Indecent Proposal (21 page)

He arranged his tie and pulled his phone from his pocket. “Truthfully, I haven’t given the child much thought.”

“Because of the election?”

“Because you made it very clear that night in your apartment that the child was yours.”

Right
. So she had. But she doubted that had any bearing on what he thought about their child.

“That’s a bullshit answer,” she said. “You’re telling yourself that to make it easier for you not to care. You should just say you don’t care.”

“It’s not that I don’t care … it’s that I honestly haven’t
thought about the baby as anything besides a problem to solve.”

A problem to solve? Who says that about a person?

“I don’t want the baby to be born into a place so cold.”

“Atlanta—”

“Your loft,” she said. “Your family. This charade between us. I don’t want the baby to feel that cold.”

“I doubt an infant understands anything about his or her parents’ relationship.”

“When did you understand your parents?” she asked. He was still looking at his phone and she could hear the whooshing sound of emails being sent to the trash can. The silence went on so long that she didn’t think he was going to answer her and she closed her eyes, letting the car rock her toward sleep.

“I was young,” he finally said. “A kid, I guess, when I knew my family wasn’t like other families. That my sister and I were props more than people.”

“My child won’t be treated that way,” she told him, willing him to look at her. Willing him to understand how important this was to her. For two years or two minutes, her child would not know a second of what he’d known his whole life. “Harrison,” she said when he wouldn’t look at her.

“You are a Montgomery now,” he said. “And considering how well you’ve done today, I don’t know that you’ll have a choice.”

He went back to his phone and she went back to staring out the window, her hand over her belly as if she could already protect the baby from the chill of her husband.

Chapter 16

Tuesday, August 27

Yesterday had been an unparalleled success and somehow at the same time a crushing disaster. Harrison went over the complexities of it while making espresso the next morning.

Press conference: success.

School (outside of Ryan flashing her underwear to some kindergartners): success.

And the victories were because of her—she’d nailed it. Just nailed it.

Every single other moment between them: disaster.

That conversation about the baby on the way home from the school, those had been the last words she said to him all day. When he got home from work, armed with takeout, she’d been asleep, or at least very unwilling to talk to him when he lightly knocked on her door. He’d eaten chicken lo mein by himself, ears tuned to the slightest sound coming from her room.

At some point, watching the blinking lights of airplanes across the night sky, he’d realized he was going to be a father.

He’d nearly dropped his lo mein.

Of course, intellectually he
knew
that Ryan was pregnant. That was why they were married. Why they were perpetrating this grand lie. But it had never fully occurred to him that he would be a father. It didn’t matter
if the baby was his, or if they got a divorce in two years. That baby would be born into his home. His life.

I’m going to be a dad
.

And honest to God, the thought had never occurred to him before.

And frankly, that thing she’d said in her apartment about the baby being hers—that had been fine with him. An easy excuse not to care.

And then she’d called him on it and he had the vague sense that he should do better.

Be better.

This morning he filled up Ryan’s red teacup with water and set it down in front of the stool he now considered hers. Because she’d sat in it once. He set the prescription bottle with her morning sickness pills next to it.

She should be eating more, he thought. Considering he’d seen her eat half a donut in all the time they’d spent together, more shouldn’t be too hard.

There was an apple in the fridge and he set it down next to the teacup. Stepped back. Shifted the teacup. Considered cutting the apple into slices.

From the hallway he heard the nearly silent sound of her door opening and the pad of her feet coming down the hardwood floor.

He found that he was bracing himself for the sight of her. Holding his breath, even. Not only for her beauty, fragile and bold at once, which seemed impossibly to knock him off stride every single time he saw her, but because he felt so damn bad about yesterday.

And he wanted, in some small way, to make everything that was wrong between them just a small bit better.

She came out of the shadows in glimpses—white thigh, chin, a swinging arm, and then she was there, in
her shorts and tank top, her dark hair tucked behind her ears.

Her eyes diamond bright and hard.

Still angry.

“Good morning,” he said.

Her eyes raked over him, leaving him cold in his thin tee shirt.

“I made you breakfast.” He pointed needlessly at the water and apple.

The frozen tundra between them thawed for just a moment when she smiled. “My favorite.”

“I haven’t seen you eat much.”

“The doctor tells me my appetite will return at some point.”

“But shouldn’t you be eating for the baby?”

“Let me worry about the baby.”

Yeah, the shirt wasn’t nearly enough. He needed a winter jacket just to be in the room with her.

“Look, about yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t mean to sound cold about the baby. I just haven’t had much of a chance to get my head around it.”

She sat down on the stool and took a pill, washing it down with the water. She picked up the apple and considered all sides of it before taking a careful bite.

“Ryan—”

“I think maybe the less we talk about the baby, the better off we will be,” she said, staring at the apple and then taking another bite.

“I’m just telling you the truth,” he said, spreading his arms out wide against the counter, feeling her slip farther and farther away until he would be stuck on his iceberg and she’d be stuck on hers. And that was a long, cold way to spend two years. “That’s what you wanted. The truth between us, and the truth is, I haven’t thought about the baby as something real. Not yet.”

“Do you believe it’s yours?” She seemed shocked to
have asked the question and she quickly shook her head. “No, don’t answer that.”

“I think I should answer. I think we should talk about this.”

“Fine. Do you believe the baby is yours?”

“I believe you when you say it is,” he said. Such a law school answer, such a political splitting of hairs. He was almost embarrassed to have said it, but it was the truth.

“What the fuck kind of answer is that?” she asked, slicing through his bullshit.

He shrugged. “It’s the one I have.”

“Well, it sucks.
You
suck.” He blinked at her and she threw the apple at him. He ducked, and the apple hit a cupboard and fell to the hardwood floor with a thunk.

He stared at the apple and then at her and back to the apple again. She’d thrown that at him. An apple. At his head! “Are you insane?”

“No, Harrison. I’m a Kaminski. And you can try to change me, and you can give me all the fine suits and speeches written by someone else you want, but underneath it, I’m Ryan Kaminski, from Bridesburg, and this is how we argue.”

“You can’t—”

“Oh, I can, asshole—”

A pounding at the door stopped her from finishing that sentence, which was probably a good thing.

“I was trying to apologize,” he said as he walked by her toward the door.

“Well, your apologies suck.”

Yeah, you’ve made your thoughts pretty clear on that
, he thought, and jerked open his front door.

Wallace came in with armfuls of newspapers and a genuinely jolly mood that was so large, it shoved all their animosity toward the far corners of the condo.

“Hello!” Wallace said. “I come bearing gifts! For the
woman of the house—” He set a to-go cup of coffee down on the counter in front of her.

“I’m not drinking—”

“It’s decaf, honey,” Wallace said and she slumped in her chair, her hair slipping over her face. As Harrison watched, her shoulders shook.

“Are you crying?” he asked, astonished. Was that what it took to win this woman over? Lukewarm decaf from the coffee shop down the street?

“No,” she snapped, and then gave Wallace a warm smile. “Thank you.”

“Most welcome.” Wallace turned with a flourish. “And for you, Harrison, Golden Child, I bring good press.” He plopped down the armful of newspapers, which Harrison immediately began to rifle through. They weren’t on the cover of any paper, but the
Journal-Constitution, USA Today
, the
Wall Street Journal
, and the
New York Times
all had stories of them in inside sections. All accompanied by a picture, most commonly the one of her kissing him.

They look happy
, he thought.
Whoever that couple is, it seems real
.

“We are incredible actors,” she said, tapping the picture.

“You are,” he said. “I just follow your lead.”

“Well,” Wallace said, “before you start thinking it’s a clean sweep, Maynard from the
Journal-Constitution
isn’t buying it.” Wallace flipped the paper open to an op-ed piece and started to read. “ ‘The Montgomery Family has lied so often and with such flagrant disregard for voters’ intelligence or morality that this new love match of Harrison’s reeks of just more of the same.’ ”

“Ouch,” Ryan said into the silence after Wallace threw the paper down.

“Maynard has never liked me,” Harrison said.

“Well, he’ll be out for blood in the next few weeks.
So, just be careful. But fear not,” Wallace said. “I did some polling—”

“Wallace,” Harrison cried. “We don’t have the money for polls.”

“We’ll find it. In fact, I imagine we might find it easier than we think, because …” Wallace pulled a creased paper out from his back pocket. “We’re doing great. Like … better than great. Like I haven’t seen numbers like this. Ever.”

Harrison’s eyes scanned the numbers. They had skyrocketed. He was blown sideways by something like joy. But not quite. Happiness, but not really.

Relief.

Harrison was relieved.

That was where his pendulum swung: between relief and stress, and no farther.

“It worked,” he said, beaming up at her, and she blinked as if his face were the sun and it was too bright and then … she smiled. Right back at him.

Animosity. Apple-throwing. The icebergs. His family. It was all gone. And it was like the bar the night they met. Just two people and the chemistry of kindness.

And his pendulum strained toward happiness.

“I’m glad,” she whispered.

“Good,” Wallace said. “Because we have a little over two months. The fundraiser with your sister at the end of the week. And two more rallies after that, a debate, a thousand press events and community center speeches, and then, if we can keep this momentum … we should be in the clear.”

Harrison nodded, not really listening to Wallace, and he reached over for her and before she could duck away, or stop him, he pulled her into a hard hug.

Her face against his chest, the weight of his arms around her shoulders, his hands wide against the smooth bare skin of her back revealed by her tank top.

To his surprise, his pleasure, she sighed into the sensation, caught unaware without her guards, and she sank right into that hug. His starved body soaked up the contact.

“Thank you,” he breathed against her hair. “Thank you.”

For a man who seemed to only ride around in the backseats of cars, sit behind a desk, and occasionally blow press conferences, he was fantastically well built. She knew this because she was currently face first against his chest.

He was lean but taut; not ripped, but hard-seeming. The muscles in his back and arms rippled as he stroked her hair.

The gesture sent a surprising hot wind through her that felt suspiciously like desire.

Weird. Because she’d thought sexual desire had been overrun by stress and nausea. A general dislike and confusion toward Harrison.

But the Internet had warned her that, too, would come back. For some women, with a vengeance.

Don’t let me be some women
, she thought. How much more tenuous would this situation be if she wanted Harrison? As in really wanted him.

“Well, you haven’t won the election yet,” she said, finally coming to her senses and pulling away. She stepped back and even that wasn’t enough, so she went around the counter to pick up the apple she’d thrown, the chunks that had splintered off. Then she realized she had no idea where the garbage can was in this kitchen.

It was time she learned, if this was her home.

It was time to figure it all out if this was her home.

“I’m going to need to find a doctor,” she said. “An ob/gyn.”

“You can call my doctor,” Harrison said. “He’ll have someone he can recommend.”

She wanted to resist that, wanted to make it harder somehow, but that would have been pointless. “Thank you,” she said.

“I’ll text you his number,” he said, and then took a deep breath. “I have to go pick up my sister in Bishop, Arkansas, this week.”

“Is that … do I need to go with?” Bishop, Arkansas, sounded terrible. And hot. And … terrible.

“Need? No. But if you’d like—”

“Actually,” Wallace said, “we could use her at the League of Women Voters luncheon … with your mother.”

“You’re going to leave me with your mother?” she asked. “Without a chaperone?”

“I don’t know how much trouble you can get into with the League of Women Voters.”

She put the smashed apple on the counter and lifted an eyebrow. Shockingly, he laughed.

And her reaction at this point was so predictable it was ridiculous. Ten minutes ago she’d been throwing an apple at his head, and now he was laughing and it made her want to smile. It made her want to investigate that bare chest a little further.