She held up a hand when he would’ve spoken. “I know losing Tessie hurt you. So much.” A thickness in her voice. “But what if your mom dies or one of the guys in the band? Would you still be able to maintain?”
Taking a quick breath, she continued. “Because if you can’t, if you have even the slightest inkling that you might break, then you need to walk away.” No anger in her tone, nothing but a passionate conviction. “I don’t want my child exposed to a father who’s here one minute, gone the next. I won’t have a little boy or girl heartbroken because their daddy disappears for weeks or months at a time.”
Abe took the quiet verbal blows without attempting to defend himself. Hell, those blows were far softer than he deserved. “I’ll maintain,” he vowed. “You can trust me.”
No response.
Panic knotted his gut. “Give me the pregnancy to prove myself. That’s nine months—”
“Four weeks less,” Sarah corrected, a sudden heat in her face as she stole a glance at the counter where they’d come together in naked passion.
Abe’s blood pounded. “Right, eight months, give or take.” He coughed past the roughness in his throat, damn glad she couldn’t see his lower half. Now was not the time to be sporting a rampant cock. “That’s two-thirds of a year.”
He waited until she met his gaze. “If I prove myself to you in that time, promise me you’ll let me be a dad to our baby.” He knew he could take her to court, get visitation, but Abe didn’t want that. He wanted to be an everyday part of his kid’s life, feed their baby a bottle, change a dirty diaper, sing him or her to sleep.
To do that, he’d have to become a part of Sarah’s life.
Abe didn’t think Sarah had realized that yet. She was thinking only of the baby. But Abe, he’d been thinking of Sarah for a long time. From the way she laughed, to the way she danced, to how she’d looked at him once, before he’d tried his fucking best to snuff out that rare, beautiful light inside her.
“All right,” she said slowly. “Let’s see how it goes.”
It wasn’t the most ringing endorsement, but Abe would take what he could get, work with it. This time around, he’d be the man Sarah deserved.
CHAPTER 19
LYING ALONE IN BED THAT NIGHT, Sarah thought of the way Abe had pulled out his phone and made the call for her follow-up appointment with Dr. Snyder. Because of her history, the doctor would be monitoring her closely throughout her pregnancy. He’d also told her he’d be referring her for specialist scans at a far earlier point than he did with most women.
Sarah had no argument with any of it, just wanted her baby safe.
Appointment made, Abe had promised to return at ten the following day to take her to the first visit. Sarah knew that if he kept his word about wanting to be there for everything, the media would sniff them out sooner rather than later. However, the possibility that had horrified her only days ago was no longer her primary concern.
She stroked her belly.
If it meant her baby would have a father, a real father, then she’d suck it up and find a way to weather the harsh glare of fame. “Stay,” she whispered to her belly. “Please stay. I promise you I won’t ever hurt you. Please don’t go.”
Her eyes grew hot, her chest agonizingly tight.
Turning over onto her side, she stared out the window she’d left slightly ajar to let in the night breeze. Her bedroom was on the second floor and the window had a security latch, but she couldn’t actually fall asleep until she’d closed and locked it. Even after all these years, she still didn’t trust the night.
Bad things happened in the night.
Today she had no reason to get up and shut the window, her mind wide awake. Picking up her phone, she went to message Lola to see if her best friend was up, hesitated. She wasn’t ready for anyone else to know about this pregnancy, which meant the only person she could talk to was Abe.
She scrolled to his name in her address book, hesitated with her finger hovering over it.
I want to be there for the pregnancy… The scans and the vitamins and all that shit.
Setting her jaw, she decided to take him at his word and made the call. To her surprise, he picked up almost at once. “Sarah? What’s wrong?”
She bit down on her lower lip. “I can’t sleep.”
“Yeah, me either.” Abe sounded like he was moving around. “You want to go get ice cream?”
“It’s half past eleven at night.”
“So?” A verbal shrug. “We live in LA. Someone’s gotta be selling ice cream at this hour.”