In Love Again (3 page)

“Oh god!” Sarah walked over to the door and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Did you have a good day at work?”

He nodded and gave her a firmer kiss on the lips. “I did.” He looked over her shoulder. “What are you all up to?”

“Drinks with the girls. I love you. Now go away.”

“Hi, Claire. Hi, Bron.”

“Hi, Dev,” they both answered.

“All right then.” He kissed Sarah again. “I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll get dinner started. Because, you know, I want to make sure I’ve got lots of nutrition for tonight’s practice sex—”

“Get out!” Sarah laughed as she slammed the door in his face.

The sound of his receding laughter as he dashed up the stairs to their loft apartment echoed through the room. Sarah had a silly smile on her face as she walked slowly back to where Claire and Bronte were sitting.

Watching Sarah and Devon’s loving banter, Claire wondered if she would ever feel that comfortable in her own skin, much less in a relationship with someone else. It seemed utterly incomprehensible—the teasing, the everyday intimacy.

Sarah sat down and took another sip of champagne. “Sorry about that.” Then she was back to business. “Okay. So. Where were we?”

Bronte settled more comfortably onto the long sofa and put on her best bossy expression. “Claire was needing to get a job. J. O. B. That’s where we were. And I couldn’t agree more.”

Claire stared into her glass, then finally spoke. “I am unqualified to do anything.”

“That’s patently ridiculous,” Sarah said. “You’re Lady Barnes—”

Claire shook her head.

“I mean… Marchioness Claire of Wick—”

“You’re getting warmer…” Claire smiled this time.

“Or Lady Wick. Or whatever! I’m no good at titles—you know that. But in terms of getting a job, your title has to mean something. Plus, you need the money.”

Claire looked down at her Chanel suit and her outrageously expensive jewels. They were all family jewels on loan from her mother, of course. The clothes too. Whenever Claire came into town, she raided her mother’s closet and jewelry drawers. The former Dowager Duchess of Northrop, lately styled the lowly Mrs. Jack Parnell, had always enjoyed the latest fashions and would shake her head at Claire when she would arrive in her serviceable wools from Scotland.

Sarah smiled again. “Not like you
need
the money to put a roof over your head or clothes on your back, but you need your
own
money. Back me up, Bron.”

Bronte stared at Claire—lost in thought—then snapped out of it. “Of course, of course. But I’m more interested in what you really
want
to do with your life.”

“I thought I was already doing something with my life.” Claire sounded small and defensive, even to her own ears. “You know, being a mother and a wife and a…decent person,” she added lamely.

“Oh, dear,” Bronte said, “I didn’t mean it to come out all judgmental and accusatory like that. I’m so sorry.”

Claire felt the press of tears again. “I’m trying not to be a baby about this, though it probably looks that way to you two superwomen, but I’m just a person. I never wanted to build an empire or transform an industry.” Sarah and Bronte took the hits. “It wasn’t easy creating a beautiful life in the wilds of Scotland. And I think I did a pretty good job of it.”

The younger women tried to regroup. Bronte launched in first. “Of course you did. The castle is splendid. You spent years renovating it and making it gorgeous and all of that—”

Claire opened her mouth to speak, but Bronte stopped her.

“And I don’t mean
all of that
in a dismissive way. Honestly, I don’t. But admit it. You were hiding somehow. You were up there at the northernmost tip of the known world. Kind of tucked away.”

“I guess you’re right. But—” Claire sighed. “But nothing. You’re right. I was. But the real world feels so busy and crowded and overwhelming.”

Sarah had walked back behind her desk and leaned over to print up the image on her screen. She pulled it from the paper tray behind her a few seconds later and brought her glass and the picture back to where the other two women were sitting.

“Well, well, well. What have we here?” Bronte asked, taking the picture out of Sarah’s hands with a low whistle.

“Oh, stop that, you two.” But Claire craned her neck and tried to get a better look at the picture as she said it.

Bronte looked up. “Would you like me to make more room on the couch so you can get closer?”

Claire laughed. “No, but do hurry up and pass it here when you’re finished gawking.”

Sarah and Bronte shared a quick glance then passed the picture of Dr. Ben Hayek to Claire, who pretended not to be all that interested.

But she wasn’t able to repress that slight lift of her lips that probably let her sisters-in-law know that the fire and passion that had once burned in a young woman’s heart might not have been entirely doused after all.

Ben removed his gloves, stepped onto the floor pedal of the stainless steel garbage can, and tossed the disposable latex in as he left the examination room. He was on autopilot, as usual. The molar removal he’d just performed barely registered in his brain. Unless he was playing his guitar at the jazz club in the East Village or working on an emergency at the free clinic downtown, he merely passed through life these days. Nothing seemed to resonate. Nothing seemed to stick. Even his marriage had just sort of faded away. He and Alice were still friends. They still went to the movies together. No drama. No tears. Just married. Then not.

Apparently, Alice believed there was “more to life,” whatever that meant. Ben thought an apartment on the Upper East Side and a thriving dental practice would have been enough for someone. For Alice. But if he was honest with himself, it wasn’t enough. Not in the sense he was beginning to realize. It was way more than enough to satisfy his basic needs. Clothes. Cars. Country house in northern Connecticut. Or it should have been.

He had accused Alice of suffering from the Dissatisfaction Disease. Nothing was ever going to be enough. She had argued, quite convincingly, as it turned out—she hadn’t made partner at thirty-six for nothing—that it was Ben who was suffering. She was cheerful and loved their life. He was the one who had turned into some weird, mopey version of himself. After nine years—the final two of which saw Ben pretending it was just a rough patch—Alice filed for divorce. He didn’t even blame her, really. He
had
become mopey.

Still, there had been other problems. One of the main reasons Ben had decided to become a dentist was to give himself enough time to devote to a family. If he’d become an orthopedic surgeon, as he’d originally intended in undergrad, he decided it would probably limit his ability to be an attentive and loving father, like his own parents had been. He wanted that. A home filled with children and laughter and life. Alice had said she wanted that too. But.

But a few years into their marriage, he felt like he was the only one on the baby train. The more he questioned Alice about when she was going to go off the pill, the more she resisted.
Once she graduated from law school
, she said. Which had sounded perfectly reasonable at the time.
Once she became an associate
. Again, seemed logical in the moment.
Once she made partner
. Yes. He understood. But by then, he felt like he was having to try too hard. And if he had to try that hard to get Alice even interested in talking about having a baby, he didn’t really see how she was going to be interested in the actual baby.

Life just wasn’t turning out the way he’d planned.

Ever since he was a kid, Ben had been led to believe—he believed—that if he tried hard enough and worked hard enough and studied hard enough, then there would be a pot of gold or brass ring. Not anything to do with money or prestige, but a loving home that made everything else worthwhile. Eventually, after things began to fade with Alice, he figured he was probably spoiled by all the love in his childhood. So many doting older sisters and two loving parents hugging and supporting each other and telling him how much they loved him—and each other—all the time.

Eventually, he realized the futility of trying to re-create something that probably didn’t even exist anymore. Loving families were such a cliché. He lowered his expectations in hope of a day-to-day life that was at least pleasantly satisfying. Ben knew he couldn’t pin it all on Alice, though. He just remembered being happy at some point, of having the feeling that happiness wasn’t a pretense. But it had been a long time ago and was probably just youthful ignorance.

He went into the next examination room and gave a quick look at a patient who was in for a regular checkup. All good. Next.

And so his day progressed, with the occasional emergency that made him use his brain for perhaps seventeen seconds instead of the requisite four seconds, and on and on it went. He got home that night and made himself one of those organic pasta and vegetable microwave dinners and watched the Knicks game. Maybe something would happen eventually. Or not.

“This is the dumbest idea in history.” Claire stood in front of the mirror in Bronte’s New York City apartment, Claire’s new temporary home. She was wearing a navy blue skirt and matching jacket, and her long, wavy blond hair had been whipped into ramrod-straight submission by Bronte’s favorite hairstylist. Bronte stood behind Claire and patted her shoulders and smoothed the skirt along her hips.

“You look amazing. You’re going on a job interview. This is what you’re supposed to look like.”

“I feel like such a fraud. What do I possibly have to offer one of the top interior designers in the world?” Claire turned to face Bronte, unable to stand another second of that imposter in the mirror.

“Stop it. Seriously. You’re the Marchioness of Wick—”

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about it and I want to go back to Lady Claire Heyworth.” She looked down at her clasped hands thoughtfully. “I can’t bear to be associated with Freddy, even if we aren’t technically divorced.”

“You will be soon enough.”

Claire looked up hopefully. “You don’t think it’s duplicitous or dishonest, do you?”

“Of course not. You’re still Lady Claire, the daughter of a duke. There’s nothing dishonest about that. It’s a technicality.”

Claire had a momentary worry that her sister-in-law’s moral compass didn’t always point to true north, but Bronte was right in any case. Claire’s name at birth had always been hers to use, no matter her marital status or what the British courts ruled.

“And Lady Claire’s even better!” Bronte exclaimed. “Who’s ever heard of a marchioness in Manhattan anyway? Everyone loves all that lady-this and lady-that.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Bronte.”

“I’m not kidding. The plummy accent. The highbrow contacts. The accent!”

Claire frowned. “I get it, I get it. But I don’t have any highbrow contacts. I’ve been holed up in Scotland for nearly twenty years, remember?”

“Oh, that’s just untrue. You’re related to the queen, for fuck’s sake. Enough with the self-deprecating silliness. Or…” Bronte’s eyes lit up. “Better yet, keep it up. Boppy Matthews is going to love all that!”

“All what?”

“All that hesitant
Oh, Viscount Linley, you mean David?
that you’re so good at.”

“Bronte. You’re awful.”

“I know. I’m the worst. But it’s all true, and you know it. If you saw
David
at a party, you wouldn’t turn in the other direction, now would you?”

“Well, I suppose not. But I wouldn’t offer him a swatch of Scalamandré silk fabric either!”

Bronte burst out laughing. “Bull’s-eye! Don’t you see? Only you know Viscount Linley,
and
you know that he would know Scalamandré fabric to begin with. And all of that
is
what it’s all about. It’s just all too good. Now off we go.”

Claire sighed and gave herself over to the ongoing pushing and prodding of her relentless sister-in-law. Bronte had offered her old apartment as a temporary stopgap until Claire got on her feet. For some reason, her brothers—who had always dismissed Claire as a doll-like version of their mother—had taken up her cause now that her wretched husband was no longer in the picture and their overpowering mother had moved to France with her new husband.

When Bronte had first suggested giving over her New York apartment, Claire tried to argue that taking charity from her sister-in-law was no better than taking charity from her mother, but Bronte had howled, “Claire! Living in a Georgian mansion in Mayfair and pretending you need a job is preposterous! Living in a modest one-bedroom apartment in Gramercy Park is something else altogether. Plus, New York City is all about new beginnings. How could you ever have a fresh start in London, for Christ’s sake? Every maître d’ in Mayfair knows your bank details!”

So Claire had spent the rest of the summer closing up the majority of the castle in Scotland, leaving only a few areas open and accessible to the public, and put the staff on notice. Freddy had already moved permanently to his rooms at the Albany many months before, and they’d both agreed to communicate solely through their attorneys. Despite years of lies and disdain, Freddy was still refusing to agree to the divorce, forcing Claire into the very unfamiliar position of aggressor.