A Natural Father by Sarah Mayberry

only joking, but her words still caught her on the raw.

    “Hey, what’s wrong?” Rosie asked as Lucy reached for her hot chocolate and concentrated on stirring it.

    “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”

    “Bad at flirting and bad at lying. What am I going to do with you?”

    Lucy stopped stirring her drink and met her sister’s eyes.

    “I don’t want another man. I want Marcus. I want the father of my baby,” she said in a small voice.

    Her sister stared at her, her face full of sympathy.

    “Go on, say it. Tell me I’m pathetic for wanting someone who doesn’t want me,” Lucy said.

    “I don’t think that’s pathetic. Marcus is the pathetic one. I just feel sad that I can’t give you what you want.”

    Lucy sighed heavily and picked up a fork.

    “I guess all this chocolate is still very necessary, after all,” she said.

    “Chocolate is always necessary, whether it be for celebration or commiseration,” Rosie said.

    Her sister waited until Lucy was swallowing a chunk of sinfully rich frosting before speaking again.

    “And he was flirting with you. The Bianco was fully, blatantly, balls-out flirting with you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

    “D ID YOU EVEN consider discussing this with me first?” Andrew asked.
    Rosie put down her knife and fork and gave her husband her full attention.
    “I should have waited to talk to you, I know—”

    “You think?”

    Rosie blinked. Andrew didn’t often lose his temper but when he did it was usually well-earned. Like tonight. As soon as she’d given it some thought, she’d known she should have spoken to him before offering the money to Lucy. But she couldn’t undo what had already been done.

    “I’m sorry. I got carried away. All I was thinking about was Lucy and how I could help. I hate that she’s in such a difficult position.”

    “I hate it, too. But we’ve already given her a home. We can’t afford to give her our savings, too.”

    “I hear what you’re saying, but that money’s just sitting in the bank, collecting interest. Why not use it to help Lucy? She’ll pay us interest like the bank. It’s a win-win situation.”

    Andrew pushed his chair back from the table and stood.

    “What about our plans to renovate the practice? What about getting a junior partner? All that just goes by the wayside, does it?”

    “No, of course not. But it’s not like we were actually ready to do any of that. We haven’t even decided on an architect yet.”

    “Because you keep putting it off.”

    Rosie stood, hating being at a disadvantage. “I haven’t put anything off. Neither of us has pushed for the renovation. We’ve been too busy building the practice.”

    Andrew looked at her, his face tense.

    “Rosie, every time I suggest we start talking to architects you come up with a reason for why we can’t. First it was the Larson trial, then it was the Bigalows’ divorce. The time after that you strained your Achilles’ at the gym and you didn’t want me doing all the legwork on my own.” He stared at her, his jaw set. “If you’re not ready to have children, tell me and stop stringing me along.”

    Rosie took a step backward. She hadn’t been expecting such a direct confrontation, not after the way they’d both been sidestepping the issue for so long. It had become a game of sorts, the way they skirted around the all-consuming subject of when to start a family.

    “I’m not not ready,” Rosie said quickly, even though her stomach tensed with anxiety. “I’m not stringing you along. The time simply hasn’t been right before.”

    Andrew sighed heavily. His blue eyes were intent as he looked into her face. “So when will the time be right if we give all our savings to Lucy? Five years? Ten years? You’re thirty-one. How old do you plan on being when our kids are in college? You’re the one who insisted we needed to add a junior partner to the firm before we even considered starting a family. And we both agreed we couldn’t do that