“Cathie, I know you. If you give up this child, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. This would break your heart.”
“I know,” she cried. “But what else am I going to do?”
“Let’s deal with one thing at a time, okay? You want to keep this baby, right?”
“Yes,” she whispered. It was a part of her, and as upset as she was at the timing, she’d always known she wanted to be a mother. Her own mother had told her quite seriously that having children was both the hardest thing she’d ever done and the greatest joy of her life.
“You need to finish school,” Matt said. “But that all takes time and money. Time won’t be easy to come by with a baby, but money helps there, too, and let’s take money off the table right now, okay? It’s silly to let that stand in your way when I have more than I’ll ever need, and I’d give you anything you need.”
“Matt—”
“It’s mostly because of your family that I have what I do today. Don’t tell me I don’t get to give something back now,” he insisted. “Your father’s always talking about that, isn’t he? Giving something back?”
She nodded. He had her there.
“So, this is how I get to give you back a little of what your family gave me.”
“Okay, but still—”
“I’m not done. You’re worried that this will bring a lot of stress to your father and put his health in danger?”
“Yes.”
“What else?” he asked.
“I’m worried about this baby growing up without a father.”
“You don’t know this baby won’t have a father. You could find someone you love, someone you trust, and marry him. He could be a great father to this baby. And even if you were married right now, it’s no guarantee that you always would be. The guy could walk away. He could get hit by a bus. Anything could happen.”
“I’m still worried. Your father was never around, right?”
“Right.”
“And how was that?”
“It wasn’t that unusual where I came from. I mean, it’s definitely not the best of circumstances, but lots of kids don’t have fathers.”
“You never knew him?”
“Barely. He died when I was four or five. Got into a fight in a bar. Just a stupid, little thing, but then he was always into some kind of trouble like that.”
“Matt—”
“It’s nothing to me,” he insisted.
“A father shouldn’t be nothing to his child.”
“No, he shouldn’t.”
“Do you ever hear from your mother?”
“Sure. Any time she needs money. She saw something in the paper about my company a year and a half ago and came running with her hand out.”
“Were she and your father married?”
“No.”
“So…did the other kids give you a hard time about that? Did they call you…”
“A bastard?” He grinned and shook his head. “I’ve been called every name in the book, but not necessarily because my parents never married.”
“Still, it’s a big, bad world out there.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Look, I don’t know how things are these days, with so many single parents and divorced parents and all that, but twenty-five years ago when I was old enough to hear it and to ask what it meant, it wasn’t a lot of fun the first time it happened. But it’s far from being the worst thing life ever threw at me.”
“So, that’s not a big consideration, I guess.”
“Well, not necessarily. You’d feel better if you were married?”
“Of course.”
He nodded. “And your father wouldn’t worry so much.”
“No, but that’s not going to happen. Tim’s not going to marry me—”
“I wasn’t talking about that jerk.” He took her hand and held on tight. “Oh, hell, I was thinking… Look, I know it sounds crazy, but…I was talking about me. I think you should marry me, Cathie.”
She gaped at him. “You?”
He nodded. “For the baby.”
Cathie’s heart lurched painfully. For the baby. Of course. She tried not to let him see how this both touched her and hurt her, tried to keep it light. “That would be a bit drastic, don’t you think?”
“Give it a minute. It could work,” he claimed. “We could get married right away. Everyone would assume I was the father of your baby. For all intents and purposes, I would be.”
“What?”
“You want this baby to have a name, don’t you? You don’t want that jerk of a professor of yours to ever have anything to do with your baby.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I have a big house,” Matt went on. “There’s more than enough room for you and the baby. There’s a housekeeper who comes in twice a week, a sweet old grandmotherly type. We’ll have her come full-time to help with the baby while you’re in class. I know you want to finish school. You’ll have to, if you’re going to get back on your feet after this baby comes.”
Cathie stood there mutely. Matt had actually asked her to marry him. She used to dream that he would, but never like this.
“Your parents would buy it,” he went on. “You’ve been here since May. Your mother’s kept sending me over here to check on you, so they know we’ve been spending time together. We’ll tell her we wanted to keep this just between the two of us until we were sure about our feelings.”
“I can’t lie to them like that, Matt,” she said, struggling for any reason she could give him to stop this insanity.
“Will we have to? If we just call them and tell them we’re getting married, they’ll make all the logical assumptions.”
They would. Her parents would never expect her to marry for anything less than love. Still, to tell them she and Matt loved each other, to let them think it…
“It would still be a lie, Matt.”
Oh, please. Let it be a lie. Let her remember all the reasons she couldn’t love him.
Matt’s hand came up to the side of her face, so gently she thought she must be imagining this. He’d never touched her anymore. She closed her eyes, savoring the feel of his touch, as he let his hand linger against her cheek.
“We were good together once, Cathie. Everything was so easy between us. We were the best of friends. Remember?”
“Of course, I remember,” she cried. “You’re the one who forgot.”
He shook his head sadly. The tips of his fingers spread into her hair, his thumb brushing away her tears.
“I didn’t forget,” he said, his gaze locked on hers. “Cathie, you’ve always been special to me. I care about you. I always have. I’m not going to lie and say I love you, because you know it’s not that. But I do care, and I want to help.”
“I