In Love Again (24 page)

“So am I. I was just thinking you’d want to decorate or something, you know, for the baby’s room.”

She looked into his eyes. “Maybe. But mainly I want the baby to have your eyes. How lucky will that be for me to be able to look into your eyes while I hold the little one in my arms?”

Ben made that delicious rumbling sound in the back of his throat and pulled her hard against him. Their faces were nearly touching, so his breath fluttered across her skin. “You’re such an angel when you talk about the baby. Your voice takes on this tenderness that makes me…” He ran his hands along her back and shoulders, down her arms. “I can’t describe it.”

“You don’t need to describe it. I can see it in your eyes,” she said while she traced the turn of his eyebrow. “And your lips.” She caressed him there with the tip of her finger.

“I think we’re going to have to deal with my family soon,” Ben said. “Before Christmas. They’re going to be so bummed if they find out and you’re already far along—”

“I’m more like one day along.” She tried to make light of it, but something about meeting his herd of sisters was making Claire want to avoid it as long as possible.

“You know what I mean. Technically, you’re like four weeks, right?”

“Right…but a lot of people don’t tell anyone anything until twelve weeks…”

“I’ll never make it that long. I want to tell the whole world. Plus, we need to get married. Obviously.”

“Ben.” Her voice sounded ominous.

He only pulled his face a few inches away from hers, but it was more like a recoil. “Ben what?” he asked, with the approaching storm of his temper beginning to show in his pupils.

She put the palm of her hand on his cheek. “Relax. We don’t need to get married just because I’m having a baby.”

He sat up and pulled his legs out from between hers, and it felt like he was ripping off a bandage, at the warm places they’d been adhering to one another. His face was your basic scowl. Claire took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter.

She pressed on. “Ben, you know my marriage was a mess. The last thing I want is to dive right back into—”

“You did not just compare me to that pathetic excuse for a human being you used to be married to, did you?” He was beyond furious.

“Of course not. Stop being so dramatic.” She knew she sounded frosty and he wouldn’t appreciate it, especially in his current state.

“Dramatic?” He got off the bed and found his boxer briefs behind a chair in the corner.

“What are you doing?” Claire asked, worry lacing her words.

“Putting my underwear on, what does it look like?”

“Are you leaving?” she asked.

“Claire! This is me!” He was standing at the end of the bed, scraping his fingernails through his hair. “I’m never leaving, remember? Never.”

“Then why did you get out of bed?” Her voice was shrinking under the assault of his coiled anger.

“Because I can’t fight with you naked.”

She smiled.

“Don’t you dare smile at me!” But he smiled too. “This is serious, damn it.” He forced the scowl back into place.

She folded the sheet neatly over her breasts, which had been exposed until then. “Is that better?” she asked.

“Don’t try to make a joke out of this. I am not Mr. Right Wing Conservative and you know it, but this is
my
baby—”

“Our baby,” Claire whispered.

“Fine! Our baby, but you know what I mean. I want the baby to have my name—”

“Well, what if—”

“Stop!” He held up his hand like a crossing guard. “I was raised by feminists, not misandrists! I know my rights. You will never win this argument. I don’t care if it’s Heyworth-Hayek or Hayek-Heyworth…” He smiled despite himself. “Has a nice ring to it, actually.”

She looked down at the bed. “Of course the baby will have your name, but even so, that doesn’t mean we have to get married. It’s just so…”

“So what, Claire?” He was still angry, but his tone was softening around the edges.

She kept avoiding his eyes. “I just dread it.”

“Oh my god. You still don’t… I’m not even going to say that. It’s too ridiculous.”

“Say it.” She looked up at him.

“You’re still ashamed of me in some way.”

“That is absurd. I love everything about you. And what do you mean by still? I’ve never been ashamed of you.”

He kept staring at her. Fuming.

She pressed on. “You’re coming to meet my entire extended family over Christmas and New Year’s in the Bahamas—God save and keep you—and I don’t think there’s anything more I could do to declare to the world that you’re mine.”

“Really? You can’t think of
anything
more?”

“You know what I mean. Marriage is not necessary.”

“Necessary?” He crawled up onto the bed, pulling her hands into his. “What’s come over you? What does necessity have to do with how we feel about each other? Is it the money? I’ll sign any prenup you want. I don’t want anyone to think—”

She barked a laugh that was almost the beginning of tears. “Money? I’m a portrait of financial ruin. If anyone should draw up a prenup, it’s you, to protect yourself from my husband’s creditors.”

“Ex-husband,” Ben muttered as he stroked the backs of her hands with his thumbs.

There it was. The Big Lie. Claire took another deep breath. She just couldn’t bring herself to tell him outright that she was still—technically—married to the most reprehensible man on the planet, otherwise known as the Marquess of Wick. She shut her eyes to avoid revealing too much. Ben would probably figure it out soon enough with all of her hedging.

“Claire?”

“Yes?”

“It’s fine.”

She opened her eyes. “It is?”

“Yes. You’re right. If it’s terrifying or awful or just the whole idea of matrimony is”—he tilted his head while he looked at her—“
not on
, as you would say, then I’m okay with that.”

“You are?” She reached up to touch his face.

He nodded. “Not forever, I hope. I mean.” He shook his head and gave her a baleful look. “I guess deep down I do have this sort of caveman desire to imprint myself on you in some codified, legal way. It’s my hang-up. I’ll deal with it.”

“Oh. It’s not a hang-up,” she said softly.

“It’s just a piece of paper,” he added. “I know you love me.”

“So, now that we have that bit sorted—” She sounded so relieved to be done with the discussion that Ben almost felt sorry for her. Almost, but not all the way.

“Temporarily sorted—”

“Okay. Temporarily sorted. So, in the meantime, will you take your smalls off again?”

His sly grin was all the answer she needed.

“Allow me,” she offered with a saucy wink, letting the folded sheet drop away from her body as she crawled toward him and slowly took off his fighting gear.

By Sunday morning, they were both raring to go. They’d spent thirty-six hours in bed, and—as romantic as that sounded in theory—the reality was that they both adored the outdoors and were craving a big dose of cold fresh air and winter sunshine.

They showered and changed into the clothes they’d arrived in Friday night. Chatting in the elevator about what time Ben’s band was playing in the Village that night, they weren’t paying attention when two people got on at a lower floor.

“Claire?”

The elevator wasn’t big to begin with, but with the entrance of Freddy and his redheaded…companion… Claire felt immediately short of breath and claustrophobic. She froze.

“It’s like something out of Oscar Wilde, darling,” Freddy continued without missing a beat, almost chuckling. “Is this your lover?”

Ben tried to lunge at the marquess, but Claire stepped between them at the last second. As the elevator doors opened at the lobby a few seconds later, Freddy maneuvered himself out first, holding the woman’s hand in his. “How delightfully
brutish
your man seems.” The redhead laughed, a deep husky roll, and the two strolled out of the hotel as if the four of them bumping into each other was nothing more than a pithy joke.

“Take me home,” Claire whispered. She didn’t realize Ben was practically holding her upright until he tightened his grip around her waist and steered her to one of the couches in the lobby. She felt like her feet were barely touching the ground. “Ben.”

“Claire, sweetheart.” He was touching her and saying soothing nonsense, anything to erase that look of stricken horror on her face. Her usually diamond-bright eyes were a cold shade of dull steel.

“He’s such a bastard,” she whispered, her jaw clenched. Ben realized he’d never heard her sound vicious before.

“Claire darling, look at me. He’s nothing. He’s less than nothing.”

“What is he doing here? He was supposed to be broke…and under indictment by now…” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head in angry confusion. When she looked up into Ben’s eyes, he barely recognized her. Her lips were pressed together, angry and stubborn. “I need to go.” She stood up quickly, as if she thought he’d let her sally off by herself.

He pulled her back to the couch. “Sit down for a few more minutes. You’re in shock. Think of the baby.”

She gasped. “Oh god. The baby. I need to call Max and Devon. Right away. They’ll know what to do.”

“Do? Claire, he’s your ex-husband. He’s not your mortal enemy. You don’t need to
do
anything.” She lifted her eyes and the cold hatred there said he might be wrong about the mortal enemy part. “Okay. Let’s go. I don’t want to have this conversation in public.” He helped her up and placed her hand on his arm. “My place, okay?” he asked kindly.

“Sure, that sounds great.” But she sounded like she would have given the same response if he had suggested they jump in the East River.

He hailed a taxi, and they were back in his apartment about fifteen minutes later. Claire had been silent the whole trip. Before he’d finished locking the deadbolt, she was on the phone to her brother, Max, the Duke of Northrop.

Ben followed Claire into the living room, where she sat down heavily on one of his two brown leather sofas. (“Divorced-Man Furniture,” she’d declared when she first came to his place a few months ago.) Veering to the left, Ben went into the open-plan kitchen and set some water to boil. He pulled out a box of chamomile tea and a tin of hot cocoa. He held them both aloft while she told her brother Max about Freddy being in the United States. She pointed at the hot chocolate and smiled, then turned her attention back to the call.

“But he is
not
supposed to be here, Max. I did everything the solicitors told me to do. I provided years of records. Years of evidence. I did everything they said. He should be in
jail
! He shouldn’t be staying in expensive hotels in New York City with some…
trollop
.” Her voice was strained, but measured. Ben had noticed that she always had a certain controlled resistance about her whenever she spoke to anyone in her family, other than her American sisters-in-law. She hummed her assent to a few things Max was saying on the other end of the line, then cried out, “No!”

Ben stopped what he was doing in the kitchen and went to sit beside her, but she turned her shoulder, effectively cutting him out of the conversation. He touched her arm softly; she looked up and shook her head no. He stepped back to the kitchen and gave her the space she needed.

“Pay him? No, Max!” Another silence. “But why should anyone pay another dime? This is so wrong!” She hummed again and tried to keep it together, but Ben saw the slow tear roll down her cheek. The kettle whistled, and he pulled it quickly from the heat to silence it.

“Okay.” She nodded as if Max could see her. “Okay. Anything to divorce him once and for all.”

Ben almost poured boiling water on himself as he listened in shock.
No
, he thought. He must’ve said it aloud because Claire turned to look up at him. She was devastated, and he probably should have been supportive or empathetic or something, but all he could think and feel and say was, “No!” He put the kettle down so he didn’t add first-degree burns to all of his other problems.

“Yes, I’m at Ben’s,” Claire answered. Max started talking again and Claire stared over the back of the couch at Ben. Whatever Max was saying forced more tears from Claire’s eyes. “Okay,” she whispered. “How much does he want?”

Ben gripped the edge of the marble kitchen counter.
Alice’s marble kitchen counter
, he thought, out of nowhere. He was so tired of living other people’s lives. He and Claire deserved their own damned life together.

Claire ended the call and sat staring out the windows of Ben’s apartment. “I have to go back to London after the New Year,” she said to no one, as if she were alone in the room and thinking aloud. “I need to call Boppy.” She reached for her phone, but Ben grabbed her wrist.

“Claire. Stop. What is going on?” He sat down next to her, keeping her wrist in his firm hold.

“It’s such a mess, Ben. I don’t even know where to begin. Freddy is now saying he is going to sue Max. As the current duke, Max is technically responsible for fulfilling the terms of my marriage contract.”

“Marriage contract? What the hell? Are we in Elizabethan England or something?”

Claire tried to smile at his black humor. “Nearly. It feels that way sometimes. Freddy and my father drew up a traditional marriage contract before we got married. I just thought of it as a prenup, I guess. You know, the usual bits about the Heyworth money going to our children.”

Ben kept looking at her. “And? What else?”

“Well,” Claire said, “I guess it was more than a regular prenup. Apparently it contains all sorts of arcane language that my father’s attorneys must have thought was some sort of medieval boilerplate or something.”

“Fucking Brits.”

“Thanks a lot.” She gave him a weak smile, but her brow knit almost immediately.

“So it’s about protecting Lydia’s inheritance then? Max wants to make sure…”

Claire stared at him and bit her upper lip. “Not exactly…”

“Well, what then?”

“He wants
my
money. Lydia’s trust from my father is ironclad.”

“But how can Freddy come after you now…after you’re already divorced…” he said. She stared into his eyes and shook her head slowly. He felt it like a pummeling into his chest. “Claire. You’re divorced,” he repeated, as if saying it often enough would make it true.