Something Better

by Gail R Delaney

  She heard the front door close, and looked up to see Lawrence standing in the entryway, his hands pushed into his pants pockets, a forced smile on his face. Andi much preferred when he scowled, because at least then she knew what to expect. When he smiled, anything could happen.

  Jake looked at the pan and grinned. "Are you making chicken?" She nodded. "They way I like it?"

  Andi nodded again, grinning. "Yep. With broccoli and cheesy rice."

  "Awesome!"

  She kept her arm around him, not quite ready to let go, and took a quick inventory. He looked the same as he did on Sunday, but she still needed to know he was okay. Her chest hurt from a mixture of heartache that he'd been gone and joy that he was home again.

  "And we're having chocolate cream pie for dessert. Maggie is making homemade whipped cream, just for you."

  Jake hugged her again. Past him, Lawrence watched silently. He still smiled, but it was strained and tight... disapproving. Andi kissed her son's hair and rubbed his back. "Why don't you take your bag to your room? Maggie will be home soon."

  Jake darted away and snatched his bag from the floor near the door. He stopped short of the stairs, looking back at Andi with only a brief glance toward his father. "Mom?"

  "Yes, honey?"

  "Is David coming for dinner?"

  Andi smiled, drawing in a slow breath before she answered. She didn't look toward Lawrence at all. "He had to return to the set today, but he's going to try and make it."

  Jake grinned wide. "Great. I told him I was going to beat him good next time we played Super Mario." Then he was gone, bounding up the stairs.

  "Home safe and sound, and none the worse for wear," Lawrence said once silence settled in the kitchen.

  That's debatable.

  Andi drew in a fortifying breath and leaned back against the edge of the counter, turning her attention to him. He'd taken a few more steps into the kitchen, standing at the end of the counter near the tall stool chairs. It took her time to get used to being around her ex husband. She had to build immunity to the nausea and revulsion. Sunday had been the worst, following very closely by Monday, but only because he'd caught her off guard so soon after learning about the photographs. But, in five days, she'd built up the walls again -- brick by brick -- until he was just an annoyance.

  Still, an annoyance that made her insides crawl and her stomach clench.

  She turned away from him, retrieving the package of thawed chicken breasts from the cold water in the sink. Andi sensed him move closer, but refused to turn. With the chicken washed, she set to making Jake's favorite meal... a concoction she'd created in a desperate attempt at having something 'different'. Lawrence cleared his throat.

  "Did you need something else?" she asked, not looking up from her task.

  When he didn't answer after several moments, Andi looked up and stilled. Lawrence stood just a couple feet away from her, his head tilted slightly with a strange smile on his face as he watched her. A chill moved up her spine and the hair on the back of her neck stood up, making her skin tingle. It was all she could do not to twitch.

  "What are you looking at?"

  "You..." he answered, his voice softer. "I never stopped long enough to watch you when we were married. To watch you move, doing something as simple as making dinner. You can be very graceful, Andrea."

  A sneer threatened to pull at her lips, but she didn't allow it, going to the sink to wash her hands. "I have things to do before dinner. You didn't answer me. Is there something else you need?"

  "You."

  Andi spun around, water dripping on the counter and floor from her wet fingers. She stared at him, unable to process an adequate response. Lawrence took a step toward her, and she sidestepped him, retrieving a paper towel to dry her hands.

  "Andrea, I meant it when I said I wanted to make us a family again. I didn't handle it well. Margaret Connelly has a way of digging at me, you know that, and I wasn't expecting another man to be at my son's birthday party."

  "Kind of like I wasn't expecting to find you mid-fellatio with Leslie?"

  Lawrence blinked slowly, lowering his head in a slow nod. "I deserve that."

  "You deserve more than that, but I find as of late that I don't care enough to expend the energy required to tell you exactly what you deserve to hear." Andi walked around him to throw the paper towel in the trash, turning with one hand on her hip and the other on the counter. "The fact of the matter is, Lawrence, that I don't give enough of a damn about you or your wife or anything about your life to comment. You are my son's father, and for that reason and that reason alone, I tolerate you."

  His smile slipped away, but came quickly back into place. "I'm not going to give up easily, Andrea."

  "I don't care if you give up easily, or give up hard, just give up."

  She was exceptionally proud of her ability to keep her voice level. In fact, it wasn't all that hard.

  He pressed his lips together and looked at the plate of chicken. "Should I assume then that I won't receive an invitation to dinner?"

  "I didn't make enough," she ground out.

  When he looked at her again, the smile was still firmly in place but his eyes had taken on a cold edge. In that, Andi was either blessed or cursed. She recognized the edge. His opponents in the courtroom might not be able to see past the charming smile, but she'd been the recipient of those cold stares enough to recognize them. Despite her previous pride in remaining unfazed by Lawrence, her blood chilled just a little.

  "You made enough for David Bishop, though."

  She didn't answer, just stared back. Lawrence drew in a slow breath through his nose, releasing it just as slowly. He touched the counter with his manicured fingertips, rubbing at the granite as if removing a spot. "I've been doing some research on him since we met the other day."

  "Let me help you out," she said with her most pleasant smile before rattling off the website address she'd used herself to read about him.

  "Oh, I've looked there. Several other places, too. Your David has had a very colorful life... filled with plenty of beautiful women."

  Andi crossed her arms over her body, pressing her lips together. She didn't know where he was going with this line of conversation... and yet, a cold lump formed in her chest because she feared where it might go.

  "I have to wonder what he's doing with..." He trailed off and moved his gaze over her from head to toe. Today she'd returned to the comfort and coolness of her sundresses, knowing that David seemed to like her in them. But, under Lawrence's cold stare, she immediately felt like the frumpy, unattractive lump he'd reduced her to before she finally left. "Someone as simple as you, Andrea. Don't get me wrong, you're not too hard on the eyes, but in comparison to Josie Connors and Rachel Leighton..." Again, he let what was left unsaid sink in.

  She had nothing to say in return, and the fact that he'd left her speechless sat in her throat like a chunk of ice. Andi had thought it early on, wondered why David would want her, but he'd come a long way in convincing her he did so the reasons hadn't mattered. Until this moment. And she hated Lawrence for making her question it all over again... no matter how hard she tried not to. She looked away, using sheer willpower to keep back the tears that threatened to fill her eyes

  "Andrea, I would hate to see you hurt."

  "Bull," she snapped, looking at him again. "You'd love to see me hurt. Liar."

  "No, you're wrong." He took a step toward her and Andi straightened, holding her breath. "I never intended to cause you pain, and if I can save you from it, I will. Just think on this, Andrea... and I truly don't bring this up to be cruel... but, you know our sexual relations were less than satisfying."

  Just that statement sliced through her with the ferocity of a knife. Her heart hurt, and he hadn't delivered the worst of his words, she knew that much.

  Lawrence took a step closer and leaned in, dropping his voice so there would be no chance of anyone else -- even if someone had been in the room to witness his 'act of kindness
' -- to hear his words. "I can only assume that the two of you are not lovers. Because, Andrea, how long do you think a man like David Bishop will stay once he takes you to bed?"

  "Get out," she hissed through clenched teeth.

  Lawrence took a step back, a false expression of sympathy painted on his face. "I'm willing to accept your shortcomings, Andrea, because I know your strengths and I'm willing to take the good with the bad. Can David Bishop say the same? Will he?"

  "And am I to take the good with the bad?" she forced herself to ask. "I'm supposed to graciously crawl back to my position as your wife because you accept me, and in return what am I to accept?"

  "You had a good life with me, Andrea. You can't tell me it wasn't, because then you would be the liar." He turned away and walked nearly to the door before turning again. "Think about what I said... and look at your boyfriend with a realistic view. Look to the future. What do you see?"

  Then he left, closing the door carefully behind him. Andi closed her eyes and tried to swallow against the desert now in her throat. With shaking hands, she put the pan of chicken in the refrigerator to cook later and forced herself to drink a glass of water. It would be another hour before she needed to start dinner. A good hour to gather herself again and bury the bitter doubt Lawrence had once again managed to harvest in her. She didn't know what she hated more... that he stirred up the dark thoughts in her, or that some part of her believed him.

  Lawrence was the only man she'd ever been with intimately. She was twenty when she gave up her virginity... she didn't lose it, she knew exactly where it was going. At the time, she'd believed it was out of love that he urged her to bed. Maybe it had been, maybe not, so many years later she couldn't be sure. After leaving him, the idea of being touched by another man nauseated and terrified her for a long, long time. When she finally accepted that not every man was Lawrence Bonherre, it had been easier just to ignore that part of herself. Besides, no man had made her think about that kind of intimacy.

  Until David.

  She finished cleaning the kitchen and decided to attempt a diversion. Andi turned on her computer, and stared at the end of her latest chapter. It only needed another three or four paragraphs to wrap things up and move on, but the words wouldn't come. She read emails, responded to some fan mail, and then found herself unoccupied once again. Only forty minutes had passed. Wandering without any real purpose, she went into her bedroom and stared back at herself in the closet door mirror.

  The sundress she wore just barely cleared the middle of her knees, and she'd put on sandals with a slight heel, just enough to define her calves a little. The dress had a princess cut with a low v-neck and buttons down the front, letting it hug her body and fall around her hips. As she stared at herself, she drew in a shaky breath. There was nothing wrong with her body. She wasn't too heavy, wasn't too thin. Her body curved into her waist, and swayed into her hips... and wasn't that what a woman's body was supposed to do? Andi didn't dislike anything about what she saw, but she didn't see anything that made her proud. She just... was.

  So, what did make David look at her the way he did?

  Andi turned sideways and ran her hand over her stomach, pressing into the slight swell beneath her waist. It wasn't much, but after Jake had been born no amount of crunches completely got rid of the little bit that refused to go away. Her breasts were fuller and larger now than they had been before she had a baby, and for that she supposed she was thankful. The short hair made her look a little younger, enough so that she thought she registered a small bit of surprise in David's eyes when she'd finally admitted her age.

  She wasn't the type of woman who examined her reflection to find the imperfections, she hadn't ever considered fixing this or lifting that, and even now nothing came to mind that she'd wish to change. After leaving Lawrence, a part of her figured there was no reason to bother.

  A soft rap at her open bedroom door made her look over her shoulder, and her breath caught in surprise. David stepped in, a wide smile on his lips as he shut the door. "Hey, sweetheart. Jake let me in, said you were probably up here."

  "Hey..." she said softly, smiling. "You got out on time."

  "I didn't mess around today," he said as he crossed the room. "I wanted to get home."

  "You went home first?"

  David stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her, his hands sliding over her stomach. Her dress shifted beneath his touch, raising the hem just above her knees. He rested his chin on her shoulder and met her gaze in the mirror. "I meant here."

  Andi's breath caught, and the tears she'd forced away when Lawrence threw his venom tingled in here eyes again... but the rush of emotion that caused them was like night and day. David tipped his head and kissed the curve of her throat where it met her shoulder, and the warmth of his breath on her skin spread through her. She watched him in the mirror as his gaze moved over her reflection.

  Not once, not ever in nine years of marriage, did Lawrence look at her with the heat she so blatantly saw in David's eyes. Not by half. He drew his hands across her stomach to her hip, his touch a delicious pressure. Andi watched, her arms hanging at her side. His large hands spanned her waist and moved up to her ribcage. Her breath caught when his thumbs barely brushed the underside of her breasts before he pressed her back against him, his palms flattened again on her stomach.

  "You are so beautiful," he said near her ear, and the weight of his voice made her heartbeat leap into a staccato rhythm.

  "Why?" she asked before she realized the question had formed in her mind.

  He rested his chin on her shoulder again and looked at her in the mirror. "Why are you beautiful?"

  Andi nodded, holding her breath.

  David smiled, wrapping his arms completely around her until he held her snug against his chest. "Do you want a random list, or should I just start at the top of your head and work my way down?"

  Andi didn't answer, just watching him.

  He chuckled softly, kissing her shoulder. "You keep asking me to put everything into words. I'm not good at it."

  "That's okay," she answered, having to clear her throat before she said anything more. "It's what you say, not how you say it."

  "Easy for you to say, you're the writer."

  Andi shrugged. "I just write down what I hear in my head. You're the actor. You know how to say all the right things--"

  "When someone writes them for me," he grinned.

  "Try?"

  David sighed and straightened so his chin rested on top of her head. As he stared at her in the mirror, his smile widened until the dimples she loved to see popped in his cheeks. "You have the best smile," he finally said, and she had to smile because she had just been thinking the same thing about him. "Especially when you talk about Jake. Your whole face changes when you look at him or think about him."

  She smiled wider, and David pointed at the mirror.

  "There it is. That's the smile I love."

  They stared at each other for several moments, and Andi's heart pounded almost painfully in her chest. David swallowed, his eyes drifting from the mirror to look at her directly. Andi tipped her head back so she could look at him. He touched his fingertips to her jaw and angled her face toward him just as he had the morning she'd woken in his arm.

  "Sometimes," he said, his voice rough and he swallowed again. "You smile at me like that, and I think 'I could live the rest of my life looking at that smile'."

  "See..." she whispered. "You know what to say."

  He turned her toward the mirror again and ran his finger from her jaw line, down the side of her throat, to the hollow of her collarbone. "This spot... right here... is beautiful. I can see your pulse, and I can see when it beats faster when I touch you." He leaned down and let his lips hover over the spot he touched. "Like now." He touched his tongue to the spot and followed it with a long kiss that pulled at the sensitive skin.

  Andi closed her eyes and let her head fall back to rest on his shoulder.

  "You
're body is beautiful," he whispered against her ear. Andi didn't try to hide the shiver that ran through her, and it was only intensified by the low moan in David's throat. "That's why I love you in these sundresses. They don't hide any of your curves." His hands ran over her again, across her stomach to her waist and then down over her hips. "I watch you walk, the way the skirt flips around your legs, and I think about--"

  Andi twisted in his embrace and circled her arms around his neck, cutting off his words with her lips. He moved with her, wrapping his arms around her to pull her hard against him before their lips ever met. When he kissed her, all air rushed from her lungs, and she pushed her fingers into his hair, holding on when his tongue filled her mouth. He cupped the back of her head, holding her in place as he kissed her with an intensity that liquefied everything inside her.

  "Oh, god... Andi..." he growled against her mouth.

  He bent at the knee and wrapped her in an embrace, lifting her feet off the ground to carry her to the bed. They fell together, and Andi gasped at the rush of arousal that shot through her, making her shake from the inside out. At the same time, raw panic choked her. David's warm, strong hands pushed up the hem of her skirt, and her body practically hummed. His hips pressed hard into hers, sending another jolt through her, and she gasped for breath, pulling at his shirt until she freed it from the waist of his pants and found the warm skin of his back. He kissed her lips, her cheek, her throat, and the exposed skin dipping into the valley between her breasts.

  Andi closed her eyes, trying to lose herself in his touch rather than Lawrence's parting words. David wanted her, and he touched her like Lawrence never had. He made her feel alive.

  She didn't realize she was crying until David's lips lingered at her temples and he softly whispered her name. He moved off her to lie beside her, folding her against his chest. "Shhhhh, baby. It's okay. It's okay."

  "Damn bastard," she cried, curling her fists into his shirt.

  David tightened his hold, laying his cheek against hers. "Sweetheart... I hope you're not talking about me."

  The joking lilt to his voice made her smile despite the anger that now sat in her chest, replacing the panic of moments before. She sucked in a sob and shook her head, burying her face into the warm curve of his throat. His pulse pounded against her lips.