Jennifer Greene - The Honor Bound Groom

“That’s my nephew or niece you’re carrying. Blood kin. And it could be the closest to a child I’ll ever have. Making sure that relationship was a legal tie—”

“Would give you the right to interfere in his upbringing?”

Mac hadn’t ducked any blunt questions she’d asked him before, and he didn’t evade this one. “To a point. Yes. I wanted a vote in all those million things that come up when you’re raising a child—schools, health care, security, the chance to give the kid some coaching and time from the male gender side of the fence—”

“Mac, for heaven’s sake, I’d have let you have those things, anyway. And down the road, if we don’t agree on issues like that, I assume we’ll fight—but no silly legal piece of paper would stop me from telling you if I thought you were overinterfering. But back to what you said a moment ago...why on earth would you think this is your only chance at a child? Why haven’t you married?”

She caught a flash of humor in his eyes. “Um...is this where the nosy part of those questions kicks in?”

“Mac, I’m not just asking to be nosy.” She struggled to find the right words to explain. “I’m trying to figure out how to make this work for you, not just me. I look around this place and it’s a bachelor’s paradise. Suddenly you’re stuck with a woman who likes clutter and lace and flowers. For that matter, the house I grew up in would probably fit in this living room. I don’t know how two people could be more different. And if you never really wanted to be married—”

“All right, I can see where you’re headed with this now. And the truth is—I never did plan to marry.” Mac scratched his chin. “The whole family’s pushed hard for me to tie the knot. I’m not sure I can explain why I haven’t. Maybe a wariness just built up over time. Although there are plenty of happy marriages in the family, those aren’t the ones I see. If someone’s coming to me, it’s because there’s trouble. Everyone always starts out talking about how much they’re in love, but I see what happens when the chips go down, how lives are torn up in the name of love, how the kids are ripped apart when things don’t go right. To be honest—”

A log tumbled to the hearth, sending sparks shooting up the chimney. Mac leaned forward as if he were going to promptly go over and tend the fire, but Kelly was afraid she’d never get him talking this way again. “Please. Finish saying whatever was on your mind.”

“Well, you might find this hard to believe, but this marriage you and I put together is the first one that ever appealed to me.”

“You have to be kidding. Why?”

“Because I think we’ve got freedom in this relationship that other couples never have. We can make our own rules. We don’t have to do one thing that doesn’t work for the two of us. You want to do the whole house in pink—be—lieve me, Kelly, I don’t care, go for it. If you don’t like anything, all you have to do is say. I’m sure we’ll have to compromise on all kinds of things—but neither of us have love or emotions tangled up in this. We can be honest with each other.”

Kelly fell silent, studying her new husband. She could have guessed Mac would value honesty and freedom in a relationship. With his heavy responsibilities, he’d go nuts with a high-maintenance mate—or even a friend—who demanded constant attention. And as always, his expression was self-contained, those wonderful dark eyes of his unreadable. He didn’t seem lonely. Yet his settling for so little sounded terribly lonely to her. “You don’t believe in love, Mac?” she asked softly.

“Sure. I believe in all kinds of love. Love, loyalty, family, taking care of your own—”

“But not the other kind of love? Between a man and a woman?”

Mac finished the last of his scotch in a gulp, and met her eyes squarely. “I believe the power of hormones can be a hell of a lot of fun—but if one of the things you’re worried about is whether I’ll be faithful to you, rest your mind. I can’t say I’m fond of a celibate lifestyle, but right now...hell, it seems to me we both have our hands full and will for some time. It’d go against my grain to cheat while I was wearing a wedding ring—and whether we’re sleeping together doesn’t change that. However...”

“However...?”

“However... Chad could come back. Or you could find someone. So could I. That’s why we worked out all those prenuptial legal papers, to protect you and the baby no matter what happens to us. There’s no such thing as an overnight divorce, Kelly, but we’ve made it as easy as possible to sever the tie if either of us wants to. As long as we’re careful to build this right, we won’t have the hurt and ange and emotional baggage that usually goes with a split up Either we make this work or we’ve lost nothing. We’ve still done the right thing for the child. We’ve still done the right thing to protect you at this moment in time.”

And doing the right thing was obviously a critical thing to her husband, Kelly mused, but there was still a gaping hole in this discussion. He’d asked for nothing from her—except honesty. Maybe Mac didn’t want her to have any real place in his life, but she was living here now. There had to be needs she could fill, things she could do for him to at least balance all the things he was doing for her.

But before she could say anything else, she heard a clock chiming in the front hall. One, two, three...abruptly she realized that the clock was going all the way to twelve. In seconds it was going to be the new year.

Mac was diverted by the clock chimes, too, and suddenly stood up with a chuckle. “It looks like we’re both running on empty, but do you have enough milk there to toast the New Year?”

“You bet.” She leaned forward to grab her milk glass.

“We made it through one incredibly unusual day—thanks to the bride’s willingness to kick the groom in the shins when he forgot his lines. Did I remember to say thank you for that?”

“No, but, um...you could pay me back now with a little help.”

His eyebrows lifted. “What?”

She rolled her eyes with an embarrassed laugh. “I was trying to stand up for this toast. Only I think I’m stuck. should have known better than to sit in this chair—the cushions are so deep, and the only thing I can get gracefully out of these days is a straight chair. I feel like an ungainly elephant—”

Before she could even try to scooch forward again, Mac swiftly hooked both her hands and pulled her up. The serious mood was obviously broken, Kelly thought, and they could talk another time. Right now she just figured on toasting the New Year with him and then packing it in. But for just that instant when he helped her up, her protruding tummy grazed against his flat abdomen. And her hands...for some reason he didn’t release her hands for another whole millisecond. His grip was warm and strong, his touch sparking an electric rush in her pulse.

She’d felt the same sizzle when he’d kissed her at the wedding. She was positive, then and now, that she was imagining it. He was being kind. He’d frankly brought up sex with her, several times now, with the same ease he’d mentioned having macaroni and cheese for dinner. He thought she was in love with his brother. There wasn’t a single rational reason in the universe to think he felt an ounce of attraction for her.

And she didn’t. She really didn’t.

But for that miniscule second, the muscle in his jaw tightened and some kind of emotion flashed in his eyes. Something bleak and stark. Loneliness. Aloneness. As if he realized—as she did—that a normal bride and groom would never be ending their wedding night this way.

It was just an impulse, while he was already standing as close as a heartbeat, to wrap her arms around him. She didn’t want to give her new groom a stroke, and hugs weren’t part of their deal. Maybe a hug was presumptuous, but she didn’t care. That look of stark loneliness got to her. Everyone needed a plain old affectionate hug sometimes, the warmth of a connection to someone else. If he had a heart attack, then he’d just have to have a heart attack.