It’s all in her raging eyes.
“Good afternoon,” I greet her.
“So, you got yourself a rich lawyer,” she accuses me, pushing herself inside the house.
“Welcome?”
“Leave him,” she orders. “My son is just infatuated with you. He doesn’t love you. I still don’t understand how you managed to get Pierce to marry you. Are you pregnant?”
I laugh and shake my head. “You’re priceless, lady. I don’t understand who you’re trying to insult. Your son or me? But honestly, it’s not going to work. I’ve dealt with worse people than you.”
Pierce doesn’t talk often about his family. He’s mentioned a couple of times how vindictive, rude, and ugly they are with those they don’t like. His cousins are a bunch of assholes who try to take advantage of anyone who crosses their path. Pierce learned to outsmart them at a young age, but getting along with them is impossible. Dealing with his family at work is a hassle. I’ve suggested he open his own practice, but I guess he wants to continue the legacy.
I’m glad my grandfather sold my father’s assets because I doubt I would’ve taken over the family business. I don’t know anything about groceries, fashion, or marketing. My point is that not everyone is built to continue a legacy. Pierce thinks that Bryant, LLP is his future, but his ideas don’t fit with theirs.
“What does that mean?” she gasps. “I’m Sarah Bryant. People pay for me to attend their events. They seek my approval and my company. I’m important in this state.”
“You’re pretty smart. I’m sure you can decipher what I said,” I respond, crossing my arms because the old “I’m better than you” attitude gives me a headache. “How can I help you?”
She takes a step back and glares at me. Maybe this is why she hates me. I don’t put up with her dismissive comments and her aggravating remarks.
“Give me your price. I’ll pay you enough to leave him alone,” she offers.
I smile slowly and counteract her offer, “How about if I pay you to leave us alone? Maybe it’s time for you to realize that your son is a thirty-year-old man. He’s not a kid, and you can’t forbid him to have sleepovers with me.”
She laughs. “You aren’t the little lamb he thinks you are,” she declares. “He thinks he’s saving some poor, homeless woman, but you are here for more than a warm bed.”
I blow out a breath, trying to calm myself. Yelling isn’t in my nature. I avoid raising my voice during confrontations. What’s the point of spitting hurtful words and using loud volume?
“Well, it’s obvious that you don’t know who I am, Ms. Bryant. If I wanted to be safe, I’d hire a bodyguard,” I explain with a soft voice. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”
“I’ll make sure that this farce ends soon, and you won’t see a cent from the Aldridge or the Bryant fortunes.”
I’m tempted to tell her that it is totally fine because the Gibbs fortune is plenty for me. This isn’t a standoff to show who can scream louder, lash better, or destroy the other one. I don’t plan on doing anything to her. Unless she tries to hurt me. I hope that with time she changes her attitude because the only one who loses is Pierce.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask her curiously.
“My son deserves better,” she states.
“Better than what?” I am confused by her vagueness. “A woman who loves him, gets along with him, and wants to be with him for the rest of his life.”
I clutch my hands against my chest and gasp. “Such a tragedy. Call the elders to condemn me for this crime.”
She gives me a stern look and threatens me, “I have plans for my son, and they don’t involve you. The sooner you leave him, the easier I’ll go on you.”
I rub my temples before I speak, “Listen, I don’t know you, but what you’re doing is irrational. A parent should only want the best for their children and guide them through life. Is he making a mistake by marrying me?” I shrug. “Maybe I’m the one making the mistake. So far, I’m not amused by you and your family.”
She pulls out her checkbook and insists, “How much?”
“My love is invaluable, so…you figure out the amount. Then, multiply it times ten and send it to a women’s shelter,” I propose. “The next time you approach me, I hope it’s because you regret the unnecessary drama. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to continue packing.”
She huffs and leaves without saying another word.
“You handled yourself well,” my therapist says after I finish telling her the latest standoff with the Bryants.
Yesterday, Edward Bryant came to threaten me if I didn't leave his cousin. I hurt his favorite aunt with my poisonous words. I told Pierce about his mother’s visit last Friday, and then his annoying cousin, and his response was, “I’m not surprised.”
He wasn’t upset about the fact that his family came to insult me.
“I’m still upset at Pierce. I was expecting him to do…more,” I confess. “He didn’t show anger or call his family to put a stop to this insanity.”
“What are you planning to do if this happens again?” she asks.
I huff, exasperated. “There’s nothing I can do. He doesn’t believe what’s happening matters enough to do anything. It shouldn’t matter. We are married, living together far enough from them, and happy.”
I sigh, “But…why can’t he defend me and say, ‘Respect my wife?’”
“Some battles aren’t worth fighting,” she states.
I look up at her and nod. “Maybe that’s why he’s not bothering with them.”
“Discuss your feelings with him so you don’t keep everything inside,” she suggests. “The key to every successful relationship is communication.”
Well, he should communicate with his family and tell them to fuck off, shouldn’t he? How are they going to treat our kids when we have them?
Chapter Eleven
Leyla
A few months after we moved to the new place, Pierce became distant. His job became demanding. By January, he became a junior partner. Our life changed a lot as his responsibilities and caseload increased.
After two years of marriage, our constant is sex. He might come home late or leave early, but we never skip the daily love-making sessions. Sex with Pierce is always hot, passionate, and sometimes adventurous.
I don’t complain much, but being in charge of the kids all the time is exhausting. He suggests I hire someone to help me. I want to tell him that I might rent a husband to keep me company too. I hate to accept that our relationship is now strained. I want to work on our issues, but how can I do that when he’s absent?
It’s Sunday night, our second anniversary, when I begin to wonder if we are just roommates with benefits who happened to sign a marriage contract. Tonight, we’re supposed to be celebrating. Instead, I am by myself, staring at the melted candles, the cold dinner, and the beautiful table centerpiece I made for tonight.
Daisy and Buster lay side by side next to the table. Not even the dogs are in the mood to celebrate with me.
There are days when not being able to conceive a kid makes me sad. Others, like today, I’m glad because Pierce would miss all the baby’s milestones. He doesn’t even care that I’m not pregnant.
It’s a weird reaction coming from a guy who seemed pretty eager to have a full house when he asked me to marry him. I stopped taking the pill on our six-month anniversary. Nothing has happened yet. My doctor suggested we get tested to make sure everything is working. It could be my fault, since I lost a fallopian tube when my father shot me.
Thank you, Daddy Dear.
The few times I have been able to bring the subject of children into our conversation, Pierce distracts me with sex, leaving me satiated and flustered. Only an infuriating man like him can do both simultaneously.
I want to remind him that he was the one who said we’d have a bigger family, not me. Now it feels like it is the forbidden subject. Or one of many topics we can’t discuss in this house. Somet
imes I feel like I live in an imaginary minefield. If I’m not careful with our conversations he explodes—or leaves the room.
It’s past one in the morning when Pierce finally arrives. I don’t want to be that wife, but the first thing I want to ask is if his mistress finally let him go.
I don’t because his only love and loyalty are to his work. Another woman would just be taking his precious time away from his next promotion.
“Is everything okay?” he asks, staring at the table and then at me.
Daisy and Buster begin to jump around him, and he doesn’t even turn to look at me. He offers them a treat and walks with them to the kitchen.
I walk right behind them because I’m over this lack of communication.
“Where were you?” I ask.
“At the office, where else?” he snaps. “I never ask you what you do with your free time. Do I?”
His cold words feel like a blow to my stomach.
Of course, you don’t ask because it seems like you don’t care if I live or die.
“It was our anniversary,” I remind him. “Just thought we could do something together. As a couple. Sure, it’s not Hawaii like last year, but… You don’t care, do you?”
He blinks a couple of times, rakes his hair with his fingers, and sighs. “You have to understand my position at the firm. People are expecting more from me while others—”
“I don’t need a lame excuse. Save it,” I say, waving my hand.
“You don’t give a shit about my job,” he roars. His eyes burn with anger. “This is important to me. If it’s not some helpless or dying animal, you don’t care at all. I need to work harder because people swear I only got the raise for being Mom’s son and not because I work hard. It’s the price I have to pay, Leyla.”
My voice drops to almost a whisper. I look at the floor and say, “Our priorities will never be the same.”
I’m not sure if I’m disappointed with him, the circumstances, or myself. We used to get along so easily. We shared everything. He would talk about some of his cases and even ask for my opinion—not that I know much. Now…there’s only white noise between us.
“I…I’m sorry for fucking up.”
Is he, or is this one of his empty apologies?
I should remind him that most of the employees are part of his family. If anyone is saying shit, it’s his cousins who envy him because he is a better lawyer.
“We…next weekend, it’ll be different,” he promises.
“But it won’t because this is your new pattern. Our new life,” I say, focusing this discussion on us. “You forget, you missed, you can’t…but next time it’ll be different. I spent Christmas alone because you promised your grandmother you’d visit her. You can’t bring me because they can’t accept me. We’re supposed to be a family.”
He tosses his hands up in the air. His nostrils flare. “You can’t ask me to choose between you and them. I’m trying to do my best to please everyone. I’m just one person.”
“Don’t yell at me. We’re having a civilized conversation,” I remind him. “What is your excuse for the baby?”
“What baby?” he frowns.
“We’ve been trying to have a baby, and…well, I’m still not pregnant. The doctor said we should get tested to make sure everything is working,” I explain. “Each time I try to bring it up, you avoid the conversation.”
He exhales harshly and says, “Fine. You want to talk about this baby. Let’s do it. I don’t want it.”
My stomach twists and the oxygen in the room disappears. “You don’t? But we wanted to have children,” I mumble.
He gives me a confused and angry look. “What gave you the idea that I wanted kids in the first place?”
My thoughts come to a complete stop, and I blink a couple of times before I am able to speak. “What?”
“When did we agree on having kids?” His tone is condescending. “At what moment in our relationship did I give you the remote impression that I wanted a child in our lives?”
“When you suggested we go to the DMV and get a marriage license. You said something along the lines of having a bigger house to fill it with kids.”
He points at the dogs, “I referred to them. The horses, the dogs, we now have an alpaca and the chickens—our family is growing.”
“But you said…” His intense green eyes flash anger. This is worse than those nightmares when I’m dying and no one comes to pick me up. When did we become strangers? This man… I barely recognize him.
This isn’t just disappointment. It is searing, raw pain. We are living different lives. Our expectations changed, or maybe they were never the same. All I know is that our frequencies have been parallel from one another for quite some time.
And this confirms it.
“I thought that you inferred children,” I say it, even when the words are useless. This conversation is maybe two years old. Perhaps it’s not as old, but it’s overdue. “When I told you I was going to go off the pill, you were happy about it,”
“I don’t see the point of you taking that shit,” he says with such disdain that I actually want to slap him, and I don’t believe in physical force.
“I asked my doctor to prescribe it so I wouldn’t get pregnant, and we could stop using condoms. Not taking it implies having babies,” I snap, and I hate my condescending, angry, and loud voice. I take a few calm breaths. “I told you that too. Every time I get my period you…”
Registering all the times that I’ve come to him to give him the bad news I realize he wasn’t sad. He was avoiding the subject.
“You didn’t care, did you? You actually didn’t give a shit that I was heartbroken.”
I fight the tears, the anger, the disappointment. We need to see this conversation through. When did I lose my big guy? I had a hunch that he was gone, but I was in denial.
“We have never discussed the possibilities of having a baby, or I would’ve set you straight,” he dares to say, and I pray for strength because I’m about to punch him.
“When I see a baby, and I point at it and say, ‘I want one,’ it gives you a clear message that says, ‘I. Want. A. Baby.’ I am implying that I want us to have one. There’s no obscure meaning behind my words. So, are you telling me that you never wanted children?”
He shakes his head. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Why would I ever want to bring a creature into this world?”
An hour ago, I could answer the question without prompting. Right now, I don’t even know how to address him anymore.
“You never told me that,” and before he says anything, I add, “Not even when I’ve said, ‘I want one.’ So, if I get pregnant?”
The answer scares me. I’m okay being on my own, but what if he leaves me because I’m having his baby? He’s not with you anymore, the voice of reason screams at me.
He rubs the back of his neck, giving me a stiff smile that hardens his features. “You won’t. It can’t happen.”
“You say it, so sure of yourself. Why?” I ask, bracing myself to hear some childhood tragedy.
Mumps, an accident…why can’t he have children?
“I got a vasectomy years ago,” he says, and I want to slap him because that’s the kind of information you share with your wife—the one who has been trying to have our baby for so long.
“You lied to me,” I accuse him.
“No,” he states.
“By omission,” I retort, and I want to hurt him the same way I am hurting.
It seems like I lost my husband, I’m losing the family he never promised, and I’ve been hard on myself for something he did.
He kept all this to himself—like everything else.
“How long ago did you get the vasectomy?” I ask, because what if he did it when we got married and didn’t tell me.
“It was right after Carter died,” he states, and I stare at him, waiting for more. “I never wanted children. When he died, the whole situation was too fucked up to want a family. I just too
k care of the issue from the root.”
“Who is Carter?” I ask, because… “Did you have a baby when you were younger?”
My heart breaks for him.
“No. Aren’t you listening to our conversation?” he asks, exasperated.
“You’re not making sense,” I respond.
“Well, I don’t want children. Why would I have a baby? Carter was… It doesn’t matter who he was, okay,” he concludes. “I already knew I didn’t want to be a father, but I did what was best for everyone after he died. While growing up, my grandmother and my grandfather always said, ‘If he had a vasectomy, no one would be having these kinds of problems.’”
I laugh at the irony of this conversation. It’s the first time we are trying to communicate, and I’m learning that this man has been hiding important information from me. I want to ask about his grandparents, Carter, the shit show…but I have the feeling that he will answer, “It doesn’t matter.” Because nothing matters to him—not even us.
“You know what I think?” I ask rhetorically. “I think that you hoped I’d stay quiet and would never ask you for more than you have given me. Maybe that’s been my mistake since we met. You gave me a hand. I took it and gifted you my heart and my soul. You…you never opened up after that.”
“Don’t twist this, Leyla,” his volume is loud, but his words come out shaky.
“Now you’re going to invalidate my feelings,” I challenge him. “That’s how I see it and feel it, Pierce. You gave me a morsel of love. I’m not worth more than sex at midnight, and if I’m lucky, in the morning.”
“What are you saying?”
“I. Want. More,” I almost spell each word, and my voice becomes demanding but not forceful.
“Can’t you be happy with what we have? I mean, why would you want to have a kid? Aren’t you afraid that it’ll come out like your father?”
I gasp and close my eyes, trying to compose myself. There are a few things that trigger me, and that is one of them. I can’t look at him. He knows I live terrified of what Dad did to our family.
And what if I do the same to those who I love?
Defying Our Forever (The Baker’s Creek Billionaire Brothers Book 3) Page 7
