Page 23 of Doctor Daddy Dilemma

Four of the past seven mornings, I woke up to such bad morning sickness I couldn’t keep anything down. I wondered how I’d make it through all of this by myself with the man I loved so far away from me, but there wasn’t a way for us to actually be together right now. Besides the fact that while I would wholeheartedly jump into this with him and move in, I wasn’t sure how fast he’d want to take things, and my job was in Tampa. I doubted he’d move his practice there, and I didn’t have a shot in the dark at getting a job here.

Despite all the obstacles and hurdles that stretched out ahead of us and our relationship, I chose—like always—to look at the possibilities and not the problems. If I started looking at the problems, I’d run away scared. My parents set a good example for me when they came to this country. It was rough; they knew no one. They had so little, almost no money, no jobs. And they never quit. If they could do that, then I could weather a long-distance relationship and get through this pregnancy.

My hand unconsciously fluttered to my stomach as I sat up to look at the TV when I heard a news broadcast come on. The reporter said something about a crash on the bridge, which made a lot of sense. It would account for the reason Lex was now forty minutes late and still counting. I reached for the remote to turn up the volume, praying it wasn’t Lex’s car involved in the accident, and I listened as the reporter gave the lowdown.

“Traffic is finally starting to move again after near gridlock for the past hour, James. Back to you on the ground.” The camera panned to a male reporter standing next to a police car with flashing lights.

“Thanks, Janice. That was Janice Holmes from Miami Five’s weather copter with the bird’s eye view. Now on the ground, you can see the flow is starting to move again. You can expect the road to clear quickly now that the major debris is off the highway.”

There was no sign of Lex’s vehicle anywhere, but I did see the way cars were crawling. It didn’t look to me like traffic was starting to flow again, but if it had been gridlock then even ten miles per hour was better than that. What I did see, which at first shocked me, then enraged me to my very core, was Lex’s face.

He sat in the passenger seat of a slow-moving convertible. The sporty car was trapped along with all the others moving this way at such a slow speed I had no problem picking him out of the crowd. And the person driving too. Myra Lewis, that actress he had on his boat who was more than tipsy and ended up slovenly drunk that night. She was smiling and throwing her head back as Lex spoke to her and it made me so upset that I was on my feet pacing again.

Lex was not only with another woman—again—but a woman I knew was not having cosmetic surgery at his hand. She said herself it would be a while before she jumped back “under the knife” as she put it. And she was also known as one of the biggest lady players in the city, at least as far as tabloid gossip went. I might have a difficult time trusting Lex, but I definitely would never trust her. Why was he with her? And better yet, would Amy think I was overreacting right now?

I looked back up at the television screen, but the clip had passed and the broadcast had shifted back to the studio where the news anchors were talking about the weather and a cold front moving through. I wanted to be calm—I really did. I just couldn’t. The tabloid photos of Lex climbing into cars with random women, coupled with the way I first met him—an actress leaving his home and me walking in on him dressing—just confirmed what Mr. James kept telling me. He wanted to force me to write something I refused to see, but the blinders were off now. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen that.

I snatched my bag and headed right off the yacht to the parking lot, and as I did I ordered an Uber. The driver said it would only be a ten-minute wait, which meant he was somewhere nearby, and I was glad. I wanted out of here before Lex arrived and I had to explain why I was fuming mad at him. I never wanted to speak to him again.

Tears burned my eyes and I fought to keep myself from becoming hysterical. I swore to myself this would be whatever it was, and I wouldn’t get hurt by it because I had no plan to let my heart get carried away. And then I let my heart get carried away anyway. This shouldn’t have been happening. I knew the risk before I even returned for our second interview and I took that risk. I knew this might be a possibility because I’d seen the tabloids, but I was stupid for believing the best in people. Some things really are exactly as they seem.

My Uber got here a full sixty seconds sooner than he estimated, and I climbed in without a second thought. Baby or no baby, Dr. Alexander Hartman now had no access to my heart; he was in my past and would forever stay there. In fact, I forced myself to concede that it was all my fault since I should have known better. I didn’t blame him for being himself one bit. I blamed myself because I refused to see who he clearly was the entire time.

I didn’t even stop to get a hotel. I had the Uber take me straight to the airport. Even if there were no flights tonight, I’d at least be safe and away from Lex’s prying or badgering should he try to find and follow me. I had half a mind to order a flight right to El Paso and go directly to my parents’ house where he would never find me, but I had some business to finish up in Tampa first. As it were, I had no place in this state anymore. Not ever again, so long as Lex lived here.

Tears burned my cheeks and I swiped them away, more angry than sad. His actions cut me deep, but they didn’t surprise me. I didn’t want any child of mine to be raised by a man with zero morals. Besides, if Lex even cared—which I doubted he did—it would only be to keep his reputation intact and out of the press. Men like him were the sort who paid women off to keep them quiet and not expose the truth. I didn’t need or want his money, and I didn’t plan to stick around for that payoff.

18

LEX

The wind whipped through my hair and I knew why Myra wore that silk scarf tied around her head. I thought it was just a bad hair day, but given how my hair now stood on end after the ten-minute drive at low speed, I imagined it would have been far worse at highway speeds. She turned toward the docks as she yammered on about this weekend and her plans. She was fishing for an invite to a yacht party the minute I told her I was spending the weekend on the yacht with Charlie.

Myra wasn’t the sort to flirt with me, though she was a flirt. Any passes she made were purely coincidental, as she preferred much younger men, especially those with large wallets or prominent names. Given that I was several years her senior, I had never enjoyed any of that attention she handed out like lollipops. At one point in my life, I may have been offended by that, but now my heart was set on Charlie, and she was all I could think about.

“Here we are, Doc,” Myra said as we turned into the parking lot. She pulled up to the boathouse and stopped, but she didn’t even bother putting her car in park.

“Thank you so much for rescuing me. I’ll never be able to repay you. How about we do a get-together in a few weeks? Maybe a day cruise.” I remembered her penchant for drink and the way the evening air always made her indulge a little too much. I also remembered her vomit all over the boat which my crew had to clean up, much to their chagrin.

“Sounds great… Don’t forget to text me ahead of time. I can’t do last-minutes!” She wiggled her fingers at me as I shut the door and stood on the curb with my possessions wrapped in my arms.

I watched her drive away and sighed, realizing I still had a trek to get to my boat. It wasn’t going to look very romantic of me to waddle up a bedraggled, windblown mess with an armful of documents and work files along with the flowers, but I couldn’t very well leave them in my car on the side of the road, or with Myra. I’d have been better off just hailing a cab or hiring another car for the day, but I thought I knew better.

I dragged my sorry self all the way out to the docks and down the pier to my boat where the captain was lounging on the deck watching the news. He popped to his feet when he saw me and rushed over to help me with my things, and my eyes scanned the deck but saw no sign of Charlie.

“Did Ms. Martinez get here yet?” I asked as I handed over all my paperwork to his trusted hands.

“She just left, sir.” The captain held my documents and gave me a confused and compassionate look. “She was watching the news, I was sitting on the bridge, and she just got up and left. It looked like she was upset or something.”

My eyes flicked up to the television, but it was just a commercial. “She was watching the news?” I clung to the flowers in my hands and turned back to him as he straightened the papers in his hand and shrugged a shoulder.

“It was just a traffic report…” His head tilted to the side and I scowled.

“On the bridge?”

“Yes, sir.” The almost wince on his face told me he realized I was growing more upset by the second. I didn’t even pause to address it.

“Put those in my cabin,” I snapped and then I turned abruptly and went straight to the bridge where I rifled through drawer after drawer trying to find my spare charging cable for my phone. After a good five-minute search, I finally found it and plugged my phone in, but it was dead enough that it didn’t even turn on right away.

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