A Baby Affair (Parent Portal 2)

Growing serious, she said, “I don’t know if this is a good idea or not,” she said, “but I know it sounds like the right solution in my head. As long as we’re honest with each other. When you meet someone you think you want to date, or are ready to go find your wife, you tell me immediately. And if, after I have the baby and my hormones level out and I don’t want to have sex anymore, I tell you. Or, after I have the baby, we stop so it doesn’t complicate things with her.”

“Or anything else in between,” he added. “If it complicates things anytime, we stop.”

“Agreed.”

A glint came into his eye. “You busy tomorrow night?”

“No.”

“Your place or mine?” he asked. And then held up a hand. “Your place,” he answered for her. “And I’ll forgo the dinner.”

Right. Because they weren’t dating. But...

“We can order in,” he finished.

“But...” This was getting complicated already.

“You ever eat with your friends, Grace?” he asked, his use of her last name making her chuckle. She was making trouble where there was none. Or maybe she just didn’t want to see it lurking there.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she told him, and turned her back before she screwed things up.

So their relationship wasn’t conventional. Angie wasn’t going to be happy about it, that was for sure. And maybe her sister had cause for concern. After all, Craig was eventually going to meet someone else and get married, while Amelia was going to be a single mother for the rest of her life. No way was she going to take a chance that Isabella would suffer from her issues as she and Angie had suffered from their mother’s. She had some definite blind spots. She struggled to trust herself emotionally, which hindered her ability to communicate what she was feeling sometimes.

So yeah, maybe she was going to get hurt.

And maybe, since she was the only one who would, she was willing to take that risk.

Chapter Nineteen

That next Friday night turned into three more just like it. With Wednesdays and Sundays thrown in in between them. Instead of meeting in parking lots, they were meeting at Amelia’s home, and instead of riding bikes, they were riding each other.

They’d have sex, with a little talk, and he’d always get up and leave her bed immediately following the act. He also kept himself from as much immediate contact with her burgeoning belly as he could. Tried not to think of the little girl growing there.

Craig couldn’t fall in love with the baby, too, any more than he already had. She wasn’t his.

Sometimes they ate together. A lot of times not. As though by mutual decision they weren’t spending much more time together than they had before.

He knew enough about the body and relationships to know that eventually passion would dim somewhat with familiarity and repetition. He told himself that when it did, they’d spend less and less time together. They’d drift back to their own lives, with occasional contact pertaining to Isabella’s welfare. Maybe he’d get school updates once in a while. Or have the chance to glance over medical records.

It wasn’t going to be enough. None of it was enough.

But he couldn’t walk away. No matter what the future brought, Amelia was someone he was never going to forget. And Isabella would always be a part of him.

He still hadn’t met Amelia’s sister. They hadn’t done anything together outside their predetermined appointments for physical exercise. He kind of liked it that way. The more people who came into their sphere, the more judgment there’d be. The more pressure. And questions.

He shied away from the possibility of questions most of all. Mostly because he knew them all and had no answers. He was a doctor. A healer. And couldn’t find his own cure.

And for the most part, he was fine with the arrangement for the time being. He’d spent a Saturday night with his folks and didn’t like not telling them that there was going to be a little girl named Isabella born with their genes. It would kill them to know they were going to be grandparents with no rights to see the child, which was one reason why he’d never mentioned the other child in the world carrying his genes. That one they’d understand more easily, in that the girl had loving adoptive parents, a complete family. They’d never in a million years understand his relationship with Amelia. Standing on the outskirts of the family, but not being a part of it.

He wasn’t sure he understood it himself. But it was working. He was happier being in her life than outside it. And she made it very clear that his visits were the highlight of her week.

Her belly was growing noticeably, but neither of them spoke of the baby she carried, other than a brief mention that she’d had a monthly checkup and everything was fine. And that had come only because she’d had to be a little later than usual one Wednesday night due to the after-work obstetrical appointment.

If she had a nursery prepared in her home, she didn’t mention it to him, and he purposely didn’t look. They had clearly established boundaries between them and they were both sticking to them as religiously as they were sticking to each other. He didn’t know about her, but for his part, he didn’t want to do anything that would rock their boat even a little bit.

It would happen at some point. She was going to deliver her baby and everything would change. She wouldn’t be free for three nights a week of dinnertime sex, for one thing. Unless she hired a babysitter, she wouldn’t be free for much of anything.

And maybe that would be the time that he met someone else and started his own life. Maybe this was only meant to last throughout gestation. He’d get to experience this beginning of his daughter’s life, to be with Amelia through her pregnancy, and then move on to start his own family. He’d be able to let Isabella go then. Just as he had with the Sanders family in Oregon.