Chapter 14—Christa #2
All the appointments come back in pieces. Blood draws before work. Ultrasounds. The dye test that left me cramping for the rest of the afternoon. Vitamins lined up beside the coffee maker. Temperature charts. Ovulation strips. Tate telling me stress was probably making things worse.
That fateful Saturday dinner returns too, with his parents discussing my supposed fertility issues without seriously considering he might be to blame.
Tate sat beside me while I explained that my preliminary testing was normal, and Tate was refusing the simplest test either of us had been asked to take.
I look down at the report again. It was never me. It’s not my finest moment, but a laugh slips out.
Tate recoils. “You think this is funny too?”
I look at him and realize I do. The knowledge is too enormous for politeness. “Yes.”
His chair shifts backward an inch. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I pick up the report and hold it between us. “You spent nearly three years blaming me because I didn’t get pregnant.”
He scowls. “I didn’t blame you for all of it.”
“You told me my body was the problem.” I tap the page with one finger.
Tate’s jaw works. “I said we needed answers.”
“You refused the test that would have given us one.”
He opens his mouth, but I keep going. “You let your parents discuss my fertility at dinner while you knew I’d completed every test my doctor recommended. You told me I was obsessed. You told everyone I couldn’t give you a child.”
Martin looks sharply toward Tate. Apparently, that part is new to him.
Tate’s face reddens. “I was angry.”
“So was I.” I put the report on the desk.
“You don’t have to enjoy this.” His voice drops.
I lean back in my chair. “I don’t have to, but I absolutely do.”
He stares at me.
“Do you know how many times I wondered what I’d done wrong? How many appointments I made because you wouldn’t make one?” I gesture toward the report. “I changed what I ate. I tracked everything. I let doctors test me over and over while you kept telling me there was no reason to test you.”
Tate looks away.
“You were so certain.” I shake my head with disgust. “You didn’t even need evidence. You were Tate Meade, so you couldn’t possibly be the problem.”
He turns sharply toward me. “You think I wanted this?”
“No.” I hold his gaze. “I think you wanted it to be me.”
That silences him.
I don’t need to add anything clever. His medical report is lying six inches from the trustee decision. The arrangement is almost artistic.
Tate looks at the two documents too. His voice is quieter when he speaks again. “The doctor said this could have been there for years.”
“I know what azoospermia means.”
“He said natural conception would be extremely unlikely.” Tate rubs his palms over his trousers.
I wait.
He looks at the report instead of me. “Charla’s baby couldn’t have been mine.”
I almost tell him Cynthia covered that thoroughly on Friday, but the pain in his expression stops the urge to joke, at least for the moment.
He looks sick when he says the part he’s been avoiding. “All those months we were trying., you couldn’t have gotten pregnant because of me.”
There should probably be grief in that realization, but I’ve spent too many years grieving already. “Yes.”
He lifts his head. “That’s all you have to say?”
“What would you like me to say?” I fold my arms.
“I don’t know.”
“Neither did I every month when my period came.”
He presses his lips together, and I don’t rescue him from that either.
Martin looks toward Jai. “Perhaps we should take five minutes.”
Tate shakes his head. “No, I want to finish.”
His attorney studies him, then lets the suggestion drop.
Tate keeps looking at me. “If I’d done the test then...”
He stops, but I know where the sentence goes. “If you’d done it when the doctor asked, we would’ve faced the result together.” I pick up my pen. “I loved you then.”
He flinches.
“We would’ve seen specialists. We would have talked about options. I would have sat beside you through every appointment because that’s what I thought marriage meant.” I look down at the signature line and then back at him. “You chose to blame me instead.”
Tate swallows. “Christa...”
“You don’t get to make this tragic now.”
His brows draw together. “It is tragic.”
“For you, maybe.” I place my pen beside the agreement. For me, it worked out well in the end. I’m not tethered to a cheater with a child. I wouldn’t have found Simon if my marriage hadn’t imploded.
Martin murmurs his name, but Tate waves him off.
I keep my attention on Tate. “I spent years thinking my body had failed us because you preferred ego over one semen sample. Then you got my sister pregnant and used it as proof that you’d been right all along.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You never checked.”
He looks toward the window.
A car moves through the intersection six floors below. Someone in the office next door laughs, followed by the muffled slam of a drawer. The world keeps going while Tate sits across from me with every certainty he used against me stripped away.
He finally looks back. “My mother asked me Sunday if I’d ever actually been tested.”
That surprises me enough that I don’t hide it. “Judith?”
He nods. “She said since I hadn’t gotten you pregnant, and Charla’s kid isn’t mine...” He twists his mouth around the word. “Mom asked me whether I’d ever had the test.”
I can picture Judith asking it. “What did you say?”
Tate gives me a look.
I almost laugh again. “Right.”
“I told her I didn’t need one.”
“Naturally.” I settle deeper into the chair.
“She told Dad.”
That improves the story considerably, so I sit forward. “What did Bernard say?”
Tate’s expression warns me he knows exactly how much I’m enjoying this. “He told me to get tested before I humiliated the family again.”
My laugh escapes before I can stop it. Jai turns toward her computer, while Martin closes his eyes.
Tate glares at me. “I’m glad you’re entertained.”
“Your father spent years talking about my failure to produce a Meade heir.” I fold the trustee decision closed. “I think I’m entitled to enjoy the correction.”
“He apologized to me.”
I blink. “For what?”
Tate looks down at the report. “For pushing the heir thing. He said he spent so much time treating a son like proof that he’d done something right that he taught me to do the same thing.”
The admission takes some of the humor out of me, though not all of it. “That’s more self-awareness than I expected from Bernard.”
Tate gives a humorless laugh. “He still fired me.”
“Administrative leave.”
“No.” He looks at me. “Fired.”
Jai’s attention returns to him.
Tate gestures toward the trustee decision. “The board met Tuesday. Dad removed me from every officer position he could control. The independent directors voted me off the two subsidiary boards. My company email stopped working before lunch.”
I don’t say anything.
He gives me a bitter look. “You’re trying very hard not to smile.”
“I’m not trying that hard.”
A short sound comes from Jai. I glance at her, and she looks innocent.
Tate continues. “Dad says the company needs distance from me while the trust mess gets sorted out.”
“That seems sensible.”
“He told me not to come to the house either.”
That catches me by surprise. “Your parents’ house?”
“Yes.” His gaze drops to the desk.