Page 31 of Rescuing Tobias

9:11 P.M.

A baby.

Ababy.

Hisbaby.

Tobias didn’t think he would have been more shocked if Isabella had walked in and told him she was the head of the organ trafficking ring and had been misleading them all this time.

Instead, she’d gone there and shattered his entire world.

Brought his deepest, darkest fears to life.

Like it was happening right this second, Tobias could hear his father’s words echoing in his head. A phone call he was never supposed to overhear, but one he couldn’t unhear once he’d been unlucky enough to know how his father really felt about him.

Over the years, he’d done his best to pretend that it wasn't true. He’d maintained his relationship with his father, even loved the man.

But it didn't change how he felt deep down inside.

The anger and resentment that came from knowing his own father wished he didn't exist.

All these years later and Tobias still had no idea who had been on the other end of the phone that evening when he crept out of bed because he wasn't feeling well. It didn't really matter who his father had been venting to, all that mattered was that Tobias had overheard him say that if he’d known his wife was going to become sick while they were still so young, he never would have had kids.

That the added burden of having to divide his time between work, caring for his wife, who was the love of his life, and a child, was too much. He wished he could dedicate his entire life to his wife and not have to take time to care for his then eight-year-old son.

After hearing his father say he basically wished Tobias didn't exist, that he’d rather have that time with his wife than caring for a child, he’d scurried back up the stairs to bed and tended to himself that night.

Which had started his push for independence.

From there on out, he did as much for himself as was physically possible and bothered his father as infrequently as he could manage. If his father noticed the sudden shift in his behavior, the man never said anything.

Watching his father’s devotion to caring for the woman he loved as she wasted away a little at a time until she had no idea who he was, who she was, or what was going on around her, and was incapable of tending to even her most basic of needs, had been tough. There was no way after his own injury and knowing it would likely get worse, that he would ever saddle a partner with that responsibility. The kind of burden that made you wish your own child didn't exist because you had too much on your plate.

Bringing a child into his life when there was every chance that at some time over the next decade or two he would lose a lot of the mobility he enjoyed now, was the absolute last thing he would ever do. It wasn't that he didn't want to be involved in the lives of Isabella and their child, it was that he couldn’t.

Actually couldn’t.

The very idea of it had him damn near hyperventilating.

Maybe he could have been persuaded to become friends with Isabella, while keeping the idea of it growing into more on the table without the pressure of being in a relationship. But after what she’d just lived through, there was no way he’d place the burden on her shoulders of having to care for their childandhim.

No way.

Couldn’t do it.

Part of him would love to blame her for this unexpected pregnancy. However, the truth was it was his condom that had failed them, and she had too much on her plate right now to consider trying to have a baby with him on purpose.

She was trying to do the right thing in telling him, had gone to him as soon as she found out she was expecting because she cared and respected him even after he’d ghosted her. She was innocent in all of this, and he’d just delivered her one major blow.

A blow she didn't seem to have recovered from yet, if the way she was standing there, glaring at him with her mouth hanging open was anything to go by.

His independent little firecracker didn't like him wanting to financially contribute, but he was staying out of her life topreventadding burdens to her shoulders. Not contributing financially for a child who was half his would definitely be adding to it. So there was no way in hell he wouldn't be sendingher as much money as he could each month, even if she didn't put his name on the birth certificate.

“Go,” she muttered under her breath. “I’ll leave all right. I wish I'd never come here in the first place.”

The words hurt even though he knew he was the cause of them. He wished he could have reacted differently, wished he could have been excited about the new little life he’d helped to create.

And he was.

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