The Child Who Changed Them (Parent Portal 5)

His gut clenched on that one, another jab of the familiar pang of having lost her, and he passed by his street, continuing on to a beach parking lot. He didn’t get out. The March air, while balmy, still carried a bit of a chill after dark. But he rolled down his window a couple of inches. Enough that, if he concentrated, he could hear a hint of the soothing sound of waves moving along the shore.

At one point in his life, he’d been certain he wanted nothing more than to have a child. He’d been married to a woman he’d thought he loved. He’d finished his residency. Completing two of his major life goals; the third was becoming a father.

You’re the only man I’ve slept with in a couple of years. If only Elaina knew how badly he’d like to believe that statement.

Especially considering the timing of the pregnancy. She’d said she was breaking up with him because she needed to be alone—without a man in her life. She had to have met someone else to be pregnant now.

For the next five or so minutes, he contemplated who that someone else might be. He considered her ex-husband, Wood, as a possibility.

There’d been something really tight between them.

But in all the time Greg had been sleeping with Elaina, he’d never had a sense that she and Wood had ever had that hot-for-each-other kind of relationship. She’d been so amazed by the fire between her and Greg.

Her connection with Wood had always seemed like an emotional one, a close friendship more than a traditional marriage.

Greg found that bond more of a threat than sex would have been. She’d never let him get even near the door of her deepest heart.

So how could he have felt that he really knew Elaina, even from way outside that door?

Because he was who he was, which meant he went all in with a woman way too soon, being too eager to share his life with a permanent companion. Because he really wanted a partner in his life.

He’d always been the nerd who’d spent his high school and most of his college years on the outside looking in at the popular kids.

Rather than getting drunk—he hadn’t liked giving up his mental autonomy—he’d liked to watch movies that ended well. To read. To analyze and figure things out.

Sometimes his observations had been too on point for the comfort of others. His own mother had once told him he intimidated the heck out of her. She’d meant it in the best possible way, but like some inadvertent words do, those had stung. And stuck.

Staring out into the darkness of the ocean in the distance, his car being the only one in the lot, Greg grabbed the steering wheel tight.

Elaina was pregnant.

He might not have any candidates for the identity of the father, but he knew it couldn’t be him.

He’d been tested by three different facilities, and all three confirmed his condition. He had a not completely uncommon condition of antisperm antibodies, where his antibodies attacked his own sperm, and with extremely low motility, he had a count so low he was unable to impregnate a woman.

And Elaina had no idea. Other than his ex-wife, no one knew. It wasn’t the type of thing a guy went around bragging about.

Elaina had just seemed so absolutely convinced it was him. Which told him that she firmly believed there was no other possibility.

Because the other guy had used a condom? They were only effective 98 percent of the time. Maybe the father of her child had told her he’d had a vasectomy.

Whatever the reason, she was pregnant, thought him the only possible father, and would go on thinking it unless he proved her wrong.

And if she wasn’t at all the woman he thought her to be, if instead she was like Heather Baine, the girl he’d dated the summer before leaving for college, and knew, as Heather had known, that he wasn’t the father of her baby as she’d claimed, then he had a right to clear his name. Heather had burned him bad. He’d turned over his first semester tuition before he’d found out that she’d been lying to him all along. A guy didn’t forget that, either. He wasn’t going to be burned, be used, a second time because the real father wouldn’t stand up. He couldn’t believe Elaina would do such a thing. The idea of it pissed him off a whole lot more even than Heather’s duplicity had done. But he also couldn’t be the father of her child. Grabbing his phone from the breast pocket in his scrubs, Greg hit the speed dial he hadn’t yet bothered to erase, half expecting her not to pick up.

“Hello?” She sounded...tentative. Not unfriendly, but not sure she wanted to speak with him, either.

“Hey.” He wanted, first and foremost, to reassure her. Because when it came out that he wasn’t the father, Elaina might need a friend.

The line was silent then. He’d made the call. The onus was on him.

Glancing out at the sand that was barely visible as it faded into the darkness, he hung his free hand over the steering wheel. Remaining calm. He had proof.

“I want a paternity test done.” Greg had never thought to be having this conversation again in his life. And certainly not with Elaina. The whole thing made him feel slightly sick.

“Excuse me?”

“They can be done in vitro now. At seven weeks. With no risk to the baby.” Helped having a head filled with medical knowledge.