Momentary Marriage(80)
Thank God, she’d kept the apartment. She’d go back to the home she’d made for herself and remind herself that she could make it on her own.
Please, please, please, don’t let me be pregnant, she prayed with silent desperation. Not because she wouldn’t love his baby, but because she couldn’t afford to love him.
If she could only get away from Jared, maybe she could heal herself.
Remembering that Jared had a five o’clock meeting that would put him home a little after six, Kelsey made a point of leaving the office early.
With blank and mechanical preciseness, she unlocked the apartment door and went to the bedroom. Packing the things she needed immediately took her less than an hour. The rest could be boxed up later.
She buzzed the doorman to help with her bags and get her a taxi.
Having deliberately left herself only a few minutes, she sat down and wrote a note.
Jared,
I spoke with Amy. She tells me she’s through with Doug. He’s a lost cause and she hates him now. I realize our agreement had a specified time, but that was more for my benefit than yours. You’ll never have trouble getting sex. Now that it doesn’t matter what Doug believes about us, we should probably end the charade.
Thanks for everything.
Kelsey
Angrily brushing back the sudden rush of tears, she left the note on a table in the foyer along with the apartment key.
It was a simple as that.
They’d married because of Amy and Doug. Now it was over.
***
Jared stared numbly at the note in his hand. He felt paralyzed with shock. What the hell was going on? He’d left her this morning with no indication of coming home to this.
She’d seemed tired, a little tense, but there had been no hint that she was thinking of…leaving him.
The panic that hit him when he read the note shifted to a deep, horrible fear. She couldn’t really mean it. He’d had a year, damn it, a year to win her love. She couldn’t change the rules now!
He crumpled the note in his hand, striding through the living area to their bedroom. Flinging open drawers and closets, he found confirmation. She’d taken some and left the rest.
Jared sank onto the bed, Kelsey’s note still clenched in his fist. He wasn’t done.
He’d find her, make her listen. Hell, if nothing else, he had a verbal contract. She, at least, had to give him the rest of the year.
He couldn’t live without her. The thought was completely unacceptable.
***
Kelsey sat cross-legged on the floor in the living room of her apartment, trying to ignore the nagging ache in her back. Wearing flannel boxers and a tee-shirt, she absently rubbed at her damp hair with a towel, feeling as wrung out as an old sponge.
Somewhere between losing her lunch at work and crying her eyes out in the shower, she’d started her period.
No baby.
No sweet-faced snuggly with his father’s eyes, and certainly no Jared, not that there’d ever been any real hope of that. No matter how she reminded herself that his interest in her had little to do with her, she still cried at the loss.
She’d said goodbye to her heart and there was no getting it back. Any sane woman would have been grateful not to be pregnant. Kelsey couldn’t work that emotion into the grief, desolation and sadness.
The whole episode had only shown her how much she needed and wanted Jared. How much she loved him, despite all her intentions.
The door buzzer sounded.
In spite of herself, she tensed. Not moving, she heard it ring again. And again.
When the rude sound came a fourth time, she got up and went to the intercom. “Yes?”
“Let me in.” Jared's voice sounded grim.
She pushed the button, knowing she should have expected him. He certainly wasn’t the type of man to let her leave without an explanation.
As she struggled to formulate the words that would send him away as simply and painlessly as possible, he knocked on the door.
Kelsey opened it, almost afraid to look at him. People said a woman looked different when she was in love. He couldn’t know, mustn’t guess. Jared played every card to get what he wanted. If getting her to have children for him was what he wanted, he was capable of using any weakness on her part to get her cooperation.
“What the hell is going on?” he said, shutting the door behind him with a snap.
She backed into the small living room, drawing in a deep breath like an actress before her big speech. “You got my note. I just don’t think we need to—“
“I could let you lie to me for five minutes,” he interrupted, “but I’m really not in the mood, so I’ll save you the trouble and tell you that I found the receipt from the pregnancy test.”
“What?” she gasped.
“On the floor in the bedroom,” he said, his expression implacable.