LITMIR.BIZ

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them in the half year they had lived apart.

      Charlotte had been so obviously glad to see him move out of the house in Mayfair six months ago, and since then, she hadn’t seemed the least bit interested in having him move back home again. Even over the holidays she had seemed more than content to be alone—although technically she hadn’t exactly been alone.

      She had spent Thanksgiving with her friend Ellen Herrington, and Ellen’s family, then she’d gone on a ski trip to Colorado with another friend, Quinn Sutton, during the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

      Not that Sean had begrudged his wife having the companionship of her friends during what was a typically lonely time of year for adults on their own. He certainly hadn’t wanted her to spend the season feeling as miserable as he had.

      But Charlotte had always talked about how important it was to her to share special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s with family. And he was her only family now, just as she was his only family, or had been until anger, fatigue and frustration had forced him to call a time-out in their ten-year marriage.

      Granted he could have gone about it with more consideration. But at the time, tensions had been running so high between them that he hadn’t exactly been thinking straight. All he’d really known for sure during those last few days they’d been together was that he was very close to losing his wife completely. Leaving on his own had seemed a wiser choice than being asked, or even told, to go.

      Sean had only meant for the separation to be temporary, though. He’d been sure that a short period of time apart would be good for both of them—a time during which they could each adjust to and accept the prospect of a different kind of future together. Especially since the alternate future he’d had in mind could be as fulfilling as the one they’d once anticipated having.

      But somehow he’d screwed up big time, simply by expressing what he had honestly and truthfully come to believe. A lot of couples didn’t have children, often by choice, and they remained happily married.

      How awful had it been to acknowledge that as far as he was concerned, he and Charlotte didn’t have to have a child in order to be content with the life they’d made together?

      Neither one of them had been uplifted in any way by their consistent failure to conceive a child. How much more agony had Charlotte expected them to suffer in search of the one goal they had seemed destined never to attain? Why hadn’t she been able to see, as he had, that maybe they just weren’t meant to be parents?

      Sean certainly hadn’t had the first clue about how to be a father. His own had been away on business so much that he hadn’t been much of a role model. His father’s cool, distant and demanding demeanor had been extremely off- putting, as well. Though Sean had done his best to please him as a child, he hadn’t ever really wanted to pattern his own behavior after his father’s.

      There was also the fact that Sean’s doting mother had often treated his father like the odd man out on those rare occasions when he had been at home with them.

      During those last few months when he and Charlotte had been together, she had become so completely focused on baby making that Sean had experienced a similar sense of exclusion. And he had begun to suspect that he might be in for an even worse fate once a child was added to the increasingly dissatisfying mix of his marriage.

      Charlotte, too, had grown up without a father. But unlike Sean, she never seemed to have experienced any sense of loss or to have missed the presence of a man about the house. He could see where maybe one day she would be so devoted to loving and caring for a child, as her mother and grandmother had been devoted to her, that she wouldn’t miss the presence of a husband, either.

      Calling a halt to the fertility treatments and the in vitro procedures so that they could reassess their situation had seemed like a better idea than continuing to attempt to conceive a baby with so much uncertainty eating away at his heart. But had he realized six months ago that his abrupt decision to move out of the house in Mayfair, albeit temporarily, would cause such a rift between him and Charlotte, he never would have done it.

      He would have tried instead to convince his wife that they could be as happy together as a childless couple as they’d been during the eight years they’d shared before she’d insisted that it was time for them to have a baby. Of course, such an attempt would have been frustrating at best, if not downright futile, Sean reminded himself as he added a little more whiskey to the ice cubes in his glass.

      His determination not to pursue the possibility of parenthood any further had created an impasse unlike any other he and Charlotte had faced during their marriage. And Charlotte’s refusal to at least try to understand, much less accept, his reasoning had only made bad matters worse.

      All of which brought Sean back to the same conclusion he’d come to over and over again during the time he and Charlotte had lived apart.

      Despite his own diffidence about becoming a father, he had gone along with Charlotte’s desire to have a baby because he had loved her enough to respect her wants and needs. But every attempt to conceive a child had ended in failure.

      As he had told her before he’d moved to New Orleans in June, and as far as he was still concerned, unless and until she could show the same respect for his wants and needs, they really were better off apart.

      So, Sean wondered, yet again, what had brought his wife to their town house in the French Quarter on such a dark and stormy night?

      Apparently not the threat of a serious illness, much to his relief, he acknowledged. But the possibility that she’d come here to personally present him with a formal request for a divorce was almost as painful for him to contemplate.

      Maybe he was dwelling too much on negatives, though. Maybe what Charlotte wanted from him was reconciliation, and maybe, just maybe she’d finally come to terms with the agreement she’d have to make in order to have that happen.

      The alcohol buzzing through Sean’s system had eased somewhat the initial tumble of emotions he’d experienced upon first seeing his wife outside his door. But the sudden thought that Charlotte might want to give their marriage another chance made his heart pound and his gut clench all over again.

      Such an offer from her would go a long way toward dispelling the anger and disappointment that still lingered, haunting him—

      “Either my senses are deceiving me, or you have a muffuletta sandwich warming in the oven.”

      The sound of Charlotte’s voice, just a little too cheerful, startled Sean from his reverie. He had been standing at the counter, head bent, contemplating the whiskey and ice in the glass he held, and so hadn’t seen her approach through the doorway that connected the long living/dining room and the kitchen.

      Now eyeing her as she hesitated uncertainly a few steps away from him, he wished that he’d focused more fully on the moment at hand. Remembering the past had been all good and well, but his introspection had left him far more vulnerable than he wanted to be to his wife’s considerable charms.

      Gazing at Charlotte for a long, steady moment, Sean experienced the same stirring of physical desire that had caught him unawares when he’d first swept her into his arms on the front doorstep. Even dressed in baggy sweats and floppy socks, with her dark hair curling damply against her much-too-pale face, she looked sexy as hell to him.

      He’d like to blame the six months of celibacy he’d endured for his response to her allure, but Sean knew there was much more to it than raging testosterone. No other woman he had ever met—no matter how poised, polished, glamorous or willing—had ever appealed to him in quite the same way that his wife did, even when she was barely pulled together.

      This wasn’t the time to let her know it, though. Until he found out what she wanted from him, Sean deemed it better to mask his intimate thoughts and desires behind a cool and businesslike facade than risk being hurt by her yet again.

      “Yes,

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