She pushed herself to her feet. “I don’t think you have to worry. He doesn’t love me. I’m sure of it.” She forced a bright smile. “You can go home and rest assured that I’m not going to crush his delicate heart beneath my boot heel.”
“It’s not just you we’re worried about.” Kitty stood also and looked across the room to the bassinet. “What about Peyton?”
“What about Peyton?”
“Have you ever seen Jonathon with Ilsa?” Kitty asked.
“I—” Then she broke off. Remembering that she had, once, seen him holding Ilsa. Right after she’d been born, Wendy had brought flowers by and Jonathon had been there, an expression of pure wonder on his face as he held the baby.
She nodded, rubbing at her temple, trying to dispel the tension headache that was spiking through her head. When had this all gotten so complicated?
“He’s fantastic with kids,” Kitty was saying. “He adores Ilsa. He’s been bugging us to have another one in fact.”
“And if you are getting married just to fool your family,” Claire said. “And he falls in love with you or that darling little girl, how do you think he’s going to feel when you end the marriage?”
“I—” What could she say to that? She’d never imagined Jonathon might fall in love with her. The idea was preposterous. But Peyton? Yeah. She could imagine that. And if they really were married for two years—it might take that long—then he’d have plenty of time for Peyton to wrap him around her tiny finger. She looked up at Kitty and Claire and found them watching her expectantly. “All I can say, is that when… if we get divorced, I wouldn’t dream of keeping him away from Peyton. If he wants to see her, that is. From this moment on, I’ll think of him as her father. Just as I think of myself as her mother.”
Jonathon as a father. The idea was… so foreign. So odd. Yet, she knew in her heart that Kitty and Claire were right to warn her. He was doing this amazing thing for her. She didn’t want him to get hurt because of it and she would do everything in her power to make sure he didn’t. She only wished she was half as confident in her ability to protect herself.
After a long moment, Kitty stood and gave a dramatic sigh. “Very well, then. I suppose there’s only one thing left to do.”
“What’s that?” Wendy asked, hesitantly. Kitty’s face broke into a smile. “Welcome you to the family.”
The wedding itself went off with all the precision of a well-planned military maneuver. And it was just about as romantic. A small ceremony performed in a drab municipal office in downtown Palo Alto, it was over so quickly that Jonathon felt sure Claire and Matt wished they had stayed in Curaçao instead of making the trip back.
After that first kiss in her office had gotten so out of control, he didn’t even dare cement the ceremony with more than a quick peck. So much for convincing their friends that they were in love. But no one in the office that day seemed surprised, least of all Wendy.
That evening, they swung by Wendy’s apartment to pick up her suitcase and Peyton’s few possessions before heading over to his house. They’d decided to keep her apartment for now. Her lease wasn’t up for another few months, which would give her plenty of time to decide when she wanted to move into his house and what she wanted to keep in storage. When they arrived at his house, they discovered that Claire had made them dinner, and they found it waiting for them in the warming drawer of his kitchen.
He stood beside Wendy in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at the table with a fist clenching his heart. The table had been set with two of the elegant place settings his interior designer had bought seven years ago and which he’d never used. Long, thin tapers sat in the center of the table, a book of matches propped against the candle holder. In between the two chairs sat the new Svan high chair he’d had delivered. A bottle of unopened champagne sat chilling in a bucket opposite the high chair.
Wendy cleared her throat. “Um…” She hitched Peyton up on her hip. “I think I’ll just… urn… unpack a few of the bags first.” Her gaze looked from the wine to him. “I’m not really hungry yet.”
Before he could muster a response, she took the final suitcase from him and made a dash for the door. Probably a wise decision. Neither of them was ready yet for a intimate dinner. Let alone wine.
Three hours later, she still hadn’t made it back down to eat. He’d sat at the table himself, eating in front of his laptop. Finally, he shut his laptop and went in search of Wendy. He found her upstairs in the room he’d set aside as a nursery.
He paused just outside the door. Leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, for a long moment he simply watched her. The room had been painted pale pink. Butterflies fluttered across the walls and bunnies frolicked in the grass painted along the trim. A white crib sat in the corner under a mobile of more butterflies and flowers. Overall, the décor of the room was a little cloying in its sweetness, but the decorator had assured him that it was perfect for the new addition to his life. This evening, he barely noticed the butterflies, but rather focused his attention on the woman sitting in the rocking chair in the corner and the baby she held in her arms.
At some point, Wendy had changed out of the dress and into a pair of jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt. Peyton was asleep in her arms. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back against the headrest of the rocking chair. Only the faint tensing of her calf as she occasionally nudged the chair into movement indicated that she wasn’t asleep too.
He cleared his throat to let her know he was there.
Her head bobbed up. “Oh,” she said, wiggling in the chair to reposition Peyton in her arms without waking her. “How long have you been there?”
“I just walked up.”
She glanced down at the baby in her arms as Peyton stirred but didn’t wake. “I suppose I should put her down,” she whispered. “But I hate to do it. If she wakes up again…”
If the smudges of exhaustion under her eyes were any indication, Peyton wasn’t the easiest of babies. No wonder given the upheaval in her young life.
“If she wakes back up,” he found himself saying, “then I’ll take over and you can get some sleep. You should go eat.”
Wendy shook her head. “I can’t ask you to do that. That’s not why we got married.”
There was almost a hint of accusation in her voice.
“Maybe not,” he hedged. “But we are married now. And you obviously could use the sleep. At this point, I’m more rested than you are. A sleepless night won’t hurt me, but a good night’s sleep could do you a world of good.”
“If she needs a bottle in the night—”
“Then I’ll give it to her.”
Wendy looked skeptical. “The bottles are downstairs. You just—”
“I saw you mixing the formula. I’ve got it.”
“But—”
“Wendy, I’m one of five kids. I had a niece and two nephews before I graduated from high school. Peyton won’t be the first baby I’ve ever fed.”
“Oh.” After a moment of hesitation, she stood and crossed to the crib.
As he’d told her, he knew his way around an infant. It was so obvious to him that she did not. There was a sort of fearful hesitancy to the way she moved. As if she were afraid of breaking Peyton.
She