Nothing But This (Broken Pieces 2)

“I’m here for Olivia. And Clara.”

“You don’t deserve them,” she said coldly, and that uncomfortable bit of truth infuriated him. Like he didn’t know that already. Why did everybody just assume that he wasn’t aware of that reality?

His defensive anger made him tap into the icy well of control he kept reserved for just such occasions. It helped him keep a handle on the messy emotions that tended to interfere with most other people’s higher brain functions. This way he always knew what to say and how to react.

“And you don’t have the right to an opinion in this matter,” he said. “It’s between my wife and me.”

Shit. So much for controlling his higher brain functions. That was probably one of the dumbest things he could have said. She paled dramatically, losing the unbecoming red flush, and Greyson braced himself for what was to come.

But when she finally spoke, her voice was admirably quiet and contained just the smallest hint of a tremor.

“The mere fact that I was there when she needed me and you weren’t gives me the right to an opinion, Greyson,” she said, and he swallowed again, his throat tight as he barely stopped himself from nodding at the veracity of that statement. “I was at almost every doctor’s appointment. I was there when she heard your daughter’s heartbeat for the very first time. I held her hand and cried with her. Where the hell were you, Greyson?”

He had no answer to that, but she did.

“You had an important luncheon with a potential investor—that’s what Libby told me. She smiled when she told me, always trying to be so brave. But I could see how heartbroken she was. She asked them to record the ultrasound; she was so sure you’d want to see it. Did you ever watch it?”

He hadn’t, of course. Not then. Only months later, after Clara’s birth. After his recognition of the truth.

But that evening after the missed appointment, Olivia had arranged a special romantic dinner, after which she had intended for them to watch the first ultrasound together. She had been so excited, telling him she knew how disappointed he must have been to have missed the appointment. So she had tried to turn it into an occasion . . . for him.

Greyson, however, had taken one look at the romantic table setting, with candles, red wine for him, and sparkling water for her . . . and hated it! He’d resented her so much for trying to force him to participate when he had tried to make his disinterest so clear.

He had pleaded exhaustion, with no further explanation, and left the dining room. Part of him taking pleasure in the disappointment he saw in her eyes, and the other part just feeling numb and betrayed. He had moved out of their bedroom that night, the baby and imagined adultery more tangible to him after that ultrasound. Continuing to share a bed with her would have felt like a total farce to him.

He couldn’t remember what bogus excuse he had given her. Whatever it had been must have left her so damned hurt and confused.

He clenched his fists and bowed his head and allowed more of Martine’s words to crash into him. Needing to know, wanting to experience some of the pain Olivia must have felt at the time.

“Then there was the day she fell in your penthouse. Where were you that day, Greyson? When she started bleeding and was terrified she would lose the baby? She tried to call you, and it went to voice mail. Over and over again. Harris was in Johannesburg, and she didn’t want to scare her parents, so I rushed over and found her crying, too scared to move, too scared to call an ambulance, because she didn’t want to hear that she’d lost her baby.”

Greyson was fighting for every breath, feeling brutalized and bruised. His knees felt weak, but he fought to stay upright. He had to listen and hear and know . . .

The day she’d fallen . . . she had called him five times, and each time he had dismissed the call. He had been irritated by her persistence. He recalled that much. Because he’d been so fucking busy being fitted for a new tuxedo.

When he had eventually listened to her voice mails, the anxiety and fear in her voice had caused a knot of sick guilt to form in the pit of his stomach. Guilt and fear. She had sounded so terrified he had panicked. Fearing that she had hurt herself badly, he had rushed to the hospital, absolutely petrified that she would die.

But when he had gotten there, it was to find her laughing and surrounded by her parents and Martine and other friends. She had seemed fine . . . and after allowing himself a moment of absolute relief, he had turned and walked away before anyone had spotted him. He had resented her so damned much for making him worry. For making him think she was in danger when she was fine and happy and glowing and beautiful.