How, how,howcould Nathanael willingly miss all this? How could a man be untouched and unmoved by a creature so perfect, so beautiful?
As the baby fell into a milk-suffused, contented doze, finally releasing her nipple and allowing his head to droop against her breast, Shaundra struggled to hold back the resentment she still felt for the man.
These past few months, the relationship between her and Nathanael had been wonderful, better than she’d hoped. It was almost as good as it had been before her pregnancy, when a barrier had risen between them practically overnight, as impenetrable as the Berlin Wall, and twice as scary.
There was a soft tap on the door. Shaundra was aroused from her drowsy, musing state, part of her subconscious mind wondering if it could be Nathanael even as her rational mind knew without a doubt that it wasn’t him.
He had never, not once, set foot within this room, not even to see what she’d done with it during the remodeling. Though she’d caught him once or twice hovering near the doorway filled with indecision. She used to joke to herself that he was acting as though there was some magical keep-away spell in the doorway that he couldn’t cross, on pain of erupting into flames.
But that joke wasn’t funny.
Samia stepped in, her crisp white uniform pristine as usual. Her long black hair was held back from her face, neatly confined by a hijab. “Madame Shaundra,” she greeted her as she did every single time they met, never mind Shaundra had tried to insist on first names only. “I see he’s been fed. Shall I keep his peach purée for his afternoon meal, then?”
She nodded. Benji had turned six months old just a week ago, and that meant that, under her pediatrician’s advice, he had graduated from exclusive feedings of breastmilk to a combination of breastmilk and pureed fruits and vegetables.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about this. On the one hand, it meant that her little boy was growing up. The next stop would be crawling! On the other hand, it signaled that there would come a day when that perfectly bonded circle of mother and child, connected chest to chest in the way women have been to their babies for millennia, would eventually be broken. It was bittersweet.
She allowed Samia to lift the sleeping bundle gently from her arms and place him carefully in his crib, where he would happily snooze away for about two hours. She wondered what he would dream about.
She slipped out of the room, confident that her son was in good hands, and went in search of Nathanael.
She began by heading for the master suite, which was all the way across the mansion, as far from the nursery as it was possible to be. The door was ajar, and she peeped around it, noticing that the maid had already passed by and that her nightgown was hanging on a hook on her side of the bed, and her slippers placed side by side on the rug.
She had moved into Nathanael’s room just a few weeks ago, giving up the much smaller bedroom next to the nursery at his urging.
“We are still husband and wife,” he’d reminded her. “Not naughty college students, sneaking into each other’s rooms in the middle of the night.”
His request had placed her in a quandary. From the bottom of her heart, she yearned desperately to patch up the rift in their marriage, and sensed that being with him like this, sharing his bed again, was the first step. Nathanael was a physically expressive man, and for all that he shunned emotional engagement, he communicate best through touch.
She had rationalized her sleeping with him would put their marriage back onto the road to healing.
And her move certainly did a lot for their physical connection. Almost every night, after she’d given Benjamin his bedtime feeding and delivered him into Samia’s gentle hands, she came to Nathanael and he would love her over and over until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
And yet, it was hard to shake that niggling guilt, a low buzz at the base of her skull that reminded her over and over that something wasn’t right. He had flatly refused to allow her to bring a baby monitor into the bedroom, saying that Samia had hers and was being paid handsomely to respond to it if necessary. But she knew in the pit of her belly that Nathanael’s reasoning went deeper. He hated the sound of his baby’s cries. Whenever she was elsewhere in the house with him, and her portable monitor went off with a wail, he would slip away. Find something else to do. As if the baby’s cries sliced into his very skin.
Shaundra pursed her lips, pressing them into a thin, straight line. She was so fed up with that. So tired of his avoidance, of trying everything she could to place the baby in his line of sight, only to be rebuffed. Only for him to suddenly discover he had an urgent task somewhere else.
She wondered if Nathanael would be able to answer simple questions, like, what color are his son’s eyes? What is the shape of the birthmark on his left breast? One of his thumbs is a little crooked. Which one? Left or right?
Enough of this,Shaundra thought.I’m sick of it, and it’s time he knew.
She found him in the second most likely place. His home office. Situated across the wide hallway from their bedroom. The door was shut, but she shouldered it open without bothering to knock.
Instead of being seated at his desk as she expected, he was standing with his back to her, staring out the huge window. Against the glaring light he was little more than a silhouette, dark and forbidding. In the light breeze, the curtains fluttered around his shoulders like a cape.
But this was no superhero. This was a flawed man. And she was tackling him. Today.
He didn’t look back, but greeted her anyway. “Hey,cher.”
She stood before his desk, placing her hands at the back of one of his visitor’s chairs, her fingers sinking into the upholstery. She needed the support. “Hey, Nathanael.”
“How was your breakfast thing?”
Earlier in the day, she and Benji had met up with Naisha, Jacyn, their children, and husbands at a large lake on the château grounds for an impromptu picnic. They’d brought a veritable feast, packed into several large baskets by William’s loyal house matron, Yvette. For two hours the women had sat near the water and shared crusty country loaves, fresh fruit, yogurts and cheeses, laughing and gossiping, while the brothers walked their babies around the lake.
And although she loved being with her homegirls as usual, her heart had ached. She couldn’t take her eyes off those big, strong, handsome men, tenderly carrying their children, their faces stupid with love. Powerful men talking in motherese to their infants in French, looking like absolute idiots.
Strong men who didn’t mind being laid low by the sight of a baby’s smile or the touch of a tiny hand.