“Eighteen years, four months and thirteen days, to be exact,” he said, following her to the kitchen.
“You have a better memory than I do,” she said, putting the roses in a vase and adding water, all the while delighted that he’d remembered with such accuracy.
“I wanted to impress you, so I did the math and counted up the time. We met when we were sixteen. We’ve been together for over half our lives.”
“Leave it to the engineer to figure that out,” she said, seeing the ardent expression on his face.
“Grace, I’ve missed you. I can’t live like this anymore. You have to come home. Please.”
She wanted him to cross the kitchen floor and kiss her senseless, but she knew if he did, she would give in and move home with nothing being resolved. As much as she wanted her husband, she couldn’t go back to the way it was.
“First we have to talk, really talk, about what has gone on in the past few weeks.” She took the coffee and muffins to the table.
“Anything.” He sat across from her, took the lid off her coffee and slid it across to her before opening the bag and passing her a muffin with a napkin. “First, I’d just like to say how much I appreciated you coming over last night. Lisa and I were at our wits’ end. And the peanut-butter thing was pure genius. Emma asked where you were when she was having her bath and went to bed without a tear.”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Emma got up this morning and was her old sweet self. Of course, yesterday was a difficult day for her. I should have realized that it was too much, but I really felt that getting here was the best solution.”
“To what?” she asked, hoping to get him to talk about them, about what was going on in their lives. She was eager for him to express his concern for her and how she was coping with all of this, if only to have him recognize how much of her time had been devoted to him, and would be, if only he’d include her in his plans.
“To this. Us living apart. Everyone is talking at the office about what is going on. They know about Emma and naturally are asking about you and how you’re doing.”
“And what do you think is the answer?”
Telling him flat out how she felt, how much he’d hurt her hadn’t worked. And leaving him to cope hadn’t worked. But maybe he’d figured it out himself.
“Look, Grace, I really messed up when I didn’t talk to you about what we should do. As I said before, I was so focused on helping Emma that I lost sight of what was really going on between us. Then, when I tried, I did it while sitting in the absolute wrong place.”
Was he finally going to talk about all of that? She felt her body relax in relief. “You left me out completely. Even though you were aware that all of this was a shock to me, that my belief in us as a couple was shaken to the core, you didn’t get the fact that I felt abandoned while you and your daughter came first.”
“I get that now. But how do I fix it?”
“You can start with telling me why you had an affair with Deidre.”
“It wasn’t an affair. I spent two nights with her five years ago. I told you it was a mistake and I’m sorry that it ever happened.”
“Tell me why you had the affair,” she repeated, clasping her hands tightly in her lap, her coffee cooling in front of her, her stomach threatening to reject the bite of muffin she had swallowed.
Aidan sighed, looked up at the ceiling, then back at her. “I doubt you realized what was really going on when we started trying for a baby. Our every moment together was taken over with having sex at the right time, whether or not you were pregnant, whether or not there was a physical reason why we couldn’t have a baby. I felt as if I was a cog in a wheel, a person whose only function was to produce enough sperm at the allotted time to get you pregnant. It was awful.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I tried to a couple of times, but you always seemed so preoccupied, I felt as if you weren’t listening. There never seemed to be a time when we could stop and look at what we were doing to each other. The three years we were married before we started getting involved in fertility testing, when we thought we could have a child easily were good, but then when we realized that we had to seek help everything seemed to change. We didn’t go anywhere together except for some appointment or other. Instead of holding you in my arms and talking about you and me, and how much we loved each other, we talked about when you’d probably ovulate again. I knew the inside of the fertility clinic waiting room in more detail than I did our living room.”
“I’ve never heard you talk like this before. I had no idea that you felt so…pressured by all of it.”
“Didn’t you feel that way?” he asked.
“At times, yes. But I believed, in the end, we’d have a child.”
“Well, that’s where you and I saw it differently. The longer it went on, the less I believed that we’d succeed. I’m not blaming anyone or anything. I just didn’t feel the whole thing was going to work, and I didn’t know how to say that without upsetting you.”
“So you went away on business, saw an opportunity—”
“Grace, don’t say it like that. It wasn’t that I saw an opportunity. I was…confused…lonely. The days I spent with Deidre were wrong and I felt terrible about it, but she listened to me. We actually talked about what was going on in the world. About politics. We…just…talked.” He looked across the table at her, his eyes dark, his face pale. “And as stupid as that sounds, I needed someone to hear me.”
Grace searched his face. He was telling her the truth. A truth she didn’t want to hear. Had she been that unaware of him and what he needed? “I thought you were as involved as I was in getting pregnant. You never told me you weren’t.”
“How could I let you down like that? When all the testing started, I believed it would work out, and we’d have a baby. But as time went on, and I realized it probably wouldn’t work, I didn’t know how to tell you what I was feeling without adding to your concerns. You wanted a baby so badly, honey, I felt I had no choice but to continue no matter how I was feeling about it.”
“All those months you went along with trying for a child because you felt you couldn’t disappoint me?”
“I did. You were so much more committed than I was. I began to think that I didn’t want it as much as you did. You talked about it all the time. I wanted to have the old Grace back. The one who liked to spend a morning reading the papers in bed, having sex simply for the fun of it, going for a walk without checking the clock or talking about the latest test results.”
“I had no idea you were so unhappy.”
“It wasn’t that I was unhappy. I felt guilty that we hadn’t had a child. I wanted you to have everything. I’m your husband. I wanted you to be happy, and I knew how much a baby meant to you. I felt inadequate seeing you so anxious. The week that Deidre and I spent so much time on a computer problem in her business, I felt part of what was going on, enthusiastic that we would succeed.
“Deidre had a successful start-up of her new computer system thanks, in large part, to my company. I was completely engaged in what I was doing. When we ended the week by crossing that business line, I felt lousy. Really lousy. I never told you about it because I was ashamed. You’re my wife. I love you with all my heart. And I did something I should never have done.”
He reached across the table, his fingers touching hers. “I don’t want to dwell on the past. We have a bright future ahead of us. I want to resolve things so that we can be a family—you, me and Emma. What can I do to make that happen?” he asked, his smile wrapping around her in a wave of love that left her breathless and her heart thudding against her throat.
They were all wonderful feelings that couldn’t mask the hurt roaring through her at his admission. “Did you ever consider how hard trying to get pregnant was for me? Yes, I did want a baby more than you did. So you can imagine how painful it was for m
e to learn that, after a couple of nights with a virtual stranger, you were able to have a child with her, a woman you claim not to care about.
“And even worse, when you find out you had a daughter by this woman, you act as if the only people who matter are you and Emma. You make your plans without talking them over with me. And I’m expected, as usual, to simply go along with what you want.”
“And that was a mistake on my part. I want to change how I do things. From here on, we will talk through things, and you will see that I’m serious about taking your feelings into account.”
“Okay, so you’re back and suddenly what I want and think is important to you.” She didn’t try to hide the skepticism she was feeling.
“Grace, I don’t know what to say or how to say it. Only that if we continue to go over all the mistakes I’ve made, we will never be able to move on. As much as it hurts you, there is no way to change the past.”
“How would you suggest I move on? How do I get over your mistakes, your lack of respect for me?” she asked, trying to ease the anger building up in her.
“I never meant to hurt you. You don’t believe that right now, but it’s true. I didn’t mean to leave you out, but there was a little girl, and I was responsible for her.”
“And you had a wife who had just gotten the shock of her life when she learned that her husband had had a child by a woman he hardly knew. You never once asked me what I needed, how badly I was feeling or what I thought we should do. You were bringing your child into our marriage without ever consulting me on how we should do it,” she said, her voice rising.
Aidan looked startled, the smile on his face disappearing, replaced by a tiny frown. “Grace, I admit I made a mistake in not talking everything over with you. I’m here now to fix that. But since we’re talking about the past, I did everything you wanted when we were trying to get pregnant without having much say in the plan. I trusted we were doing the right thing for you and me. I was happy to go along because I trusted that what the doctors were saying and your belief in what we were doing would give us what we wanted. I never once balked at anything, or questioned what was going on. I was simply trying to make you happy.”
“Making me happy. Is that what all that effort and loss meant to you? You went along with getting pregnant to make me happy?” she asked, searching for a way to stay calm. If Aidan thought that all of this was only about making her happy…
“I had no say in it either. I went along with the plan as you did. I had things done to my body, things I never would have imagined, all to have our baby.”
“And I love you for that. You were the one facing all the changes in your body, and I was powerless to do anything about it. Even though we both found it hard, we were together on trying to have a baby. I want us to do that now, talk to the adoption lawyer, make plans to have the family we’ve always dreamed of.”
“Then why are you willing to do it now when you weren’t before Emma came into your life?”
“Because…” He rubbed his hands through his curly auburn hair. “Grace, those first couple days in Spartanburg, I was so anxious to see that Emma was taken care of.”
“But she had a nanny who was perfectly capable of caring for her, better than you and I, right?”
“Well, me for sure.” He gave her a wry smile, the same one that emphasized the dimples in his cheeks.
“Aidan, taking on a child is something we’ve never done. There is no best way, no predetermined plan that is known to work. It was supposed to be you and me facing the arrival of a child in our lives. And you left me out of every part of it, until now.”
Aidan met his wife’s anxious gaze. That this conversation was painful for her was evident in the hurt and uncertainty he saw in her eyes. His heart thudded in his chest. He felt as if he’d betrayed her all over again and it broke his heart.
Fighting to remain cool and in charge, he thought of all those times they’d sat across from each other in the college library, studying, laughing together, sharing the same jokes and loving the same things. It was as if they’d been born for each other. He’d never felt that way about anyone in his life. Never, in all his wildest dreams, had he imagined anything but the blissful happiness they’d experienced from the first time they’d locked eyes on each other.
He and Grace not getting along was out of the question. Everyone who met them couldn’t miss how much in love they were. He had been such a dumb ass in so many ways, but right now, all he wanted was to have his wife back in his life. “Grace, I would do anything to make this better. Believe me. All I want is for you and Emma to be loved and cared for. If you’re willing to help me, I swear, I’ll make it up to you.”
“If I believe you, and I want to…” She played with the edge of her coffee cup, her eyes focused intently on him. “How do we do this? How do we start over? Where do we go from here?”
“I’m not sure. All I am sure of is that I don’t want to make any more plans without you involved.” Their old connection, the intimacy they’d always shared, rolled over him. There would never be anyone for him but her, and it was time he put it all on the line. “Grace, would you like to go on a date with me?”
“What?” she asked, her dark brown eyes wide with surprise.
“We can’t figure out how to move forward, or at least, I can’t. I’m beginning to see that I’ve not only hurt you over everything I did, but I haven’t been treating you like my wife. I have taken you for granted. Sure, I can come up with reasons, but they’d probably only sound like excuses to you. The fact is, you’ve always been there for me, and I’ve always assumed you would be.”
Her hands stilled on the cup. “What did you have in mind for a date?”
Where would be the best place to go to dinner? Some place she loved. “I’ll make reservations for Dominique’s and pick you up. We’ll have a wonderful evening together. Just the two of us. We won’t talk about anything going on in our lives. We’ll simply enjoy each other’s company. I’d like to start new, date…the way we used to do. Then, once we’re both feeling more at ease with each other, we can move on to planning our future together. What do you think?”
Thrilled by his words, Grace wanted to lean across the table, run her fingers through her husband’s curly auburn hair and kiss his lips. Yet she knew only too well how easily succumbing to his charm would distract her, make her forget her very real concerns. He was right when he said they weren’t connected in the same way anymore. If she were to be totally honest about it, she’d gotten comfortable with her crafts and her craft group. She had gotten her life into a quiet routine broken only by her efforts to have a child, a dream she still clung to, despite the disappointing results. Perhaps she had taken him for granted, too.
She’d let him come here because she believed the only way forward was to insist on marriage counseling. She needed help to find it in her heart to forgive him for the way he’d behaved all those years ago.
Yet his words of explanation touched her deeply. That he’d shared his feelings over the fertility testing, his shame over what he’d done, made it possible for her to see his actions and choices a little differently.
Maybe there was a new way to approach this. It might not be a perfect way to resolve their issues, but if they went back to where they had started—their attraction to each other, their caring—they might have a chance to rebuild the trust between them. “I accept your invitation to dinner, but I’ll drive.”
His wide smile filled her heart with desire. There had never been a time in their marriage when she didn’t want him to make love to her, making what he’d done even more painful. But she would work on moving ahead, starting over.
“Why do you want to drive?”
If she drove, she could control what happened after the dinner. As much as she cared about him, the date could not be about making love. She was well aware what would happen if she allowed it. He’d kiss
her, hold her and the rest would be inevitable.
She was not going to let that happen because she needed to believe he was truly changing and not just doing this to get her to agree to whatever he wanted to do about Emma.
She needed to be convinced that he was genuinely interested in her as a woman, a partner. Her confidence had taken a beating after the revelation of his affair and Emma’s existence. Grace needed to be assured that he respected her as well as loved her. Nothing less would do.
“Aidan, if we’re going to do this, it has to be on my terms. We’re in this mess because of your behavior.” She clasped her hands in her lap to keep from reaching for him.
The anticipation of starting fresh, of getting to know each other all over again thrilled her. “We’ve lived for all these years thinking we knew each other. Maybe we don’t. It’s time we found out,” she said.
“I’m all for that. What time are you picking me up?” he asked, a smile spreading across his handsome face.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GRACE APPLIED LIPSTICK, her hand shaking so much she was afraid of smudging it. She’d spent the entire day getting ready for their date, including buying a new dress in shades of green and gold with a wide skirt and a narrow waist. She’d never owned a dress like this one, and she loved the way it swayed around her legs as she walked.
She could still feel Aidan’s eyes on her as she’d made the peanut butter sandwiches with Emma, the rush of exhilaration when he’d walked her to the door.
After applying a bit of blush to her pale cheeks and putting gloss on over her lipstick before checking her face one more time in the mirror, she put her makeup away. Turning around in a circle in front of the full-length mirror, she smiled at her reflection. She felt so good, pleasure bubbled through her. She hadn’t been this excited in years. This was like a whole new beginning.
“Maria and I are here waiting in the living room to see you off on your date,” Lucas said, coming down the hall toward the bathroom. “Ready or not, we want to see how you look.”
Harlequin Superromance May 2018 Box Set Page 68
