Chapter 16
Roman
“Once Elise moves back to Greyford, we can make Sunday dinner regular again.”
My mother said it before the first course had been cleared.
The private dining room went still in small, measurable ways. Daniel lowered his wineglass without drinking. The server paused at the sideboard, decided the silence was not part of her job, and slipped through the door. Across from me, Elise placed her fork beside her plate.
She had driven herself.
Her car was parked three spaces from the entrance, not blocked by mine or anyone else’s.
She had chosen the chair closest to the door.
Before agreeing to dinner, she had asked who would attend, how long it would last, and whether my mother understood that pregnancy did not make Elise available for a family reconciliation ceremony.
I had answered each question in writing.
Four people. Ninety minutes. No surprises.
My mother’s assumption was not a surprise. It was the reason written rules were never enough.
“No,” I said.
She frowned. “No what?”
“Elise is not moving back to Greyford.”
“I only meant once the baby comes. Surely you won’t keep two homes then.”
“We live separately. We are dating. Neither the pregnancy nor this dinner changes that.”
Daniel leaned forward. “No one is trying to decide for her.”
“You announced where she would live before asking her.”
My mother turned to Elise. “Is that really what you want?”
“She doesn’t have to defend it,” I said.
Elise lifted one hand. “I’ll answer. It is the arrangement I chose. Pregnancy does not rewrite it.”
My mother’s mouth tightened. “I’m thinking about the baby.”
“Our daughter needs two parents who keep their agreements,” I said. “She does not need Elise to surrender her home so the rest of us can feel reassured.”
Elise had chosen her home, her car, her chair, and the length of this dinner. I held those facts in place.
My mother folded her napkin. “I thought reconciliation meant building one household.”
“If Elise chooses one household, she will say so.”
Daniel leaned back. “Then no announcements.”
“No announcements,” Elise said. “No pressure to make the arrangement easier for anyone watching.”
My mother nodded slowly.
The server returned with dessert menus. Elise checked the time on the wall clock, then looked at me.
“Eighty-seven minutes,” she said.
“We can leave.”
My mother’s face fell. She let us go.
Outside, the air carried salt from the harbor and the sharp cold of approaching winter. Elise buttoned her coat over the curve of her stomach. At twenty-nine weeks, every movement had acquired a sequence I had learned not to interrupt: balance first, fabric second, keys third.
I walked her to her car and stopped an arm’s length away.
“Are you all right to drive?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to follow?”
“No.”
“All right.”
She unlocked the door but did not open it.
“You corrected them before I had to.”
I waited.
“Pregnancy doesn’t give anyone permission to define your answer.”
“I know.”
The parking-lot light caught the tiredness beneath her eyes and the soft strand of hair the wind kept lifting across her cheek. My hand knew the old route to tuck it back.
Knowing a route was not permission to take it.
“I’ll see you Wednesday,” I said.
She studied me for one more second. “Come to the cottage.”
My body reacted before my mind could sort the instruction from the hope attached to it.
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
I did not ask what it meant.
“What time?”
“Give me fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll see you then.”
She got into her car. I watched her taillights turn toward the coastal road, then waited until the time she had asked.
---
I knocked twice.
Elise opened the door wearing the same dark green dress and no shoes. The cottage was warm behind her, lit by the lamp near the sofa and the low light above the kitchen sink.
“Come in,” she said.
I crossed the threshold and stopped where the narrow entry opened into the living room.
She locked the door herself.
“I want you,” she said.
The words went through me with enough force that I had to keep my hands loose at my sides.
She watched me absorb them.
“I want tonight,” she continued. “Full intimacy. Not another almost. If I say stop, it ends. And tonight is not a decision about our marriage or the parenting plan.”
“Tonight only,” I said. “If you change your mind, I stop.”
Her shoulders lowered by a fraction.
“Phones,” she said. “Both of them off. In the kitchen drawer.”
I removed mine from my pocket, powered it down, and placed it where she pointed. She did the same. The drawer clicked shut.
When she came toward me, I stayed still until her hands reached my coat.
“Waist,” she said.
I placed my palms over the dress. The curve of her body had changed since the last time we had stood this close, but the way she watched my face had not. Elise always looked for the second decision—the one a person made after receiving what they wanted.
She rose onto her toes and kissed me.
I held the distance until she slid one hand behind my neck.
“Closer.”
Then I moved.
Her body fit against mine with new limits and old recognition. Her stomach pressed warm between us. I adjusted my stance before my weight could crowd her.
She felt it.
“Good,” she whispered.
The word nearly broke my control more than the kiss.
“I’ve wanted you since Sunday,” I said against her throat.
“Only since Sunday?”
“No.” My hands tightened at her waist. “Sunday was when pretending I could manage it stopped working.”
She shivered. “Better.”
She opened my coat and pushed it from my shoulders. I let it fall onto the chair.
Her fingers worked at the first button of my shirt. Then she tipped her head, exposing the place below her ear that had always made her breath change.
I kissed it. The response came, low and immediate, but she did not disappear into it. Her hands stayed deliberate. One button. Then another. Her palm flattened against my chest.
“I thought about this after you left Sunday,” she said.
“So did I.”
She kissed me again, harder.
She led me to the bedroom. She entered first and drew the curtains, then turned on the bedside lamp.
She reached behind her dress, then turned her back and lifted her hair. “Unzip me.”
I lowered the zipper. The backs of my fingers skimmed the warm line of her spine, and she shivered.
“Touch my shoulders,” she said.
I slid both hands beneath the loosened fabric and pushed it from her shoulders.
She stepped free of it, then folded it over the chair instead of letting it fall.
The ordinary action gave me time to see her as she was now: fuller breasts beneath pale lace, the strong curve of her stomach, the small changes pregnancy had written across skin I had once believed I knew without asking.
She looked at my face.
“Say something.”
“I’ve wanted to put my mouth on every change pregnancy made in you.” The truth came out rougher than I intended. “I’ve wanted to hear you say my name without pain attached to it. I want every inch you choose to give me tonight, and I’m done pretending the wanting is polite.”
Her eyes held mine.
“Better.”
She took my hand and placed it beneath her breast, above the curve of her stomach. I cupped the new weight, and her nipple tightened against my palm through the lace.
She pulled the strap from one shoulder. I followed it with my mouth. Her skin tasted warm and faintly of the citrus lotion on her dresser. When my thumb crossed her nipple again, she arched into my hand instead of giving me another direction.
The answer went through me like an order.
I unfastened the lace and let it fall. For one suspended second I only looked. The faint marks along the sides of her breasts, the deepened color, the body making room for our daughter—none of it softened what I wanted. It made the wanting more specific.
“Roman.”
I bent and took one nipple into my mouth.
Her hand closed in my hair. The sound she made was not careful. It reached every week I had spent standing outside her life and made restraint feel suddenly thin.
I drew the other strap down, then let my mouth travel over the curve of her breast and the warm slope of her stomach. I kissed the place where our daughter had moved beneath my hand the day before. Elise’s fingers tightened against my scalp.
“Lower.”
I went to my knees.
She braced one hand on my shoulder while I eased the last fabric down her thighs. I kissed the inside of one knee, then higher. Her stance widened. The answer was in the movement, in the hand that drew me closer, in the way she said my name when my breath reached her.
I put my mouth on her.
Her other hand caught the edge of the dresser. I followed the first roll of her hips and kept the pressure where she leaned into it.
“Yes,” she breathed. “There.”
I kept the pace. Her thighs tightened around my shoulders. The room filled with the sounds she had swallowed on the sofa Sunday morning, and each one stripped another layer from the control I had brought through her door.
“Don’t slow down.”
I didn’t.
Pleasure took her hard enough that her fingers pulled at my hair and my name broke from her twice. I held her steady until the tremor left her legs.
Afterward she drew me up and kissed me with no careful distance left in her. She guided me onto my side, facing her, the position protecting the weight of her stomach between us.
Her hand moved down my chest and closed around me. My breath left in a sound too raw to hide.
“Tell me what you want,” she said.
“Your mouth on mine.” I covered her hand with mine, not directing, only holding on. “Your body around me. My name when you stop being careful with me.”
Her gaze darkened. “Then stop talking.”
“Condom,” she said.
She opened the bedside drawer, broke the seal on a new box, and handed me one.
I rolled it on.
She reached between us and guided me.
The first press of her body around mine emptied every thought from my head except the need to remain exactly where she had drawn me.
“Wait,” she said.
I stopped.
Her eyes closed. She adjusted her hip, breathed once, then opened them again.
“Now.”
I moved.
Slowly at first. The position kept her stomach free and brought every change in her breathing against my mouth. She set the rhythm with her hand at my lower back. When she wanted more, she pulled me closer.
“Harder,” she said.
I gave her more.
Her nails pressed into my shoulder. The control I had protected all evening fractured at the edges.
“I’ve missed this,” I said. “God, Elise, I’ve missed the way you take me.”
Her mouth opened beneath mine. “Then let me feel it.”
I kissed her and let the hunger out. My hand closed around her thigh. Her hips met mine hard enough to wrench a broken sound from both of us.
Pleasure rose through her again. I felt it in the tightening of her body, the sharp pull of her fingers, the way my name became the only word she had left.
“Don’t stop.”
I didn’t. She came with her forehead against mine, and I followed while she said my name again.
Later, she lay curled on her side with my hand resting where she had placed it over our daughter. The room smelled of warm skin and the ocean air slipping through the old window frame.
I did not ask what this made us.
Elise traced one finger over my wedding ring.
“You still wear it.”
“Yes.”
She was quiet.
Then she said, “You can stay until morning.”
I looked at her.
“I’m choosing it.”
I kissed her forehead only after she tilted her face toward me.
In the morning, I dressed while she remained beneath the blankets, watching. I checked the bathroom, the chair, and the floor. Socks, belt, wallet, keys, coat.
My shirt was the only thing I had brought that could have been left behind.
I buttoned it.
At the front door, Elise leaned against the wall in her robe.
I opened the door.
“Roman.”
I turned.
“Next Saturday,” she said. “Come back for dinner.”
I kept my hand on the doorknob so I would not reach for more than she had offered.
“What time?”
“Seven.”
“I’ll be here.”
Then I left with every possession I had brought, carrying no claim on the cottage behind me.
Only another invitation.