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

22. Emily

CHAPTER 22

EMILY

E very moment over the next week felt like an echo of that conversation with Sara.

Emily went to the store to pick out a crib for the baby. “Do you offer assembly?” she asked the store clerk as she was checking out.

“I’m afraid we don’t,” the woman said. “But don’t worry. The assembly instructions are in the box, and it’s really basic. I’m sure you and your partner aren’t going to have any trouble getting this crib set up for your little one.”

Not wanting to correct the assumption and explain her circumstances to a complete stranger, Emily forced a smile. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”

“That’s right,” the clerk said encouragingly. “When my baby was born, my husband and I bought one of these, and it was just as easy to put together as our little three-foot nightstand.”

“I’m sure it is,” Emily said.

“Do you want me to have someone help you load the box into your car?” the clerk asked her.

“No thanks,” Emily said, guiding it off the conveyor belt and into her cart. “I can do it by myself.”

But she found herself blinking back tears as she left the store.

“You’re a new patient here?” the ultrasound tech asked.

Emily nodded, trying not to think too hard about how awkward the exchange was. In theory, it shouldn’t have bothered her, since she was used to conversing with people in a medical setting. It was something she did every day. It was just that she was used to being on the opposite side of the interaction. She wasn’t used to lying here in such a vulnerable position while someone tried to chit chat with her.

“Is this your first pregnancy?” the tech asked, moving the wand gently on her stomach.

“Yes,” Emily said. Her voice trembled slightly.

“There isn’t anything to be nervous about.” The tech smiled at her. “We’ll get a look at what’s going on, but there’s no reason to suspect that things aren’t perfectly normal and healthy, all right?”

“Okay.” Emily swallowed. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just a little anxious.”

“That’s understandable. A lot of first-time moms are. But you know what? It gets easier. You’re allowed to bring a support person with you to these appointments if that would help you. Dad can come next time.”

Emily focused her eyes hard on a wall chart that showed the progression of fetal growth. She really didn’t want to cry here. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

But she wouldn’t be bringing a support person. She knew that. Dominic would never come to an ultrasound with her. She wouldn’t have wanted him to.

At least, that was what she said to herself.

But as the image came into focus, she found herself wondering if that was really true. Because, suddenly, it felt as if she would have liked to have him here. It felt like a moment she would have liked to share with him — not just a partner or the father of her child, but him , specifically.

No. He wouldn’t have liked it. It wouldn’t have meant anything to him.

She wondered whether that was really true.

Emily sat on her couch looking over the list of names she had drawn up. After a moment, she crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it at the wall, feeling frustrated.

Nothing seemed right anymore. When she had come up with these names, they had all felt like possibilities, but after sitting with them for a few days, she had come to realize that she didn’t like any of them enough to give them to her firstborn child. She hadn’t stumbled upon the right name, not yet.

What if she couldn’t do it?

She closed her eyes and took a calming breath. She knew that was a ridiculous thing to be worried about — and she knew that she was worrying about it much too soon as well. She had months and months to figure this out. She didn’t have to have the answer yet.

Even so, if felt like she was failing the kid already. If she had planned this pregnancy, she might have a name in mind. And if she’d gotten pregnant by a man who wanted to stick around and do his part, he would be able to help her choose the perfect name, so she would be confident when she found it.

It felt like every single day meant discovering something that was going to be harder for her because she was going through this by herself.

“Here’s the question,” Sara said as they walked out of the hospital one Friday after work. “Do you want to have the baby shower now, before you start to show? Or would you rather wait? I know what I think, but what you want is most important.”

“Well, what do you think?” The baby shower was a kind gesture, but Emily wasn’t very invested in it just yet. She supposed that would probably change as the day drew closer.

“I think we should wait,” Sara said. “At least until you’re showing a bit. Maybe not until you’re so big that it’s uncomfortable for you to move around — but we could do it when you’re six months along, maybe. Yeah, that would be good. And that way, you’d have more information about the baby. We would probably know if it’s a boy or a girl, and you might have a name picked out, which would mean that people could give you more specific gifts.”

“I don’t care that much about the gifts,” Emily said. “I’m just grateful that you’d want to throw a shower for me at all, Sara. It could even be a no-gifts event and I would still be happy about it.”

“Well, obviously we’re going to have gifts ,” Sara said. “That’s half the fun. You should really start working on a registry.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Emily said. “Anything people want to give me, I’ll be more than grateful to have.”

“You’re not going to ask for anything? Really?”

“Well, diapers, maybe.”

“That goes without saying. Maybe we’ll put in the invitations that everyone has to bring a pack of diapers.”

“Don’t do that,” Emily groaned. “It’s not a ticketed event. Nobody has to bring anything.”

“Okay, fair enough — hey, what if we do some kind of raffle? For every pack of diapers you bring, you get a raffle ticket, and then the winner gets… hmm, what does the winner get? I’ll have to think about this.”

They’d reached the parking lot. Emily turned toward her car. “I’ll see you Monday,” she said. “We can continue talking about it then.”

She crossed the lot toward her usual parking spot, but she was only about halfway there when she noticed him.

He was standing with his back to her car, and even though she was still several yards away from him, she recognized him at once by his height and his build. It occurred to her that she probably would have recognized him anywhere, a fact she found mildly frustrating.

Dominic .

Seeing him now took the breath from her lungs.

It was like a jump scare and an unexpected kiss all rolled into one. Emily’s heart raced and hope inflated inside her like a balloon. She couldn’t suppress those feelings as they welled up and took over. But at the same time, an anxiety settled like a weight on her chest. What could he possibly want?

He stepped forward, and it was only then that she registered the fact that he was holding a huge bouquet of flowers.

“Hey, Emily,” he said quietly.

“What is this?” she asked.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“What about?”

He held out the flowers to her.

She didn’t move.

“Please take them,” he said.

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“Emily, please, I…” He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. She was reminded by the gesture how much she loved those hands, and it made her feel ill. Those hands would never touch her again.

She reached out and took the flowers, mindful of how close their fingertips came to one another — and mindful, too, of the fact that they never actually touched.

“I was awful to you,” Dominic murmured.

She said nothing. It wasn’t as if she was going to disagree with that.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” he said. “The way you must have felt when I walked out of the blood lab like that. I’m ashamed of myself.”

He had never spoken so openly about his feelings — at least, not to her. She waited to see what he would say next. Even though she wasn’t ready to forgive him, he had, at the very least, earned her attention. She was ready to listen to him.

“I wanted to come back the moment I had done it,” he said. “But I was too ashamed. Too embarrassed. I didn’t know what I would say to you. I’m still not sure what to say to you, but I was lying in my bed last night and it occurred to me that not knowing what to say isn’t an excuse for not trying to say it. You deserve to hear something from me.”

“What is it you’re trying to say?” Emily asked him.

“I’m trying to tell you that I love you.”

It was so frank, and so unexpected, that she was hard pressed not to laugh. “You don’t love me.”

“I do,” he countered. “I’ve been falling for you for a while now, Emily. I was trying to fight it, because falling in love was never a part of my plan. But now that it’s happened — I can’t pretend that it isn’t what I want. That you aren’t what I want.”

“We weren’t even in a relationship,” she said.

“I think we should be.”

“No, you don’t.” Her eyes filled with tears. “You don’t want a relationship. You don’t think doctors should have relationships.”

“I’m going to have to figure that out, because I’ve fallen in love,” he said. “I don’t want to live without you now that I’ve found you.”

“Are you just saying all this because of the baby?”

“No,” he said. “I think the baby made me think about it. I was letting myself off the hook when it came to figuring out my feelings, and now that there’s a baby in the picture, I can’t do that anymore. I shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place. It was self-indulgent of me, and you always deserved better. And my love for you has always been real. But now — now we have this baby to think of, and I need to get my act together. I need to figure out what I want. And it turned out that there wasn’t much figuring to be done at all.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to marry me.”

To Emily’s astonishment, she realized that he was pulling a ring box out of his pocket. She stared. “When did you get a ring ?”

“My mother left it to me. She said I should give it to the girl I wanted to marry.” He swallowed. “I never thought I’d actually find someone. I didn’t want to get married. But even so, I couldn’t bring myself to throw the ring away. It was as if part of me knew all along that this was coming.”

He opened the box.

Emily stared down at the beautiful solitaire diamond.

“I messed everything up,” he said.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “You did.”

“All I can do is beg for you to give me a second chance,” he said. “To let me be a part of this family. To raise this baby with you, and to love you the way you deserve to be loved. It’s all I want. More than I want my medical career, I want this. I would give up anything.”

Looking into his eyes, Emily’s resolve crumbled. How could she say no to him? It was so beyond obvious that he meant what he was saying. She couldn’t doubt him.

And she couldn’t deny that he was exactly what she wanted. Doing this with him instead of on her own, celebrating every joyous moment as they raised their baby together — she couldn’t think of anything she would have liked more.

She held out her hand and allowed him to put the ring on her finger, stunned at how everything had changed so quickly. She had thought they would never be close to one another again, and now he was proposing marriage.

The strange thing was that it didn’t feel strange at all.

It felt inevitable.

He took her in his arms and kissed her, and Emily felt a shiver of joy pass through her as she realized that all the hopes she hadn’t dared to admit to herself that she had were actually coming true.