Page 42 of A Nine-Month Deal With Her Husband

He whipped his head back and forth in what she presumed was a sharp no. ‘Okay, I won’t call anyone. Yet. But only if you relax and take a couple of deep breaths.’

Another very fluent, very loud curse bounced off the wall and Millie took a step back, not understanding his anger. She lifted her hands and stepped back further, feeling as though she was walking through a field planted with landmines.

Ben jammed his hands into the pockets of his pants, misery and horror on his face. Then he dropped his hands and shoved his hands into his hair, whirling away from her. Frowning, she stared at his big back and lifted and bit down hard on her bottom lip. What was going on here?

She stepped towards him and placed her hand on his back, utterly confused. ‘Ben?’

He shrugged her hand off and walked away from her. She watched as he put both hands on a wall and dropped his head. Every muscle in his body tensed—he was a pulled-too-tight cable about to snap. She wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around his waist and tell him that everything would be okay, but knew he needed her to keep her distance.

She just wished she understood. Just a few minutes ago he was kissing her, now he was emotional and upset. All she could give him was time...

But they didn’t have much of it.

After what felt like an age, but was only a few minutes, Ben straightened. He turned around, did up the button to his dinner jacket and when he finally lifted his head, she saw that Cool and Collected Ben was back. He looked as though the past few minutes hadn’t happened and when their eyes met, all his many barriers were back in place.

He lifted his arm and made a production of looking at his watch. ‘I think we should go, the concert will be starting shortly.’

Millie stared at him, flabbergasted. Would he walk away from her without an explanation? Oh, no, they were not going to brush his odd behaviour under the mat.

‘Shall we?’ Ben asked in his smooth, nothing-to-see-here voice and gestured to the door.

‘No.’

When his eyebrows raised, giving her a look that suggested she was being unreasonable, she lifted her chin. ‘Ben, darling, I don’t understand. I’m worried about you—your reaction is completely out of character. I need to know what just happened.’

His eyes dropped from hers, for just a second. ‘Nothing happened, Millie.’

‘And you say that you are honest with me! Are you kidding me?’ She released her own milder curse and slapped her arms against her chest. ‘No, you don’t just get to act the way you did and then walk away without an explanation, Jónsson!’

‘What the hell do you want from me, Millie?’ Ben shouted, that cool mask falling away.

‘I want you to tell me what just happened, I want you to open up! I want you to talk to me!’ Millie shouted back.

Ben looked furious, but still so, so cool. Cold anger was so much scarier than an overheated temper. ‘Okay, so do you want me to tell you that I stutter, that I’ve always stuttered? There have been times when I haven’t been able to form a sentence or make any sense. I’ve heard more “just relax” and “take a breath” comments than you’ve had cups of coffee!’

Sure, she’d caught the odd stammer, nothing serious, and he didn’t stutter as a rule. ‘I have never heard you stutter until a few minutes ago,’ she told him. ‘I never suspected it.’

‘That’s because I’ve worked damn hard to overcome it because it’s not part of who I am any more,’ Ben whipped back. ‘Here’s the honesty you want... I stutter when I’m emotional, when I feel too much. It’s always worse when I’m upset or when I’m feeling overwhelmed or out of control.’

She was trying to make sense of what he was saying, trying to sort his words into concepts she could understand. She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her hands. ‘Stuttering isnota big deal, Ben.’

Her words were barely out when she’d realised, once again, she’d said the wrong thing. His eyes turned a violent shade of purple and two strips of pink coloured his cheekbones. He took a couple of deep breaths—closed his eyes—and pulled out his phone. He scrolled through it and eventually held up the phone so she could see the screen.

Ben was a child in the video, maybe eleven or twelve, tall and gangly and as pale as a ghost. She saw the tracks left by tears on his cheeks, but his eyes were full of defiance as he tried to read from the book he held in his hand. Every word was torture and she only understood every couple of words. His sentences made no sense at all.

‘It’s all a matter of mind over matter, Benedikt! If you decide not to stutter, you won’t,’ a strident voice coming from his phone’s speakers made her jump. His mother, she presumed. ‘My teachers assure me that you’re not stupid, but, right now, I have my doubts.’

Millie closed her eyes, feeling lava-hot anger run through her. How could his mum speak to him in that way? How could she be so cruel and heartless?

Ben jabbed a finger at his screen. ‘That’s who I was, that’s how I spoke when I was a child. Sometimes it was much worse. That’s how I get when I allow emotions to get in the way! I willnot—I refuse to go back to being that person again!’

Millie felt as though she was still walking through that field of landmines, uncertain of what path to take. ‘You worked so hard to overcome it, Ben.’

‘You’d think, right? I thought so, too, until I stood at my engagement party, trying to make a toast to my bride, who I was crazy about, and my first sentence was a train wreck. She dumped me a few days later, telling me she didn’t think we were suited. I knew it was because I embarrassed her that night.’

‘Why do you think I refused to do that speech for you?’ Ben demanded, his tone still as harsh as the wind flying off the Langjökull glacier. ‘It’s because I loved your mum and I knew I’d become emotional. And when I become emotional, I stutter. When I stutter, I feel...’

His words trailed away, and Millie didn’t need him to fill in the blanks, to connect the dots. When he stuttered he felt out of control, as though he was a kid again, as though he was in that space where he thought nothing would ever be okay again.

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