Like Sherri and Jason, he’s so cautious, searching for a way in. It’s messing with my Nice Girl self-image. I’ve always been the person to put others at ease—the peacemaker, the self-sacrificer,reflexively accommodating. Whatever made others happy was what I convinced myselfIwanted too. In my attempt to create boundaries, I’m digging a fire line around my life, but using new tools so sharp that I sometimes cut myself in the process.
I stare again into my lap, picking at the chipped nail polish. “Speak your truth,” I invite with a sigh, remembering when he asked the same of me that night in Santorini. “I’ll do the same.”
He’s silent for a minute. “I… I read ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale.’”
Surprised, I meet his gaze, but it’s frustratingly neutral. “What did you think?”
“I got the message in less than a year and a day, unlike the fool in the story.”
“Tell me.”
His smile is a little chilly. “Said the queen to the disgraced knight.”
We study each other, and he looks away first.
“The knight learned,” he says soberly, “that what women want issovereignty—power over their own lives and decisions. I robbed you of that when I didn’t trust you to protectyourselfand instead made choices for you, based on what I thought was best.”
My throat is tight; for a moment all I can do is offer a thumbs-up. “You got the message loud and clear,” I manage, little more than a whisper.
“My patronizing actions were misguided, though inspired by a love I was far too clumsy at expressing. But… my deception was inexcusable. After long consideration, I see why this was a killing blow to your feelings for me. Nonnegotiable and irreparable.”
Why does a part of menotwant him to be phrasing it quite that strongly? Hormones must be messing with my head.
“Thank you for accepting that,” I say, not sure if I mean it.
“A painful lesson, but critical.” He takes my hands in both of his, which are so comparatively warm that it highlights how cold mine are. “If I may ask: Did you feel you had ‘sovereignty’ in this… unexpected development? I hope you’re not sidelining your journalism career due to a perceived lack of options.”
Aside from the fact that he’s touching me, he’s gone “businesslike,” and I know it’s a defense mechanism. Suddenly I wish I could take back myThank you for accepting that, words I scattered between us because I thought they’d make me sound strong, brave, equipped for what’s ahead.
I could have said,Not irreparable…
I could have said,A stunning blow, not a killing one…
But I’m too afraid.
I watch our joined hands, remembering the feeling of his arms around me while we slept. The rightness of it. Memories bleed through the cracks in my heart, and for a long minute, I can’t manage a word—I’m waiting for him to somehow hear what I can’t say.
I was so angry in Budapest when I found out he’d made a choice for me. How can I possibly be wishing he would right now?
What would be weaker? Forgiving him and trying again, or letting this go?
When I realize he’s not going to save me from my own uncertainty—I told him not to rescue me, after all—I collect the pieces of myself and force a confident expression, even while the sorrow is killing me.
“I did have options,” I state firmly. “Plenty of womendon’thave as much freedom, and I recognize how lucky I am. There weremany things I could’ve chosen to do, and I considered several of them. I didn’t take this path because the others were wrong.”
His thumbs move back and forth over my knuckles, and I feel it all the way up my arms. “I respect that. Still, if you wish to live in London and work atARJ, but you’ve stricken that from your list due to a lack of support, you have that support in me. Whatever resources you need, should you prefer to return to work at the magazine next season, I will make it happen. A bigger flat. Three bedrooms—one for a nanny. I will pay for it all.”
My eyebrows go up. “I get that you’re trying to be nice. But offering to pay for everything is presumptuous.”
I’ve seen a lot of unfamiliar vulnerability in Klaus tonight, but the expression that overtakes him now is startling. He’s like Scrooge glimpsing his grave, terrified of a future he feels powerless to avoid.
“I don’t mean to sound controlling,” he rushes to assure me. “It wasn’t my intention. But… you do want me to be involved in the child’s life, I hope?”
I sink my head into the cradle of my arms on my bent knees.This wasn’t how I imagined the conversation, dammit.I’ve been fretting for a month, my mind rehearsing the possible exchanges, but it was strangely academic, two-dimensional, like a table read. But this—the cold sorrow clinging to me, the awful distance, words spilling out small and frail and inadequate—no,thisI wasn’t prepared for.
“We weren’t the best for each other as, uh, whatever we were,” I say flatly, still hiding in my folded arms. I lift my head, and Klaus’s anxiety is strange and terrible to see. I want so much to reach for him. “But I do trust you’ll be an amazing father.”
He unwinds my arms, pulling my hands to his lips and kissing them. A shiver goes through me, both at the fearful sense of unwelcome power I have in the face of his desperate gratitude and at the very-much-welcome feeling of his touch.
