Chapter 3 #2
That was as close as she could get to her real feelings, and James seemed to understand the implications. He nodded with another long exhale. “Yeah. That’s what I’ll do.”
James didn’t get much sleep that night. He was troubled by scattered, intense worries and images.
Genevieve storming in like the wicked stepmother of a fairy tale, making his babies cry.
Rose, telling him in her quiet way that Genevieve was his fiancée and he needed to talk about the problem openly.
Rose, in his arms, looking as beautiful and desirable as any woman he’d ever known.
That last image was the hardest to deal with. Even if he ended things with Genevieve, Rose would still be his employee, and he would never cross that line.
He worked out in his mind a conversation he would have with Genevieve tomorrow over and over again. Everyone made mistakes. She’d never acted that way before. He could hardly end an entire engagement over one little fight.
But he kept worrying that it wasn’t just a fight—it was a sign of how she’d always been, if he’d been able to look beyond the surface.
Rose had said he should find out if that was the person she really was. Maybe he was really that stupid. Maybe he’d just talked himself into believing she was the wife who was best for him, because his in-laws liked her and she was similar to his dead wife.
But maybe she wasn’t so similar to Melissa after all.
Maybe he was nothing but clueless.
He sat up most of the night brooding, and he was exhausted and headachy that morning when he came downstairs dressed for work.
Rose and the girls were already in the kitchen, having their breakfast. The girls looked normal, and Rose’s face revealed nothing.
Her hair was loose, hanging down around her shoulders in thick waves, and she had a cardigan sweater over her thin T-shirt.
He couldn’t help but notice she didn’t appear to be wearing a bra.
He could see her nipples under the fabric, so he forced himself to look away.
What the hell had gotten into him? He had bigger things to worry about, and he didn’t need to get distracted by these stray, lustful thoughts for his girls’ nanny.
The girls were discussing the shape of the strawberries in their cereal bowls, and they demanded that their daddy add his two cents to the discussion. James felt better after debating the merits of thin or thickly sliced strawberries.
The girls were happy. They were normal. Nothing that had happened last night had damaged them in any way.
They were finishing up when Jill cleared her throat. “Daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Are you going to marry Miss Genevieve?”
James’s heart did a weird jump and then a drop. He wasn’t sure he was ready for this conversation. “That was the plan. We’re engaged, you know.”
“I know. But she wasn’t nice last night.”
He had absolutely no idea what to say.
“We talked about this, remember?” Rose put in quietly from where she was leaning against the counter. “Sometimes people say things when they’re angry that they don’t mean. Remember when you told Julie that you wished she wasn’t your sister? You didn’t mean that, did you?”
“No,” Jill muttered.
“What matters is that they say they’re sorry and then treat you nice again.”
“Okay.”
James was ridiculously relieved by Rose’s intervention.
He should have been smart enough to say something similar.
He never seemed to be able to find the words when something was most important.
“Rosie’s right,” he said. “I’m going to talk to Miss Genevieve today, and then we’ll see what will happen. ”
Jill and Julie looked at each other soberly, and James had no idea what was going on between them. They must have had a previous conversation that his words made them think about.
He had to do what was best for them. He had thought that having a mother would be the best thing for them, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe they were better off the way they were.
They had Rose, after all. Maybe they didn’t need a stepmother.
James couldn’t talk to Genevieve until after the girls went to bed that night.
He’d called her up in the morning, hoping to have lunch with her to get the conversation over with early. But she’d still been in a snit and had eventually hung up on him.
He called back later in the day, and she’d finally consented to meet with him. But she’d claimed to be busy all day until after nine o’clock.
James tried not to feel annoyed, telling himself she was still really upset about what she thought she had seen between him and Rose.
Given how he’d been feeling as he danced with Rose last night, James had to admit that she had some reason for resentment—although it wasn’t at all what she was assuming.
So he’d agreed to her timetable, and they arranged to meet at a coffee shop halfway between his home and hers at nine thirty that evening.
He was dreading the conversation. He’d felt sick about it all day. Part of him was convinced that the only good decision would be to end their engagement, but he also didn’t want to treat Genevieve unfairly and not even give her a chance.
They ordered their drinks and sat down at a table in a private alcove. When she didn’t say anything—just stared at him with a protruding lower lip—James sighed and said, “Well, I think we need to talk.”
She sniffed. “You need to explain yourself.”
“I explained myself last night. We were playing dress-up with the girls and pretending we were at a ball.”
“I saw how you were looking at her.”
James wondered whether something of his crazy, intense feelings had been visible on his face. He sure hoped not. He managed to say calmly, “I don’t know what you thought you saw, but I have done nothing inappropriate. The idea that I’ve been cheating on you with Rosie is absurd.”
“I don’t think it’s absurd. You’ve been getting more and more distant lately, and now I understand why.”
James rubbed his face with his hand and suddenly realized that he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to work it out. He had been getting distant from Genevieve lately, and the truth was that he didn’t really want this relationship anymore.
She wasn’t the right woman for him. She never had been. She might perfectly fill the slot that was open in his life, but he didn’t really want that slot filled anymore.
The only thing left for him to do right now is end it.
“Okay,” he said. “You clearly don’t trust me, which doesn’t bode well for our relationship. And you’re probably right about me getting distant. I don’t think this is working.”
Something changed on Genevieve’s face. “It was working,” she snapped, “until your slutty nanny started making her move.”
He stiffened with a surge of resentment. “She is not a slut. You have no right to speak about her that way.”
“See,” Genevieve whined. “You even take her side over me.”
“I’m not taking her side. I’m trying to be fair to both of you. I understand if you were angry about what you thought you saw. If everything else was working between us, then we could work that out. But everything obviously isn’t working between us. I’m not sure either of us is happy.”
“I’m happy!” Genevieve exclaimed, an urgent expression covering the sulky one of before. “You can’t just end it over one fight.”
“I’m not ending it over one fight. I’ve just been putting off the inevitable, and I’m sorry if it hurts you. But I really think we need to break up. This isn’t working anymore.”
“You can’t dump me!” Her voice was growing shrill, and a couple of people drinking coffee nearby turned to look in their direction.
James hated the way she always made a scene. Not even being in public would stop her. “I’m really sorry, but that’s my decision.” He felt tired and frustrated and discouraged and awkward.
And relieved. Incredibly relieved—like he was finally freed of a weight that had been dragging him down.
Even his jaw was starting to relax now that this conversation had been had.
“I’m not going to let you dump me.” Genevieve stood up, every muscle in her body tight with outrage.
“This isn’t something you have a choice about. The engagement is off.”
“You can’t do this to me,” she snarled, her face filled with more icy anger than he’d ever witnessed in anyone before. “I’m not going to let you do this.”
He just shook his head. There was nothing else for him to say. She would have to get over it eventually.
She made a weird throaty sound and stormed off, and James sat by himself at the table for a few minutes, processing how he was feeling.
He wished it had been a more agreeable conversation, but Genevieve had always been a little childish, so he shouldn’t have expected anything else.
He stared at the door she’d disappeared through and wondered if she was planning to give him back his ring.