Hearing her cell phone ringing inside her purse, Kat tossed aside the paperwork with disgust and reached for it. It wasn’t a number she recognized, or even a local number, but she answered, figuring a telemarke
ter might be a welcome distraction.
“Hello?” she answered with a heavy sigh.
“Um, Katherine?” a man’s voice asked with uncertainty. “Kat?”
“Yes?” It wasn’t a telemarketer. They never called her Kat. Only her friends and family called her by that name. She pulled the phone away from her ear to look at the number again. It wasn’t local. It wasn’t even a US number, from the looks of it.
“This is Finn Steele,” she heard, as she pressed the phone back against her ear.
“Oh.”
That wasn’t what she expected to say. Or what she’d planned to say once she finally got in touch with the father of her child, but that was what came out. “I got the love letter you sent.”
“The what?”
“The offer from your attorneys.”
“Oh.” Finn chuckled nervously. “I was hoping it hadn’t arrived yet. I wanted to talk to you first and let you know it was coming, but my lawyer is more efficient than I expected for someone paid by the hour.”
“I’m sure he has a standard template he uses for all his rich clients and their pregnant mistresses.” Kat couldn’t help the bitter tone from leeching into her voice. She even winced at the sound of it, compared to Finn’s friendly, conversational tone. No matter what, being ugly to him wouldn’t help matters. Slapping Sawyer certainly hadn’t. “I’m sorry,” she stated, when he didn’t respond. “It’s the pregnancy hormones. And calling me just as I was reading the legal paperwork didn’t tip things in your favor.”
“What’s wrong with it? Patrick said he was going to put together a very generous offer.”
“It was. Very generous. Maybe too generous, under the circumstances. I can’t help but feel like you’re trying to sweep us under the rug. You can’t write a check and make this all go away, Finn. This isn’t a fender bender. It’s a child. Our child. And it deserves a family.”
There was a long silence on the line. Kat was tempted to keep talking, but stopped herself. It was the truth and he needed to hear it, understand it, and respond accordingly. So she waited for him to answer.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re not a dirty secret. You’re carrying a Steele grandchild. It’s not an ideal situation, but it’s not the end of the world, either. I just wish I wasn’t in China right now. There’s only so much I can do from here. But I’m going to talk to my parents. I’ll tell them everything tonight and I’m sure they’ll be eager to meet you as soon as they can.”
“You want me to meet your parents? Without you?”
“Yeah, sure. You’ll be fine. You’ll get to know everyone and by the time I get back stateside, I’m sure you’ll feel better about having a family that accepts our child as one of their own.”
That was nice, but that wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. “I was actually thinking of something a little bit more legally binding on the family front, Finn.”
“I can assure you that the offer my attorneys sent you is the best for everyone, Kat.”
“Not for me, Finn. I want to get—”
“You don’t want to marry me,” he interrupted.
Kat was stunned into momentary silence by his abrupt response. She was expecting him to give her a reason why he couldn’t or wouldn’t marry her, not the other way around. “I don’t?”
“No. Listen, you’ve spoken to my brother. I’m sure he was all too eager to tell you about all my flaws. He revels in them.”
“I’m not concerned with your flaws,” Kat argued.
“You should be. There’s a lot of them. I know that in your head getting married and raising this family together is the practical, responsible thing to do. But I am neither practical nor responsible. Ask anyone who has ever met me. Marrying me would...not be the fantasy you have in your mind.”
She could hear Finn sigh on the other end of the line before he continued. “This isn’t the old days where we have to marry to cover up the fact that we sinned together. I doubt many happy marriages resulted from that practice back then, and it wouldn’t result in a happy marriage now. If I thought that I would be a good husband and father, I would get down on one knee the moment I saw you again. But I can’t offer what I don’t have. What I can offer you is support, and my last name for our child. He or she will be a Steele, and will be raised as such. You can meet my family and be as involved with them as you’d like. But believe me when I say you don’t want to compound this mistake with marriage.”
It was a good argument. And Finn sold it well. And if marriage hadn’t been such a firm fixture in Kat’s mind since she was a small child, she might even be swayed by his words. But what Finn didn’t understand, what none of them understood, was what it was like to grow up with parents who weren’t married. It wasn’t the fifties then, and it still made her feel different. As though she wasn’t good enough. Kat never wanted her child to feel like that. Especially just because the father was being selfish.
“Are you sure you’re not just saying all this because you don’t want to get married?” she countered.
“Of course I don’t want to get married!” he shouted over the line. “That’s one of the reasons I’ll be so terrible at being a husband. Kat, I am not the marrying kind of guy. I’ve never even considered the possibility. I love the ladies too much to pick one for the rest of my life. I’ve always known this about myself, and that’s why I’ve always tried to be very careful where contraception was concerned. I never wanted to put myself or a woman in this position, and until now I’ve been successful. I don’t know why it happened this time, but I can’t change it, or me. I’m saying this for your sake, for our child’s sake and for my own sake. None of us will be happy if we get married.”