Page 50 of Doctor Daddies

“A big change,” I agree. “Abigone.”

“Hey, don’t say it like that,” she laughs. “You’re making it sound like you’re being forced at gunpoint to give up the bachelor lifestyle.”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” I reply. “But I’ve been by myself for so long. Lived just for me for so many years. It’s going to feel…different, that’s all. I’m looking forward to it, but it’s still going to be one hell of a change.”

“You’ve been by yourself all this time?” she asks softly.

A wash of sadness courses through me as I remember Caroline. There’s hardly a day that goes by when I don’t think of her, but moving on to this next stage of my life has me feeling as thoughI’m betraying her in some way. She should have had the chance to do something like this, to start a family of her own, but she never did. Died too young.

Even if she had done none of it with me, I wish she’d had the chance to try.

“There was someone,” I admit. “Before I met you. Caroline.”

“Caroline?”

It’s almost surreal, hearing Millie say her name out loud. I do so much to try and leave her memory where it belongs, but something pangs in my chest the way she says it.

“Yeah,” I admit. “She was…we were together for a couple of years back in college. Shit, I know it sounds crazy now, but I thought we were going to do it all…” I smile slightly.

“She passed,” I explain. “Not long before I met you, actually.”

“Oh my God, James, I had no idea…”

I shake my head. “It’s okay,” I reply. “I just…I never thought that I was going to do all this with someone else. After I lost her, in my head, that was my chance for a normal life, a normal family, just gone. We had talked about it a bit, and she was the only one I’d ever thought about doing that with. And then, the guys came to me, told me they wanted to try surrogacy, and you walked back in, and…”

I smile at her. She chews her lip as she looks back at me, clearly still surprised by what I’ve just told her.

“So you…you’ve been alone ever since?” she asks me. I can tell how sad it makes her, to think of me like that, and I figure the best port of call is to change the subject before things get anyheavier than they already have. God knows she’s already dealt with enough.

“Well, not entirely,” I reply, glancing up at Lewis to make sure he’s asleep. “I’ve had plenty of…company, over the years.”

She raises her eyebrows at me. “Oh, yeah?”

“Nothing that came close to you, though,” I assure her, as our eyes lock once more.

She flushes slightly, looking away from me, and then lowers her gaze to our hands, locked in front of us.

“So you really wanted this, right?” she asks. “I mean, I know Cole and Ross did. But you…it sounds like you were having a lot of fun by yourself. You’ve never been tempted to just stick that out a while longer?”

I pause for a moment before I answer. Not because I doubt what I have to say, but because I want to make sure I put it in the exact terms I want her to hear it in. I shake my head, slowly, tracing a circle against her knuckles with my thumb.

“No,” I reply. “No, I know I need something more than that. I enjoyed it, sure, but I’ve always wanted something more solid than that. Something real, something that matters. Something that helps me build a legacy and a life for myself, beyond just the clinic.”

She cocks her head slightly as she listens to me, clearly glad that I’m expressing such enthusiasm about all of this. I can’t imagine what a huge amount of trust she had to put in us, to believe that we would all step up to be fathers, but there’s no way I’m going to let her down.

“You’ve been so amazing with Lewis already,” she remarks. “And…and I’m so happy that you’ve been able to get to know him. I mean, something like this, I know, it’s not ideal.” She gestures to him lying in the bed beside us. “But doing it with the three of you, it’s so much easier than handling it on my own. You have access to stuff that I would never be able to get my hands on, and you have no idea how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. For both of us.”

Her voice catches slightly, and Lewis shifts in the bed between us. She looks over at him, smiling quickly, clearly not wanting him to see her so overwhelmed with emotion.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she greets him, reaching up to stroke his face with the back of her hand. “How are you feeling? A little better?”

He nods slightly, and looks over at me.

I grin at him. “You’re already looking stronger,” I remark, as I rise to my feet, heading for the door. “I’m going to get Mathilda, tell her to take a look at Lewis now since he’s up. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Sure,” Millie replies, as she gives Lewis’s arm a squeeze, adjusting the pillow again so he can sit up.

For a moment, I just stand there in the door, watching the two of them together. I don’t know for sure that Lewis is my son, but when I see the two of them like this, it’s hard to believe that the bond I feel isn’t something close to fatherhood. At this point, I don’t think it even really matters who his biological father is—the attachment we all clearly have to him overwhelms all of that.