“Sure they do, and that’s great for them. I don’t want to see my kid every other weekend. Do you?”
She blinked at him.
“Would you want me to take her away, and grant you minuscule slivers of time with her?”
Her chest clutched, her face instantly pale. “Are you threatening me?”
He expelled a rough sigh. “I’m trying very hard not to do that,” he said quietly. “But I want to be a father to our daughter – a full-time father – and if you don’t move in with me, I can’t see how else we can make that happen.”
He was trying to reassure her, but it didn’t work. She felt completely backed into a corner.
“You don’t even want kids,” she moaned, pressing a palm to her forehead.
“Hypothetical children, no. I didn’t. But Charlotte is here, Abby. She’s a person. A part of me. You’d better believe I very much want her.”
Abby sobbed, turning away from him so he wouldn’t see her emotions.
“Think of what I can give her. And you.”
“I don’t need anything from you.”
“You want a family,” he chided gently. “I know you well enough to know that.”
She tried not to let it please her that he remembered.
“And Charlotte already has that. She has a dad, and an aunt and uncle, and a cousin almost exactly the same age.”
“She can have still have those people in her life without us getting married.”
She wasn’t looking, so didn’t see the way his jaw tightened. “I can’t risk it.”
“Risk? What risk?”
He ground his teeth together. “After my father died, my mother married again. And again. And again. There was a succession of stepfathers in my life, none of them particularly nice nor good with children. I can’t allow that to happen to my daughter.”
“You don’t even know her,” Abby pointed out angrily.
“I wouldn’t remind me of that,” he said with steely reserve.
She bit down on her lip. “I just mean…”
“I know what you meant. You think I don’t have any right to try to shape her environment, to protect her.”
“From me? And whomever I may one day marry?”
“From anything,” he agreed firmly.
“She doesn’t need you for that. She’s got me.”
“And now she has me.”
“I can’t believe this.” She expelled a harsh breath. “I don’t want to marry you.”
“You should think about it properly.”
He moved back to his own meal as though they’d been discussing something as inconsequential as the weather or the summer’s heatwave, scooping some noodles and curry into his plate and lifting it a little higher.
She watched, her appetite completely gone, as he ate. When his plate was empty, he pushed it to the side.