The Child Who Changed Them (Parent Portal 5)

“What role, if any, you’re going to play in this baby’s life, starting with the prenatal portion. How we work together to be the best parents possible, even if you aren’t going to play a role after the child is bor

n. We’ll still need to figure out how we’d handle that for the best of the baby. How would I eventually tell a child that its conception wasn’t planned?”

“We won’t be telling this baby that.” The words came out a little stronger than he’d have liked. The plan had been to have a calm, kind conversation where they acknowledged each other’s positions and found a way to respect both. Assuming she understood that there was no way on this or any planet that he was going to walk away from his child. He’d never imagined he could have a child of his own—and he’d be there for every step of its life.

“We won’t.”

“No.”

“What part of that won’t we be telling it?”

“All of it.” He heard his tone and thrummed his fingers against the expensive linen tablecloth. “I’m open to discuss the actual child’s not being planned, if there’s a need for it that I am not currently seeing, though I can’t at the moment figure out why a child should need to know the details. However, as I’ve just stated, I’m open to discussion on that point. As to the rest of it...unless you plan to give up custody of the child to me, or one of us dies, it will have two parents for its entire life.”

Her expression didn’t change. The straight line of her mouth remained firm. And yet, he sensed a lightening, maybe a relaxing in the chin. Or a glint in those big, expressive brown eyes. No way was any of the conversation going as planned. At the moment, the only thing he appeared to have gotten right was the need for them to be someplace public, where they were forced to keep some decorum between them.

“I told you two weeks ago that you would be welcome to be a part of this baby’s life, Greg. Just as I told you that if you didn’t want to be, I’d understand and leave your name off the birth certificate.”

Right. She’d already established answers to the questions he’d spent the day thinking about.

“I wasn’t listening with the ear of a father, then.”

He hadn’t really been listening at all, he admitted to himself.

“I won’t do that again,” he added, figuring she deserved the honesty and commitment to hearing what she needed.

Her gaze darkened. He resisted the urge to lean closer in. To take her hand. He was not going to jump into a relationship.

He was going to be a father.

Chapter Eight

As if by unspoken agreement, the conversation stayed neutral for the rest of the evening. They kept to work talk, and Elaina was grateful for the respite.

It felt good to be eating with Greg again. A little odd to be out in public, rather than the hospital cafeteria, but with the past couple of weeks she’d had, that little bit of odd barely fazed her. Brooklyn’s testing was proving exactly what Greg had suspected. When the girl was at the hospital and administered a larger dose of drug that would stay in her system three to five days, her scans showed up markedly different, and her symptoms lessened accordingly. During the week she was at home, supposedly on prescribed medication, the lower, daily dose, the scans were as they’d always been: high in cortisol levels, indicating stress. It appeared that Brooklyn’s mother wasn’t medicating her at home as directed.

Out of the realm of Elaina or Greg’s level of control, but if the next two scans showed the same results, they would have something concrete to send to Brooklyn’s pediatrician and to report to Social Services, as was their duty. Martha’s mistake had probably been a blessing in disguise, leading them to discover the child’s real problem.

“It’ll be cleared up before you go,” Elaina said without thinking, and then, fork in hand, froze. He was leaving.

She’d miss him. Just as she’d been missing their meals—and more—since she’d broken things off with him, like she missed a good television series when the last episode aired. She didn’t want him to go. He brightened her days.

But he was just that—a great series, not part of her real life.

And...

They had to discuss how they were going to handle long-distance, shared parenting. LA wasn’t that far, only an hour, but it was far enough that their child couldn’t go to the same day care or school from both homes.

“I don’t want my child to live in two different homes,” she said suddenly. They weren’t there to enjoy a meal together like the olden days. It was time to sit up and be the single mom she’d devoted herself to becoming. “To be split between two bedrooms, two routines, two sets of boundaries...”

She knew it often happened successfully. She just didn’t want to raise her child that way if she didn’t have to.

“I don’t want that, either,” he said, and then clamped his lips together, as though he’d already had second thoughts. Frowning, he put his napkin on his plate and sat back. “I spent my day thinking about being a father,” he said. “I didn’t plan out the next eighteen years of my life or envision how they might look.”

Her heart lurched again, as it had been doing with him on and off for a while. The feeling was both invigorating and off-putting, and she shied away from giving it focus. But she most definitely wanted to be aware of his emotions. His needs. To understand as best as she could. And make certain that their association wasn’t all about only her.

“So let’s start there,” she said, smiling across at him. The muscles in her face thanked her for allowing them to relax and be natural. “How do you feel about all of this?”

Shaking his head, he raised his brows, shrugged, and then broke into a grin. “I’m thrilled, of course. Thankful. In shock. Amazed. Confused. Overwhelmed—that whole shock thing. And certain that I want to be a father.”