Two Years Later Read online

  I read that passage again and decide I like it. I leave my closing statement as it was, along with my challenge issued to my readers to follow the trial objectively and with me. I send my updated version of my column to my editor and then I sit there and replay Reese’s question: Why do we feel off?

  I decide this question is a big problem. Once I tell him about the pregnancy, what if he thinks back to today, and worries that I was feeling regret of some sort? An idea strikes me. I know how to wipe out any worries he might have later and I put that plan in place. I pull up a new document and I type: Our parenthood journey begins—a journal and gift for my husband and our unborn child.

  The first few lines read: Today, I woke up to the man I love. It was only moments after he left the house, the day before a major trial, that I realized I didn’t start my period. Even before I went to the store and bought a test, I knew I was pregnant. I also knew that I had a decision to make. Do I tell my husband, my protective, amazing husband, that I was pregnant right away, as I wanted to, or wait until after opening statements or even the trial itself?

  I go on to detail everything I can think of and then some. The calls to the doctor, the visit to see Lauren and Royce, my fear about not being sick, my fear of how he’d worry, the moment he’d come into the kitchen a few minutes ago, and made me want to tell him right then, only to share the trial challenges. When I’m done, I close the document and my MacBook. I’m going to document every day and every thought I have right up until the moment I tell him about the pregnancy. He’s going to know I wanted to tell him. He’s going to know how much I love him. I won’t let this go any other way.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Reese

  Two hours after fucking my wife on the desk in our apartment, I’m standing in the living room with Elsa and Richard both sitting on the couch, all of us frustrated. Running fingers through my hair, I crumple up a sheet of paper with yet another version of my opening on it, letting it pile up with the other ten versions.

  Cat enters the room, and I know she’s what I need, and not just because she’s become my confidant and my best friend. Something is wrong with her and us. I have no idea what is going on with my wife, but I know her. She internalizes and frets but she talks to me and yet whatever this is, she doesn’t want to tell me and I know why. Tomorrow is my opening statement and she doesn’t want to distract me, but not knowing what’s bothering her is driving me crazy.

  “What’s this?” Cat asks, rounding the couch to stand in the middle of the crumpled paper pile I’ve created.

  “Behold,” Elsa says. “Ten excellent opening statements that he hates.”

  “Three of them were shit,” Richard says, loosening his tie. “Is it time for pizza yet? Because we’re going to need fuel.”

  Cat drops to her knees, right there in the middle of the floor, sits cross-legged, and after shoving her long blonde hair behind her ears, starts reading one of the openings. She’s only about halfway through and she crumples it and tosses it over her shoulder. God, I love this woman. She grabs another and Elsa and Richard start debating new ideas I tune out. This isn’t working for me and in ten minutes Cat obviously agrees as she’s tossed all ten openings back into the pile of tossed paper balls.

  “Let’s appeal to the child in everyone,” Richard says.

  Cat starts to stand and I catch her arm, helping her to her feet, her eyes meeting mine. “Can we step into the kitchen?” she asks.

  I give her a nod, and we leave Richard and Elsa in heavy debate. Once we’re in the kitchen, we do as we always do when we debate, her on one side of the island and me on the other, both with our hands on the counter. “Tell me,” I say.

  “You know what your problem is?”

  “Like I said, tell me.”

  “You prepare brilliant opening statements. You. Alone. I don’t even help you beyond listening to the final product and offering a tweak here or there.”

  “Well in advance, and I don’t have that luxury now.”

  “You don’t have the luxury of doing it any other way. Nothing I just read was you. Unless you need to work on additional prep, I think you should send them home and do this your way.” She glances at the clock on the stove. “It’s only six, Reese. You could spend the next four hours, working on this, and still get a good night’s sleep to be fresh tomorrow.”

  I thrum my fingers on the counter. She’s right. I push off the island and walk into the living room. “You two, go home or somewhere else. I need to do the opening statement on my own.”

  A few minutes later, they’re gone and my wife points up the stairs. “Bedroom. That’s where you pace, while I write, and magic is made.”

  I grab her and pull her to me. “You’re the magic.”

  “You were magic in the courtroom when I met you, Reese. I watched you work your magic on a jury while you worked it on me right along with them.” She takes my hand. “Come on. You start to work and I’ll order dinner.”

  ***

  Three hours later, we’ve both changed into sweats and we’re now sitting in our favorite spot, the couch in front of the window in our bedroom, eating pizza, and I’m feeling so much relief. Thanks to Cat centering me, I have one hell of an opening statement all but a few tweaks from ready for tomorrow’s trial. “When can I hear it?” Cat asks for the third time.

  “Soon,” I say, taking a bite of my pizza.

  “I can’t wait,” she says, picking a green olive off her pizza and setting it aside. “I love reading your openings. I love watching you deliver them even more.”

  I frown. “You aren’t eating the olives? You love olives.”

  “They taste funny.” She motions to the pizza. “Taste one.”

  I laugh. “They taste funny so you want me to eat it?”

  She crinkles her nose. “Probably not a good idea the night before your trial.”

  I shut the pizza box and set it on the floor, pulling her leg across my lap. “This is where I proposed to you.”

  “Yes. It was. I remember being naked when you set the ring on my stomach. I love that part of the story even though I can’t exactly tell it.”

  I caress her cheek. “Two years, Cat.”

  “Going on three.”

  “And in those years, we’ve been inseparable.”

  “I like that about us.” She frowns. “You like that about us, too, right?”

  “How can you even ask that? You know I do.”

  “Then why do I feel this is leading somewhere?”

  “Because it is. I know you, Cat. What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing bad,” she says. “In fact, something good now. I have a secret project that I’m working on and it wasn’t going well. I had a breakthrough.”

  “What secret project that I don’t know about?”

  “It’s a surprise and something I want us to finish together. I don’t want you distracted right now. The minute your trial is over, I’m going to hand it to you to read.”

  “I can read it now.”

  “No,” she says. “Not with the hell you have going on.”

  “Cat—”

  She presses her lips to mine. “It’s not a big deal. I was just in between projects and needing a purpose. The trial and this new project I’m working on will do that. You need to work on your opening statement.”

  I roll her to her back and settle on top of her. “I can’t imagine a trial without you in the audience, writing about the case.”

  “Me either.” She slides her hand to my face. “You know what would turn me on right now? And I mean like really turn me on?”

  “Tell me,” I say, sliding my hand under her perfect backside.

  “For you to read me your opening.”

  I groan and press my forehead to hers. “You’re a slave driver.”

  “Yep. Up. Read. Work.”

  I kiss her and sit up, but I’m more than a little curious about the secret project that my wife w
on’t share with me. Something still doesn’t feel right.

  It’s a feeling that doesn’t go away. It’s near midnight when I’m holding Cat next to me, inhaling the sweet scent of her body lotion that she favors at bedtime, and I make a decision: Tomorrow night I’m reading her special project.

  ***

  Cat

  I wake to my husband’s hand on my belly, and I smile sleepily for a moment. Then my eyes pop open and I wonder if my belly feels bigger. It’s not a thought that lasts though. How can it? His hands are now all over my body, his mouth on my nipple, and his fingers pressing into my sex. I moan and then he drags me to my back, and the next thing I know, he’s between my legs, licking my clit. I have another of those strange moments when I actually wonder if I taste differently now that I’m pregnant. It’s a silly thought that fades into his tongue on my clit, his fingers pressing inside me again, and my orgasm that is perhaps world record fast. I can’t help it. There is just something so sexy about the fact that I’m having this perfect man’s baby.

  Reese kisses my belly, right there where our unborn child rests and gives me one of his blue-eyed stares. “Are you awake now?”

  “Oh yes,” I say. “I’m very awake.”

  “Good. Because we’re just getting started.” He rolls to his back and takes me with him, with me, and my newly pregnant body on top of his hard, perfect, everything. And that’s what I want this pregnancy to be: perfect. I need it to be perfect. Nothing can go wrong. It won’t. I won’t let it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cat

  I’m flat on top of Reese, his erection pressed between my legs, and he’s kissing me, but there is something in this kiss. Something off. I tear my lips from his. “What’s wrong?”

  “You tell me”

  “Nothing. There is nothing wrong between us Reese. We are so far from wrong. I love you, husband. I want to die your wife. Well, a long, long, time from now. I want—”

  He cups my head and pulls my mouth to his again and there is a demand in his kiss, a possessive demand that guts me. He’s going into his trial worried about us. How have I let this happen? And I can’t go back now. Not hours before his opening statement. “Stop kissing me like something’s wrong. There’s nothing wrong.” I press my lips to his again, and this time I kiss him, and I try to tell a story. I love you. I need you. You are everything to me. I feel the moment he relaxes. The moment we become us, as I know us, again. Reese’s hands slide over my back, and he molds me closer, my naked breasts to his naked chest. He deepens our kiss, takes control in that way he does, and in the midst of a drugging lick of his tongue he presses inside me, and I slide down the hard length of him.

  He sits up with me, kissing me, his hand on my breasts, and I am so lost in this man. I want to just blurt out “we’re pregnant,” but I store that thought for later, for the journal. I just—sometimes I don’t know where he begins and I end, and vice versa. We are that connected, and when that would have scared me with anyone before him, it makes me feel safe, and I didn’t even know I needed to feel safe. He nips my lips and lies backward, his eyes are hot, watching me, devouring me, and I’m again thinking too much—do I look different? Can he tell I’m pregnant?

  I don’t want to have these thoughts. He’ll know I’m outside of the moment. He’ll know. I drag my hands over his chest, and rock against him, his hand finding my breast, my nipple, and I swear my sex squeezes in reaction. He pumps into me and I push against him, and from there it’s all about need, want, lust. I am free with this man. I want. I need. I have no inhibitions and that is a gift only love can give you. As Reese once told me: love is the freedom to fuck each other senseless. And we do. Crazy, wild, frenzied, and when it’s over, I collapse on top of him.

  He rolls me to my back and whispers in my ear. “Every time I want to throttle someone today I’m going to think about you on top of me and smile.”

  I laugh and he kisses me. “Come take a shower with me.”

  Before I can reply, he’s literally maneuvered me off the bed and is carrying me to the shower.

  ***

  Forty minutes later, Reese is in a blue suit that I picked out with a blue pinstriped tie and is headed downstairs to make coffee and read over his opening statement. I’m in my robe doing my makeup. I’m about to get dressed when a wave of sickness hits me. It comes hard and fast and I rush to the toilet, fall to my knees and hug the bowl. I heave and it’s horrible. My stomach is empty and the clenching of my belly muscles is torture.

  “Cat!”

  I cringe at the sound of Reese’s voice and in another instant, he’s on a knee beside. “Sweetheart. What’s happening?” He hands me a washcloth.

  “Stupid olives,” I say wiping my mouth. “I told you they tasted off.”

  “What can I get you?”

  I twist around to face him. “A kickass opening statement. I’m fine. It’s passing. I just need to get dressed.” I cup his face. “I’m ready to go to court.”

  “Cat, sweetheart. If you need to miss—”

  “I will never miss one of your openings, ever. Ever.” I try to stand and he helps me up. “I’m good, but I should probably brush my teeth again. Go get ready. I’ll be dressed and ready myself in fifteen minutes.”

  “You’re sure? Maybe we should have someone come be with you in court today, in case you get sick again.”

  “Reese,” I say, grabbing his arms. “It’s nothing. I’m better now. I promise.”

  He hesitates and backs out of the small room, guiding me with him, but he doesn’t leave. He hovers until I brush my teeth and prove I’m fine again. Once I’m minty fresh, I kiss him. “I’m great. I’ll be right down.”

  His cellphone rings, and he grabs it to eye the caller ID. “Royce.” His lips thin. “I’ll meet you downstairs.” He disappears out of the bathroom and I suspect that Royce calling means that we already have picketers though I’m not sure what they will picket and not even because of the case, as much as the company the family owns. They’re like a Wal-Mart, so big that the public has high expectations and no matter what they do, they never meet those expectations. But the bottom line is the picketers make the trials nuts and I know they would make Reese worry about me if he knew I was pregnant. I’m making the right decision to wait.

  Eager to find out what’s going on with Royce’s call, I head into the closet, pull on a pale pink sleeveless suit dress with a jacket. That way I’m prepared for a hot or cold courtroom, and the ever-changing October weather. I give myself a once-over in the mirror, my hand settling on my belly. I got sick and that feels like a normal thing for a pregnant woman. I smile. I’m pregnant and I think we’re having a girl. It’s just a gut feeling I’ll have to write about in the journal. I hurry to the sink, gloss my lips pink and then grab my purse.

  My cellphone buzzes with a text and I glance down to find a message from my editor: Have I told you how much I love the way you tease readers? They know you know more than you’re telling and it’s making them crazy. The hits to your article this morning are insane. Now, off the record, did she do it?

  I grimace and type a reply: Reese doesn’t defend guilty people.

  Her reply is instant: But that recorded phone call had to have taken him off guard.

  I’m irritated and concerned. My editor is smart and wide in her thinking, and yet she is focused on the scandal of that call. She didn’t really hear it and that worries me. I think of Reese’s opening statement and type: If anything that call proves innocence.

  Once I’m downstairs, I find Reese in the kitchen, staring at his MacBook. The minute I walk in, he glances up, giving me a critical eye. “How are you?”

  “I’m good.” I step to the island opposite him. “What was up with Royce?”

  “The courthouse is a madhouse. His team will be here in a few to escort us.” He motions to my computer. “I read your column. Brilliant as always.”

  “Thank you.” I consider a moment and then say, �
��I want you to read this exchange with my editor because I think you need to know what you’re up against.” I offer him my phone with the messages pulled up. He accepts it and reads the messages before handing it back to me. “In other words,” he says, “my client is guilty until proven innocent.”

  “Can you convince your client to push the trial back?”

  “No. She won’t do that. I’ve tried.”

  “Then what are you going to do, Reese?”

  “Win by making that call, and the assumption of guilt, work for me and my client. I tweaked my opening statement.” The doorbell rings and he stands up. “I’m ready. I feel in the game now.” He heads for the door and my stomach churns again. He’s in the game now. I cannot let him see me get sick again. I rush to the pantry, grab some crackers and stuff them in a baggy, before tucking them inside my purse.

  I’ve just finished packing up my MacBook when Reese joins me to do the same of his. That’s when Royce appears in the archway, and his eyes meet mine, a question in their depths. Reese glances at a text message and I answer Royce’s unspoken question by giving a tiny shake of my head. His eyes darken with what I think is disapproval. He thinks I should have told Reese, even though he himself said to wait until after opening. I want to throttle him and worse, I share a secret with Royce that I should be sharing with my husband. The wrong man knows I’m pregnant.

  I suddenly can’t wait to get to a place where I can start writing in my journal. Putting down my feelings there is clearly going to be the only way I survive the guilt of keeping this from Reese.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Cat

  The minute we’re in the back of the black SUV with Royce and his look-a-like brother Luke, in the front seat, Reese grabs my leg and pulls me close. He says nothing, but his actions are words. He’s nervous, but nerves are good. Nerves force you to be one hundred percent present and I’ve watched enough of his trials now that I know he settles into his zone. When he steps behind his table in the courtroom, he owns the room. And he needs to be in that courtroom fully, not worried about his pregnant wife. I made the right decision to stay silent, but I hate that Royce knows and Reese doesn’t. How do I justify that part of my silence?