Page 38 of Promised to the Cowboy
“Yeah.” She says it without hesitation. “Soon.”
I nod. “And your father?”
Silence. Long enough that I almost apologize for asking.
“No,” she says finally.
“You don’t think he’ll want to know?”
“He’ll want to know because it affects him.” She looks out at the highway. “He’ll want to know if it’s a boy.”
“Why?”
One shoulder lifts. “I’m an only child.”
I wait.
“Dad always wanted someone to take over the business one day. He never quite forgave me for not being the son he’d imagined.”
“And if he knew you were having a girl?”
She lets out a small breath. “He’d be disappointed twice.”
Christ. My fucking heart breaks for her. Nobody should grow up believing they arrived as the wrong child.
But she’s not finished. “Remember I told you he called the day I came here?”
I glance across at her. “Yeah.”
“Months of silence, then my phone rings.” She lets out a quiet breath. “For one stupid second, I thought…” She shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter what I thought.”
I don’t interrupt.
“He wanted me at another charity dinner.” Her mouth twists. “Said he’d wire me fifty thousand dollars if I showed up.”
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Fifty thousand?”
“Apparently, that’s what pretending to be his daughter is worth these days.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“No.Reallyno. For the first time in my life.” She looks out through the windshield at the passing fields. “I blocked his number after I hung up.”
I glance at her again. “That wasn’t easy.”
She smiles, small and sad. “No.”
Her fingers drift unconsciously over the curve of her stomach. “It wasn’t because I was giving up on my father.” She swallows. “It was because I finally accepted that I never really had one.”
Jesus, what a fucking asshole.
No wonder she’s built her whole life around standing on her own two feet.
No wonder every offer of help sounds like a bargain she hasn’t agreed to.
She’s spent her whole life proving she never needed anybody.
And somehow...
