Copyright © 2017 by Eva Luxe and Juliana Conners; All Rights Reserved.
Chapter 1 – Hanson & Lacey
“Are you sure nothing’s wrong?” Hanson asked Lacey for the third time.
Lacey was snappy and irritated. If Hanson didn’t know better, he would have thought she was pregnant again. She had been moody when she’d been pregnant with Liam, too. But he knew for a fact she wasn’t pregnant right now. They had been trying for another baby, but so far, no luck.
Something was wrong, though.
Lacey rolled her eyes. “Why do you keep asking?” Her tone was just this side of pissed off. “I told you, I’m fine.”
Hanson wondered if it would be wise to push it, but he’d never been able to leave her alone– not at first when she’d been appointed as his PR manager and she’d been the one woman he shouldn’t have slept with, and not now that she was his wife.
“I don’t know, Lace. You’re distant. You’re sitting right next to me, but I can’t reach you. What’s going on?”
One thing that Hanson had always loved about Lacey, and that he had come to love even more during their marriage, even though it also came with its drawbacks, was that she was a handful even on a good day. Spunky, assertive, intimidating. She was the kind of woman some men ran away from and a troublemaker like Hanson was drawn to.
Back in the day, he used to look for a challenge, and he’d fucking worked his way through so many women to find it. Now that he had it, he didn’t feel the need to party and flirt his way through his career. He had more than enough to keep him busy at home.
When she was in this kind of mood, though, the term “handful” wasn’t a compliment. Lacey could be as difficult as she was interesting, and that always kept Hanson on his toes.
“Lace?” she asked him.
Hanson shrugged. He never called her by her name unless something was wrong. She hated it from a lover and especially from her husband. Lacey always said they were past that after everything they’d been through together. Usually it was “love,” “baby,” “babe,” but not “Lacey.”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” she asked. “We’re having conversations. We’re discussing things. I’m sharing my life with you like I always do. So I’m really not sure why you’re so upset?”
He wasn’t the one upset. Lacey was irritated. It was clear as day to him. She didn’t want to face him, everything she did was a little too exaggerated, and the more he asked and she refused to admit it, the worse it became.
Hanson sighed. “This is exactly what I mean,” he said. “You’re so snappy. You only get like this when something’s up. We’ve been married for a while now, baby. I know you, and I know what you look like when you’re not okay. And if you tell me you are when I know you aren’t, I’m going to think I’m the problem.”
Lacey rolled her eyes again. She was irritated. He was right. But since he knew her as well as he kept claiming, he knew to leave her alone. Of course, that meant he would have to back off, and his personality was just as strong as hers. He didn’t want to back off.
“Maybe, if you stop hounding me about it, I wouldn’t be irritated in the first place,” she said. “I’m not going to calm down if you keep asking me the same question repeatedly.”
Hanson kept quiet. He knew from experience that pushing Lacey was a bad idea. She was sassy and independent. The kind of woman that was with him because she wanted to be, not because she needed a man in her life.
Usually, it made him feel good. Their relationship was built on mutual affection, and they were equals. Only sometimes, he felt that she didn’t need him, that she could manage life and everything it threw at her by herself, and it bothered him. Sometimes, a man wanted to be needed.
They sat in silence for a while, staring at a television he was sure neither of them were really paying attention to. When Hanson opened his mouth to say something, Lacey glared at him, her eyes so light they were almost scary. Her features were striking, with her porcelain skin, her bright eyes, and that dark hair to frame it all. She was beautiful in her anger.
“Don’t,” she said.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” he countered.
Hanson’s problem was that even though he knew it was a bad idea to push her, he still wanted to. It was like her being irritated was an invitation for him to look for trouble. As good as they were when everything was fine, they were just as explosive when nothing was right.
“I can tell you it was either about me being distant again, or it was about a baby,” she said. “You never stop talking about it.”
Hanson blinked at his wife, confused. It was such a sudden topic change, he was reeling. She could see that, too. She was even more irritated, as if she knew that she’d said something she hadn’t intended to.
“I didn’t realize that was something you didn’t like,” Hanson said.
Lacey sighed. She lifted her hand to her dark hair, touching it carefully to see if it was still in place. Everything about her was perfect, as always, but at the same time, nothing felt right.
“I don’t mind talking about it, but you never stop,” she said. “What if I don’t even want another baby?”
Hanson’s stomach dropped, and his blood boiled. He was angry and disappointed, all at the same time. “I assumed that was something you would speak to me about, considering we’ve been trying for another baby for the past month.”
Lacey closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t do this,” she said.
What was it she couldn’t do? The conversation? Her mood? Their relationship?
“Where the hell is this coming from?” Hanson asked. “I thought we were on the same page about this.”
“Maybe you assumed,” she snapped. “Wasn’t that what you said just now?”
She was making it worse than it needed to be. Hanson knew that, and he thought she knew that, too. But she was angry, and he was rising to the occasion, and neither of them were known to stay calm when things became sticky.
They always had roof-raising fights, the kinds that the neighbors would have heard if they hadn’t lived in a mansion with a huge garden all around it. There were certain things about an apartment with paper thin walls that neither of them missed. Their fights always ended up in long, loud make up sessions, full of hot sex, and they were always glad the neighbors couldn’t hear that, either.
“Maybe, considering that we were trying, I didn’t think I had to ask about it,” Hanson said. “Maybe I thought my wife would talk to me about it if there was an issue.”
Lacey groaned. Hanson was quiet now, his face pained. This was ridiculous. When he got like this, when he wasn’t raising his voice and making his point even louder than she was making hers, he was just about ready to give up.
He would never give in– it was against the grain for him. But he would give up trying to fight with her about it. It was a dangerous place for him to be in. He was going to accept it, turn around, and walk away from this conversation. Maybe for good, but at least for now.
“Maybe we just need to talk it out some more,” Lacey said.
He could tell she was trying to smooth it over, but it was too late. To stop shouting now was futile. The damage had somehow been done.
“I thought we covered everything there is to talk about,” he said in a soft voice. “Having another baby is important to me. Liam is a perfect age for us to have another one.”
It was true Liam was old enough. He was two. He would probably be a great big brother.
But although Lacey loved Liam with all her heart, she found adjusting to being a new mother difficult. There was, of course, the fact that she had fallen pregnant unexpectedly, and she hadn’t even thought she’d wanted children.
She’d instantly known she wanted Hanson’s baby but perhaps she’d felt guilt for not thinking she had wanted any to begin with. Or perhaps she just suffered a bit of the baby blues without rhyme or reason. She couldn’t really pinpoint the source of her hesitancy to have another baby, and searching for explanations made her feel tired sometimes. She just wanted to enjoy life with her happy family instead of over complicating it.
“Sometimes I think I’m happy with just one child, Hanson,” Lacey said.
She was trying, now, being nice. She should have been nicer earlier, but she’d been too upset to see how much this would bother him.
“Hanson?” he mimicked her response earlier, and she shook her head.
She was getting angry again. Her fuse was about as short as Hanson’s, and they knew which buttons to push with each other.
“If you’re going to be childish about this, maybe this is why I didn’t tell you.”
Hanson frowned. “You’re blowing this out of proportion now,” he said. “Don’t make this about us, about our relationship, and about how open we should be with each other. That’s not fair.”
“Fair? You want to talk about fair? What’s unfair is pushing me to have another child when I’m not sure I’m ready.”
Hanson’s face fell, and she knew she’d said the wrong thing. That had hurt him deeply. But what else had she thought it would do? She took a deep breath.
“All I’m saying is that for now, at least, I’m often happy with one child. We can put all our attention and focus on Liam and spoil him. It’s enough for me. Why isn’t that enough for you?”
Hanson shook his head. “If you don’t get it by now, I doubt you ever will,” he said and got up.
He wasn’t angry. Rage or an outburst, she could handle. There would still be something to react to and talk about. This quiet anger, the withdrawal, was what killed her. It was impossible to find him when he was like this.
Ironic, considering that it was what he’d been worried about with her to start off with. She felt like such a hypocrite.
“Where are you going?” Lacey asked.
“Out. To think. I can’t do this.” They were the same words she’d used. Somehow, hearing them wasn’t as great as saying them. A big fat hypocrite, is what I am, Lacey thought.
“Don’t wait up,” he said, and the words hit her like physical punches.
“You’re staying somewhere else?” she asked. “Isn’t that taking things too far?”
“I’m not saying that,” he said. “But is it too far to tell me only now that the life I thought we were trying for is a life you may not want? Maybe now you’ll realize how important it is to me that you talk to me, and that we’re on the same page about this. Not telling me that you don’t want another child, that you’re not happy, when all this time I thought you were, is just another form of lying, Lacey.”
“Don’t call me a liar,” Lacey said.
“Then don’t lie to me. Dammit, Lace, I’ve done all of this for you. It’s always been you, since the fucking moment I saw you. And now? After we’re married, after Liam and the press and everything, when I think we’re going for number two, you say you’re not sure it’s what you want? Are you sure that any of it is what you want?”
“That’s not what I meant, Hanson. You know that.”
“Well, it’s the fact that I had to keep asking you what you meant that really gets to me. I feel you just should have told me.”
Lacey swallowed, and she couldn’t respond. She didn’t know what she could say to that. She’d been wrong, but somehow, apologizing now felt like she would just be groveling, like he would think she just wanted him to stay. If there was one thing Lacey didn’t do, it was beg.
He walked out of the room, and Lacey didn’t run after him. She knew he was right. She just needed some cooling off time before she could go to him and make it better and they could have make-up sex. At least, she hoped they could.