A Marriage of Convenience (3 page)

Jillian sighed and exited the room. Downstairs she found Austin at he door paying the delivery boy. She got dishes out of the cabinet in the kitchen and set the dining room table. There were already candles in holders in the center. She was sure they’d not been there the day before. Should she light them? She didn’t know. Jillian did not want to presume to set a romantic mood, given their arrangement. But then again, it seemed that what was an arrangement to her was something far more serious to Austin. Would he expect her to have sex with him? The thought made her panic, although she knew the reaction was ridiculous. They’d had sex. That was why they were there together in the first place. But she realized that her recollections of that night were foggy. It was almost a year ago, after all.

He smiled at her when he saw her. “I didn’t know how spicy you liked your Thai so I ordered the hot sauce on the side.” He paused. “You look beautiful, Jillian.”

She flushed, surprised. She was dressed like she’d dress around the apartment. Simply. She told him this and he smiled. “You’re naturally pretty. Unpretentious. Genuine. I saw that the night I spotted you at O’Kelly’s.”

“Thank you,” she said, and was surprised to feel herself blush at his compliment. They’d just been married and their daughter was asleep upstairs. So why did she feel like she was about to go on a first date?

The dinner was wonderful. They made small talk about the baby and her plans for school. Austin said he had no problem with her taking online or night courses when he was home to help with Sabrina.

“Of course, my mother would really love to come over and help,” he added casually.

“No,” Jillian said. “The word rushed out of her, unbidden.

“You really dislike her, don’t you?” Austin said.

“There’s something about here that makes me uncomfortable,” Jillian started to explain.

“If it’s because she’s condescending, she’s like that to everyone,” Austin said, but Jillian shook her head.

“No, it’s more than that. I feel like she’s….planning something.” She looked at him. “Is there something I need to know about your mother?”

He shrugged dismissively. “She’s controlling,” he said, and Jillian noted that her new husband appeared to choose his words carefully. “She’s manipulative, but I think both of those faults arise from having to make it in a tough family of very wealthy people. She came from a modest background. My father’s family really resisted accepting her, but dad wouldn’t have it any other way. He was a very commanding presence and he really shielded mom. When my grandparents died, he became a wealthy heir of a huge estate. When he died, it went to mom. By that time she’d forgotten where she came from and was so used to getting her own way that it no longer occurs to her that she won’t get exactly what she wants.”

Jillian considered this. “And what is it that she exactly wants from your marrying me. You told me yourself she insisted..”

“I’d have done it anyway,” he replied.

“She still insisted,” Jillian said. “And it’s not because she likes me. So what does she want?”

He stood and walked around to her. “She wants our child to have two parents. She wants to be a grandmother. And she wants me to be happy. And that’s pretty much it.”

He leaned down and kissed her then and Jillian forgot why the question had seemed so important to her. His mouth tasted of Thai spice. She returned his kiss slowly and then threw her head back as his hand cupped her breast and his lips explored the curve of her neck. Austin picked her up from the chair and continued to kiss her as he carried her up the stairs to his bedroom. It was larger than hers, with a heavy oak bed high off the floor. A thick tapestry hung on the wall. It reminded her of a Tudor-style bedchamber, and she felt like a maiden abducted by a handsome lord as he laid her down.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he said.

“I want to,” Jillian replied, and she did. When Austin’s large hands cupped her sore bottom, it was part torture, part turn-on. She couldn’t figure out why the way he squeezed her sore buttocks brought a corresponding burst of wetness in the soft, throbbing place between her legs. She only knew that he could not get her jeans and panties off fast enough. His hands were everywhere, commanding and insistent. He was not a man to be denied, she realized, and decided that Austin Bellaford was likely more like his father than he probably realized.

Jillian felt her legs fall open as if their own volition. Austin moved between them, the head of his huge cock pressing against the soft, fleeced mound of her pussy. He pushed into her. It had been a long time and she was tight around him. She felt her velvet walls close around him, pulsate on him. She’d never come this quickly with any man. Her legs went around him, pulling him close and she rose to meet his thrusts as his hips worked like pistons to drive him into her.

He came into her, and she wrapped her legs around him tighter, pressing her lips against his shoulder as he pulsed rhythmically with her. They lay together quietly for long minutes and Jillian began to wonder whether he was regretting the decision to keep their relationship more than cordial. Then she remembered that the ‘cordial’ part had obviously been her interpretation and not his. So how did she feel about it, she wondered? She wasn’t really sure.

The baby was crying.

“I’ll get her. “Austin stood, withdrawing his slowly slacking member from the warmth of her body. Jillian felt the sting of disappointment as he got up from the bed. She moved over on her side, pulling the sheet around the naked lower half of her body as she watched Austin pull his robe on and leave the room. A few moments later, Sabrina stopped crying. When he reentered with the baby she wore a fresh diaper and a contented look on her face.

“She was wet but I changed her,” he said proudly.

“Way to go, Dad,” Jillian said.

“Are you surprised?” he asked.

“Honestly? Yes,” she said. “You’ve taken to this fatherhood thing more readily than a lot of guys in your shoes would.”

He put the baby between them and lay down on the bed. Sabrina looked from her father’s face to her mother’s with Austin’s eyes.

“I miss my dad still,” Austin said quietly.

“What happened to him?” Jillian asked.

“Heart attack,” Austin said. “I was away at summer camp in my junior year of boarding school. I hadn’t seen much of my father that last year. He’d been pretty preoccupied with some business deals and that made it easier for me to go away to school. He promised that in the summer we’d go to Europe. I was really excited about that because it was just going to be the two of us. I never expected when I said goodbye to him that the next time I saw him it would be at his funeral.”

Jillian felt a tug of pity for Austin.  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re at least lucky you got to know him. I never really knew my father. He was in and out of my life. My mother made sure he was more out than in. I was the pawn she used to get child support money but I never saw a penny of.”

They were staring at Sabrina now, both thinking the same thing. They wanted her to have a better life childhood than they did.

“Austin,” Jillian said.

He looked at her. “Yeah?”

“I’m glad we got married.” It was hard for her to say, harder than he knew. She looked to him for a response.

“Me too,” he said, and then looked away so she could not see the guilt in his eyes.

She had the table set for two in the solarium. Her prize-winning orchids were in broom and Austin found his mother admiring a particularly showy Cattleya when he walked in.

“Darling!” she said, her long linen jacket billowing behind her as she crossed the room. She caught him gently by the elbows and kissed him on both cheeks before ushering him to the table. “Sit down! Sit down!”

Austin settled into the chair at the little table as his mother sat down across from him.

“How’s my granddaughter?” she asked.

“Sabrina’s fine,” Austin said, and paused. “So is my wife.”

Martha Bellaford shot her son a sly look. “Shouldn’t you refer to her as ‘Jillian,’ or ‘the child’s mother?’ I think we both know that this whole husband-wife thing is a temporary arrangement until we can establish you as the better parent ahead of what is sure to be a very short-lived custody battle.”

Austin gave a heavy sigh. “Look, mother,” he said. “I’m starting to think this isn’t a very good idea after all. I mean, when you first suggested this I didn’t know much about Jillian other than she was an unemployed student…”

“And she still is,” his mother said.

“But she’s more than that,” Austin said. “Jillian is a nice person.”

“I want more than a ‘nice’ person as a mother for my granddaughter,” she interrupted. “I want this young woman out of the picture, Austin. We’ll hire a couple of educated nannies - one for weekdays and one for weekends.”

Austin shook his head. “Mother…,” he began, but she cut him off harshly.

“Do I have to remind you that we have already discussed this? I will not have my granddaughter raised by a woman of such loose moral character that she engaged in a one-night stand!”

“Mother, I was the other half of that one-night stand,” Austin reminded her, but she just scowled and firmly shook her head.

“I don’t care what society says,” she shot back. “There’s been a double standard throughout history for a reason. Men have needs; since time began kings and lords had stables of mistresses. But any woman who spreads her legs so easily is little more than a whore. And that’s what your wife is. The sooner we get this marriage annulled and get you custody of this child the better.”

The maid came in with lunch and the conversation halted temporarily. Austin concentrated on the fresh fruit with yogurt and croissant with glazed ham on his plate, hoping that his mother would reconsider based on his objections.

But no such luck.

“Your father was a brilliant man, Austin. He wanted the best for you and that is why he instructed me to release your full inheritance to you at thirty, and only after you’d sufficiently proven yourself capable of handling that kind of wealth. You know my position on this. You’re a father now, like it or not, and that comes with lifelong obligations that I’m pleased to see you are committed to meeting. But you still have a choice in mates and I’ll not have some gold-digging waitress target you just so she can sponge off of your inheritance. I will not.”

“Mother, Jillian did not target me. If anything I targeted her. She didn’t know what I did, how much money I had, or anything else about me.”

“Nonsense,” Martha Bellaford said. “These women today can sense prestige like a hound dog senses a rabbit. She had your number the moment you walked in, mark me. She’s probably done it before. Only this time she was lucky enough to find a man she could get drunk enough to trick into not using a condom.”

It was nothing like that, Austin recalled, and he felt himself getting increasingly frustrated and angry at his mother. But those feelings were eclipsed by the shame he felt in entering into this scheme in the first place. He was twenty-nine, and all he wanted to do was get his inheritance and be out from under her thumb once and for all. Martha Bellaford had directed his life like it was her own personal screenplay, using his inheritance as leverage every time he balked at her control. When she’d found out about his child with Jillian, Austin had been sure she’d be content to do what he originally planned - contact the mother, pay child support and offer to be part of the baby’s life. But Martha Bellaford had insisted that the child was more than just Austin’s daughter. It was her grandchild and she was determined to help Sabrina overcome what she called “the misfortune of a mother” by making the infant a “true Bellaford.”

Martha had planned the whole thing by degrees. She’d encouraged her son to contact Jillian, and had pushed him to marry her. Austin had been opposed.

“I don’t know her very well,” he said. “It won’t work.”

“No, it won’t work,” his mother had said with a knowing smile. “It’s not supposed to work. It’s just supposed to establish you as a father….”

He’d not asked her details of the plan he could feel her hatching. Now he regretted it. She’d told him the day of the wedding that she’d already hired an attorney to undo things.

“Just pretend to be a good husband,” she replied. “Pretend to care. Give her no grounds to complain about you at all.”

It had been easy enough. But Austin had not counted on developing feelings so quickly for the young woman who’d given birth to his daughter. Jillian was sweet, graceful and had a certain innocence and vulnerability about her that he found wildly attractive. He knew even as he agreed to go along with the plan that he could not hurt her like that, and decided that he would find
a way
to try to make his mother explain that being married to Jillian was what he wanted. But now, the more he tried the more resistant she became.

“No,” she said. “You are a Bellaford. So is your daughter. But this woman…she is..nothing!”

“She’s not nothing, Mother.” He stood, throwing his napkin down.

She glared at him but kept her seat. Pointing a bony finger in his direction, she delivered her next statement with an icy coldness.