CHAPTER TWELVE
Getting through the day really was a lot harder than she had anticipated once she remembered her appointment with the lawyer that afternoon. She was so tempted to let it slide, especially after the wonderful weekend the Palmer family had just enjoyed, but she couldn’t keep leaving things up in the air like this. The weekend and the incident between her and Bryce that morning had complicated matters, but it hadn’t really changed the big picture. The marriage was over, and it had been over for a very long time. It was with a heavy heart that she kept her appointment after her morning lectures and started the divorce proceedings. Jason Goodson, her attorney, had been a bit dismayed to discover that despite Bryce’s sizeable assets, Bronwyn wanted nothing from him other than continued child support and joint custody. Goodson had tried to dissuade her from this course of action, but she had remained firm in her decision until he’d had no choice but to accept his client’s wishes.
Getting through the rest of the afternoon was hell. Nothing seemed to go right, she couldn’t concentrate enough to get any studying done, and the bookshop was even quieter than usual. It offered no distraction from her inner turmoil. To top off a truly miserable day, after she finished work she discovered that she had a flat tire on her brand-spanking-new car. To make matters even worse, her cell-phone battery had died and she didn’t have her charger. Of all days to have given Paul the day off, this was the one time she could actually have used his help. Sobbing with frustration, she returned to the shop to call the Automobile Association and then waited nearly half an hour for them to arrive. Luckily, she had discovered the flat tire before leaving work and could safely wait for the AA inside the shop. By the time they had fixed the tire, she was nearly an hour late and the autumn sun had already disappeared behind the mountain. When she got home it was to find Bryce in the kitchen feeding a happily chattering Kayla. The toddler was intent on redistributing clumps of mashed potatoes from her bowl to her chubby fists and onto her hair. Bryce looked up when Bronwyn entered his field of vision, and his indulgent smile immediately faded.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked in a controlled voice, his face dark with tightly leashed anger. “I’ve been going out of my mind with worry.”
“I had a flat tire,” she explained tiredly, dropping her bag onto the kitchen table and sitting down next to Kayla, picking up a damp cloth to wipe the food from the little girl’s face and hair. “The AA guys thought it may have been a slow puncture that I picked up on one of the gravel roads yesterday.”
“I’ve been sending message after message and getting zero response from you,” he growled, still in that frighteningly controlled voice.
“Well, my battery died.” She shrugged, doggedly wiping the smudges from Kayla’s face despite the child’s frantically shaking head. “I’m sorry.”
He swore, startling both her and Kayla, before handing the toddler’s spoon to Bronwyn and stalking from the kitchen.
“Daddy go ’way!” Kayla informed redundantly, waving happily at the door through which her father had disappeared. Bronwyn sighed and dropped a kiss onto the child’s silky curls, grimacing when her lips met a clump of cold food.
“You need a bath, little girl,” she groaned, overcome with exhaustion at the mere thought of it, when all she wanted was to soak her own weary bones. “Want a bubble bath with Mummy?”
Kayla grinned and nodded happily, starting to sing a tuneless song occasionally peppered with words like “mummy,” “bath,” “happy,” “bubbles,” and “play”; the rest was complete gibberish. Bronwyn laughed as she carried the child up to the master bath, wishing Bryce could hear the charming little ditty.
They were soon happily settled in the huge round tub and immersed in fragrant warm water. Kayla was on Bronwyn’s lap and both of them were enjoying the massive amount of bubbles in the tub when Bryce walked in. He halted at the door, visibly surprised to see his wife and child sporting foam bubble caps and beards. Bronwyn yelped, feeling like an idiot for not locking the door, but she had been so preoccupied with Kayla that she hadn’t even thought about it.
“Daddy,” the child squealed, happy to see him as always. “Baf?”
“Uh . . . not right now, sweetheart.” He shook his head regretfully, raising a wicked eyebrow at Bronwyn. “Although I would love to.” She rolled her eyes at the pathetic attempt at a leer and he chuckled.
“Sorry, Bron, I thought you were giving her a bath. I didn’t know you were in the tub with her. I’ll talk to you later.” He turned to leave.
“Daddy no go!” Kayla demanded, fiercely unhappy that her father was about to leave. Bronwyn groaned and buried her face between the child’s fragile shoulder blades, then looked up to meet his amused eyes.
“You might as well stay; she’ll be insufferable if you don’t,” Bronwyn said. He nodded, lowering the lid on the commode and sitting down, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his denim-clad thighs and his hands loosely clasped between his knees. Happy that her daddy was watching, Kayla launched into full show-off mode. She decorated her mother’s face and hair with more bubbles before dragging a plastic doll into the water and starting a chatty tea party with it. Soon she was totally absorbed in her game, and Bryce shifted his beautiful eyes from child to disconcerted mother.
“I didn’t mean to lose my temper earlier,” he murmured.
“I know.” She shrugged, shampooing Kayla’s hair while the child continued to play. “You were worried. I’m sorry.”
“I was imagining all the worst scenarios,” he admitted, lowering his eyes to his hands. “I was on the verge of calling the police. I’d already decided I would once I’d finished feeding Kayla.” Because his eyes weren’t on her, she chose not to respond to that.
“I regret this morning too,” he said after a prolonged silence interrupted only by Kayla’s happy chatter. This time he did raise his eyes to her face. He looked both uncomfortable and sincere.
“I know,” she said again. “But even though I couldn’t really see it this morning, you did the right thing by leaving.”
“It nearly killed me,” he admitted gruffly.
“I know it wasn’t easy.” She nodded. “But thank you. I’m sorry for pressuring you to stay. It would only have led to even bigger regrets.” She grabbed the showerhead and started to rinse Kayla’s hair. The child squirmed irritably when it interfered with her game.
“Kayla, sit still.” Her mother’s tone brooked no argument. Kayla stopped moving and sulkily leaned back against Bronwyn’s chest. Bryce watched the two of them with a slightly dazed smile on his lips, and Bronwyn frowned, unable to interpret the expression on his face.
“You’re both so beautiful,” he whispered, sounding awed and humbled. He looked so possessively proud that Bronwyn squirmed uncomfortably.
“Bryce.”
He didn’t see her lips form his name. Instead he reached for a small towel and draped it over Kayla’s hair, knotting it turban-style around her head. He reached for another, bigger towel and opened it up, patiently waiting for Bronwyn to finish soaping and rinsing their daughter before kneeling beside the tub to reach for the squirming toddler. His white T-shirt immediately got drenched when he wrapped the small child in the towel. He picked her up before nodding down at Bronwyn, who immediately sank down beneath the rapidly dissipating bubbles.
“I’ll take it from here; you enjoy the rest of your bath,” he urged, and she smiled gratefully, watching his tall, well-built form as he retreated from the bathroom.
“Oh God,” she moaned, burying her face in her wet hands. This was going to be so difficult. She straightened her narrow shoulders resolutely before finishing her bath and heading off to find her husband. He was in Kayla’s room, reading the sleepy little girl a bedtime story. Bronwyn watched silently from the doorway, unseen by both father and daughter until eventually Kayla fell asleep. Bryce stopped reading and leaned down to drop a kiss on Kayla’s baby-soft cheek.
“Good night, angel,” he murmured, so quietly Bronwyn nearly missed it. When he got up and turned around, he seemed unsurprised to find her standing in the doorway. She came forward and dropped her own good-night kiss on Kayla’s cheek before straightening to meet his gaze unflinchingly.
“We need to talk,” she said, and he nodded. She led the way out of the room and downstairs to the living room. She couldn’t do this in the conservatory, not where they had shared so many experiences, both good and bad. He headed straight to the drinks cabinet and poured two glasses of neat scotch, seeming to realize that they would need it. He handed her one of the heavy, crystal glasses and gestured toward two comfortable chairs.
“Shall we?”
She nodded, sitting down opposite him and taking a nervous sip of the fiery liquid that swirled so prettily in the glass. She coughed and he grinned.
“Still can’t hold your liquor, I see,” he teased.
“Bryce, I filed for a divorce today,” she said very quickly. His grin faded, and he went as white as a sheet. His eyes dropped to his glass and he lifted it to his lips with a somewhat shaky hand before downing the contents in one gulp.
“I see.”
“I want nothing from you,” she continued hastily when his eyes lifted to meet hers again. “Just what we discussed before: child support and joint custody.” He got up and headed back to the drinks cabinet. He refilled his glass, doubling the amount this time. When he sat back down, he said nothing, merely drank down half of the liquor with a slight shudder.
“Say something,” she urged.
“Nothing more to say.” He shrugged. “Nothing more to do really, except sit here and get very, very drunk.”
“Bryce,” she admonished, but he didn’t see her lips form his name because he was up once again, refilling his glass. When he returned to his seat this time, he brought the decanter with him and held it up to her with a questioning tilt of his head.
“You want some?” He invited, indicating toward her barely touched alcohol.
“Bryce we need to talk.”
He laughed rudely, sounding anything but amused.
“About what, goddamn it?” His voice rose and she jumped in fright. “You always want to talk but nothing much ever gets said! You want a divorce, you want child support, and you want joint custody? Fine, they’re yours. I’ll throw in the house in Knysna and a few million too! How does that sound?”
“I don’t want those things.”
“Of course you don’t,” he sneered. “You’re too good for my money, for my apologies, and for my love, aren’t you?”
That did it! Bronwyn jumped up and, before she really had time to think about her actions, tossed the rest of her drink into his sneering face. She waited for him to blink the stinging alcohol from his eyes before she laid into him.
“What apologies? What love?” She both signed and screamed at him. “So far I haven’t heard a word of apology from you. Not for tossing me out or for misjudging me. And you haven’t once, not once since our wedding, since before our wedding for that matter, told me that you love me! In fact you did the polar opposite of that; you told me that you married me out of duty, that you’d never loved me. Are you telling me different now, Bryce? Make up your damned mind because I’m getting sick of your multiple personality disorder.”
“Bronwyn . . .”
“No! You have the utter gall to tell me that nothing much ever gets said.” She was still using hands and mouth to make it absolutely clear how she felt. She didn’t want him to miss a single word. “Well whose fault is that, Bryce? You’ve never really opened up to me. Trying to learn anything at all about you is like extracting blood from a stone. I was happy with our marriage before I left, but after being on my own for two years and really thinking about it, I recognized how completely screwed up our relationship was. It was all give from me and nothing but take from you. You hide yourself so completely from me that I wonder if the man I fell in love with ever really existed. So, you’re right, the time for talking is over. I’ll stay in this house as per our agreement but this divorce will happen.”
“Why are you suddenly so desperate for a divorce?” he asked suspiciously. “Is it that professor? Are you leaving me for him?”
“How can I leave you when we’re not even together?” she asked in exasperation. She was frustrated that none of her words seemed to be sinking in “And no, I don’t want a divorce because of Raymond. I doubt I’ll see him again outside of school. And just because you’ve played away during this marriage doesn’t mean that I will.” He looked completely confounded by her words and signaled for her to repeat them, evidently thinking he’d misread her words. When she repeated what she’d said, his jaw dropped to his chest as he stared at her in obvious shock.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked. He was still sitting down, insouciantly sipping at his scotch, even though the alcohol she had tossed on him had drenched his head and shoulders. Bronwyn was still standing and glowering down at him. “I haven’t ‘played away’ as you so eloquently put it.”
“You’re the one who told me that your sex life was ‘just fine,’ remember? What else was I supposed to gather from that statement?” He choked on a sip of scotch and coughed for a few minutes before eventually blinking rapidly to clear his eyes and stare at her stupidly again.
“Bronwyn . . . I was in an accident. I spent six months convalescing, a year in therapy, and the rest of the time actively avoiding crowds. I went out only once, and that was to a surprise party for Theresa De Lucci just a couple of weeks before we found you again. When do you think I had time to shag other women?”
“You said . . .” Okay, so maybe he’d lied.
“I was trying to save face. You were asking me about sex and all I could think about was getting you naked and beneath me again. Hardly something I wanted to advertise when I was still so angry with you.”
“But the condoms?”
“What?”
“In the pedestal drawer,” she elaborated, and his lips twitched.
“Rick and Lisa have used that room in the past and while they did the responsible thing in purchasing condoms, they never really got around to using them, and she got pregnant faster than you could blink.” He stared levelly up at her for a beat before grinning wickedly. “Were you jealous, Bron?”
Damn him!
“Not at all.” She kept her face expressionless but couldn’t quite hide the betraying flush from him. “I just thought you were a hypocrite for getting weird about Raymond when you’d all but admitted to sleeping with other women. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway. The divorce still stands.” Her words brought the reality of their situation back to him and he sobered immediately. “I want to pick up the pieces of my life and move on. I just can’t be happy living like this.”
He stood up, towering above her, and his eyes bored desperately into hers.
“We can be a family, Bronwyn,” he urged, holding out an imploring hand. “This weekend proved that.”
“No, all this weekend proved is that you still have secrets that you refuse to share with me. And it will always be that way, won’t it, Bryce? You will always close off some part of yourself from me. I’ve never really known you and I doubt that I ever will.”
“Sweetheart, please,” he groaned.
“Don’t call me that,” she said. She just felt tired and defeated. He stood there, hand still outstretched and looking miserable, with alcohol dripping from his hair and into his eyes. For a very brief moment she felt herself softening.
“I know that I’ve been an utter bastard,” he admitted.
“Yes.”
His admission strengthened her resolve.
“I’m sorry . . . ?”
“Is that a question? Or an actual apology?”
He hesitated briefly and she rolled her eyes. “Get back to me when you know for sure.” She swept from the room, and Bryce stared at the door for a long time after she’d left.
Now that this whole divorce thing was becoming a palpable fact, he admitted to himself that he wasn’t quite so willing to roll over and give her everything that she asked for. He wanted his wife and child but he was a broken man, both physically and emotionally, and it hardly seemed fair to saddle her with his innumerable problems after everything that he had already put her through. Yet he knew that without her he’d go back to being the empty husk he’d been after she’d left. He sighed and corrected the thought, after he’d driven her away. Two years ago he had been careless with the most precious thing in his world and had lost it as a result. He wished that there were some way to regain her trust and reconcile with her, but in his heart he didn’t think he deserved that much anymore.
“You still with us, Bronwyn?” Bronwyn blinked when a slender hand was waved in front of her face and she saw that the four other women sitting at the restaurant table were staring at her expectantly. They had been discussing Theresa’s marriage renewal ceremony, which was coming up later in the year. The other women were excitedly exchanging ideas for the event.
“Sorry, I missed that,” she muttered, and Alice snorted.
“You’ve missed large chunks of the conversation from what I could tell,” the other woman said with raised eyebrows. “What’s going on with you? You checked out of this conversation before it even started.”
“I’m divorcing Bryce,” Bronwyn told them after taking a fortifying sip of alcohol. It had been a difficult week. She and Bryce had barely spoken since Monday even though he had tried to approach her on numerous occasions. She’d spent her time actively avoiding him and felt like a rank coward because of it.
“Seriously?” Lisa looked stunned by the information, and the other women were all staring at her sympathetically.
“Yes. I’ve spoken to a lawyer.”
“But I thought things were getting better.” Lisa looked devastated by the information, and Bronwyn sighed quietly before shaking her head.
“No, the plan has always been to get a divorce. We’re living together because it’s convenient right now and less stressful for Kayla, but as soon as I graduate and find a job I’m leaving.”
“But that will take years.” Theresa unknowingly echoed the words Bronwyn had spoken to Bryce when he’d first suggested his house-sharing idea to her.
“Yes and it does bother me. I really don’t want to take advantage of Bryce’s generosity . . .”
“Oh bullcrap,” Theresa cut her off with what for her was uncharacteristically strong language. “You’re the mother of his child and you spent the first year and a half of Kayla’s life struggling to take care of her at the cost of your own health. So don’t you dare feel bad about accepting the aid that you’re entitled to receive from the father of your child. It’s the very least he can do.” The other women stared at Theresa in surprise, and she looked a little uncomfortable before shrugging. “It’s something I feel strongly about.” Bronwyn smiled before nodding her agreement.
“You’re right, Theresa, but Bryce has suffered too. He missed the first year and a half of Kayla’s life, and he had that accident while following me and we all know how that ended.”
“All things that could have been avoided if he’d acted less like an arse after he discovered that you were pregnant,” Lisa pointed out reasonably.
“Yes, what married man reacts like that to the news that he’s going to be a father, anyway?” Alice added her two cents worth. “I like Bryce but seriously, that was a jerk move.”
“I think that everything will seem a lot less complicated after a couple of drinks,” Roberta Richmond, who had joined their group for the first time that night, suggested with a decisive nod. She wasn’t quite up to speed on the Bronwyn and Bryce situation, but she showed her solidarity by ordering a round of drinks—even though she kept herself restricted to nonalcoholic cocktails. The woman, at twenty-six, was a couple of years younger than Bronwyn and was a friend of Theresa’s. Apparently they had met at some football thing that Sandro, Theresa’s husband, attended regularly. The tomboyish young woman was now the only single, childless member of their group. Theresa had informed them before inviting Bobbi—as she preferred to be called—that the other woman had very few female friends. Bronwyn liked her positive energy. She was a good addition to their little group.
They spent the rest of the day tossing back cocktails, and, in an effort to cheer her up, the other women started offering Bronwyn all kinds of increasingly bawdy advice on how she could bounce back from her divorce. One of them suggested Bronwyn hook up with a male stripper, which actually made very little sense, but they weren’t very sensible by that point.
“I guarantee a male stripper would know what to do between the sheets.” Lisa nodded knowingly.
“Please, like you’d know,” Theresa scoffed.
“I heard they are mostly gay,” Bronwyn ventured.
“No way.” Alice looked disappointed by the very idea.
“We should do some research,” Bobbi mused, licking the salt off her margarita glass. “Find a stripper and ask him if he’s gay.”
“Where are we going to find a stripper?” Bronwyn asked, curious, more than a little tipsy.
“I know a place,” the very shy and straitlaced Theresa, of all people, volunteered.
“Stop it,” Lisa gasped, scandalized. “You do not!”
“I do,” Theresa maintained smugly. “I saw a documentary about it last week.”
“Well, what are we waiting for then?” Alice asked eagerly. “Let’s go find us some strippers!”
Bryce always positioned himself in a room that would get hit by any car headlights whenever he knew Bronwyn was going to be out late. That way he could be certain she was home safely before heading to bed. He would never be able to sleep if he knew she was still out. He always worried about whether she was safe when she was out late with her bunch of gal pals. Unfortunately the women were all quite adamant that security not be present at their gatherings, but the men had collectively agreed to always have at least one guy incognito and keeping an eye on them. Still, it didn’t prevent Bryce from getting stressed out every time it got a little too close to midnight on these girlie Saturdays. Right now it was after midnight and the responses he’d received to the frantic SMSes he’d sent to both Rick and Pierre—whose guy had security detail that night—had been pretty similar: Chill out bro, they’re fine and Relax! I’ve checked. There’s nothing to worry about. He supposed he would have to be content with that.
At long last, close to one in the morning, the headlights swept up the drive, and he leaped up from the sofa in the den and headed to the front door, fury mixed with the relief he felt.
Strangely enough the headlights were sweeping back down the drive just as he got to the front door, and he was still trying to figure out what that meant when the door swung open. His wife staggered, that was the only word he could think of to describe her movement, into the foyer. Her face lit up when she saw him, and he blinked in surprise until the fumes hit him.
“You’re drunk!” he accused in disbelief. That explained the headlights; she had probably come home by taxi. She said something that he didn’t quite catch, and he imagined that she was probably slurring her words. She held her hand up, thumb and forefinger an inch apart, and he shook his head. “More than a little, Bronwyn. Where the hell have you been?” She winced and rubbed her ears and spoke again, and he caught enough of her words to comprehend that he’d probably used a little too much volume on the question. He took a deep, calming breath like his speech therapist had taught him to and repeated the question in what he hoped was a quieter voice. It was always hard to judge when he was feeling this riled up.
“. . . With girls.”
He caught just the tail end of that, but it was enough.
“You’ve been out with ‘the girls’ before but never till nearly one in the morning,” he said, seething.
You’re not my dad! she signed sloppily before trying to weave her way past him. She lacked the necessary coordination though and instead walked right into him. Bryce grabbed her upper arms and steadied her. She smiled blindingly up at him before quite unexpectedly running her hands over his bare forearms and then up over his biceps. He was so distracted by her touch that for a second he didn’t know that she was speaking. Her eyes had glazed over with familiar desire, and she seemed to be talking more to herself than him. He tried to focus on her lips and not on his burgeoning erection, but it still took a few moments before any of what she was saying sank in.
“Stripper?” Okay, this time he knew he was bellowing. “What stripper?” To his utter disappointment, she stopped her seductive stroking of his skin and frowned up at him. She lifted one of her hands from his arm and raised a forefinger to her lips in the universal shushing gesture.
“What stripper?” he asked again, in what he knew was a whisper, and she rolled her eyes.
“Massive Marvin,” she informed him helpfully, but then removed her other hand from his overheated skin to say the rest in clumsy sign language. But he’s not that massive. You’re much bigger than he is . . . She paused thoughtfully while she ran her eyes over his body and then switched back to words. “Much bigger, all over!” Right. That last gesture was not exactly standard sign language but accompanied by the look she directed downward it was quite unmistakable and very flattering. He felt his face heating and his body hardening even more. He watched as her eyebrows sprang almost all the way to her hairline as she recognized what was happening to him. She raised her glassy eyes to his once more and licked her lips hungrily. God, he knew that look. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, but she was so drunk that he knew it would be wrong to act on their mutual need right then.
Sleeping with her while she was wasted was not part of his reconciliation plan. Okay, he still had no real idea what the hell his reconciliation plan was, but he was pretty sure that sleeping with her right now would not be the best first step.
“He’s gay,” she said. Her lips formed the words clearly enough, and he frowned in confusion at the non sequitur.
“What?” he asked. She was so bloody enchanting like this, but at the same time utterly confounding.
“Massive Marvin. He’s gay.”
“And that disappointed you?” he asked levelly, trying not to sound jealous at the thought of his wife ogling some other guy. Of course, he had no idea if he succeeded or not, but he hoped that he managed to sound as neutral as he was pretending to be.
“No, it was more of a scientific experiment.” Her eyes were on his lower lip, and he wondered what the hell she found so fascinating about it.
“Going to a strip club was a scientific experiment?” He knew that he sounded like a complete idiot, but he wasn’t sure he was following this weird conversation correctly. He kept feeling like he was missing something.
“You have such a gorgeous mouth.” She totally threw him with that one. “Much better than Massive Marvin’s.”
“Are you going to compare me to this Massive Marvin guy all night?” he asked resentfully, feeling ridiculous even saying the stupid name.
“No . . . not fair, he’d lose.” She went up on her toes and completely slammed him by kissing him. Her arms crept around his neck, and her body was flush against his. He could feel every single curve of her body through their clothes. His arms went around her waist and his hands cupped her firm butt and lifted her until he could feel her feminine heat against his aching hardness. God, it felt amazing having her in his arms again. It would be so easy to strip her naked, push her up against the wall, and . . .
Whoa there, buddy! He lifted his head and his hands, raising them up with his palms out in a gesture of surrender, and wondered, with the slightest hint of hysteria, why he was always the one calling a halt to things. One day he was going to give her what she so desperately wanted and to hell with the consequences. But, he conceded wryly as he looked down into her frustrated face, that day was not today. She was weaving on the spot and if not for the fact that she still had her arms tightly wrapped around his neck, she would probably have fallen.
“Babe, you can’t keep torturing me like this,” he could feel the hoarseness in his throat and wondered if he’d managed to get the words out loudly enough for her to hear. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.” Her expression brightened at the word “bed,” and Bryce rolled his eyes, dragging her arms away from his neck and assisting her up to her room. After another frustrating battle in her bedroom, where she seemed to have grown at least six extra arms and put them to good use, he thankfully managed to get her into bed.
He stared grimly down at his passed-out wife, his body hard, aching, and heavy with suppressed lust. He couldn’t live like this anymore; it was enough to test a saint, and he was no bloody saint. He shook his head in disgust before heading for his usual cold shower.