As he would always try to do, from now on.
He hadn’t realized before how selfish his slow descent into oblivion had been; he’d been too concerned with medicating his own pain with the drug to worry about anyone else. Not his staff or tenants, all of whom would have lost their positions and their livelihoods if Hugh had succeeded in ousting Alasdair from the marquessate; not his fellow soldiers, who’d looked up to him, once upon a time, as a leader they could trust.
Not himself, who’d been willing to throw away his life simply because things were hard. They were hard, he knew that now, but there was no reason not to rally, to fight another day. She had shown him that.
His chest tightened, as it always did when he thought of her.
“Thank you, my lord,” the soldier said as he retrieved his small bundle of possessions from the floor—those that had not yet been stolen, at least.
Alasdair had done enough work in this particular opium den to ensure that the most hardened of addicts had found other places to smoke, and thieve, and kill, even. It was remarkable what a title, plenty of cash, and the ability to summon a magistrate could do to persuade certain types to leave.
He was grateful, as his nose became suffused with the scent, that he hadn’t ever found his way to smoking it. From what he’d seen, smoking opium was far more dangerous than taking it in pill form. He stooped and picked up a pipe that had fallen into one of the wider cracks in the floor.
And rose to his full height as his eyes caught sight of her.
“Alasdair?”
The pipe dropped from his suddenly lax fingers, and he froze where he stood. She was here.
In an opium den, with the smell of it invading every crevice. He closed his eyes and hoped it was a dream.
But he wasn’t taking the drug anymore; this was reality.
A harsh reality, but as beautiful as any sight he’d seen.
She was just six feet away from him, her eyes wide with what he knew must be horror at finding him here. He turned his gaze to the floor so he wouldn’t have to see the disgust in her eyes.
He heard the rustle of her skirts as she moved—Please leave, don’t make me suffer—and then her slippers came into view. And now she was only a few feet away from him, and he felt the scalding touch of her gaze on his bent head.
“Alasdair. Look at me.”
He thrust his hands inside his pockets and dug his fingers into his palms. Finally he was able to meet her eyes.
What he saw there made his knees buckle.
“What do you want?” he managed to croak out.
She placed her hand on his arm. Her scent, faint though it was against the dense opium reek, tickled his nose. He wanted to bury his face in her hair.
“I wanted to tell you. We are not … that is, there is no complication.” He must have looked confused, because she continued, and spoke more plainly. “I am not with child.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t realized until she’d said it how much he was hoping that he’d gotten her pregnant. Now he had no reason not to stay strong and keep away from her.
No reason except that his very soul hurt with missing her.
“And I have something to ask you.”
“I’m not.”
She looked at him for a moment, then her lips widened into a rueful smile and she shook her head. “No, that is not what I was going to ask. I know you have not returned to that life. It’s so easy to tell from your face.” She shifted, but she still had her hand on his arm. He was so aware of it he almost couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying. “Besides which, there are more than enough people downstairs, including your footman, John, to relate what you are doing here. What you are trying to do for these soldiers. You wouldn’t do that if you were yourself still … ill.”
He nodded. At least she knew.
“That’s it.” She clasped his arm tighter when she spoke, an exultant tone to her voice.
“What is it?” That she could be even mildly happy felt like an affront, given how miserable he was. But she didn’t know that, did she?
“You.” She stepped forward so she could stare directly into his eyes. Her gaze was suspicious, but he thought there was a slight curve to her mouth.
“Me …?”
“Before. When you told me to go. When you told me it was nothing but a delightful interlude.”
“I believe I said it was pleasant,” he said. The scene was engraved in his mind with absolute, haunting clarity.
“Pleasant, yes.” A small snort accompanied her words.
“And?” He needed for her to get to her point, since every minute spent in her presence, not supine and naked, was agony. Which, basically, meant the rest of his life.
“And why would you say that? You enjoyed being with me, enjoyed”—and here she stepped closer to him and wound her arms around his neck—“making love to me, enjoyed being made love to by me.” She tilted her head in question. “Isn’t that right?”
He held himself absolutely, rigidly still. “Why are you asking?”
She rolled her eyes. As though he were the one being obtuse. “Because, you clod, sending me away when you so clearly want me in your bed—and your life—is an unselfish act.”
He almost couldn’t speak. “And?”
“And,” she said, pulling his head down so their mouths were barely an inch apart, “that was the first unselfish thing you’ve ever done. Which means,” she continued, “you care about me enough to do something unselfish. Something that was not for you.” A pause. “Before, I knew you would keep me because it suited you to do so. And I didn’t want that, for either one of us. I wanted us to be able to make a choice, and I thought I was the only one strong enough to make it.” Another, longer, pause. “But it was you who was the strong one.”
She pressed closer to him, so close he could feel her chest rise and fall with her breath. “You need me.” She pressed in tighter. “You want me.” She paused again. “You love me.”
It broke then, the current of longing, of love, he felt for her, exploding through his body like someone had set a match to him. He felt the blaze of heat as his lips touched hers, and it sparked into something glorious as they kissed. She met his passion with an equal measure, and his whole being compressed down to one emotion: love.
She drew back, her mouth moist from his kiss, her eyes filled with warmth and lust and annoyance and every shade of emotion she had for him. “Well?” she asked, raising her eyebrow.
He nodded and clasped her around the waist. “I love you.” He swallowed against the huge welling of emotion in his heart. “Mary, will you come home with me? Will you be with me?”
“Yes.” She kissed his jawline. “I love you, my arrogant lord.”
“And I love you, my delicious, delectable vicar’s daughter.”
Photo: Scott Frampton
MEGAN FRAMPTON majored in English literature at Barnard College, with a double minor in political science and religion. She worked in the music industry for fifteen years, editing and writing music reviews for a music-industry trade magazine, eventually becoming the editor in chief, and is the community manager for the romance-novel website HeroesandHeartbreakers.com. She likes tall men, gin, the color black, and cocktail rings, not necessarily in that order. Frampton married one of her former interns and lives with him and her son in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her at meganframpton.com, @meganf, or at Facebook.com/meganframptonbooks.
***Don’t miss Megan’s next book, What Not to Bare, coming soon.***
1
AIDAN WAS ESPECIALLY MUSHY THAT MORNING, CLINGING to me as I dropped him off at school.
“But, Mom, why can’t I stay home with you?”
I sighed and patted his shoulder as we walked. “Because you have to go to school, honey, it’s part of knowledge, and knowledge—”
“—is power, I know,” he finished. “It’s just so boring!”
I waved at another parent who was shepherding an equally sad child—a classmate of Aidan’s—
into the school building. “So is moving boxes, and that’s all you’d be able to do if you quit school now. Besides, if you stayed home with me, all we’d do is drink coffee and read. That’s no fun, right?”
He wrinkled his nose. “No, that’s boring.” He heaved a six year-old’s sigh. “Okay, but can we do something fun after?”
“Yeah, fun after school,” I repeated. “I love you.” I leaned down and kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around me in a tight squeeze.
He released me, and swung the door open—all by himself!—and headed into the school, turning so I could blow him one last kiss. He returned it, the sweetheart, and my chest felt tight with emotion.
I wore one of those goofy mom smiles on the way home. That was worth it all. He was worth it all. And he was why I had to get over myself. He thought I was pretty great, and I trusted his opinion.
I went up the stairs to the apartment, determined to figure out just what the hell I was doing with my life. Besides planning postschool activities.
It sure didn’t help when his father threw spokes in my wheels, a wrench in my works, and some third thing I was just too upset to recall at the moment.
I picked the phone up on the third ring, my hands shaking from what I’d just seen on the news feed scrolling across the bottom of the TV.
The caller ID told me who it was before I even answered, so he didn’t get a chance to even say hello.
“So, were you going to tell me about Blumenthal Jackson or did you just think I’d miss it because Aidan was watching the Yu-Gi-Oh marathon or something?”
The bastard didn’t reply. I heard him breathing, though.
“I saw it on CNN.” I had to keep myself from shrieking into the phone. “Your company? Collapsed? Ring a bell, Hugh?”
“I didn’t know myself.” Wait. He actually sounded like he didn’t. But he was a lawyer, he was used to lying well. “Until today.” His voice was worn out. Shredded.
I felt a momentary pang of sympathy, the way I used to when he had a tough day at the office. And then I remembered what he’d done, and how he’d left.
“What, you had no idea? Come on, Hugh.” I walked to the window and looked out on the street below: nannies hustling their charges to the local Tot Time at the library, a few delivery trucks double-parked, and a group of Catholic girls in their short, pleated skirts walking slowly up the street.
Normal life in Brooklyn. Which I loved, but would have to leave if I didn’t do something about it. Because Hugh sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to. Which his next words proved.
“I won’t be able to send money next month.” His next few sentences sounded as if they were shot out of a cannon. I could barely keep up. “For the rent. Aidan’s health insurance is okay for a while, but you’ll be dropped from the policy in thirty days. I’ll try to get situated as soon as possible. I’m sorry, Molly.”
There was a silence, and I heard Hugh swallow.
“What about COBRA? And there must be something that’s being done for the employees, right?” Hugh had always left the bookkeeping details to me, since he was too busy. Maybe he’d forgotten.
“Um, well, I didn’t tell you, but about four months ago I went freelance for the firm. It was either that or they were going to let me go entirely, and I needed the job.”
Oh. He hadn’t forgotten. In fact, he’d managed to do some bookkeeping for himself. That was newsworthy in itself.
He continued, “So my benefits were cut, then. I’ve been paying for your insurance myself.”
I swallowed as it hit me.
“So what you’re saying is”—I closed my eyes and felt my jaw clamp—“that not only is your company going belly-up, but it’s not even your company?”
I didn’t think it could get worse than it had six months ago when he’d left.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to make things any tougher for you than they were”—he paused, and I heard take another deep breath—“and I thought the firm would be okay in a few months, but …”
“Where the hell does that leave us, Hugh? You know, me and more importantly, your son?”
“I’m sorry.” He hung up. Running away from the problem, as usual.
I put the phone down. “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” Sorrier than you’d ever know.
CNN was still on, detailing the fallout: Top story tonight is the collapse of venerated Wall Street investment group Blumenthal Jackson. According to the New York district attorney’s office, the company’s chief executives will be charged with violating the RICO Act. Investors stand to lose up to fifty billion dollars. More as the story dev—
I flipped the channel, not wanting to hear any more of the details.
VH1. Safe choice. I just needed a minute to process it. Then I could figure out what the hell I was going to do.
A commercial. How come my life wasn’t like the movies, where an appropriately themed song would just be starting as I turned the channel on? I’d sit down and my expression would soften, and I’d nod my head.
Oh, geez. Be careful what you wish for: “I will survive.”
Yeah, thanks for spelling it all out for me.
“I’m afraid and petrified right now, Gloria.”
If this moment were any more ironic, it’d be a hipster movement, replete with coy T-shirts and rainbowed unicorns. Gaynor herself was wearing more glitter than a drag queen, while a tiny spandex-clad girl spun on roller skates.
I plopped down on the couch. Six months ago, it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to notice how so many songs—scratch that, all of them—were about love or falling in love or losing a love.
Hugh had never said he loved me.
I was an idiot not to realize that meant something. I sure as hell knew it now.
I had to get a job. Fast. Now. Yesterday.
After Aidan went to sleep that night clutching his stuffed Pikachu, I changed into my sweatpants and padded out to the living room in my bare feet. Damn, I needed to give myself a pedicure. I hadn’t had one since the fancy wedding Hugh and I had attended the previous summer. Hugh had told a story about his administrative assistant and some Wite-Out that had made everyone howl, me included.
That night, we’d slow-danced under the stars to “Always and Forever,” like we were in high school.
It galled me that he had already been cheating on me, even then, and I was too naïve to recognize the signs. At one point, he got a call on his cell phone and dashed to the parking lot to take it. He’d come back about ten minutes later, shrugging apologetically.
I sat down at the dining room table with a notebook and the classified section. I tried very hard to ignore the cover of the latest romance novel I was devouring, a world where husbands didn’t leave and insurance didn’t run out. I picked up an animal cracker, a hump-less camel, from the leftovers in Aidan’s lunch and munched on it to buy some time while I thought.
I was going to make a list of what I could do. And would do, I reminded myself sternly. After all, lists were only good if one actually was able to check off the items on the list. I had plenty of unchecked lists in my life. First one, of course, was the list where I had written “marry someone and stay with them until one or both of you keeled over.”
Unchecked.
How about the one that said “establish a career in your thirties so you can be comfortably ensconced in it in your forties and never have to worry about paying the bills again?”
Unchecked.
Mm, how about “have the possibility of ever having sex again?”
Definitely unchecked.
I glared at the notebook as if it were its fault I was so … unchecked. This whole finding-a-job thing was a pain in the ass. I thought I had more time. A month. Two. I had poked around and sent some résumés out, but between cursing Hugh’s name and taking care of Aidan, I honestly hadn’t done enough.
I’d never thought I’d have to.
Six years ago when Aidan was born, Hugh had supported my decision to stay home. The prospect o
f entering the workforce again was terrifying, maybe even more than being a divorced mom. But if we were to recover from Hugh’s latest mess, I’d have to.
I wrote at the top of the page: Find a job. I leaned back and stared at the paper.
What kind of job could I get?
Before Aidan, I’d done marketing for an online start-up. There were so many problems with having that as your prime résumé skill: First of all, marketing is the most nebulous term imaginable. A guy prancing around the block in a sandwich board could say he did marketing. Second, having worked at an online startup was practically as bad as admitting you wore culottes back in the 1970s. Which I also did.
And third, I hadn’t worked full-time in six years.
And I was forty years old.
Not to mention cranky, tired, stubborn, and mad as hell.
But they would only discover that if they hired me.
Which they wouldn’t, because my résumé read like crap.
Okay, Molly, I told myself, focus.
I had a degree in English literature. That and experience doing marketing for an online start-up would get me an interview at Starbucks.
Heck, at least I’d never run out of coffee again.
Focus. Caffeine should not be the center of the universe.
I rose and went down the hall to peek on Aidan, whose head was smothered underneath his blue Power Rangers bedspread. I uncovered him, kissed his smooth, sweet-smelling cheek, and padded back to where my doom, er, list lay waiting for me. Was it wrong I wished I could set it on fire?
Thank goodness the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi, sweetie.” Suddenly it felt like a couple of weights had been lifted off my shoulders.
“Hi, hon.”
At least I had chosen my friends wisely. Keisha had moved from Brooklyn a little over a year ago to California, but we still talked as much as we had when we first met in college. Maybe even more.
I tucked the phone up to my ear and grabbed the throw from the floor. “Hold on, I’m tucking in,” I said.
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