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If she moved back with Karl—if she stayed his wife because she was his wife—she would never want. Jelly Bean wouldn’t want. Tilly and Renia would stay her sisters-in-law in actuality, not just because they liked her. Susan would stay her mother-in-law, not just the grandmother of her child. She wouldn’t be working at Healthy Food to build up her savings; she would be working there because she enjoyed it. Family and security—permanence—beckoned from Karl’s apartment.
She pulled herself out of the cushions and sat rigid on the couch. “It’s not enough.”
“What’s not enough?” He stepped closer to her, but still not close enough that he would be able to touch her. Was he afraid to touch her? “My apartment’s not enough? My money’s not enough? The opportunity I’m offering you to have a home isn’t enough? Tell me, Vivian, what about my offer isn’t enough?”
“I want more.” Living a half-life because it was a secure life wasn’t enough anymore. “I want to live with my husband because he loves me, not because I’m his wife.”
“You are my wife.” Another step closer. “You’re carrying my child. You belong in my house.”
“Belong?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
Karl’s bottom jaw jutted forward until Vivian was afraid his entire face would crack. “You risked driving from Las Vegas to Chicago because you knew I wouldn’t abandon my obligations, so don’t look at me like you suddenly think I’m a caveman.”
“I don’t want to be your wife because I’m pregnant and you are a man who meets his obligations. I want to be a wife because life is better with a partner. A month ago, what you’re offering me now would have been enough for me. It’s not, anymore. I want it all.”
He took a step back. “I don’t have any more to offer.”
“Then I’ll stay with Susan and work at Healthy Food for as long as she’ll let me.”
“And after that?”
These were the scariest words Vivian had ever had to say, but she said them anyway. “If Susan fires me and kicks me out of her house, then I’ll figure out what to do. I’ll be fine. But I’m not willing to give up happily-ever-after for a guaranteed roof over my head. That’s not good enough for me.”
Then she stood and fled to the kitchen, before she could change her mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
KARL WAS IN the conference room at one of the laptops, comparing the notes the staff attorney had made with an email, when he heard Malcolm’s heavy footfalls come down the hall and into the room.
“Don’t you have someone else to do that for you?” Malcolm asked.
“I’m looking for something specific.” Reviewing documents occupied his hands and keeping his hands occupied kept his mind busy. Not engaged, but at least he wasn’t thinking about Vivian. Otherwise, his thoughts had a tendency to wander to her shiny black hair, pink lips and how her skin tasted when he kissed it. Then he would remember how much he had come to enjoy sharing his apartment with her in the short time they’d lived together. Then his mind would slip further and turn to imagining her sleeping next to him every night.
He wouldn’t think about the circumstances that had led to her being in Chicago and living with his mother. He wouldn’t think about the failure of his previous marriage or how he couldn’t get Vivian to move back in with him unless he said words that weren’t his to say. He would simply think about her. Then he would think about them together. And he would think about a family—their family.
Idle hands were the devil’s workshop.
“I don’t mean to pry,” Malcolm said with false primness, “but why isn’t your wife living with you yet?”
“Between you and Greta, no one in this office ever means to pry.”
Karl looked back down at the laptop screen. Without seeing Malcolm’s face, Karl could feel the feral grin spreading across the face of the director of investigations, and the man’s smug sense of satisfaction pushed all the air out of the room. Malcolm was great at his job, which meant his inquiries weren’t easily fobbed off by a short remark and a metaphorically turned back.
