“And no merger.”
“No merger.”
It was ambitious, but also totally doable with the financial strength of Pierce Industries. Hudson had that kind of power—gigantic power. The kind that was both awe-inspiring and ominous. It was a top-of-the-game privilege to be able to partner with him.
My ribs ached with realization. “He tied us more securely to him, didn’t he? He doesn’t just own the majority shares of Werner but now he’s linked Accelecom as well.” I thought I should probably tell Edward I was sorry, but there wasn’t an apology I could give that would be worth the one deserved.
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t believe it was all Hudson’s idea.” After giving me time to react with shock and curiosity, he went on. “The younger brother presented the idea. You’ll never guess who was at his side.”
But I could guess because of what Chandler had said the other day. “Genevieve.”
“You knew?”
I wished I had, simply because it was rare that I had the opportunity of surprising my husband. Except I didn’t really wish that, because I hated that I knew it now. Hated how much her part in this had to have hurt him. How much it must have felt like a betrayal.
On top of my betrayal.
Yes, he’d had a very, very bad day indeed.
“I didn’t know,” I answered truthfully, aching to say something more comforting. “I’d heard a mention that they knew each other, and the pieces sort of fell into place.”
“She sold the idea rather brilliantly. In other circumstances…” He turned back to look at me. “I couldn’t bear to let her think she hadn’t masterminded a good thing. I told her you were crying, begging to go back to London.”
“You’re as good at playing games as I ever was.” I smiled weakly. He almost smiled back. A beat passed. “Then we’re headed back to London?”
“Do you want to go?”
Our conversation was painfully stilted but vitally important, so I stuck with it in earnest. “Cornwall Terrace is my home now. I want to raise our baby there. Turn my office into a nursery. Redo the playroom.” Imagining us in London made my sides ache with longing. “But I’m attached to my doctor here. And the trial is about to start there.”
“We’ll stay then,” he said, resolutely. “I’ll get us a connecting suite for when the baby comes. We’ll go home when you’re ready, after she’s here.”
After she’s here. I couldn’t bear to think we’d still be this awkward with each other when she arrived.
I had to keep him, had to pull him back before we lost this moment entirely, but I didn’t know quite how. “Genevieve and Chandler, then,” when I couldn’t think of anything else.
“Genevieve and Chandler.” He seemed less dismayed than I thought he would be.
“I’m sure that has Hudson mortified. Though, could you imagine? If they stayed together?” It was comical, so I laughed. Then reality sank in. “Even more tied together.”
“Perhaps that will work out in our favor.”
I gave him a stare that very blatantly said I just can’t possibly see how.
“It’s a wonder what being family can do to a business relationship. Your father would never have agreed to a joint venture let alone a merger before we married. Maybe Hudson would finally feel comfortable about selling us those shares.”
“You still want Werner.”
“I’ll have Werner. Eventually.”
Of course he wanted it. He always wanted, wanted, wanted. There was nothing ever enough to satisfy him. He would get it too, as he always did. I had no doubt. It was something I both admired and resented about him. His hunger and avarice made him powerful, powerful enough to succeed, and that was a major turn-on.
Just, it would be nice to believe he had all he needed in loving me.
Way to dream, Celia.
And since the dream couldn’t be reality, I had to fight for what I could get, for our baby. “I’m guessing this will be a long game. May I propose a truce?”
He raised a brow, intrigued.
“You keep your secrets, I’ll keep mine. Whatever you pursue in business is, no pun intended, your business.” I wished he were closer, that I could reach out to him or that I had the nerve to go to him and throw myself in his arms. Since I didn’t, I put my hand on my belly for reassurance instead. “Until she’s born, at least.”
His eyes went from mine to my hand resting over our child. A split second later, he was in front of me again, wrapping himself around me. “Yes. A truce. It would probably be best. For both your sakes.”
I blinked back tears, wary of asking for too much, but wanting more all the same. “For your sake, too?” I asked, hopefully.
“Definitely for my sake, too.”
I relaxed into him, feeling like we were finally on the same side, even if we weren’t really. We were for now, united in our love for each other and our baby and our determination to stay together no matter what.
It would be hard, though, when the truce was over. When the secrets pushed their faces up against the windows, demanding to be let in.
He was thinking it as well, he had to be.
I knew for certain moments later, after he’d suggested a bath to clean us up and soothe my tail end and after I’d cooed about his desire to take care of me like he once had so routinely and after he’d promised he would again from now on. He cupped a dominating hand at my cheek and brushed his lips over mine, hot and possessive and open-mouthed.
“It’s not just Werner I want,” he said. “I’ll want all of you, too. Eventually.”
And like everything, he’d get all of me. Eventually.
I was a fool if I believed anything else.
Seven
Edward
Nothing could have prepared me for this moment.
Not the birth of my first two children, delivered so long ago in another country, when newborn practices varied in small but significant ways, when infants were immediately carted off to a nursery to be weighed and measured and cleansed instead of placed, all coated in white, waxy vernix, on the mother’s bare torso to stretch and squint and whimper and root.
Not the childbirth class that Celia had requested I take with her, and I, in an attempt to honor the truce we’d made in good faith, had humbled myself to concede—a twelve-week course that had consisted of labor rehearsals and relaxation techniques and a thorough tour of our birthing facility and guidance on how to coach and instructions on how to give a good massage, that I, thank you very much, did not need.
Not the hours of late night talking when Celia should have been getting her rest but, instead, curled up next to me with a baby book on her e-reader as I caressed the expanding swell of flesh that housed a tiny human forming in our image.
Even through the preceding fourteen hours of labor—as my wife had, despite growing weary from contractions that squeezed and wrung her like she were a sponge, soldiered and triumphed while I’d made poor attempts to guide and support her—I hadn’t quite grasped what we were headed for, what the end result would be. That I would eventually be looking through glassy eyes at the most beautiful scene witnessed in my forty-five years of life—my daughter in the arms of a tear-streaked goddess, a woman so evidently made to be a mother that I suddenly wondered what importance I could possibly be in her life.