Chapter Three
Aria tried not to let it affect her. That was a joke. Because seeing Ryan with Sophie, seeing how carefully he held her, how he looked at her with wonder, as though she was the most precious thing in the world made her heart turn over.
“Can I kiss her?” he asked huskily.
“Of course. You’re her father.” Maybe if she repeated that enough they’d both believe it. Right now, it just seemed weird.
He kissed Sophie’s forehead and continued talking to her quietly.
Oh, it wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t he have acted as if it was no big deal? That seeing his baby for the first time didn’t affect him as much as it obviously had.
She didn’t know what had happened while Ryan was in the army, but a field surgeon had to have seen terrible things.
But he hadn’t talked about it. Ever. Even so, she knew it had affected him deeply.
Something had made him unable to stay in one place.
Unable to commit to one woman. Although, while they were together Ryan had been committed to her.
She’d even wondered if he regretted leaving her, but if he had, why hadn’t he gotten in touch with her?
No, Ryan was over her. She wished she was over him.
She wasn’t. But she was damned if he was going to know that.
No, this was about Sophie—and Sophie’ father.
She was doing the right thing, no matter how painful it was to her.
Aria knew what it was like growing up without a father.
She wouldn’t do that to Sophie if she could help it.
Being in hospital administration meant that Aria had met a lot of doctors.
She’d dated a number of them too. None of them for as long as she had dated Ryan.
She’d even started to hope that he’d changed.
That they could have a lasting relationship.
She’d hoped until the day he’d walked in and told her he was moving to Marietta.
Sophie began to fuss. Aria waited to see what Ryan would do. He put her up on his shoulder and patted her back gently. Damn man would be a natural. Of course, the baby quit fussing and began making cooing sounds. Another female falling for his charms.
Aria had put a baby gym on the floor earlier. Sophie loved the colorful toys that hung down and made different sounds when touched. There were also toys she could play with when put on her tummy, but right now she was stuck in whatever position Aria put her down in.
“Do you want me to lay her down so she can play?”
“Sure. Put her on her back for now.”
He did so and stood looking down at her. “Is she always happy?”
“Most of the time.” Sophie started waving her arms and legs while looking at the toys.
He looked at Aria. “Where do we go from here?”
“That depends on you and how involved you want to be.”
“As involved as you let me.”
She studied him a moment. “You need to think about this. If you want to be part of her life, it’s a commitment. You can’t let her love you and depend on you and then just leave when you decide you’re bored here.”
She could tell that pissed him off but too bad.
“That isn’t why I left Denver.”
“Oh? I wouldn’t know since we never discussed it.”
*
“You’re pissed,” Ryan said.
“What gave you that idea?”
Obviously, that was a rhetorical question. “We talked about it.”
“No, Ryan, you told me you were leaving. That’s not ‘talking about it.’”
“You didn’t object.”
“What was the point? You’d made up your mind. And I wasn’t about to beg you not to go like a pathetic loser.”
Yeah, she was really pissed. “You said you didn’t want a long-distance relationship.”
“I didn’t.”
“We could have tried.” It wouldn’t have been ideal, but he’d have done it if she wanted to.
She gave a sharp laugh. “I can just see that. You in a long-distance relationship? Fat chance.”
“I thought about staying. But I couldn’t. And you didn’t act like you wanted me to stay.”
“Don’t you dare blame me for you leaving. That was all you.”
True. She hadn’t asked him anything. Hadn’t said much beyond that she didn’t want long distance. She could, and would, deny it but he knew he’d hurt her.
How could he explain what had happened? How could he explain why he left? I couldn’t stay because I’m a chickenshit? I fell in love with you and every day you became more important to me. So I left while I could?
That hadn’t worked very well. Because he’d never forgotten her. Never fallen out of love with her. And now there was a baby. His and Aria’s baby.
“What are you going to do, Ryan?”
He had no idea, beyond paying child support and trying to get to know his child. “That depends on you.”
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to stay in Marietta, raise my child, and start a nursery business. Your turn.”
“I want to be a father to Sophie. If you’ll let me.”
“All right. But I have a couple of conditions.”
“Okay. What are they?”
“If you want to be a father, it’s for good. You don’t get to make her love you and disappear because you got bored. I’m not saying you can’t ever leave, but if you do you still have to be someone she can depend on. I don’t care what you have to do but you have to continue to be a part of her life.”
“What about you? Can I still be a part of your life?”
“You gave up that chance when you left Denver and never contacted me again. You can be a part of our lives but only in relation to Sophie. I did that once and you left me as easily as if I meant nothing to you. Maybe I didn’t mean anything.”
“Aria, that’s not true. It wasn’t easy. It was one of the hardest things I ever did.” But he’d had to do it. If he hadn’t, he’d have fallen even more in love with her, and he would have failed her. Better that he left before that. But now there was a baby. His child. That changed everything.
“Why did you do it, then?”
He couldn’t answer. What could he possibly say? That they’d agreed to a no-strings relationship? They had. But then he’d fallen in love with her. He still didn’t know what she’d felt for him. Clearly whatever she’d felt was in the past. She didn’t even like him now.
“That’s what I thought. You can’t even come up with a good reason.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I’ll simplify it for you. This is how it’s going to be. You can be a part of the baby’s life. But don’t expect to make her love you and then abandon her. If you’re going to be her father, you’re in it for life.”
“That’s fair. I told you I wanted to pay child support.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Even so, I’m paying it. Also, what about custody?”
“What about it?”
“Are we going to share custody?”
“No.”
“That’s it, just no?”
“No for now. You can visit her here as much as you want as long as you clear it with me. We’ll see how that works before we decide about anything more.”
Unless he sued for joint custody, but he wasn’t going to do that. There was no reason at this point to get the courts involved. “I’ll look at my schedule and call you about seeing her again.” He paused and looked at Aria. “It’s good to see you again.”
She didn’t look convinced, and she didn’t respond. “I’ll call you later,” he said, and left.
Great. Ryan realized he was still in love with Aria. He’d never stopped loving her. And Aria didn’t even like him, much less love him.
*
Ryan called her later that evening to set up a time to see Sophie.
She wished she was indifferent to him, but she wasn’t.
Not by a long shot. She’d missed him, damn it.
And she still wanted him as much as she ever had.
Not that she planned to do anything about that.
It was sexual attraction that wasn’t going anywhere, even if he wanted her too.
If he did it was simply because she was convenient.
He’d proved he didn’t really care about her by his previous actions.
Maybe she wasn’t being fair. After all, they had agreed to a no-strings relationship.
She’d known what she was getting into. She knew he’d leave from the first. Her eyes had been wide open.
But the part of her that fell in love with him didn’t care about that.
And she’d been foolish to believe he might feel the same as she did.
It didn’t matter now. They were over and he was Sophie’s father. Period.
Aria spent the next several days planning her nursery and what she had to do to make the house habitable.
At the moment, it was barely there. She’d found a house outside of town on a couple of acres and bought it.
Plenty of land for a start to her business.
The house needed work, but she and the baby could live in it once she took care of a few necessities.
She wanted to fix up the baby’s bathroom and paint her bedroom.
And she needed new flooring. The old carpets were disgusting.
The thought of putting Sophie down on any of those once she started crawling made her cringe.
Luckily, at the moment she could lay down a blanket and protect her.
Aria was actually very handy. Her father had left them for good when she was seven.
Her mom had worked two jobs to support them, and there’d never been much money.
Aria had contributed from the time she could babysit and do odd chores for people in the neighborhood.
She had put herself through school and business school and, after she began to work for the hospital, she’d been able to relieve her mom from working so hard.
Unfortunately, her mom hadn’t had long to enjoy it.
She’d died from cancer a few years before.
By necessity, Aria learned a lot of do-it-yourself stuff.
It would be a challenge with the baby to take care of, but she had confidence she could do it.
Some of it anyway. She had a nice nest egg since her job as a hospital administrator had paid well and she’d always been frugal.
And while she could afford to pay someone else to remodel her house, she wanted to do as much as she could herself.
There would be lots of costs she either hadn’t accounted for or she had and knew they’d be expensive.
Like hiring someone to look after Sophie when she couldn’t.
It simply wasn’t practical to think she’d be able to keep the baby with her all the time and start a nursery business.
She’d need someone to put in new carpet, but she decided on click-lock laminate flooring for the baby’s room.
She could buy rugs for Sophie’s room that could be washed or cleaned when they got dirty.
She’d put in flooring before, in her apartment in Denver.
Admittedly, it was a much smaller area, but the basics remained the same.
Once she had the house more or less in order, she planned to put up a greenhouse. One that could be expanded so that she could start small and expand as her business grew.
But first, the house. The baby’s crib was in her room, which would make it easier to work on the floor in Sophie’s room.
She put Sophie down for a nap and decided to pull up the carpet to see what she’d need to prepare the floor.
When she pulled it up she got a shock. Beneath the dirty carpet was a beautiful wood floor.
There were tack strips she’d need to remove and someone had spilled paint in a few places but, on the whole, she could refinish it and have beautiful flooring.
Excited, she went through the rest of the house to see if there were any more pleasant surprises.
The dining and living rooms also had wood floors beneath the ancient carpet.
Which was great except she knew she couldn’t do it all herself.
One room she could probably manage, but three?
No way. It seemed she was going to need to alter her plans.
She began researching construction and contracting businesses in and around Marietta.