Momentary Marriage(60)
She knew this, but still his preoccupation with her older sister lanced through Amy’s heart.
He saw her sister like an award to be won, a fantasy more about himself than Kelsey. He didn’t really love her sister, didn’t seem to know the real woman inside, but he thought he did.
“Are you tired?” Doug asked, taking her hand in his. “We’ve been shopping all day. Would you rather catch a cab?”
“The subway’s fine,” she murmured, absorbing his concern and hugging it to herself like a love-starved fool.
They descended the flight of steps in silence, paid their tokens and caught an uptown train as it pulled into the station. Stepping into the subway car, Amy sat down next to him on the hard seat.
“So Jared’s back at work,” she said cheerfully, determined to help Doug see that his fantasy woman was married and out of his reach. Maybe then he could find the joy in the reality of their relationship. “Is married life making him harder or easier to work with?”
“He’s pretty much the same,” Doug said after a moment of consideration. “Have you talked with Kelsey lately?”
“Yes.” Amy waited, aware of the urge to comfort him and slap him at the same time.
“Is she…happy?” The studied casualness of his question told its own tale.
“She seems very happy,” Amy said truthfully. In fact, she’d never seen her sophisticated, older sister so in love with a man as she was with her husband. Even Kelsey’s annoyance with him for talking to Chloe about their plans for a family seemed particularly couple-like. Loving a man just seemed to increase the opportunities to be annoyed with him.
“Good,” Doug said after a long moment. “I want her to be happy.”
“So do I,” Amy agreed, a feeling of sickness in her midsection.
The subway train racketed through the subterranean darkness, the harsh lights overhead a glaring blur.
“She loves him, you know,” Amy found herself saying, her tone abrupt.
“Yes,” Doug said, staring across the train at an empty seat.
“And Jared loves her.” Amy shot him a glance. “It’s not like they’re going to break up.”
“I know,” her lover admitted. “I’m getting used to the idea of them together. It takes some adjusting, but they seem happy together.”
“She was your first love,” Amy said, trying to convince herself that he was moving closer to letting go of his fantasy, closer to realizing how perfect they were together. “But people change. They move on and find other people.”
“I know,” Doug said again, reaching out to draw her closer, his arm around her shoulder. “I’m lucky to have found you.”
***
He’d never handled the silent treatment well. Being on the receiving end of it from Kelsey tore him up. And left him angry. He couldn’t see why she was so upset.
She’d told him herself that she wanted kids. Even looking at it from her perspective, he couldn’t figure this. Since she thoroughly believed that marriages didn’t last, hadn’t she anticipated being divorced from her child’s father?
Maybe she’d planned on artificial insemination. Cut the man out of the picture from the start. But she’d never been an isolated woman. He couldn’t see her having a child alone and devoting all her days and nights to it. Kelsey without a social life?
Jared watched her, huddled reading in a chair in the bedroom, a pool of light from a lamp making her hair shine like polished wood.
It had been nearly a week since she’d come to his office to confront him. A long, cold week of monosyllabic conversations and little physical contact.
He’d done without sex a hell of a lot longer, but her anger bit into him. What exactly had he done to deserve it? Gotten a little too close? Hoped for a future with her?
Maybe she just couldn’t accept love from a man.
On three separate occasions he’d tried to talk about the situation. She’d categorically refused to clarify her feelings except to state with emphasis that she wouldn’t be producing any children for him.
He was baffled, frustrated and lonely.
The only thing that gave him hope was the fact that she snuggled up to him in the night. Sometimes he’d lie there entangled in her silken limbs and feel his heart clench.
She let her guard down when she was asleep, and she still responded to his touch—even though she obviously didn’t want to. He’d seen her eyes go dark once when they’d brushed against each other in a doorway. Heard her in-drawn breath. And once, when he’d leaned past her, his arm coming into contact with her breast, he’d felt her go still, her eyes suddenly dilated.