Empowered

by Cynthia Dane

  “That’s not the only way we could have a baby one day.” Lucas gently nudged her shoulder. “We could adopt. Surrogate. Send Victor back to the cabbage patch from whence he came and find himself a new brother or sister. Or neither. I can’t keep up with what’s going on.”

  “Then I guess I would be changing a few diapers. Not that I want to, mind you.”

  “Admit it, Angel. You wanna know what a kid of ours would look like. Bonus points if you don’t have to deal with the gruesome end of childbirth.”

  “You’re making me think you really want another kid, Luke.”

  “I was never opposed to having more than one with Jill. Don’t know why I couldn’t have another one with the love of my life over here.”

  Sometimes he said things so sweet that he probably didn’t even know they were sweet. “Let me guess: you think it should be done before your son is old enough to think it’s terrible.”

  “I mean…”

  She slowly shook her head. “How about we do something else before seriously considering babies?”

  “Like…?”

  “You know what I mean, Luke.”

  He kissed her hand. “Year’s still young yet, Angel.”

  Sarah was ready to crack a joke at his expense when Damon Monroe approached, stripped down to nothing but his tailored trousers and a baby blue silk shirt he must have been wearing at his meeting one city away. His face veered between excitement and oh my fucking God. The moment he made eye contact with Lucas, both men grinned.

  “It’s a girl.” Damon rarely smiled like that, let alone covered his mouth with his hand to keep the whole world from seeing him be happy for once. “I mean, we always knew it would be a girl, but…”

  “Congrats, man.” Lucas stood and held out his hand. “Welcome to the special club. Everything go all right?”

  “Yeah… took a long time, you know?”

  “Four hours is record time for a first time mother. You’re lucky you weren’t here for two days like I was.”

  But Damon hadn’t paid attention to that. He was too busy fixing his composure when he faced Sarah, still sitting in her chair. “Thank you for driving my wife here, Ms. Clayborn.”

  “Don’t mention it.” She left it at that. One of the most casual statements she had ever said to Mr. Monroe.

  “When do we get to see the little princess?” Lucas asked.

  “Our families will be here soon. Well, her mother’s already here. My mother’s on her way.”

  “Of course. We can wait.”

  They waited another ninety minutes while the grandmothers squealed, the nurses proclaimed Baby Girl Monroe to be the cutest newborn yet, and Alice kicked everyone out of her private room because she was exhausted. A nurse put the little baby girl in a bed by herself.

  So that’s what’s been growing around here for the past nine months, huh? Clarise Monroe – and that name was not a surprise, least of all to Sarah, who had already done a shitton of things on behalf of the then-unborn Clarise – was a solid seven pounds, nine ounces. Her red, wrinkled skin made her already look pissed off at the whole world, which she consistently shook her tiny fists at. Eh, she’ll be fine in that family with an attitude like that.

  It helped that whatever distinguishing features a baby had, this one screamed Monroe.

  Sarah turned away. Lucas, who had spent the past minute making nice with the baby through the window, put a reassuring hand on his girlfriend’s side.

  “Everything okay, Angel?”

  “Just had a thought.”

  She had many thoughts. The most prominent one was that her own baby would have probably looked similar to Clarise. The Monroe genes were strong. Damon’s mother had red hair and freckles, and Alice’s family were blond and fair – yet the dark hair and amber eyes of the Monroe clan would always win out. Sarah’s baby boy would have looked exactly like his father.

  Would that pang always be there? Triggering her heart into brief glimpses of despair?

  Would Lucas always be there for her? To kiss away the pain and remind her to live in the present? Where so many people lived and loved her?

  Sarah’s problems couldn’t be solved overnight. She would be foolish to believe that, even for a second. Not even her boyfriend would be enough to make her trauma go away as quickly as she would like. Because the world didn’t work that way. Human brains and hearts could be decimated in one night, but it took years to put the pieces back together again. At least Lucas understood that.

  “Let’s go home, Angel.” He kept his arm firmly around her shoulders as he nuzzled her temple with the fuzz on his chin. “I’m thinking a nice, long bath and a massage. Oh, we should get some real dinner, too.”

  She scoffed, showing herself out of his embrace. “Massage for who?”

  “Why, you, of course. You did all that acrobatic driving earlier. Your boss even thanked you for putting his wife’s life in danger.”

  “Damn straight I need a massage.” That kink in her neck wouldn’t go away on its own. “Not all I need, too.”

  Sarah was tired of dealing with other people. The whole reason she was quitting was to finally have personal time to herself again! Personal time with the only man I love like this. She made sure to spare Lucas a wan smile before getting into the elevator. She took it that he would pay for the cab back to his place.

  She held the door open for him. They were the only ones in the car the whole ride down to the parking garage.

  “What say we do a little role-playing tonight, hm?”

  Really? Suggesting that in a hospital elevator?

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well… who said we had to go home at all? We could hop my plane up to New York City tonight. I hear there’s a hoppin’ club there where women go to have some fun.”

  “See? This is why we can’t have kids. How the hell would we explain how we met?”

  “I’m sure they’ll hear worse at school.”

  He had to be kidding. He was kidding, right?

  The fact that Sarah wasn’t sure was part of the reason she loved him.

  Epilogue

  No one had warned Sarah that Copenhagen could be warm in September. For some reason, her stereotypes about Scandinavian weather had not helped her out when she packed three suitcases for the private plane ride to Denmark.

  So when she stepped out of her therapist’s office wearing a turtleneck, trousers, and a heavy coat only to meet blasting sunlight and locals wearing T-shirts, her first inclination was to bemoan this fate.

  But she really didn’t have anything to bemoan. One month ago, she moved into Lucas’s historical home in Copenhagen. Five bedrooms, a chef’s kitchen, and enough charm to give those home-improvement shows back in America something to pine after. Everyone was so friendly in Denmark that she almost wondered what she was doing wrong to make them passive-aggressively treat her so nicely. Then she realized that they were genuinely that nice… and that included after finding out that she was American.

  She wasn’t employed, and outside of occasionally helping her boyfriend with administrative matters, she had no immediate plans to look for any kind of job or even start her own business. Her schedule was packed enough. Danish lessons with a private tutor, therapy with an English speaker who spent more time helping her adjust to culture shock than getting to her “root causes,” and enough sights to see to sate her for the rest of her life.

  That’s when Lucas wasn’t taking up her time. With romance. With sight-seeing. With parenting, because Victor lived with them most of the week.

  Speaking of Victor, Sarah was tasked with something important that day. Lucas was at an important business meeting, and the Danish nanny they hired to look after Victor when the parents were out had a family emergency. As soon as Sarah arrived home, the nanny was off to catch the bus – and Victor still had to go to his afternoon classes.

  The nanny had packed his things, made sure Victor was dressed, and left whatever Sarah needed to remember by
the front door. She didn’t even have to take off her shoes.

  She also didn’t have to call for Victor. He was already waiting for her in the foyer, kicking his feet from his chair. At least his face lit up when he saw her.

  “Ready to go?” Sarah asked. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes to get there, and it takes a while to walk, remember?”

  He didn’t say anything. Victor wasn’t a big talker, especially around Sarah, but he never hesitated to take her hand and follow her out the door. The way Lucas explained it was, “If he sees I don’t have a problem with you, then neither does he.” Victor took to his new nanny as quickly, much to everyone’s relief.

  This made it sound like Victor wasn’t a shy child. On the contrary, he was only fine around adults. It was other children that brought out his shyness, as demonstrated when they reached the classroom gates a few blocks away.

  He stopped in the middle of the path, his grip on Sarah’s hand faltering.

  “What’s wrong?” She redoubled her efforts to hold his hand. “Don’t you want to go play with your friends?”

  One of the teachers stepped out of the door and waved to Victor. “God eftermiddag, Victor!” This bilingual school was built to immerse young children in both English and Danish, a handy accomplishment for a small child who still wasn’t used to most Danish, regardless of how much his father tried to teach it to him. “Are you coming inside today?”

  He looked away, too shy to face anyone. It didn’t help that a few rowdy kids his age tore around the schoolhouse behind the teacher.

  “Just a second.” Sarah said to the teacher before kneeling in front of Victor. “Don’t you want to go inside? Looks pretty fun in there.”

  His pout reminded her so much of Lucas that she wanted to laugh. “Sarah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why couldn’t Mom bring me today?”

  “Well…” Damnit. Why did she always get these questions when Lucas wasn’t around? “Because your mom is busy at the doctor’s.” Part of the agreement to bring Jill over to Copenhagen was that she had to attend counseling for her addiction three times a week. She was at one of her appointments now. “Like I was busy at my doctor’s before I came home.”

  “Oh.” That was the response she always got from him. “Can you come with me?”

  “The school’s for kids unless you’re a teacher, but I can come pick you up when it’s over.”

  “Will Dad come?”

  “He can come too. He should be home by then.”

  “Okay. You promise?”

  “I promise that at least I will be here to pick you up when you’re done with class. How does that sound?”

  He smiled. “Ice cream?”

  “We’ll see what your dad says about that.”

  She stood back up and presented Victor to the teacher on the other side of the gate. “Sorry about that. He’s shy, you know.”

  “He’s getting so much better about it, though, aren’t you, Victor?”

  Sarah left by herself, but not before texting Lucas to tell him Victor expected the both of them later. Also something about ice cream.

  “Last time he had ice cream before dinner, he didn’t finish dinner,” Lucas pointed out.

  “Go easy on him. He’s adjusting to a new place. He’s already shy around other kids, let alone kids speaking Danish.”

  “Are you sure you’re not the one who wants ice cream?”

  “The more we talk about it, the more I want it, honestly.”

  “You’re the same way about other things, you know.”

  Sarah scoffed at the intersection she stood at. Leave it to her boyfriend to bring up sex when they were talking about ice cream.

  (He was right, though.)

  He met her at a café halfway between the school and his office, right on time to go pick up Victor from his afternoon class.

  “You look so European I almost don’t recognize you.”

  Sarah closed her Danish study book and accepted a kiss from her bespoke-clad boyfriend. She let her fingers linger on the fine tailoring of his suit before finally releasing him. “I am half-British, if I may remind you.” She had a passable accent, too, but her mannerisms gave her away as an American to the locals. “How are you doing?”

  “The meeting was… well, it was a meeting.”

  “Let’s go get your son.”

  “And ice cream?”

  “Hell yes.”

  “You know,” Lucas said, leading her by the hand. “He’s not just my son now. You’re practically his step-mother.”

  Chills went down Sarah’s spine. “I don’t recall anything official about that.”

  “He lives with us. You live with us.” Lucas squeezed her hand. “If anyone asks, I see you as his step-mother. Is there something wrong with that?”

  “It implies that we’re married.”

  They were silent the rest of the way to the school. Five minutes remained before class was officially over and the students released to their waiting parents. Some sat in their cars in the parking lots. Others milled around the gate, speaking Danish – Sarah still wasn’t good enough to pick up what they were talking about. Lucas was the only man there.

  “We could be, you know.”

  Sarah turned toward him. “Could be what?”

  “Married.”

  His sincerity struck her. While Sarah didn’t doubt he would propose to her one day… like this? In front of a bilingual school while bored Danish mothers looked on? No, no, he’s not really proposing to me. That was absurd.

  Sarah convinced herself of that until the bastard got down on one knee.

  “Oh my God.” She turned around. So did most of the mothers waiting around. Oh my God! She couldn’t take it! “Stop fooling around, Luke. Your son is coming out here at any moment.”

  “I’d much prefer it if you’d call him our son, Sarah.”

  “Seriously! Stop playing around!” She tried to take her hand away. She ended up turning around in a huff to see Victor standing on the other side of the gate, accompanied by the same Danish teacher from earlier.

  He looked between his kneeling father and the irate woman in front of him. “Are you asking Sarah to marry you?”

  “Oh, no.” Lucas quickly got up and attempted to blow it over. The other women muttered things in flippant Danish. “I dropped something, son. Are you ready to go?”

  Despondency took over the poor boy’s pudgy countenance. Sarah instantly regretted how this situation played out – in public, no less.

  Victor rushed to his father’s hug and wasted no time crawling up into his arms. Lucas held his son to the side, commenting that soon enough the boy would be too big to hold. True. Victor was on the small side for a boy his age, but Sarah didn’t doubt the growth spurts would hit hard and fast as the months went by. Lucas was smart to take what he could get right now.

  As mothers loaded their kids into cars, onto bicycles, or held their hands as they walked down the street, Sarah took the moment to join Lucas and Victor by the gate.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Lucas, who had been promising their son that they would soon get ice cream, turned toward Sarah. “Hm?”

  She wasn’t laughing as much as he was. “If you were serious about that… then yes.”

  The smile fell off Lucas’s face. “I would never joke about something like that.”

  “Yes.” Sarah brushed her hand against Lucas’s hair. “You need to make an honest immigrant out of me, anyway.”

  Lucas would properly propose to her later that night, long after Victor went to bed and the happy couple were allowed a spare moment on the balcony overlooking parts of Copenhagen Sarah still had yet to explore. The choice was easy. Of course she would marry him. What elated her the most was that it was her choice to begin with.

  The road to her empowerment was paved with nothing but choices. Good choices. Bad choices. Choices she would never see a return from, and choices that affected her life almost immediately.
/>   Nevertheless, they were her choices to make.

  THE END

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  Prologue

  Damon Monroe was not a fan of his father’s private parties. When they weren’t stuffed with old, boring men who could only talk in code, they were the over-patronizing weirdos who wormed their way in when Russell Monroe was drunk on enough brandy or high on enough dust to not give a fuck about who he associated with behind closed doors.

  In truth, Damon avoided these parties. Yet his gut told him to come home for a week that summer, a week in which he, for once, had no other plans booked. Princeton was his current mistress, having been admitted before he reached the age of majority and already working on two concurrent majors that made his advisor fan himself in exhaustion. That summer was dedicated to an internship at one of his father’s friend’s companies. Until then, however, Damon was free to do as he pleased. After returning from a sojourn to London – a man might want to study abroad at Oxford, after all – Damon wandered home. Or as much as he could call his father’s three story penthouse in the middle of a bustling regional city home, anyway.