HAPPY FOREVER AFTER

“Breakfast is ready. I was waiting on you to eat.” he said.

Wordlessly, she followed him into the kitchen where she saw a table set for two. Taking a platter off the warmer, he carried it over to the table and began spooning healthy portions of eggs, toast and ham onto their plates.

As she sat down, she was forced to admit that she felt better than she had in weeks. She had certainly gotten more rest in the past hours than she had in a long time.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked as he took a seat across from her. “Did you sleep well?”

“I’m fine. Thank you,” she mumbled around a mouthful of egg. “This is delicious”.

Daniel smiled.

Her appetite was coming back and she concentrated on the delicious food in front of her. This whole thing was weird. The ultra politeness. The cozy breakfast for two. It was so awkward that she wanted to go back to the bedroom and crawl back into bed.

After a long silence, Daniel spoke up. “I have made arrangements to work out of the house for the time being. And I talked to Barrett too. I told him you won’t be coming to the office for now. But you can handle some of your work from here.”

She stopped chewing then swallowed the food in her mouth. “What? Why?” she asked flatly.

“I would think the answer is obvious,” he said.

“This isn’t going to work, Daniel,” Emma said. “I can’t stay here with you hanging over my shoulder all the time. Go to work. Do whatever it is you normally do, and just leave me alone. And why did you talk to Barrett without telling me first? It’s my job. You don’t get to make those decisions for me.”

“I didn’t make any decision for you,” Daniel said angrily. “You aren’t going to be at the office. I just wanted to let Barrett know so I told him. I was trying to help. You should be thanking me instead of yelling”.

“Well I don’t need your help with anything concerning my job. Thank you very much. It’s my job and I’m perfectly capable of making a phone call”.

His lips thinned and then he got up and walked away without another word.

Emma stared down at her plate, angry at him… And at herself. He was acting as if she was some horrible, ungrateful bitch.

She fiddled with her remaining food, pushing it around her plate until restlessness forced her to her feet.

She cleared away a few pieces from the table-for no reason other than that she didn’t want to be just sitting waiting for him when he got back. By the time she finished with the dishes, he still wasn’t back.

Wandering aimlessly back into the living room, she stopped in front of the large window.

“You shouldn’t be on your feet,” Daniel said from behind her.

She sighed and turned around, shocked to see him in just a towel. She swiveled back to the window, but the image burned in her eyes. His broad chest rippled with well defined muscles and his lean abdomen was sculpted like a fine work of art. She remembered exploring the dips and curves of his body. She inhaled deeply.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” he said in a low voice. “I guess I didn’t give it a thought considering our past relationship.”

She had the ridiculous urge to laugh. Embarrass her? She thought. The only embarrassing thing was how her mind was currently wandering way below the makeshift waistline of his towel.

And of course, in his arrogance, he would assume -considering the “nature of their past relationship”-that he could cavort about in the nude.

Drawing up her shoulders, she turned around again and stared coolly at him. “If you think because we were once lovers that you can take up where we left off, you are sadly mistaken.”

He blinked in surprise and then anger replaced the surprise. “God, Emma. Do you think so little of me that I would try to force you into a sexual relationship when you are pregnant and unwell?”

“You don’t want to know the answer to that.” she replied.

He swore long and hard. “What the fuck is your problem?”

She balled her hands into fists and forced a careless reply. “if there is anyone between the both of us who has a problem, it’s you”

His eyes became ice chips and his jaw twitched spasmodically. Then he spun around and disappeared into his bedroom, the sound of the door slamming reverberating throughout the house.

Emma sighed and sank into a nearby armchair.

What demon had forced her to throw more fuel on the flames she would never know. Maybe she really was a horrible, ungrateful bitch.

——————————————-

Daniel collapsed onto his bed, chest heaving and limbs comfortingly heavy. He had worked for most of the day and he was tired.

After that argument with Emma that morning, he had stayed out of her way. He stayed in his office. They hadn’t seen each other till dinner and even then, they had barely spoken to each other. How were they supposed to get along and raise a baby when she hated him so much?

A baby.

He still couldn’t quite connect that concept with his life. He had never really thought of having one. He was excited about it but also scared as hell. He rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead as he tried to think. It was real-he knew that there was absolutely, definitely no way of getting out of this. He’d enjoyed every minute of what had got them here, and he would take responsibility for what they’d done.

He kinda understood Emma and her moods. His head should be spinning. These past weeks he should have wanted to scream, or run, or, God, faint or something.

A flash of memory assailed him-a gentle, lazy smile on Emma’s lips in the dim early morning light. He couldn’t make himself regret any moment he spent with her.

He was going to be a father. He and Emma -that fascinating, maddening, excessively disciplined woman he had been unable to shake from his mind from the moment he met her, had somehow, against all her best laid plans and rules, and his lack of them, created a new human life.

The magnitude of the realization stole his breath for a few long moments as he looked up at the ceiling, trying to imagine who he… Or she was, this whole new person that they had created. But the vision remained hazy, too unformed to be anything more than broad strokes of a life.

He sighed. Time for a shower. He thought. He got up from the bed and began to undress. The knock on his door made him halt.

He opened the door. Emma stood in front of him, in her nightie.