Momentary Marriage (21 page)

Her sister’s sigh was filled with contentment. “We’re going sofa shopping tonight. Remember that ratty couch I’ve had for years?”

“Yes.”

“Doug’s helping pick out a new one,” Amy told her smugly.

Kelsey leaned forward, catching her sister’s hand in hers. “Amy, you know how much I love you and want you to be happy, don’t you?”

“Of course,” her sister squeezed her hand. “And I am. Just as happy with Doug as you are with Jared.”

“Good,” Kelsey said slowly, trying really hard to keep the grimness she felt off her face.

Why had Jared lied to her mother and what the hell was her husband up to now?

*
**

“Go right in, Mrs. Barrett,” Jared heard his secretary say as Kelsey pushed open the polished wooden door to his office.

He rose from his desk chair, his heart beating faster with a sudden surge of pleasure. She hadn’t said she was coming by.

“Oh, Mr. Barrett,” his secretary stuck her head in the door. “I made that call about the union contract. They’re still unsure of their position.”

“Thanks,” he said as she closed the door behind his wife.

Kelsey stood just inside the door, looking almost as beautiful as when he’d left her this morning, tousled and sleepy in their bed.

From the moment she’d become his wife, he’d understood why men fought and died for those they loved. He’d never imagined one woman, no matter how sexy, would evoke such powerful feelings in him.

“Sweetheart,” he said crossing the room to where she stood. “Come in.”

“Do you have to call me that?” she asked coolly.

“What?” He stopped in the act of leaning forward to kiss her.

“We agreed we wouldn’t pretend fake emotions when we’re by ourselves,” she snapped.

“Okay,” he said slowly, his mind clicking through her schedule this morning to discover what had changed his warm, responsive bride into the chilly woman before him.

“Did you get your mother on her plane?” he asked smoothly, drawing her closer. Chloe touched off all Kelsey’s worst fears.

Kelsey stepped back, avoiding his light embrace. “Why did you tell my mother we were planning on having children?”

Jared went still.

Damn.
He’d known as soon as he’d talked with Chloe that it was a mistake. So excited to have his plans and dreams coming true, he’d slipped up.

Kelsey’s beautiful face was now tense with anger, the line of her jaw belligerent.

Damn.

Jared felt himself shift into crisis mode. This was why he kept emotion out of business, out of most things. Feeling like this for a woman made a man’s intellect turn to mush.

“Well?” she asked, the word sharp with impatience.

“She told you I said that,” he said, stalling for time as he scrambled for damage control.

“You told her we were going to try to get pregnant right away, didn’t you?" Kelsey demanded, the smooth dark curtain of her hair swinging against her chin.

“Why don’t we sit down and talk about this,” he suggested, turning toward a cluster of chairs.

“I can’t believe you.” Kelsey’s laugh was short and hard, but she followed him over and sat down. “Why would you say such a thing when you know it’s absolutely untrue? Do you know how disappointed mother will be when this doesn’t happen?

In a situation like this, Jared decided, a certain amount of the truth was required, mixed with a judicious amount of camouflage.

“I didn’t mean to upset your mother,” he said honestly.

“She’s not upset
now,
” Kelsey said scathingly. “She’s thrilled. I wouldn’t be surprised if she goes off shopping for baby clothes as soon as her plane lands.”

Kelsey brushed at suddenly damp eyes. “My mother doesn’t need any more disappointments.”

“Honey, it’ll be all right,” he said, reaching for her hand.

She jerked it back, looking at him incredulously. “How? How could this possibly be all right?”

“Well,” he said with a slow smile. “We could actually…have kids.”

Kelsey wondered for a split instant if she’d heard him right. “What!”

Jared got up and went to stand in front of the office’s broad expanse of windows. “We talked about this at the cabin. I’d like to have kids with you. Unless I’ve read you wrong, you’re not opposed to having children. I think you’ll make a great mother.”

The large, beautifully-decorated office seemed to spin for a moment. “Excuse me?”

He turned back to face her. “I said you’ll make a great mother.”

He was serious, Kelsey realized with a jolt. She sprang to her feet, a turmoil of emotion wallowing in her stomach. Rage came first, followed by a piercing longing, along with panic and confusion. Who better to have a child with than the man who’d been her loving companion in the last week? If only she could freeze that time and live there indefinitely.

Traitorous thoughts. It couldn’t be. Fantasies were lousy places in which to bring a child. She knew better than most how it hurt the youngest when marriages evaporated like the morning mist.

Her own father hadn’t cared enough about her to even see her and Amy after he divorced their mother.

“I can’t believe you," she gasped. “At the cabin, you said you wouldn’t mind if I got pregnant accidentally.”

Shaking his head, Jared said, “That’s not what I said or what I meant. I think I said I’d be happy if you got pregnant. Carla and Mike are having a great time getting ready for their baby. I think we could, too.”

“We made a deal,” she said through the roaring in her ears, the sick surge of her own longing. “Marriage to convince Doug. Sex. One year. How could you think—“

“We could amend the deal,” Jared said gently, his gaze on her face. “It’s not like either one of us is seriously interested in anyone else. We both want children.”

Kelsey’s queasiness turned sharply to nausea. “So we’ll procreate because we don’t have anything better to do? Bring a child into the world because we happen to have good sex?”

She took a step back, stumbling against a chair. This couldn’t be happening. Distressed and deeply disturbed, she wondered where the thoughtful, reasonable man she’d agreed to marry had gone? How could he be so callous about a child?

Was he trying to manipulate her into bearing children for him? Had he’d married her with this in mind?

She’d thought she could trust him and now just a week after the wedding, he was trying to take their understanding down a wholly unacceptable road.

“I have to go,” Kelsey gasped. Turning, she bolted from the room.

“Kelsey!” he called after her.

She didn’t falter, only hurrying away, feeling as if a knife had been shoved in her heart.

*
**

Kelsey stared numbly at the photo layout on her desk.

Maybe this was the real reason he’d married her. Some men wanted children without the emotional entanglements of marriage. Hadn’t she known he was cunning? She’d seen him negotiating. Perhaps she was just a means to an end for him.

It had always seemed unbelievable that he’d married her for sex. A man like Jared, even without his money, would never have trouble finding willing, talented sexual partners.

And she’d realized the hostess-angle couldn’t be that strong when she’d seen his apartment. The setting was beautiful, but there was hardly a stick of furniture in the place. This was the home of a businessman who wanted to entertain?

The thought of being manipulated into having a child made her stomach jump again. She felt betrayed, mostly by the idea that he’d had this agenda all along. Had Jared been playing her for his own hidden goals? Kelsey reached for the glass of water sitting on her desk and took a sip.

It just didn’t make sense. Jared wasn’t hard and cruel. Yes, she’d seen him in action in the business world, but her every instinct had told her she could trust him.

So much for instinct. From now on, she had to be very wary, had to watch herself and her crafty husband.

The thought left her trembling in denial. She didn’t want to believe the worst of him, didn’t want her dream husband of the past week to be false. Oh God. She wanted it to be real, wanted to let herself sink into the fantasy of perfect union and ever after.

Drawing in a trembling breath, Kelsey realized for the first time just how dangerous he could be to her heart. Jared made her want the bliss she’d seen her mother chase all her life.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Doug, we’ve looked at over a hundred couches,” Amy said in exasperation, “and you don’t like any of them.”

He shifted on the specimen under current consideration. “Hell, I don’t know. I mean, this is fine. They’re all fine.”

Amy snorted. “We can’t buy them all. Now, is this one as comfortable as the brown one over there?”

Doug’s expression of discomfort deepened. “Yeah, sure.”

Staring at him, she couldn’t help wondering what had come over her usually opinionated lover. In her experience, men didn’t much care how a couch looked as long as it suited their posteriors when in proper tube-watching position. But Doug’s complete disinterest surprised her.

“Maybe if you lie down on it,” she suggested. In the last two weeks, they’d made love on her cramped loveseat, his couch, the floor, both their beds—anywhere horizontal. She’d never have guessed her hero was such a tiger when it came to lovemaking. But he’d looked like a man headed for a root canal from the minute she’d suggested this excursion.

Then again, what man truly enjoyed shopping for furniture?  She’d felt like a hassled woman dragging a reluctant three year old behind her all day.

“I don’t know,” he said again after stretching his legs briefly on the couch before getting up restlessly. “It’s going to be your couch. You try it.”

Sinking down onto the upholstered surface, she heard the disclaiming note in his voice and recognized it with a pang. Her couch, not their couch. She was stupid to feel hurt by his unwillingness to commit to a joint furniture purchase, she told herself, as Doug turned to stare out the store’s front display window. He was in transition, this man she welcomed into her bed each night, still struggling with the habit of believing himself to be in love with her sister.

But the couch symbolized something more, she knew.

Amy got up, slinging her bag’s strap over her shoulder.

Sometimes her fears overwhelmed her and she wondered if things were really going to turn out good for the two of them. Did he kiss her and dream of Kelsey?

“Let’s go,” she said, walking up to where he waited.

Doug looked at her in surprise. “You don’t like it? Are we looking somewhere else?”

“No,” she said shortly, “I don’t think I’m in the mood for this today. It can wait.”

Relief skated over his features. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

Threading their way through recliners and bedroom suites, they left the retailer and walked toward the subway.

Despite everything, she believed Doug loved her. It was a conviction that had held her through many a lonely night, had comforted her these past months when all he could do was talk about Kelsey. But now he was
her
lover. It was Amy he turned to when his heart was aching, her he took out his bad moods on. The Kelsey Doug was obsessed with couldn’t hold up to the day-to-day loving Amy knew she could give him.

She knew this, but still his preoccupation with her older sister lanced through Amy’s heart.

He saw her sister like an award to be won, a fantasy more about himself than Kelsey. He didn’t really love her sister, didn’t seem to know the real woman inside, but he thought he did.

“Are you tired?” Doug asked, taking her hand in his. “We’ve been shopping all day. Would you rather catch a cab?”

“The subway’s fine,” she murmured, absorbing his concern and hugging it to herself like a love-starved fool.

They descended the flight of steps in silence, paid their tokens and caught an uptown train as it pulled into the station. Stepping into the subway car, Amy sat down next to him on the hard seat.

“So Jared’s back at work,” she said cheerfully, determined to help Doug see that his fantasy woman was married and out of his reach. Maybe then he could find the joy in the reality of their relationship. “Is married life making him harder or easier to work with?”

“He’s pretty much the same,” Doug said after a moment of consideration. “Have you talked with Kelsey lately?”

“Yes.” Amy waited, aware of the urge to comfort him and slap him at the same time.

“Is she…happy?” The studied casualness of his question told its own tale.

“She seems very happy,” Amy said truthfully. In fact, she’d never seen her sophisticated, older sister so in love with a man as she was with her husband. Even Kelsey’s annoyance with him for talking to Chloe about their plans for a family seemed particularly couple-like. Loving a man just seemed to increase the opportunities to be annoyed with him.

“Good,” Doug said after a long moment. “I want her to be happy.”

“So do I,” Amy agreed, a feeling of sickness in her midsection.