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She smiled and moved the phone away from her face. “You want to see something?” Abby lifted her shirt, displaying her now visibly round stomach. Her pregnancy could no longer be denied from a physical perspective. I stared at her, wishing I could run my hand along that taut skin. I’d yet to feel her bump in person, since she hadn’t had much of one when I’d left her.
“Is it twisted that I’m even more attracted to you now?”
“A little,” she said as she covered her stomach again.
“This is exactly why it’s a good thing I’m not there. That would be fucking dangerous.”
“What would you do to me if you were here now?”
“Is this a lead-in to phone sex, Ms. Knickerbocker?”
“It can be.” She smiled mischievously.
“Where’s your father?”
“He’s watchingWheel of Fortune.”
“Is the volume up loud?”
She giggled. “Yeah, he’s all the way downstairs, and I’m upstairs.”
“If I were there, I would be trying with all my might not to fuck you hard like I want to. The bigger your stomach gets, the more freaked out I would be, but at the same time, the more turned on I am. So you see the conundrum.”
“Youare one big conundrum, Benedictus.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“It’s not. But it’s who you are. One confused, complex man.”
“There’s no confusion when it comes to how much I desire you, Abby. That’s not where the uncertainty lies.”
“It’s nice to be wanted physically.” Her expression turned serious. “But that only gets me so far.”
“As I’ve told you before, I don’tjustdesire you physically. As an example, I can’t have you physically right now, yet I’ve been looking forward to talking to you all day.”
She stared at me quietly, then asked, “If you had met me under different circumstances, do you think we would’ve clicked?”
“You mean, if I had just met you in a pub or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s put it this way… I most definitely wouldn’t have kicked you out of my flat.”
“God, you’re romantic.”
I laughed.
“I often wonder what it would’ve been like if you and I had met in another time,” she said. “If there was no surrogacy in the mix, would we have stood a chance we don’t have now? That thought makes me kind of sad.”
“If we had met in a pub and got on well, I’d still want better for you than me, love. I’d still not want to tie you down—not figuratively, at least.”
Ignoring my stupid innuendo, she remained serious. “So it wouldn’t have worked out anyway. Is that what you’re saying? Because I deserve someone who’s capable of loving me as much as you loved Britney?”
You could’ve heard a pin drop as the conversation took a turn I wasn’t prepared for. I’d specifically tried not to think about Britney as I considered my growing feelings for Abby. I was holding on to a lot of guilt in that regard. As for my ability to love again, if you’d asked me a year ago whether it would be possible, I would’ve said absolutely not. As of late? I couldn’t be sure of anything. But the subject wasn’t one I was ready for tonight.
“You deserve someone without any emotional baggage,” I finally said.
“What someone deserves isn’t always what they want,” she countered. “Sometimes the things that make us the happiest aren’t the things that are perfect for us.” She shook her head. “Anyway, it’s all a moot point, I suppose. We met the way we met. And the situation is the complicated situation it is.”
