“Support from whom? What if something happens to you, for instance?”
She had that all taken care of. And told him so. Detailed the arrangements she’d made with Angie. And reiterated the support from other family members and friends.
She had her life back on track.
Craig might be a stop-you-in-your-tracks kind of guy, but he wasn’t going to change her mind about doing this alone.
Chapter Seven
He’d donated his sperm so that those who couldn’t have a family by traditional means would still be able to have children of their own.
Had he really thought his donation would only be used by married couples who were infertile?
Asking himself the tough questions, in light of Amelia’s intimate honesty, Craig was relieved to find that he really wasn’t standing in judgment or facing her with preconceived notions. He didn’t need his child in a family made up of particular parts, or from a particular financial status. He needed it to be well loved. Secure. Clean and cared for.
Just from his brief looks at Amelia’s home, he knew she had the clean part down. The guard who’d kept him from getting upstairs without credentials kind of tended to the secure part. At least in one sense. There was emotional safety to contend with, as well.
With a glance at the folder on the desk, he had as much reassurance as it was possible to get at this point that the woman carrying his child would care for it. The baby was still little more than a fetus and she already had a guy coming to baby-proof her home. Medically she was doing more than necessary. She’d already paid for cord blood storage.
Banking cord blood was a relatively new concept to the general public, but it gave doctors the ability to treat a patient with their own cord blood stem cells—a way to cure some diseases that would otherwise be terminal.
He hadn’t even gotten as far as cord blood banking in his thoughts yet, and he was a doctor who’d seen the banked blood save a life.
And as to the child being loved... How did he quantify that?
He’d come to check on the welfare of his unborn seed. He didn’t feel...satisfied.
Made more complicated by the fact that he hadn’t counted on being intrigued by the woman carrying that seed.
“Have you dated anyone since your partner died?” Amelia’s question gave him a few more minutes just when he’d been struggling with a reason to stay. She’d just finished telling him she wasn’t in the market for a relationship—period. So she most definitely wasn’t coming on to him.
He could only conclude that she was feeling sorry for him.
Which didn’t sit well, either. Yet, there he sat. Not getting up. Getting out. Getting on with his day. His life.
“I have,” he told her. “I’m not hard up for a woman, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Hardly!” Her burst of incredulity was quickly tempered, but she followed it with, “You’re gorgeous. You’re a doctor. And you appear to be a genuinely nice guy.”
So she’d noticed him. As a man. He felt gratified as he took another sip of juice. Held the glass with one hand, resting it on the palm of the other, which rested on his thigh.
“I was asking whether or not you’d reached the point where you were opening yourself up to another relationship, and possibly a family of your own,” she added.
He could pretend to himself that her question was of a personal nature, that she was asking because she was interested in the answer for herself. As if she might consider starting a relationship with him, a bond that could go someplace great. Someplace permanent.
He didn’t make that mistake.
“I haven’t met anyone who’s lasted longer than a few months.” A couple had been open to more, but as soon as he’d felt their growing affection, he’d felt compelled to break things off with them. “I’m not out to hurt anyone,” he told Amelia. Hoping that she understood that she was included in that statement.
Odd, but it was kind of nice talking to her. A woman who had no interest in him, and yet one with whom he held a deep connection.
“I’ve had some trouble sleeping since my last contact with Gavin,” he told her. “I’ve had a nightmare or two...nebulous, dark impressions of children screaming and I can’t get to them to help them.”
He sounded like he needed a shrink. And maybe talking to someone wouldn’t hurt.
“I finally concluded that I needed to get this...situation—all of it, not just your part in it—taken care of before I think about having a family of my own,” he told her. “The rest is done. You’re the last piece.”
Probably not his best verbiage, but the way she was watching him, with an open expression, like she was listening and interested, made him think she wasn’t taking offense.