The Prince's Baby. Lisa Laurel Kaye
I guess I am.” He might have felt differently if he hadn’t seen his daughter today—Whit didn’t know. All he knew was that seeing Lexi, coming to her rescue, and then that kiss—he felt somehow that Lexi needed him. Him, Whit Anders. He couldn’t explain that to Drew; hell, he really didn’t understand it himself. But he had to find out what Lexi needed from him.
Drew’s reply was determined. “Don’t even think about trying to get custody. Lexi belongs with me. I’ll fight you to my last gasp to keep her.”
“Drew, I don’t want to take her away from you. You’re her mother. That’s something I could never be, even if I wanted to.”
Neither spoke for a few moments. It was a heavy silence, made heavier when Drew quietly asked, “Do you really want to be a father?”
The weight of the past bore down on Whit. Seven years ago his answer to that question had been an honest and emphatic no. Learning that Drew dreamed of having a family had been a harsh wake-up call for him. She had wanted it all—and deserved it all—but there had been no way he’d felt up to taking on that magnitude of responsibility. He’d been having a hard enough time just trying to live up to his responsibilities as a prince without another major screw-up.
But that was then, and this wasn’t a hypothetical question anymore. He had a daughter, a real person with a name and a face and a dangerous knack no one else had ever had for reaching out and touching his heart.
No one else except the little girl’s mother, that is.
Watching Whit, Drew swallowed. This was it in a nutshell. She’d had no choice but to throw the past up in his face, because their past was terribly important to Lexi’s future. On their last night together, when neither of them had known that nature was bonding them together as parents, the issue of parenthood had torn them apart as lovers. The simple truth was that he hadn’t wanted to be a husband and father, and he had admitted that then. And if he still didn’t want to be a father, as she felt sure was the case, far better to come to terms with it now, before this went any further than the two of them.
“Do you, Whit?” Drew asked again. “Do you want to be there with Lexi and for her, day after day, in good times and bad? Never to leave, even when the going gets so rough it’s all you can think of doing? To be a part of her life and her future, forever?”
Whit met her gaze. “Look, Drew. I don’t know if a guy like me could ever fill the traditional father role. Gut instinct tells me no. Lord knows I’ve screwed up enough already. But gut instinct also tells me that there is some role I should play in Lexi’s life.”
Drew had to admit to herself that Whit was taking a reasonable approach to this. If only she could be so reasonable. But this was Lexi they were talking about! No wonder her emotions had a stranglehold on her reason.
He asked quietly, “Has she ever asked about me?”
She rubbed her fingertips on the smooth arm of the chair. “Lexi hasn’t asked as many questions about her father as you might expect,” she said. “They tended to be general, and I always answered them in a general way. I talked about families, and told her honestly that some kids lived with both parents and some didn’t. She knows that I didn’t grow up in a house with my father, either. And she isn’t the only kid on the Point who lives with just one parent.”
“How did she take it?”
Drew shrugged. “Kids tend to take things like that for granted. She never knew any different, so she was always content with the way things were.”
“You’re pretty good at this mom stuff.”
She looked him in the eye. “It’s not easy, Whit.”
“Like when she asked if I was a stranger?”
She sighed. “Sometimes you just cross your fingers and go on instinct.”
“Maybe that’s what we should do. After all, we don’t have to decide the future in one night.”
“I know what my instincts are telling me,” Drew said. But he had already ruled out disappearing. “What are yours telling you?”
Whit pondered that for a moment. “To get to know Lexi, and let her get to know me.”
“As her father?”
He shook his head. “She doesn’t have to know that now, and neither does anyone else.”
Drew’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Are you saying you’re not going to tell anyone about this?”
“Not even my father or brother, if that’s the way you want it.”
Drew found she couldn’t resist a parting shot. “No trumpets, no fanfare, no juicy interviews with the tabloids?”
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