A Baby Affair (The Parent Portal Book 2)

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “You live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a significant other in your life?”

  “No.” Her tone sharpened.

  And he knew when to quit.

  Agreeing to meet her at home the following afternoon at four, he rang off. And thought maybe he should turn off his phone just in case she tried to contact him to cancel.

  He didn’t do it. He wasn’t out of his head. But the thought had been there. So he entertained it. Which was why it took him another couple of seconds to realize he was smiling—and looking forward to the next afternoon.

  Only for peace of mind’s sake. Or so he told himself. He was going to meet the woman carrying his biological child. He couldn’t really wrap his mind around that one—but there was good feeling in it.

  Tossing his phone on the cushion on the other side of his dog, he jumped up, ready to find something for dinner. He wondered if there was some small gift he could take the next day when he officially met the mother of his child.

  As he left the room, he glanced back at the dog, to see if she was awake and might take some food. Talley was glaring at him. Like he’d even need to wonder whether or not he should pick something up. Of course he should. The woman was carrying his baby.

  Chapter Five

  Amelia worked Saturday, catching up on everything that had fallen behind during her four days in the south of France. The laces Feel Good bought from Duane’s family business were fine for jeans and purses—and quite lovely on the pillowcases and towels they’d branched into a few years before. With the possibility of precious-metal jewelry embellishments lingering on the horizon, she’d needed some finer but affordable lace, at a price point that would allow them to sell the finished product and make a profit. They were starting out small with lace embellished jewelry—just one design in time for summer weddings.

  Until she’d had the call from Craig Harmon, ideas had been flowing faster than she could get them sketched.

  It wasn’t like she’d had time recently to sit with her sketch pad. Being the boss sometimes took precedence over being a designer, along with Angie. The lace embellished jewelry idea had been hers. She had a wholesaler from China offering the basic jewelry pieces—mostly various wires and simple circular pendants that they’d embellish.

  They did most of their design and desk work, marketing, etc., out of the new headquarters in Marie Cove, and had a small factory and forty employees in east LA, where the actual inventory was made put together. Payroll and accounting were outsourced, as was a lot of the public relations and advertising help, but she wanted to pursue the idea of moving everything in-house—growing from the inside out. Angie hadn’t fully jumped on board with that idea.

  But she hadn’t said no. Amelia wasn’t ready to push her sister for fear of any rift it might cause between them. She needed Angie to feel validated, welcome. Wanted.

  As her mind started to wander toward the much more personal business on her agenda later that afternoon, Amelia consciously refused and focused on Feel Good. When was growth healthy and when was it too much? She didn’t want to ignore Angie’s more financially conservative perspective, but Amelia was the one with the business degree. Angie’s degree was in marketing and she handled a lot of the in-person meetings with accounts. They’d both minored in art design. With their success, they showed every sign of being able to sell stock options someday. It made good business sense to allow the business to breathe itself into whatever it could be.

  Angie wanted to keep boundaries around Feel Good. To keep it small and in the family.

  So, for now, Amelia was focusing only on growing the family, instead of the company. Giving in to Angie because her relationship with her sister was more important than extended business growth.

  Which brought her back around to Craig Harmon, anyway. He seemed like a decent guy. One who meant well. Who was asking for something valid—if way too abstract for her—and going about it in the proper way as defined by the contracts they’d signed.

  Just because she’d never imagined this particular scenario when she’d considered the stipulations to which she’d agreed didn’t mean his contact was in any way wrong. Or even inappropriate. She’d talked to Tanya, too. She wasn’t legally obligated to meet with him. But he had the right to ask.

  He could check to see that the baby she had was well, and recheck within reasonable time frames. He also had the right to request contact with the child. She didn’t have to grant that, either. She just couldn’t stop him from asking, unless he harassed her.

  Bottom line was, she could, at any time, tell Craig Harmon to leave her alone. And he had a right to certain generic information regarding the well-being of the baby she carried.

  It was all in there.

  And knowing it all, even with Craig Harmon’s recent communication, she would have still chosen the Parent Portal and signed the contracts. While she had mixed emotions about the male biological component of her child, she was kind of curious to meet him. He couldn’t have her child, but her heart definitely went out to him regarding his situation with his son. And her respect for him had grown hugely, too. He didn’t give up when it came to doing what was right. Fighting for those he cared about.

  Something she’d failed to do with Angie. And her top priority these days. She was going to do whatever it took to care for her small family. She’d already made arrangements to bank cord blood. And had purchased all of the necessary items to baby-proof her home. Angie had hired someone to install the cupboard and door latches in both their homes.

  Amelia dialed her sister as she drove into her private garage Saturday afternoon, half an hour before she was due to see Craig.

  Angie was having lunch at home with their mom in Santa Barbara while Duane played golf. She’d had a meeting with a lucrative boutique to be the exclusive carrier of Feel Good apparel there.

  “Hey, when’s that guy coming to install the baby-safety items?” she asked as soon as her sister picked up. If Angie was telling Mom about Craig Harmon, she didn’t want to know. She hadn’t asked her sister not to say anything, but hoped she wouldn’t. Their mom had a tendency to worry and both Angie and Amelia fed off her emotions.

  At least, that was the theory. One of many that had come via the counseling she’d sought after breaking up with Mike.

  “The first Saturday in February,” Angie said. So two weeks away. “I just left Mom’s. Lunch was good,” she continued. “And no bottles. I checked all the usual places and anywhere else I could think of.”

  Amelia had done her share of checking, as well. Not in a while, though. Duane had been sober for several years. Since that last horrible time when he’d gone after Angie...

  Her little sister had called her that awful day, but she’d blown her off. Figuring Angie’s tears were just more of the drama from which she’d chosen to escape. Mike’s rhetoric. The whole “her choosing to escape the drama of her family life” thing. It had sounded good to her at the time. But putting thoughts like that in her head, asking things like that of her, had really just been one of the many ways in which he’d isolated her from everyone else in her life she’d ever loved.

  So he could have it all. Have all of her. Thankfully she’d wised up before he’d consumed her completely.

  “How was Mom?” Amelia asked, heading toward the back, secure entrance of her building.

  Angie talked about their mother’s charity work. Mentioned one of her friends who’d just become a grandmother. And finished with, “She mentioned you half a dozen times, Mel. You really need to drive up here and see her.”

  Angie was right, of course. But Amelia hated the tone in her sister’s voice. The one that reminded Amelia that her little sister still believed that Amelia was their mother’s favorite child. That she needed to see Amelia more than she needed to see Angie.

  She wanted to believe that belief was just mor
e of Angie’s insecurity. But knew it wasn’t. Margaret Grace did appear to prefer being around Amelia. Amelia’s practicality made their mother feel secure where Angie’s constant nurturing made her feel old. At least, that was the theory.

  Another takeaway from counseling.

  “Did you tell her about Craig Harmon?”

  “No. Why would I? He’s a phone call. A blip. Why make him a bigger part of our lives?”

  Having spoken with her mom and Duane before having herself inseminated, Amelia knew that, while they wished she were married, they were fully supportive of her choice. Had offered to do anything they could to help her and had already bought a portable crib and high chair for when the baby came to visit. Since Duane quit drinking, things had definitely improved. And...you made do. She loved her mom and the only way to have her in her life was to accept Duane and try to focus on what was good about him...

  “Because they’d like to know that the donor is a doctor,” she said now. And then added, “But I’m glad you didn’t. I’d just as soon keep this between me and you.”

  People were curious. She generally disliked questions of a personal nature—since Mike. Her life didn’t hold up as well under scrutiny as she’d like and those who knew about that had reason to doubt the wisdom of her choices. Since she struggled with enough pressure in that area from herself, she preferred not to open herself up to more of it.

  “Me, too,” Angie said. “You talked to him. It’s done.”

  With a huge, uncomfortable twinge of unease, she stood in the lobby, keeping her back to the security guard over in the corner, and told Angie that she was getting on the elevator and was about to lose her.

  The complete truth.

  And an “out,” too. She hadn’t told Angie about the upcoming meeting. Only that she’d spoken to the doctor the night before. She’d called Angie right after she’d hung up from Craig last night.

  And hadn’t wanted to worry her.

  Or, another theory that held possibility, she hadn’t wanted Angie to doubt her. To think that she’d fall for the doctor and cut Angie out.

  Mostly, she just wanted to get the upcoming meet done so that Craig Harmon truly was out of their lives and she was free to be the single mom she wanted and needed to be, raising a happy, healthy, well-adjusted child with tons of familial support. But there could be some truth to the not wanting Angie to doubt her, too.

  * * *

  Craig had the perfect little gift for Amelia Grace. Unfortunately, he’d also been on call at the clinic that morning and had been running so late that he’d only been able to “wrap” his gift by shoving it in an empty X-ray envelope and wrapping the little string around the button closure. Still in his navy pants, light blue long-sleeved shirt and blue striped tie, he smoothed hair back behind his ear with a nervous hand as he waited to be cleared through security and gain access to the elevator that would take him up to Amelia’s condo.

  He’d been in the plush establishment before, a few times. The chief of staff at Oceanfront Hospital lived in the penthouse.

  And he couldn’t imagine himself as a kid—or any child—living there. Where would he run? Or jump on beds? Where would he holler along with the video game? Or learn to throw baseballs?

  A nearby park was the obvious answer for that one.

  Still, a kid shouldn’t have to always be circumspect at home. He wasn’t privy to the owner’s actual rules and regulations in the Oceanview Towers, but it was pretty clear that everyone in the place was expected to act with some measure of decorum. Out of respect for their neighbors.

  All of whom were clearly wealthy and could afford to be assured their lives wouldn’t be interrupted by neighborly irritations.

  Amelia opened her door just as he got off the elevator. She wore a pair of dark blue jeans with white lace butterflies adorning one leg from shapely thigh to deliciously thin ankle, a black T-shirt with a white and blue lace strip around a pocket that molded a far too enticingly shaped breast and black wedged sandals.

  “Each floor in each building houses two units,” she told him as he glanced down both sides of the smallish hallway before entering her place. “And there are separate elevators that stop at each floor, for each of the two units.”

  So not quite a private elevator, but a private entrance for each floor.

  Which meant a private hallway. Nice.

  The space wasn’t big enough for a kid to run. Or throw a ball. He could probably get away with a holler or two, though.

  He tried to make the thought occupy his mind. Instead, he caught a glimpse of the sexy shape of her butt in front of him, leading him into Amelia Grace’s private space.

  Dry mouth wasn’t usual for him. Nor was reticence when it came to entering a beautiful woman’s apartment.

  “You having second thoughts?” she asked, turning, when he didn’t immediately follow her in. “Or you’ve seen enough to allay your fears and we’re done here?”

  He’d been expecting a visibly pregnant woman—though he knew she wouldn’t be showing yet. He knew every change her body would make, and approximately when, throughout the birthing process. Still, he’d had this maternal vision in his head. Someone who reminded him of his mother, maybe.

  Not an incredibly poised, beautiful woman who had his body needing this to be a social call.

  She reached for the door handle. Afraid she was going to close it on him, he stepped forward. Shoved the envelope out toward her.

  “You brought me an X-ray?” she asked, frowning. “I’m Amelia, by the way.”

  He nodded. “I’m Craig.”

  Dr. Craig Harmon. An intelligent, respectable man. Not this moron who seemed to be taking over his life for the moment.

  “I know.” She gave a peremptory nod. “Security cleared you through...” The last ended on a bit of an uptilt in her voice, like she was asking a question.

  Or asking if he was in his right mind and remembered what he was doing there.

  A fair question. Not that he wanted her to know that.

  She’d yet to really look at him. Could he hope she hadn’t noticed he was acting imbecilic?

  He stepped inside, followed her through a large, marble foyer, past an archway leading to a formal living room, by a door with a couch and love seat arrangement with a large-screen television and through a door on the other side that held a desk, a couple of wingback chairs with colorful floral fabric and two walls lined with bookcases.

  “Have a seat,” she said, indicating one of the floral chairs, while she took the other and put his gift offering down on the small round table between them.

  “It’s not an X-ray,” he said, nodding toward the envelope. “It’s a family photo, my parents and I, taken when I graduated from medical school, along with baby pictures of the three of us. And also the results of the DNA testing we did last year. I’m mostly Scottish on my father’s side, and Irish on my mother’s.”

  Whether that meant anything to her at all, he had no idea. He was winging it here. And feeling the crunch as, for one of the first times he could remember, he felt like he was failing.

  “The pictures...a lot of times when a baby is born...you always hear the parents and grandparents saying who the baby looks like. I just thought you might want to know—if your child is born with a thick head of hair and all of the babies in your family have been born bald, you’d have some frame of reference. You know, rather than just wondering about unknown components in your child’s heritage.”

  It was why the Parent Portal was so immediately popular. Because it offered alternative parenting opportunities with more comprehensive family information, and an ability to reach out to the donor if necessary or desired. So many clinics just dealt with legalities and basic health information required by law—forgetting about the human element that went into creating a baby. The Parent Portal took into consideration that the child itse
lf might someday want to meet the donor whose genes he or she carried.

  Amelia didn’t pick up the envelope. She pursed her bottom lip. Giving him an inescapable urge to kiss it.

  He hadn’t spent that much time without being with a woman. Had never had a problem attracting lovely, willing partners.

  Putting his completely out of character libido down to the fact that he’d never before met a woman who was carrying his child, he looked around him. Tried again to imagine a child growing up in Amelia’s atmosphere.

  While the chairs were a little feminine for his taste, he liked the sense of happiness they seemed to give to the room.

  Nothing was out of place, though. Nor had it been in the other two rooms he’d glimpsed. Or the hall, with its ornate mirror and expensive-looking side table with a lap and assorted garnishments—mostly with splashes of color.

  Had she cleaned on his behalf?

  Did she realize a baby, and all the resulting paraphernalia that seemed to trail into every room, was going to completely disrupt her perfection here? Would she be able to handle that?

  Would she welcome it?

  “Three of the four of us who hung together through medical school have kids,” he said. “Or, in my case, had,” he said. He’d been about to tell her how homes were transformed with colorful plastic gadgets that all made sounds and had blinking lights taking up space along walls and in the middle of floors. About the miniature motorized four-wheelers for three-year-olds.

  And foam floor mats with letters and numbers splashed all over them.

  Her expression tensed, almost as though she’d read his mind.

  “If you had a choice, would you want the baby I’m carrying?” Accusation seemed to lace through every word.

  “Absolutely not! If I had a choice, you wouldn’t be carrying a baby at all.” He heard himself, shuddered inwardly, and added, “You wouldn’t be carrying a child with my genes.”