After That Night

by Ann Evans

  The prenuptial had nothing to do with money at all. No division of property. No settlement figures. No claims against any estate should the couple divorce.

  Instead, it carried the cruelest stipulation any woman in love would ever want to see.

  …should either party, during the course of marriage wish to take a lover, this action shall not constitute legal grounds for divorce…

  Legal permission to have a wife—and a lover.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SHE COULDN’T believe it. But it was right there in front of her. That one stipulation made up the heart of the document.

  Heart. That was a strange word to describe an agreement that would allow your husband to keep a lover on the side. An arrangement to which you would be expected to voice no objection.

  No wonder Shelby Elaine had called off the marriage.

  Jenna supposed she herself had no right to be angry with Mark. He’d never pretended to believe in happily-ever-after. That was just the kind of man he was. A realist. Practical. Logical.

  Damn him.

  But if it wasn’t fair to be angry, she couldn’t help feeling a sense of leaden despair. Grief for a dream that could not survive reality, a dream she’d only recently begun to think might be possible. When it came right down to it, he was worse even than Jack. At least her ex-husband had had the decency to realize that he couldn’t keep both a wife and a mistress forever.

  Jenna didn’t know how long she sat staring at those words. Long enough that she began to feel her breath come with effort. Something, a feeling, really, made her look toward the bedroom door.

  Mark.

  No use pretending she hadn’t read the agreement. He stood close enough to see it. She watched his face go through a subtle change as he understood that in the span of ten minutes their budding relationship had shifted and reshaped.

  The silence became intolerable. Jenna tossed the prenup on top of Mark’s briefcase. “It fell out while I was trying to organize everything. I suppose I should apologize for reading it.”

  “Don’t. Just let me explain.”

  She stood, prepared to leave. She wasn’t sure she could bear to be in the same room with him for any longer. “You don’t have to,” she said briskly as she started to move past him. “What I think doesn’t matter.”

  He caught her arm. When she tried to pull away, his grip tightened subtly. “It matters to me,” he said. He motioned toward the bed. “Sit down.” And then in a softer tone added, “Please.”

  Drawing a deep breath, she sat, her back ramrod straight. She refused to do anything but stare at him. How could she stand to hear what he had to say? What possible justification could he give for such an agreement?

  Mark didn’t sit on the bed beside her. He took the chair near the window, sitting on the edge of it and resting his elbows on his knees.

  He frowned at her in concern. “You’re very pale.”

  “Do you want me to pretend I’m not shocked? I don’t think that’s possible.”

  “I would never want you to pretend anything with me, Jenna. That’s one of the things I admire about you. Your honesty.”

  Jenna blinked. She wasn’t in the mood to let his particular brand of flattery weave its spell. She lifted her chin. “Very well. How’s this for honesty? I think the condition you wanted from Shelby Elaine is insensitive and immoral. What woman in her right mind would want a man under those circumstances? And what arrogant, conceited…ass would expect her to sign it?” She shook her head vehemently. “Asking the woman you love—”

  “What makes you think I was in love with Shelby?” Mark cut in.

  Jenna narrowed her eyes. “You expect me to believe that you weren’t?”

  The corners of his mouth lifted almost imperceptibly. “I expect you to believe what I told you the first day I met you. Shelby and I approached marriage like a partnership, a business deal that could benefit both of us. It was never hearts-and-flowers between us—at least, it wasn’t for me.”

  She had to admit, he’d been honest about that. Still… “All right. So it wasn’t the romance of the century.”

  “No. And I never gave Shelby reason to think it was or ever would be. Unfortunately the closer we got to the wedding date, the more I began to suspect that she might be falling in love with me.”

  “How horrible,” Jenna said, unable to resist the sarcasm.

  Mark stared at her, and she wondered if he had difficulty keeping his features as impassive as they looked. “It is when you’ve specifically tried to set up a solid, sensible arrangement between two consenting adults. When I realized she was hoping for more, I asked my attorney to create the prenup with the harshest stipulation I could think of. I thought it was better to spell it out in black-and-white before the wedding. Before it was too late.” He made an impatient movement with one hand. “I couldn’t promise her any more than what we’d agreed on, and I wanted to be sure it was going to be enough for her.”

  Jenna hadn’t counted on this explanation, and for a moment she wasn’t sure what to say. Finally she murmured, “I think you got your answer on that one.”

  He rubbed his jaw, as though reliving the instant Shelby’s hand had connected with his face. “Yes. I did.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. She glanced away, both baffled and aghast. Wetting her lips, she looked back at him, determined to sort through the whole incredible mess. “I guess that’s something I don’t understand, Mark. Why would you want such a bloodless, sterile relationship? That’s not what marriage is about. What marriage should be.”

  His smile was no more than a faint, grim curve. “Maybe it would be easier if I tell you what I don’t want from marriage. And why.”

  His voice sounded odd. The look on his face was one of resignation. He rose, moved to the window and stood gazing out for a long moment. There was nothing to see there. Though a moonless night had descended, the street-lights hadn’t come on yet. He turned around at last, leaning back on the heels of his palms against the windowsill. “My father’s family came from old Savannah money,” he said. “He was an only child. Spoiled rotten, arrogant, very self-absorbed. When he went off to Harvard, he met my mother, who worked in one of the local restaurants. They eloped a week later.”

  “A love match.”

  “Yes. A grand passion,” he said flatly. “And when my father’s family found out, they threatened to disown him. She was everything they hated—middle-class, a Yankee, pretty, but too…vulgar for their genteel family tree.”

  Mark fingered the drapes absently, staring into space as though lost in thought. The harsh set of his mouth made him look distant and entirely different from the man she’d come to know these past few days.

  “My father was forced to drop out of school to find a job that could keep them from starving,” he said. “The break with his family really threw him. Maybe the marriage would have cooled quickly, anyway, but whatever passion had drawn them to each other died almost before the ink was dry on the marriage certificate.”

  He gave Jenna a wry glance. “Unfortunately my mother was already pregnant with me. There went any chance for annulment.”

  He tilted his head back as though the rest of the story were written on the ceiling. Jenna waited quietly, seeing the pulse beating hard and fast at the base of his throat.

  “Dad’s family eventually forgave him. They were prepared to accept my mother, but by then both my parents were miserable. My mother was a passionate woman. She believed all my father’s early promises, and she couldn’t understand why he didn’t seem to love her anymore. She cried and begged and screamed at him constantly, but the more she fought to regain his love, the more emotionally removed he became. Over the years he went openly from one affair to another, never trying to hide his disgust for her clinging desperation.”

  Mark moved suddenly, propelling himself away from the window. She watched him prowl back and forth at the end of the bed. Some of her earlier anger had begun to be rep
laced by sadness.

  “It must have been awful for you,” she said.

  A strange expression crossed his face, that she couldn’t interpret. “You can’t imagine the kind of numb fortitude it took to simply endure every day in our house. All I knew was that marriage was a battlefield where everyone got bloody. Including me.”

  “Why didn’t they just divorce and be done with it?”

  “My mother wouldn’t let him go. And I think there was a petty part of my father that enjoyed creating a thousand little horrors for her.”

  She could only imagine what life had been like for the little boy he’d been. What misery he must have known. Every breath Jenna drew felt like a jerky effort to push past the wedge in her throat. “I’m so sorry, Mark,” she said. “Really sorry.”

  He turned and came to sit beside her on the bed. “I’m not telling you this to gain your sympathy. I accepted my parents’ flaws years ago. My father was a coldhearted bastard. Mother was an emotional minefield. But I learned a few things from them. I learned that giving someone unrealistic expectations, making promises you can’t or won’t keep, is the worst kind of cruelty. And that marriages based on grand passion are destined to turn ugly, because nothing that explosive can last forever.”

  Jenna shook her head, staring at him in miserable disbelief because everything was starting to make sense. Terrible sense. “Your parents’ marriage failed because of who they were. That doesn’t mean you can’t…”

  The words died as he took her by the shoulders. He held her still, looking down into her eyes. His own were intense and hard. “You don’t understand. I couldn’t endure one month, one day, of a marriage that bore any resemblance to my parents’. And I’d certainly never put a child through that kind of hell.”

  “You would never do that.”

  “I don’t intend to take that chance.”

  “So then…what?” she asked a little desperately. “You plan to go through life without ever falling in love? Real love?”

  His hands fell to his lap. “I didn’t say that. I’m saying that marriage for me can’t be based on wild, romantic notions that some greeting-card company has brainwashed us into believing. What’s wrong with a relationship built on trust and friendship, common goals…”

  “Don’t forget occasional great sex,” she couldn’t resist adding bitterly. “Just to keep things from getting boring.”

  He frowned deeply. “I take it you don’t agree.”

  She looked down at her hands, trying to think. When she spoke, her words were measured. “I guess I’m just trying to envision the kind of future we could have. Living a polite, calm, sensible existence. Like two roommates.”

  “It wouldn’t be like that.”

  “Why wouldn’t it? That’s what you wanted from Shelby Elaine.”

  “Our situation is completely different. Shelby has great ambitions for her career. We wouldn’t have had children. You and I are connected in a way that Shelby and I never could have been.”

  Her head jerked up and she gave him an incredulous look. “Because of the baby? Children aren’t a miracle cure. They didn’t save my marriage. And from the sounds of it, your birth didn’t save your parents’, either.”

  “I don’t expect it to be easy,” he said with a slight note of impatience. “With all the thought I’ve given this, do you think I want a marriage to start out this way? But it’s too late for that now. All I’m saying is that there’s no reason why we can’t work toward that kind of goal together.”

  Something very raw and painful moved in her breast. “I can’t promise you that, Mark.”

  His hand plowed violently through his hair, and he rose. “Why not?” he asked. “Dammit, what’s wrong with it? If you think about it sensibly…”

  His words stalled as she stood up from the bed, too. She felt as if she were going to break into a million crazy pieces. “Trust and friendship and all those other things—of course I want them out of a marriage. But why do the two have to be mutually exclusive? I can’t help it, Mark. I am a hearts-and-flowers kind of woman. I want that heart-fluttering feeling you get when you see your husband walk into the room. For God’s sake, Vic and Lauren and I founded an entire magazine dedicated to that sort of relationship. I want the fairy tale. And if you don’t, then maybe you really are wasting your time.”

  “Didn’t your marriage teach you anything?”

  He spoke carelessly, probably without thinking, but the knife went deep just the same. She felt the sting of tears and she looked away, trying to clear the logjam in her throat.

  He placed his hands around her arms, stroking gently. “Jenna, I’m sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t fair.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” she agreed, then swung her head back to meet his eyes again. She wanted to sound detached, distant, but with Mark she never seemed to quite pull it off. “Marriage to Jack taught me that a lot of frogs can masquerade as princes. I have to be careful. But the right person will still be able to sweep me off my feet.” Her lips curved in an ironic twist. “I fell into bed with you easily enough.”

  Mark’s head tilted and he looked at her closely. “Are you saying I’m the right person?”

  “I was beginning…”

  She broke off, frustrated. How could she bear to tell him that all night she’d been thinking that very thing? That in spite of all her protests, she suspected she’d fallen in love with him. How could she tell him that when he’d just made it clear he’d never risk his heart for her?

  She drew a deep, fortifying breath. “Ultimately it may not matter what I want. I still have to consider what’s good for Petey and J.D., as well as this new baby. It’s their future, too.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” she said with a sharp shake of her head. “I just need time to think all this through.”

  “All right. I’ve got this situation with work to deal with over the next few days. I’ll leave you alone. Maybe a little distance will make it easier for you.”

  “Or convince me once and for all that it just won’t work between us.”

  He made a sound like a chuckle, but there was no mirth in it. “Poor princess,” he said with a tender sweep of his hand across her cold cheek. “I’m sorry I can’t be what you want.”

  She was sorry, too, though she’d never have said so. It didn’t seem fair that he could throw this curve her way just when she was beginning to hope.

  Could she eventually settle for the kind of relationship he had in mind? No shooting stars. No fireworks. Just commitment and friendship and a solid, secure life for her children. There must be hundreds—thousands—of women who would be happy to say yes to that. But could she?

  Right now she only knew that she agreed with him about one thing. Love could be a very messy problem indeed.

  “J.D.!” PETE WHISPERED across the darkened bedroom.

  He knew the little doofus wasn’t asleep. “Lights out!” Mom had said, but for the past ten minutes Pete had watched the covers jump and jerk on J.D.’s bed, so he knew he was playing with his Captain Treadway action figures under the blanket. “J.D.! Come out from under there.”

  The covers snapped back as J.D.’s head poked out. By the glow of the night-light, Pete could tell he wasn’t happy. “What?” he whined. “I’m not bothering you.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

  “Well, so are you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Mark hasn’t come to see us in two days.”

  “So?”

  “You think he still likes us?”

  “I think he likes me,” J.D. said, and Pete could see his brother’s teeth gleam in the darkness.

  He didn’t know why he bothered to ask his brother anything. He was such a little kid. “What do you think of him?”

  “Did you know he’s actually seen the space shuttle?” J.D. said in an excited voice. “In person!”

 
Pete wanted to choke him. Sometimes, like Grampa said, J.D.’s brains were all in his backside. “No, you flea-fart. I mean, could you see him being our dad?”

  “I guess,” J.D. replied, screwing up his face in thought. “If he ever comes back. Mom should be nicer to him.” He turned on his side, facing his brother. “Don’t you like him?”

  Pete felt all tight inside, like a clock that got wound too much. “I miss Daddy,” he admitted.

  J.D. sat up on one elbow and just looked at him hard for a minute. It was the longest Pete had ever known him to be quiet. Finally he said in a soft voice, “Everyone says you’re smarter than me, but sometimes I think you’re dumber than a brain-sucked Cyberlon.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Pete replied, feeling more like himself again. In a million years he wouldn’t want J.D. to feel sorry for him. “Like you know so much.”

  “I know you talk when you should be listening,” he said. “Mom says Daddy’s not coming back, and even if he did, she doesn’t want him to live with us anymore. Mom doesn’t lie. So why keep wanting something you’re not gonna get?”

  Pete thought that was a pretty mean thing to say, and a bad way to talk about their father, too. But he had to admit, as scared as he’d been about Mom getting sick, it had been nice to have Mark Bishop in the house. Looking after things. Acting like he wanted to be around them.

  “Yes. I think Mom and Mark should get together,” J.D. said, as though he’d finally come to a decision.

  “Maybe Mark will come to see me play ball.” As soon as the words were out, Pete wished he could put them back in his mouth. He didn’t like to sound as if it mattered one way or the other to him.

  “Maybe,” J.D. said. “You been practicing. He’ll probably come.” He flipped over on his side, facing Pete. “I know! We can call him. Ask him to come. Then he can see Mom, too. Do you still got the card he gave us with his phone number?”

  Pete threw back the covers and padded quietly over to his book bag. From a zippered compartment, he took out the card Mark had given them in case they needed to call him. He went over to J.D.’s bed and plopped down on it. “What if he won’t come?”