Chapter 12
Laird
I sat down on the bed naked and noticed Fiona staring. She was trying not to make it obvious, but it was, and I laughed. I had never had a problem with nakedness. I felt comfortable in my skin; I knew I looked good. I worked hard enough to be in good shape, and after we had fucked, there was no reason for me to cover up. She had seen me in the most compromising positions and loved it.
I grabbed an apple from the tray I had brought her and bit into it.
“Alright,” I said. “Start from the beginning.”
Fiona took a bite of the sandwich I had made her and chewed, thinking. When she swallowed, she started explaining.
She told me about an ex-boyfriend, Randy.
“He dumped me because I was too boring,” she said.
“What?” I asked. “You’re far from boring.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I was very different when we met.” She blushed, and it was the perfect combination of adorable and sexy. “I’m not usually this forward. I like routine and structure and stability, and I don’t usually put myself out there like that. I was trying to prove him wrong.”
She looked embarrassed about it. She explained to me about the tattoos and the adventures she planned for herself. I was starting to understand her and to see where she was coming from.
“I was trying to seduce you that night,” she said when she got to the bit where she hurt her ankle.
I chuckled. “It worked. It was one of the best nights I’ve ever had.”
She smiled, and it was a genuine smile. A beautiful smile. “Me too.”
“I started feeling sick two weeks later, throwing up every morning. At first, I thought it was food poisoning or a stomach bug, but when it wouldn’t go away, I started thinking of what else it could be. I took a pregnancy test, and well, here I am.”
I winced. “I should have thought about wearing a condom. I’m sorry.” I had been so caught up in her, overcome by my lust for her that I hadn’t even thought about putting on a condom. It had been irresponsible of me and look what had happened.
But Fiona shook her head. “I was on birth control. I didn’t think I had a reason to worry or I would have asked for one.” She explained to me about what her doctor had said about antibiotics. Being a woman and keeping all these things in mind sounded complicated. The only thing I ever worried about was a condom. And even then, I forgot about it sometimes.
“I wasn’t sure if I should have come here to tell you,” she said. “I didn’t know how you would react. I couldn’t have dreamed that you would react the way you did.”
She glanced up at me. “It means a lot to me that you didn’t just turn me away.”
I leaned over to her and kissed her. “Never.”
She smiled and carried on eating. I watched her bite into the sandwich and chewed and found I was mesmerized by her mouth. Everything she did, whether it was talking or eating, was hypnotizing, and I couldn’t stop staring at her mouth. I loved kissing her, and I found that I wanted to do it again.
I realized she was looking at me, and when I looked at her eyes, she smiled at me. She knew exactly what she was doing, seducing me. I shook my head and smiled, too. I wanted to take her again, but we had things we needed to talk about.
“So,” I said. “What’s next? What do you want to do?”
She closed down, her smile fading and her eyes sliding away from me. I watched her withdraw until she was the quiet, shy person I had dropped off at the lodge instead of the confident, sexual being I had fucked the night before, and now. I was amused at her ability to shut down like that, to change. There were so many sides to her. It was interesting, and I wanted to get to know her better. I wanted to know who she was, inside and out, what made her tick, what made her open up and what scared her so much that she shut down. I hadn’t met a lot of women that had more than one dimension, and here I sat with a woman across from me that had several of them. Maybe this was why I hadn’t been able to get her off my mind after she’d been here. Maybe this was what kept me stuck on her.
Even now, if we decided it was all over and we weren’t going to do this, I knew I wouldn’t be able to forget about her. Not her hot body and how fucking fantastic it felt to be inside of her, or her beautiful mind and the way her personality made her more beautiful than her looks did.
I didn’t know how that dick of an ex-boyfriend was trying to say when he’d broken up with her because she was too boring. Even when Fiona had said it was because she was trying to be someone else that she was more interesting now, I didn’t agree. Fiona was interesting in every way, and she didn’t even know it. I barely knew her, and I could already see there were more dimensions to her. I was fascinated by her, and I wanted to know her better. I was pissed off at that fucker for making her think there was anything about her that she needed to change.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know,” she said, answering my question. “I’m an actuary. Usually, everything I do is planned. This has thrown me off track, and I struggle with it.”
An actuary, I thought, filing that away for later reference. Everything she said now was something I learned about her.
“I’m way out of my depth. My life is planned. It revolves around routine and structure and stability. There’s none of that with this, and it scares me. I guess in a way, I am boring.”
I shook my head. “Don’t say that. It might be his definition of you, but it doesn’t have to be yours. And it sure isn’t mine.”
She gave me a sad smile. I wanted to fuck up the bastard that had let her doubt herself, for taking something as precious as her confidence and shitting all over it.
She carried on explaining what her life looked like and how she wasn’t sure how to handle raising a baby, and my mind wandered to how we might be able to deal with it. We could co-parent, I thought. I could go to the city on weekends and see her, see the baby. I could be the father that the child grew up knowing. I had savings – a lot of it – that sat in my bank account accumulating interest. I could help her out, pay for the child, do what needed to be done. I had to do right by Fiona and my unborn child, and I intended to start immediately.
I could decide all these things for myself, but that wasn’t what this was about. Ultimately, we had to agree. We had to decide together what we were going to do moving forward, and there was a chance Fiona didn’t even want this child.
Earlier this week, I had thought about legacies and leaving something behind. To have a child sounded like something I would want, now. I had been happy to be lonely and without responsibility before, but it had all changed, and now I wanted that baby.
But if she didn’t want the baby, I couldn’t force her to keep it. Not if she would be the one doing the primary care. We had to be on the same page. I needed to know where she stood. I saw her panic about being pregnant. I heard her talk about her life being turned upside down and about never making space for a child because she hadn’t seen it in her immediate future. I had to know how she felt. I could tell she was panicked, but I didn’t know what she really wanted.
“Fiona,” I said, interrupting her. “Before we talk about anything else, I need to know something.”
She nodded, looking at me, waiting for me to ask my question.
“I know this is hard. It’s a surprise for me as much as it is for you, I’m sure. But I need to know where you stand so we can make a decision about this. I need to know what you want.”
“What I want?” she asked.
I nodded. “This is about both of us. Having a child is a big sacrifice. And I heard you thinking about logistics and about how realistic things are and everything. But when you ignore all of that and you listen to your heart, deep down, what do you want?”
She looked up at me, and for a moment I envisioned her telling me she wanted to get rid of the baby. She took a deep breath.
“You,” she said.