Chapter Ten #2
The idea of Heather being with someone else filled him with a rage that he couldn’t quantify, but that in and of itself told him that he had to change the way that he was thinking about her.
The way that he was thinking about their relationship.
They had been enemies. They had now been lovers. Perhaps there was some world where they could be friends. That might be the only way to guarantee that their child experienced some form of stability.
The way that she had dealt with Carla…
He had never seen anything like it.
He wanted to always have that.
Passion was what his parents’d had. For a time. Then it had become hatred. He’d experienced hatred with Heather, and he felt like it was a tightrope walk. Easy, so easy for them to end up right back there, and what would that mean for their child?
He intended to do what the adults in his life had never quite managed.
To put that child first.
When they left Vienna, they went back to the estate, and he manufactured business that needed to be done in London—even though he could’ve done it anywhere. While he was away he sent Heather a text.
Perhaps you could spend some time back in New York. It would probably be good for you to check in with your job. Attend some of those meetings you like so much.
What made you change your mind on that?
Our wedding is set for a month from now. I trust you.
There. He was being kind. Shortly she would interpret his actions as kindness.
This was the problem. He didn’t want to tell her that he thought they shouldn’t be lovers and have her afraid that it was because of something she had done wrong.
It was, in fact, because of something that she had done exceptionally well.
It was because he had seen a potential that he now longed to make reality.
They’d never had a friendship. And the feelings that fueled the desire between them were inarguably founded on toxicity.
That wasn’t good for anyone.
She did send him messages about the wedding, and he enjoyed her including him in the process. She did go to New York, and she kept him up-to-date on the various meetings that she had to attend, and the absolute author meltdown she had wrangled.
She called the lead publicist thirteen times. Like we can’t see who’s calling. She called everyone. And then whenever Caroline’s assistant would answer, she would hang up.
What was she mad about?
She didn’t get as many trade reviews as she thinks she should. She’s mad at the whole publicity department.
There was a pause in their texting. Then she sent another:
What are you working on?
Her question surprised him. Developing a new route on the cruise line, and negotiating port contracts. Cruise traffic is in such a state right now that you have to have rights to get your passengers dropped off right at the fork. I’m trying to make sure that our line has the most optimum placement.
Well, it’s not author tantrums.
No. It isn’t.
What he didn’t expect was for her to arrive in London without announcement at the town house where she had her ill-fated graduation party all those years ago.
But there she was, glowing in the middle of the entryway when he got home, her body curvier than when she had left nearly a month ago, her smile unlike anything he had ever seen before.
Had Heather ever smiled at him like this?
No. Of course she hadn’t. Because there had been nothing but bad blood between them for all that time.
And now she was smiling at him. Like he was something wonderful.
It felt weighted. Like there was an expectation behind it. Because how could there be anything else? That meant that he had to keep them here. In this place, where it was only a smile. Where he could not fail her.
“I didn’t expect you,” he said.
She blinked, and then moved toward him. He moved slightly, and the kiss that had been intended for his mouth landed on his cheek.
There was something all the more damning about that.
All the more intense. He gritted his teeth and took a step back.
“I need to speak with you, and I confess that I was putting it off.”
“Oh?”
She looked afraid. Ready for battle, then, and why would she? It had always been a battle between them. There’d been so little time where they had been cordial. Where they had been anything like friends.
“Don’t look at me like that. Like I’m going to bite you. I’m not.”
“You look like it,” she said. “And not in a fun way.”
He nodded once. “Come and sit down.”
“Should I remind you that the invitations to the wedding have already been sent out?”
“I don’t need to be reminded of that. I’m not backing out of this. But I have been thinking about the future. About what our home will look like, will feel like for our child. What you said to my mother has been weighing on me heavily.”
“What?”
“She is the last remaining grandparent. And whether we would have chosen it or not, the three of us are now family. We must make a family for our child. I love my mother very much. But she is not an easy woman. She never has been. I assume she will be difficult in the future as well. Even if she doesn’t mean to be.
I will always have to shoulder the responsibility of caring for her.
But the way that you spoke with her, the way that you were with her, it made me…
It made me realize what I truly want for our child. ”
“What?”
“Peace. For the adults in his or her life to put them first. As no one ever did with us. I know that you had a better experience with your father and mother in the household, but when your father left your mother, he didn’t think of you.
He didn’t put you first. Your mother did, though.
And you have greatly benefited from that.
My father and my mother put their own feelings first. Always.
And I have always borne the brunt of that.
You and I are looking at eighteen years of attempting to create harmony, and we’ve had a couple of months where we have done well with each other.
And you were away for a substantial portion of it. ”
“Please get to the point. You’re an infamous, ruthless businessman, and you’re talking around me like a car salesman. We both know that’s not you.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to think it’s anything you’ve done wrong. I have been cruel to you, I accept responsibility for that. This is not cruelty. But you and I need to set aside our attraction.”
“What?”
“I have only ever seen passion go badly.”
“My mother and your father loved each other very much. Until the end.”
“They had a love story—that much is certain. But I believe that it was founded very much on my father’s desire to rescue her.
And in many ways, I feel that your mother wanted to rescue him.
They did. But my parents… They married because of me.
Because she was pregnant. They married because their passion drove them together.
And it kept driving them. It was toxic. So were they. ”
“If it was so terrible then why were you mad when they got divorced?”
“Because it doesn’t end—that’s what I’m trying to tell you.
It doesn’t burn itself out. My mother never could let go of it.
And I know there are other reasons for that.
I know that it has to do with her depressive episodes, but it doesn’t change the reality.
Leaving my father, the dissolution of the marriage, it didn’t fix anything.
Not between the two of them, and not between us.
I had to be my mother’s savior, and that made me my father’s adversary, and he couldn’t pull himself out of that either because his feelings for her were so twisted up at that point. We can never be that for our child.”
He could see the hurt in her eyes, the confusion. But she wouldn’t always be hurt or confused. She wouldn’t be.
“This is a trick. Of our imaginations, of our hormones. I want for us to de-escalate the feelings. This has been good, this last month. We’ve communicated.
And it feels like a foundation. Fucking on tables is not the foundation for a happy life for a child.
You and I could follow that until it burns us both out, but to what end?
That isn’t why we are getting married, and maybe if you hadn’t gotten pregnant we could’ve explored that.
But you did. And we must be in this together. ”
She took a breath, and there was a single break at the center of it.
But it never became a sob. Her eyes remained dry.
“You’re right. Of course you are. Because we are asking each other to do something impossible.
To know, without a shadow of a doubt, that this relationship that we’re trying to build is going to last until our child is an adult.
Everyone intends for that to be the case.
Surely that was why your parents got married.
And then they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t manage it. ”
“To be fair to them, I suppose they did make it into my adulthood.”
“Close. But you still bore the weight of the consequences. And you lived in a war zone, as you said. And when we are at our worst…”
“When we are at our worst it’s very bad.”
“Yes. I agree with that.”
It was so much harder now that she was here. Because he wanted her. Wanted to touch her. Wanted to hold her. Wanted to draw her against his body and feel her heart beating beneath his hand. To move his hands over her curves and make her his. Definitively.
But they would marry. And they would be tied together. She would be his. Just not in that way.
“I’m probably going to go back to the estate,” she said. “I’m glad that I was able to stop and see you.”
“You might as well spend the night here.”
“It’s only a two-hour flight to Italy. I’ll just head there.”
“You came here for me,” he said, his voice rougher than intended.
She wanted him.
God knew he wanted her.