The Perfect Divorce!

by Leigh Michaels

  “You—” Synnamon was almost speechless with fury. She took a deep breath, and then another, before she could control herself. “All right, dammit,” she said. “Let’s take this from the top. How many times do I have to tell you this baby is not your business?”

  Conner reached for a spatula and lifted the very edge of the omelet to let the uncooked egg run underneath, against the hot pan. The motions were smooth and easy, as if he had nothing else on his mind. And yet there was a wariness in the set of his shoulders, in the way he held his head. “About this abortion—”

  Synnamon sighed. He’d know the truth soon enough, anyway. Maybe it would be better to sort everything out now. “I’m not going to do that, Conner.”

  “Then why did you say you were?”

  “Because you made me furious by assuming that would be my first reaction.” Synnamon sat at the breakfast bar, cradling her coffee mug between her hands. “But no matter what you want, I can’t do that.”

  “Well, that’s something.” He cut the finished omelet into two pieces, slid half onto a plate and surrounded it with fresh buttered toast before setting it in front of her. Then he fixed the other half, filled his coffee cup and sat down with his plate. “Why the hell did you think I was standing guard?”

  “Because you didn’t want me to?” Her head was reeling. “Oh, that’s rich. As if I could run right down to the corner drug store on New Year’s Eve… Well, I’m glad we got that settled. You can stop worrying about me destroying the baby, and I can get on with my life.”

  “Not so fast. What are you going to do?”

  “How many choices are there?” Deliberately, she let irony drip from her voice. “I’ll keep the baby, of course. What else can I do?”

  “And bring it up the way you were raised?”

  There was something about his tone that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. “What does that mean?”

  Conner picked up a bit of toast and systematically shredded it. “There’s more than one way to destroy a child, you know.”

  “Are you implying I’m incapable of being a decent mother?”

  “Your upbringing wasn’t your fault,” he mused. “But if that’s what you intend, this kid is going to be neurotic from the outset.”

  “Just like me, I suppose you mean?” Synnamon said icily.

  “There’s going to have to be some balance from somewhere.”

  “And I suppose you feel obligated to provide it? Look, Conner, it’s downright decent of you to offer, but—”

  “Thank you. You don’t know what that does for my ego.”

  Synnamon ignored the interruption. “But I’ve told you and told you there’s no need for you to be involved. It’s only going to cause unnecessary complications if you insist on playing any part in this child’s life. You’re being shortsighted and completely unfair to yourself, to me and to the child—”

  “If you want to get into a quarrel about unfairness, Synnamon, let me warn you—”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to quarrel about anything. I just want to get the rules hashed out right now, so nobody’s confused about where we stand.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You don’t need to worry that I’ll be calling you up to come to dance programs or piano recitals, so we can pretend to be a normal family.” Her voice dripped irony. “And I won’t expect you to follow the rules on visitation times, either.”

  “That’s perfectly all right with me. I don’t find anything particularly inviting about taking over a kid for every other weekend and a month in the summer.”

  The level voice was almost frightening, Synnamon thought. Not only hadn’t Conner reacted to her sarcasm, which surprised her, but he sounded as if he hadn’t even heard it. As if he had a different agenda altogether.

  “And I don’t plan to baby-sit while you’re out on a date, either,” Conner went on easily. “So don’t even think about asking.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.” She took a deep breath. “So what are you suggesting instead? That you drop by once a year or so, when it’s convenient for you? Look, Conner, if you want to do something nice for this child, why not make it easy on us all? I’m asking you one last time. Let’s cut things off clean right now and pretend this never happened.”

  He looked at her levelly over the edge of his coffee mug. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t see the child regularly, Synnamon. I said I wouldn’t be satisfied with the normal schedule for divorced parents.”

  Synnamon tried to tell herself she was furious, but she knew better. The ache deep inside her wasn’t anger, it was pure fear. “Then what do you want?”

  He crunched a bite of toast. “I want this child,” he said simply. “And I will not settle for less.”

  Synnamon’s heart felt as cold as the omelet that had congealed on the plate in front of her. She stared across the breakfast bar at him.

  She didn’t feel hurt, exactly, or even surprised. Her chest ached, she told herself, because she’d been idiot enough not to see what was really going on. She should have realized that Conner wouldn’t turn his back on a child, no matter how unwanted or unplanned that baby was.

  But this declaration was even more than that. He had matter-of-factly proclaimed that this child was his and his alone. It was just one more way he was like Silas Sherwood.

  Her voice trembled. “If you’re going to try to take the baby away from me—”

  “It wouldn’t be my first choice. Even an inadequate mother is better than none at all.”

  Relief flickered through her, to be drowned almost instantly by fury. He might as well have come straight out and said she was nothing more, in his eyes, than an incubator! “Then I really don’t see what you mean.”

  “Don’t you?” His voice was almost gentle. “You must not want to see, then—because you’re certainly not stupid.”

  Synnamon could feel her heartbeat. It was an irregular, dull thud deep in her chest, and it hurt.

  Conner picked up his empty plate and carried it to the dishwasher. Efficiently he loaded it and the omelet pan, filled the detergent cup and pushed the button to start the cycle.

  As if, Synnamon thought, he’d been doing it all along. As if he thought he had the right.

  Over the hiss of the water, he said, “Whatever had happened last night, Synnamon, I wouldn’t have left. Because, you see, I’m here—in this apartment, and in your life—to stay.”

  The expression in his eyes, she thought, was almost sympathetic.

  “In fact,” he went on softly, “for want of a better word, you could say I’ve come home.”

  Synnamon sat at the breakfast bar long after Conner had left the kitchen. The irregular rush of water in the dishwasher mimicked the flow of blood through her body, sometimes surging with anger and adrenaline, sometimes slowing with fear and lassitude.

  Home. The word rasped like sandpaper in her brain. It was bad enough that he’d come back at all, but to lightly announce that he was moving in and staying, that he’d come home—as if this had ever really been his home.

  He couldn’t get away with it, that was all. The first thing she’d do was call her attorney. Morea Landon, Synnamon was sure, wouldn’t mince words about Conner’s behavior.

  She left her untouched plate on the breakfast bar and headed for her bedroom and the most private phone she could find. Beyond the open door of the hall bath, she heard an almost tuneless whistling and saw a neatly arranged array of brass and rubber pieces laid out on a spotless white towel at the edge of the sink.

  Despite herself, she paused outside the door. “What are you doing to the faucet?” she accused.

  “I’m stopping it from dripping. Are you objecting?”

  She’d be a fool if she did, Synnamon knew, since she’d reported the leak twice already to the building superintendent. “How kind of you to make yourself useful,” she said sweetly.

  Conner didn’t even look up. “I’m sure you’ll find all sorts of ways
I’ll come in handy.”

  Why, Synnamon wondered, did she bother to bait him? It was a waste of time.

  She dialed Morea’s home number from memory and lay back against the satin bolster on her bed to wait for the call to go through. From the wall opposite, above a low chest where Synnamon stored her sweaters, the Contessa watched her. A much younger Contessa, painted by one of the most renowned artists of the day, wearing her trademark strand of perfect pearls—the pearls she had given Synnamon to wear on her wedding day.

  What would the Contessa think of this mess?

  Loss and loneliness engulfed Synnamon. What she wouldn’t give to be able to put her head down in the Contessa’s lap just once more and confess what an idiot she’d been.

  The telephone clicked, and Morea’s breezy answering machine message reminded Synnamon that her attorney had said she was going skiing after Christmas. They were going to Telluride, Morea had told her—and Synnamon couldn’t remember if she’d even mentioned when she’d be home.

  Synnamon put the phone down without leaving a message. She’d call Morea’s law office tomorrow, and if she wasn’t back yet…

  I can’t last till tomorrow, she thought suddenly. The longer Conner had to entrench himself, the more difficult it would be to dislodge him. She’d better do something, and fast, before he convinced himself that she’d invited him to move in and supervise her life.

  She found him in the small television room, flipping channels on her tiny set. “Watching the parades?” she asked.

  Conner shook his head. “Waiting for the football game to start.”

  “Good, I’m glad to know I’m not interrupting.” She perched on the edge of a chair. “Let’s try this once more, shall we?”

  “Is there something left to say?”

  “Surely you don’t actually believe you can just move in here like this.”

  His brow furrowed. “Why not? I’ve done it.”

  “We are not going to have any continuing relationship.”

  “Now that’s where you’re wrong. As long as we share a child, neither one of us can exactly pretend the other doesn’t exist.”

  “All right,” Synnamon admitted. “You’ve got a point there, but don’t you see that the baby is a different thing altogether? We can’t, personally… the two of us, I mean…” She was stammering.

  “Live together? Why not?” He put the television remote control aside. “We intended to, when we married.”

  “Well, yes. But that’s all over now.”

  “The important facts haven’t changed at all, Synnamon. We didn’t go into this marriage all dazed with romance and passion. We did what sensible people have done for hundreds of years—we chose, with our eyes wide open, to be partners. We married with the intention of building an alliance—and a family, if that was meant to be—that would last a lifetime.”

  She couldn’t argue with the assessment of their marriage. It had been far more partnership than romantic passion. But the appraisal made her insides freeze nonetheless. She’d always known he’d been as attracted to Sherwood Cosmetics as to Synnamon—but had Conner really not found her even minimally appealing on a personal level?

  “Then you changed your mind and wanted a divorce,” Conner went on calmly, “and because that was a decision that affected only the two of us, I went along.”

  “Exactly,” Synnamon agreed. Now, she thought, we’re getting somewhere. “And we also, if you’ll recall, made an agreement to be civilized about the whole divorce. We haven’t gotten bogged down in fights over petty things yet, so surely there’s no reason we can’t settle this reasonably, too.”

  “A child is not exactly a petty thing.”

  Synnamon took a deep breath and tried to keep her tone reasonable. “I didn’t mean to imply it was. I was just trying to make clear that under the circumstances, I’m quite willing to take full responsibility for what happened. Since it really doesn’t involve you, there’s no reason to quarrel about it. We’d already agreed to an amicable divorce, so—”

  “Of course, that was before we so amicably created a child.”

  Synnamon was speechless. She was amazed he could enunciate so clearly when his jaw was set like concrete.

  “If there had already been a child when you first asked for a divorce,” Conner went on, “I wouldn’t have been so willing to go along. I would have reminded you of the bargain you’d struck, and I’d have held you to the contract between us.” He settled a little deeper into his chair, as if staking a claim.

  “Conner,” she said desperately, “you can’t force someone to stay married.”

  In the dim light of the television room his eyes had darkened to pure, passionate purple. “Can you honestly tell me, Synnamon, that you love me any less today than you did on our wedding day?”

  She gasped. “That’s not fair, Conner. Love never had anything to do with it.”

  “Exactly. And everything else about our contract is still precisely the same, too. Except now there is a child— and so the divorce is off. You’re my wife, Synnamon. And you’re going to stay my wife.”

  The flat calm of his voice was more convincing than any amount of shouting or arm-waving could have been. He was dangerously gentle. In fact, she thought with a twinge of panic, he sounded as if he could afford to be compassionate—as if they were playing a life-size game of chess and only he could see the board.

  There was no point in arguing with him, of course— or even answering. That would have to be Morea’s job, she concluded. Synnamon had done everything she could do.

  But neither, she decided, would she avoid him. It was her apartment, after all. He was the one who didn’t belong, so why should she shut herself in her bedroom? Instead, she rummaged through a stack of magazines and curled up on the couch to read, with the subdued bustle of the pregame show as a background.

  On a normal holiday, she couldn’t help but think, she’d probably have brought a briefcase full of work home with her. There were always customer inquiries to answer, new-product data to read, problems to research—and the constant ringing of the telephone in her office made it difficult to concentrate there.

  Now all that would be Annie’s job, and Synnamon was reading magazines.

  A roar from the television warned her that someone had scored a touchdown. Not Conner’s team, she concluded, sneaking a quick look at him over the top of her magazine, since he was frowning.

  Or was he thinking of other matters, and not the game at all? The man couldn’t be happy at the turn his life had taken in the last twenty-four hours. Facing impending and less than welcome fatherhood created enough tension all by itself. Moving into the apartment and resuming the appearance of a marriage would be even worse… except, of course, that he wasn’t actually going to do either of those things. Morea would put a stop to that soon enough.

  She thought idly about what he’d said last night when he first came into the apartment. I had a few things to finish up, wasn’t that it? She wondered what those things had been. Had he, for instance, told Nicole Fox about the baby?

  The very thought made her feel hollow. With sympathy, she told herself. Poor Nicole must have seen her future swept away by Conner’s single careless act and his quixotic decision.

  Of course, if she’d just be patient for awhile… Maybe, Synnamon thought, she should make it a point to talk to the woman.

  “Hungry?” Conner asked.

  Her thoughts had been so far away that she had to consider the question. “No.”

  “You can’t live on coffee, you know.”

  She couldn’t quite keep the tart edge out of her voice. “Don’t you mean the baby can’t?”

  Conner shrugged. “Same thing.” His gaze wandered to the action on the field.

  She sniffed and buried her nose in her magazine. That was an unpleasant harbinger of things to come, she thought. If he was planning to be her shadow all through the pregnancy so she didn’t damage his baby…

  From a corner of her subc
onscious so deeply buried that she’d been unaware of its existence floated a hazy memory. Her mother had been ill one winter…

  Rita Sherwood had just come home from the hospital, in fact, and Synnamon, who’d worried for days about her absent mother as only a four-year-old can, had slipped away from her baby-sitter to make sure Rita was all right. She was hovering on the landing when Silas came out of his study, and instead of running down into her mother’s arms, she’d slipped into the shadows at the turn of the staircase.

  The conversation she’d overheard hadn’t meant anything to her then, and she could recall only the haziest of phrases. Silas had said something that sounded like criminal carelessness, and later he’d referred to my son.

  Now the meaning was all too clear. By that time, Rita had obviously held value in her husband’s eyes only for the son she might produce, and when her second pregnancy ended without Silas’s longed-for heir, even that bit of worth had vanished like the morning mist.

  And now, it seemed, it was happening all over again.

  Maybe I should pray for a girl, Synnamon thought. Conner hadn’t said anything about the baby’s sex. Maybe that meant it didn’t matter—or maybe he was enough like her father that only a son would do. Maybe he hadn’t even considered the possibility that his child could be a girl.

  If that was so, and the baby was a daughter, he might vanish from their lives, after all. As, for all intents and purposes, Silas Sherwood had turned his back on his daughter.

  It had been so simple, Synnamon thought wearily. It had all made such perfect sense. She and Conner didn’t want to be married, so the sensible thing—the only civilized thing—was to split. But there would be no recriminations, no anger, no fights. No bitterness, no resentment, no tugs-of-war over money or possessions. Theirs would be the perfect divorce.

  But now, because she had stupidly lost control of herself in a moment of pain and loneliness and created a life that would link the two of them forever, their perfect divorce was falling apart.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Synnamon didn’t get out of bed on the morning after New Year’s Day before she reached for the telephone and called Morea Landon’s law office.