A REASON FOR MARRIAGE

Now Simon was the one backing away, feeling a little poleaxed again. His recent revelation was too new, too raw to articulate. This whole day was taking on an unreal hue, as if he’d stepped into some mad time-warp. He was in a house in New York with a woman who’d stepped into his life and turned it upside down.

She’d just told him she was pregnant, and he was still there. He wasn’t running as fast as his legs could carry him away from her, which was how he’d always envisaged reacting to such a scenario.

Simon looked at her steadily and tried to ignore the way her hair was escaping the confines of its neat bun, the way he could see the hollow at the bottom of her throat where he’d opened the button. Even now, more than ever, he wanted her.

He answered almost distractedly, “Yes…of course I did. On some level.”

Someday. His mind cleared and fixed on Sara. “I guess I don’t have to ask you… I know having a child is something you’ve already given a lot of thought,”

He saw her hand go to her belly again; she’d done that a few times, almost as if to protect the unborn child from something-their unborn child. Something in his chest felt tight.

Sara turned away from Simon’s gaze for a moment. He was looking too deeply, seeing too much. When she turned around, his expression had lost that intensity; it was more innocuous.

“Yes. I thought about it a lot. I’ve always wanted children. When we…myself and Bruce… When I found out that I was pregnant then, I was very happy about it…and when I lost the pregnancy, I was devastated. Hurt and angry too, but after I got past that stage, I was kind of grateful that we never got married and maybe there was a reason why I lost that baby. No child deserved to be born into our sham of a relationship and what would eventually become our marriage.”

“And what will this be, Sara?” he asked, “Because I know that your plan was to get IVF, without the father of the child being involved, and I’m pretty sure you know that I’m not going to be okay with that happening. I’m going to be involved, Sara, because it’s my baby too,”

She looked up into his eyes, panic trickling through her. He was so powerful, a million times more powerful than Bruce ever had been. He was cold, remote, and she had a prescience of what it would be like to cross him-she wouldn’t win.

“This will be just us, having a baby. I’m not going to marry you, Simon.”

She was shaking her head, moving away. He advanced.

“I wasn’t aware that I’d asked you,” he said silkily.

She flushed. “Well, isn’t that…how people like you operate?”

He threw back his head and laughed, but Sara knew he wasn’t amused. “What do you think I am, a masochist? Why would I want to marry a woman who doesn’t want to marry me?”

And who I don’t want to marry, he should have added, she thought. Sara shrugged, feeling silly now. “So that you can have control over our child.”

He was very close now.

“Oh, I’ll have control, Sara, as much as you do. We don’t need to be married for that. It’ll be my name on the birth certificate, and I expect to be involved every step of the way.”

“But…” Sara’s throat was dry. “But how is that going to work?”

Simon’s hand reached out and she felt his finger trail from her jaw down to her neck, to the hollow where her pulse beat fast and unevenly.

“It’s simple-for now you’ll come and live with me. We can sort things out from there.”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

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Sara stared at him like he was crazy, then she moved away from him so he wasn’t touching her anymore. “No,” she said simply.

“No?” Simon repeated as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

“You heard me right, Simon. I’m not moving into your house with you because I’m pregnant,”

“Why not? I thought pregnant women needed help. Who else is going to help if I don’t?”

Sara shrugged and looked away, “I’m functioning perfectly fine now, am I not?”

“This is ridiculous. You and I know that you’re not going to be this way throughout the nine months of this pregnancy. What happens as it progresses and you realize that you have no one around to help you? What happens then,”

His scathing glance bored into her. Sara had never felt so undone, so threatened, in all her life. Even when Bruce had been at his worst, she’d had a level of freedom, space. He hadn’t touched the part of her deep down that this man was trampling all over.

“Please. Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure things out. Besides my mom, Scott or Vivian can come look after me if I decide that I need help. I’ll manage somehow.”

“How?” he’d asked curtly. “Scott and Vivian just got married. I think they’d want to enjoy their first few months of marriage before having to worry about a baby that’s not even theirs. Your mother has a life of her own too, you know, and damn it, it’d be different if I didn’t want to involved as the father of the child, but I do, so give me one reason why everyone else is allowed to help and not me?”

Sara looked at him and let easy anger rise. She’d lashed out as much at herself as him, but made him the target. “This is all your fault. I had plans for this situation before you came along. I was ready to do this alone because I was trying to avoid situations like this. I didn’t want to have to argue with anyone.. That’s why I wanted to get IVF in the first place. If you hadn’t pursued me when we met, if you hadn’t wanted me-”

Her words were cut off as he bridged the gap between them and gripped her upper arms, hauling her close. Words died in her throat as she felt her body come flush against his. She’d never seen him look so angry.

His mouth was a thin slash of displeasure. “I wanted you, yes, but you acquiesced, Sara. You wanted me too so don’t even try to deny it. I’m not the reason your engagement failed, I’m not the reason you are obsessed with shutting everyone out and doing everything alone, and I’m certainly not the reason you never spoke the truth before now,”