LITMIR.BIZ

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hurtling down her body. She resisted the urge to lean into him and, instead, ran hot water into the sink in preparation for cleaning the frying pan and spatulas she’d used.

      He continued to hold her gently yet securely. She was powerless to resist him. “Grace, I know how hard this has been for you, this waiting and wondering.”

      She turned in his arms and gazed into his eyes, his body’s warmth drawing her closer. “If you really know how difficult this is for me, why haven’t you stayed home with me during the evening? It’s lonely here with no one to talk to about all this.”

      He bowed his head, his forehead touching hers. “I wish I had. Most of the time I sat in my office trying to face the truth about me, about what I’d done, how stupid I felt. Wherever my thoughts took me, one thing remained the same. This is my fault. I hurt you. I’m sorry. So sorry for what I did. I can’t say it enough.”

      She wanted to resist him, make him pay for what he did to her, to them. But she needed his arms around her, needed to feel his body pressed into hers. She missed him so much, his lovemaking, his caring touch, the feeling that they would always be together. She put her arms around his neck and raised her face to his.

      He reacted with a deep sigh of need, his lips touching hers, demanding and hot. She angled her body closer, feeling his erection against her tummy and writhing against it.

      “Oh, Grace. I’ve missed you so much,” he said against her mouth, his breath hot on her lips.

      “Me, too,” she whispered, pulling him closer, her need for him sweeping all other thoughts from her mind.

      He picked her up. “We’ve got time,” he said, holding her tight as they started for the bedroom.

      “You’re going to carry me upstairs?” she said, surprised. “You haven’t done that in years.”

      “I may spend my days behind a desk but I can still carry my wife upstairs,” he said, his embrace firm as he maneuvered through the living room toward the stairs just as the phone rang.

      A mechanical voice blared from the phone on the hall table. “Call from Knowles Attorney at Law. Call from Knowles Attorney at Law.”

      He stopped. She slid from his arms. They stared at each other.

      “You’d better take it,” Grace said, her voice strained, her heart doing a slow, hard pound in her chest. She watched her husband’s face as he spoke with the lawyer, his eyes on hers as he listened.

      “I understand. So it’s conclusive.” He fidgeted with the handheld unit, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes swerving around the room. “Thanks. Yes. Please fax the results to my office as soon as you can.” He hung up, coming toward her, pulling her into his arms, his body pressed to hers. “The test results prove that Emma is my daughter. I can’t believe this. I have a daughter... How could I have a daughter?”

      A chill ran down Grace’s spine. He said the words with a reverence she hadn’t heard from him before. “You mean you have a daughter.”

      “I can’t believe it,” he said again, as if he hadn’t heard her, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “But deep down, I knew by the spot of color in her left eye. I saw it. Mom had the same spot, the same yellow area in her iris.”

      Grace stepped out of his arms. “You were sure the day we saw the video, but you didn’t tell me. You let me hope that there might be a chance that the DNA test was wrong. How could you?” she demanded.

      He glanced at her, his expression gentle. “I wanted to protect you as long as I could. But, yes, I knew that Emma was my daughter. I don’t know how it could have happened, but it did.”

      Anger flooded her at his selfish words. “How can you stand there and tell me you don’t know how it happened?” All these nights, he hadn’t been sitting in his office worried about her. He’d been thinking about his daughter and what that would mean to him. All the while, Grace had been home alone trying to make sense of what was going on and missing him with her whole heart.

      “What do you mean?” he asked startled.

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Aidan. You made this happen by having sex with this woman. How can you stand there and pretend this was fate when you broke our marriage vows?” Grace demanded, so angry she could barely breathe. “Stop lying to yourself,” she said as she stomped upstairs, anger filling her mind and soul with the stark realization that her marriage was over.

      She turned at the top of the stairs to face him where he stood at the bottom looking up at her. “You had your fling and now you have your child. Congratulations.” With that she went into the guest bedroom and slammed the door. Throwing herself on the bed she cried until there were no tears left.

      * * *

      THE NEXT MORNING, Grace awoke to the sound of the phone ringing, once again the stupid, mechanical voice announcing the caller, only this time, it was her friend Cecilia’s name. Grace didn’t have a clue whether they’d shown up last night or not. She hadn’t been able to hear anything over her tears.

      Her whole life had been tossed, and that was all she could think about. She assumed that Aidan had dealt with dinner, but she couldn’t bring herself to care what he did. She owed her friends an apology, but she couldn’t do it right now. Her head ached, her mouth was dry and her whole body felt numb.

      She heard Aidan’s voice, his consoling tone and his offer to have her call Cecilia back when she got up. But she wasn’t getting up for a very long time. Her life in this house was over. The man she’d thought she knew didn’t exist anymore. And instead, she was faced with the fact that her husband was completely absorbed with his present circumstances, leaving her to work out her feelings toward him alone, to cope with the loss of her dream all over again.

      She heard Aidan come up the stairs and scrambled to bury herself under the covers. When the door opened she called out, “What do you want?”

      He entered the room, standing next to the door. “We need to talk, Grace.”

      “You’re the one with the secrets. Why don’t you start?” she asked sarcastically. She was done trying to be the perfect, caring wife.

      “Last night was difficult for you, and again, I’m sorry.”

      She wanted to stay buried beneath the duvet, but if he was going to stand there talking, she decided to face him, to not back down or allow any feelings she had left for him sway her. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have anything to say and better to get it over now. She sat up, bracing herself against the mound of pillows. “Aidan, if you’d behaved like my husband and not some philandering shell of a man, you wouldn’t have to apologize. You have singlehandedly destroyed our marriage. I hope you’re proud of what you’ve done.”

      She saw the hurt in his eyes, the way his hands shook as he held them against his face. “That was mean of me, but you deserved it,” she said, swinging her feet over the side of the bed while hugging the duvet close to her body, realizing, as she looked at her feet, that she was still dressed in the clothes she’d worn yesterday.

      “You’re right. But we have to talk. I called the lawyer this morning, and he wants to know if we’re going to be in Spartanburg sometime this week to settle the estate.”

      “What do you want me to do about it? She’s your daughter. And her mother was your lover,” she said sarcastically.

      “She is our daughter, and she’s going to be part of our lives. I want to talk this over with you. I need to have your support on this.”

      “My support?” She gawked. “You think after everything you’ve done that you’re entitled to my support?”

      “You’re my wife, and you will be Emma’s mother.”

      “Aidan! Wake up! I am not Emma’s mother and I’m not your wife. You made sure of that.” She couldn’t look at the sorrowful expression on his face any longer.

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