“The apartment’s a good enough place to start.”
She furrowed her brow. “Myapartment?”
“You can’t live like this.”
She stared at him, shocked. “Likewhat?”
“This is not the right environment to raise a child.”
She flinched at the inherent criticism. “It’sfine,” she snapped, never mind the fact she’d just been thinking a similar thought.
“Clearly, it’s not.”
Anger sparked in her bloodstream. Somehow, his fancy British accent made his scathing criticism a thousand times worse. Or was it the way his voice sent arrows of desire needling through her, even when she wanted to throttle him?
“Gray, I’m not into this. You came here to talk about Charlotte, fine. I get that we have to discuss her. But don’t you dare stand there and criticize me or my apartment, or my life, or any damned thing, come to think of it. You don’t have that right.”
“I’m not doing it to be unkind. I’m a realist, and objectively speaking, this apartment doesn’t work.”
“You’re a snob,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
Surprisingly, he smiled. Just a flicker of his lips, but for a second, she was reminded of the man she’d loved, when life had been somehow simpler.
“She’s my daughter.”
“Ourdaughter,” she corrected, her blood pressure shooting through the roof.
“She is my only daughter. Everything I have in this world will pass to her one day. She is already a billionaire and your apartment doesn’t even have a dining table.”
She felt insulted and overwhelmed. Somehow, referring to Charlotte as a ‘billionaire’ was isolating and terrifying. It made Abby feel as though Charlotte was going somewhere Abby couldn’t follow. She shook her head in an instant repudiation of everything he’d said.
“She’s a baby,” she whispered, deciding that sweet or not, the wine would do. She yanked a glass from the cupboard and poured some wine into it, closing the fridge with more force than she’d intended. “She has a crib, a room, toys, and a mom who loves her. What more could she need?”
“How about a right to know her father?”
Tears flooded Abby’s eyes at the unexpected – and valid – retort.
“Let’s not fight,” he said firmly, finishing his beer and placing the glass on the counter. “I didn’t come here to insult you, or to argue with you about the decision you made two years ago. What’s done is done. We need to focus on what happens next.”
Does there have to be a next?But the question was clearly foolish. It was obvious that Gray had no intention of leaving things as they were. Her best course of action was to hear him out, to understand what he wanted and then decide if she could live with it or not.
“Okay. Let’s do that.”
His eyes flickered with surprise, but he was too skilled a negotiator to let her ask the questions. “Tell me what you think would be fair.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“You’ve known about her for over two years. You must have thought, at some point, of what it might be like if I found out?”
“Not until a month ago.”
“Seriously? Even when she was born?”
Abby shook her head gently. “You’d well and truly moved on. I wasn’t going to ruin your life by calling to tell you that we’d made a baby during our ‘just sex’ time together.”
“Don’t do that,” he said with quiet disapproval. “Don’t put words – particularly not words like that – into my mouth. Discovering I’m a father has not ruined my life.”
“I just presumed –,”