CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I do think we should get married,” Sam pressed. “It makes everything so much easier.”
Be still my heart. The romantic fool.
“I’m not sure that’s a valid reason for a wedding.”
Jumping to his feet, he paced the area between her coffee table and the front window.
“Think about what it will be like if we don’t. The poor kid will be shuttled between us constantly, spending way too much time on airplanes and with nannies. Is that what you want for our child? Because that’s what it’s going to be like. I don’t want to be a father that only sees his kid a few weeks every year. If I’m going to do this, I want to be involved.”
Be careful what you wish for. It might come true.
She’d hoped that Sam would want to be a father to the baby, and now he did. The devil, however, was in the details.
“I don’t want our child pulled from pillar to post,” she conceded with a heavy sigh. There was no clear-cut answer here. “Frankly, the idea of putting my baby on an airplane to you with some nanny is horrifying. I’m not sure I could even make myself do it. But marriage? That’s a huge commitment. We don’t love each other.”
The elephant in the room had to be acknowledged. They weren’t a couple and there wasn’t love between them. They had respect and friendship and a whole lotta lust but was that enough to build a life on? She wasn’t so sure.
“We’re committed for life already, Riley. We have a child between us now, which means we’re stuck with each other for a good long while whether we like it or not.” He came to sit next to her on the couch. “Don’t reject this right away. I’ve spent most of the night thinking about this and it’s the perfect solution. If you’re my wife, you’d be legally and financially protected if anything happened to me. You once told me that you were sensible and pragmatic. You have to admit that the most practical solution is that we get married.”
She couldn’t deny it. He’d made a great argument. If she wasn’t sort of a romantic at heart.
“That’s true…”
“But?”
She wanted to marry for love and romance and passion and all that girly stuff. She wanted to believe that her marriage would last forever and that her husband couldn’t live without her.
That wasn’t a rational argument, though.
“If you want me to be pragmatic then I need to think about my job and my house. I can’t just up and leave. I have responsibilities here.”
“I figured we could keep your house and I can just pay it off. We’ll want to visit Mom quite a bit and your family is close by, too. The rest of the time we can make our home wherever you’d like, although I do a great deal of business in Los Angeles and New York. If we don’t live there I might have to travel more, but if they’re just short trips you wouldn’t necessarily have to come along unless you wanted to.”
Apparently, he’d anticipated all of her arguments. “We would keep my house?”
“Absolutely,” he assured her. “And wherever we decide to make our home we can buy a house with a guest cottage so my mother or your parents can visit as often as they like.”
“A guest cottage. That’s…handy.”
He’d thought of everything, essentially knocking the pins out from under her. All she had to do was give in and go with the flow.
“My friend Tyler has one and it’s great for when family come and stay. But we’ll worry about that when the time comes. I think our main focus needs to be on getting married as soon as possible and then preparing for the baby.”
Riley took another long drink of her lemonade, draining the glass and wishing it were vodka.
“Do you want some more lemonade?”
She blinked a few times and then nodded. “I think I do.”
What she really needed was more time and space, but they appeared to be in short supply.
Sam refilled both of their glasses but didn’t sit down, instead resuming his pacing that was beginning to get on her nerves.
“Listen, you’ll have to take time off once the baby comes, right? Math was never my best subject but I’m pretty sure that you’ll give birth this winter in the middle of the school year. So you’d only be going back for part of the year, anyway. You won’t even need to work. Whether we get married or not, I’ll make sure that you’re taken care of financially. You’ll be able to stay home full time with the baby for as long as you like.”
He didn’t get it. He’d been so busy making plans, he hadn’t stopped for a minute to think about what she wanted. He’d only thought about what was convenient for him.
Finally. She’d found a flaw in the man. He was a tiny bit self-centered, but then he had good reason to be. People had probably been catering to his every whim for years now.
“You certainly have it all planned.”
He stopped pacing and turned to her, his brows pinched together in a frown.
“You don’t make that sound like a good thing.”
“It could be but you kind of forgot one tiny detail.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Such as?”
“Me.”
“You? I didn’t forget you. This is all about you.”
Riley shook her head sadly. He really believed what he was saying. “No, it’s about you. It’s all about me and the baby fitting into your life. There’s nothing in there about you fitting into mine.”
He opened his mouth but then shut it again. From his expression, it looked like he desperately wanted to say something but for some reason he didn’t.
“No reply?”
Shuffling his feet, he shrugged. “People are always complaining about their jobs. I didn’t think it would be a big deal if you quit. I thought you’d be glad.”
“Have I ever complained about my job? Because I love what I do, and I’ve worked hard for the reputation I have as an excellent, caring educator. You’re just assuming that I want to throw it all away.” She was well aware as to why. “Because you make millions and I make peanuts. Automatically you assumed that your work was far more important than mine.”
“No–”
“C’mon, Sam. You’ve always been honest with me. You just assumed that I would make all the compromises because you’re the big Hollywood star and I’m just the knocked-up kindergarten teacher. I should just be grateful that you don’t throw a little money my way and go back to your life, right?”
His cheeks were red and he couldn’t look her in the eye. Bingo.
“I was trying to make everything easy for you.”
“And you,” she shot back. If they were going to make this work, she had to set boundaries right out of the gate. She couldn’t let him and his fame take over her life. “Let’s not forget that all of this would be easier for you.”
He looked up then and their gazes clashed, sending a jolt through her all the way to her toes. There was pain and anguish in his eyes, but she didn’t know where it came from. As quickly as she saw it, it was gone as if it had never been, but she couldn’t forget the haunted expression he’d worn if only for a moment.
“Trust me, nothing about this has been easy for me.”
Riley wanted to ask why but nothing about him invited that question. He held himself stiffly. His body language foreboding. The openness he’d exhibited earlier was gone.
She decided to start again and perhaps he would relax.
“I’m willing to discuss what’s best for the baby but we need to do this together. No going off on your own and making all the plans, expecting me to just fall in line. If you want us to be a team, let’s start now.”
He nodded, his entire body seeming to loosen up. “Fine, you’ve had a lot longer than me to think about this. How did you imagine it would be? What’s your vision?”
It was her turn to blush. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure how involved you wanted to be, Sam. You have a busy career and you’re always traveling.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
No, it didn’t, but then answering wasn’t so simple. However, she’d asked him to be honest with her so she had to be as well, no matter how difficult.
“Part of me thought you might offer money.”
Sam didn’t look angry or insulted. Maybe that idea had crossed his mind.
“And the other part?”
“I guess I thought that you’d be a sort of drop-in dad. You know, come to town when you had time or maybe I’d bring the baby to you now and then.”
He sat down in the chair opposite her and took a gulp of his lemonade. “You must have a terrible opinion of me, Riley.”
“I don’t,” she protested. “I actually think you’re a good man.”
“Who ignores his child?” Sam shook his head, that look of pain back in his eyes. “You know how I was brought up. It was just me and Mom and she did great. She was the best mother I could have ever hoped for, but you actually thought I would walk away from my own child after growing up without a father? I want to be a dad to this baby and I want to care for you, too. I doubt I’ll be any good at it, but I want to try if you’ll let me.”
She remembered the look on Paula’s face when she’d spoken about wanting a father for her son. Riley wanted that too, but everything in life had a cost. How much was she willing to give to have a loving daddy for her son or daughter?
Everything. She was willing to give it all.
“Sam, I think I might have an idea we can both live with.”