Anyway.
We both get engrossed in work through the morning, but when he slides in his keyboard shelf at about eleven-thirty, I hit save on the file and close my laptop. Before I stand and face him, I lick my lips and pinch my nipples to make them visible through my top.
“Are you very, very hungry?” I ask in my sexy voice.
“What does that mean?”
Seriously? He’s already heading for the door, so I block his way. “I thought maybe we could have some fun before lunch.” He meets my come-hither look with a clueless one. Geez. Am I losing my touch or what? I step forward, practically gluing myself to him. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Right. That sounds great, but … I really need to run an errand.”
“Now?”
“I … have an appointment.”
He’s not fooling me. I can always tell when he’s thinking like mad to come up with an excuse. But I sure as hell am not going to beg. I step aside. “I hope your appointment is worth it.”
His jaw works for a second, but then he says nothing and walks right past me and out the door. I’m so mad now that I wouldn’t have sex with him if he walked back into the room stark naked. Really. I wouldn’t.
I stalk to the kitchen, make myself a sandwich, and eat it while I pace and grumble. I’m too upset to write—unless I want to turn my romance into a murder mystery. Which I don’t. So I vent my anger by cleaning. By the time I finish with the refrigerator and pantry, I’ve figured out the week’s dinner menu with plenty of cheap meals thanks to Jeremy’s wine guzzling at Mama Mia’s, but I included none of his favorites. Now I just have to write a grocery list.
I’m sitting at the counter eating a strawberry Popsicle, my anger finally beginning to chill, when it hits me. An appointment? Ohmygod. Yesterday he said— I’ll kill him if he’s getting his hair chopped off. And yes, I know it’s his hair. And I’d probably go ballistic if he tried to tell me what I could do with mine, but he looks so frigging good with long hair, which is something not many guys can pull off.
But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he wants to cut his hair. His style has changed a lot in the last two years. His sexy highlander shirts stay in the closet, and he’s traded in his suede boots for tennis shoes or flip-flops. He’s gone totally SoCal casual, most days wearing a tee and shorts. In the winter he sometimes—not always—switches out the shorts for jeans and adds a hoodie. I miss Mr. High Tea’s individuality.
I’m trying to picture Jeremy with various hairstyles when he opens the door from the garage to the kitchen. “Oh,” he says, looking surprised to see me. “Uh. I forgot something.” He shuts the door before I can see what he’s done to his hair. It’s still pulled back … in a tail, I presume. A minute later, he reopens the door and steps into the kitchen. He pauses with his arms folded over his chest.
“What’s with the posture;? Spoiling for a fight?”
“I hadn’t closed the car windows.”
“And you complain that I speak in non sequitur?”
He shrugs.
“Why does it matter whether the windows are closed? Your car’s in the garage.”
“Right.” He turns, arms still folded, and heads toward the hall.
“Aren’t you forgetting something else?”
He glances over his shoulder but keeps walking. “I ate a burger while I was out.”
“Your hair, Jeremy. It’s short.”
“Just a trim,” he calls back. “I’m going back to work.”
Now I’m angrier than I was when he left. His tail is practically a stub, at least three inches shorter than it was. He cut it out of spite. I’ll tell you one thing, he isn’t getting any action from me today. Or tonight. And he’ll be doing the grocery shopping this week too.
Jeremy’s still in a mood today. He’s not working. He swam until he exhausted himself. Then he got on the phone—a conversation he took outside, so I couldn’t hear. Apparently, he’d forgotten that when I used to live in the apartment below his, I just happened to overhear his conversations. And though today he was standing too far away to make out many of the actual words, when I stepped into our bedroom, with the door open to the patio, it was easy to guess from his intensified Brit-speak and liberal cussing that he was talking to his childhood “best mate” Ethan.
Yet he’s barely speaking to me. Believe me, when I’ve done something to piss him off, I usually have a pretty good clue what. But I don’t know what the hell’s caused him to withdraw this time. I can’t even talk to my mom or Gabi about it, because they’ll just tell me to let him work it out on his own. Like they always do.
All I can do is wait. I hate waiting.
I’m still a little mad about his haircut, even though it’s really only an inch shorter than it was when I met him, and he still looks sexy. I didn’t tell him that. Maybe I should have. But if his feelings got hurt because I didn’t like his haircut, he already knew how I’d react, so why did he do it? Wait. He was in a mood the day before that. He went off the rails when he heard about Gabi’s pregnancy. But what business is that of his?
What the hell’s going on with him? It can’t be a problem with his writing because he wouldn’t talk to Ethan about— Wait. If he talked about writing with Matt, who’s a software designer, he totally could be talking about it to Ethan, who’s a lawyer. So why is he shutting me out? Oh, you fucking liar. He does resent me because he thinks I’m writing the easy stuff and don’t understand how hard his work is. Well, you can just suck it up, dude.
He’s sprawled on the bed watching a financial report on the Bloomberg channel when I stomp in carrying a basket of clean clothes. “The next load of laundry is your job.”
When I open his sock drawer, my heart stops. I drop the basket, sick at the sight of a box of condoms lying in plain view.
“Oh, shit.” He rockets off the bed.
I hold up the box. “What the fuck?”
“Well …” He finger-combs his hair back off his face with both hands and holds them there. “We need to talk.”
Oh God. Oh, God. He’s leaving me. My brain goes blue screen for a second. Then I explode. “Our first anniversary was barely a month ago and you’re already cheating on me?”
Incredulity warps his face. “What do you mean ‘already’? You were expecting me to cheat on you at some point?”
“Don’t be a jerk. You know what I meant.” I shake the box at him.” How could you do this?”
“It’s not what you’re thinking.” He grabs the remote and turns off the TV. “Could we talk about this calmly?”
“You want me to talk ‘calmly’ about divorce? Because that’s where this is ending, dude. I’m not your doormat.” I throw the box at him. “In fact, just pack up these and the rest of your stuff and get out right now.”
He doesn’t move.
“Did you hear me?”
“I’d have to be dea—” He stops himself just in time. “I’m not having an affair, Chelsea.”
“Don’t try to tell me those are old. They weren’t in that drawer two days ago.”
“No. I bought them yesterday.”
“Oh. So you went out and got a new haircut and bought condoms as the first steps in adultery preparation?”
He sighs. Then he crosses the room, clasps my shoulders, and looks straight into my eyes. “I have not been and will not be unfaithful to you. Ever. I love you.”
“Then why do you need those?”
“Could we talk?” He takes my hand and leads me to the bed. When we’re seated, he takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “You’re going to be upset, and I’m sorry about that, but please hear me out.” He waits for me to nod. “I’ve not come to this decision lightly. But I can see no other way to—”
“Jeremy!”
“Right.” He swallows audibly. “I’ve had second thoughts about our having a baby. Just for now.”
“What are you talking about? We made the decision to start trying just seven weeks ago. My cycle hasn’t even had ti
me to regulate yet.”
“I know.” He gets up to stand at the patio door, silently looking outside. For a moment he says nothing, and then, “I’m stressed.”
“About our marriage? About me?”
“Of course not. About—”
“Work? About your book?”
He turns, feigning a look of surprise. “You knew?”
“Come on, Jeremy, I’ve only asked you how it was going a thousand times.”
He nods. “And I lied about it in a thousand ways. The writing is just so much harder this time. Every word has been a struggle.”
“But I don’t understand what a little writing problem has to do with me getting pregnant.”
“It’s more than a little problem. It’s become a total block. And if I can’t break through it, I forfeit the advance for the second book, and that would wreck our budget for … a while.”
“They’d give you more time to turn in the manuscript.”
He looks at the floor. “Even so …”
Isn’t this ironic? I finally convince myself I can handle being a mother, and now Jeremy doesn’t want to be a father. Well, at least not … wait.
“Just for now? For a while? What does that mean? What if you can’t write this book—and I believe you can—but what if you can’t? What if you never write another book? Does that mean we’ll never be able to afford a baby?”
He winces as if he can’t believe I aimed so low.
“No, wait. That came out wrong. Well, I mean it didn’t actually come out wrong, but—” He makes a kind of strangled sound, so I jump up and hug him. “Don’t listen to me. It’s okay. Whatever you need to do.”
“We don’t have to tell anyone yet,” he murmurs into my hair. “I’ll think of something.”
So, what else can I do but stuff down my disappointment and take my husband to bed? I just assured him I was okay with the baby delay, so I will be. I’ll try to be. No, I have to be. After all, this is a disappointment for him too. No wonder Gabi’s announcement upset him. They’re having their second baby, but we can’t even afford one.
Okay, deep breath. This is just a temporary hitch in my Perfect Life Plan. He said he’ll think of something. We’ll work it out. But how are we going to break the news to our mothers? They’re both so eager to become grandmothers. Crap.
What if I keep Jeremy extra happy in bed? He’ll be relaxed and have a breakthrough with his writing, right? And then we won’t have to postpone the baby making.
I’m going to pretend it’s way back in the early days of our relationship. I can’t fault the first time we made love. I’d just humiliated myself (I thought) by flat-out begging Jeremy to have sex. But he followed me when I ran downstairs to my apartment, and we shared an almost mystical—and rocking hot—experience. The first of many. So yeah, let’s recreate that … complete with condoms.
We don’t often go seventy-two hours without sex, so he doesn’t resist when I lead him to the bed and push him to sit. Then I do a little strip tease down to my bra and panties, sparking a light in his sea-green eyes that wasn’t there ten minutes ago. He reaches for me, but I back up.
“Take off your shirt,” I tell him.
He practically rips off his tee and reaches for me again.
I shake my head, but I move close and grab a fistful of his hair, pulling his head back, turning his face up to mine. “Close your eyes.” I lean into his face and brush my lips over his forehead, his eyelids, down his nose, and linger at his lips, teasing them until they quiver. I pull away from them and breathe against his ear. “Lie down.”
He collapses, lying flat on his back, panting.
I strip off my bra and straddle him on all fours. He cups my breasts in his hands, gently, but I suck in a breath. Their tenderness breaks my concentration. Maybe I’m about to get my period, finally. In fact, I feel so wet, I might have already started.
“Wait,” I say. “The condoms.” I find the box at the foot of the bed and slip off my panties. No blood. I grab one of the condom packs and climb back onto the bed.
He’s obviously more than ready, so I go for it. God, he feels so good inside me. After a minute, he rolls us over and thrusts for all he’s worth. It’s almost a letdown when I feel myself start to orgasm.
When he collapses beside me, he’s panting. “You’re definitely going to kill me like that someday.”
Our breathing has barely slowed when I reach for him again.
He grabs my hand and brings it to his lips. “Give me a minute,” he says, laughing. “You’re really on fire today, wife.”
“Like you can’t imagine. Let’s spend the rest of the day right here.”
He grins. “I love a woman with a plan.”
♥ ♥ ♥
I’ve matured a lot in the last year—or at least I think I have. Jeremy’s three years older than me, but he lived a different life than I did, so he seems more mature, but you might not think that if you saw him and Matt together sometimes—or him and Ethan. I’d swear he and Ethan revert to twelve-year-olds when they get together. (Do men ever really grow up?)
Anyway.
Though we both work, Jeremy has this chivalrous streak that makes him feel he’s solely responsible to support us. Maybe that’s a reflection of the years he spent studying and practicing law. Definitely, it’s a reflection of his father’s influence on him—not that Jeremy would admit that. But because he spent the first twenty-six years of his life without money worries, I had to teach him how to pinch pennies after we moved in together. That’s sort of backfired on me now. He worries too much about our finances, in my opinion. For example, I know that whenever he gets frustrated with our budget, he considers doing whatever it takes to get licensed to practice law here in California. He doesn’t tell me that; I know it from his Google searches. I don’t have to sneak to see them. We share an account for Chancing Press, our publishing company, so if he searches while he’s logged into that, I can see the history.
Always before, he’s come to his senses. I mean, really, he loves being a writer and hated being a lawyer, so what’s the question? But he researched the licensing requirements again this week, and that’s probably what his secretive phone call with Ethan was about. Becoming a lawyer wasn’t even Jeremy’s choice; his father forced him into it. (Believe me, if you’d met Gordon, you’d understand how intimidating he can be.) Jeremy craved his father’s approval, so even though his heart wanted to write, he practiced law. He doesn’t like to talk about his time spent as a lawyer, so I don’t ask. All I know is that he was miserable. So what would happen to our happy life if he gave up writing and became a lawyer again?
I can’t let that happen.
When Jeremy wrote Hostage, he wouldn’t let me read it until he felt it was ready to submit. I didn’t question that. The storyline was personal, only a thinly disguised version of his relationship struggles with his father. (Which was a good thing because his father reading the manuscript resulted in the most honest conversations they’d ever had.) But I’m dying to know why he’s having trouble writing the first draft of this second book.
He never got blocked when we worked together on the romances. And even though he sighed and griped and scowled through Hostage, he wrote it in less than five months. Of course, that was a story idea he’d worked on before I even knew him, but still, he had to revise the first half and then write the rest.
Right now, he’s sitting at his desk, staring at the monitor, hands motionless on the keyboard. I feel horrible for him. And I feel guilty for not realizing that most of the time he spent gazing out the window he wasn’t arranging words perfectly in his head—he was desperately trying to find words. And he probably wasn’t playing all those complicated piano pieces for the fun of it either. I have to do everything I can to help him, to get this book moving forward so we can turn that spare room into a nursery and get the Perfect Life Plan back on track.
“Jeremy, you outlined your new book and wrote a synopsis, right?”
“
Of course.”
“Could I read that?”
He turns toward me, his eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“You’ve been reading my chapters as I write them.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“But mine’s just romance?”
“I told you I was not demeaning your ability when I said—”
“So why can’t I read yours?”
He doesn’t answer. But though he hasn’t moved, he’s not really seeing me anymore. He’s considering my request. After a moment, he turns back to his computer. A minute later, I get an email from him with a file attached.
“Prepare to fall asleep at your desk again,” he says.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Before I can open his file, he’s kissing the top of my head on the way to the door.
“I’m going to the club for a while.”
“Say hello to your girlfriend for me.”
“Ha. Ha.”
I tease him about Scarlet Johansson because once, when I was at the club with him, she joined us at the treadmills and asked if he’d signed up for a tournament. That’s when I found out he’d played tennis with her husband and other celebrity members, which he’d neglected to ever mention to me. But that was also before I knew he’d grown up on an estate outside of London and was no stranger to meeting powerful or famous people.
Anyway.
Jeremy’s sent me everything. I read the outline and synopsis, which looks pretty solid. Then, for the next twenty-two minutes, I read his manuscript. Twenty-two minutes. That’s all it takes because he really hasn’t written that much, considering he’s been working on it almost every day for months. There was no need for him to go to the club. He could have just taken a walk or vacuumed and dusted the living room or eaten a snack if he didn’t want to watch me while I read this.
Open & Honest (Sometimes) (A High Tea & Flip-Flops Novel Book 3) Page 4
