FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.
It had seemed so easy two weeks ago. A favor to a friend. On par with what he’d done for Romy back in their Capitol U days, when they’d all lived on top of each other in Veronica’s town house and there’d been no hiding the fact that menstruation was more a feat of endurance for Romy than a normal bodily function.
He, Veronica and Rafael had taken turns refilling her hot water bottle, making her cup after cup of Lapsang Souchong, breaking the megawatt-but-useless painkillers out of their blister packs, restocking her why-are-they-disappearing-so-fast sanitary items. Even Teague had taken a few turns, despite not living with them—during and after his brief stint as Romy’s boyfriend.
So when Romy had called two weeks ago to update him on where she was at with getting her whack job of a uterus fixed, it was pretty much a case of business as usual.
Or it would have been, if Camilla hadn’t answered his phone.
Women he was fucking always seemed to need to do that when Romy’s name flashed up, so it wasn’t the act of answering the phone that bothered him so much as the way she’d said, Oh, it’s your Romy, before swiping to accept the call.
His Romy? Fuck that! Romy was just Romy.
And then Camilla had told Romy that Matt would call her back, and that was a step too far in the proprietary stakes so he’d pulled the phone out of her hand fast enough to give her whiplash of the wrist and taken it into another room.
Camilla had looked mightily displeased, but it was poor form for a guy to ask a girl about her menstrual cycle in front of someone she’d never met, so he’d left Camilla to it and launched straight into it with Romy via a short, sharp opener: Enough of this bullshit, how do we fix it?
We can have an ablation, she’d said.
Then have one, was his response.
She couldn’t if she wanted a kid one day—which she definitely did, she’d explained—because there’d be no having one afterward.
So have a baby now, he’d said, what was stopping her?
Little problem of no man in her LIFE! And yes, she’d screamed the last word, because a cramp had ripped her in half at that exact moment.
He’d paced the floor while she’d breathed through the pain, and then said, fuck it, he’d give her a baby—why not?
And she’d said, Why not? Because it was a big deal requiring more than the one minute’s reflection he usually afforded life-and-death decisions.
And he’d told her it sure as hell didn’t require her usual one thousand years’ reflection, and that it would make the top ten list of easiest things he’d ever fucking contemplated: a quick ejaculation on his side of the Atlantic, a turkey baster on hers, a courier in between, a baby at the end and Yippie-Kai-Yay motherfucker to the problem.
She’d laughed so hard at the Yippie-Kai-Yay motherfucker she’d snorted, but she was crying at the same time, and then she’d said he was the next best thing to Captain America to offer, even if she couldn’t accept.
And he’d snort-laughed then, insisting that Captain America was a virgin as well as not being the masturbatory type, whereas Matt had shot out so many gallons of semen over the years—with and without the assistance of a second party—he could have his own page in Guinness World Records so where was the comparison?
And somehow during the ensuing argument over Captain America’s sexual expertise—or lack thereof—which they’d been having forever—Matt’s sperm offer had been accepted and general terms for proceeding agreed to, and he’d felt pretty damn happy with himself because hey, he was going to be a father, which he’d never thought he’d be.
Correction: godfather.
Because obviously he couldn’t be a real father.
By that stage Camilla had left, presumably in a huff since he hadn’t heard from her since, and Matt had figured that was just as well since she probably wouldn’t appreciate his commitment to impregnating another woman even if he wasn’t actually coming within spurting distance of Romy’s fallopian tubes.
And now here they were, and he felt pretty sure Camilla had jinxed him with the his Romy bullshit because his Romy wasn’t the Romy he’d opened the door to.
His Romy had obviously been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with a metamorphosed porn star version who looked exactly like his Romy—neat and chic, clean and bright—but was on a mission to drive him out of his fucking mind with the need to get his hands on her. Which he could not do, because his Romy, his real Romy, was off-limits.
He wasn’t allowed to imagine taking his Romy against the wall energetically enough to shake the crystals off that god-awful chandelier. He would never have flung his Romy halfway across the hall for fear of what he might otherwise do to her! Because he would never have mistaken his Romy’s breathless Matt, please as an invitation to enact that shameful scene in his head when it was really nothing more than a plea to stop his rampaging dick from stabbing her in the stomach—and thank God she hadn’t called him on that but had taken pity on him by blaming a mythical case of jet lag for the whole damn disaster.
And okay, taking the blame for him was something his Romy would do, which meant she really was his Romy and his alien abduction theory therefore was a bust.
The only other explanation for this whole phenomenon was that it was an aberration brought on by his two-week sexual hiatus—and the fact he’d lasted two weeks without sex, ever since Romy’s phone call, was the equivalent of him being abducted by aliens and replaced with a choirboy version of himself!
Matthew Carter a choirboy? Now, that was an aberration.
As he’d hurried into the library and manhandled his chair into the best position for hiding the beast in his jeans under the desk—not without a certain amount of cursing and desk-related violence—he’d decided it probably wasn’t unusual for sex addicts to crave the first available person they saw during periods of deprivation. Didn’t mean he was going to act on it, though. He’d been keeping Romy safe from his perversions for ten whole fucking years and that’s how things were going to stay if he had to lock a chastity belt onto her himself!
What the hell was keeping her, anyway? They should be halfway through her first document by now. The tedium of paperwork would put a stop to any weird-ass sexual cravings, so he wanted those damn documents stat! Bring them all on, the whole fucking briefcase full!
He checked the time on his cell phone. She couldn’t be lost between the entrance hall and the library—only one door in the corridor was open and she’d have to see not only the glow of the lights but feel the heat from the monstrous fucking fireplace that was slowly stewing him in his own juice.
Maybe he should go and find her.
Take her by the hand...lead her upstairs...into his bedroom...strip her...lie her across the bed. Ash-brown hair tangled on his pillow...eyes a glitter of hazel from beneath those heavy, tilted lids that made her look perpetually, deceptively sleepy...mouth slightly open as she panted for him...tongue darting to lick her top lip...breasts round and heavy...beige nipples jutting proudly...thighs opening to reveal her pink, juicy core...waiting for his fingers...his tongue...his cock. A whimper, a moan, as he slid inside her...clenching around him...hips rising to meet his thrusts...
Oh God, he wanted to come...needed to come.
His heart was thudding the way it had in the entrance hall when he’d had his arms around her, his shoulders tightening, thighs clamping, his dick straining for release. And then the hairs on the back of his neck vibrated themselves upright as though a lover’s finger were trailing down his spine, and he realized he was no longer on his own in the room.
He focused his eyes on his cell phone, counting out the seconds, willing himself to get it together before turning to confirm Romy’s presence behind him... aaand go...
He swiveled his chair, and lust rushed at him like a bullet. He wanted to suck the breath out of her, rip the clothes off her, lick the scent from her skin.
What the fuck was happening to him?
“Sorry to make you wait,” she said, her trying-but-not-quite-making-it smile telling him she felt his tension. “I had to call Lennie to report on last night’s restaurant.”
She’d taken off her overcoat, and when she paused on her way to the desk to drape it over a chair he saw what she meant about bursting out of her clothes—her bodice was skintight, and she looked ripe as a ready-to-eat-immediately peach. He really didn’t think he was going to survive tonight.
“It’s two in the morning in London,” he said, the snap in his voice a symptom of his overwrought edginess.
“So?”
“So don’t try telling me you called Lennie.” Not that it was anything to him if she called Lennie at two in the fucking morning.
“I...I did,” she said, and blushed, defensive. “Chef’s hours. I couldn’t have called him any earlier.”
“Yeah, well, Lennie’s an asshole, expecting you to report in after every meal,” he grumbled, and swiveled his chair back to the desk, because the blush pissed him off and he didn’t want to see it. Not that it was anything to him who she blushed over, but she shouldn’t be blushing over Lennie of all people. “You’re a restaurant consultant not a slave.”
She’d reached the desk and took her seat, holding her briefcase on her lap as though it were that chastity belt he’d told himself she needed. “You know I have to jump when he says jump.”
“I know you can’t trust a guy who fricassees garden snails,” Matt said, because he didn’t trust Lennie. Lennie thought he owned her.
She gave an agitated little huff that told him he was being a dick. “And here I was thinking you might have given up burgers for escargot.”
“Why would I do that?”
“The house...this room.” She looked around. “Your tastes have changed.”
“It’s just a library.”
“Yes, and it’s very library-like,” she said, looking around again. “Hmm. It reminds me of the library in Teague’s family’s place in the Hamptons. All those shelves full of...of books.”
“Hel-lo! Library!”
“Yes but the chairs, tables, Persian rugs, velvet curtains. That fireplace! Big enough to incinerate an elephant!” She laughed, but it sounded forced. “Remember that time we were all invited to the Hamptons for the Hamiltons’ Fourth of July ball? Even Veronica was wowed by the library!”
“You went into raptures over it, too, so what’s the problem here?”
She grimaced—grimaced! What the fuck!
“I just...wondered if you’d bought the place already furnished, that’s all,” she said.
“Why? Because I don’t have Teague’s good taste?”
“Well, you don’t, actually. Nobody does! But what I meant was that not even you could get all this done in a week.”
“Oh.” He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious that it hadn’t been furnished, that he’d hired people to do it, that he’d told them to copy Teague’s style and to get it ready in a week in time for Romy’s visit. The library, the kitchen, two bedrooms—his and a spare in case she decided to stay—and an outdoor table, two chairs and a patio heater so they could eat breakfast on the deck tomorrow, because the deck wasn’t as oppressive as the rest of this fucking ginormous house. And now it felt all wrong. “Look, are we going to spend the night talking about decor or can we get on with the business at hand?”
“Okay!” She huffed a breath in and out as she pulled a sheaf of pages out of her briefcase and put the briefcase on the floor beside her chair. And then she frowned at him. “You know all this paperwork is only to help you make an informed decision, right? I’m not here to torment you with red tape.”
“I’m not tormented.”
“You sound tormented. You look tormented. You—”
“I’m not tormented!”
Pause. “Let me put it a different way.”
“Fuck!”
“If you’re having second thoughts about giving me your sperm, I’ll let you off the hook, no questions asked.”
He almost laughed at that! “Romy, I’m having so many thoughts about giving you my sperm I can barely keep up with them—but not one of them involves being let off the hook.”
“I just want us to be...you know...normal.”
“So we make that a nonnegotiable condition, okay? We stay normal or it’s off.”
“Yes, but—”
“Jesus, Romy, move things the fuck along or I’ll think you’re having second thoughts!”
She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, closed it, opened it, and all that drawing attention to her mouth was not helping because it made him want to kiss her! And then, “Fine!” she said. “Fine. If you’re sure.” She sorted agitatedly through her paperwork. “Here,” selecting a page and holding it out to him as she placed the rest on the desk in front of her.
He took the page. “What is it?”
“A waiver my lawyer drew up for your protection.”
“Protection from what?”
“From me. Think of it as the prenup you have when you’re not getting married.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“I’m not going to have people say I baby-trapped America’s favorite dot-com billionaire.”
He stared at her for one long, fraught moment. And then, “Okay,” he said, and read the document. “Right.” Looking up. “Got it.”
“Read it again.”
“I don’t need to read it again, Romy.”
“Yes, Matt, you do. You make decisions too quickly. And this is important. Important enough that you might want to have your lawyer read it. In fact, you should get your lawyer to read it.”
“I don’t need my lawyer to read it, because I’m not signing it.”
“Well, of course I’m not expecting you to sign it right this minute.”
“I’m not signing it, period.”
“What?”
“Will this make it easier to understand?” he asked—and ripped the page in half, dropping the two pieces back onto the desk.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because if you think I’m going to sit here on a fortune while my kid lives on a budget on the other side of the world, you’ve got rocks in your head. I may know fuck-all about being a father, and we both know I’d be a shitty role model for a kid—”
“You would not!”
“—but one thing I can do, and do easily, is money.”
“I don’t want your money, Matt.”
“The money’s not for you, so get over it. You’re getting just about everything you want out of this deal, Romy, and that’s fine. That’s great. I’m cool with it. But for the love of God, stop rubbing in the whole I-don’t-need-you-Matt thing.”
“Rubbing—? Need—? I don’t—!” She peered at him as though trying to dive into his brain. “I don’t understand. All I’m trying to do is protect you!”
“I don’t want to be protected. I just...” He stopped, dragged in a slow breath. “I just...want to do this.”
“You are doing this. You’re providing half the chromosomes.”
“Yeah, anyone with a dick can do that.”
“But I want your dick,” she said.
They looked at each other in shock—and then they both burst out laughing. And God it felt good. Back to normal. Almost.
“Is that a Freudian slip?” he asked. “Because hey, come on over to my side of the desk.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Look,” he said, “seriously, what difference is it going to make if I fling you a few dollars? I could support a hundred kids and not notice the outlay.”
“It’s not supposed to be about buying a baby.”
“I’m not selling one.”
“It’s not fair to you. Not when you’ll have a real family one day.”
“You are my real family. You, Rafael, Veronica, Teague, crazy Artie.”
“You know what I mean. What happens when you get married?”
“I’m not getting married. No other kids. This is it for me. My one chance. So don’t take it away from me over something stupid like money.”
“Are you blackmailing me?”
“I’m appealing to your kind heart.”
“You are so full of it!”
“Okay, I’ll switch to blackmail if you’re going to be mean about it. I’m making it a nonnegotiable condition of my participation. No money, no kid.” He picked up the pieces of paper. “Now, are we starting negotiations on the same torn page, or not?”
“Blackmail isn’t a negotiation.”
“Ticktock, time’s a-marchin’.”
“Yes, but it’s my clock that’s ticking, not yours. You have all the time in the world to have other kids.”
“Don’t want others. I’m good with clocks. Might as well synchronize my alarm with yours. Are we on? Decide.”
“I don’t—I can’t—I’m not...not like that. I don’t make decisions on the fly.”
“But I do, Romy. And things work out just fine for me. So decide. Now.”
Long, long moment. And then, “Okay,” she said, the word sounding as though it had been dragged out against its will. “I’ll take the money, but I want it tied up in a trust. I mean it, Matt. No sneaky stuff. No saving me from imaginary destitution on the sly. I’m getting my lawyer involved—I’m warning you.”
He dropped the paper pieces. “Just so you know, I’ve already got my lawyer on the case, and I’ll bet she’s scarier than yours. If I want to sneak money to you on the sly, it’ll be done before you know it’s happening and there’ll be nothing you can do about it.”
“Now you see, that’s your inner superhero waving his flag. You think you’re saving a damsel in distress, but I promise you, I’m not in distress.”
“Have you thought that maybe this isn’t about you, it’s about me? How do you know I’m not the one buying a baby?”
“What? No!”
“And if I told you straight out that I am?”
“I guess I’d ask why you chose me.”
Their eyes met. Held. Something flashed inside him. Hot. Vivid. “And I’d answer...because it’s you,” he said. And the instant the words were out, he knew they were true. He was doing this not only for her, but because it was her. Because she was the one pure thing in his life and he needed her and if they shared a child he’d always have her. And his child...? Well, of course he had more to offer his child than money: he had her. Her light, to cancel out his darkness.
“Oh!” she said, blinking furiously.
Shit! “Don’t go troll on me,” he warned.
“I won’t. I promise. It’s just...nice. To hear that.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get sentimental about it. It’s to my benefit to give my kid a good mother. Less chance it’ll want to come and live with me one day.”
“Oh!” she said again, and gave a tiny sniff that freaked him out.
“Jesus, Romy! Get a grip. Are you on hormones or something?”
“No. No, no, that’s just nice to hear, too. In a...a twisted kind of way.”
“That’s me—twisted.”
She gave him that peer-into-your-brain look again. “Why do you always do that, Matt?”
“What?”
“Make yourself something...less.”
He hunched a shoulder. “I’m not doing anything except reminding you there’s something in this for both of us. Right, we still have a hundred documents to get through and I’ll be ripping up any that have a tear splotch on them, so get it together.”
She wiped a finger under each eye. “It’s not a hundred, it’s fifteen.”
“That’s my girl! Precision document preparer.” He laughed. “We’ll get through a paltry fifteen like a hot knife through butter.”
He hoped she’d laugh, too, but she didn’t. She was watching him, her forehead creased as though she wasn’t sure whether or not she should be frowning, and Matt felt panic edge its way up his spine because maybe she was about to call things off—and suddenly, unexpectedly, he knew he’d move heaven and hell to keep the deal alive. “Are we good, Romy?” he asked.
She bit her lip, and he did his best to make himself look nonthreatening. If he could have willed the right response out of her, he would have—he certainly directed every synapse in his brain at her as he silently urged: Say yes...say yes...say yes, damn you.
“Yes,” she said, and his limbs went weak with relief. “Yes, we’re good.”
“So,” he said, as nonchalantly as he could manage. “What’s next?”
She flipped a page, another, another, muttering something under her breath. He knew what she was doing. Sorting the documents, easiest to hardest, building her case. The muttering thing usually made him want to get her in a headlock, rub his knuckles against her scalp and warn her she was talking out loud, not in her head. But not tonight. Tonight, for reasons he did not want to face, it made him want to take her on his lap like he used to do at college when something was worrying her. But this was different from college. Because he didn’t just want to reassure her, he wanted to kiss her.
He forced his eyes away from her mouth to her hands, and the platinum signet ring on her right pinky finger caught his eye. She’d worn it every day since Teague had given it to her for her twenty-first birthday seven years ago, and he barely noticed it anymore. But now he wanted to rip it off her finger and throw it into the fire. What a fucking crazy upended night this was turning out to be.
“This one,” she said, and picked out a page.
The ring caught the overhead light, distracting him. “Huh?”
She held the page out to him. “Timing.”
He ignored the page. He wanted this done. Wrapped up. Settled, before she could change her mind. “Choose any time you want—I’ll fit in with you. Next.”
Flip. Shuffle. She held out another page. “Clinic options in San Francisco.”
He ignored that document, too. “Mark your preferred one and I’ll make an appointment. Next.”
New page—held out. “The process.”
“Fuck, Romy. I grab a girlie magazine and jack off. Do you really think I need instructions? Next.”
She chose a new page, held it out to him, then pulled it back and put it on top of the pile. “You know what?” she said, neatening the edges of her documents as that fucking ring flash-flash-flashed at him. “Let’s stop pretending you’re interested in the paperwork. Just point me in the direction of the kitchen so I can make your fucking paella! And then, since your mind is clearly on what time Camilla’s arriving and not on me, set the table for the two of you, not all three of us, and I’ll go back to my hotel, and that way—”
She broke off as his hand shot across the desk and latched itself around her right wrist, shocking the bejesus out of both of them. He watched her fingers curl, then flex, then curl again—but she didn’t break his hold the way she should have if she had any sense. He imagined her feeling the tremor that was shimmering through him and working out what it meant, then blushing for him the way she had for Lennie. Her slumberous eyes half closing as she offered herself to him. He could see her on the desktop, raising the skirt of her cherry-red dress...see himself taking off her black stockings, sliding her panties down her legs. One lick, to taste her. Do that again, Matt...lick me... I want you to do everything to me...anything you want...
“Matt,” she said, in that same breathy whisper she’d used when he’d hugged her too hard in the entrance hall, and he released her just as suddenly as he had then. He had to get his shit together. Stop the Jekyll and Hyde fuckery.
He put his hands palm down on the desk, ordered them to stay there. Splayed his fingers, then brought them in again, splayed...and back. Breathing, breathing, breathing through the moment of holy-hell panic and trying to remember the last thing she’d said and how he was supposed to respond. Something about the documents...kitchen...paella...Camilla...
“Why would you think Camilla was coming for dinner?”
“Because your girlfriends always do.”
“Point of clarification, Romy—I haven’t had a ‘girlfriend’ since I was seventeen.”
“Well, whatever you call them, they’re always joining us for dinner or lunch or drinks or something.”
“I call them by their name.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Hookups, then. I call them hookups.”
“I’m talking about women who are more than casual hookups.”
“They’re all casual hookups.”
“Um...no! You met Camilla a week before Thanksgiving, and I called you two weeks ago—five weeks after Thanksgiving—and you were still with her. That length of time with someone does not equal a casual hookup.”
“What would you call it?”
“An affair, maybe?”
“Affair? Fuck!”
“What’s wrong with affair?”
“Affair is so bourgeois,” he said, and immediately recognized bourgeois as one of his father’s words. Why be bourgeois, Matthew, when you can be bohemian? How many times had he heard variations on that theme? And now he was parroting his father to Romy! What the hell was wrong with him tonight?
“Well, how ‘bourgeois’ is it to answer a guy’s phone for him?” Romy asked. “Casual hookups don’t answer your phone.”
“Yeah, well, she was on top, it was easier for her to reach it,” he said, goaded by who-knew-what into yet more assholery.
Her eyes went wide. “You spoke to me in the middle of having sex with her? You—you—”
“Bastard? Is that the word you’re looking for? Because that’s bourgeois.” Her eyes were still wide, and her naïveté provoked him into wanting to shock her further. Shock her...show her who she was dealing with here. “It’s just sex, Romy, and nonexclusive at that. Hookup fits better than affair, trust me on this. And since Camilla hasn’t called me since that night, whatever she was, she’s not it anymore.”
“Not exclusive?” Pause. “You mean exclusive as in—”
“Monogamous.”
“You were hooking up with other women simultaneously?”
“Not at exactly the same time, if you know what I mean.”
“Well, that’s...something. I guess.”
“Although I have in the past. There’s nothing quite like a threesome.”
“Oh,” she said faintly, “I see. But...but not with Camilla. But doesn’t that mean—?”
“Camilla, of course, was hooking up with other men—she’s not at all bourgeois.”
“I see.”
“Good,” he said. “Now you know.”
“I just thought...”
“What? That I was an innocent, clean-cut boy?”
“I thought...at least you used to be... I was sure you were...monogamous.”
“Still am, on request. You want monogamy, you got it. That tends to get the cardinal rule broken a little faster, though, and that’s always the end,” he said, threading his voice with amusement.
“Cardinal rule? How do I not know about a cardinal rule after ten years?”
“You don’t know because you don’t break it, Romy. You don’t say it.”
“Say what, Matthew?”
“That you love me.”
Romy had this thing she did when she was trying to make sense of something that did not compute: a raised-eyebrow blink in slow motion, which he called her blink of insanity. She did it now. “A woman tells you she loves you, your instant reaction is to dump her?”
“I don’t like the word dump. It’s more what I’d call a withdrawal of interest.”
“Now, you see, I think a woman might still regard that as being dumped.”
“Then she’d be wrong, because dumping implies there was a relationship. And, like I said, I haven’t had one of those since I was—”
“Seventeen? She must have been some girl, the one you were with at seventeen, to be so hard to replace.”
“Oh, yes, Gail was some girl, all right,” Matt said, and although his voice was steady, the old sick rage he thought he was done with welled up in him.
Romy saw it, too. Or sensed it. He could tell. Ah shit. He braced for follow-on questions, holding his breath as she did the open-shut mouth routine...
But she must have decided that was one story too many, because with a slight shake of her head, she changed tack. “So when you are monogamous,” she said, “they fall in love...when? Are we talking days? Weeks? Months?”
He managed an almost-natural laugh. “You think I keep track?”
“Too many to keep track of? Maybe you and Artie could invent a track-keeping app.”
“Smart-ass.”
Pause. “So...how long does it take you to fall in love, Matt?”
“What is this? The Spanish Inquisition?” He tried out another laugh, but this one missed natural by a mile.
“Just a simple question.”
“Then here’s a simple answer—I don’t.”
“Not since you were seventeen, I suppose.”
Back to that. He pushed his chair back from the desk, then pulled it straight back in. Restless. Agitated. “It’s like this: both people in a...a...”
“Relationship?”
“...situation need to want the same thing or someone’s going to get hurt.”
“Are you saying you never want the same thing they do?”
“No, sometimes we want exactly the same thing, and that’s great.”
“But it’s never love?”
“Search your memory for a contradictory example, Romy. You won’t find one.”
“Well, that’s a shame, because you’ve gone out with a lot of wonderful women.” She sighed. “I hope you at least warn them up front what to expect.”
“Oh, I make it clear, what’s in it for both of us.”
“Sex.”
“Good sex. And fun. And respect. I’m not jealous or possessive, which means they can leave whenever they like, no questions asked. No stalking or bad-mouthing or revenge porn when it’s over. Friendship if they’re up for that at the end, although very few are and that’s okay, too. I just...don’t want them to love me.”
“And yet they do love you, Matt. I’ve talked enough of them off the ledge at the end to know it.”
He shook his head, dismissive. “They don’t stay on the ledge for long. And that’s because although they say they love me, they really don’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I know they almost invariably speak those magic words at the peak of an orgasm, which tells me it’s about sex. And if they think sex is the way to my heart, they sure as fuck don’t know me well enough to love me. In fact, I’ll let you in on a deep dark secret about the way to my heart, Romy.” He leaned across the desk, confidante-style, and lowered his voice. “There is no way, because I don’t have a heart.”
“If that were true I wouldn’t have trusted you all these years and I wouldn’t be here now. I trust you, Matt. I trust you absolutely.”
“Trust in anything you like except my heart. Or my soul, come to think of it. I definitely don’t have one of those. It’s the Carter curse, inherited along with the hair. So don’t look into my eyes for too long or I’ll steal yours.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled mockingly. “Have you thought what’ll happen if you have a red-haired, soul-stealing kid? Will you reject the baby?”
She looked directly into his eyes. “I like your red hair. I want the baby to have it.”
That look, so serious and compelling, was like a blow to the chest, and it took Matt a moment to absorb the impact. Trust, she’d said she trusted him. And it was in her eyes. Even after everything he’d just told her. She was a babe in the woods, wandering through the forest in her red dress with no idea wolves were lurking behind the trees. She needed to be protected from the likes of him.
“Yeah well, I suggest you look past the red hair,” he said, “and understand that the only thing I have to offer is a very big cock.”
She surprised him by not flinching, by looking at him just as steadily, as seriously, as trustingly. “And if I were to say that I love your red hair? That I love everything about you? What would you do, Matthew? Would you dump me? And...and Veronica and Rafael and Artie and Teague? Would you dump them, too? Because I—they—we—all love you! How could we not, when you push and pull us to do things we never would otherwise? The baby you’re giving me, for starters.”
“I told you—that’s for me.”
“Then what about the time I couldn’t afford the airfare to Sydney for Frankie’s wedding, and lo and behold, a ticket materialized.”
“Air miles—it cost me nothing!”
“And Artie—the software that would have stayed in your heads if not for you. You made him rich.”
“Made me rich, too, and it wouldn’t have happened without his brain.”
“Then what about the Silicon Valley tech hub you set up and dragged him into.”
“That’s a partnership, benefiting me, too.”
“You pushed Rafael into entering that international writing competition, which he won.”
“He didn’t take much pushing.”
“You got Veronica the gig with the university’s Student Healthcare Outreach program because she needed a good deed on her CV.”
“Stop!”
“And Teague only snagged a spot crewing in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race because of you.”
“Teague almost drowned!”
“He loved every minute of it! And he loves you. Like a brother. He’s told me so.”
“Goddammit, Romy.” He looked away from her, because that shook him. Teague. Teague, who’d seen more than the others, who’d guessed it all, who fucking knew. Teague might be the closest anyone had come to sainthood, but he wasn’t stupid enough to want a brother like Matt. Romy was deluding herself. He brought his eyes back to her. “You’re wrong. All those things...they’re nothing. I’ve done other stuff you wouldn’t congratulate me for, believe me.”
“What stuff?”
He had to force himself not to look away again; to do so once was barely acceptable; twice would give too much away. “Stuff you don’t need to know.”
“Why can’t I know?”
“Because you’d back out of this deal if you did.”
For a long moment she just looked at him. And then she sighed. “How am I supposed to understand why it’s so hard to accept that people love you if you won’t tell me?”
“You don’t have to understand, you only have to accept that to me, love is nothing but an overused word,” he said. “I love ice cream, oysters, pizza. I love cooking, sailing, camping. How’s anyone supposed to take that word seriously when it’s thrown out about anything and everything? So I’m asking you not to say it, the way you haven’t said it for ten years.”
“I must have said it before.”
“Not to me. And I figure if you were ever going to say it, you’d have said it by now. I don’t want to hear it, Romy, so don’t say it now.” He stopped to take a calming breath. “There are other words for what we have. More meaningful words. Words that can’t be desecrated. Words like friendship, camaraderie, affection. Be as creative as you want. Just don’t call it love.”
“Okay.” She held up her hands, palms out, surrender. “This is me not calling it love.”
“Good.”
“I hereby promise not to love you.”
“Great.”
“I refuse to love you.”
“Okay, I get it, Romy, give it a rest.”
“It’s not like I was going to propose marriage.”
“Fucking fantastic. Go you. Now, moving on!”
She snatched up the page on top of her pile. “Visitation,” she announced. “My lawyer thinks—”
“Not interested in anything your lawyer says,” Matt interrupted irritably. “I’ll just tell you what I want—access without restrictions when I’m in London.”
“I’m sure we can come up with a form of words to that effect,” she said, all business now. “You’re only in London for one week a year, so give me advance notice and I’ll make sure I’m not out of town.”
“It’ll be more than once a year. I’ll be over in four months’ time to look at premises, and then again two months after that to sort out tenancy agreements.”
“Premises? What have I missed?”
“Artie and I are opening a tech start-up hub in London similar to the Silicon Valley one. He’s taking the lead so he’s already over there, but once it’s up and running, I’ll be there on and off for the first year at least.”
“Okay. No problem. Like I said, advance notice, and I’ll make it easy for you to see the baby.” She shot him a curious look. “If that’s really what you want.”
“Why wouldn’t I want it?”
“You indicated on the phone you were looking for a no-strings godfather role. It’s a little...confusing, I guess, to hear you talk about unrestricted access. And I...I just think it’s a good idea to start as you mean to go on.”
“What does that mean?”
“That you don’t keep changing your mind—like, one year you decide to come every month, the next year you come once in the whole year. Children need certainty.”
“Okay then, how about we leave it at once a year, scheduled, and you decide whether or not to allow other visits on a rolling basis.”
“Fine. Then let’s move on to—”
“I’m not finished.”
She waited, watching him warily.
“The kid’s going to be half-American,” he went on, “so if I’m only going to be guaranteed one visit a year, you need to bring it out here once a year. For...I don’t know...heritage purposes.”
“Easy! I’m already here once a year—and I’ll be over more often if I land Suzanne Plieu as a client. She’s keen to open a fine dining restaurant in New York and we’ve had a preliminary chat about what I can do to help her find a partner.”
“New York is Teague’s territory, not mine.”
“Well, yeees.” That same curious look, as though she were trying to work him out. “And if Suzanne needs a lawyer, he’d be—”
“I’m not talking about Suzanne’s restaurants or legal needs. I’m talking about you being needed in San Francisco with me, the kid’s father, not in New York with Teague.”
“It’s going to depend on whether I can afford it.”
“I can afford it.”
“My clients pay for my travel here and you’re not my client.”
“Then start working on your aversion to staying with me. No accommodation costs, and I won’t feel like your client when you sashay in with your briefcase.”
“I can’t stay with you, Matt.”
“Why not? You stay with Teague when you’re in New York.”
“Only when my work is finished.”
“Should I point out that you’re not working tonight?”
Pause. He knew that slight twist to her mouth. She was working out what to say. “Teague’s apartment is...spacious. It’s easier there.”
“And I now have a large house. So when you come with the kid, you stay. As long as your ‘form of words’ contains that, we’re good.”
“We’re not good in that case.”
“Why not?”
And she was up, out of her chair, walking over to the fireplace, dragging her hands through her hair—which she never, ever did.
“Why not?” he asked again, when she just stood there looking into the flames.
“It won’t work.”
“Asking again—why not?”
Shake of her head.
“Romy, what’s going on? Why did I buy a house with a million rooms if you and the kid are going to stay in a hotel?”
She turned to face him then. “But th-that’s not why you bought the house!”
“Isn’t it?”
He saw the breath she took, and prepared himself for an argument.
“Okay then, Matthew,” she said, “in the spirit of negotiation—”
“It’s not negotiable.”
“—I’ll agree to stay here, on the condition that I know in advance who else will be here and I can opt out if I’m uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable?”
“I don’t want to impinge on your lifestyle.”
“My ‘lifestyle’?”
“There’ll be times it won’t be appropriate for me to stay, depending on...on who...”
He shot to his feet. “Who I’m fucking? Is that what you mean?” He realized he’d yelled that, but couldn’t get the anger under control enough to care.
“If you’d let me expl—”
“You think I’m going to have someone stashed in my bedroom for after I’ve finished reading my kid a bedtime story?” Yelled again.
“I wouldn’t put it quite like—”
“Will I have to fill out a form? Name, age, occupation, social security number? Nominate what nights of the week I intend to fuck them?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” she said, firing up at last and yelling back at him. “I already know what nights of the week! Every damn night of every damn week! That’s the problem!”
“I’m glad you appreciate my stamina!”
“That place we shared back in the day had paper-thin walls! We all appreciated your stamina! Veronica and I used to joke about buying shares in Durex, you went through so many jumbo boxes of condoms!”
“So you counted my condoms and listened in? Interesting.”
“Sadly, the pillow I jammed over my head to filter out the moans, grunts and squeals didn’t quite block everything.”
“What can I say? I do a good job. A better job than Teague, now I think of it, since he didn’t ever stay with you overnight.”
“This isn’t about Teague.”
“No, it isn’t, is it, or maybe I would have heard something.”
“Not over the racket going on in your room!”
“Jealous?”
She raised her chin. “Just over it! Okay? I’m over it! I don’t want to hear you anymore! I’ve had enough of hearing you!” And she was on the move again, storming over to the drapes, trying to drag them open as though their very existence was cutting off her oxygen supply.
He stalked across the room, reached her, spun her. “Then how about you stay tonight and test the soundproofing? In the absence of my usual fuck noises you can listen for the loud howl of sexual frustration that’ll be coming out of my room because I haven’t had sex for two fucking weeks! Does that scare you, Romy?”
“Why should it scare me?”
“Because you’re here alone with me and I...I... Arrrggh! It’s dangerous, can’t you see that?”
“Dangerous how?”
“Jesus, Romy, how naive are you?” Matt said. The room was hot, stifling, claustrophobic. He needed air, needed...something! “Fuck this!” He reached past her, grabbed a handful of velvet, yanked on it, heard a satisfying rip, and then the drapes dropped to the floor. He kicked them for good measure. “When are you going to accept that I’m not your damn hero, Romy? I’m not like Teague. I don’t do chastity, and yet I’ve just told you I have done it, for two weeks.”
“So what?”
“So I’m a sex addict. And you’re here.”
“A sex addict would have made a move on me the night we met! God knows I gave you the chance! So don’t talk to me about not ‘doing’ chastity when you’ve been nothing but chaste with me for ten years!”
“You’re not like the others!”
“Well, that just goes to show that you’re an idiot! Because I am like the others. I’m exactly like the others. I want what they want, damn you!”
Sudden, charged silence.
Matt’s skin prickled, his senses going on high alert. “Tell me what you mean,” he said, breathing the words. “What you want.”
She closed her eyes. Heartbeat. Opened them. “You know what I mean. You of all men know what women mean!” And it was as though the angry energy drained out of her, even though her hands had clenched into fists by her sides. “What I want is you. I want...you.”