Chapter 6 We’ll Wait

Erika’s POV

His hand was still around my wrist.

I could feel his pulse through his fingers, or maybe that was mine—I couldn’t tell anymore. He was close enough that I could smell his cologne and the starch on his collar and something underneath both that I remembered from a hotel room I’d spent five years pretending I’d forgotten.

“When did I ever say I didn’t want you?” he said again, quieter this time.

My brain had stalled. I was sitting on his bed in my wedding dress with two buttons undone and his hand on me, but the words didn’t make any sense.

He didn’t want me. He’d said so this morning. Hadn’t he?

“Damien,” I said. My throat had gone dry.

“Yeah.”

“You’re very close to me right now.”

“I know.”

“I think you should—”

His thumb moved. One stroke across the inside of my wrist, slow, and my whole spine lit up. My breath left me in a rush and I grabbed his shirt with my free hand to keep from tipping backward.

He looked down at my fist in his shirt and then back at my face. One eyebrow went up, and I could see him fighting something at the corner of his mouth.

“You were saying,” he murmured.

I let go of his shirt and smoothed the wrinkle I’d made in it. I pulled my wrist out of his hand and folded both of mine in my lap, taking a long, steadying breath through my nose.

“I’m not ovulating until next week,” I said.

The silence that followed was so complete I could hear the clock in the hallway.

Damien stared at me. He opened his mouth and closed it and then sat down heavily on the edge of the bed beside me, pressing both hands over his face.

“What?” I said.

He didn’t answer.

“Damien, I’m serious. We can’t just try whenever we feel like it. I’ve been tracking my cycle and the window opens on the fourteenth. If we time it right we have a twenty to thirty percent chance per attempt, but if we waste it—”

“Erika.”

“What?”

“I just—” He dropped his hands. “I need a minute.”

“For what?”

He looked at me for a long time. Then he laughed helplessly, shaking his head.

I did not understand what was funny. I narrowed my eyes.

“I have a plan,” I said, pulling my phone out of the clutch I’d left on the nightstand. “I made it last week. Do you want to see it?”

“I’m terrified to.”

“It’s very thorough.” I opened my notes and held the phone out to him. He took it and scrolled, and I watched his face change three separate times.

“Theo’s treatment schedule,” he read. “Conception window highlighted in pink. Prenatal vitamin start dates. Diet and exercise plan. Backup plan if the first three attempts fail.” He looked up at me. “Erika, there is a section in here called ‘Post-Divorce Custody Arrangement.’”

“I wanted us both to be prepared.”

“You planned the date of our divorce.” He held the phone up. “On our wedding day.”

“We should be realistic, Damien. The marriage ends when Theo is stable. You said so yourself this morning.”

He carefully set the phone down on the nightstand.

“So,” he said. “What are we doing tonight?”

“Sleeping.”

He nodded. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and looked at the ceiling.

“Separately?” he asked.

“The bed is big enough for both of us. I don’t see why we’d waste a whole extra room.” I started unbuttoning my dress again and stopped. “Can you unzip the back? I can’t reach it.”

He stood and came around behind me. I gathered my hair off my neck and held it to one side. His fingers found the zipper at the top of my spine and pulled it down, the backs of his knuckles running the full length of my back, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

I felt every single inch of it in places that had nothing to do with my spine.

I gripped my own knees so hard my nails bit through the fabric.

“Thank you,” I choked out.

“You’re welcome,” he said through his teeth.

I took a t-shirt from my overnight bag and changed in the bathroom. When I came back he was sitting on the far edge of the bed in sweatpants and nothing else.

I looked at the ceiling and then at the floor and then at the dresser and then at everything in the room that was not his shoulders.

“I want to be clear,” I said, climbing into my side. “I am not going to make this weird.”

“Too late.”

“It’s just sleeping, Damien. People share beds all the time.”

“People who are married, yes. They do.”

“I mean friends. Colleagues. My sister and I shared a bed for six years growing up.”

He turned his head on the pillow and looked at me. “Erika. I am not your sister.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do. You’re much bigger.”

He made a sound I couldn’t identify and turned over to face the wall.

I lay there in the dark and stared at the back of his head.

When did I ever say I didn’t want you?

He was being kind. That was all. He didn’t want me to feel like a burden, so he’d said it too intensely, and now I was reading too much into good manners from a man raised by Victoria.

My phone vibrated on the nightstand.

Isabelle. I picked up before it vibrated a second time.

“I’m sorry,” she forced out. “I know this is your wedding night, but I think something’s wrong with Theo. His temperature spiked half an hour ago and he’s not keeping water down. I called the hospital and they said bring him in.”

I was already standing. The t-shirt, my jeans from earlier, my shoes—I was dressed before she finished talking.

“I’m coming. Tell him mommy is coming!”

Damien was sitting up. He didn’t ask what happened. He swung his legs off the bed and pulled a shirt over his head, grabbing his car keys off the dresser.

“You don’t have to come,” I said from the hallway.

He was right behind me. “He’s my son too.”