CHAPTER SIX
It took Andie several moments to orient herself when she woke the next morning, cushioned by the sumptuous pillow-top mattress in her room, savoring the unaccustomed smoothness of high-thread-count sheets. Her bed at home was utilitarian by comparison. Trust Rhys to own sheets that delivered nothing less than an indulgent sensory experience. But she had no business thinking about her new boss’s taste in sheets. The previous night’s dinner had done nothing to bolster the professional barrier she intended to preserve between herself and Rhys. From now on she’d do better, starting with giving him a wide berth for the rest of the weekend.
Drifting back to sleep was an appealing option. She’d been roused by one of Will’s night awakenings at about 3:00 a.m., staggering sleepily into the corridor to offer to help soothe him back down, only to be urged back to bed by a contrite Rhys.
She’d just fallen back into a blissful doze when a jarring noise penetrated her warm cocoon. The insistent chime of a doorbell sounded, once, twice, and then, after a brief pause, clanged repeatedly, as if someone were leaning on the button. The noise was sure to disturb Will, even if he was already awake. So why wasn’t anyone answering the door? Perhaps Rhys had already left for his meeting and Mrs. Hodge was busy with Will. Maybe it was an overzealous deliveryman, in which case it would be mean-spirited not to answer, now that she was awake.
As the ringing continued, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and padded out into the corridor, pulling her striped flannel pajama top closed over her camisole tank. Still groggy, she made her way down the stairs. The black-and-white checkerboard marble was cold underfoot as she shuffled to the front door. In her sleepy haze, it was all she could do to push the unruly strands of her hair back from her face before reaching for the door and tugging it open.
A woman who looked to be in her late twenties—very close to her own twenty-eight, if she had to guess—stood framed in the doorway. She was clad head to toe in stylish black, a shade that emphasized eyes of fiery ice blue—reminiscent of a Siberian wolf, glacial and assessing. The smile on the woman’s lips faded quickly as she took in the spectacle Andie presented: rumpled pajamas, flyaway hair, bare feet. The stranger herself was immaculate, from the high collar of her wool cape to the tips of her slim boots. A glossy curtain of straight, dark hair flowed past her shoulders.
The machinery of her thoughts clogged with sleep, Andie struggled for context. The obvious answer was that this was Rhys’s ex-wife. But Rhys had been clear that he and Karina were meeting in town, not at the house. In fact, he’d stated outright that he wasn’t comfortable having her anywhere in Will’s vicinity.
The woman’s eyes narrowed as she looked Andie up and down and then craned to see past her, that startling, pale gaze scanning what could be seen of the more-distant reaches of the house. For a moment she looked almost crestfallen when her search turned up no further signs of life. No one but Andie—awkward, tongue-tied, and rather wishing she’d decided not to answer the summons of the doorbell.
“Can I help you?”
“Is Rhys in?” The smile was back, brittle and ominous, and the woman took one step over the threshold, casting an incredulous look at Andie’s flannel pajamas, apparently perplexed as to how such a dowdy creature could be taking up space in Rhys’s house.
Was this a current girlfriend of Rhys’s? She was, aesthetically speaking, the kind of woman Andie could picture with him. A world-class beauty. In which case, should Andie clarify her role here? And should she try to avoid mentioning that he was meeting with his ex? Domestic politics. Just one more reason why taking up residence in the Griffiths house had probably been a big mistake. The woman took another step forward, forcing her to yield yet more ground, and Andie was enveloped by a distinctive scent—the seductive sweetness of jasmine, combined with a more piquant note that reminded her of Earl Grey tea. Bergamot.
She straightened, squaring her shoulders. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be cowed by this woman, no matter who she was.
“You’d better wait here,” she said decisively. “I’ll see if I can find Rhys.”
She turned on her heel but broke in midstride. She should probably get the woman’s name, at least.
“And who should I say is looking for him?” The question came out rather artlessly, Andie had to admit, but it hardly justified the boiling rage that surged behind the woman’s eyes, almost as if she were affronted at not being instantly recognized and given her due. An awful, sinking feeling tugged at the pit of Andie’s stomach. Maybe this is Karina, after all.
“You can say it’s his wife,” the woman snapped.
“Ex-wife.” Rhys’s retort cracked like a whiplash, reverberating in the expansive space as he emerged into the foyer from the garage stairway, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. He bore down on the surprise visitor, his expression thunderous.
“Ah, there you are, Rhys. Aren’t you going to welcome me back?”
“Karina.” Rhys shook his head in disbelief. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
“We’re meeting this morning,” Karina responded blithely. “Or had you forgotten?”
“You’re an hour—and three-quarters of a mile—off target.”
“Well, you know how busy that café gets. There were no tables, so I thought a slight venue adjustment might be in order.”
“A slight . . . venue adjustment?” Rhys’s jaw was so tight it was apparently a struggle to get the words out. His gaze slid to the upper floors of the house, in the direction of Will’s room.
“Well, now that I’m here . . . ?” Karina gave a charming smile, seeming to blossom in the glare of Rhys’s irritation. This was a game she obviously enjoyed.
Andie caught the sound of tires crunching on gravel and looked out to see Mrs. Hodge, back from Connecticut, pulling up to the house.
“Now that you’re here, you can turn right back around and keep the arrangement we agreed to,” Rhys told Karina. “Get your car, and I’ll be a few minutes behind you.”
Accepting no argument, he crossed in front of his ex-wife and swung the door open. A muscle pulsed near his jaw as he stood and waited pointedly for her to take his cue. After several pregnant moments, the woman gave a long-suffering sigh and stalked out.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Andie once the sound of footfalls had retreated. “I didn’t mean for you to get dragged into this. I should have guessed it would be beyond her power to resist showing up here.”
“I’m fine,” she assured him.
“I hoped you’d be able to get some sleep, after last night. You’re probably not used to being woken up by toddler screams at three a.m.”
“Don’t worry about it. I went right back to sleep afterward.”
“I was fiddling around down in the garage just now. Trying to psych myself up for this meeting.” He scrubbed absentmindedly at the back of his hand with the rag he still held. “I was thinking about giving that jalopy of yours a once-over. Wouldn’t want it breaking down in the wilds of suburbia. That okay with you?”
“Um, sure,” Andie agreed. “Why not?”
Rhys gave a satisfied nod. “I’d better get cleaned up and deal with this.” He gestured vaguely to the driveway as his ex-wife started up her car.
“Good luck.”
“Thanks. I may need it.”
By the time Rhys reached the café and patisserie that sat across from the commuter rail tracks in Concord’s town center, the first morning rush had dispersed. He hurried into the warmth of the store—redolent with the aroma of coffee and croissants—his collar turned up against the icy blasts of air that howled under the awning.
He spotted Karina at a corner table and bristled like a herding dog scenting a predator in his territory. It was hard to believe she’d had the gall to show up at the house. His skin prickled at the idea of her coming face-to-face with Will. Until he knew why she’d come back, there was no way he was letting her near his son.
He was also unsettled by her brief confrontation with Andie. His first instinct, upon hearing their voices and emerging to find them at the front door, had been to fling himself between them, covering Andie before Karina detonated whatever piece of nastiness she had up her sleeve. The “wife” comment was an effective opener, but he sensed she’d just been warming up. Andie’s arrival at the house had sparked a tenuous but infinitely precious flicker of hope for the advent of something good and positive in his and Will’s lives. It was too soon to have that small flame smothered by Karina’s demands and misrepresentations.
“I had no say in how you walked out of Will’s life,” he said, marching up to the table. “But I will damn well have a say in how, and whether, you get to walk back in.”
“Have a seat, Rhys.” She had already procured their coffees—a cappuccino for her and a shot of espresso for him. Just like old times.
He sat stiffly, his hackles still raised.
“You shouldn’t have come to the house.”
Karina shrugged. “This place was mobbed. You know my motto: ‘Always have a plan B.’”
Rhys’s head began to throb. Yes, he knew his ex-wife’s motto all too well. Brittle, paranoid, and unaccountably insecure for one so brilliant and beautiful, Karina had always felt the need to shore up her position by hedging her bets. Try as he might to read her cues and provide ample reinforcement, she’d apparently never felt certain in his affections.
At first, he’d been too besotted to mind the grandiose fights she staged—the constant accusations of infidelity. He’d actually been charmed at first, thinking it a symptom of their passion. Lust and adrenaline were a volatile mixture, sweeping him along on a runaway roller-coaster ride as he’d clung on for dear life, drunk on terror and uncertainty. But that was no way to live, and it wasn’t real love. He later found out that she’d started an affair with Lance Bello just six months into their relationship. Her plan B.
“What happened to us?” Karina mused, with her usual impeccable timing. Over the rim of her coffee cup, her preternaturally blue eyes gleamed.
Rhys felt a blood vessel bulge at his temple. “Well, you might recall, you walked out on me and our son . . .”
He stared across the table at the woman who had borne his child. It seemed so unreal that the two of them, almost strangers to each other now, had created his beautiful boy. Their relationship had already tolled its death knell by the time he learned he was to be a father. Several weeks after he’d broken things off with Karina, she showed up on his doorstep with the news that changed everything. A baby.
As it turned out, the child was his, and—no matter what the emotional climate between them—he’d been determined to support her, to make it work. He proposed to her, hoping that such an irrefutable signal of his commitment would be enough to reinforce their perpetually ravaged peace. And he bought her the house on Monument Street. But even its sizable footprint was apparently not enough to finally help her feel anchored. Safe.
He took a bracing sip of espresso. “Plenty has happened to us,” he said, striving to keep his tone level. “But even more has happened to Will, who never asked to be brought into this mess we created between us. So let’s just focus on his best interests, okay?”
“You’re talking about his diagnosis?” Karina leaned forward in her seat, her expression avid.
“How did you find out?” Unease clawed at him and would not let go.
“Well, it should have been from you,” Karina huffed. “But apparently you thought it was appropriate to tell practically everyone at your company before you informed your son’s mother.”
Ah. It was true that most of the engineers at Zephyrus were his friends, and Rhys had done nothing to conceal his struggles from them. He’d met many of them when he and Karina were both at MIT, and she’d presumably retained her links with some of them.
She was entitled to keep her friends in the wake of the divorce. But it was unsettling that she still had a direct line to connections that wove throughout the fabric of his current life. Not that he could be angry that someone had told her about Will. He hadn’t sworn anyone to secrecy, and they probably made the reasonable assumption that she knew.
“You’re right,” he conceded. “It wasn’t what I intended to have happen. I’ve been pretty shaken up about this whole thing. The diagnosis hit me hard, and I suppose I wanted to get my head on straight before I broke the news to you. I’m sorry.”
“Tell me, Rhys. Tell me about Will. I need to know about my son.”
My son? There she goes again. But Rhys decided to let it pass. It was the most interest she’d ever shown in Will, after all.
“Will is wonderful,” Rhys said. “He’s sweet, affectionate, strong willed. And so beautiful that once you look at him, your eyes are spoiled for anything else.”
To her credit, Karina smiled, her expression wistful.
“But how is he affected by his autism?” she asked. “What does he do? What can’t he do?”
“I’ll be honest,” said Rhys. “Sometimes it seems like he feels the whole world as an assault. Often he’ll disappear inside himself to some place I can’t reach him, where he can’t even hear me call his name.”
“And he doesn’t talk at all?”
Rhys gave a guarded smile. “A few weeks ago, that would have been correct.”
“But he’s started speaking?”
“Yes—one word,” he told her, watching her face. Now was his chance to signal, in no uncertain terms, Andie’s vital place in Will’s world.
“What is it?” Karina’s eyes were wide with curiosity.
“It’s ‘Andie,’” he said briskly. “The name of the woman you tried to scare away this morning when you arrived at my front door.”
He wasn’t sure quite how to interpret the subtle narrowing of her eyes and the miniscule twitch of a muscle at her jawline.
“So our son said your girlfriend’s name before he said yours?”
She sure knew how to go for the jugular.
“Andie is an occupational therapist, not my girlfriend,” he said. “She’s been able to reach Will in ways no one else has.”
“And you have her installed at the house? How convenient.” Karina licked cappuccino foam from her full upper lip, clearly not buying Rhys’s demurral.
Rhys ignored her snarky comment and pressed on with what mattered.
“Even with her intervention, and the best speech and behavioral therapists in the area, Will’s progress is going to be slow. His autism spectrum disorder is severe. Andie is starting a new regimen with him. She’ll be working with him every day, as a supplement to his therapeutic preschool and other supports.”
Karina leaned forward in her seat. “That’s all very well, Rhys, to have all these strangers working with Will, but I want to be in my son’s life. I want to get to know him. I want him to know who I am. Shouldn’t Will’s main attachments be to his parents?”
“That would be difficult, considering you washed your hands of him and have been three thousand miles away for the majority of his life so far,” Rhys pointed out. “Will has had to depend on a different kind of family. Those he can count on to stick around.”
“I deserve that,” Karina conceded. “But I’m serious, Rhys. I want to get to know Will. I plan to stay in Massachusetts and see where it goes.”
“You’ll ‘see where it goes’?” Rhys choked the words out. “You come barging back in here with some vague intention of perhaps following through? You’ll forgive me if I’m not jumping at the chance to let you see Will, based on that kind of assurance.”
“I know you’re angry,” Karina said, a tinge of pink appearing around her eyelids and at the tip of her nose. “And you’re right to be angry. But I wasn’t myself after Will was born. You remember how detached I was? How irritable?”
“Yes,” Rhys responded cautiously. He would never forget her agitation, the tension that vibrated through her, her reluctance to hold the newborn Will, and the near panic that clutched her at the idea of being pinned down to the drudgery of breast-feeding. She’d seemed disoriented, almost wired, and consumed with jumping straight back into her academic work without so much as a pause to draw breath. It was Rhys who cradled Will in the quiet hours, feeding him his bottle and gazing into wide blue eyes of such heart-stopping beauty that everything else in the world fell away.
“I couldn’t handle it,” she sighed. “Being responsible for this tiny, perfect creature. It was hard to believe he actually came from my own body. It was too much.”
Karina paused, darting him a tremulous glance. “You know about . . . postpartum depression?”
Rhys nodded. He felt a pang of compassion for her. Not enough to displace the smarting pain he felt on Will’s behalf but enough to admit a new dimension of understanding. A sense of puzzle pieces falling into place.
It wasn’t as if his behavior toward Karina during those critical months after Will’s birth would have helped her mental state. He’d been businesslike, polite, but not emotionally supportive. Because she’d broken his trust, in more ways than one. He should have been better than that, he thought with chagrin. More perceptive. More considerate. And he might have been, if he hadn’t been so panicked by her rejection of Will.
“I wasn’t in my right mind,” she said. “I made a mistake. A terrible mistake. And I hope one day you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”
“My forgiveness is irrelevant. You disappeared when Will was this big.” His hands shaped the ghost of a six-month-old Will. “You know he’ll be three in a few months?”
“That’s why it’s so important that I’m here now. He needs his mother.”
If only you’d come around to that conviction two years ago. Now it all smacked of too little, too late. And there was something about her abject demeanor that just didn’t sit right. He wanted to believe she was sincere, but he’d fallen for her faux remorse too many times. Where Karina was concerned, he could no longer afford to take anything on faith. She would need to demonstrate her newfound commitment to Will through actions. Words were no longer enough.
“How are things with Bello?” Rhys asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
“We broke up,” Karina admitted. “It started going wrong almost as soon as we got to Palo Alto.”
Her eyes darted to where Rhys’s right hand rested on the table, his index finger loosely hooked through the handle of his espresso cup.
“I realized . . .” She gave a theatrical sniff, her eyes shimmering. “I realized it was never about Lance. You were always the main event, Rhys. I’ll admit, I used Lance as a weapon to hurt you and to prop myself up when I felt you turning away from me. But that’s all he was to me. A sideshow to the only thing that really mattered—my relationship with you.”
Her words sounded rehearsed. But Rhys was distracted from parsing her argument by a strange tickle on his lower arm. It was only when he was able to tear his horrified gaze away from her face that he realized her hands had crept forward and she was touching him, tracing seductive little trails over the underside of his wrist.
“What the hell are you doing?” He snatched his hand away, his skin smarting as if he’d been stung.
“I realized what’s important,” she continued, undaunted. “It’s you and Will. I know that now.”
She looked up from under her lashes, the luminous, overchlorinated blue of her eyes making her expression seem almost contrived.
“We meant something to each other once,” she said, her tone soft and packed full of contrition. “Maybe one day we could again.”
Is this what she was like all along? How could I have been taken in by her? He had to suppress a shocked tingle of admiration at her sheer nerve. She’d always known how to play to her strengths. Even now, she made a compelling picture as she sat across the table from him, her eyes large and tragic, her curtain of smooth dark hair making a bold backdrop for the riveting tableau of her face. Her lips trembled subtly as she heaved a ragged sigh and gazed toward the window, the harsh wintry light lending drama to her profile.
He’d been sympathetic when she alluded to her struggle with postpartum depression. But Karina never knew how to quit when she was ahead. She was always intent on pushing for more. Her assertions about their relationship were so preposterous that they called into question everything else she’d said. Any attempt to rebuild a romantic connection between them could be nothing but a farce. What mattered now was Will.
“I’ll always be grateful for our relationship because it produced Will,” Rhys said, trying for diplomacy. “But I think we both know better than to think there could ever be any more between us now than a shared interest in his well-being.”
Karina’s throat convulsed, the motion accentuated by the stark light pouring through the café window, and she turned back to face him, her expression raw.
“But can’t we—”
“No, we can’t,” Rhys said firmly.
“I see.” Her eyes flashed dangerously before she feigned a sudden interest in the dregs of her cappuccino. When she looked up at him again, her face was composed, the set of her lips righteous. She’d regained her pristine mask, which guarded her responses while broadcasting a calculated set of signals.
He thought back to the previous night at dinner, to the sheer relief of sitting across from Andie, freed from the maddening confusion that so often sabotaged his interactions. With her, there had been no delicate juggling act, no weighing words against facial expressions, no painstakingly fine-tuning his interpretations based on nuances of tone. He’d been able to just be, and somehow he could read her anyway. Andie’s face was an open book.
“I had hoped we could come to some sort of agreement so I can at least get to know Will, but I can see now you’re determined to make this difficult,” Karina said crisply, jolting his attention back to the matter at hand. “Although I am a little surprised, as I’m sure you’d prefer to avoid going through the courts?”
Rhys blinked, trying to keep hold of his reaction as alarm surged beneath his skin. It would be a mistake to underestimate his ex-wife.
“It’s never been my intention to keep you from Will,” he said, making his tone calm and deliberate. “You’ll remember how I pleaded with you to come back from California.”
It was true. He’d always intended for Will to have both of his parents around. When Karina left, he’d been single-minded about it—prepared to declare a truce and swallow his pride just to bring her back into Will’s orbit. But Karina had refused, and now everything in him protested the idea of exposing Will to her. Will enjoyed a stable, well-ordered life, filled with affection. The last thing he needed was an infusion of Karina’s brand of volatility.
He had to be strategic, however. He needed to prevent her from escalating her demands.
He passed a restless hand across his face, pressing blunt fingertips to tired eyes.
“I’ll think about it,” he told her. “But if I do agree to let you see Will, it’s going to be on my terms. No more showing up at my house unannounced. That was a violation of my privacy, not to mention that of the rest of my household.”
She tensed, absorbing his words like a blow, and he wondered whether his last comment had been ill-judged. When she narrowed those crystalline blue eyes a fraction, he was sure of it.
“Of course,” she conceded prettily, but there was something brittle in the smile she flashed as she set down her empty cup. Her expression reverberated through him like stress fractures spreading across the icy surface of a pond, and it occurred to him that danger and fragility were not opposites but mutually reinforcing states. His ex-wife was a study in both, and he’d be a fool to forget it.