Page 18 of The Virgin's Baby
Then again, why would anyone say a thing like that?
“Margo, the thing is that I don’t think I can go through with this without falling for the man,” I admitted to her.
“I couldn’t either, Aspen. He’s so hot.” She fanned herself as an afterthought. “And living day in and day out with him would just make things that much harder.”
“But he’s so sure he wants the baby and nothing more.” I leaned my elbow on the table then rested my chin in my palm. “And I know I’ll want more with him. He makes me all tingly inside.”
She laughed. “Oh, does he now?”
I nodded as I thought about how he made me feel. “He and I were getting along so well—before I called him a playboy.”
With a sigh, she said, “You can’t go around calling guys things like that. What if you were called a cock-tease? How would you feel about that?”
“Well, since I’m not one, I would tell any errant man who said such a thing that he was wrong.” Shoving my hair back off my face, I added, “Ransom didn’t deny it. He just grew distant.”
Margo wiggled her brows at me. “Well, he’s a gorgeous man, built like a brick shit house, and he drives a Porsche. Chances are that he is an actual bad boy. Stop using playboy, Aspen. No one uses that term anymore.”
“I’m so out of it.” My face fell into my hands as I thought about what a freak I really was. “He got me to eat oysters and drink wine. He made my insides melt.” I recalled what else he’d made happen, but I wasn’t going to tell her that he’d made my panties wet too.
“Yeah, bad boys do that to girls. Lots of girls. Tons of them even,” she went on.
“And he would’ve done that to me, too, if I’d been less of a bitch to him.” I’d messed up and knew it.
Or had I?
Sitting up straight, I thought about the reality of it all. I would’ve rolled over and given myself to that man. I would’ve just given my virginity to Ransom Whitaker if he’d made so much as one more move on me.
I couldn’t do the deal he wanted me to. I couldn’t raise a kid with him and never have anything more than that. And I couldn’t become just another notch on the man’s bedpost.
I was better than that. I had waited for years for the right time. I couldn’t just up and give it to the first bad boy who paid attention to me.
Had I always been easy and just never had a boy who was bad enough come on to me?
Ransom was bad too. Really bad.
That man wanted to have a baby just to keep his inheritance. That’s not a reason to have a baby.
And what’s worse, he didn’t want to have this baby with any woman he might have to form a bond with. ‘No strings’ was his motto for everything, I would venture to bet.
But then I remembered him saying that he wanted a baby, so he would be related to someone in this world, and if I had his baby, then I would have that too.
And I wanted that. I’d never known that I wanted it until he brought it up, but I did. And I didn’t know if I would ever find a man I wanted to marry and start a family with.
I hadn’t found one so far. But I wasn’t some spinster, too old to ever have a husband and family. I was only twenty-three. There would be plenty of time to find Mr. Right.
And when I did, then what?
If I had a kid with Ransom, and he and I were raising said kid together, then what would I do if I did find Mr. Right?
Add him to our family?
Even worse. What if Ransom found a Miss Right and brought her into our kid’s life? Where would that leave me?
There were just too many variables. “I can’t do this. I just can’t.”
Margo nodded then got up to put the pad of paper and pencil away. “No, you can’t. It’s just not the right thing to do. You don’t have that hard streak in you that a woman would need to go through with this. Or maybe it’s not a hard streak at all. Maybe it’s a soft streak. Maybe you would have to have loads and loads of compassion for the man to do something that selfless for him.”
“Maybe so.” I got up and went to the front door to start my day of job searching. “I’ll call him in a couple of days and tell him that I can’t do it. If I call him right now, he’ll say nice things and try to talk me into it. At this point, I think I’m too susceptible to his charms if he turns them on. He might not. I may have really struck a nerve when I called him a playboy.”
