“You think?” He knew he sounded curt, but what could she expect after blindsiding him this way?
Looking defensive, Cecilia glared across the table at him. “You needn’t make it sound as though I’ve insulted you by asking you to be the father of my child.”
“Maybe I think you have.”
“Just the opposite, I would say. You’re intelligent, attractive, healthy—all qualities I would be pleased for my child to inherit.”
“And yet you think I’m the kind of man who would make a child and then walk away from it without a backward glance.”
“It isn’t as if there aren’t plenty of other illegitimate Binghams living in Merlyn County,” she shot back.
Geoff watched through narrowed eyes as Cecilia’s face paled in response to the echo of her own words, then went bright pink. “None of those children are mine,” he said after letting her squirm for a few long moments.
“I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. Placing both hands flat on the table, she pushed herself to her feet. “This was obviously a huge mistake. Please forget I said anything. And don’t feel obligated to call me again after you leave, not even for courtesy’s sake. Let’s just pretend our date ended before breakfast.”
He rose more slowly, keeping his eyes on her face, which she was doing her best to hide behind a silky curtain of dark hair. “So you’ve changed your mind about trying to have a child?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just going to have to explore other options.”
Other options being another man to father the baby she apparently wanted so desperately that she’d been willing to risk this embarrassment with him, he realized abruptly. And it said something about his state of mind that thinking of her approaching another man—any other man—with her offer bothered him almost as badly as the fact that she had thought he would go along with her scheme.
“Look, Cecilia, I can tell how important this is to you. Maybe there’s something I can do to help. I mean, you work in a place that specializes in fertility treatments. Sure, artificial insemination can get expensive, especially if it takes a few times to produce results, but I’m sure something can be worked out. Installment payments, maybe. Or a bank loan. In fact, I can—”
“No!” She tossed her hair back to give him a glittering look. “No,” she repeated more quietly. “Thank you. I can handle
this.”
Which meant another man again, he thought with a scowl.
“This is really getting awkward. Please, Geoff, just forget it. Actually, I have a lot of things to do today, and I wouldn’t want to keep you away from the things I’m sure you have to do. Besides, my brother pops in sometimes on weekends to help with a few maintenance chores, and it would be very uncomfortable for me if he were to find you here.”
In other words, here’s your hat.
Hustling him out the door, she babbled nervously the whole time about what a lovely evening she’d had, and how much she had enjoyed getting to know him and maybe they would see each other in passing at the hospital sometime. Unspoken was the addition, “But not if I see you first.”
Moments later Geoff stood on her front stoop staring blankly at the door that had just been firmly closed in his face. It appeared his impromptu date with Cecilia Mendoza had just come to an abrupt, strange and seemingly permanent end.
All in all, it had been one of the more humiliating episodes of Cecilia’s life. No wonder Geoff had looked at her as if she had lost her mind. She must have sounded like an idiot.
She should have expected him to react as he had. Undoubtedly he now thought of her as a desperate, aging woman looking to secure a comfortable retirement by duping a wealthy young man into fathering her child. He probably hadn’t believed her for a moment when she’d said she wanted nothing more from him.
To top it off, she had inadvertently insulted him by comparing him to his notoriously womanizing grandfather and uncle, even though all the talk she had ever heard about the Binghams indicated that Geoff and his father were both complete straight-arrows.
If she were absolutely honest, she would have to admit that she rather admired Geoff for his instinctive reaction to that comparison. She had become so cynical about men that she had automatically assumed it wouldn’t particularly bother him to have no part in an illegitimate child’s life.
That was certainly the way his elder relatives had behaved. Rumor had it that Gerald and Billy Bingham had fathered kids all across the county without staying around to be responsible for them. She knew of at least four of Billy Bingham’s offspring, her future sister-in-law among them, and Billy hadn’t bothered to marry any of the mothers or to be directly involved in his children’s lives.
The men in her own family certainly hadn’t set any higher example. Eric’s father hadn’t stayed around to help raise his son. In fact, Reuben had shown no interest in his child at all. He had left before Eric was born and had never made any effort to get back in touch.
Her own father had loved his child, but had continued to pursue his daredevil sports until he’d gotten himself killed. Only within the last few years had Cecilia acknowledged the grief-stricken anger at him that she had carried since. A resentment she was sure her mother had shared, though they had never spoken of it.
As for the man Cecilia had married, it had turned out that he didn’t really want children at all, despite what he’d said to the contrary. A child would have interfered with his own immature need to always be the center of attention.
So maybe Geoff was different from so many of the other men Cecilia had known. He had made it apparent that he wasn’t interested in being married right now, but she thought he’d also made it clear that if and when he had children, he intended to do so the traditional way. It would certainly be expected of him by his family—and hadn’t he told her that he always did what his family expected of him?
She sighed. Oh, well, it hadn’t hurt to ask. She would never hear from him again, of course, but she hadn’t expected that, anyway. She would spend the rest of the weekend cleaning her house, doing some reading—and giving serious consideration to her plans for motherhood.
Maybe Geoff had given her an idea, after all. Maybe she could swing a loan, mortgage the house, perhaps, to finance fertility treatments. It was definitely a possibility.