A Husband's Regret

by Natasha Anders

  That night she deliberately sought Bryce out for the first time in more than two months and found him hiding out in the den and watching television with the sound turned down. For some reason, the den, with all its audio visual equipment, was the last place she’d expected to find him. An ignorant assumption, she acknowledged, since his deafness didn’t prevent him from watching television or enjoying music with heavier beats. He sat in an easy chair and the only parts of him that were visible to her were the back of his head and his right hand, which was hanging over the arm of the chair with a glass of amber-colored liquid dangling from his fingers.

  At first, she was so preoccupied by the fact that she had found him after half an hour of searching that what he was watching did not register with her. Then she glanced up and found herself riveted by her own smiling face on the huge flat-screen television. The camera angle changed to include Bryce in the shot; he was leaning toward her, his mouth to her ear as he whispered something intimate enough to make her blush. It was their wedding DVD with the sound turned down. She was dressed in a beautiful white concoction that had cost the earth but that Bryce had paid for, and he looked gorgeous in a stylish black tuxedo. They both looked so young and happy and were wrapped up in each other to the exclusion of everyone else. She watched as he fast-forwarded through Rick’s best man speech and resumed playing when the focus was back on them.

  She took a step backward, feeling like she was intruding on yet another moment that she knew he would not want her to witness. Her back hit the door and her fingers fumbled with the handle but her eyes remained glued to the screen. He hit the pause button, and she panicked, thinking that he was about to get up, but he merely leaned forward, his attention still focused on the screen. She shifted her stricken gaze to the larger-than-life frozen image of her beaming face. She looked radiant and so hopelessly in love. The room was absolutely silent, and she was achingly aware of how loud the pounding of her heart sounded to her own ears and of how ragged her breathing had become.

  After a seemingly interminable amount of time had passed, she succeeded in getting a decent grip on the door handle and managed to slip out without him ever knowing that she had been there. But the haunting image of Bryce in that silent room watching that video stayed with her all evening. She didn’t understand why he had dug up that old thing. It served only to emphasize how catastrophically they had failed as a couple.

  She still needed to talk with him; she couldn’t go out with Raymond without telling Bryce about it first. It was the decent thing to do. So she waited another couple of hours until she heard him prowling around in the kitchen. She ventured boldly into the spacious room and stepped immediately into his line of vision, not wanting to startle him. He was just turning away from the huge double-door refrigerator with some sandwich ingredients stacked precariously in his arms and stilled abruptly at the sight of her. The abrupt cessation of movement unsettled the food and dislodged a tomato, which rolled from the top of the armload and landed on the floor between them with a soft plop. Bronwyn winced and they both stared down at the mess the unfortunate tomato had made on the tiled floor. They looked up at the same time and their gazes met uncertainly.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she apologized, both verbally and in the sign language that she was still trying to learn in her free time. Because of school, her lessons had had to be moved to Saturdays before her usual get-together with the other ladies. His eyes dropped to her busy hands and narrowed sharply as they took in the graceful movements of her fingers.

  “It’s okay,” he said out loud, shrugging slightly. He didn’t mention the sign language she had used, and she was both relieved and somewhat disappointed by that. He brushed by her and headed toward the large wooden island in the middle of the kitchen to drop the ingredients on the black marble–topped surface, while Bronwyn used a damp paper towel to wipe up the mess on the floor. When she was done, she rounded the island to face him again while he busily went about constructing an imaginative sandwich. He kept his eyes on his task and Bronwyn sighed in frustration before waving her hand beneath his eyes to get his attention. Finally, reluctantly, he looked up to face her.

  “I have to talk to you about something,” she half signed, half spoke, and he nodded warily. “I need you to watch Kayla tomorrow night.” Something akin to relief flickered in his eyes, and he smiled slowly, nodding again.

  “Of course.” His eyes dropped back to his sandwich. “I know that you have to start studying, mid-terms can’t be that far off.” Bronwyn groaned, this was going to be more difficult than she had originally anticipated. She waved her hand beneath his eyes again.

  “Bryce,” she began when she had his attention again. “I have a date.” She said the words aloud, choosing not to sign them, and his eyes remained fixed on her lips for such a long time that she began to wonder if he might have misunderstood her. His large hands were resting on the wooden surface of the island, his sloppy sandwich teetering unsteadily between them, and as she dropped her eyes, wondering if she should repeat the statement, she noticed them curling into huge fists and knew that he had not misunderstood or misread her lips. He was trying to figure out how to deal with her words.

  “You’re married,” he reminded, almost absently, his voice sounding strangely hoarse. She raised her eyes to his face again and was startled to see how strained and pale he looked.

  “We’re not married, Bryce,” she whispered. “Not really. Not for a long time now. You know that. You said it yourself; there is no marriage. We’re separated and merely sharing a house.”

  “Who . . .” He began to frame a question but then simply turned the one word into a question. “Who?”

  “One of my professors. He’s a nice man, decent.”

  “How decent can he be if he dates his students?” Bryce hissed furiously.

  “I’m not a child, Bryce, and Raymond is only two years older than you are. It’s hardly unethical for us to go out on a perfectly harmless date.”

  “I don’t think you should do this,” he began, but she held up a silencing hand.

  “I didn’t come to you for your blessing, Bryce,” she told him firmly. “I felt that telling you would be the right thing to do, because we are still legally bound. Yes, we have a child together and we’re sharing a house, but our marriage, if we can call it that anymore, is over. I want to move on with my life, and the only way either of us can do that is if we get a divorce. So if you won’t start the proceedings, then I will. I’ll be seeing an attorney as soon as possible.” He lowered his gaze back to his sandwich.

  “It’s probably better that way,” he agreed quietly. “If you need me to watch Kayla tomorrow night, I will.” He raised his enigmatic eyes back to hers and she smiled gently.

  “One more thing, Bryce,” she said tentatively. “I don’t want a security guy hovering in the background while I’m out tomorrow night. So I’m dismissing Paul early. Please clear it with Cal.” Poor Paul would probably be relieved to have the time off. Her life was pretty mundane, and while he was too professional to ever show it, she suspected that he was bored out of his mind for the most part.

  “Fine,” he gritted after a long pause, clearly not happy with that idea but acquiescing when he realized that she wasn’t going to budge on the matter.

  “In fact, I would prefer it if Paul didn’t come to campus or work with me. It’s a waste of your resources. I’m perfectly safe, and I would just feel more comfortable without him constantly hovering in the background.” She knew that she was pushing it and that Bryce wasn’t likely to budge on this, but she really felt like a pretentious freak with a bodyguard constantly dogging her steps. It made her feel completely conspicuous.

  “Bronwyn, I take your and Kayla’s safety very seriously,” he said darkly.

  “Look, of course I want Kayla to be safe, and I absolutely agree on the issue of security for her, but I’m not quite in the sa
me boat. I’m your all-but-estranged wife. Not quite the prime target for kidnappers.”

  “Prospective kidnappers don’t know the intimate details of our marriage, Bron,” he pointed out reasonably. “You’re living with me, you’re the mother of my child, and you’re a target. End of story. Paul stays.”

  “Well, can you at least give me some time to myself on Monday then? I have something to take care of.” While she had just informed him she would be seeing an attorney, she didn’t want Bryce hearing about it from the hired help before she had a chance to tell him about it in person. That wasn’t the way she wanted him to learn the news.

  “What?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Bryce, I don’t ask you for much, just grant me this one request and allow me to cling to the illusion that I still have some semblance of privacy in my life.”

  “Only on Monday?” he clarified reluctantly, and she nodded. “Very well, I’ll inform Cal.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and he inclined his head curtly before turning away from her and heading to the refrigerator, his rigid back telling her that he wanted her gone by the time he turned back. Bronwyn wasted no time in beating a hasty retreat. She headed to the nursery to watch Kayla sleep and silently mourned the loss of the life she could never have with the man she so desperately loved.

  Bryce wanted to break something, wanted to hurt someone, preferably the smarmy bastard who had ingratiated himself to Bryce’s wife! God, this was so much worse than he’d imagined. Bronwyn was moving on with her life and seeing other people. What if she let this guy, this Raymond, touch her or, worse, make love to her? His stomach rebelled at the thought, and he picked up his half-made sandwich and tossed it into the trashcan.

  He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and frantically tried to figure out what to do, how to make this right, but he didn’t know how. He no longer had any control over his own life. Everything was sliding so swiftly downhill that he knew it was only a matter of time before it all ended. Bronwyn didn’t see herself as his wife anymore. She wanted nothing to do with him, and who could blame her? After the way he had behaved, it was nothing less than he deserved. He could threaten her with a custody battle, but he didn’t have it in him to do that to her or Kayla.

  After all those months of self-righteous anger and believing he was the wronged one, while his Bronwyn suffered unimaginable horrors on her own, he now had to face up to the fact that he had brought all of this upon himself. Blackmailing Bronwyn to stay with him, after everything else that he had done wrong, would in no way, shape, or form restore his self-respect. He had to let her go; she deserved to be happy and it was obvious that he couldn’t make her happy, that he had very rarely made her happy. That was his failure, his shame, and his cross to bear, and he would no longer have her share that burden.

  “What the hell do you mean, you’re pregnant? What about your studies and the mutual decision we made when we first got married? We were going to wait, Bronwyn, remember? Just tell me you’re joking.” The fury he had felt that night scorched its way through his body and obliterated his ability to think rationally. He moved away from her and jumped to his feet to glower down at her. She had looked so confused and hurt that for a moment he nearly softened, nearly took her into his arms to comfort her. But then those two words echoed their way through his brain again and his white-hot, bitter anger reasserted itself. The sense of betrayal left an acrid taste in his mouth.

  “I know that it’s sooner than we’d planned,” she said softly, trying to maintain an even tone of voice. “But this is the reality of our situation now and it can’t be changed. We’re having a baby . . . a baby, Bryce. Don’t you understand how wonderful that is?”

  “I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe you would stoop to this,” he gritted out bitterly. “This was supposed to be a joint decision. I’m not ready for this, Bronwyn. I don’t want a kid, damn it!”

  “But it’s our baby . . . we made it together,” she protested, and he could hear the pain and confusion in her voice but just couldn’t keep the venom out of his own, knowing that if he allowed her to see through his anger to his own pain and confusion, she would think that what she had done was okay, and he was too furious with her to allow her to think that yet.

  “You mean you made it, without my consent.” He could barely look at her. He didn’t want to see her tears—he hated her tears—but he could hear them in her gasp and in her voice when she spoke.

  “I don’t know why you’re being like this,” she cried. “I didn’t plan this, it just happened. Our birth control failed. I asked the doctor and he said that if I’d had a stomach virus or anything like that it could provide a window of opportunity. And you know that I was sick a couple of days before your company party three months ago.” Damn her, she was trying to cover her tracks. He strode out of the conservatory and downstairs into their en suite, while she trotted behind him, still trying to tell him about a stomach bug that she had had three months ago. How the hell could she expect him to remember something like that, anyway? He pushed back the niggling voice that told him he did remember it and that he had pampered her ridiculously while she had been sick. Instead, he convinced himself that he couldn’t recall whatever insignificant bug she was referring to. He opened the medicine chest and yanked out her birth-control pills.

  “What are you doing?” She sounded scared and appalled as she watched him count the pills in the box. His eyes clouded over with a haze of red when he realized that the numbers were right.

  “God, have you been chucking pills down the drain every night?” he wondered out loud, hating himself even as he asked the question.

  “You know I wouldn’t do that,” she defended urgently.

  “Is that so? I obviously don’t know you as well as I thought I did, do I?”

  “Of course you know me, Bryce.” she laid a tentative hand on his rigid forearm, and his flesh burned beneath the contact. He yanked his arm away and turned away from her. His eyes flooded with tears, he needed time to think, but he couldn’t think with her standing in the same room, not when she was crying, not when he was the one responsible for her tears.

  “Get out of here,” he whispered harshly, wanting her out of the room, not wanting her to hear or see how much he ached to take her into his arms.

  “What?”

  “Get the hell out,” he snarled, bracing himself before turning to face her. He barely kept himself from flinching when he saw her tears. “Go now.” She uttered a low cry and whirled from the room, fleeing as quickly as she could. Bryce finally allowed himself to break, sinking back against a tiled wall as his legs gave out and sliding down to the floor. He clasped his head in his hands and shook uncontrollably as he tried to imagine his life from this point on.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Bryce had to go in to the office the following morning—the day of Bronwyn’s Big Date. He hadn’t done so in months, but he and Pierre had an urgent meeting with a very important client and the man had requested Bryce’s presence. As he was the business’s CFO and Vice President of Marketing, Bryce knew that it was time to pick up the reins of his life again. He had responsibilities to Pierre, their employees, their clients, and to himself. It was time but it was just unfortunate timing. Celeste was down with the flu, Bronwyn had a test, also her all-important date was that night, and Bryce wasn’t about to bail on this fatherhood business just because things got a little sticky. He hadn’t even told Bronwyn about this meeting, but he figured that she had coped with much worse crises over the past couple of years, so he could deal with this one all on his own.

  That meant taking Kayla into the office and she was in a terrible mood. He dressed her in her prettiest pink frock, promising her all kinds of treats if she just did this one thing for Daddy today. He didn’t need his hearing to know that she was muttering a whole lot of “Kayla no want tos” into his hair as he tied the laces on the tiny red sneakers
she’d insisted on wearing with the girly little dress. He’d relented on the shoes because he was getting pretty sick of trying to reason with her. Bad parenting, he knew, but it was a matter of picking his battles, and he was running late. He was also terrified of losing his temper with her while there was no one else around and wanted to get out of the house and to the office as soon as humanly possible.

  By the time Cal—who also acted as his driver these days—parked the car in the underground parking lot of the huge building in Central Cape Town, which hosted DCP Jewellers Inc., he was exhausted and feeling more than a little harassed. Petulant, angry tears were seeping down his daughter’s rosy cheeks, and he could more than imagine her nagging crying. He knew her well enough by now to know when she was acting up and when she was just being difficult.

  “Kayla.” He hoped his voice was firm enough. “Stop crying. You’re going meet some nice, new friends.” She was shaking her head in response to his promise, and he could read her lips well enough to understand that she didn’t want “new fwends.” He groaned and dropped a kiss on one wet, chubby cheek.

  “Of course you want new friends.” His plan was to drop her off at the company’s day-care center. Quite a few of the young executives who were present stopped in their tracks to stare as he made his way through reception. He nodded at them abruptly, not caring for the open-mouthed shock they were all displaying but knowing that his presence, especially with a toddler in tow, would fuel gossip for months to come. They were naturally curious because not many of them had seen him since his accident; also God only knew how much noise Kayla was making. Pierre loomed in front of him and grinned as his eyes dropped to the fractious child on Bryce’s hip.