So why was her heart pounding in her chest, making it impossible for her to swallow even if she’d managed to get lettuce to her mouth and chew?
“You need to go see him.”
That got her attention. And gave her strength, too. Head shooting upward, she gave her roommate an authoritative stare. “Absolutely not.”
“He has a right to know.”
Putting her bare foot up on her chair, she hugged her knee with both arms. “No.”
Carmela didn’t speak, but Lizzie could feel the other woman’s striking gray stare burning into her, escalating the confusion roaring inside her.
Because as certain as she was that she was not going to see Nolan Forte ever again—in that lifetime or any other as far as she was concerned—she was equally aware that in some universe he had a right to know that he was a father.
Worse, and much more angst-producing, was the fact that Stella had a right for him to know. In case, someday, he wanted to know her.
Or had family that did.
Like her, he’d apparently had no family close enough with whom to spend the holidays the previous year. Aunt Betty, her only living relative, had been on a cruise with Wayne, Betty’s companion of thirty years. Nolan hadn’t mentioned anyone, nor said why he hadn’t been with them.
She hadn’t asked.
There hadn’t been time. Or it had seemed that way. With less than two weeks to spend with him, she’d been far more interested in their shared interests, in just “them,” than she’d been in any peripheral details.
When she’d found out they had a very real repercussion from their time together, she regretted that she knew almost nothing about him.
Funny, when they’d been together she’d felt like she knew him as well as she knew herself. Felt like they’d been connected before birth, destined to find each other.
Instead, she’d found herself pregnant by a ghost.
One who’d disconnected the number he’d given her. Or had given her a false number to begin with, which was more likely.
One who’d never used the number she’d given him. Not once. Ever.
“He made it very clear that he didn’t want to hear anything I might have to say to him ever again,” she dropped into the tense silence that had fallen between her and Carmela.
Her roommate wasn’t eating, either, or sipping from the wine she’d poured. Carmela was worried about her. She got that.
Truth be known, there were days when she was kind of worried about herself. But it had been a rough few months, having her blood pressure shoot so high the day she’d gone into labor that she’d had a seizure, prompting an immediate cesarean section. Trying to take care of her baby on her own as much as she could afterward, worrying when her blood pressure kept spiking and when Stella failed to gain weight. She’d wondered, a time or two, in the dark of the night, if they were both going to die.
They hadn’t. She’d completely recovered from the pregnancy and postpartum-induced blood pressure issues. And Stella was a picture of perfect baby health.
But now Nolan was back in town.
The truth bobbed around in the outskirts of her awareness, as though testing her for reaction. She wasn’t going to react, plain and simple.
“There is no way in hell I’m going back to that club,” she said now. Despite that declaration, she couldn’t help wondering how long he’d been in Austin, in her neighborhood.
He hadn’t bothered to call. Or stop by.
It wasn’t like he’d have forgotten where she lived. Unless he was a moron as well as a jackass.
He’d known she was a virgin. He’d made a big deal about how much it meant to him that he was her first time. Had made her feel so special. Cherished.
And then...he’d discarded her like she meant nothing at all.
Not even enough to deserve a real phone number. Or name.
She and Carmela had both spent months, on and off, searching the internet for any information on Nolan Forte. All roads led back to one place. His band’s website.
At Carmela’s urging, Lizzie had sent messages to the email listed on the site, with no reply.
“If he’d wanted his kid to have his name, he should have given the real one to her mother.”
“I’m not suggesting that you try to hook up with him, hon.” Carmela’s tone was soft. “Just that this might be the only time you have a chance to tell him about Stella.” She rubbed Lizzie’s arm. “I’m not championing him here,” she said. “You know what I think of him.”
In the very beginning, when Lizzie had first started seeing Nolan, Carmela had warned her against hanging out with a band member. Her boss’s wife, Francesca Whitfield, had been in a relationship with a traveling band member for years—a boy she’d loved since high school—and had caught him cheating on her with a groupie.
Lizzie had thought Nolan was different.
“It’s not because I give a rat’s ass about him,” Carmela started in again. “But you never know what the future’s going to hold, sweetie. What if Stella needs him for some medical reason? A kidney match or something? You might need him to save her life and you’d have no way to find him. Or maybe he has family, a mother even, who’d love Stella, and you, too, for that matter? Chances are if she exists, she has a pretty good idea what a creep her son turned out to be.”
She didn’t need Nolan’s mother to love her. Or anyone associated with him, either. She had Aunt Betty. And Carmela.
And the miracle of Stella.
If anyone had told her how her life would change the instant she held her baby in her arms, she’d never have believed them.
The way that baby filled her heart...made her feel strong and capable...and willing to give up her life at the same time, if it would save Stella’s... It was transforming.
“You might be able to get support out of him,” Carmela said.
“I don’t want his money.” She didn’t want anything more from Nolan Forte. He’d given her enough. “And I don’t want him anywhere near Stella. He’s a liar. A fake. If he’d pull a stunt like he did on me, pretending to be someone he wasn’t, giving me an unusable phone number, who knows what he’d do if she was bugging him? Children believe everything they hear. And they expect their parents to be truthful to them. They don’t need a parent they can’t trust, one who will be constantly disappointing them. Besides, who knows, the guy might be a total creep. Could be the universe was watching out for me, keeping me safe, when it worked out like it did.”
She’d had a lot of months to get herself right with the situation.
“Stella’s going to need to know who he is someday. She’s going to have a mind of her
