Page 66 of Worth Loving
“I’ve got a lot of flexibility where I am. I’m pretty much running the entire show. Some of it is just my personality. I’m kind of a perfectionist.”
“Oh, I know that. I’m the same way.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to talk to you. And I know you want to know about Jonah’s mother.”
“I would like to, but not if you don’t want to share. Maybe it’s too painful for you.”
He laughed. Not a funny sound. Not even a forced one.
Just what came out when he thought of Corinda thinking of anyone other than herself.
“It’s not painful. It’s not even hard to explain. More like rather short.”
“Huh?”
“Corinda came into the bar. That’s how we met. We had a few hot nights together, nothing more.”
“Okayyyyyy,” she said, drawing it out.
“We fizzled and she moved on. Then one day she shows up a few months later and says she’s pregnant and I’m the father.”
“Did you believe her?”
“No. I’m thinking about how we met.”
“Not much different from us,” she pointed out.
He ran his hand over her arm. “You’re right. But you two are night and day. She’s in the bar and pounding shots and waiting for me to close and bring her home. It was all about sex with her and I knew it. There would never be a relationship.”
“Do we have one?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Runaway thought.”
“It’s not a runaway thought. It’s one that has crossed my mind. If we didn’t have the start of it. Or something, I wouldn’t be here right now. How is that?”
“Good enough. Keep going, if you want.”
“She says she’s pregnant. I don’t believe it. She wants to end the pregnancy, but is scared. She’s not sure what to do, but thought she’d talk to me first.”
“Which was a good thing she did or you might have never known.”
He’d thought of all those things and what he would have missed out on in his life.
“She didn’t want the baby. I did. He was my blood. We got an attorney and turned it into a surrogate situation. I paid her a lump sum at the end and she has no legal right to Jonah. A month after she gave birth, she moved and I’ve never heard from her again.”
“Wow. I need to process this.”
“I know. Try being in my shoes. I was there for the birth, and she was in and out like she was any other patient there for aprocedure. She never held him. Didn’t name him. Didn’t want to see him or anything.”
“Maybe that was better.”
“That is what I tell myself. And when Jonah is older and can understand, I’m going to be honest with him.”
“You’ll tell him he wasn’t wanted?”
He wouldn’t take offense at those words. “He was wanted. I wanted him. I have enough love for him for more than two people.”
She moved over and crawled into his lap. “I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t mean it that way. Remember, I always felt as if I wasn’t loved. I wasn’t wanted. Wasn’t good enough. I just know…it’s not easy to feel that, let alone someone say it.”
He’d never thought of it that way.
