Beautiful Beloved Page 3

  George had been a godsend while I was on leave. I was out for sixteen weeks, but I’d never wanted to feel disconnected from my career at Ryan Media Group, so I’d stop in on a pretty regular basis even though anything I needed to look at could have easily been couriered over to the apartment. Without really talking about it, we’d built up a system: Anna and I would meet George at his desk in the outer office, he’d hand me the stack of files and any messages that required my attention, and I’d leave him whatever I’d been working on at home.

  I never went inside my office and he never questioned why.

  Which was ridiculous, when you thought about it. I was Sara Stella, capable of managing multimillion-dollar campaigns and overseeing an entire finance department.

  But I hadn’t quite figured out how to do all that and be mommy, too.

  “You haven’t gone into your office yet?” Hanna asked. “Is it going to be weird to go back?”

  “I don’t think so? I mean, I want to go back to work. I need to. It’s such a part of who I am and I need that part of my life. But Anna . . . the idea of leaving her for eight hours a day still fills me with this guilt like I’m ruining her somehow or I’m missing some vital mommy muscle that makes me want to stay home. Plus, I know I want more at some point and how will we make all that work? Is it fair of me to want more children when I’m pretty sure I’ll always need that side of me, too?”

  “Bullshit,” Chloe said. “You think men ever have this conversation with themselves? Of course they don’t. You’ve killed yourself to get where you are. If you can have both, have both. It might take some adjustment but who cares? You figure it out as you go.” She tilted her head and added, “You don’t see Max wanting to stay home.”

  “Actually,” I started, and it was enough to get Chloe’s attention. She put down her mug and sat back in her chair, waiting. “I don’t really know what’s going on with him right now. I know he wants me every bit as much as he did before Anna, but I think it’s been more of an adjustment for him than he thought it would be, the idea of my being a wife and a mother. He’s so careful, like he’s not sure how to treat me.”

  “Can you blame the man?” George said, and we all turned to him. “Have you seen what childbirth does to a vagina?” He did a full-body shudder.

  “George,” Chloe said, shaking her head.

  “What!” he shouted.

  “Shut up!” she shouted back.

  “As horrible a flashback as that was,” I said, “George has a point. I think Max is worried he’ll do something to hurt me, and I’m not really sure how to show him I’m the same Sara I was before. That I want the same things I did before.”

  Chloe shrugged and picked up her coffee. “I don’t know, Sara. He went from having you all to himself to watching you learn how to be a mama. Doesn’t surprise me his brain is having to rewrite that code a little.”

  “I don’t think it’s about having to share me . . .” I hedged, but Chloe held up a hand.

  “I mean it’s about shifting how he sees you,” she said, lifting an arched brow. “First you were the lust of his life, and now you’re the mother of his daughter.”

  I chewed my lip, nodding. “He worries that I’m delicate now.”

  “Exactly,” she said, a bit more gently. “Having Anna was traumatic. It wasn’t as easy a birth as you both expected. You’ve already forgotten it, but maybe he hasn’t and still needs to get over it.”

  Chloe was right. Sex this morning had been wild and hard, as if wanting me took over the part of Max’s brain that told him to slow down. That’s what I wanted.

  “When was the last time just the two of you went out?” George asked.

  “Since Anna? We haven’t.”

  It was his turn for a little eyebrow snark. “Well there’s part of your problem right there, babycakes.”

  “Are we just talking wild sex here?” Chloe asked. “Because it’s not like Annabel would have a clue what’s going on.”

  “True,” George said, “but it’s probably a lot harder to fuck like wild animals with a baby asleep two doors down. You need a little space.”

  He had a point. “I love my baby more than anything in the world, but I want hours and hours. I want to bang my husband until he can’t remember his name.”

  Silence bounced around the table for a few breaths.

  “Too blunt?” I asked, laughing.

  “Never,” George said quickly. “I think we’re all just working on that mental image.”

  “God, I sound desperate,” I say, resting my chin on my fist. “Maybe we should just start with dinner out? I think Max is asking his mom if she can watch Anna this weekend.”

  “Otherwise next weekend Bennett and I can help,” Chloe said.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” George cut in. “What am I here for? My subtle charm? My pretty face? What about me?”

  Chloe whipped her head around dramatically. “You?”

  “I’ll have you know that my mother ran a day care, and I taught preschool all through college. Hell, I worked in the infant room when I was in high school to pay for majorette class.” Chloe went to respond but he held up a hand: “Shut it, Mills.” He turned to me. “I’ll watch Anna. I can even watch her tonight.”

  “You’d watch her?” I asked. “You could really do that?”

  “With my eyes closed. Besides,” he said, eyeing the muffins again, “it’s not like I have any kind of social life to speak of. My nights are wide open.”

  The smell of home hit me before I’d even walked in the door. My talk with the girls and George had done wonders, and I’d successfully navigated the day with no freak-outs, no tears, and only one breast milk incident when a phone call went long and I couldn’t get to my pump in time. Next time, I’d just do it while I was on the phone. Boom. My friends were right; I’d figure it out as I went.

  Basically, I was feeling pretty unstoppable as I rounded the corner, ready to tell Max about our dinner that night. Then I found him shirtless—again—wrapped in nothing but a towel, with a tiny sleeping baby in his arms, and I was ready to forget about dinner entirely and let him get me pregnant again that very second.

  Focus, Sara.

  “I’m taking you to dinner,” I said. “Surprise! Also, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to need you to put some clothes on for real this time or we’ll never get out of the apartment.”

  Max looked up, confused. “Dinner? How did you—?” Sitting up, he said, “And no, I meant to ring you today. I wanted to take you to dinner this weekend but Mum is leaving for Leeds tomorrow. I completely forgot it was in my schedule.”

  “That’s what I’m saying: George is watching Anna tonight.”

  “Tonight? Has George ever even seen a baby?”

  I crossed the room and kissed him softly on the mouth. “Hi,” I said, and kissed him again. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s perfect.” I took the sleeping baby from his arms and leaned in, pressing my face to her soft little head, breathing in as much of her as I could. She had Max’s hair for sure, only a shade darker than mine but already with a bit of a wave to it. Her clean-baby smell hit me, and I felt my breasts grow heavy, my milk letting down almost immediately.

  A chair Max brought me from England sat tucked beneath the window in the nursery. It was my favorite place in the apartment, where I was able to look out over the city while I nursed. I got Anna situated, and then looked up at him.

  He clearly thought I’d lost my mind. “Are we talking about the same George?”

  “I had breakfast with everyone this morning before I went in to work. Did you know that George’s mom ran a day care while he was growing up? He worked there while he was in high school and all through college. He worked with infants.”

  He gave me his best skeptical face. “We’re talking about the same twenty-something bloke who wore a Wisconsin cheese hat and some flowy Jesus robes for Halloween, calling himself ‘Cheesus’?”

  “The one and only,” I sai
d, laughing at the memory. “He’s probably more qualified to take care of her than we are. Plus we’ll stay close. Just around the corner. He can text or call with any questions and we can be back up here in less than three minutes.”

  “But . . .”

  “No buts. This is exactly what we need. Now get dressed, he’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

  George showed up exactly fourteen minutes later.

  From the bathroom, I could hear Max open the door and let him in, and begin grilling him as they went from room to room.

  “And what about her bottle?” Max asked, clearly hoping to be proven right, and that George had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

  “Sara’s breastfeeding so I assume you have expressed milk in the freezer? Maybe even fresh in the refrigerator,” George said, more to himself than to Max, I was sure. “What am I talking about? Honestly, I think I’ve seen more of Sara’s boobs in the last four months than my own.” There was the sound of the freezer door as it opened and closed, and I stepped out into the living room, watching as George answered Max’s questions one by one. Max looked begrudgingly impressed.

  “I assume she’s getting about six ounces a feeding,” George continued. “Probably every three hours or so? I’ll heat the refrigerated milk first—only ever under warm water, never the microwave. It kills beneficial properties, you know—and I’ll use the frozen if needed. Though you’ll probably be back by then . . .” George trailed off.

  “We have a bottle warmer,” Max said, brow furrowed in what I was certain had to be confusion. George really did seem to be more knowledgeable about taking care of an infant than we were. “And nappies?”

  “You mean diapers? Oh you Brits are so damn cute. And please, Maxwell. I could probably diaper you in your sleep and you’d never have any idea. I am a pro.”

  “Or so you’ve been told,” I said, stepping out to kiss his cheek. “Sorry, Chloe’s not here and I had to throw that in for her. Thank you so much for doing this.”

  He waved me off. “No problem. The little princess and I will probably just sit here and cry through The Notebook. For very, very different reasons, I’m sure.”

  Between kisses and cuddles and last-minute instructions, it took another fifteen minutes for George to shoo us out of the apartment.

  But we didn’t go to the restaurant around the corner. George had apparently made such an impression that Max made us last-minute reservations at a little Italian place a few miles away. I was nervous at the prospect of leaving Anna when I didn’t have to, but I was also giddy. We were going on a date, just the two of us, and my pulse hadn’t slowed down yet.

  I watched his profile as he drove us both to the restaurant; as I studied the way the streetlights passed overhead to emphasize the fullness of his lips, the cut of his jaw, I thought back to our first real date—is that what that was?—when he’d taken me to Queen of Sheba and I hadn’t been able to stop looking at his mouth. I still couldn’t stop looking at his mouth.

  The press didn’t follow him like they did before we were together, but since Anna had been born, there was an uptick in Hot Daddy Max Stella photos in Page Six and on various Internet gossip sites. I couldn’t say that I blamed them, no matter how much I still resented them for ever spooking me in the first place.

  I closed my eyes, my heart squeezing tightly as I was pulled back in time to our first night together after the pictures in the papers, the ones that made me think he’d cheated. He’d thrown a party, and after not answering his calls for over a week, I’d shown up, finally ready to talk. But it hadn’t been as simple as I expected—he’d been genuinely hurt—and I had some apologizing to do.

  I remembered the small, grudging smile Max gave me when we woke up together the next morning; he had handed over the last tiny bit of himself with that.

  I remembered how that look had squeezed my heart, painfully. He’d been scared to let me back in, and in the stark white light of the morning, with both of us sweaty and spent, we couldn’t hide with our faces pressed to the other’s skin, or in the game of transparency through photos. He looked at me directly, baldly, and there was nothing else between us.

  “Stay,” he said, bending to suck at the skin just beneath my ear. “Stay with me. It’s good, Petal. Us. It’s so sodding good and if you spook again it will absolutely wreck me.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I love you, yeah?”

  I nodded, heart trapped somewhere between my throat and the sky. “I love you.”

  “That means we’re settled. It means there’s no question where my heart is. You’ll stay here.”

  It had been that easy. It had always been that easy. And I had learned to trust it.

  But now it was a different shape: bigger, yes, but unwieldy, and the ease of it all—Max and Sara, a rhythm ricocheting between us like a shared heartbeat—was now pounding too hard for me to bear.

  Because now I felt everything. It was like a faucet had been turned on inside me, filling me with warmth and pride and thrill and terror and vulnerability and strength and powerlessness and lust and it never shut off. It filled and filled until I was sure I was bursting from it, but how could I ever complain that I felt too much? How could I explain that I was burning up with the constant awareness that if anyone ever tried to hurt my man or my baby I would rip them inside out with my rage?

  How could I ever complain that it was often hard to find myself in the desire to be mother and lover in equal measure to the two people in my life who seemed to matter above even my own need for air?

  Max held my hand as we drove, until a text from George pulled me out of my memories.

  “Aww,” I said, turning the screen to face him. It was a picture of Anna asleep on George’s shoulder, her fat little fist pressed against her perfect mouth.

  “Maybe we should send him flowers next week to thank him,” Max said, and then I recognized the little twist in his smile that signaled he was up to no good. “And say they’re from Will.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I told him, saving the picture before tucking my phone away. “If this works out we’re going to use him again. Hell, I might just change his job position from assistant to nanny and offer him a raise.”

  “I might have to let you,” he said, and brought the back of my hand to his mouth for a kiss. “Maybe then I can sneak you away for a weekend? Someplace we can lock ourselves in our room the entire time, not a stitch of clothing on either of us?”

  “That sounds pretty close to perfect.”

  My phone buzzed in my clutch, and we stopped long enough for me to reach for it, unsurprised to find another text from George.

  Look how gorgeous she is!! it said, along with a photograph of Anna fast asleep in her crib and several heart-eyed emojis.

  “This is way too easy,” I told Max. “But instead of questioning it, I’m going to put this away and enjoy the hell out of this night. And maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll let you have your way with me on the way home.”

  “That, Petal, is the most amazing thing I’ve heard all day.” Max curved his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me to him. I went willingly, my mind already spinning ahead to what could happen after dinner, where we might go and the delightfully filthy things he might do to me. This is what we’d been missing. Max and Sara. Tonight was absolutely perfect.

  Max pulled up to the valet at Granduca’s and an attendant reached for my door. “I’ve got it, mate,” he said, rounding the car and offering a hand to help me out.

  Mindful of the fact that I was in a dress, I carefully swung my feet out onto the ground and moved to stand. Max’s hand felt warm and reassuring in my own and I took a step, intending to follow him into the restaurant. But I couldn’t.

  What the . . . I almost gasped when I realized that I was stuck. Or to be more accurate, that my dress was. The subtle beading on my skirt had snagged on the inside door latch of Max’s BMW.

  “I’m just . . .” I started, letting go of Max in an attempt to
get a better look. “My dress seems to be caught.”

  Max kneeled next to me but I waved him off.

  “No, just one second, let me.”

  By now the attendant with Max’s keys had realized something was wrong, and so had a few of the others. “Maybe if you try and slip that piece right there through the latch,” one of them said.

  “No, that will make it worse. See those little beads? They’ll get stuck. I’ve got some scissors. I can go grab them,” said another.

  “Man, it is really in there,” said their supervisor. “How did you even do that?”

  Four pairs of hands all tried to help me untangle myself, but I batted them away.

  “No,” I said. “Please. This skirt is vintage.” There was a grimace in my voice as I pulled on a tiny thread, careful not to snag it further. Damn, it did not want to give and I was practically sweating. “A gift from my mom,” I added. “Just let me—”

  “Oh,” they all said in unison, along with a “Fucking hell,” from Max.

  I’d ripped it, like, really ripped it. And now, instead of a small, easily concealable snag, there was a slit that began at the bottom of my skirt and moved up, stopping at the top of my thigh.

  “No way that just happened,” Max said.

  “It happened,” I told him.

  “I’m sorry, Petal. We can go back and you can change into something else?”

  “This is nothing,” I said, and straightened, pushing up on the balls of my feet to press a kiss to his neck. “This is just karma’s way of proving a point because I said this was too easy. Of course something would go wrong after that.”

  “I’d be lying if I said that I disliked this slight alteration,” he said, eyes moving up and down my thigh.

  “It’s not too obscene?” I asked, a little thrill passing through my stomach at his wide eyes as he shook his head.

  “Absolutely not.” He ran his hand down over my hip, and touched the bare skin of my thigh, right in front of everyone outside the restaurant.

  Warmth slid into my veins. Was he going to play a little tonight? Would he touch me beneath the table?