Page 54 of Now & Forever
James held his hand to his face. Gwen had cried enough already to know what went through her husband’s head, and how it threatened to make him the most vulnerable she had ever seen him. While James had cried in front of her before, it wasn’t an everyday occurrence. Even a softie like him had ingested his father’s warnings about masculinity and devoured what his frat and his friends said abouttears are for girls.To see him cry was on par with ripping his heart out and squeezing it in his hand for her to behold.
“It’s not just one thing, James,” Gwen attempted to explain. “It’s not only the kid that came out of nowhere, or the overbearing father who hates my guts, or the other woman everyone thinks you should be with instead of me… if it werejustone of those things, I could survive. I could even be happy, knowing that you’ve got my back and won’t let them touch me. But…” She sighed. “It’s not just one of those things. It’s all of them. It’s everything else they might try to do to get their perfect vision of paradise. The people in your family are a bunch of broken fucks, and they’ve got enough clout to make it worse for themselves… and for us.”
“You think I don’t know that?” James asked through a pinch to his nose. His eyes remained squeezed shut. One hand slammed against his hip while the other shook something off its fingers. The man needed a gold medal in holding back tears. “I grew up in that family! They’re messed up even by society’s standards. Jesus!” He turned away. There must have been tears on his cheeks. “I don’t agree with a single thing they’ve done. It was disgusting of my father to offer you money to leave me. He’s a delusional ass who thinks I’ll fall in line if I think I have no other choice.” James shirked his jacket and tossed it onto the floor. Gwen sat on the edge of their bed, crestfallen. “He doesn’t understand that this isn’t 1980 anymore. This isn’t the ‘50s of my grandfather’s years. It’s not the Victorian age. For God’s sake… he’s so furious that I might get to be with the woman I love, and this is what he does?”
Gwen shook her head. “His would-be wife suggested that you would be so heartbroken that Cassandra would have no issue sweeping in and cheering you right up.”
“That is the most insulting thing I have ever heard, and I’ve heard quite a bit of insults these past couple of years. You can’t be serious if you think everything he’ll try is all about getting to you.”
“It is, though!” Why couldn’t he see that? Gwen wasn’t making it up! She wasn’t trying to make herself into the ultimate victim! God knew she had tried to power through the bullshit over the past several years. Being with James meant giving up much of her old life in favor of one she barely recognized. Assimilating herself into high society, making friends with heiresses and other up-and-coming women such as herself, and adjusting to a life where she never had to settle on a career or evenworkhad taken a toll on her mental (and sometimes physical) health. The payoff hadn’t only been the money, or knowing that her parents were taken care of should her dad have another heart attack. It was being with James. The man who had stolen her heart and offered her everything she could ever want, both inside their home and out of it.
He had opened her eyes to pleasures she never even knew she desired. He had spoiled her so much that she sometimes felt like a flashy princess having her fun before going home when the summer’s over. He had been by her side when her father had his first heart attack. He promised to be there no matter what happened to her or her family.
Gwen loved him, dearly. But was that enough to put up with what his family conspired? For fuck’s sake, they put his baby in another woman!
Ah, that was it, wasn’t it? That would always be the kicker that brought more tears.
James sat down next to her as she cried in earnest. Gwen didn’t look to him for comfort, but she didn’t push him away, either. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to scream at him.
She wanted this all to go away.
“What’s really wrong, Gwenny?” James placed his hand softly on the small of her back. Shudders of love claimed Gwen’s body.
It still wasn’t enough.
“Talk to me. Please.”
She sniffed the last of her awkward tears. Snot stained her sleeve. “I feel so powerless in your family. They get whatever they want. They heard I couldn’t have kids, and they went out and took advantage of your friend’s mental health to knock her up with their precious heir.”
“Listen to me, Gwenny.” James’s hand tightened on her shoulder. He didn’t turn her around, but she knew he wanted to. “You’re right that my family thinks they have all this power. They get away with a lot of shit, too. Butyouare not powerless, and you never have been. Now more than ever, though, you hold all the cards. My parents will wither away.” He choked at the thought. What son wanted to admit that? “But we will be around much longer. You are my wife. Maybe it’s time we finally talk about what that means.”
Gwen turned her whole body away from him. It had taken her months to finally warm up to the idea of James being herhusband.They had always called each other partners from the moment they moved in together. Husband, wife… those words didn’t change a thing between them. Their lives went on as usual.
Until the baby, anyway.
“The first time I saw you,” James continued, his voice strained and soft. “I knew you would probably be my wife one day.”
“You’ve told me that before.” The day they eloped. It had been incredibly romantic back then. Now? James played cards he had no business playing.
“I’ll keep telling you that, because it’s true. I’d gone out with a million women before you, but the moment I saw you, I wondered what it would be like to finally find that one woman who changed my life forever. After our first date, I knew it was meant to be. I only hoped you thought the same thing.”
I had wanted it to be true…Butterflies fluttered in Gwen’s body after their first date at the planetarium. She hadn’t known what to expect after hooking up with the man in the back of her place of work.I was prepared for anything, like some friends with benefits situation. I never expected him to be… more…They had gone back to James’s place that night. Made love for what felt likehours.Yet the man had been so courteous and giddy in her presence, that Gwen couldn’t help but feel that this was the romance she didn’t know she had been waiting for.
Then they moved in together.
Then they got married without telling a soul. Like so much else in their relationship, it had been something for them. Perhaps they couldn’t hide them living together. But if they could have? Gwen doubted she would have ever mentioned it. The strength of her relationship with James wasn’t anyone else’s business. The whole point of getting married – in secret, no less – was to protect themselves. And to assert how much they intended to be together.
Forever.
“Nobody will ever take away from you being my other half.” James took her hand and held it in his lap. “Not even I could do that. It would be like denying the other part of my soul.”
Gwen opened her mouth to say something, but the words refused to come out. She wanted to agree with her husband that they were two halves of one mighty whole. Perhaps they were perfectly fine on their own, and God knew other people didn’t need to enjoy them as a unit to know their worth and what they uniquely brought to the world. But they were strongest and happiest when together. The hardest part about leaving James would be that void left behind.
Not the money. Not the trips around the world. The man himself. That’s all Gwen wanted.
Too bad, like most trips around the world, he came with so muchbaggage.
Too bad she had some baggage of her own. Both conflated with each other.
