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That damn smirk didn’t drop as she headed for the kitchen.
CHAPTEREIGHT
Iopened my eyes to bright morning rays shining through the window. I felt rested, the clean sheets felt cool against my skin, the scent on my pillow smelled like home. Such things shouldn’t be able to stir such strong emotions in me, yet they did. I sighed through my nose.
“Are you alright?”
Startled, I sat up and searched for the source of the voice I knew belonged to Jamie. Jolting upright sent a shockwave of pain through me, making me grunt and fist the blankets.
I found Jamie sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room. Seeing me in pain, his brow scrunched up. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“What—” I started to say. Then I noticed the baby in his arms and the fact that he was feeding him a bottle. That made me realize that I hadn’t been woken once by the baby. “Have you been taking care of him all night?”
He glanced down at him with a guarded expression. “You needed rest.”
I grabbed the bottle of pain meds Dr. Ben had prescribed me and a glass of water I had on the nightstand. I plopped a couple of pills in my mouth and chased them with nearly the whole glass of water. The moment the water hit my stomach, it growled loudly. It had been days since I’d eaten anything. Dean had tried to insist I eat something last night, but I had been so tired I’d just wanted to go to sleep.
Jamie pulled the bottle from the baby’s mouth so he could free up his hand to reach into his pocket. “I’ll ask Jeana to bring breakfast.” He typed out a quick message on his phone, then shoved it back in his pocket after he sent it and returned to feeding the baby.
“Brenna could have helped me with him last night,” I said.
“We both know you wouldn’t have had her help you,” he said. “Besides, I wanted to.”
I didn’t believe him. “I saw how you looked at him yesterday.”
“Louie said I should hold him.”
He talked to Louie about him?“Why?”
He locked eyes with me. “What is your plan with this baby, Maura? Are you planning on keeping him?”
“You’re asking me questions I don’t have the answers to. His parents have been dead for one whole day.”
Jamie pulled the now-empty bottle from the baby’s mouth and stood. I watched as he walked over to the bassinet and placed him inside carefully. I leaned over and peeked in to see that the baby was asleep. The little guy looked downright angelic when he slept.
“I can see how you look at him,” Jamie said, throwing my words back at me in a low voice.
Feeling like I’d been caught doing something wrong, I pulled away from the bassinet.
Jamie sat on the edge of the bed. “Does he have any relatives?”
“He has an aunt, but she’s a prostitute and junkie.”
“He can go into the system. He’s a baby. They might be able to find him a home pretty quickly,” he suggested.
I opened my mouth to answer, then shut it. I didn’t like that idea. What if he was placed in a bad home?
Jamie’s eyes never left me. “I think you know what you want to do. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself yet.”
“This isn’t a good home for him, either.” Jamie opened his mouth to say something, but I spoke before he could. “You still didn’t answer my question.”
“You know why, Maura.”
I knew, but it didn’t matter and sadly, I wasn’t sure if it ever would.
“You told me not to give up on us if you were enough,” he said. “You’ve never not been enough for me, but you just added a baby into the equation. I know I said I’d be open to other ways to have children, but I didn’t think you’d bring home an Aryan baby. And not just any Aryan baby, either.”
Hating how he made me feel things I wasn’t ready to feel, I climbed out the other side of the bed, needing space. “I haven’t made any decisions when it comes to this baby, nor have I forgiven you. You’re talking like everything will be fixed between us tomorrow.”
