Dr. Grump’s Surprise Baby (Bossy Bachelors #2)

21. Emily

CHAPTER 21

EMILY

“ Y ou’re pregnant ?” Sara repeated.

“Will you keep your voice down?” Emily implored.

“But are you?”

“Yes. I just found out a couple of days ago.”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe this! What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to keep it,” Emily said firmly. “I’ve always wanted to be a mother and, well — I know this isn’t exactly ideal, but I can’t bring myself to do anything else.”

“Wow,” Sara said. “That’s a huge life change. Are you okay?”

“I’m a little freaked out,” Emily admitted.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you are. I would be panicking.”

“That’s not really helping.”

“Sorry,” Sara said. “What are you going to do?”

“You just asked me that.”

“I know, but I mean… how are you going to handle it? You work full time. You work longer hours than I do most of the time. Are you going to leave the hospital?”

“I’m going to have to think about it,” Emily said miserably. “I mean, I don’t want to do that. This job means the world to me. You know that.”

“I do,” Sara agreed. “No one has worked harder than you have, and it would be terrible to see you have to quit, Emily. I’m sure we can figure something out. You can’t be the first person to have gotten pregnant during her internship. The hospital has day care options for parents. You could take advantage of them.”

“I’m sure that’s what I’ll end up doing,” Emily said. “I just hate to think of my kid spending ten hours a day in day care. I’ll scale back my hours here if I can, but even so…”

Sara bit her lip. “It’s kind of a sensitive question, I know, but what about the father?”

Emily shook her head. “He’s not going to be involved.”

“Does he know about it?”

“Yeah, he knows.” Emily couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her tone at the memory of how Dominic had reacted when he read the test results. As if she had orchestrated the whole thing deliberately as part of a plot to mess up his life.

“He’s just… not interested?” Sara asked.

“He didn’t even say anything when he found out. He just walked off like he didn’t care.”

“Can I ask who it is?”

Emily shook her head. “I don’t want to say.”

“Which means it’s someone I know,” Sara said.

“Don’t do that. Don’t try to guess. I really don’t want to talk about who it is. That’s not important. He isn’t important,” Emily said. “He’s not going to be a part of this, so… forget him. That’s what I think.”

“If that’s what you want,” Sara said.

“It is.”

“Okay.” The expression on Sara’s face was highly skeptical. “But I don’t mind telling you, if I was pregnant, the guy wouldn’t be getting away so easily. If he didn’t want to be involved on a personal level, I would be getting him involved on a financial one.”

“I don’t want his money,” Emily said. “I’m doing fine. I’ll be able to provide for my kid, and what I’m not going to do is chase after this guy and beg him for anything when he was so cold to us.”

“Us,” Sara repeated. “Look at you. You’re already in mom mode.”

“Sometimes I am,” Emily said. “It’s sinking in a little bit at a time. I woke up this morning all excited about everything I was going to need to do — getting a crib, baby clothes, all of that. A couple of nights ago I was up until three in the morning writing a list of names.”

“Did you settle on any?”

“God, no. I’m nowhere close. Hopefully it will get easier as time goes on, and something will start to feel right.”

“I’m sure you’ll find the right name,” Sara agreed. “Wow, a baby! Hey, can I throw you a baby shower?”

“Are you sure?” Emily frowned.

“Of course! Why not?”

“Well, it’s just that we haven’t known each other that long,” Emily explained. “I wouldn’t have expected you to go to all that trouble.”

“Are you kidding? It won’t be trouble, it’ll be amazing. I love to throw parties. Ooh, and we can have all kinds of baby games too! We can do the one where everyone has to name a baby gift that starts with each letter of the alphabet, and we can have them decorate onesies! That’s fun!”

Emily laughed. She had been on a roller coaster of emotion since learning she was pregnant — raging at Dominic, heartbroken at the way he had treated her, frightened at the prospect of being a single mother, thrilled and overjoyed that she was going to have a baby. But she hadn’t yet laughed. It felt good to laugh. Telling Sara about this had been the right choice.

“Okay,” she said. “You can throw a shower. Just for God’s sake don’t have people play any games where they measure how big my belly is or anything like that.”

“Do I look like a monster?” Sara asked indignantly. “I promise, good fun only. But I hope you have a name picked out by then. Hey — is it a boy or a girl?”

Emily laughed harder. “You’re a doctor , Sara,” she said. “I only found out I was pregnant this week. I don’t know the sex of the baby yet. It’s way too early for that.”

“Okay,” Sara giggled. “I’m sorry. I got a little overexcited there.”

“Don’t apologize. Honestly, it’s good to be with someone who’s excited about all this. I haven’t been able to figure out my feelings, so you’re doing me a favor.”

“I hate that you don’t have the baby’s father here to help you with that,” Sara said. “Not that I mind, but he should really be the one getting excited with you about all this. Are you sure he can’t be talked into it? I mean, I can’t imagine not wanting to be involved in my baby’s life. I don’t know how anyone could deliberately make that choice.”

“Yeah, but we know people choose that every day,” Emily said. “I don’t get it either, but we know it happens. And it’s like I said. Since he’s made it clear that he doesn’t want to be involved, I’m not going to ask him again.”

“Not even for your kid’s sake? I understand not wanting to put your pride on the line, but if it’s for your kid…”

Emily sighed. “The thing is, I don’t feel like it would be the best thing for my kid,” she said. “Not right now. I keep thinking about what it would have been like for me to have a father who treated me the way he’s treating me right now, and I can’t do that to my child. This man is telling me explicitly that he doesn’t want to be in our lives. I only want my child to be exposed to people who do want to be around.”

“I can understand that,” Sara agreed. “I’d probably feel the same way if it was me. I just hate to see you going through this alone.”

“Well, I’m not alone,” Emily said with a smile. “I have you now.”

“That’s true.” Sara grinned at her. “And what about your family? Do they have your back in all this?”

“I’m sure they will ,” Emily said.

“You haven’t told them yet?”

“After the father reacted so badly, I didn’t feel up to it,” Emily admitted. “I wanted to keep it to myself, at least for a little while, in case they had a bad reaction too. I don’t think they will. They’ve always supported me. But I’m sure they’ll have questions about how I got pregnant in the first place, and I honestly don’t feel up to answering those questions right now. I’ll let them know in a few weeks, once I’ve gotten used to it myself.”

“Well, I’m honored you felt like you could tell me.” Sara grabbed her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “Don’t worry. I’ll be by your side throughout all of this. And that baby might not have an involved father, but it’s definitely going to have a cool aunt.”

Emily’s heart contracted.

She had never confided in Sara about what had happened to Ruth. She didn’t want to talk about it now, either. But for a moment, she found herself thinking about what it would have been like to share this moment with her sister instead of her new friend.

She liked Sara. She was glad to have Sara. But with Ruth… well, that would have been something else. Something really special.

The grief of losing her sister was something, she had come to realize, that would last the rest of her life.

Dominic would have understood that. He would have known what she was feeling right now.

But he wouldn’t have cared.

All that time she had spent believing that he cared about her… she’d been wrong about all of it. If he really cared about the things she felt, he would act like it. He would be here for her right now. He wouldn’t have responded to the news of her pregnancy the way he had — she still felt slapped when she thought about the look on his face when he’d found out. It was impossible to believe after that that he had ever felt anything for her.

So what had been between them?

She didn’t know. She didn’t know what to think. He hadn’t been using her, exactly, but he must have been so caught up in the physical chemistry that he hadn’t thought about what he was doing. He hadn’t given things serious consideration. She understood what that was like — she’d been caught up in it herself — but that didn’t mean she could forgive him now.

Ruth would have gotten it .

Emily had never missed her sister more in her life than she did right now, on the verge of this huge transition. And if there was one person she could have wished to have with her, it wouldn’t have been Dominic — it would have been Ruth.

But Dominic was a surprisingly close second.

She wouldn’t have believed anyone would ever come close to Ruth in her life. She wouldn’t have thought she could care for anyone as much as she ever had for her sister. The fact that she was feeling such strong feelings for Dominic made her question everything. Maybe she was making a mistake, letting him walk away like he had. Maybe she should have fought harder to keep him — maybe she should still be fighting.

It was just that she didn’t know if she had any fight in her right now.

And at the end of the day, what she needed to keep her focus on was getting ready to be a mother. That had to be the most important thing — no matter how much she wanted anything else. Her own desires came second now, and from this moment on, they always would. The needs of her baby came first.

That was something Dominic didn’t seem to have recognized.

And that was why she couldn’t try to win him back.