He nodded, but his expression was as serious as the night was dark. “And do you have a room set up for the baby?”
“I will,” she responded defensively. “Look, I didn’t come to tell you because I wanted you to take over my life. It’s my baby, and I’ll work all this out. If you want to help, financially, then that would be appreciated.” She tilted her chin defiantly, her expression cool even as adrenalin was flooding her central nervous system. “But I don’t need your help. I’m not asking you for that. I really just thought you should know,” she finished, a little flat after the burst of emotion that had fired her outburst.
Theo couldn’t fault her logic. She could have kept this news to herself. Or she could have used the baby to blackmail him into paying a small ransom in child support. It was to her credit that she was doing neither. She wasn’t using the child as a bartering chip.
The same couldn’t be said for him.
“So you are suggesting that you go back to the village now. Have the baby, and raise it with just a brief visit to its father from time to time?”
“Well, I’m not planning to have the baby tonight,” she pointed out with a lift of her shoulders. Jokes usually cut through tension, but not in this instance. She saw his face flicker with impatience and swallowed. “Sorry. I know it’s not funny.”
“No, it isn’t.” He lifted a hand and dragged it through his hair. “You’ve researched me on the internet. You know about me? My life? My childhood?”
She blanched at the insinuation that she might have pored over articles of him, delighting in finding salacious gossip. “Of course not!” She rejected the idea wholesale. “I just needed to know where I could find you,” she said softly. “Once I knew where you worked, I stepped away from the computer.”
“I see.” He didn’t, though. Confusion pulled his lips into a frown. “So you weren’t curious to see if I’d be a fit father?”
“Of course not,” she shook her head with frustration. “Because you’re not going to be a father.”
His expression didn’t shift but brick after brick of determination was mounting inside of him. “Oh?” He prompted, the single word a very dangerous dare.
“No,” she bit down on her lip. “I mean, yes, biologically, it’s your child. But I’m the parent. Me. I’m going to raise him. It’s my problem. Not yours.”
“I don’t see this as a problem,” he responded after only the smallest beat had passed. “But if you think for one second that I am going to be a peripheral figure in my child’s life then you are delusional.”
Imogen stared at him.
She stared when she felt like the world was developing a crack into which she was tumbling.
She stared at him as heat and flame seemed to burst around her, making her face hot and her brain steam.
She stared at him as weakness and fatigue began to slide through her, exhausting her and draining her all at once.
“I don’t understand,” she said finally, reaching for her water and sipping it.
“Obviously.” His smile was barely a flicker of his lips.
“You’re saying you want to be a part of this baby’s life?”
“Baby, child, person. Yes. It’s my child, too. Why should that surprise you?”
Her mouth opened into a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. “I just… I didn’t…” She blinked, closing her mouth and shaking her head, trying to regain a semblance of intelligent thought. “You don’t strike me as someone who would want that,” she said softly.
“Don’t I?” He fixed her with a look of encouragement, waiting for her to elaborate. But Imogen was incapable of the thought processes required to make sense of the situation she suddenly found herself in.
“I don’t get it,” she said finally. “I’m saying you don’t have to be involved. That I’m happy – more than happy – to do this on my own. I just came here …”
“Because you think I deserve to know,” he interrupted impatiently. “You’ve said this already. And you’re right. I do deserve to know. As surely as I deserve to be a father to this child.”
“Okay,” she nodded, her tongue darting out and licking the edge of her lips. “Fair enough. I didn’t expect you’d feel that way but as you do, we can work something out.” Her mind ran furiously over exactly what that solution would be. The drive into London had taken her almost two hours. Obviously regular visitation was going to be limited by that. “You can come out whenever you want,” she said after a moment. “And I guess when the baby is older, I can bring him to the city.” She bit down on her lip, already hating the idea of what she was about to suggest. “Maybe even leave him to stay over for a night.”
Inwardly, her gut clenched at the idea of separating herself from the life form she had begun to think of as hers. Solely hers.
“This will not work,” he said, his nostrils flaring as he too rejected the idea.
“It won’t?” She bit down on her lip, hoping, for a moment, that he realized the impossibility of the level of involvement he was suggesting.
“No.” He shook his head firmly. “You do not like the idea of sharing the baby. Of bringing it here to spend weekends and nights with me?”