14. Claire
14
CLAIRE
T he morning of Daddy’s funeral, I wake up with an emotional hangover the size of Texas.
Sun is pouring in through the windows, and the room feels too brightly white.
I groan and roll over.
“Good morning,” James says.
He’s sitting up in bed. The sheets pool around his hips. He has a silver platter on the bedside table beside him. On it rests two cups, a pot, and a couple of plates of pastries. The herbal scent of tea and the warm, fresh bread remind me that I went to sleep without dinner last night.
My father can’t punish me anymore, so apparently, I’ve taken it upon myself to do it for him.
Silly girl .
My stomach complains.
I rest my head on his strong thigh. I admire his lean torso. His messy bed head. The peppering of morning scruff that he’ll shave off later.
“Hungry?” James asks.
I nod .
He pinches off a corner of scone and hand-feeds me. The bread is soft, the blueberries are sweet, and there’s a crunchy layer of sugar crystals on top.
I may not be happy about being back, but the decadent pastries are helping.
“Do you think we could just not go?”
“To your father’s funeral?”
I nod.
His thumb pets my chin. “Say the word and I’ll take you to the airport.”
If I just look at him, I can pretend I’m not here.
I can pretend we’re in our Paris flat, and Daddy isn’t dead, and Ransom doesn’t love me.
I take his hand. His hands are so large they make me feel small. I pull his hand to my face, and his fingers curl instinctively at my cheek. I kiss the space between the rounded mounds at the bottom of his palm.
There’s a swelling, aching in my chest. I’m so grateful for this man.
James makes me feel safe. He is, perhaps, the only person on earth to accomplish that task.
“Can you make all the decisions today?” I ask him.
Without missing a beat, he says, “I command you to stay in bed for another fifteen minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Open your mouth.”
I obey. He feeds me the rest of the scone. We’re getting crumbs in bed, but I don’t care.
This is the kind of domesticity I could get used to.
But there’s a nagging in me. A ripple that disturbs our placid peace, and it’s getting larger and larger the longer the silence between us stretches out.
“James? ”
“Yes?”
I can’t contain the words anymore. “I spoke with Ransom last night. Alone. In the barn.”
“Okay.”
His voice is calm the way a violin note is calm.
It’s the peaceful sound of a string pulled very, very taut.
I trudge forward anyway. Honesty is the only way forward . “It’s strange talking to him. When I’m with him, it’s like…I’m that sweet, starry-eyed girl again.”
“Claire.” My name is a protest on his tongue.
“What?”
“You were never sweet or starry-eyed.”
I frown. “He brings up feelings, is what I’m saying. Complicated feelings.” I pause. I force myself to say the quiet thing out loud. “I used to love him. Hard. And when I see him now, it’s difficult to pretend like those feelings never existed.”
James, to his credit, doesn’t bat an eye. Instead, like a weathered professor, he simply chastises with, “You’re mistaken.”
I blink. “Sorry?”
“Marriage is a period.”
“A…what?”
“A period. The punctuation mark. A period is an end to things. It’s the end to you looking at other men. Thinking about other men. And it’s certainly an end to you having feelings with old flames in the stables, darling.”
A hot flush of anger rises in my cheeks. I sit up and remind him, “We’re engaged. Darling . We’re not a period yet.” I steal a scone from his plate. “If anything, we’re a semicolon .”