged him. “Listen, you’re going about it all wrong. You’re lucky she didn’t fly here again to shove those contracts up your ass. You’re making her think she’s just a responsibility.”
“The baby is my responsibility,” I argued.
He rolled his eyes. “But Luna isn’t. She’s a nurse, she owns a house. She’s respected and loved in her community. She doesn’t need you, and I’ll tell you what, you could do way worse than her as the mother of your child. Now you’ll be lucky if you ever see the baby with the way you’re acting.”
“I have no interest in being part of the baby’s life,” I said.
His face curled in disgust as he got up to leave. “I think you need to really think about things and make sure you know what you’re doing.” He closed the door a bit too forcefully behind him.
Great. It was just great having Raylen view me as a villain. I pulled up my emails, but the words were a blur on the screen. I kept picturing that dad in the park laughingly haul his kid out of the shallows. He’d been at least a few years younger than me, but didn’t seem like he was giving anything up to be there. Did I really want to have a kid out there in the world and have nothing to do with it, let alone never see it? Maybe never even know his or her name? One thing Raylen was right about was that I knew it would be raised well and have a fantastic mother.
