Catoctin Mountain, Maryland
Present
Gemma was sound asleep in the portable crib when Alexandra tiptoed into the primary bedroom, which JT had insisted mother and daughter share. She was so tempted to pull her daughter into the king-sized bed so they could sleep snuggled together, but she knew she’d have regrets later. It had taken months to get her daughter to sleep well in her own bed.
Still, she wanted to hold her. Instead, she just studied the sweet, sleeping face. She would never tire of looking at this little human, who had filled the hole in her heart that first appeared when she called off the wedding.
She had never known it was possible to love someone with every fiber of her being, and yet also know that giving all of herself—and what was marriage other than going all in on a person?—would be a huge mistake.
If she’d married JT when she was thirty, she would have been trading her dreams for his. All of her dreams. At the time, he’d even suggested she drop out of the PhD program.
Why finish her studies when she wouldn’t work or continue her research once she moved to New York full time? She didn’t need school. As JT Talon’s wife, she’d be wealthy beyond imagination, and she’d be busy running charities like Lisa, supporting JT as he threw his hat in the ring and followed in his father’s footsteps (again) and entered politics.
Alexandra had overheard JT and Joe discussing JT’s plans to run for Congress in New York. He intended to announce his run in early January—ten days after the wedding. She’d realized in that moment that the reason he’d been so desperate to marry her on New Year’s Eve was because he needed her installed as his wife for his campaign.
And he hadn’t even mentioned it, let alone discussed it with her.
He played dumb when she confronted him. Claimed he was just considering a run. But he’d flinched in a way that told her he had decided. It was a done deal.
Would their whole marriage be a series of unilateral decisions?
Of course it would. It was his money. His house. His car. His business. His sperm.
And no, he wouldn’t revisit the no-children decision he’d made. That was nonnegotiable.
She’d known then she’d always be a second-class citizen in her own marriage. No voting rights. Not when he brought everything to the union and all she brought was a womb he didn’t want to use and a vagina he did.
She loved him. He loved her. She’d never doubted that.
But she would never truly have him, not when he wouldn’t surrender any part of himself to her, but he expected her to surrender everything.
She readied herself for bed, again sleeping in a borrowed T-shirt, then slid under the covers. It was just after one a.m.
She’d had that nap earlier in JT’s arms and had no idea if she’d be able to sleep now, but she was beyond exhausted. Emotionally drained. She had spent so much energy these last years holding on to her anger at JT because that anger was her shield against loving him.
She couldn’t be angry at him now. Not when he’d protected her daughter. And being in his arms again had been the homecoming she hadn’t known she needed.
She’d hurt him tonight, which was a little shocking because in all their years together, he’d been impervious.
A JT who reacted with hurt instead of cruelty was dangerous to her heart. But more important than her was Gemma. Gemma didn’t have a father and could easily get attached to Uncle Tee. But he would never stick around for the long haul. Not when Gemma was everything he didn’t want.
Her baby girl would be hurt when Uncle Tee disappeared from her life. Hopefully, this arrangement would only last a few days, and then she and her baby could both move on from the heartbreak of letting JT in, even if it had been just a crack.
It was officially Christmas Eve. In the morning, she’d figure out how to make the holiday special for Gemma, all while feeling thankful that at fifteen months, she was too young to remember this.
This would be a holiday to get through, not one to remember.
The boxes were much as JT remembered, overloaded with ornaments, lights, garlands. The decorations were generic, purchased by a decorator who’d specialized in store displays. Impersonal, but pretty.
It was better than nothing and could be a bridge between him and Alexandra. A piece of normalcy in a topsy-turvy world.
The last box in the stack threw him for another loop. It was full of unopened gifts. Not the store display variety—shiny boxes full of air. No. These were the gifts he and Alexandra had gotten for each other that last Christmas before the wedding that wasn’t.
It had been a Christmas that wasn’t too.
He wondered what gifts he’d gotten her. He had no clue. But then, with the exception of jewelry—which he’d loved buying for her, always imagining making love to her when she wore nothing but gemstones—he never picked out the gifts he gave her himself. He had assistants and personal shoppers who could do that.
He looked at the boxes and felt like an ass. No wonder his gifts had always meant nothing to her. They’d meant nothing to him.
Well, this year, they’d open these gifts and find out what his assistant had picked out for Lex eleven years ago. It was too bad there wouldn’t be any toys for Gemma in the mix, but there were a few things he’d purchased for her the other night that he hadn’t given her yet. What toddler didn’t want a onesie and a tube of Butt Paste?
But then he remembered he did have a gift for Gemma. A rather large one. How would Lex react when he gave it to her?
But it wasn’t Lex he wanted to please with presents, and what he had for her wasn’t a toy to play with. He thought about Gemma’s immediate attachment to the T-Rex stuffed animal and how she’d made a place for it in her world as a new best friend.
JT wanted to be part of Gemma’s world. And he didn’t think he’d be satisfied with being a distant, occasional uncle. Still, Gemma wasn’t one he’d have to convince to accept him. It was the woman he’d spent the last sixteen years convincing he wanted nothing to do with being a parent.
Everything JT had ever believed he wanted had shifted in the time he spent with Gemma. He’d always known he wanted Alexandra. That was never in question. What he hadn’t realized was that he could—and would—love any child of hers. Maybe it was because he could love anything that brought Lex the joy he’d failed to give her.
But Gemma didn’t exist merely as an extension of her mother. No. She was a fully formed human who’d managed to steal his heart the first night they’d met, just like her mother had all those years ago.