Carides's Forgotten Wife (7 page)

She had known what this was. The moment she’d heard who was at the door she’d known. But she still didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to believe what this woman was saying.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said, asking for clarity she didn’t truly need. “What?”

“His baby,” she said. “The child is his, and it’s time for him to take responsibility.”

* * *

By the time they were all seated in Leon’s office, Rose was in a daze. Leon did not look like he was faring much better. He could only stare blank-faced at the woman who was claiming to be the mother of his child. A child who was only four months old.

Rose bit back a cry of hysteria at the thought. Yes, she knew he had been with other women over the course of their marriage. But never,
ever
had she been asked to deal with the reality of it in quite such a tangible way.

The baby hadn’t made a sound since arriving—it was like a little doll, sitting in the bucket seat. A girl, with a pink blanket thrown over her sleeping figure. She had dark hair, long sooty lashes that swept across her cheeks. She was beautiful. And she was Leon’s. Leon and
April’s
. That was the woman’s name. It made Rose feel sick.

The lawyer was talking, outlining the apparent details of the agreement that Leon had previously made with April. He was sitting there, looking stoic, saying very little. Rose had plenty to say, but it wasn’t the time. They were still trying to obscure the fact that Leon had no memory, difficult when he was sitting near a former lover that he clearly didn’t have any recollection of. Difficult when he was sitting near a child he obviously didn’t remember.

But it was all there, right in front of them. The acknowledgment of paternity, the DNA test and the agreement that April would have full custody along with a certain amount of financial support from Leon.

“I know what we agreed,” April said, speaking slowly. “But I find that I’m unable to take care of her. More than that, I don’t want to. I thought it would be worth it. Especially with all the money you are paying me, but I just can’t. I waited for some...maternal instinct to kick in. Something that would overwhelm me and change me. I’m not changed,” she said, sounding sad. Flat. “I could hire nannies, you’ve given me enough money for that but... I wanted better for her. I’m going to give her up for adoption. But I felt like I needed to speak to you first. I’m willing to sign over all of my parental rights to you.”

“She will of course continue to collect a stipend,” the lawyer added.

“Of course,” Rose said, her tone brittle.

“Yes,” Leon said, his tone slightly more sincere, “of course.”

“If everything is in order then, Mr. Carides, we are happy to relinquish baby Isabella into your custody.”

For a moment, Rose wanted to stand up and shout. She wanted to say no. To send the child out somewhere else, anywhere else but into her home. It wasn’t fair. They were making a life together, her and Leon. They were trying to make their marriage work. She was the one that was supposed to have his children. Not someone else. His DNA wasn’t supposed to combine with another woman’s to make something so beautiful. It should be with
hers
. This should be
her
baby.

She wanted to rail against him. To rail against all of this.

And yet when she looked at the sleeping little girl all she could feel was sadness. It wasn’t Isabella’s fault that her mother couldn’t take care of her. It wasn’t her fault that her father had been careless. It wasn’t her fault that her father had a wife who felt personally wounded by this indiscretion.

All of the adults in the room had made choices. Rose had chosen to marry Leon. Leon had chosen to sleep with April. April had chosen Leon even knowing he was married. Only Isabella had made no choices.

And no matter how angry she felt, she could feel no anger at the baby. Not really.

“Of course I want her,” Leon said, his voice breaking.

He didn’t ask Rose what she wanted. But then, she could hardly blame him. This was his child. His flesh and blood. How could she ask him to do anything but take her into his home? And how could he ever leave the decision up to anyone else? He couldn’t. She understood that.

She was still angry.

But she said nothing. She said nothing at all while Leon and April signed the paperwork. Paperwork that didn’t include Rose, because why would it? She wasn’t a parent to this child. She was only Leon’s wife. Why would she matter at all?

“Thank you,” April said, her tone hushed. “This isn’t my proudest moment.”

Rose didn’t care at all about the other woman’s pride. She found herself short on sympathy.

Leon did not seem to suffer a similar affliction. “You’re doing what you think is best,” he said. “You should be proud of that.”

The other woman tilted her head. “You seem different,” April said. “Not that we know each other all that well.”

“I stopped drinking,” he said, his tone grave.

“Maybe that’s it.”

Then April turned her focus to Rose. And Rose really wished she hadn’t. Rose would rather disappear into the ornate wood paneling on the wall. She wanted to hate the other woman. But when she saw the exhaustion in her eyes, a deep sadness that her flippant
I don’t want this
tried to disguise, she simply couldn’t. “I’m sorry,” April said, her words directed at Rose.

“There isn’t anything to be sorry for,” Rose said, surprised by the fact that she meant them at least a little bit. “Leon has to answer for his own actions—you don’t.
You
didn’t make vows to me.”

“Well, I think he was trying to keep all of this away from you. But I didn’t feel right about putting her up for adoption without...”

“I understand. I’m glad that you came to us.” She wasn’t sure it was true. But it was the right thing to say.

Without another word, April and her lawyer walked out of the office. April didn’t look back again, not at Leon, not at Rose, and not at the child that was still safely buckled up in her car seat.

Rose felt like a small pink bomb had been detonated in the middle of them. They had been making things work. Things had been changing. Things had been different. But the simple fact was that no matter whether or not Leon could remember the past, the past existed. It was so tempting to believe that a clean slate was possible. That because his memories were changed, his actions had, as well. But this was incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

“We don’t have any supplies for a baby,” Leon said finally, breaking the silence between them.

“That’s what you’re going to lead with?” Rose asked, hearing in her tone the fragile nature of her mental state.

“What do you want me to say? I have no memory of any of this. Obviously I knew about the child, Rose—I signed those documents. That is my signature. I signed away the rights to my child.”

“A child you had with another woman during our marriage.”

“Yes,” he said, his tone fierce. “Though it is no surprise to you that I was sleeping with other women.”

“It does surprise me,” she said, her voice rising along with the hysteria in her breast, “that you had a child with someone else. That’s quite the secret to keep.”

“I find I am more distressed by the fact that I clearly wanted nothing to do with Isabella.”

“Well, I imagine you wanted to avoid this scenario.”

“What kind of man does that?” Leon asked. “What kind of man pays a woman off to keep a child out of his life?”

“You,” Rose said, not caring if she was cruel. Not caring if her words cut. “Apparently you do.”

“I’m starting to think I know nothing about myself at all,” he said, his voice hollow.

But she didn’t feel sorry for him. She refused.

“The feeling is mutual,” she said.

Rose turned on her heel and stormed out of the office, doing what she knew was about the cruelest thing she could. She left Leon alone with his thoughts. And with his child.

* * *

Leon stared down at the sleeping baby in the car seat, emotions rolling through him like storm clouds, pressure building inside him. Who was he? What sort of man kept his wife ensconced in a manor house in the country, leaving her a virgin for two years while he lived his life as though she didn’t exist?

What sort of man brought a baby into the world and wrote an agreement making it completely clear he never wanted to see her?

He gathered from the paperwork that he had never set eyes on his daughter. He gathered he hadn’t even known the gender of the child.

Weariness stole through him, and a darkness rolled through him like clouds covering the sky.

What did you do when you found out you were a monster? Because he had to be a monster. There was no other explanation. Real men did not abandon their children like this. They did not pay to make their own flesh and blood go away.

He didn’t know if he had ever held a baby. He had certainly never held this one.

Suddenly, he found himself dropping down to his knees, his heart pounding so hard he could scarcely breathe. He looked at the little girl, sleeping there in the car seat. So tiny, so perfectly formed. Abandoned by the only parent she knew, brought to stay forever with the man who had signed her away as though she was an unwanted object he didn’t want cluttering up his home.

“I am sorry,” he said, his voice raw, strange. “I am sorry for the man I was. But I will not abandon you. Not now. I will fix this. I will be the father you deserve. I will be the man that both of you deserve.”

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, sitting on the floor in front of her, simply staring. But eventually, she began to stir, a plaintive, high-pitched wail on her lips as she came fully awake. Her eyes open, bright blue, not at all what he expected, glaring at him as though he was her enemy. Then the tears started to fall down her angry red face and panic flooded through him.

He picked up the car seat, wincing as pain from his ribs shot through him.

He had to find someone. Anyone. He did not want to pick her up. He was afraid he would break her. He had no memory of how to hold a child. Perhaps he had never known how.

“Rose!” He made his way out of the office and through the halls. “Rose, I need you.”

Rose emerged from the library, her face pale, her eyes red.

“What is it?”

“The baby is crying.”

“Yes,” Rose said, crossing her arms, “she is.”

“I do not know what to do.”

Rose stayed right where she was, her feet planted firmly on the floor. “I’m not sure what you want me to do about it.”

“
Help
me.”

She still didn’t move. Then finally, as Isabella’s cries continued to fill the air, Rose’s expression softened. “I’m not going to help you. But I will help her.” She crossed the space between them, stopping in front of him. “Put her seat down.”

He complied, and then Rose knelt down, beginning to work the harness that kept the baby strapped in.

She undid the seat belt and plucked the baby up from the seat, cradling her tiny body close to her chest. It made something inside Leon’s own chest tighten. Made it almost impossible for him to breathe. There was something about all of this that was familiar and foreign at the same time. Something that filled him with a terrible sense of dread that made it feel as though his insides were slowly turning to ice.

He found himself completely rooted to the place he was standing. He couldn’t move forward. He couldn’t turn away.

“She might be hungry.” A tear slipped down Rose’s cheek and he despised himself. The two women in his life were here in front of him, weeping, and he could do nothing to stop any of it. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know how to comfort a baby, and he found himself somewhat terrified by the sight of her. He didn’t feel he deserved to try to offer comfort to Rose. Whom he had betrayed.

“Are you all right?” It was the wrong thing to ask. He knew the moment he spoke the words. And it was confirmed by the way her mouth flattened. By the way her eyes cooled.

“I don’t know how to take care of a baby. I don’t know what to do. This isn’t what I want,” she said, her voice breaking.

There was no response for that. It didn’t exist inside of him. He wondered what he would have said if he was in possession of his memories. He wondered how he would respond to this. How he would respond to her.

“First I will send out some of the staff to buy supplies,” he said. He didn’t know what would come next. He realized the way he had begun that sentence implied that he had a list of actions to take. But he could barely wrap his mind around the one.

“That would be good,” she said, her tone stiff. “Please just...take her.” She took a step forward, thrusting the baby into his arms. He took her, cradling her close. He could do nothing but stare down at her, marveling at the intense shot of fear that gripped him. As though she were a man-eating tiger and not a small girl.

When he looked up, Rose was gone.

And Leon was left alone with his daughter.

CHAPTER SEVEN

R
OSE
FELT
LIKE
she was made of pain. She’d spent the entire day curled up in her bed, a lump of misery that could not be moved. She was assuming that Leon had seen to taking care of Isabella’s needs. She felt guilty for the assumption. But not quite enough to move from her position in her bed.

It wasn’t as though she had any experience with babies. None of her friends had them yet. She was an only child, and she had never done babysitting or anything like that when she was growing up.

She couldn’t offer him any help. The house was full of staff. He would figure something out.

She ignored the crushing weight that thought brought. She didn’t know how she was supposed to sort through this. She didn’t know how she was supposed to forgive this.

But she had shared herself with him. As much as she had loved him before he’d touched her, she had only fallen deeper since they’d started sleeping together. Since she’d started to hope again.

The door to her bedroom opened and she sat up, clutching her blanket to her chest, in spite of the fact that she was fully clothed. “What do you want, Leon?” she asked, not bothering to moderate her tone as Leon walked into her room, slamming the door behind him.

“Are you going to stay angry with me?”

“Probably,” she said.

“There is nothing that I can do about this. There is nothing I can do to turn back time.”

“And there’s nothing I can do to erase how horrible this feels. I just don’t understand. I don’t understand how you could do something like this.”

He exploded then. Every bit of the rage she imagined had been simmering inside of him since his accident, since his memories had been ripped from him, pouring from him. “I don’t know why I would do something like this, either, Rose. I have no memory of any of it. No memory of what reasoning there could have possibly been. Why was I not in your bed? Why did I turn my own child away? I don’t know the answer to these questions. Everything is gone. It’s a black hole inside me. I can never reach the bottom of it. I can’t seem to see anything around me. These are the consequences of my actions, and I understand that. I understand that I’m not innocent because I don’t have answers. But it doesn’t make this any easier.”

She gritted her teeth. Fighting against sympathy. Fighting against any kind of understanding. She held on to her anger like it was a lifeline, and she refused to release her hold. “It doesn’t make it easier for me, too. It simply means that I can’t even rail against you the way I want to. All it means is that I can’t get an answer out of you. No matter how hard I try. Though I doubt you would give me one even if you could remember. That’s just how you are. You have been kind to me in the past. But I’ve been clinging to those memories like they have anything to do with the man you became.”

“And who is that?”

“A bored, cynical playboy with a drinking problem. A man who has been given
everything
, and seems to feel
nothing
.” She took a deep, shaking breath. “You’re a brilliant businessman, but you’re a terrible husband. You don’t love anyone but yourself, Leon. And it has been like that for a very long time.”

He seemed stunned by her outburst. Stunned by her words. Well, that made two of them. But it was true. It was everything that she had buried down deep inside herself. Even deeper than the love she felt for him. When she had talked herself into divorcing him, she hadn’t used anger to make the decision.

She had latched on to a kind of world-weary practicality. Forcing herself to face that if after two years they didn’t have a real marriage they never would. She hadn’t allowed herself to feel anything like the sadness that bloomed deep inside her now. Nothing like the rage that burned hot beneath it.

She was allowing herself to feel it now.

“I was wrong. There is no excuse. The reasons don’t matter. I was wrong, and I’m very sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry that I hurt April. That I had any part in hurting Isabella. I am
sorry
.” His words were raw, genuine. But she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

“It changes nothing. What good does
sorry
do? Can you give me back the last two years of my life? Can you give me back my heart? I am so tired of you holding my heart. I am a fool. I am the fool who has loved you for the last fifteen years, and you never deserved that.”

“I feel you’re probably right. That I never have deserved for you to have any feelings for me at all.”

“I am right,” she said, conviction burning in her words. “You didn’t deserve my father’s affection, either. The world has been kind to you. I imagine the first time anything tragic ever happened to you was when that other car crossed the centerline in Italy.”

He closed the space between them, reaching down to where she was on the bed, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her up against him. His dark eyes blazed down into hers. “I deserve all of that,” he said, his voice low, soft. “All of that and more. Give me your anger,
agape
. Let it out.”

“I hate you,” she hissed. “As much as I ever thought I loved you. How dare you do this to me? I did nothing but live my life trying to please people. I was the daughter that my father required. I took care of him after my mother died. I never let him see how I used to cry. I never let him know how badly I missed having a woman in my life. I never let him know how lost I was all through junior high and high school. How lonely I was. Because I didn’t want him to worry. I agreed to marry you for his peace of mind, even though I knew you didn’t love me.” She took a gasping breath. “And I never let you know how much it killed me when you went out with other women. I simply accepted what you handed to me. I licked the crumbs that you threw me off the floor, because I am such a sad, pathetic creature. But I am not
your
creature anymore.”

He reached up, sifting his fingers through her hair, holding her head steady, staring down at her. “You cannot possibly hate me more than I hate myself.”

“Of course I can,” she spat. “I wish you could feel this.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “I wish you could feel exactly what you did to me.”

Tears burned her eyes, her heart pounding, her entire body trembling. She felt desperate. Desperate to make him understand exactly what she felt inside. Her heart was like shattered glass, the shards working their way into her skin, burning, aching.

She wanted him to feel this. She wanted him to understand. This man who had always seemed so charmed to her. So together. Who seemed to get everything he wanted from life, who seemed to be denied nothing.

Who made her want with every deep, desperate part of herself. Who made her want him even now as she burned incandescent with rage over his actions.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, tilting her face upward as she rose up onto her tiptoes and claimed his mouth with hers. She kissed him with all the anger inside her. She poured all the hatred, all the rage that she had just professed straight into him. Hoping it would burn all the way down. Hoping it would destroy him slowly the way that it was destroying her.

She sobbed helplessly even as she parted her lips, thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth. She hated herself. Almost as much as she hated him. For wanting him even now. For needing to be comforted by him even though he was the one who had caused her all of this pain.

But if it was so easy to turn it off, she would have done it a long time ago. If she could simply decide that she didn’t want him, decide that she didn’t love him, things would be so much easier.

If she could transfer it all to him, exorcise it from her body, everything would be simpler. She would be free.
Finally.
Instead of feeling like there were chains wrapping around her wrists, around her neck, pulling ever tighter. Binding her to a man who could never give her what she needed. To a love that could never give back to her.

She moved her hands, curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, holding tightly to him as she continued to kiss him. He pulled her forward, taking a step back, bringing them up against the wall. Then he flipped their positions, her shoulder blades pressing into the wood paneling.

She slid her hands down to his chest, felt his raging heartbeat beneath her fingertips. She couldn’t stand these clothes between them. Couldn’t stand secrets between them. Couldn’t stand lies, even lies that were lost in the dark spaces in his mind.

She couldn’t erase those other things. But the clothes, she could do something about.

She tore his shirt from his body, followed by his jeans, and all the while, he made quick work of what she was wearing. Soon they were both naked, pressed skin to skin, as though they were trying desperately to connect. Trying desperately to get beneath everything between them so they could find some way back to each other.

His desperation matched her own. His pain did, too.

Whatever Leon might have felt about any of this at another time, it hurt him now. That didn’t absolve him. Not even close. But it satisfied her. Deep down in the meanest part of her, the part of her that wanted him to hurt, too.

She pulled her mouth away from his, angling her head and scraping her teeth along the side of his neck. He growled, grabbing hold of her chin and straightening her head, leaning in and kissing her before nipping her lower lip.

She returned the favor. Sinking her teeth into his skin before soothing him with her tongue. He moved his hands down her body then, cupping her bottom, pressed her tightly up against his hardened length. She arched into him, seeking oblivion. Seeking satisfaction.

He shifted, moving his hand down, grabbing hold of her thigh and lifting it up over his hip before testing her readiness. Then he thrust up deep inside her, both of them groaning as he filled her.

It wasn’t a gentle coming together. It was fiery. Intense. It was rage, it was need. It was a kind of broken hopelessness that wound its way through the air around them, impressed itself on their skin.

When all was said and done they had something to contend with that neither of them knew how to handle. Once the desire between them was extinguished they would have to find a way to move on from this moment. Find a way to handle the child that was now in their life, in the center of their marriage.

Find a way to either repair this betrayal or go their separate ways.

But right now, there was this. Right now, they had each other. And she clung to him. Held tightly to his shoulders as he pushed her to the heights. As he shattered her completely beneath his touch.

She arched against him, crying out as she found her release, and he let out a hoarse growl as he found his own, spilling himself deep inside her.

And when it was over, when her heart rate returned to normal, she released her hold on him, sliding down the wall and sinking to the floor, allowing misery to overtake her completely.

* * *

Leon found himself dropping to his knees next to Rose. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her against him as she wept. She cried because of him. Because of the pain that he had heaped upon her. He held her, even though he had no right. Even though she would be better off with a stranger.

It seemed inappropriate to try and heal a wound that he had caused. Although perhaps there was no one else who could do it. Perhaps it was right really. To pour himself into atoning for his sins.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the words feeling frustratingly hollow.

He wished he knew everything he was sorry for. He wished he could give them more weight by being aware of each and every transgression he’d committed against her. He didn’t need to know what they were to know that he was sorry, but he wanted to list them. Wanted to feel the full weight of them. And he couldn’t. Just another in the long list of growing frustrations.

He wanted to answer for his sins. He couldn’t even name them.

He wanted to understand why he had betrayed the woman in his arms. Why he had abandoned the little girl sleeping in the crib in the room down the hall. He wanted answers, and his own mind refused to give them.

He was the only one who knew these things. He couldn’t tell himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, because he had no other words.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” she said, miserable, broken. “It wasn’t my dream to raise a child you had with another woman.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I wanted to have your baby. I wanted you to love me.”

“Rose...”

“I sound like a child throwing a tantrum,” she said, her voice hollow. She drew her arm across her face, wiping in her tears. “It doesn’t matter what I wanted. All that matters is what we have. You have a baby.”

“I want her,” he said. He did. In spite of the ice block that seemed to grow larger inside his chest every time he looked at her. The fear. The uneasiness.

He had a feeling that even if he was in possession of all of his memories, coming into the care of a tiny baby would frighten him. But with nothing, with no background, with no reference for things like this, he was chilled to his bones.

“I know,” she said, her throat tight. “And I couldn’t ask you to do anything different. She’s your daughter.”

“But you don’t want her.”

“No. That isn’t it. I... I’ve known about you sleeping with other women, Leon. It has always been in tabloids. On gossip websites. It’s the world’s worst-kept secret. Everyone knows that you aren’t faithful to me. Everyone knows that you married a little homebody who can’t keep up with you. Who isn’t as beautiful as the other women you see.” She swallowed hard. “But this... Looking at the evidence of the fact that you were with other women... Knowing that someone else got something I wanted so desperately... It’s different. It isn’t something I can just brush off.”

“I understand that.”

“But it isn’t Isabella’s fault. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s so tiny and helpless, and her mother abandoned her... I can’t face the idea of abandoning her. I can’t.”

“I care about you. You are...the only memory I have, Rose. The one who has been there since I opened my eyes and came back to the world a man with no memory. And I am very sorry for my behavior. But one thing I know...beyond anything... If you feel like you will be angry with Isabella, in any way, if any of your feelings about what I have done might spill onto her...then it would be best if we worked out a different arrangement.”