Arrogant Playboy(33)

My gut aches. It’s not like Carly not to fight harder for us. She’s been our biggest cheerleader for the last six years.

My corner feels empty without her in it.

The call goes to voicemail, and for a second it seems the whole universe is conspiring against me.

“Jeremiah, call me back. It’s important. We have to talk.”





Chapter Seventeen




BECKHAM



“You shouldn’t have gone.” Dr. Brentwood chides me with his signature lulling voice from his end of the phone. “Hopping on a plane, flying across the country, and sitting by her side as she delivered her baby was the worst thing you could’ve done. You’ve undone almost a year’s worth of work for all of us.”

“Missing the birth of my child isn’t something I could live with.” It sounds weird. My child. I still don’t know. She’s got a full head of dark hair, like both of us, and her mother’s dark eyes. I tried not to get choked up as I held her for the first time last night, and I couldn’t help stroking her cheek as she nursed her mother’s breast. On the off chance she is my kid, I don’t want to have missed those early moments.

“Do you truly believe she’s yours?” Dr. Brentwood has the patience of a saint. Usually. But not today. I hear him sigh through the receiver. Nine months ago, we thought we’d put this issue to bed. She was seeking help. The restraining order was filed.

“Did I think this would happen?” I ask. “No. I’ve had a vasectomy. We always used condoms. But she works at the fertility clinic where ten vials of my…product were cryogenically frozen.”

“They have very strict chain-of-custody protocols. It’s one of the top fertility clinics in the nation,” he says.

“Right. And Eva’s the lab manager,” I say. “Everything’s coded with numbers to protect patient confidentiality and prevent mix ups. Guess who has access to all that information? Guess who’s in charge of semen prepping when patients come in for procedures?”

Dr. Brentwood is silenced by my theory.

Eighteen months ago, I decided to have a vasectomy.

I thought I was doing the responsible thing.

I went the cryogenic route on the extremely slim chance I might change my mind someday. That’s when I met Eva. Bumped into her in the hall, right before I was about to deposit my tenth and final batch. I’d never seen anyone so exotic and mysterious before. Long neck, high cheekbones, naughty gleam in her eye, and an accent that slayed.

One dinner turned into drinks, and within weeks we were hooking up on a regular basis until I had to end it months later. She was getting attached. Dirty talk turned to pillow talk, which escalated into Eva allowing herself to fall in love which wasn’t part of the agreement.

I jumped that sinking ship while she rearranged deck chairs.

Eva capsized as soon as she realized I wasn’t coming back.

“I’m waiting on a call back from my attorney. I spoke with him last night. He’s going to get in contact with the clinic.” I run my fingers through my hair. It’s product-free for the first time in a long time. I barely had the motivation to take a shower this morning having stayed most of the night at the hospital staring at that innocent little girl and searching for a sign that she was mine. “The clinic will probably come back and say all ten vials are accounted for. If Eva switched numbers or swapped out a vial of my specimen with someone else’s, there won’t be anyway to tell without unfreezing the samples. That’ll destroy them.”

Fuck.

“You’ll have to do DNA testing,” Dr. Brentwood said. “Which could take weeks. Possibly months.”

“What do I do?” I slink back in my chair, glancing at the time. It’s half past eight. Odessa should be rolling in here any moment. “Do I pretend she’s not mine? Pretend that didn’t just happen? Ignore Eva? What if she threatens the baby?”

“She won’t,” he says. “If she believes that baby is yours, or if indeed that baby is yours, she won’t do anything.”

“You and I both know we can’t guarantee that. Eva’s unpredictable. Unstable.”

“Exactly.” He clears his throat. “Which is why you should’ve called me first before going to the hospital.”

“Forgive me for not thinking clearly.” My fist clenches the handle of my desk phone, resisting the urge to slam it. He’s not helping. I need answers. I need directives. There’s no protocol on what to do in a situation like this. Surely someone somewhere has had their ex-fuck-buddy-turned-stalker impregnate themselves with their cryogenically frozen sperm?