We ate from the same plate. He fed me eggs and pieces of buttered scone, and I fed him sausage and bacon and most of the tattie. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to eat meat anymore, not since our sophomore year when Naira had shown me a video of a cattle slaughterhouse. I was okay with fish though as my conscience wasn’t above my health.
We used our hands to feed each other, and while we ate and kissed and caressed, we made love to one another with our eyes.
Halfway through breakfast the sun came out, unsettling the blanket of fog outside and the haze inside us. A different, calculated kind of hunger overtook us then.
Neal took me right there on the breakfast bar. Usually, because of the extra height of the bar, he’d turn me around and take me from behind as I braced against the steel countertop. But today, we needed to make love face-to-face. We needed to reassure ourselves that we were still there, still together, that nothing had changed between us in the time we’d spent apart. He stepped between my legs, dragging me to the edge of the bar stool. It was atrociously uncomfortable. The bar stools were shaped to cup our full asses and not for hanky-panky.
“Wait. I’ve an idea,” he said when I winced and let out a loud, “Ouch!”
He reached for the kitchen towels and told me to lift my legs. He stuffed the towels between my bottom and the stool, so the stiff edge wouldn’t bite into my skin. “Better?”
I nodded, shifting my ass to get comfortable on top of the kitchen towel. I wasn’t the one with a hygiene fetish. Right then, neither was he.
He touched me then. Everywhere. He knew what I liked and what I loved. He spent a delicious eternity rubbing, teasing, suckling my boobs. I was so incredibly sensitive there that I was panting in no time. He could make me come just by licking my breasts, but he didn’t. He knew exactly how to make me sigh and what would make me tremble. When I reached for him, desperate and moaning, he knew to step back as it would drive me crazy not to touch him, and he knew when to lean into my touch and make me shudder with love. Make us both gasp for breath.
He knew I was far from perfect in body, mind and spirit. And I knew he wasn’t a superhero. But we were glorious together. Perfectly magnificent.
After, I wrapped my arms and legs around my husband and held him close. I couldn’t let him go. Not yet. Sometimes, this need I had for him embarrassed me, so I buried my face in the crook of his neck until our hearts beat less erratically and my limbs were ready to comply again.
We discussed Naira’s proposal while we got dressed for the day.
“I spoke to your sister too, for some perspective on the whole thing,” I commented as I sprayed moisturizer onto my skin and rubbed it in. Wanting to help my bestie out didn’t mean I wouldn’t do my due diligence.
“Which one?”
“Helen. Who else?” I shot a quick frown at him as he snatched a pair of bright green sports socks out of a drawer.
Our marriage had another ritual where my husband walked me to my office in the morning. We were apart so much that the days we were together, we tried to make up for lost time. The walk served as a warm-up for his daily run. Sometimes, he ran across the Brooklyn Bridge and back. Other times, his route took him to his uncle Liam’s place on Howard Street, just off Canal, where he’d end up taking a pint of Guinness or tea with his uncle with a dash of family gossip. When he felt inspired, he’d remain there for the rest of the day and worked on his metal murals as he’d set up a makeshift studio in one of the rental apartments his uncle Liam owned.
Apparently, today was going to be no different.
“You’ve been flying from city to city for nearly three weeks. How are you not exhausted?”
“Because I’m Superman?” Neal smirked, puffing his chest out like Henry Cavill.
“Narcissism is so unattractive. Although, if you dress up as Superman at my office Halloween party next Friday, I’ll have to reconsider that comment. There’s something about manly muscles covered in red-and-blue spandex that makes me...umm.” I closed my eyes and shivered as my imagination went a little wild. “Do you think they ever did it while flying? Superman and Lois?”
“We could add it to our bucket list. I’ve heard of couples attempting a shag while skydiving.”
“You’re kidding me!” What did I say? Humans were bat-shit crazy.
“Want me to look into it?”
“No thanks.” I shuddered. I hated flying. I barely survived plane rides where I was sitting as still as possible and buckled up. I was not going to jump out of one voluntarily.
Neal laughed, kissing me back to solid ground.
“By the way, your number one fan wishes to go on an Antarctica cruise for her birthday. That sounds as bad as skydiving.”
“Does she, now?” His grin widened. “Now there’s a woman after my own heart.”
I rolled my eyes because obviously the adoration went both ways. “You started this. You sort it out.” I poked him in the chest, partly to drive home my point and partly to make him stop crowding my space so I could finish getting dressed. “About Naira...”
Neal stepped back, switched on the flat-screen TV and sank down on the bed to pull on his socks, dividing his attention between the news channel and ogling me. “Aye, what did Helen say about her? And why is it obvious that ye spoke to Helen? Ye could’ve spoken to Flora.”
Technically, Flora was Neal’s cousin, his father’s younger brother’s daughter. She’d been orphaned as a child and had been raised by Neal’s parents, though not formally adopted. Neal and his siblings thought of her as part of their brood, but I didn’t think Flora saw it that way. Neither did I.
“Because Helen lives in India and schmoozes with the media there. Because she knew Kaivan Dalmia peripherally and knows whom to tap for information about him, and not Flora, who is studying to be a veterinarian in Edinburgh. Aye?”
Two years older than Neal’s thirty-three, Helen, though a little ditzy—scary thought considering she was the mother of three tiny humans—was a savvy judge of character.
Neal pinched my butt for imitating him. “Fair enough. What did she tell ye?”
I revisited my entire conversation with Helen as I applied my makeup. “Nothing the internet didn’t. Kaivan invested in gold options because he was tipped off about...something. But he lost a whole lot of money when gold rose instead of fell. So, he borrowed more money and tried to recoup his losses. Then the Indian government demonetized some Indian currency, and that was the straw that broke him.” I placed my hands on my hips. “I don’t understand. Isn’t that insider trading? But Helen didn’t seem to think so. She said that he played the market and lost. And that his information was solid and if luck had been on his side, his investments would have made him and his investors an obscene amount of money. But since the opposite happened, his rivals took advantage of his misfortune and made him a scapegoat, instigating the banks to foreclose on his loans.”
“Sounds right,” Neal mumbled, scouring the stock market footers on MSNBC.
I took the TV control from his hand and shut the screen off. I wanted his undivided attention. “I don’t get it. If Kaivan used a tip to bid on options, that’s a crime.” I’d been an ADA for two and a half years. I knew how that game was played.
“Not exactly, lass.” Neal sighed when I crossed my arms across my chest, meaning business. “You really want me to explain it all to ye right now?”
“Please. But do it on the move. I’d rather not be late for work.” I shrugged on a dark blue suit jacket over black slacks and a mauve shirt. I had a couple of courtroom stints this morning, and then grunt work for the task force for the rest of the day. We’d be examining and verifying a truckload of documents and statements from over three hundred female employees. What had been a civil suit against the factory for violating the basic rights of its employees, in terms of minimum wage and number of bankable hours, had turned into a criminal offense.
The factory owners—it was a damned syndicate—had been additionally charged with money laundering, immigration violations and human trafficking. That was why both the US Attorney’s Office and the Manhattan DA’s office were involved. It was going to be a crazy busy day. Hell, year.
“The way options work is that X is the price of a stock today but tomorrow it might go up or down. You gamble on that price going up or down. If you think it’s going down, ye buy the future option of the low price while selling at the higher price of today. Or, if ye think it’s going up, then you buy today and when it goes up tomorrow, ye make money.”
“That doesn’t sound shady.”
Neal tapped my upturned nose, clearly amused by my disappointment that nothing nefarious had gone on. “It’s not. When a person gambles on options in the kinds of money Dalmia played in, ye better be certain of the outcome. You could hedge the risk with insurance...which if he had done, it might’ve saved part of his arse. But, most of the time in deals such as these, yer assured of the outcome beforehand. Why would anyone risk that kind of money otherwise, aye?”
What he’d described was essentially the plot of Billions. “So, he was sure the gold price would go one way, put all this money on that surety and lost it all when it went the other way.”
“That sums it up nicely, my wee lamb.” Neal beamed at me like a proud papa while he put on his running shoes in the foyer.
I leaned against the shoe closet, sliding my feet into a pair of sturdy beige pumps. Or, I’d been about to when I remembered that I’d left my office phone charging by my bedside. I hurried back into the bedroom to retrieve it.
I had a bad habit of forgetting the BlackBerry at home, then begging Neal to bring it down to my office or to the courthouse. It was so convenient to have your home and office within a ten-minute walking distance of each other, and to have a husband who mostly worked from home and was at your beck and call—when he wasn’t traveling.
I walked back to the foyer. It was weird that while I often forgot the BlackBerry all over the place, I never forgot my personal cell anywhere. Handling two phones was a bother, but, as a rule and for full transparency, I had to use the BlackBerry for all work-related calls and emails. The DA’s office had its own private server that could be accessed from anywhere and tracked.
“But he must have done something dreadful to be arrested and have so many allegations against him? He can’t be innocent.” All three hundred and something cases couldn’t be fabricated no matter how corrupt the legal system was in India.
Neal followed me into the elevator and we rode it down.
“I’ve explained this before, hen. Things aren’t so black-and-white in India. They aren’t anywhere in the world. People with money and power rarely do things by the book. Dalmia may not be completely innocent, but I doubt he’s as culpable as they made him out to be, either.”
The explanation didn’t ease my confusion, in fact I was more troubled by it than ever. My daily horoscope was right. I’d picked up some rather disturbing thoughts from a friend.
“What about you? How by the book are you?” I leveled a look at him. Even if Deven, the sharkiest of all business sharks ever, kept the Fraser books, Neal had to be aware of...things.
Neal pleaded the fifth as usual. I stalked out of the elevator as doors swept open. I never knew what to feel about Neal’s businesses. And now I didn’t know what to do about Naira’s. Ugh. Why was everything about humanity so shady?
The doorman greeted us jovially, a finger to his hat, as we whirled through the revolving doors of the building and out into the streets of New York. At once, childish screams accosted my ears. Our apartment building was on a block that boasted a preschool on one side, a college on the other and a playground right around the corner. The shortest route to my office was past the playground that was always burgeoning with kids at any point in the day, any day of the year, rain or shine or blizzard. The littlest snot-filled ones made my husband go all soft and playful, while I tried to school my “ick” face as we walked by. Kids, as advertised, weren’t my thing.
I kicked up my pace, preempting Neal’s habit of pausing to watch the toddlers shriek and slither down the tomato-red slide, or cheer at the children as they raced around the childproof playground. Sometimes, he joined them in a quick game of tag. He was adorable when he did that, and it made me feel like Maleficent, casting a nasty spell on him when I stood there tapping my foot at the scene. I didn’t know how to be around kids—I couldn’t bullshit and claim there was a Santa when there clearly wasn’t. I especially didn’t know how to be around Neal when he was around kids. Which was going to make the next decade of our lives pretty darned interesting.
I didn’t like children—what? Wasn’t I allowed to even think it? Wasn’t it enough that I’d stopped saying it out loud? I didn’t want children. I truly felt no overwhelming desire to grow one and pop it out from between my legs, even one who might look and laugh like Neal. I’d been completely honest about my stance as soon as our relationship got serious three summers ago. After he’d gotten over the shock of my disclosure, he’d tried to understand my thought process, and only once had he attempted to reason my issues away. I’d set him straight on the score. I’d told him if not having kids was a deal breaker for him, then we should end it right then.
It still shocked me that he’d given in. Neal adored children. He was a terrific playmate to Helen’s brood, and to an assortment of pint-size cousins and godchildren. But he’d chosen me over fatherhood—chosen us. I’d never forget what he’d told me on a crisp October morning such as this, just as the shimmer of predawn had brightened the sky. We were practically living together in my tiny flat between the bridges by then. I was trying to scare him into leaving me, to go back to his large, prolific Scottish clan-dom.
“That is your idea of a family, isn’t it? A manor house, a dozen dogs sleeping by the hearth, half a dozen children playing in the back garden. That is your reality, your natural state.”
What were we doing with each other? I’d wondered. How desperately I’d tried to protect my heart but he’d smashed through all of my defenses.
“We’ll fashion our own family, lass. If it must be just the two of us, then that’s what our natural state will be.”
With those words, he’d robbed me of the strength to resist him. I’d risen to my knees on the bed we’d made good use of all summer and half of fall, I’d taken his solemn face between my hands and kissed him a promise in return.
A promise that had weighed heavier and heavier on my heart until I’d caved and come up with a way to have my cake and eat it too. I’d presented him with a well-outlined surrogacy plan this past February on his birthday.
We walked in silence for several minutes, basking in the sounds and smells of the city, ignoring the slight tension that shivered between us since the playground. We needed to discuss the surrogates, choose one of them, but neither of us had brought it up since Lavinia’s wedding. I wanted to tell him about Naira, but I’d decided to keep my own counsel until I’d spoken to her. There was no point in stirring up a hornet’s nest if she wasn’t interested.
We crossed Park Row and headed toward Centre Street, past the classic white-stone structure of city hall.
“How was the party at Roman and Jamie’s on Saturday? Meet any interesting Hollywood celebrities?” I broke the silence when I couldn’t stand it any longer.
More than his clients, Roman and Jamie were Neal’s friends. Roman Wilson and Neal had been in university together in Edinburgh. Roman had moved to Beverly Hills a decade ago to dabble in the movie industry first as the talent, now as the bank. He’d met Jamie, an award-winning set designer in her own right, soon after. Neal had reconnected with Roman since our marriage, and because he and Jamie had so much in common, both being artists, they got along fabulously too. Jamie had suffered several miscarriages before they’d had their first child through surrogacy.
They’d introduced us to Martha, the California surrogate.
“It wasn’t that kind of party,” Neal said softly. “I didn’t tell ye before, but Roman and Jamie have adopted a wee bairn from Nepal. It was her welcome party on Saturday that they asked me to stay back for.” Abruptly, he pulled me to a stop, his blue eyes roving all over my frozen face. “They said the orphanages in Kathmandu are bursting at the seams. If you’re unsure about the surrogacy, then we could consider... There are so many bairns that need a home, lass.”
His silence had been thicker than usual at the playground. The Wilsons had been the reason why I’d even considered surrogacy. And now they’d adopted a baby. Fuck.
No! Just no. I could not—would not adopt a child. Even though I was adopted myself—not once but twice—I was not a proponent of the system. Who knew better than me how quickly adoptive families could shatter? Or that even when everything seemed perfect, it was still a sham? I would never put a child in the untenable position of being at someone else’s mercy, someone else’s whim. I’d been shuttled between seven different foster homes while the family courts had decided whether the Judge could adopt me or not. It had taken several years after the adoption for me to begin trusting my situation, trusting him, and even longer for Lily and me to reach an understanding and a mutual tolerance of each other. She hadn’t wanted me and had made it clear in her neglect of me. Even now, we only got along because we’d both made a promise to Samuel Kahn on his deathbed that we’d take care of each other. And because Neal put family first.
So, if it were up to me, I’d eradicate adoptions and foster care systems from the face of the earth. I’d pour money and resources into building state-of-the-art orphanages and childcare centers that functioned like boarding schools. Then there would be no need to distribute less fortunate children to random families like day-old bread. I’d rather give them knowledge and skills and fashion them into self-sufficient adults who forged their own paths. Adults who wouldn’t be scarred by well-meaning adults and their constant seesaw of indecision. It took a village to raise a child, didn’t it? So create the damned village, don’t settle for a hut. Hire the right professionals, the right teachers and mentors, and not parents who were as screwed up as the children they were supposed to raise. For God’s sake, the adoption laws in this country were as slack as its gun laws. At least with surrogacy, we had to have mandatory medical and psyche evaluations for all involved parties, and the IVF process could weed out bad chromosomes from the zygote.
The Object of Your Affections Page 9