Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(11)
He was a father, he thought, blinking and doing his best to surreptitiously suck in sharp, quick breaths of air in an attempt to regain his equilibrium.
When he and Vanessa had first gotten married, they’d discussed having children. He’d expected it to happen before long, been ready for it. When it hadn’t in the first year, or the second, the idea had drifted further and further to the back of his mind.
And that had been okay. He’d been disappointed, he supposed, but so had she. But they’d still been happy together, still optimistic about the future, and cognizant of the fact that they hadn’t even begun to explore all of their options yet. If getting pregnant the fun, old-fashioned way hadn’t worked out, he was sure they’d have discussed adoption or in vitro or even fostering.
But as it turned out, they hadn’t needed any of that, had they? No, she’d been pregnant when they’d signed the divorce papers.
“When did you find out?” he asked, following her movements as she trailed slowly across the room. The baby— Danny, his son—was propped upright against her shoulder now and she was slowly patting his back, bouncing slightly.
“A month or so after the divorce was final.”
“That’s why you moved away,” he said quietly. “I expected you to stick around Pittsburgh after we split. Then I heard you’d left town, but I never knew where you’d gone.” Not that he’d intentionally tried to check up on her, but he’d kept his ear to the ground and—admittedly—welcomed any news he managed to pick up through the grapevine.
She shrugged one slim shoulder. “I had to do something. There was nothing left for me in Pittsburgh and I was soon going to have a child to support.”
“You could have come to me,” he told her, just barely able to keep the anger and disappointment from seeping into his voice. “I would have taken care of you and my child—and you know it.”
She stared at him for a moment, but her face was passive, her eyes blank, and he couldn’t read her expression.
“I didn’t want you to take care of us. Not out of pity or responsibility. We were divorced. We’d already said everything we had to say and gone our separate ways. I wasn’t going to put us both back in a position we didn’t want to be in just because our reproductive timing was lousy.”
“So you came here.”
She nodded. “Aunt Helen had only been living here a couple of years herself. She moved in with her sister when Aunt Clara became ill. After she died, Helen claimed the house was too large for one person and she could use the company. Unfortunately, she’s never met a problem that couldn’t be solved—or at least alleviated—with food, so she baked and I ate. Then one day, I got the brilliant idea that we should open a bakery together. Her recipes are amazing, and I’ve always been pretty handy in the kitchen myself.”
“Good for you,” Marc said.
And he meant it. It hurt to realize that he’d never known she had such amazing cooking or baking abilities, or that she’d preferred to move away and live with her aunt in Mayberry R.F.D. over coming to him when she’d discovered her pregnancy.
He certainly had the means to care for her and their son. Even if reconciliation hadn’t been an option, he could have set her up in a small house or apartment, somewhere he could visit easily and spend as much time with his child as possible.
He could have provided for her, provided for his child, in ways she could never dream of simply by running a single bakery—no matter how popular—in such a rural area.
But then, Vanessa knew that, didn’t she? She was well aware of his and his family’s financial situation. While they’d been married, if she’d asked him to buy her a private island paradise, he could have done so as easily as most people bought a pack of gum.
Which was probably why she’d chosen to move away and find a way to support herself. From the moment they’d met, his money hadn’t impressed her. Oh, she’d enjoyed their two week honeymoon in the Greek isles, but she’d never wanted him to give her silly, expensive things just for the sake of it. She’d never wanted priceless jewels or a private jet, or even her own platinum card for unlimited shopping sprees.
When they’d first been married, she hadn’t even wanted to move into his family home, despite the fact that his brother and his brother’s family resided there and the estate was large enough to house a dozen families comfortably. Possibly without any of them coming into contact with the others for weeks at a time.
Keller Manor boasted a mansion the size of six football fields with separate wings, for heaven’s sake, as well as three isolated cottages on its surrounding two hundred acres. But Vanessa had wanted to find an apartment of their own in town, then maybe later buy a house for just the two of them and any children that came along.
Marc wondered now if he shouldn’t have gone along with her on that idea. At the time, staying at the mansion had been easy, convenient. He’d thought it would be the fastest way for Vanessa to bond with his family and start feeling like a true Keller.
Now, however… Well, considering how well that hadn’t turned out, he was beginning to think he’d made a lot of wrong decisions while they were together.
After patting the baby on the back for a good five minutes—burping him, Marc assumed—Vanessa moved to a navy blue playpen and started to lean over, presumably to lay Danny down for the rest of his nap.