have a lot of money growing up. He’d once told her he’d started saving money for college when he was twelve. She couldn’t even imagine the man she knew taking money out of his precious college fund to buy gifts. For a girlfriend.
“Once,” Claire said, leaning forward and warming up to the story, “she told him that her mother always bought her birthday cake from the same bakery. She’d grown up in San Francisco. So for her birthday, the guys made a road trip out to San Francisco to buy her a cake. On a school day. They got in so much trouble.” Claire chuckled for a second. Then seemed to realize how much she’d revealed about herself. Her blush returned as she sank back against the sofa.
“You were a little bit of a stalker, weren’t you?” Kitty asked, grinning.
“I had a crush on Matt. That’s all.” Then she smiled smugly. “Besides, he eventually came around.”
“I’ll say.” Kitty bumped her shoulder against Claire’s in easy camaraderie.
“So what happened?” Wendy asked, unwilling to leave the thread of Jonathon’s story dangling. “Why did they break up?”
“That’s the thing.” Claire gave a little shrug. “I’m not sure they were ever really together. And not long after the birthday cake thing, she moved back in with her mother. Jonathon was…”
“Heartbroken,” Kitty supplied.
“No.” Claire frowned thoughtfully. “He was just never the same.” She gave her head a little shake, as if she was returning to the present. “But I know it’s still there, buried inside of him. The capacity to love like that.”
Claire and Kitty exchanged another one of those pointed glances and Wendy felt a stab of envy. This girl he’d loved, Kristi… Wendy had never been loved like that. Kitty and Claire, that’s what they had with their husbands. But no one had ever felt that way about Wendy.
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,
