Page 15 of A Baby to Make Her His Bride

She didn’t look at Jasper, not wanting to see his reaction. He was probably turned off by her oversharing or giving her a look of pity, but silence was one more thing she had endured for the good of Wave-Com. She was so tired of suffering in silence.

Maybe she just wanted to justify her divorce since she felt so guilty about giving up.

“I finally faced that it was better if I didn’t have children with a man who didn’t want them. At the time, Dad had just died and Hunter was going through a court case with our stepmother, so I didn’t tell him that Neal and I were separated. I wanted to keep it out of the press anyway. I started taking curating jobs in Toronto and spent most of my time there. Neal didn’t care.” She reached for hickory.

“It must have felt very unfair that Amelia got pregnant so easily.”

“Everything about pregnancy is unfair. Now, at least, I’ll be able to find someone who wants what I want.” Antique brass. “Maybe I’ll do it on my own.”

“Single parenting is hard.”

She dropped her pencil.

“That’s not the voice of experience,” he said dryly, catching the pencil as it rolled across the table toward him. “Maybe it is a little.” He offered it back to her.

“What do you mean?” she asked as she took the pencil.

“Dad worked shifts while I was growing up. Even when he was home, he was often sleeping off his graveyard rotation. Mom ran the show. She came across as strict, but it was necessity, especially when Amelia was little. We were solid middle-class, not struggling, but no frills, either. Dad had a union wage as a tradesman. Mom worked at the sewing shop, but she literally could not do it all, so I picked up groceries and learned to cook and walked Amelia to the dentist after school.”

“How old were you when you lost her?” she asked gently.

“I was finishing high school. I had been accepted at UBC, but I couldn’t leave and come all the way across the country. Dad still had to work. Amelia was eleven—not old enough to stay home alone at night—so I stayed and provided some half-assed parenting while I took courses at the local college until I could transfer to U of T.”

“Geology?” she guessed.

“And geography and business. I left when Dad made foreman and started working steady days. I did a couple years in the oil patch, then the Yukon, working on my master’s degree. REM-Ex like to paint me as some upstart they hired off the street, but I had been operating as a private consultant for five years by then, building my professional reputation. They don’t get to take that away from me.”

The deadly promise in his tone sent a shiver down her spine.

“But you were talking about your ex,” he reminded. “You said yesterday that you still have to inform him? When does that happen?”

“Any day.” The chipmunk was gone, so she filled in what she could from memory. “He’s in and out of the office. It’s a matter of the process server catching up to him.”

“Will he contest it?”

“I don’t see how he can. We’ve been separated a year. I’m agreeing to exactly what was in our prenup. And, look, I want to say I’m sorry,” she blurted, lifting her gaze so he could see her remorse. “Now that I understand why you’re here, I can see what a nuisance it is that I showed up. I didn’t mean to jeopardize what you’re doing, but this seemed like the only way. I tried to end it once and Neal threatened to make it really difficult. He’ll probably still make it difficult, but this time I’m not asking him for a divorce. I’m telling him. I can’t stay tied to him. I just can’t.” The despondency that encased her when she thought of it was absolute.

“I understand,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to apologize for that.”

“Thank you.” She started sliding her pencils back beneath their loops, but couldn’t seem to make her fingers cooperate. She wound up clapping the top of the box over the loose pencils and rising. “I’m going for a walk.”

It started to rain while she was changing. She put off her walk and read a couple more chapters of high-seas sex.

By the time the rain let up, she was in dire need of cooling off. Sheesh! Too bad she wasn’t a petite ballerina of a woman like the heroine. Jasper was strong, but she didn’t think he could brace her high on a wall with his bare hands on her butt while he stood with his head buried between her thighs.

She kind of wanted to find out, though.

“Jasper, I’m going down to the beach,” she called as she trotted down the stairs.

“I’ll come.” He closed his laptop.

“You don’t have to.” She turned at the bottom of the stairs to face him at his desk. She felt as though her dirty thoughts were right there at the forefront of her mind, still warm on her cheeks. Could he see them? “I just want some exercise.”

“Me, too.” He rose and stretched his arms up. His gaze slid down her jeans in a way that caused the embers of desire sitting in her belly to flare hotter.

He was checking that she was dressed appropriately, for heaven’s sake. That’sall.

The temperature had dropped significantly from yesterday, now that the tail end of a rainstorm was pushing inland, drawing cool air through the wet trees. She hugged herself in her pullover as he locked the basement door behind them.

---