My favorite party jeans are skintight thanks to my post baby body, but fortunately they have enough spandex in the fabric that allows me to spread my legs and straddle Roman’s lap. His request seems very calculated. I feel so vulnerable whenever I’m in this position with him. He could ask me to do almost anything and I would say yes.
“I want you to slow down, Duchess.”
Yes to anything but that.
“What do you mean?” I ask as if I’m clueless to what’s he asking of me.
He raises my eyes back to meet his.
“Admit it. You didn’t stay at the party because you’re completely exhausted. You were probably sitting in the corner somewhere, sipping on a ginger ale, and fighting to keep your eyelids open.”
He’s exactly right.
“That’s not at all what happened,” I fib.
“Lying was never your forte, baby.” He pulls my body closer into his. “Do you know that it physically hurts me to see you like this?”
I close my eyes and snuggle into Roman’s embrace, listening to the beating of his heart. Sometimes the construction of the human body amazes me. The steady rhythm of this organ is keeping the man I love most alive and is also the sound that lulls me to sleep most nights. It’s a sound I pray I hear every night for the rest of my life.
“I’m fine, Roman,” I say in my most convincing voice. “Trust me, I would tell you if I was drowning.”
“Interesting that you use that word.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said that you’re drowning.”
“I said I would tell you if I was,” I annunciate my consonants to make a stronger point.
“Quiet,” he says, holding me tighter. “Just rest.”
My body curls into his, but my brain is moving a mile a minute. I can’t stop it if I wanted to. There are several more things I need to do before I can just rest, but I don’t feel like hearing any disapproving remarks about it. I need to pump my breasts, make some bottles for tomorrow with the milk, check some emails, wash off my makeup. Oh God, now that I think about it, I’ll be up for another two hours at this rate. He’ll be furious with me.
“Let’s get dinner this Friday.” Roman’s voice rumbles through his chest. “We haven’t had a date night in a while and Jade can book us something over at the new Italian place on Spring Avenue. It’s family friendly so we can take the little monster with us and then maybe take him to see our bench in the park afterward?”
Roman’s family date night suggestion reminds me of why I am in love with this man. He knows me so well and takes such good care of me. I’d love a night out that includes both of my favorite guys. I lean back so I can look at him in the eyes when I tell him just how much I love his idea, but he holds me, continues to hold me firmly by my torso to his chest.
“Don’t move.”
He pivots and lounges back on the sofa and pulls me down with him. As I lie on top of him, he runs his hands up and down my back. The beating of his heart sounds even stronger in this position and is almost hypnotic.
“Mmm.”
My eyelids flutter shut as Roman lightly massages me into a deep, relaxed state. Maybe some things I was going to do tonight can wait. There’s always tomorrow.
“Let’s hire a full-time nanny,” Roman says.
My eyes pop immediately back open.
“We have a sitter.”
“You use her sparingly. Let’s get someone full time.”
“You know I don’t want to do that. It’s bad enough we have a cleaning lady too.”
“But we can afford it, Duchess.”
Sometimes it bothers me when Roman uses the word we about his money. I never thought I’d be so sensitive about our financial situation, but I guess I want financial independence more than I thought I would. It’s not that Roman ever makes me feel that I have less of a say because he makes most of the money, but I am naturally prone to letting him have his way with buying decisions because it is his money. It drives me crazy that I feel this way, which is the very reason why I need to rectify it by generating my own income.
“You can afford to buy a private jet too, but that doesn’t mean you should buy one.”
There’s a brief and uncomfortable silence between us. Hiring someone full time has been a long-standing point of contention since my pregnancy that we will never see eye to eye on. He thinks it’s ridiculous that I won’t accept any help with Knox, and I think it would admit weakness if I do. I don’t need or want someone else raising my child. I can raise Knox and grow a business without full-time help. Women all over the globe do it every day, so why can’t I?
“If I thought buying a jet would be a wise investment, freeing up some of my time, improving my overall health, then I would buy one.”
“Then you’d be an idiot,” I say. “It’s an unnecessary extravagance that only speaks to your privilege.”
I roll myself off of Roman’s body and he releases his arms, allowing me to do so. The turn in the conversation ruined the mood for both of us. Calling him an idiot is tantamount to calling him stupid, which is something he’s never much cared for.
I leave the room and go check on Knox. He’s lying in the crib wide awake playing with one of his crib toys, and when he notices me leaning over the railing a smile brightens his face.
“Hey, peanut.”
I pick him up and we sit together in the glider that my parents gifted us. The chair didn’t exactly match the natural colors of the nursery decor, but Sloan recovered the cushions to make it work and now it’s my favorite piece in the room.
I’m grateful that Knox is hungry because my breasts are swollen with milk and I need to relieve them. As I nurse him, I close my eyes and attempt to hum a song from my childhood, but it ends up turning into the theme song of a television show.
Sing me a song.
Of a lass, that is gone.
Say could that lass be, aye.
I’m a mess. I can’t even get a lullaby right. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m so bad at this or the fact that Roman and I just had a disagreement, but a feeling of sadness overwhelms me and tears roll down the side of my face.
I don’t actually see when he approaches the room, but I can feel his presence just the same. Roman is standing in the doorway, looking pensively down at the two of us.
“I’m sorry,” I say without looking up at him. “You’re not an idiot.”
“You’re crying,” he observes.
“I hate it when we argue.”
“Then don’t argue with me, Duchess.”
“I’m not getting a nanny and that’s my last word on it.”
He watches the two of us for another quiet moment.
“Get some sleep,” he says.
The next thing I hear is the front door slamming shut.
5
ROMAN
I scoop a forkful of Juliette’s homemade pot pie inside of my mouth and revel in the taste as I bite into a tender piece of chicken. Joseph must have saved humanity in a past life, because in this life his beautiful wife cooks him extraordinary dinners from scratch almost every night. Tonight it’s comfort food. Another night it might be a lobster boil. The old man has always been a lucky bastard.
“How’s the crust, sweetie?” Juliette asks, as if there was any other answer but damn good.
“Delicious.”
My woman is many things, but a wizard in the kitchen is not one of them. That’s why I occasionally sneak back here around seven in the evening, because I’m almost guaranteed something delicious is cooking inside or on top of the stainless-steel Viking Range I bought Juliette for Christmas three years ago.
“I should teach you how to make it. Have you ever thought about learning how to cook?”
Imagine me cooking a pot pie from scratch. Not even Mr. Tibbs would want to taste a scoop of that disaster.
“This is becoming a dangerous habit,” Joseph comments as he walks into the kitchen.
“Be nice, Joseph.” J
uliette glides her hand along Joseph’s chest and then steps out of the room.
“What’s become a dangerous habit?” I ask as I continue to chew.
“You coming here for dinner.”
“I guess you will never get the hang of this father thing, will you? This is my childhood home. I’m supposed to come home and visit.”
“Not without my grandson with you.”
“Elizabeth took him to a mommy and me swim class tonight.”
“Then you should have come by here another night.”
“I see how you are now.” I take a swallow of my juice and bitterly wash down my last bite. “All you care about is Knox.”
“What do you want me to say? So glad you’re home, Roman. Please eat all of my dinner and while you’re at it stay the night in your old room upstairs and I’ll read you a bedtime story?”
“Listen, old man, this is still my house too, and if Juliette invites me to come by and have a meal, I’m coming. It’s obvious that she desires a little more normal human interaction than she gets around here. It’s called having a conversation. You should try it sometime.”
“Stop whining.”
Joseph pours himself a lowball of whiskey and sits across from me at the table.
“Uh, no thank you. I don’t want a drink.”
“I didn’t offer because it’s clear you’ve already had a few.”
He’s right.
I stopped by a local bar for a drink before I came here.
“Why haven’t you gotten your house in order yet?” he asks me point blank.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I take another angry bite of my food.
“You’re not fooling anyone. You’re not here for the pot pie or the chitchat. You’re here because being a new father is a hundred times harder than you ever could’ve imagined. You’re here because you can’t even convince the mother of your child to slow down and marry you. Face it, you’re here because you don’t want to go home.”
“I’m here for dinner. That’s it.”
“You think I don’t know you’ve been out for a drink tonight and the last three nights this week? You’re wallowing in your own misery, and for what? You have the most beautiful life a man could ask for.”
Joseph is seriously pissing me off. My relationship is none of his business. I take another forkful of food and purposely chew it slowly as we eyeball each other.
“I guess coming here was a mistake.”
“Have I ever given you poor advice?”
“You think telling me I’m being a pest and pitiful is good fatherly advice?”
“It’s best to keep people, even Juliette, out of your relationship. You already know what you need to do to make things right. Just be man enough to go home, stay home, and get it done.”
“As usual, old man, thanks for nothing. This little talk has been super-duper, not helpful, and you’ve ruined my appetite.”
I place the fork down on the table and suck my teeth.
“Since I’m your father, I feel obligated to give you at least one more piece of advice whether or not you want to hear it.”
“You’re shitting me, right? Your advice sucks.”
“I’m a happily married man, so I think there are a few words of wisdom you could accept from me if you were smart enough to listen.”
“My relationship is different than yours. It includes taking care of a new baby and a workaholic fiancée. Two things that you know nothing about.”
“You may not have been a baby when I brought you to live with me but I raised you up all the same, and I didn’t work my ass off half of my life for you to sit in my house and complain about your girlfriend with Juliette.”
“She’s my fiancée,” I correct his miserable ass.
“I can understand that it scared the hell out of you when Elizabeth got hurt last year, but sometimes you have to give people the space they need to love them properly.”
“You think I’m smothering her?”
“I think you need to get back to doing what you do best and that’s work.”
“You think I’m following her around the house all damn day? I do work, Joseph.”
“You take calls, you advise, you consult, but you aren’t out in the trenches working the fixes yourself anymore. You’re at home, hovering. You need to leave the house and not when you’re angry to go have a drink, but when you have a purpose.”
“That’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard. I have two people that need me at home. That’s where I should be.”
“And how is that working for you?” Joseph snickers. “You may not be my flesh and blood, Roman, but that will never matter because you and I are similar in all the ways that matter. I’m telling you that for many years, work is what fueled me, but loving Juliette is what calmed me. There is a difference between the two and you need both. You need to keep busy and stay productive or you’re going to be a miserable son of a bitch to live with. You probably already are. If you suffocate Elizabeth with all of your restlessness, you’ll never get her down that aisle. I promise you that.”
“Who says I can’t get her down the aisle?”
I take one last bite of my delicious free dinner, a sip of my drink, then I stand to leave.
Joseph simply stares at me with an infuriatingly smug look on his face. He calls me on my shit all the time and I can’t stand it. Why do I keep coming here?
“Thanks for dinner!” I call upstairs to Juliette. “I’ll see you on Thursday at five.”
“Oh okay, hun. You’re leaving already?” she asks in response.
“Yep,” I reply, as I give Joseph a displeased look. “I’ve evidently got some thinking to do.”
6
ELIZABETH
I’ve been sitting at my desk for most of the day working on my presentation for Cabot University when I realize that in the last three hours, I’ve only created one additional PowerPoint slide and have about fifteen more to go. My contact lenses have practically dried out from staring at the computer screen for so long. I decide the best course of action at this point is to take a much-needed break, especially after my stomach growls.
When was the last time I ate something?
I’m completely unfocused.
All I can think about is how tough things have been between me and Roman lately and sometimes I wonder if perhaps we both moved too fast too soon. Our chemistry burned hot and fast, our courtship was a whirlwind, and our engagement came soon after a lot of drama in our lives. Should we have slowed down and dated longer? If we did, would we even still be together? Would we have Knox?
There are reasons why some women tell you to wait to have children. Now I understand why. Roman and I weren’t together long enough or alone as a couple long enough. There was still more of “us” that we had yet to explore before we became this family of three.
I’m unsure if he feels smothered or stuck with me, but what I do know is that he’s been coming home late the last few nights and I don’t know where he’s been or who he’s been with. A part of me knows that he would never cheat on me, but a part of me wonders what he is seeking elsewhere that he cannot seem to find at home with me and Knox.
My cell phone vibrates on the kitchen counter while I’m seasoning the pieces of salmon I bought from the market. It’s Sloan. She doesn’t even say hello, she just starts talking, and as usual it’s about herself.
“Girl, I just got off of the phone with that guy I met at Zoe’s and would you believe he gave me some totally made up excuse to back out of our date?”
“I thought you two had a vibe going at the party?”
“I thought so too. Now, suddenly, he isn’t interested. Girl, maybe he’s married.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“It’s so weird though. He’s like the third guy that’s flaked out on me. It’s like they are all over me when we first meet and then something changes. Tell me the truth, Bitsy. Do I have bad breath? You know people never tell someone
when they do. They just talk about them behind their backs.”
“You don’t have bad breath, Sloan,” I assure her.
“You sound distracted. What are you doing right now?”
“Believe it or not, I’m cooking dinner.”
“Cooking?” She chuckles lightly through the phone. “You hate cooking though.”
“I don’t hate it. I just don’t do it very well.”
“So what’s on the menu?”
“Salmon with caper sauce, asparagus, and roasted potatoes.”
“Aww, shoot, not only are you cooking but you’re getting fancy with it!”
“It’s a Food Network recipe.”
“They’ve got mail order services for that, you know? They send you the meal practically made and suddenly everyone thinks you’re a gourmet cook.”
“You’ve ordered those types of kits before?”
“Hell, no. Any man I’m dating knows good and well that I expect to be treated out for dinner at least three times a week.”
“You’re so spoiled.” I laugh. “Maybe that’s why men keep flaking out on you.”
“I’m spoiled? Everyone knows that the dark knight spoils you rotten. So what gives? Why the elaborate dinner suddenly? I thought you’d be working on that PowerPoint of yours.”
“I just wanted to do something nice for Roman. Things seem a little off between us lately.”
“Off in what way?” she asks suspiciously.
“I guess he’s crankier than normal.”
“Isn’t Roman always cranky?” she asks, half-joking.
“No,” I say in a melancholy voice.
“You sound down, Bitsy. What aren’t you telling me? Do I need to come over there and whip some Masterson ass?”
I tear up.
It’s a good thing Sloan can’t see me because my overprotective friend would probably overreact as usual. Little does she know that she and Roman are alike in so many ways.
“Things are just… really hard, Sloan.”
“How are they hard?”
“Things have changed between us since Knox was born and I’m thinking, what if being with me isn’t what he thought it was going to be? What if loving me and Knox is harder than he expected? I mean, he’s never been in a relationship this long or this serious before and my body doesn’t look the same since—”
Masterson Made Page 4
