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Chapter Nine
I’ve been thinking about it ad nauseam all week. During surgeries when I needed to be focused on the patient and what I was doing. Every second I’ve been in the hospital and I saw her. At night alone in my bed. When I was with my mother reading that fucking book to her and listening to her not-so-subtle comments.
It’s all I’ve thought about.
Her. Katy Barrows. Having a baby.
Only not just any baby. My baby.
At first, I tried to play it off that I was happy for her and how cool and brave it is that she’s doing that alone. But that didn’t work. So then I took the rational approach. I don’t know her well, and she’s my resident and I’m her boss. There are rules. Not to mention, I don’t want love or romance ever again, and I already like Katy more than I should, which would only complicate something that is already so fucking complicated further.
When none of those worked, I pulled out the big guns. I was fired for sexual misconduct—even if it was all a blackmailed lie—and asking your employee to have your baby is one hundred percent risking the same accusation, and I can’t lose this job because that will be the end of my career as a doctor.
I rode those rationalizations hard. Played every single one of them on repeat.
But still, it did no good.
So then I tried adding on how Katy is looking for a donor, not a father to her child, and that she would never want to have a kid with me. She’s trying to do this on her own, and I don’t enter into that. Only, I knew that wasn’t true since she was going to be trying for a kid with that fuckwad, nowhere-near-good-enough-for-her Zane.
All week I’ve been in agony.
Sleepless, restless, exhausting, pining for something I had no right to pine for agony.
I’ve avoided her, but I couldn’t stop watching her like a goddamn creeper either. Katy is beautiful and smart and funny and fun and honest and has the biggest heart. She will be an amazing mother to her child.
And I want to be the father.
I want it so badly it’s consuming me.
It’s made the perpetual bitter taste that’s lived in my mouth for the last few months even harder to swallow.
My problem is, and I said this before, I like Katy. She is all those things I mentioned and more. I’m not oblivious to all the ways my body wants her. But I need to get over it. I may crave her, but my heart is on lockdown, not wanting to be reopened to anyone again. But more than that, I’d have to trust her, and right now, I don’t trust anyone except for my mother because she’s the only person I’ve ever loved who didn’t intentionally fuck me over.
I shouldn’t have Katy here.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
But sitting in that restaurant felt like fate. Seeing Katy again after all these years and knowing that she wants the same thing for her life that I do. Hearing her tonight at the table with her friends, it was as if everything fell into place for me. No more denying it or rationalizing it away. I had to take the chance, or I’d always regret it. It’s delicate as sin since she works for me, and I have to see her practically every day. If this goes wrong, it’ll potentially impact our work relationship, and I can’t have that.
I can’t lose what I just got back.
Too late now.
I acted because there was no way I could stop myself, and here we are.
I pour Katy a glass of white wine and slide it across the island to her. She’s sitting at the breakfast bar on the other side, picking at some kind of creamy chicken with what looks like tomatoes and spinach with her fork as she cautiously eyes me. I pour myself a glass of wine too, and while standing, I open the lid on my pork Milanese and force myself to cut and eat a bite though I’m not the least bit hungry anymore.
I lick my lips, take a hasty gulp of wine, set the glass down, and start with, “First, I need to apologize to you for my behavior this week. When I explain everything to you, you’ll understand it better, but please know my being cold or distant and possibly even a bit of a jerk was not because I think your decision to have a baby is a bad one, and it has no bearing on my thoughts or opinions of you as a surgeon.”
“Okayyy,” she replies softly, stretching out the word. She’s visibly on edge because I’m making her so, and I don’t know how to stop. I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous in my life, and unlike Katy, when I’m nervous, I become quiet and introspective. “Bennett, just please spit it out already. You’re freaking me out.”
“I want to have a baby with you.”
Her fork clatters to the counter and I fall forward, my elbows meeting the marble and my head hitting my hands.
“Shit. That was not how I was supposed to say it.” Fuck. I slap my hands on the counter and meet her startled and incredulous—and quite possibly terrified—blue eyes. “I’m so sorry, Katy. I’m doing this all wrong.” I blow out a strained breath. “Please don’t run. Just sit here and listen to everything I have to say.”
“Um.”
