I explore the house properly for the first time, checking out all the bedrooms and bathrooms, the room they’ve converted into a gym, and the study that doubles as a library. I move through each room like a ghost, my fingers brushing books and furniture, my mind in neutral.
I know what I’m doing. I’m processing, because that’s what I always do, and it takes time. I can’t just sit down with a pen and paper and work out what’s happened and what I’m going to donext. I need time for it to sink in, and for my emotions to level out, like an ocean after a storm.
Slowly, I wander through the living room, looking at the magazines on the table, the books on the shelves, the ornaments that the family must have picked up on their travels. A small hand-painted Moroccan ceramic bowl, sitting on the windowsill filled with loose keys. A carved Balinese wooden elephant, dark teak polished smooth from years of dusting. A delicate Murano glass paperweight from Venice, swirled with amber and gold, catching the late-afternoon sunlight on the bookshelf.
I pause by the drinks cabinet and look at the bottles of no-doubt expensive brandy, whiskey, gin, and vodka. I’d love a drink, but I promised myself I wouldn’t touch a drop after I started sleeping with Marcus, just in case I was pregnant.
My hand resting on my belly, I go into the kitchen. Ruth’s coq au vin sits in the crockpot, but I don’t want to eat dinner without Marcus, even though he’d probably tell me off for waiting. Instead, I open the freezer and take out the chocolate-fudge-brownie ice cream, choose a spoon from the drawer, and take them out onto the deck.
Curling up on the swing seat, I eat the ice cream as I watch a couple of rabbits come out and play on the lawn at the bottom of the garden.
At last, I let myself think about the fact that the world now knows I asked Caesar to give me a baby, and that my marriage to Marcus was a business deal. My friends and family, everyone I work with, will know.
That in itself is awful and embarrassing, but oddly I’m more worried about what it means for Marcus.
You’re my wife, Marcus said.And nothing is going to change that. But I don’t believe that’s the case. I think the board is going to pressure him to end the marriage. I saw his face—he thinks it’s going to be disastrous for the company, and I can’t think of any other way out of this mess.
I suppose the big question is: am I already pregnant? If I am, he’ll have his heir, whether we remain married or not. He wouldn’t ask me to terminate the pregnancy—I know him well enough to understand that. No, if I’m pregnant, I’ll be having the baby. I just don’t know how much a part he’d play in its life.
I suppose I can kiss goodbye to the house in Stanley Point. That makes me sigh. It was a beautiful place, somewhere I would never have been able to afford on my own.
But with some surprise, I realize that’s not the main reason sadness is swelling inside me like a balloon being slowly inflated.
I’m incredibly, unutterably, overwhelmingly sad because I know I’m going to lose him.
I remember the moment he saidYou want a baby. I need a wife and heir. We’re a perfect match. The moment I realized it was a business transaction, not a romantic proposal. At the time, I was gutted, because I was thrilled at the thought that he’d asked me to marry him.
I like him. I always have. When he was eighteen and he asked me out, I was incredibly touched. He was young and gorgeous, and he’d had lots of girlfriends. He was warm, funny, and sexy. The thought that a younger man might find me attractive was very flattering. But the age difference was hard to get over, and I was too aware of what other people might say.
And then recently, when I saw him at the masquerade ball, I was attracted to him immediately. But by then Cory had done the damage, and I’d formed the plan to ask Caesar for a baby, and Marcus didn’t fit into that plan.
And then he asked me to marry him. There were multiple reasons he did it. Me having turned him down, for a start. To prove to Caesar that he could win, for once. Because he didn’twant to lose the company, and he wanted to prove he was respectable. Because he needed a wife, and an heir.
But that wasn’t all it was. It can’t have been. If it was, he wouldn’t have been completely devoted to me for the past week. It’s not as if he’s done his husbandly duty, had sex with me, and then gone off on his own or spent the rest of the time doing business. He’s been glued to my side. He took me to Hobbiton because he knew I’d love it. He took me to see the puppies being born. He’s done so many things to please me.
And he’s told me he loves me.
I haven’t believed him, and suddenly I feel terrible for dismissing his words. If it was a marriage of convenience, why would he have said that?
I suck the ice cream off the spoon, resting my head on the back of the chair. Marcus isn’t the problem.I’mthe problem. The issue isn’t whether Marcus has feelings for me. The problem is that I know he has, but I’m terrified of returning that affection, of learning to lean on him and rely on him, only to have him leave me down the line.
How do I get over that fear? How do I move on? I don’t want to lose him, but I don’t know how to open up, and the fact that I can’t ever see myself learning to have faith makes emotion well inside me.
I leave the empty tub on the table with the spoon, feeling suddenly exhausted. I should go and have a lie down for a nap, but I can’t be bothered to move. Instead, warm and comfortable on the swing seat, I hug a cushion and pretend it’s Marcus, letting the movement of the seat lull me to sleep.
*
I wake with a jolt sometime later as my phone buzzes on the table. I snatch it up and check the screen. To my surprise, I see Aurelia’s name.
Two hours have passed since Marcus left. Has the board meeting finished? I answer the call, heart racing. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Aurelia,” she says.
“Hey. Is the meeting over?”
“Yes, all done.”
“Is Marcus there?”
