“Yes, she was pregnant.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.”

“The second time we got back together we weren’t swimming competitively, so she started broaching the subject of not doing double the contraception anymore. After awhile, she finally wore me down. She was on birth control, so I figured that was enough. I stopped using condoms.”

Emma arched her eyebrows at his admission. “You told me I was the first woman you’d ever been inside of without a condom.”

He scowled at her. “Yeah, well, excuse me if I thought it would have totally f**ked up the moment by admitting that after going off condoms just twice, my ex-girlfriend got pregnant.” He gave a bark of a laugh at Emma’s gasp. “Yeah, I’m pretty potent, huh? That’s how I knew I would be a good candidate to knock you up.”

“That’s a disgusting way of putting it,” Emma hissed.

Aidan’s expression softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

“Anyway, so Amy got pregnant on birth control?”

A bitter smile then twisted on his face. “Oh no. An accidental pregnancy? That would have been easy to forgive. After all, the f**king directions on the box even admit it’s only 98% effective.” His fingers ripped at the label on his beer. “Nope. A year into us being back together and me running like hell from any commitment, she stopped taking her birth control without my knowledge.”

“Oh Aidan,” Emma murmured. She didn’t know what else to say. “So you’re trying to tell me you have a child out there somewhere?”

The angry expression drained off his face and was replaced by one of absolute sorrow. “I wish that were the case.”

Emma couldn’t help but reach across the table and take his hand in hers. “What happened?” she prodded.

The waitress returned with his beer, and Aidan drowned half of it before speaking again. “A few weeks before I found out she was pregnant, Amy and I had been out partying with some friends, and I got plastered. That night as I was digging around in the medicine cabinet for some Advil, I accidentally knocked her birth control in the sink. You can imagine how surprised I was when it was unused, not to mention the prescription hadn’t been refilled in two months. When I confronted her, she admitted she’d stopped taking it because she thought a baby would solidify our relationship.”

Aidan shuddered. “I was furious. I packed my things and left for my parents. I refused to talk to her or see her.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “Kinda like what you’ve been doing to me.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Finish the damn story, Aidan.”

He held up his hands. “Fine then. She eventually came to my office and showed me the pregnancy test.” He gave Emma a sad smile. “The fact that the Amy I thought I knew and loved had betrayed me by trapping me into getting married was terrible, but the worst part was the fact I was scared out of my freaking mind at the prospect of being a father at twenty-four.” He took two long pulls from his beer. “I’m sure you can imagine what happened next.”

Her stomach turned at the prospect. “Go on,” she instructed.

He sneered at her. “You want me to actually say the words?”

“Fine. That’s when Amy caught you screwing another woman.”

“Yes,” he croaked.

Emma narrowed her eyes. “Wow, I guess we have a lot in common. Maybe we should get t-shirts that say, ‘We were both f**ked over by Aidan Fitzgerald’!”

“Em, please,” he begged.

She huffed out an exasperated breath. “Fine. Continue.”

“Amy threw me out of the house that night. The next morning I went back over and tried to reason with her. I told her I was sorry, that I loved her, and that in spite of what had happened between her trying to trap me and then me screwing someone else, I still wanted to marry her. She wouldn’t have it. She got into the car and sped away.”

Emma’s brows shot up in surprise at the tears sparkling in Aidan’s eyes. “She ran a stop sign in the subdivision trying to get away from me. A car smashed into the driver’s side. Thankfully, she walked away with just a few scrapes and bruises.” His chest rose and fell in harsh pants. “But she miscarried later that day.”

Involuntarily, Emma reached out and took Aidan’s hand in hers again. His expression, his tears, and his words broke her heart. All the pieces of his puzzle finally fell into place.

“All these years you’ve felt guilty about the baby, haven’t you?”

He nodded, swiping the tears from his cheeks. “I never wanted it, and then I…killed it.” He started sobbing then. Emma chewed her lip and fought herself from rising out of the booth and going over to him. Her better judgment lost out, and she found herself cradling him in her arms. The old Aidan she knew would never have cried, least of all in public. He was absolutely broken by the ghosts of the past and present.

She rubbed wide circles over his back. “You’re not to blame for what happened with the baby, Aidan, any more than Amy is just because she was driving too fast and ran the stop sign. Accidents happen.”

Raising his head, he swiped the tears from his cheeks. “Accidents may happen, but people never forget them…or forgive them.”

Emma ignored the double meaning of his statement in regards to her. “I’m sure time has helped to heal any bad feelings Amy had for you. I’m sure she’s struggled with her own guilt over what she did to you by trying to trap you.”

He shrugged. “I hope so. She certainly helped to screw me up for every other woman.” His blue eyes honed in on hers. “Maybe it’s me who can’t forgive. If it hadn’t been for her, maybe I wouldn’t have f**ked things up so epically with you.”

“Maybe,” she murmured.

His fingers came to grip her chin. Tilting her gaze up to meet his, he shook his head. “For the most part, our proposition was about me getting the chance to have sex with you, and I did promise my late mother I would one day have children. But it was also about being able to find redemption with myself…and with God. I thought if I could help you bring a baby into the world, it might take away the hurt of the past.”

Emma’s mouth dropped open in surprise. For a few moments, she could only stare at him in utter and complete shock. All this time he really had possessed a deeper, more admirable desire for wanting to be her sperm donor.