Page 58 of Beck and Call

Then I remembered I had a vasectomy years ago to prevent this exact situation from arising. If she hadn't cheated on me, this should not be possible. I googled "vasectomy reversal" and found the statistics on having the procedure surgically reversed. Then I tried "vasectomy failure" and sat back as the results showed it was possible, albeit rare, for a vasectomy to self-reverse. My research stressed the importance of the follow up appointments to verify the success of the procedure. Other than checking to make sure I was healing properly, I hadn't followed up to verify if I was still producing sperm.

A number of times since she left I wanted to call her, but her phone was sitting on the counter of my office en-suite. She really didn't take anything with her. She even left her purse on the floor of the bathroom. The keys to my apartment were inside.

Somehow I made it through the day. I'd have to hire another secretary though, because my sour mood made the one Evie hired a couple of weeks ago run out of the building in tears.

Colter wasn't talking to me, and I wasn't so sure he wouldn't walk out of the building and not return. There was something odd between him and Evie, and as ashamed as I was that I spoke to them the way I did, I still couldn't stop the suspicions playing through my mind.

The phone at my secretary's desk rang. After several rings, and no one went to answer it, I went out into the hall and answered it myself. "Anderson Global," I greeted.

"Yes, hello. I'm calling for Beckett Anderson. I'm from BioSolutions and need to schedule an appointment with him."

"This is Beckett," I grunted.

"Can you come to the office in an hour?"

"Yes," I agreed. Honestly, I had no idea if I was missing a meeting or had a clue about anything without Evie.

I missed her. I wasn't even sure I cared what the results of the test were. I'd take her back no matter what, but if there was any chance my vasectomy had failed and she was having my baby I wasn't sure there was anything I could do to earn her forgiveness now.

I answered an email, then grabbed my keys and headed to the parking garage. In order to avoid having too much time to think about the things I'd said yesterday, I decided to keep myself as busy as possible. I cranked up the stereo as loud as I could stand and started trudging through rush hour traffic.

"What are you doing here?" Colter demanded moments after I walked in the door. I hadn't seen him sitting in the corner, but he was obviously not pleased to see me.

"They called me and told me to come in," I replied.

An older gentleman in a lab coat called us both back to the office. "I'm sorry, this is very peculiar, and not usually our practice, but the results were very confusing and I had some follow up questions to try and make sense of them."

We both followed him down a long hallway to what I assumed was his office. He motioned for us to take a seat in front of his desk. "Were we running two separate paternity tests?"

Colter's face reflected the same confusion I felt. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, we found two positive results. Which would you like to hear first?" he asked us.

"Who is the father of the baby?" I demanded.

"Oh, yes of course. You, Mr. Anderson, were determined to be the father of the unborn child by ninety-nine-point-nine percent."

"What is the other positive result?" Colter asked. He was gripping the arms of the chair tightly, and it seemed he had some inkling what we were going to hear.

"Mr. Grayson, you are the father of Ms. Holmes. Was that not what we were trying to determine? Like I said, these results were very bizarre and we had never run a test on both a mother and an unborn child before."

Without a word, Colter got up and strolled out of the office. I chased after him and caught him as he was exiting the building.

"Not now, Beck."

"I'm sorry. I fucked up. I should never have accused you of what I did. I feel disgusted with myself especially considering–"

"Yes, this is about you. You accused me of knocking up my daughter. A daughter I haven't known jack shit about for twenty-three years, but let's make this about you."

He shoved past me, and I followed him. "You're right. This isn't about me. I can't imagine what you must feel."

"Can't you? You just learned you're going to be a father. The only difference is you still have time to do something about it. I've lost decades with my daughter. I'll never hold her as a baby, watch her grow up. And now I know what happened to my Jenny. She's been dead for fifteen years and I didn't know." He pulled at his hair with both hands. "Fuck!"

"Colt," I tried again.

He rounded on me and knocked me on my ass. "Just fucking leave me alone. I'm going to go find my daughter."

"I need to apologize to her." I started to pick myself up.

---