The Matchmaker's Plan

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “Holy hell, Peyton.” He ran a hand through his hair, unable to believe he was having this conversation. “You want me to marry you so we can divorce as soon as the baby turns a year old? What kind of foundation is that?”

  “A good one. One that removes the stigma of illegitimacy. One that provides the opportunity for us to get to know each other. We’re virtual strangers now, but don’t kid yourself, Matt, we are going to share something very important for the rest of our lives. A whole new person. A whole other life. All the people who will interact with that new life, all the events that will impact it, will be part of our lives, too. We’re going to be spending time together and making decisions together whether we want to or not. How can we expect to raise a child who has any true sense of his place in the world if we can’t figure out how to have a discussion that doesn’t end in an argument? We can’t go back and undo what we’ve done. We can’t make a perfect environment from our recklessness. But we can learn how to be friends, how to parent together, how to parent apart, how to share the single most important job either of us will ever do.”

  She was utterly convinced…and almost irresistibly convincing. Matt knew there were layers of misjudgment in her argument, knew she hadn’t thought this out to its logical conclusion, but he wasn’t thinking too clearly, either. His heart had gotten tangled up in a few random words. A whole new person. The single most important job. They were going to have a baby.

  He looked at her, at the spark of conviction in her shadowed eyes, at the pale resolve that anchored the corner of her lips, and he was stricken with the inexplicable yearning to gather her into his arms and hold her there, their hearts beating out a single rhythm of reassurance to the child whose heartbeat was still, as yet, undetectable between them.

  “I don’t know, Peyton,” he said. “Marriage should mean something, from the start.”

  “So should making a baby.”

  He had no comeback for that, only a thick, achy guilt that lodged deep in his chest.

  She twisted the fringe again, gave a deep, long sigh. “I know this isn’t a great solution, Matt. I know it complicates an already complicated situation. I know it isn’t what you want and it certainly isn’t what I had in mind for my life. But we made a choice two months ago that changed all that. If we were different people, in different circumstances, I’d be the first to admit that marriage probably isn’t the best option for us. But we’re who we are, our families are what they are, and in many ways we both live in glass houses. Your position here at the Danville Foundation is all about image and my family is vastly concerned about the minutiae of fitting in. If I thought none of that would affect our baby, I’d be out the door and heading back home to Louisiana in a New York minute. If I could believe that being born outside the sanction of marriage would have no more impact on this child than a…a birthmark, this conversation could move on to who’ll buy the bassinet and who’ll get the diapers.” She released her hold on the fringe and scooted forward in the chair, preparing to stand. “I don’t expect you to agree with me, Matt.” A slight smile lightened her expression, made the whole office seem somehow a bit brighter. “Well, I guess I do expect you to agree, but I’ve had six weeks to wrestle with the ins and outs of this. I can understand that it may take you a little longer than fifteen minutes to reach the same conclusion.”

  Now, that was the Peyton he knew. “That’s what I like about you, Peyton,” he said with the easy familiarity he’d thought they had lost for good. “You may be wrong, but you’re never uncertain.”

  Her smile came close to full power. “For future reference, Matt, you should probably keep in mind that I’m not often wrong, either.”

  Strangely enough, he found himself smiling, too, as she stood and reached into her pocket for the gloves she’d tucked inside. Rising, he wondered if it was still raining, if he should offer her his umbrella or walk her out to her car. She seemed a little fragile…or was that merely his shifting perception? He knew pregnancy didn’t necessarily equate to physical weakness, and yet he was suddenly swarmed with protective instincts as he came around the desk and accompanied her to the door. Should he take her elbow, offer support? Maybe he should insist on taking her home.

  She turned in the doorway, catching him within her comfort zone, sparking the attraction that wasn’t supposed to still be there. She took a step back. So did he. “Let me know when you’re ready to talk again,” she said. “I’m going to Baton Rouge to visit a friend the day after Christmas, but I’ll be back before New Year’s.”

  “Should you be flying?” It was out of his mouth before he could stop it and he felt ridiculous for asking.

  She didn’t answer, just took her time, tucking the scarf inside the coat, drawing on the knitted gloves. “I’ll wait for your call, Matt.”

  He opened the door, kept his distance as she walked out. She paused, looked back at him over her shoulder, offered another small smile. “I’m sorry it happened this way, but I’m hopeful we can figure out how to be friends.”

  She was gone before he could reply and long before he admitted to himself that he hoped so, too.

  Chapter Three

  Christmas arrived with Ainsley’s giggle.

  Until she came through the front doors of Danfair, bundled in her Christmas tree ensemble, toting an armload of presents and a bubbly, excited air of anticipation, Matt had written off the holiday as a lost cause. He’d spent days in a fog of jumbled thoughts and fluctuating emotions, one minute angry as hell and raging with denial and self-recrimination, the next minute coldly self-loathing and detached, planning the most rational way to handle the situation…and Peyton.

  Marriage.

  As if that was a sane idea.

  “Matt! Merry Christmas!” Ainsley’s eyes shone bright with excitement as she came up on tiptoe and leaned over the stack of gaily wrapped packages in her arms to kiss him on the cheek. “You’re going to be so happy when you see what I got you this year! Ivan got you a present, too, but it’s not nearly as great as my gift.” She thrust the packages into his arms and began stripping off her gloves. “Would you help Ivan get the rest of the stuff out of the car? Where’s Andrew? What did he break this time? He was hotdogging, wasn’t he? Is he ever going to grow up?”

  She whisked off to the North Salon to find her twin, trailing coat, muffler and questions behind her, leaving Matt to feel that, at last, Christmas had come to Danfair.

  The house had been unnaturally quiet in the two months since Ainsley’s wedding. Miranda was seldom home, spending most of her time—and a lot of her organizational energies—with Nate and his kids, either at his coffeehouse, A New Brew, or at his house, which was only a few blocks away, but might as well have been located clear across the country. For all intents and purposes, Miranda had already left home. Andrew, too, came and went, camera bag in hand, following his own agenda, spending a good deal of time at his studio and using Danfair more as a port of call than a home base. He’d returned yesterday from his ski trip, sporting a bright blue cast on his right ankle, a couple of nasty bruises and a complementary black eye.

  As Andrew incidents went, it wasn’t that bad. He’d suffered much worse, on a regular basis, as a gawky kid, and could easily claim more scrapes, stitches, bruises, black eyes, chipped teeth and broken limbs than the rest of the Danvilles combined. Including cousins. Today, the sisters would give him due sympathy and tease him unmercifully for months to come, but he’d accept their sympathy, shrug off their teasing and be off on another quest the minute one called to him. In a day or two—certainly no less than a week—he’d be gone again, tracking the perfect photo op, searching for the one picture worth a thousand words. A broken ankle wouldn’t stop him. Nothing so simple ever had. Or could. Andrew had always considered life an adventure, a trek into uncharted territory, and the more obstacles he had to overcome, the more he enjoyed the journey.

  Matt had always envied him his daring, along with the freedom he had to come and go as he pleased. He admir
ed the talent Andy accepted as if it were no big deal and the privilege of being able to take his job with him wherever he wanted, or happened, to go. Matt could only imagine that kind of autonomy. His own roots were planted straight and deep in the soil of Danfair, in the history of his family. His career was anchored fast in the traditions and moral commitments of his parents…and their parents before them. His life journey had been charted out for him from birth. He was the firstborn son of the firstborn son, the Jonathan of his generation. The weight of expectation had settled on his shoulders early and he couldn’t recall a time when he hadn’t behaved in a manner that suited his position…a dutiful, responsible, diligent and gentlemanly manner.

  So how had he managed, in one rash, reckless night, to throw all that aside and carelessly wreck his life’s plan?

  And what would his family think of him once they knew?

  Matt could imagine them all supportive, but quietly, silently disappointed in his choices, in him. How could he expect any other reaction? They couldn’t be any more disappointed in him than he was in himself. That night with Peyton had been so out of character for him, he could still hardly believe it had happened…that he’d allowed it to happen. He had enjoyed the hell out of it, too, which somehow made the whole thing worse. In hindsight, he could view the event as a repercussion of the changes happening all around him, a reaction to Ainsley’s wedding, Miranda’s engagement and his own dissatisfaction with his work. After the fact, he could rationalize his foolhardy actions as an attempt to escape a life that sometimes felt too much like someone else’s. But in reality, that night at the beach house, the driving force behind his loss of control, the annihilation of his sanity, had been the sheer power of the sexual tension he and Peyton had been skirting for months. He’d been unprepared for that, blindsided by the passion that had virtually exploded between the two of them once they were alone in the forgiving dark.

  “Hey, Santa Claus!” Ivan called from the doorway, struggling to keep a grip on the mountain of gifts he was trying to carry. “Can you give me a hand here?”

  With a jerk, Matt came out of his reverie and hurried over to help, carting gaily wrapped packages from outside to inside, from one room to another. Gradually, lulled into reminiscences of Christmas Past by the blithe chattering of his sisters, he relaxed and let his siblings’ happiness surround him with warmth. It was, after all, Christmas, and despite his situation, he had much to be grateful for.

  Even without Charles and Linney, who had chosen not to come back so soon after their October visit, the house suddenly brimmed with holiday spirit and familial accord. By the time Nate arrived, with two bursting-with-excitement six-year-olds, two trying-not-to-show-their-excitement thirteen-year-olds and an abundant supply of Christmas presents, which also had to be unloaded and brought inside, Matt was feeling almost normal again.

  The gift exchange flew by in a flurry of ripped paper, discarded bows, thrilled exclamations and stacks of treasures. The morning passed with lots of laughter and the simple pleasures of a loving family gathering. By early afternoon, other guests had arrived—Nate’s mother, his brother, Nick, Ivan’s parents from Texas, a couple of Andrew’s friends, half a dozen foreign students who worked, in one way or another, for the Foundation—and before Matt knew it, dinner was on the table, enjoyed by all, and over. The guests stayed for a while, then trickled away to other gatherings or home. Ainsley and Ivan left with his parents, Miranda left with Nate and the kids, Andrew hobbled off with his friends, and eventually Matt was left behind and alone to contemplate the Ghost of Christmas Future.

  Next year, there would be a baby. His baby. The first new Danville of the next generation. A son. Or a daughter. Peyton had referred to the baby as a boy, but she couldn’t know. Not this early. Matt hoped she was wrong, that the baby would be a girl. Then there’d be no question of naming her Jonathan. She could have any name at all, a family name, a whimsical name, a name that simply suited her. If the baby was a girl, her future wouldn’t be laid out like a blueprint before her. She wouldn’t be tied to the Foundation and it wouldn’t be her responsibility to see that the Danville philosophy carried on into the next generation. If the baby was a boy, all those expectations would be his at birth. Which was why Matt had planned never to have children.

  Yet he was having a child.

  Next Christmas, his son or daughter would be four or five months old. If he married Peyton, they’d be more than halfway through the obligatory pregnancy plus one year commitment she’d requested. It seemed crazy to think of it that way and yet, over the course of the past week, he could see how she’d reached the conclusion that marriage offered a reasonable—and possibly the best—solution to their particular and complex situation. He didn’t want to believe it, but he hadn’t come up with another option that would provide the same benefits for their child. Or for the two of them. The truth was, they did live in a world of glass houses, where heritage and tradition meant more than perhaps it should, where appearance often trumped truth, and where a marriage of convenience, so long as it was kept quietly dignified, was considered an aristocratic bargain, noblesse oblige.

  A year and seven months. Was that enough time to form a family, however fractured its beginning and its end? Would that be enough time for two strangers to become friends? Or would it make them enemies, instead? Could nineteen months of a lie really give their son or daughter a better foundation for life?

  Matt thought the odds were against them, but he could see that the alternative was also a huge gamble. And whichever route he chose, he was choosing a future for his child. He didn’t know if Peyton was right, if marriage was the best course. He did know he intended to be a major participant in his child’s life. He knew he and Peyton had to put aside their own agendas and take responsibility for the life they’d created. He accepted that it was now their obligation to make whatever sacrifices were necessary to ensure this child had the best chance at the best life they could provide.

  Next Christmas, there would be gifts under the tree for their baby from family and friends. Maybe she was right and the best gift they could offer as parents was a unified front and a family that had, at the least, started out together. It wasn’t a great solution, probably not even a particularly rational one but, after much consideration, it seemed to Matt the most honorable of the alternatives before him. It was, after all, his duty to make sure that the first Danville in the next generation was born under the protective auspices of marriage, wasn’t it? And, if they were careful, diligent and responsible, then only he and Peyton would ever have to know the magnitude of the lie they’d be living. This was wrong. He felt it in his gut. And yet, how could he not take the chance that in the long run, this lie would provide the one truth his child needed above all others?

  Picking up the phone, he dialed Peyton’s number. “Merry Christmas, Peyton,” he said when she answered. “This is Matt Danville.” How extraordinary that he should feel the need to introduce himself to the woman he was about to marry, that he couldn’t simply expect her to recognize his voice. “I trust you’ve had a nice holiday.”

  “Yes, thank you,” she replied, her voice soft with hesitation. “I hope yours was nice, as well.”

  “It was, yes, thank you,” he said as if their stilted conversation was perfectly natural, completely normal. “Are you busy?”

  “I’m packing, actually.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You mentioned you were going to visit a friend in New Orleans.”

  “Baton Rouge,” she corrected.

  “Right. Baton Rouge.” He gathered his courage, prepared to fling his reservations ahead of him off the cliffs of no return. “Can you…would you consider…canceling your trip?”

  Her silence felt awkward, unencouraging. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve been thinking.” He cleared his throat. “Perhaps this would be a good time for us—for you and me—to make a trip to Niagara Falls.”

  “N-Niagara Falls?”

  “Have you eve
r been there?”

  “No. No, I thought it was a honeymoon resort.”

  He almost smiled. “A little more than that. The falls are spectacular…a natural wonder everyone should see at least once in a lifetime.”

  “You’ve been there?” she asked.

  “Yes. But not on a honeymoon. I’ve never been married, Peyton. I thought there was a good possibility I would never marry.” He paused before adding, “But then, you came along.”

  “I came along,” she repeated, the words mocking his attempt to make this anything other than what it was—a contract into which neither of them wished to enter. “And what will we—you and I—do in Niagara Falls?”

  Obviously, she wanted him to spell it out for her. “There are wedding chapels there, Peyton. We’ll spend a couple of days in the area, get married, and be back in time to announce our marriage on New Year’s Eve.”

  Her long sigh held regret and relief. “You agree with me, then, that this is the best alternative?”

  “Yes. Have you changed your mind?”

  “No, of course not but…you do think it’s the right thing for us to do, Matt? I mean, we are virtual strangers.”

  “Who are going to have a child together.”

  “Who are going to have a child together,” she repeated with deep resignation.

  “I don’t know if it’s the right choice, Peyton. I have no idea if we’re doing the right thing or if we’re going to wish later that we’d done something else. But it’s true that we live and work within a tightly knit, often highly judgmental community, and because of that, I believe marriage offers the best means of protecting you and the baby.”

  “It protects you, too, Matt. Please don’t pretend you’re only being noble.”

  He was being noble, damn it. She could allow him at least that much dignity. “Are you going to cancel your trip to Baton Rouge and come to Niagara Falls with me?” he asked tersely. “Or do you have another plan in mind?”