A Husband's Regret (The Unwanted Series)(29)

  

At first, she was so preoccupied by the fact that she had found him  after half an hour of searching that what he was watching did not  register with her. Then she glanced up and found herself riveted by her  own smiling face on the huge flat-screen television. The camera angle  changed to include Bryce in the shot; he was leaning toward her, his  mouth to her ear as he whispered something intimate enough to make her  blush. It was their wedding DVD with the sound turned down. She was  dressed in a beautiful white concoction that had cost the earth but that  Bryce had paid for, and he looked gorgeous in a stylish black tuxedo.  They both looked so young and happy and were wrapped up in each other to  the exclusion of everyone else. She watched as he fast-forwarded  through Rick's best man speech and resumed playing when the focus was  back on them.

She took a step backward, feeling like she was intruding on yet another  moment that she knew he would not want her to witness. Her back hit the  door and her fingers fumbled with the handle but her eyes remained glued  to the screen. He hit the pause button, and she panicked, thinking that  he was about to get up, but he merely leaned forward, his attention  still focused on the screen. She shifted her stricken gaze to the  larger-than-life frozen image of her beaming face. She looked radiant  and so hopelessly in love. The room was absolutely silent, and she was  achingly aware of how loud the pounding of her heart sounded to her own  ears and of how ragged her breathing had become.

After a seemingly interminable amount of time had passed, she succeeded  in getting a decent grip on the door handle and managed to slip out  without him ever knowing that she had been there. But the haunting image  of Bryce in that silent room watching that video stayed with her all  evening. She didn't understand why he had dug up that old thing. It  served only to emphasize how catastrophically they had failed as a  couple.

She still needed to talk with him; she couldn't go out with Raymond  without telling Bryce about it first. It was the decent thing to do. So  she waited another couple of hours until she heard him prowling around  in the kitchen. She ventured boldly into the spacious room and stepped  immediately into his line of vision, not wanting to startle him. He was  just turning away from the huge double-door refrigerator with some  sandwich ingredients stacked precariously in his arms and stilled  abruptly at the sight of her. The abrupt cessation of movement unsettled  the food and dislodged a tomato, which rolled from the top of the  armload and landed on the floor between them with a soft plop. Bronwyn  winced and they both stared down at the mess the unfortunate tomato had  made on the tiled floor. They looked up at the same time and their gazes  met uncertainly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," she apologized, both verbally  and in the sign language that she was still trying to learn in her free  time. Because of school, her lessons had had to be moved to Saturdays  before her usual get-together with the other ladies. His eyes dropped to  her busy hands and narrowed sharply as they took in the graceful  movements of her fingers.

"It's okay," he said out loud, shrugging slightly. He didn't mention the  sign language she had used, and she was both relieved and somewhat  disappointed by that. He brushed by her and headed toward the large  wooden island in the middle of the kitchen to drop the ingredients on  the black marble – topped surface, while Bronwyn used a damp paper towel  to wipe up the mess on the floor. When she was done, she rounded the  island to face him again while he busily went about constructing an  imaginative sandwich. He kept his eyes on his task and Bronwyn sighed in  frustration before waving her hand beneath his eyes to get his  attention. Finally, reluctantly, he looked up to face her.

"I have to talk to you about something," she half signed, half spoke,  and he nodded warily. "I need you to watch Kayla tomorrow night."  Something akin to relief flickered in his eyes, and he smiled slowly,  nodding again.

"Of course." His eyes dropped back to his sandwich. "I know that you  have to start studying, mid-terms can't be that far off." Bronwyn  groaned, this was going to be more difficult than she had originally  anticipated. She waved her hand beneath his eyes again.

"Bryce," she began when she had his attention again. "I have a date."  She said the words aloud, choosing not to sign them, and his eyes  remained fixed on her lips for such a long time that she began to wonder  if he might have misunderstood her. His large hands were resting on the  wooden surface of the island, his sloppy sandwich teetering unsteadily  between them, and as she dropped her eyes, wondering if she should  repeat the statement, she noticed them curling into huge fists and knew  that he had not misunderstood or misread her lips. He was trying to  figure out how to deal with her words.





  

"You're married," he reminded, almost absently, his voice sounding  strangely hoarse. She raised her eyes to his face again and was startled  to see how strained and pale he looked.

"We're not married, Bryce," she whispered. "Not really. Not for a long  time now. You know that. You said it yourself; there is no marriage.  We're separated and merely sharing a house."

"Who . . ." He began to frame a question but then simply turned the one word into a question. "Who?"

"One of my professors. He's a nice man, decent."

"How decent can he be if he dates his students?" Bryce hissed furiously.

"I'm not a child, Bryce, and Raymond is only two years older than you  are. It's hardly unethical for us to go out on a perfectly harmless  date."

"I don't think you should do this," he began, but she held up a silencing hand.

"I didn't come to you for your blessing, Bryce," she told him firmly. "I  felt that telling you would be the right thing to do, because we are  still legally bound. Yes, we have a child together and we're sharing a  house, but our marriage, if we can call it that anymore, is over. I want  to move on with my life, and the only way either of us can do that is  if we get a divorce. So if you won't start the proceedings, then I will.  I'll be seeing an attorney as soon as possible." He lowered his gaze  back to his sandwich.

"It's probably better that way," he agreed quietly. "If you need me to  watch Kayla tomorrow night, I will." He raised his enigmatic eyes back  to hers and she smiled gently.

"One more thing, Bryce," she said tentatively. "I don't want a security  guy hovering in the background while I'm out tomorrow night. So I'm  dismissing Paul early. Please clear it with Cal." Poor Paul would  probably be relieved to have the time off. Her life was pretty mundane,  and while he was too professional to ever show it, she suspected that he  was bored out of his mind for the most part.

"Fine," he gritted after a long pause, clearly not happy with that idea  but acquiescing when he realized that she wasn't going to budge on the  matter.

"In fact, I would prefer it if Paul didn't come to campus or work with  me. It's a waste of your resources. I'm perfectly safe, and I would just  feel more comfortable without him constantly hovering in the  background." She knew that she was pushing it and that Bryce wasn't  likely to budge on this, but she really felt like a pretentious freak  with a bodyguard constantly dogging her steps. It made her feel  completely conspicuous.

"Bronwyn, I take your and Kayla's safety very seriously," he said darkly.

"Look, of course I want Kayla to be safe, and I absolutely agree on the  issue of security for her, but I'm not quite in the same boat. I'm your  all-but-estranged wife. Not quite the prime target for kidnappers."

"Prospective kidnappers don't know the intimate details of our marriage,  Bron," he pointed out reasonably. "You're living with me, you're the  mother of my child, and you're a target. End of story. Paul stays."

"Well, can you at least give me some time to myself on Monday then? I  have something to take care of." While she had just informed him she  would be seeing an attorney, she didn't want Bryce hearing about it from  the hired help before she had a chance to tell him about it in person.  That wasn't the way she wanted him to learn the news.

"What?" he asked suspiciously.

"Bryce, I don't ask you for much, just grant me this one request and  allow me to cling to the illusion that I still have some semblance of  privacy in my life."

"Only on Monday?" he clarified reluctantly, and she nodded. "Very well, I'll inform Cal."

"Thank you," she said, and he inclined his head curtly before turning  away from her and heading to the refrigerator, his rigid back telling  her that he wanted her gone by the time he turned back. Bronwyn wasted  no time in beating a hasty retreat. She headed to the nursery to watch  Kayla sleep and silently mourned the loss of the life she could never  have with the man she so desperately loved.