It should have made me feel more exposed.
Somehow it made me feel more safe.
It didn’t make sense. None of it. Why he wanted to know, why he cared. Why he was so rapt. “If you’re not judging, what are you doing?”
A smattering of seconds passed before he answered. “I’m listening.” He startled me with a smile. “Now go on.”
“You’re really that into this? You want to hear what happens next.” I chuckled as I drank my wine.
“I think you want to tell it.” He said it so it was clear when he said think he meant know.
And that knowing made me feel safer too.
I set my glass down. “Well, I immediately got my act together. Stopped the partying, did better in school, took prenatal vitamins. I didn’t know what I wanted to do about it yet, but there was only a couple of weeks until Thanksgiving, and I was going home, and I could talk to my parents about it then. I didn’t know about timelines for abortion so I figured it would be fine to wait until then.”
“Did you expect them to be supportive?”
I shook my head. “It makes me feel guilty to say that when you already detest my father as you do, but it’s honest. He didn’t expect much from his only daughter, but he certainly expected her to stay classy.”
“As fathers do.”
I’d forgotten that he was a father. Or, not forgotten, but the fact hadn’t seemed relevant, and now I realized how relevant it was. His daughter, Genevieve, was as old now as I’d been then. He had to be thinking about her, comparing us.
It took all my strength not to ask him about that. He’d tell me if he wanted me to know, and he’d been right—I wanted to finish what I was telling.
“It turned out it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.”
“It never is.”
I started to agree then stopped myself. Experience had told me better. “No, sometimes it is. But this time it wasn’t, because I told…” I hesitated. I’d specifically left Hudson’s name out of the first story. He was a prominent businessman, someone who Edward would probably work with eventually if he hadn’t already, and I owed too much to Hudson to be the one to soil his name and turn his past against him.
So I left his name out again.
“I told the guy before I told my parents. The guy who I’d liked. The one who slept with my friend.”
“And you told him the baby was his father’s?”
I nodded. “He decided to claim the baby as his own, and that made telling Warren and Madge a whole hell of a lot easier because who the fuck cared what trouble Celia had made because now she was going to have a very wealthy baby! I mean, it hurt. It hurt knowing their reaction was only what it was because of what it gave them, but at least I didn’t have to get the tight-lipped, cold-shoulder treatment. So, you know. It was going to be okay.”
Edward sat forward, his finger up to stop me. “Hold on a moment—the guy who’d been an ass before now out of the blue decided to claim it was his?”
Up until then, he’d been almost soft—well, soft for Edward—but there was something distinctly biting in his tone.
“He wasn’t always an ass,” I said defensively, knowing that wasn’t the most important part of his question. “But, yes. He stood up for me. We told our parents together.”
It had been tense—all four of them and the two of us, half of us knowing that Hudson was definitely not the baby daddy, the other half ecstatic. My mother and his had immediately begun planning the wedding even though we’d made it perfectly clear we were not getting married. Then, while the others were talking about baby names, there’d been the moment between Jack and Hudson, a moment no one else saw but me. An eyebrow raise from the older, a terse statement from his son. This baby is mine now. I’m doing this, and it’s mine.
That had hurt in its own way. I’d believed Hudson had volunteered to be dad because he’d felt responsible for the position I was in. He also hadn’t wanted his mother to find out what his father had done, cheating on his wife with a woman half his age. But his words to Jack felt like they were only protecting my baby, his little brother or sister. Where did I belong in all of it?
“Why did he do that?”
I furrowed my brow, and since Edward couldn’t know what I’d been thinking, I didn’t know exactly what he was asking.
“Why did he choose to tie his whole life to yours?” His expression was as accusatory as his tone. “He didn’t even want to date you for a summer and now he wanted to be linked to you forever?”
“Uh...kind of harsh, don’t you think?” It was actually a valid question, though. One I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about when it had happened. I’d been too relieved and grateful to have him step up and save me.
And maybe I’d hoped it would turn into more. Eventually. If I was honest with myself.
Maybe letting Hudson pretend it was his wasn’t one of my finer moments.
“I only meant that it was a fast turnaround. He went from not caring about you to caring enough to make a terrible situation better for you. Why would he do that?” Edward had backed down, but his critical gaze continued to drill into me.
Why would he do that? “He didn’t want me ruining his parents’ marriage, that’s for sure. Though, honestly, I was not the reason there were problems in their marriage.”
“That’s a hell of a sacrifice to save a parents’ marriage.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, his hands clasped together. “He didn’t think it was his? You didn’t tell him the baby was his?”
“No. I didn’t sleep with him, remember?”
“There could have been a part of the story you’d left out.” He ignored the way I bristled at the accusation. “Was he in love with you after all?”
I could feel a muscle in my neck tick. “Were you listening last time? He knew sleeping with my friend would hurt me, and he didn’t care. He most certainly didn’t secretly love me.”
“Did you have something over him? Was it blackmail? Did you trick him?”
A cold chill ran down my spine. I hadn’t done any of those things, and the accusations had me seeing red.
But they were too close to things I had done to other people, and that made me feel guilt along with the rage. But how did he know? How could he possibly know?
I swallowed hard before responding. “I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, but no to all of that. He felt responsible, I think. Because he was responsible, in a way, and maybe I was the asshole because I let him do it, because I thought he owed me, but I didn’t trick him into it. It was all his own choice.”
We held each other’s stare for several breaths. Finally, he sat back into the sofa. “He stepped up. That’s admirable, I suppose.” There was no trace of apology on his features, but he was calm again. “I can’t imagine Hagen ever doing something like that.”
“I can’t imagine you getting in the position where he’d have to, especially after you assured me that you knocking up a mistress would never happen.” I frowned because now I was remembering that conversation, the same one where he’d declared he would sleep with whomever he wanted, when he wanted.
“You’re right. It wouldn’t. You may continue.”
He was so bossy, so arrogant. It infuriated me. I was opening myself up for him and he could still remain so closed off. I was half tempted to stand up and stomp my foot and demand that he share too, that he open up and become vulnerable, that he give me something. Anything.
But I didn’t have the power in the room. Throwing a tantrum would gain me nothing. My only play was submission.
“Thank you, Edward,” I said, as politely as I could manage. I’d intended to go on after that, but I’d lost the momentum and couldn’t figure out where to pick up the thread.
“You decided to keep it then.” He was gentler now. Encouraging. “How did you feel about that decision? About bringing a child into the world.”
The prompting helped. All I had to do was answer honestly, and I did. “I was
excited, actually. For lots of reasons that weren’t just about having a baby. I’d struggled with an identity for so long, and this felt like such a good identity to have—mother. Respected. Loved. I think it was the time in my life I was truly happiest.”
It was too honest, too raw of a thing to say, not just to Edward but to myself, so I rushed past it as if it hadn’t been said at all. “But I was worried too. I hadn’t spent much time dwelling on it when I figured I’d probably end up having an abortion, but now that I was going to keep it, I had to face the fact that I’d partied hard. Drugs. Alcohol. In the earliest times of development. There was a good chance I’d already fucked it up, and I spent the next month fretting over every terrible thing I’d done. I was truthful with my doctor, who wasn’t helpful. She just said we’ll have to watch and see. I was so anxious all the time, my nails were bitten to stubs.”
Edward’s shoulders sagged then, ever so slightly, but it was enough to tell me he knew where this was going, and that he found it disappointing. “How far along were you?”
“Eighteen weeks. It happened just before Christmas.” I hadn’t told anyone this, not anyone. Every person important enough had lived through it, and there’d been no one to talk to about it after. And I hadn’t wanted to, until now.
I wasn’t even sure I wanted to talk about it now, but the story poured out as thick as the blood had gushed out from between my legs. “It was more blood than I’d ever had during a period. And the cramps were the worst. The absolute worst. Like something was trying to tear its way out of me. They had to give me morphine because I was screaming in the emergency room.
“And then I went into shock. I was so cold. The nurses brought three microwaved blankets to wrap around me, and I couldn’t stop shivering. The cramps kept on and on while my body pushed out this thing inside me, this dead thing that I’d centered my identity around. This thing that I’d killed with my irresponsibility.” My throat was tight, and I had to pause to swallow. “It hurt, it fucking hurt physically. It was basically labor, and labor has a bad rep for a reason, but the actual pain eclipsed what it should have been. Every part of my body ached. For days. My muscles, my skin. My face. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to live. I didn’t know what there was to live for.”
It was there in my hospital room that I’d begged Hudson to teach me how to be like him, how to bury emotions, how to become cool and aloof and heartless like he was.
He must not have felt completely heartless because my pleading had won him over, and he taught me The Game. And from then on, I worked not just to bottle and suppress my feelings but to dissolve them with acidic behavior. I annihilated every pain that dwelled inside me by giving pain to others. It had worked for so long.
And now…
Now I was realizing I’d been wrong. That it had never worked at all. That everything I thought I’d killed still remained, and when it finally came out of slumber inside me, it could very well destroy me. Especially if it wouldn’t let its grip on me go, and this one wasn’t letting go. I felt a need to cry, this pressing need against my chest. But it stayed there, tight between my ribs, unwilling to move higher. Unwilling to come out, even though I had the distinct feeling that it would feel so much better if it would.
It would feel validating, too. Tears. It would prove that I really felt this big, terrible pain, that I wasn’t faking what it was or what this experience had meant to me.
But there was nothing. My eyes were dry. My nose didn’t even run. The pain wouldn’t budge from its prison. Was this supposed to have made things better? What was I supposed to do with this now?
I looked to Edward, silently begging him to tell me what to do.
He sighed, a sympathetic, compassionate sigh, and stood up. He moved to me, stopping in front of me, his body slightly offset from mine. He reached down and stroked the back of his hand along my cheek, a gentle caress.
“My children are the joy of my life,” he said, softly. “To lose them would be to lose everything. You are human in this moment. This pain is human. But it’s not something I can replace. The only way over this is through. Just know you’ll be someone different when you get to the other side.”
Fuck you.
I wanted to scream it at him. How was that helpful? Oh, sorry you feel like your heart wants to rip out of your chest, but not really sorry because I’m the one who made you talk about it in the first place.
If my eyes were weapons, he would have been dead for all the daggers I shot in his back as I watched him cross over to the bar and refill my wine glass.
And what the hell did he mean by “replace”? It seemed obvious that this was his response, that his response was to pat me on the head and move on, but if I’d told him a different sort of story, what had he intended to do to “replace” it?
I was confused and mad and beat up by the time he returned the glass to my hand. I was also tempted to hurl it at him.
But then he cocked his head, bringing his tumbler to his own lips and taking a sip before he asked, “Were you told it was your fault?”
The question jarred me. I hadn’t expected it. “The miscarriage?”
“Yes. Did anyone tell you that you caused it? Could it have happened anyway? Maybe it was something completely unrelated to your actions. Is that possible?”
The glass dangled from my fingers as I thought about it. “I didn’t tell them at the hospital in New York. Didn’t tell them about the stuff I’d done. My doctor back in California was the one who knew, and I saw her a month later for follow-up.” I tried to remember if she’d ever told me specifically I’d caused the loss of the baby. Tried to remember if I’d ever asked.
She hadn’t.
And I hadn’t either.
I’d just assumed. I’d always just assumed.
Edward seemed to understand without me saying it. “That’s an awful lot of blame to assume without confirmation. Doesn’t seem like you.”
I almost snapped back that he didn’t know me, but I stopped myself. Because he did know me, better than I wanted him to. Maybe better than I knew myself.
But also, he was right—it wasn’t like me to assume something big like that at all. I was too practical for that bullshit. Too intellectual.
So why had I let that be a weight I carried around for so long? Didn’t I have enough baggage without it? Didn’t it feel better to set that particular piece down?
It was a lot to think about, a lot to process, but as we walked back to the main house in silence, even though the emotions of the evening still pressed heavily against my chest, it did seem like they were a bit lighter than they had been before.
Fifteen
The next day carried out very similarly to most of the days when Edward was on the island, but there were some noticeable differences. He still left me to myself, as usual, but instead of disappearing, he hung around. He left the library door open while he worked, and I could hear him tapping away on the computer as I ate my breakfast in the radial dinette. Occasionally he’d record a message for himself, a reminder to “follow up on the numbers from Turkey” and another to “see about purchasing that Jan van Bijlert that went up for auction.”
Later, I caught him looking at me as I returned from a walk to the beach and again as I sat outside by the pool. He met my eyes that time and made no effort to hide that he was indeed spying. Warmth rushed up my neck and into my cheeks. He was distant and aloof, as always, but there was a new weight in his gaze that kept me pinned down, and surprisingly, I liked that feeling. Liked the way it pulled me together and anchored me. I’d needed it and hadn’t known it. How had he?
After the session from the night before, I’d woken up somewhat frazzled. This large thing that had happened in my life, this event that held such enormity, had finally been unpacked, and it was impossible to shove it back inside me again. It didn’t fit into the box I’d put it in before. I couldn’t completely let go of the blame I’d put on myself for my miscarriage, but I couldn’t hold it in the sam
e way either. I could breathe around it now when once upon a time it had suffocated me. And I could feel it breaking up further, slowly dissolving into a new shape as I wrote about it in my diary.
I was changing. I was becoming something new, and it scared me, but it felt good too. Thrilling, almost. Especially when Edward looked out across the patio and regarded me with that intense stare. Part of me couldn’t believe he could stay so distant after everything I’d said the night before, but a bigger part of me liked that he did. Was grateful. I needed the space to process the revelations. It was almost as though he could see what was happening inside me, the good and the bad, the breaking apart and the pulling together.
And of course he could see it—he’d orchestrated it. I just couldn’t figure out why.
After lunch, Marge showed up unexpectedly to give me a massage.
“It’s not our usual day,” I said, not actually protesting. Honestly, a massage sounded amazing right about then.
“Mr. Fasbender requested it,” she said. “He said you’d had a rough night. Let’s see if we can get that worked out of you.”
Stunned, I followed her out to the pool house, and when I glanced back toward the library and caught Edward watching us at the window, I smiled.
That evening, everyone came for dinner and stayed to socialize after. The men didn’t separate like they sometimes did, instead joining the women in the courtyard. A tense game of poker commenced using poker chips in lieu of actual money. Eliana played savagely, which wasn’t at all surprising, though Edward won almost every hand, also not surprising. What was somewhat astonishing was the way Joette cursed and swore like a sailor when she got a bad card. The woman had zero poker face and was the source of many laughs. Even my usually stoic husband spent much of the game with a grin on his face.
There was no session with him. I’d barely spoken to him at all, in fact, and yet he was foremost on my mind as I went to sleep that night. He fascinated and intrigued me, and as much as I still hated him, I also didn’t. There was chemistry between us that I couldn’t deny, and I wanted him, and it wasn’t just Stockholm Syndrome or the common situation of falling for my therapist, though it was definitely those too. But it was more than that. It was that unique feeling of being known in a way that no one else knew me. It was the sense of being cared for, actually cared for rather than just groomed. It was the interest of someone in me for something other than my body, someone I hadn’t manipulated into giving me his attention.