bearable. I can’t give that up. I can’t give you up.”
“It’s all you choose to have with me,” she said, letting some of her anger out.
“This is the same conversation we’ve had before. I can’t abandon the baby. I’ve watched Emma grow up without her mother. She never even saw Emma, she was so out of it during the delivery. She only lasted a few moments after Emma came into the world. I grew up without a father. I had George, but it isn’t the same. I want this baby to have a mother and a father, and I have a chance to make it happen.”
The baby would have a mother and a father without Cameron marrying Shelly. She knew it and he knew it, but he refused to budge on the issue. He wanted his baby to have everything Emma didn’t. Without love between Shelly and Cameron, the baby still wouldn’t have what Cameron dreamed, and the baby and Emma would be the ones to pay the highest price.
She let the subject drop. She couldn’t convince him to be with her. If she kept after him, she’d just sound desperate and pathetic.
“Call Jimmy. Tell him I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
He let the change of subject pass. No point talking about it anymore. He wouldn’t abandon his baby to a life of being shuffled back and forth between parents. He’d make a real home for Shelly, Emma, the baby, and him, starting on the day he married her. On that day, he’d give up Marti. Until then, he would take every opportunity to spend time with her. Hopefully, he’d gather enough memories of her to last him a lifetime. He only hoped Emma would understand when Marti was gone. He didn’t want to hurt Emma, but he couldn’t marry Shelly and keep Marti in his life. He knew that now.
His chest went tight and he couldn’t breathe through the raw ache.
“What were you working on? What do you do for a living?”
“Cameron, it’s after two in the morning, I have to get to the city to be with Emma, and you want to play twenty questions with me about my job? Go work, go sleep, go do whatever you’re supposed to be doing, besides bugging me.”
“I like it when you’re grumpy. You sound so disgruntled. It’s cute. I also noticed you hate answering questions about yourself.”
“I just don’t see the point. In little more than three weeks, you’ll have yourself a wife and it won’t matter who I am or ever was to you.”
“That’s not true, Marti.” Anger filled his voice. How could she think she meant so little to him? “It matters. It matters now, and it will matter then.”
“I’ll see you Wednesday when you get back. If Jimmy isn’t feeling well, tell him I’ll stay with Emma until you get home.”
“He’ll appreciate it. Thank you. I know I have no right to call and ask you for anything. I’ve done it a hundred times over the last two weeks just so I’d have an excuse to see you. I don’t deserve you.”
“Sometimes I feel the same way about you.”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. He laughed. It was ironic. He didn’t deserve to have someone as special as Marti in his life. Someone he kept taking and taking from. She didn’t deserve to be treated the way he treated her. He knew it, but couldn’t help himself.
“I’ll see you Wednesday.” More softly, he added, “I miss you.”
Marti hung up, but was reluctant to release the phone. Just like she was reluctant to release Cameron. She was holding onto him as hard as he was holding on to her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
* * *
LIVING IN CAMERON’S home without him there was strange. She’d spent all day Monday begging Emma to drink some broth to settle her stomach. By Monday night, the little girl was finally feeling well enough to sleep without waking several times during the night. Marti had slept little Sunday or Monday herself.
The doorbell to the penthouse rang and she set her morning coffee down on the marble countertop.
She didn’t know who to expect, but Shelly certainly wasn’t high on her list.
“What the hell are you doing in my fiancé’s house?”
Here to cause trouble, of course Shelly knew Cameron was out of town. The bitch wanted to mark her territory.
“I’d invite you in, but Emma is sick. We wouldn’t want you and the baby to get sick too,” she said and looked pointedly at Shelly’s flat stomach.