The Unexpected Wedding Gift

Stunned, he lowered himself next to her on the sofa. “Tell me I’m wrong, Marian!”

She spread her hands helplessly and said again, “I’m sorry!”

“For what? For cheating on your husband? For lying to me from the day we met? For telling me you’d taken care of contraception when you’d clearly done no such thing? Well, here’s a news flash for you, Marian. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t begin to cut it!” He heard his voice, tight with anger, bouncing back from the walls and fought to bring it under control. “Tell me this is some sort of sick joke.”

“It’s no joke,” she whimpered. “I wish it were. All through the pregnancy, I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. But the baby’s yours, Ben. I know that for a fact because we just got the DNA tests back from the hospital and there’s no way he could be Wayne’s.”

Almost sick with anguish, Ben dropped his head into his hand. “Assuming this isn’t another lie, what is it you want from me now? Money?”

“No,” she said. “I want you to take the baby.”

He looked up at her, stunned. “Take him where?”

“Home with you. I can’t keep him. Wayne’s willing to forgive me having an affair, but he won’t be saddled with another man’s child. If I want my marriage to last, I have to give up the baby. That’s why I’m here. But if you don’t want him either, I’ll place him for adoption. I don’t have any other choice, not if I want to keep my husband. And I do. He’s the only man I’ve ever loved.”

“How can you love a man who forces you to give up your child?” he exclaimed.

She shrugged. “I’m not strong like you, Ben. I need someone to lean on.” And as if that explained everything, she stood, slid the bag from her shoulder and dumped it at his feet. “I could never cope alone with a baby.”

He looked from her to the bag, then back again. “What’s that for?”

“It’s got things in it that you’ll need. Diapers and formula and things like that. What did you think? That I’d stuffed the baby in it?”

“After all the other stunts you’ve pulled, I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“I’m not completely without feelings, you know,” she cried, flinching at the disgust he made no effort to hide. “He’s my child, too. I carried him inside me for nine months. I gave birth to him.” She drew in a breath and there was an air of desperation about her when she continued, “I have to do what’s best for him. I have to keep him…safe.”

Safe? Given the context of the exchange, the word struck an odd, if not ominous note.

“So what’s it to be, Ben?” she said. “Are you willing to raise him, or do I call Social Services and put him in their hands?”

CHAPTER TWO

BEFORE he could begin to sort through the chaos in his mind, let alone formulate a reply, the door opened. He heard the swish of silk and the sound of footsteps halting on the threshold. As if from a great distance, Julia’s voice came to him, warm with concern and full of love. “Honey? Is everything all right?”

And following right after, in a tone rife with suspicion and censure, her mother’s question, fired across the room like an arrow aimed with mortal intent. “I think you owe us an explanation, Benjamin. Who is this woman and what is so urgent about her business that you felt justified in walking out on your own wedding in order to accommodate her?”

Mutely, he turned and met Julia’s gaze. Tried to tell her with his look that this was not how he’d have had things turn out; that he’d have given his right arm to have spared her the hurt and humiliation about to be heaped on her. But the ability to communicate without words, which been so easy on the dance floor, deserted him when he needed it most.

He saw inquiry on her lovely face. Curiosity. Kindness. And just enough anxiety to dim her radiance to a soft glow.

“We’re waiting, Benjamin,” his mother-in-law reminded him.

“Go away, Stephanie,” he said. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“If it affects my daughter—and from the look on your face, I can only suppose it must—then it most certainly does concern me.”

He felt cold all over. Cold and angry and afraid. In the space of fifteen minutes, everything had changed. All that he thought was his for the rest of time was seeping away, and he was helpless to stem the bleeding. “Julia,” he said tightly, “what I must tell you is for your ears alone and I’m not about to have your mother decide otherwise. Either get her out of here, or I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

“Mother?” She turned, appealing to the woman with upturned palms. “Please leave us alone.”

“With that creature?” Stephanie gestured to where Marian wilted against the back of the sofa. “Not a chance, my dear! If she stays, so do I.”

Ben’s anger turned to rage at that, burning so white hot that his vision blurred and a kind of madness possessed him. He’d never been a violent man but, at that moment, two things came to him: he was capable of murder if that’s what it took to protect those he loved; and he loved Julia more than life itself.

Fortunately, the door opened again to reveal Felicity Montgomery, perhaps the only person on the face of the earth able to stop Stephanie in her tracks with a single glance. “There’s a man with a baby waiting in the foyer,” she said. “He seems to think his wife’s in here and he’d like to know if she’s accomplished what she came to do.”

“I think we’d all like to know the answer to that, but no one’s talking,” Stephanie snapped. “Why don’t you invite him to join the party, Mother Montgomery? Maybe he’ll be more forthcoming.”

But Felicity had learned a thing or two in her seventy-nine years. She didn’t need anyone to spell it out for her to pick up on the hostility and tension muddying the air. “I think not, Stephanie,” she said. “Ben, you look troubled. Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes,” he said. “Get Julia’s mother out of here before I wring her interfering neck!”

“Consider it done, dear boy,” she replied serenely, taking a firm hold of his mother-in-law’s elbow and steering her toward the door. “Come along, Stephanie. You heard the man.”

The silence they left behind was almost worse than the belligerence that had preceded it. It spread over the room like poisonous gas, paralyzing the three remaining occupants. It seemed to Ben that the space separating him from Julia was too vast for him ever to find his way back to her.

Marian was the first to speak. “Do you want me to wait outside, as well, Ben?”

He nodded, too full of pain to trust his voice.

Leaving the bag where she’d dropped it, she made her way to the door, hesitating only when she reached Julia. “I’m very sorry to spoil your wedding,” she said. “I hope you’ll believe me when I say that was never my intention.”

“Leave it, Marian!” he barked, the thought of Julia hearing the news from anyone other than him restoring his powers of speech in a hurry.

Throughout the exchange, Julia remained motionless, her solemn gaze never once wavering from his face. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked, when they were finally alone.

“No,” she said. “I’d like you to tell me who that woman is and why she came here looking for you. And I’d like to know why she thinks she’s ruined our wedding day.”

The seconds ticked by as he searched for a way to soften the blow he had to administer, but no matter how he wished it could have been otherwise, in the end a swift, sharp thrust of the sword was the most merciful. “She claims she’s the mother of my child, Julia.”

The room tilted and, for a moment, she feared she was going to pass out. Too much excitement, she told herself. Too much champagne. I’m imagining all this.

Blindly, she reached behind her, fumbling for something—anything—against which to support herself. Her hand closed over the doorknob and she squeezed it hard, hoping it would disintegrate into thin air and prove she was dreaming.

Instead, it pressed against her palm, cool and smooth and hard as glass. So hard and unforgiving that it pinched her wedding ring against the pad of flesh on her finger. Swallowing painfully, she asked the only question that mattered. “And is she telling the truth?”

“She might very well be, yes.”

“How long have you known?”

“I just found out.”

“I see.”

But she didn’t, not at all. Pressing her lips together, she let go of the doorknob and folded both hands in front of her, knowing he was watching every shift in her expression, knowing he was waiting for her to give him some sort of sign that she understood what he’d said.

She couldn’t do that. Her mind was empty, a great barren void. The pity of it was that her heart didn’t follow suit, because the ache in her chest was crushing the life out of her.