Heat rushed into her cheeks, and she lowered her gaze. “I know. I didn’t want anyone to know. Until I knew if, well, if it had paid off, I guess.”
“Until you were actually able to get pregnant.”
Dara nodded, still not looking up.
“Does Jon know?”
Dara flinched. “Neither of us did when he left. He knew it was a possibility, though, so when he filed for divorce, he included a petition to have his rights terminated for any child.” Bile rose in the back of her throat. “So I didn’t tell him. Quite honestly, at this point, it’s none of his business.”
“This is his child, honey.”
Dara absently ran a finger around the top of her glass. “No, actually it isn’t.”
“What do you mean? Of course it is.”
She sighed. “Biologically, the baby is…” She shook her head and met her mother’s gaze. “My doctor convinced me that frozen embryos were the way to go, so…” She hesitated. Telling her mother she was having Matt Coolidge’s baby would turn this conversation sour in a hurry. “I used an anonymous donor.” The lie didn’t do good things to her conscience, but the truth couldn’t come out. Not right now.
“An anonymous—” Her mom sighed. “Dara.”
“I had to make a decision so we could get it done and start my cancer treatments.” She shrugged. “And I wasn’t dating anyone, so it seemed like the best way to go.”
Her mom’s nose wrinkled. Then she shook her head. “Well, I suppose an anonymous donor couldn’t be any worse than some of the men you had in your life at the time.”
Dara gritted her teeth. They both knew there’d been only one man in her life when she’d had cancer, and suddenly she didn’t feel so bad about lying. The truth meant a conversation she was not ready to have right now.
“Honey.” Her mom put a cool hand over Dara’s wrist. “I think you and Jon need to talk about this. He probably made a rash decision, but when he knows there’s a baby on the—”
“It’s over, Mom. And it needs to stay that way.”
“Except there’s a baby involved now.”
Dara met Mom’s gaze. “That doesn’t change the fact that my husband left me for another woman.”
“But you can’t just bring a baby into the world without a father!”
Dara clenched her jaw. People did it all the time, but not in Aspen Mill, and sure as hell not in the Marley family. It was simply not done here.
“I wasn’t bringing a baby into the world without a father,” she said as calmly as she could. “I didn’t go through all those awful procedures because I thought my husband would change his mind.”
“Right. The divorce was sudden.” Mom wrapped her hands around her teacup. “It was probably just a foolish mistake, and when he realizes there’s a baby on the—”
“Are you defending him?” Dara eyed her mother. “You were ready to wring his neck when I told you he left.”
“And it’ll take time to forget that he did this,” Mom said. “But he needs to take responsibility for his child.”
Dara managed to not roll her eyes. “He doesn’t have any responsibility for this child. He specifically signed that responsibility away.”
“You need to deny him that petition.” Mom casually sipped her tea. “He needs to take care of his wife and child.”
“I don’t need someone to take care of me,” Dara spat. “I can take care of myself and my baby.”
“And you said yourself, that’s why Jon left, sweetheart. He wanted to be a husband, and husbands are providers. He—”
“No, I’m not having this discussion.” Dara shoved her chair back and stood. As she took her glass and plate to the sink, she threw over her shoulder, “Times have changed, Mom.”
“For the worse, yes.”
Dara turned around. Eyeing her mother coolly, she said, “Okay. Fine. Let’s say I do get back together with Jon. And I quit working so he feels more like a man.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “What if my baby’s a girl?”
Her mom blinked. “What if she is?”
“Is that the example I should set for her? That a woman should go stay with a man who abandoned her and cheated on her, and apologetically lower her income so he feels like the man he apparently isn’t?”
Her mother’s jaw tightened. She sat up straighter, looking Dara right in the eye. “Men have needs too, darling.”
“If those needs are a pretty little housewife catering to his every whim, then he and I aren’t right for each other.”