Just Married (More than Friends)

by Jenna Bayley-Burke

  “Children need a father.”

  “Which you have no intention of being. You’ll be traveling more days than you’re home. Can you really see yourself teaching the boys how to pee standing up or how to build roads in the dirt for their cars?”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head, his exasperation showing. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “No, I’m being honest. You ought to try it some time.”

  He opened his eyes to glare down at her. “I am nothing if not honest.”

  “You’re not even honest with yourself.” She pushed her hands into her hair and tugged at her scalp. “You’re only staking a claim to the boys because you think it is what you should do, not what you want to do. Just like taking over the businesses, repairing the castle, getting married.”

  “I don’t have a choice. My father is dead.”

  “And he was miserable, Cal. Nothing was good enough for him because he wanted everyone to sacrifice as much as he had. To live for the family and nothing else. Why do you want to make the same mistake?”

  “My father’s life was not a mistake.” He balled his hands into fists at his sides.

  “He was a financial success. No one can deny that. But you don’t think he was a good father or a good husband. I’ll never forget when they suggested putting ‘brother, husband, father’ on his tombstone and you said no. It cut me to the core. And I won’t allow my sons to feel that way about their father.”

  “You are so far off—”

  “I’m not. And that is why the boys and I will stay here. If you truly want to be part of their lives, we’ll work out a visitation schedule.”

  “I will not visit my own children. I have a legal right—”

  “Legally, I can. And I will. It may have escaped your notice, but I am a damned good lawyer and my firm is one of the most successful on the West Coast. I’m not afraid of Mickey and his team. In fact, you probably should have called him instead of your mother. She’s obviously encouraged you to do what was done to her, only I don’t need your money the way she needed your father’s. Go on, ask Mickey if he thinks you have a leg to stand on. Because you don’t.”

  She turned and walked as quickly to the house as she could without breaking into an all-out run. She wanted to escape, hide, make it all go away. She loved him so much that hurting him was like injuring herself, but she couldn’t allow him to hurt the boys.

  She’d want them and love them enough for two parents, and maybe by the time they were old enough to notice, Cal would have grown up and realized being a father was a verb, not a noun.

  “I trusted you,” Cal whispered into the blackness. Miranda lay spread eagle in the center of the double bed, the patchwork quilt tangled in her sprawled legs. She slept like the dead, something he’d always envied. His mind refused to slow without physical exhaustion, while hers could look at a clock, rationalize it was bedtime, and shut down for eight solid hours.

  She always slept like this, heavy and taking up the entire bed, no matter the size of the mattress. Right in the center, with her arms and legs reaching for something. Sharing a bed with her was a lesson in patience, but he’d learned to manage over the years. When they’d first starting playing bedroom games he’d retreat after, but somewhere along the way he’d started to like the way she owned the space, how she would reach for him in the middle of a dream. It would wake him, but then that would start the games anew.

  He leaned against the door frame and watched her sleep, studied her slim frame. She didn’t look as if the world had changed. She looked exactly as she had the day he’d snuck into her room at the house he’d bought off campus in law school. She’d been sound asleep when he’d sat on the bed, took her face in his hands, and woke her with a kiss.

  Every time they’d been together before that had been playful, a secret exchange of pleasure. She hadn’t asked why he was there, hadn’t demanded an explanation. She’d opened her eyes and opened her arms to him. And for that moment, she’d taken away the pain and the fear and by morning he’d been ready to face the world again.

  Their relationship shifted that night, though not in a way they ever named. Somehow that night she’d given him the courage and confidence to stand up to his father, to declare he had no intention of running Kerr Industries or being a pawn in a game of international business.

  He wanted nothing more than to forget reality and climb into bed with her again now. Just set it all aside for a moment and find something that made sense, the way they’d done after his father had died. He pulled at the tension squeezing the back of his neck.

  He’d trusted her with everything—not just his body or bank balance, but his very soul. When his father died, he turned to her and showed her places in him he didn’t like to admit existed. And she’d seen it, seen the blackness, the emptiness, without blinking. She’d taken it, shouldered it for him without judgment. And this is how he repaid her? By getting angry and defensive?

  After they’d fought he’d retreated to the office and blurred his mind with the battles in his inbox. He’d been head down, working to keep from fighting with her again, and when he looked up the world was dark. She hadn’t tried to coax him to bed; probably didn’t want him there.

  It was a loneliness of his own making. He wanted to be supportive, to be like the guys in the movies she watched who were excited and romantic. But he didn’t know how to be that guy. He could queue up a few rom-coms on his laptop, learn how to make her feel special and safe and like everything hadn’t just spun out of control.

  He could try to act like he was happy, but she was going to see right through it. She always did. She always knew what he needed, what he was thinking. She knew he didn’t want this, never had, never would. She knew, and no amount of flowers or balloons or scripted speeches of undying devotion were going to convince her of anything other than the truth.

  He’d never wanted children.

  Ever.

  And now he was having two of them.

  The ache behind his eyes hit with a vengeance, the tightness in his throat, the swirling nausea. The last time it’d hit this hard he’d called her, ready to beg her to come to him. But he hadn’t had to do more than ask.

  But he couldn’t ask now.

  He could never ask for her again.

  12

  “Where have you been?” Cal’s voice rattled her nerves. She kicked the front door closed as she made her way to the kitchen.

  “Out.” She plopped the cardboard box on the counter. He followed behind her, probably smelling the fajitas she’d picked up on her way back.

  “I don’t like this.” He leaned on the counter, his dark gaze boring through her as it had all weekend. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to go kayaking or for a run or anything. Just stare. Because that wasn’t awkward at all.

  “You don’t have to eat it then.” She knew he wasn’t talking about the food, but she didn’t know what else to do. Cal’s disappointment with other people she could handle. His disappointment in her? It hurt and she didn’t like that she couldn’t fix it.

  “I don’t like the way we are right now. We don’t do this.”

  “That’s because we usually agree.” She grabbed two plates, glad she’d thought to pick up lunch. Stuffing her face sounded much better than rehashing things.

  “I’m sorry about what I said at your condo. I was out of line.”

  She cut her gaze to him, blinking in surprise. “Yes, you were.”

  “I know you didn’t plan this.”

  “Thank you for that, I think.” She smiled, glad when his cool mask of indifference faded. “We should call a truce. It’s our last night here. You should try enjoying the place. We could go for a hike at the nature reserve or there’s a group of people from the yoga studio going sea kayaking tonight.”

  “Is that where you went?” He leaned across the counter and folded his hands together.

  “Yoga is a great stress reliever for most people.” Hunger panged her again the wa
y it had after class. She piled her plate with food, knowing if she kept indulging like this it wouldn’t be long before she ballooned. “But the prenatal class this morning was more frustrating than anything. I need to find something like advanced prenatal. So many of the women there had never practiced before they got pregnant.”

  He didn’t respond, just kept up the infernal staring. She felt the scrutiny like a collar around her neck and at any moment he might jerk her back in line.

  “Can you not watch me eat?” She carried her heaping plate to the table and dove mouth-first into grilled steak, guacamole, and chipotle salsa oblivion. She finished her first fajita before he joined her at the table.

  “It’s like we’re in a field of landmines. I don’t want to do the wrong thing.”

  “That’s how I felt about telling you.” She wiped her hands on a paper napkin. “I told you wrong, you responded wrong. We’re a world of wrong right now.”

  “How did you think I’d react?”

  “Stoically, with an undercurrent of resentment. The hurt was unexpected.”

  “I don’t resent you.” He scratched his unshaven cheek.

  Maybe not yet, but he would. As long as she’d known him, every time he tried to do something for himself his family reared up and blocked his path. And now, she’d done the same thing.

  “We’re in very different places about this. I think in time, I’ll get used to it.”

  “I’m sure you will.” Get used to it. Just like her aunt had gotten used to having a moody teenager underfoot. Aunt Cecile had done all the right things. Mira couldn’t fault her. But she hadn’t wanted to do any of it, and that screamed past her good intentions.

  “How long did it take you to come to terms with it?” Again with the staring.

  “With being pregnant? About two minutes. With telling you? I’ll let you know.” She focused on eating, on charred onions and bright cilantro, anything but the way he looked at her, as if she’d slapped him again.

  “I don’t want to make this harder on you. I know what I should be doing, I just can’t do it without it feeling awkward and forced.”

  “Try me.” She rested back against the chair, noting he hadn’t touched his food.

  “Okay.” He mirrored her pose and crossed his arms over his chest. “How are you feeling?”

  “Good. I don’t think I would know I was pregnant, except I sometimes get wickedly hungry.”

  He nodded, blinked, his expression searching hers. “Do you have any cravings?”

  “Not for food.” She didn’t bother hiding the grin, but he either didn’t catch the meaning or didn’t care. Likely the latter. He’d stayed in the master bedroom the last two nights, hadn’t touched her at all since he heard the news. Pregnancy had switched off his attraction to her. That stung her pride and left a scar on her soul. For so long that physical connection had been what kept them together. Without it, they only had these children he didn’t want.

  “What are your plans for after they’re born?”

  The gauntlet dropped like a lead balloon. She pushed her empty plate aside and rested an elbow on the table. “I’m mainly focused on a healthy pregnancy. The ultrasound on Friday helped ground things for me. I was so concerned with everything that could have gone wrong, and now I can look ahead to what to expect.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.” Something in his gaze changed, though she doubted anyone could tell in a photograph. He wasn’t concerned, he was on a fact-finding mission. And she didn’t care to play the target.

  “I called a truce. I’m not handing you ammunition during a cease-fire.” She got up from the table and then took her plate to the sink.

  “Why is this a battle at all? We’re married, you’re pregnant, I’m trying to do the right thing.” He stood and joined her in the kitchen.

  She stepped away, keeping the island between them. “You always do the right thing, Kerr. You do what you think people expect you to do. It makes you miserable and you hate them for it. I don’t want that for you, or for me, or for the boys. I don’t want them to grow up that way.”

  “You mean you don’t want them to be like me.”

  “Do you?” Her heart stuttered, her pulse racing to catch up.

  Pain twisted his features, but only for a moment so quick even a camera would have missed it. She reached for him then, but he took a step back from the island.

  “If I am so broken, why have you been with me all these years?” His conceited, all-powerful mask was back, and she shuddered. She’d seen him use it on others, but never on her. “It doesn’t matter. They’re my sons too. You’ll see things my way eventually, Miranda. Everyone does.”

  There was no reasoning with him, no negotiating. In normal marriages children stitched couples together. But theirs wasn’t a relationship of love and romance, at least on his side. For them, it seemed they were further apart than they’d ever been.

  Cal toggled between screens on his laptop, the family trust in one window, distribution contracts in the other. Work made it easy to avoid Mira for the entire weekend. Since their confrontation in the kitchen, he’d spied her through doors and out windows, but he had nothing to say. They hadn’t even been married two months and she’d already returned the ring, refused to take his name, and declared she thought he’d make a shitty father to his own children.

  Three sleepless nights hadn’t made the news any easier to wrap his head around. He knew he was bad with kids and didn’t have that biological need to breed the way his friends did. His godchildren were an enigma. He never knew how to react to random acts of hugging and offers to play. He’d ask what they wanted to play and they’d look at him like he had three heads and then run off. He’d never liked being a kid, and didn’t have any nostalgia about reliving those years. But what he’d wanted last week didn’t matter now.

  He had two children, and while they were inside Mira she had complete control of what happened to them. But once they were born, he would not allow her to dismiss his role. He might not be capable of being the kind of parent his friends were, but simply showing up had to be better than the void Mira seemed to want.

  Cal packed up his mobile office, keeping busy to avoid the conversation that had to happen today. She’d gone below the belt when she’d brought up his father, and if that was how she wanted to play, he knew plenty about her disapproving aunt and penniless parents. Just because she had been comfortable growing up with nothing didn’t mean his boys would experience it.

  He caught a flash of color through the window and turned to see Mira jump for something and then fall to the grass. Hard. His laptop dropped with a crunch as he bolted for the door.

  Mira was standing by the time he made it outside. “Are you right?”

  She smiled fleetingly at the familiar Scottish phrase, a holdout from all those years in Scotland for boarding school. “I’m always right, Kerr. You know that.”

  “I meant the fall.” With the golden September sun glinting off her hair, he rocketed back to the first time he’d seen her, staring up the steps of the law school. Her hair had been down then too, and tossed about like now. And just like then, the tension in his shoulders released.

  She held up a painted stick, a bright purple like the tank top she wore. “I used to be wicked good with the boomerang. I’d spend hours outside, just passing the time. I’ve been practicing all weekend, but it’s just not coming back to me. Pun intended.”

  “You’ve been tumbling like that all weekend? Is that safe?”

  She held her arms out, her short leggings and tank hugging her toned body. “I fell once. I’m fine. They’re fine. You don’t have to worry about us. Besides, you were tossing me around harder than that last weekend. But that was before you knew I was pregnant, so I guess that doesn’t count.”

  He winced, images of their weekend together flashing through his mind. It had been one of their better efforts, so good he’d blown off too many meetings to fly out this weekend for a second helping. Only he’d
taken a cold, hard reality shower instead.

  “Dr. Lambert said sex was perfectly safe, healthy even.”

  Maybe sex would fix things, bring Mira’s mind in line with his. Or scatter his brain entirely. He lost himself in her, and he couldn’t afford to do that, not with so much at stake. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “About Portland.”

  “I agree.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “You have no idea what I’m going to say.”

  “You’re canceling our trip.” She adjusted her tank top and he realized something on her body had changed. He’d thought she’d just been wearing padded bras, but the only thing beneath her top was skin.

  “Rescheduling.”

  “I’m sure.” She stepped onto the patio and tried to walk past him, but he caught her arm.

  “We still need to resolve things.”

  She shook off his hand. “Don’t you think this weekend is a perfect illustration of how things are going to be?”

  “I know you were avoiding me to prove I could get work done while in Washington, thinking that would make me agree to move here.”

  “That’s not what I was doing at all.” She reached up and pulled her ponytail tight.

  “I can review information and keep up on correspondence, but decisions are made in face-to-face meetings. I can’t phone it in.”

  Her usually bright hazel eyes seemed hazy, almost lost. “The ferry leaves in thirty minutes. My bag is in the car. I’m going to start locking up.”

  The sun sprinkled drops of light on the water’s surface, winking at him as if it had a secret. Talking with Miranda and her hormones wasn’t working for him. Time for a new strategy.

  Miranda parked the car along the curb in front of Rob and Molly’s new home. The house looked like all the others on the flat street, the front lawn perfect for kids to run through sprinklers or toss their bikes on the grass before climbing a tree. When they’d moved in a few months ago she’d thought it was too cookie cutter, too suburban. And now she wished one of the neighbors would put their house up for sale so she could move in beside them. There was a lot to be said for family neighborhoods once you were in a family way.