The waiter comes and takes his drink order. He leans on the table and stares deep into my eyes, another tactic that used to make me feel special as if I was the most important person in his life.
“How have you been?” he asks, oozing sincerity.
“I’ve been very good,” I tell him.
He reaches across the table and places his slim hand on mine. “Thank you for calling. I’ve been thinking about you for weeks, but I couldn’t muster the courage to call you. I’d hate it if you rejected me, Vanessa.”
Nausea rises up my throat. How did I use to fall for such crap?
The waiter returns with Gabriel’s beer, and he takes a swig.
“I’ve missed you every single day, Vanessa,” he says, getting fully into the role of a heartbroken Romeo.
“Are you still married?” I ask him pleasantly.
His eyes darken. “Come on, Vanessa. I’m sure a part of you knew that I was married. How could I not be? Besides, you know it was just a marriage on paper.”
Sudden anger comes over me. How dare he? “I didn’t call you to rekindle a relationship that was based on a lie.”
“Oh. Why did you call me then?” he says just as coldly. The friendliness is gone, in its place an impatient mask, now that he knows he won’t be getting into my pants again.
I take in a sharp breath. “I called to tell you that you are a dad. We have a daughter.”
His mouth drops open almost comically. Then he bursts out laughing, leaving me confused. “Is that what this is all about? You messed up and now you want to pin a child on me? What happened with the father of the child? Did he bail and now you need someone to take his place?”
It’s my turn to stare at him in disbelief. “Are you insane?”
“That should be my line,” Gabriel says.
“She’s eight months old.” I wait for him to do the math. If he does it, he’ll realize that we broke up at the time I got pregnant.
“I’ll play along. If she’s my child, why wait until now?” he says.
“I tried to tell you.”
“Obviously not very hard,” he says, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
I’m at a loss for words and I’m fighting to keep the tears in my eyes from dropping. I never imagine a scene where Gabriel would accuse me of framing him.
“Nice try but look for another sucker to lie to.” He reached into his pocket, fishes out a twenty and bangs it on the table. “That should cover the bill and a couple of diapers.” He stands up and shoots me a dirty look. “What a waste of an evening.”
I watch him stalk out of the bar. Only when the door closes after him do I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. Humiliation washes over me. I feel like such a fool and so small. Like an ant that’s been trampled on.
I wrap my hands around myself and hug myself. I need to get out of here before I burst into tears and embarrass myself. I stand up and walk out. In the car, I grip the steering wheel and stare out the windshield unseeingly.
“Bastard!”
I sit in the car stewing for the next few minutes and when I start the car, I’ve made a decision. If Gabriel doesn’t want to be part of Ivy’s life, that’s fine with me. This was his only chance. Ivy won’t be the first child who’ll grow up without her biological father in her life.
I drive to Lexi’s house to pick Ivy up. My anger must show on my face because Lexi insists that I have coffee with her first.
“Ivy is fine. She’s in the playroom with the others,” Lexi says.
I trudge after her to the kitchen. My anger dissipates leaving me feeling spent. Today ranks up there as one of the worst days of my life. The day Gabriel denied that he could even be Ivy’s dad.
“You look beat,” she says a look of concern on her face.
“I feel beat.” I slide onto a stool and refuse to give in to the urge to slouch. Yeah, that hurt like hell. But it’s not the end of the world or even close to it.
Lexi pours coffee into two mugs and sets them on the island. “What happened?”
“He laughed in my face.” My lower lip trembles as the humiliation of the past hour floods me. “He thought it was a plan to get him to take on a responsibility that’s not his.”
“What?” Lexi says. “Start at the beginning.”
I tell her the whole sorry tale from the beginning. She shakes her head when I get to the part where he thought I’d contacted him because I’d missed him.
“I can’t believe I liked him,” Lexi says.
“Gabriel is charming, and when he turns it on, you have no chance. Everyone thinks the sun shines from his ass. I did too until I realized that all of it was an act.”