A Husband's Regret

by Natasha Anders

  After all, this was the man who had thought nothing of kicking her out of their home after discovering that she was pregnant with his baby. The same man who had left her to fend for herself when she was at her weakest. He had also accused her of the most heinous of acts and no amount of guilt now could make up for his many sins. Any relationship that they tried to salvage from this wreckage of a marriage would be based on a foundation of guilt and misguided obligation.

  “I don’t think it can be fixed anymore, Bryce,” she said reluctantly, moving toward his desk and sitting down in the huge leather chair across from him. He flinched and averted his face briefly before turning his head to look at her once more.

  “So what do you want to do?” he asked tonelessly.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted helplessly. “I think we would all be better off if we, you and I, were no longer together. Let’s face it, after two years of separation, the next logical step is a mere formality.”

  “You want to leave,” he said matter-of-factly. “Again.”

  “I didn’t exactly want to leave the last time, Bryce,” she reminded him pointedly. She was small-minded enough to enjoy seeing the barb hit home. “I just don’t think this situation can be redeemed. Too much has been said and done to go back.” He scrubbed a tired hand over his face before tilting his head back and shutting his eyes. After a few moments of silence, he opened his eyes and looked back at her with his piercing eyes.

  “What do you plan to do after you leave?”

  “I’m going back to university to finish my studies.”

  “Won’t it be difficult to be a full-time student when you’re a single parent again?” Her mouth gaped in surprise at the wholly unexpected question.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I assumed that I was no longer a single parent.” His eyes flickered with something akin to relief, and Bronwyn’s surprise very quickly turned to horrified comprehension. “You thought I was taking her away from you?” He nodded in response to her shocked question.

  “Whatever you may have done to deserve it, Bryce, I won’t deny you your right to be a father to Kayla. Even though you once tossed away that privilege as cavalierly as you would a pair of old socks.” Another direct hit. “And don’t get me wrong here; I am not doing it for you! Kayla needs you in her life.” He nodded again, this time more confidently.

  “So you want to finish your studies?” he prompted after clearing his throat awkwardly.

  “I’ll have to find a decent place to live and a job to pay for—”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he inserted hurriedly. “The job, I mean. I’ll pay for your studies.”

  “The only money I’ll ever want from you will go toward the upbringing of your daughter, Bryce. I can take care of myself!”

  “This from the woman who was practically on her last legs when we found her? You will not run yourself into the ground again. I can, and will, take care of you.”

  “I am not your property; you have no right to speak to me as if I were,” she said, seething, and he swore in frustration.

  “Okay, can we compromise on this?” he asked meekly after what looked like a colossal effort to rein in his temper. “I have a suggestion.” She waited silently for him to continue, her arms folded defiantly over her chest as she prepared for battle.

  “You and Kayla stay here.” He lifted a silencing hand as she started to protest. “No, wait, just listen. You and Kayla stay here, and that way, she and I would be able to see each other all the time. You find that job to pay for your studies, and you’ll have built-in babysitters for Kayla in both Celeste and me. You won’t be run off your feet, studying, working a part-time job, and caring for a demanding toddler. You also won’t have to worry about rent and food.”

  “What’s in this for you?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Like I said, unrestricted access to my daughter,” was his simple response. “And enough time to get to know her better.”

  “What about us? Our marriage?” She broached the subject warily, and he averted his eyes down to his clenched hands again.

  “Well there is no more marriage, is there?” he droned tonelessly. “This house is big enough for us to live completely separate lives. We could work out some kind of schedule, times you may need certain areas of the house to yourself. Please don’t reject the idea out of hand just because it came from me. It makes sense and you won’t be killing yourself trying to make ends meet. I won’t interfere with your life at all.”

  “What about your work?” she asked when his eyes were on her again.

  “I work mostly from home these days.” He shrugged and she hesitated, her mind busily going over every angle of his plan. “I do plan to spend some more time in the office in the future, but we have an excellent in-house day-care facility, so she’ll never be too far from me.”

  “This can’t be a permanent arrangement,” she said after a long pause, knowing that she was compromising way too much. Her instincts were screaming at her to move out, but she kept thinking of Kayla and how much she adored her father. “And if I’m staying here, I’ll want to pay rent,” she cautioned, and he dipped his head in acquiescence.

  “I know it can’t be permanent, but it’ll give you time to arrange your future; it will give me time to get to know Kayla and vice versa. You can pay a reasonable amount for rent, and the amount will include food and utilities. But if you’re paying rent, you won’t be able to pay for your tuition and books, so I’d like to give you a student loan, low interest, which you can pay off in your own time,” he hurried on when it looked like she was about to protest. “It’s a better deal than you’d get from any bank, Bronwyn. No strings attached. Once you’ve finished your studies and are settled into your new career, you’ll be better equipped to move out, and Kayla will be old enough to understand.”

  “Bryce, that will take years.” She was aghast at the thought of living in limbo for so long. But still, it was an awfully tempting suggestion, and Bronwyn knew she’d be a fool to turn it down when she had so few other options. But things were starting to get sticky again, too many ties and way too many complications. “We have to move on with our lives.”

  “And so we shall. We’ll just be sharing a house, Bron . . . nothing else. This works out to everyone’s advantage, and it’s best for Kayla.”

  “We’ll have to . . .” She cleared her throat, not really wanting to be the one to mention the inevitable. “We’ll have to start proceedings.”

  “Proceedings?” He looked confused.

  “Divorce proceedings,” she clarified, and he very quickly averted his face, shielding his eyes from her.

  “Yes, of course.” He nodded before lifting his eyes to her face again.

  “It will be awkward once we start seeing other people, Bryce.” She decided to be the one to bite the bullet and speak the inescapable words. He cleared his throat uncomfortably before nodding again.

  “I just ask that we both practice some discretion when it comes to that. Any . . . uh . . . any liaisons you . . . we see fit to start will have to be conducted outside of the home. For Kayla’s sake, of course. Anything else would confuse her.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” she agreed, even while nervousness ate away at her stomach. She wasn’t sure that she was doing the right thing. Sure, she was taking the easy way out, but apprehension kept niggling away at the back of her mind. She got up gracefully and looked down at him for a long moment. “This marriage was probably never meant to be, Bryce. We were always too different.” He averted his gaze, saying nothing in response, and Bronwyn sighed before turning away and heading toward the door.

  “We were good together once.” The words sounded torn from him, and she turned around to face him again.

  “For a very brief time, so long ago that it seems like a dream now,” she reflected, her eyes misty. She dipped her chin at him before leaving.


  Bryce watched her go before slumping back into his chair and kneading his temples with his fists. God, how the hell had this happened? How could he have gotten everything so wrong? He thought back to that terrible night and fought the painful memories, but they were relentlessly flooding back.

  CHAPTER NINE

  That night, two years ago, Bryce had leaned against the doorframe and watched as Bronwyn, unaware of his presence, flitted happily around the kitchen. She had her back to the door and her sweet little behind, deliciously molded by the faded fabric of her jeans, had wriggled energetically to the beat of the lively salsa tune coming from the iPod speakers on the kitchen counter. She clearly thought she was alone in the house. It was something she did quite often: dismissed the servants to surprise him with a meal that she had lovingly prepared. He would be lying if he didn’t admit to loving these moments of intimate domesticity. Eventually, he found the temptation of that cute little butt too much to resist. He crept up behind her to grab her hips and draw her back against him. She squealed in delight before turning in his grasp and throwing her arms around his neck. His own arms crept around her slender waist and they danced together sexily for a while. He started nuzzling her neck before she laughed and pulled herself out of his embrace.

  “Silly man, stop distracting me,” she chided, bracing her hands on his chest. “Dinner will be spoiled if I allow you to lead me into temptation.”

  “I can give dinner a miss,” he growled as he reached for her again, but she giggled happily and danced out of his reach.

  “But I can’t,” she laughed. “I’m starving. Why don’t you go and shower off the day’s grit and grime while I finish up in here?”

  “God, you make it sound like I work on a construction site.” He smiled down at her, indicating his disheveled gray suit.

  “Hmm, I’d like that,” she murmured as she eyed his tall, broad form critically. “It’d certainly help with all the flab.”

  “Flab?” He pretended to be outraged but was completely confident that he sported no flab or excess weight of any kind. She laughed again and wrapped her arms around his waist before stretching up to drop a sweet kiss on his mouth.

  “I love you,” she told him, and he smiled back. He loved it when she said those words to him, and he felt such overwhelming tenderness in return that it nearly brought him to his knees. He brushed her silky brown hair from her forehead and planted a kiss on her soft skin.

  “My Bronwyn,” he whispered against her forehead, tugging at the ponytail she had secured in the nape of her neck and dragging her head back for a proper kiss. When it ended he was aching with desire, and she looked a little dazed.

  “Get dinner done, woman, before I head straight for dessert,” he growled as his eyes dipped to the small breasts straining at her light-blue T-shirt so that she could not mistake his meaning. She wasn’t wearing a bra—she hardly ever did when she was at home—her breasts didn’t need the support, and he could see her nipples tenting the soft fabric. The sight made him hotter than hell, and he had to force himself to move away from her. After two years of marriage, he was constantly surprised by how much he still wanted her.

  He eagerly rushed through his shower, and by the time he entered the conservatory, she had laid out a picnic beside one of the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows, the one with the ocean view. He’d never seen her look more beautiful, and again his stomach tightened with that feeling of tenderness. She was sitting on a blanket that she had spread out on the floor, and he dropped down next to her. He reached for the bottle of red wine that she’d placed within easy reach and frowned when he noticed that there was only one glass.

  “You’re not having any wine?” he asked, and she shook her head. Her beautiful eyes tangled with his, and he frowned as he tried to read the emotion in them. He could usually read her pretty easily, but her eyes were a mystery tonight and it unsettled him a bit.

  “I’m having water tonight.”

  “Are you still worried about your reaction to that glass of wine at Pierre’s party last week?” he asked in concern, referring to her dizzy spell. He’d attributed it to overwork and a bad vintage.

  “That’s not it.” She smiled cryptically while her small fingers worried the edge of the blanket. Bryce tried to puzzle through her odd behavior as he poured his own drink.

  “So tell me this news that you’re so excited about,” he prompted, referring to her giddy phone call to his office that afternoon.

  “After we’ve eaten,” she said quietly, and his eyes dipped to the Mediterranean feast that she had laid out before them. She had prepared seed loaf, feta cheese, and black olives as appetizers, along with fresh vegetables and dolmades with hummus, complemented by aubergine and tzatziki dips and falafels in pita. She lifted an olive to his lips, and he opened up, sucking at the tips of her fingers as he accepted the tangy fruit into his mouth. He returned the favor, and they had the rest of their meal in a similar fashion, laughing and murmuring intimacies as they fed each other. By the end of the meal, she was leaning back against his chest, with her head nestled in the nook between his jaw and collarbone. They quietly watched the sun drop into the ocean and turn the horizon into a painter’s palette of red, orange, crimson, and scarlet.

  He had his arm draped over her shoulder and across her breasts, and she was toying with his long and capable fingers. Bryce reveled in the closeness, wondering, not for the first time, how the hell he had gotten so lucky. He felt utterly at peace; they belonged together. They were like two halves of a whole. God knows he had never believed that such an utterly clichéd thought would ever cross his mind, but there it was; she was his other half and he could spend the rest of his life with just her by his side. They were a perfect unit. He shut his eyes to the sunset and tightened his arm around her slender frame. She lifted his hand to her lips and pressed a kiss into his broad palm.

  “Bryce,” she murmured quietly, and he made a slight sound to let her know that she had his attention. “I’m pregnant.”

  Their new living arrangements were not as bad as Bronwyn had feared they would be. Bryce pretty much kept his word, and she hardly ever saw him around the house and would have sworn that she and Kayla were alone in the house if not for the little girl’s constant references to her daddy and what fun they had while Mummy was at work or at school. She had been back at university for nearly a month; luckily her late enrollment for the first semester in March had been easily accepted, and she had been allowed to resume her studies with very little fuss. It was about six weeks since she and Bryce had made their deal, and Bronwyn was starting to relax and enjoy the freedom of movement that she now had. She worked part-time in a bookshop. It was a job that Lisa, a bookshop proprietor herself, had told her about. Most of Bronwyn’s lectures were over by one in the afternoon, so she worked from about two to six every day, leaving her with enough time to enjoy her evenings with Kayla. It was so quiet in the esoteric bookshop that she often had time to study. She also had weekends off because the shop’s owner was older and didn’t like having the business open on weekends. The pay was good, the work was easy, and the hours were ideal; she could have kissed Lisa when the other woman told her about it. Bronwyn also loved the challenge of studying again; she hadn’t even known how much she missed it until she had gone back. Exercising and expanding her brain after such an extended period of nothing but “mummy duty” felt wonderful!

  She was making new friends at school, and she spent a lot of time with Lisa and Alice as well as with Lisa’s cousin, Theresa. The latter was a year older than Bronwyn’s twenty-eight and had a six-month-old baby girl. They (unimaginatively) called themselves the “Mummy Club” and spent most Saturdays actively avoiding mummy duty by leaving the babies with their husbands and escaping for a well-deserved girls’ day out. They were all busy women: Lisa had her shop, Alice was a chef, and both Theresa and Bronwyn had just started studying again, Theresa only part-time
because of the new baby.

  Bronwyn was actually starting to enjoy her life again, despite the unusual situation at home. Soon she started noticing that one of her professors, a man in his mid-thirties, appeared to be taking more than the usual interest in her. She didn’t quite know how to react to that fact. It had been so long since she’d felt even remotely attractive that the male interest, while flattering, was a little unnerving. It also felt so wrong to even be talking to a man who was so obviously attracted to her while she was still married to Bryce. It made her wonder about the divorce. She had assumed that Bryce would start proceedings, but she hadn’t heard a peep about it from him. She wasn’t sure if he was expecting her to do it or if he was content to let things stay as they were for the moment. The uncertainty was driving her mad, so she took it upon herself to speak to some of the law students about her options. Being young and overly ambitious, most of them advised her to “take him for everything she could get,” but one young man had thoughtfully given her his father’s number after informing her that his parent was a divorce lawyer. He also cautioned her to tread carefully when there were custody matters to consider.

  She hadn’t used the number yet and wasn’t sure if she should or even if she could. The thought of finally ending her marriage, even if it could only be described as such in the loosest possible terms, was not a pleasant one. Not when she still cared for her husband, more than he probably deserved.

  The ambiguity of her feelings reached even greater heights when her professor, Raymond Mayfair, acted on his interest in her and asked her out. Bronwyn battled with the decision for a while before accepting his invitation. She made sure to warn him that nothing would ever happen between them while she was married. He graciously accepted her terms and told her that he just wanted to spend time with her.