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I couldn’t contain the sigh as I saw Liam starting to make his way towards me. I was gonna have to apologize and the thing was, I technically was sorry. Even though I had no idea that Christian’s mother wouldn’t be allowed to take him, I did allow someone to take Liam’s son without speaking with him about it first. I had seen enough real-life crime drama shows to know that in a kidnapping, it was typically a parent that was the culprit.
I just hated that I was gonna have to apologize, and he was gonna get all up on his high horse and lecture me about how he was the boss. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Suck it up girl; you need the money.
“Jasmine,” Liam started, but I cut him off before he could get any further.
“I’m sorry about today. I shouldn’t have allowed Ellis to take Christian, not without confirming it with you. Is he alright?” I was hoping asking about Christian would deter him from jumping on me. Plus, I really did want to make sure the little guy was okay.
“He’s fine,” Liam answered as he walked over and grabbed one of the chairs and brought it back over to me. Oh goody, we were going to chat more.
“It’s important that no one takes Christian without me informing you of it first. Never will there come a time when someone spontaneously shows up for him. You will be forewarned.”
“Understood,” I offered him a smile which I was hoping would be more warm and polite, but really, I was fairly certain it came across as bitchy.
“I’m sorry too, for how I reacted. You had no way of knowing that Ellis couldn’t be around Christian. I should have disclosed that to you on the very first day.” His tone was sincere; maybe we were starting to make progress.
“Why isn’t she? If I can ask.”
I really wanted to know, because it was odd for a mother to not be allowed to be with her child. She seemed like a nice person. Sure, I only got to meet with her for a couple of minutes, if that, but she didn’t scream horrible person to me.
He let out a deep sigh as he scrubbed a hand over his face and leaned forward, placing his forearms on his knees. I could tell this wasn’t going to be a simple answer, and for a brief second, I could see the debate behind his eyes on if he should be telling me or not. My interests were piqued, and I was hoping he would tell me.
“When you and I first met at the conference, Ellis and I had broken up. I had no interest in getting back with her. We were drifting apart. She was partying more and with that came the drinking and cheating. My lawyer was drawing up the divorce papers. It wasn’t long after I got back she discovered she was pregnant.”
“I am guessing that was a surprise,” I hedged as I crossed my right leg over my left.
“Yes to me, no to her. She had been on the pill our whole relationship. She had always talked about having kids one day, but then changed her mind about it. I was happy to have a child-free life. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be a father at thirty-nine. Plus, with the amount of traveling that I was doing for my company, I didn’t want to get a puppy because I thought it wouldn’t be fair to it. A child would have been a hundred times worse. When things got rough between us, she stopped taking her birth control.”
“Wow. Trapping a man one-oh-one right there. You said she was cheating though,” I started, but I didn’t need to finish the thought for him to know what I meant.
“I got a DNA test done just as a precaution. She swore she always used condoms with the other men, but even they can break, and they are not one hundred percent effective.”
You’re telling me.
“So you stayed when you found out she was pregnant. Why stay though? You had all of these problems and I had to imagine you fell out of love with her.”
“I did fall out of love. But we were having a child together. I wanted to try and make it work for him. I wanted my child to be able to grow up with both parents in their life. And she got better. The whole time she was pregnant, it was like she was the woman I fell in love with. Even after Christian came, she was a wonderful mother. Everything was going great for the first two years roughly.”
There was a pain within his voice. This still wasn’t easy for him to talk about. I had to imagine it was a wound that took a long time to close. When you break up with someone, you can make it a clean break. When you have a child with them though, there was no such thing as a clean break, because you both were going to be in that child’s life no matter what. Those years could either be pleasant and amicable or it could be a living Hell every time you had to be in the same room. What that looked like was dictated fully by the people who made the baby.
“Postpartum?” I had managed to avoid it, but I knew most women weren’t so lucky.
“Doctors cleared her, though she is using that as her excuse for her behavior. There are plenty of women who suffer through it every day and some barely make it through. The fact that she is throwing that word around like it’s nothing is disrespectful to them.” He gave a deep sigh before he continued, “I think reality kicked in. I think she figured that things would eventually return to normal. That she would get to go shopping and on vacations to beach resorts like she got to before she became pregnant.”
“That doesn’t really happen when you have a baby that is relying on you. I know there were times when Adam got frustrated with being a father. He loved the idea of it. The notch it gave him. But he didn’t like not being able to go out to fancy restaurants or coming home thinking he was gonna get laid and there was a baby crying.”
“The vanity wears off and when it does, you either stay because you love being there or you start to distance yourself and eventually leave. Ellis left. She would go out partying and at first, I was fine with it. She got to have her own life as well, and it wasn’t healthy for her to be stuck inside all day taking care of Christian. But then going out twice a month turned into once a week, and then she would be gone for a couple of days. That increased to being gone for a week or more.”
“She was just out drinking?”
It seemed crazy to me that someone would turn around and leave their child just so they could get drunk. But I had never been much of a drinker, so maybe I wouldn’t understand it. Often people were surprised that I didn’t drink much after working in bars and a strip club. But I think that was why I didn't drink. I had seen the result far too much.
“And cheating. A bit of party drugs as well. I had tried to talk to her, but nothing I said ever worked. I filed for divorce almost a year and a half ago when I came home and Christian was crying his head off in his crib. She was nowhere to be found. She had packed her things and left him alone for hours.”
Jesus. No wonder he didn't want Christian with her. She had abandoned him in his own crib. Anything could have happened to him. Just because he was in his crib didn’t mean he was safe. He could have climbed out in his desperate need for someone. He could have slipped and hit his head. A crib was safe to sleep in, to be playing in for a short time while a parent was home. It was not some babysitter.
“I don’t even know what to say. I can’t imagine doing something like that. You have every right to be pissed off at her and at me for letting Ellis take Christian. There’s no excuse for her behavior.” It was just downright disgusting.
“You didn’t know and as I said, I should have told you right away,” he said with a small shrug.
