Page 12 of Pregnancy Clause in Their Paper Marriage

Christos found himself breathing a small sigh of relief. Lists he could do. Lists were what Lana did, and it reassured him. As long as they kept this practical, they’d be fine. He’d be fine. It was when someone said they needed him that he found himself shutting down, walking away. He wished he were different, but he wasn’t. He knew that from bitter experience...his mother, his sister. But he wouldn’t be like that with Lana, because he wouldn’t let himself...and she wouldn’t, either. ‘All right, tell me what’s on it.’

She swiped the screen of her phone a few times and then frowned as she glanced down at her bullet points, her nose wrinkling in a way he’d always found endearing. She had a few golden freckles scattered across her nose that Christos knew she covered with face powder, but when she crinkled her face in thought they always reappeared.

‘All right, first point.’

‘Are there three?’ he interjected, and she looked up, smiling, as she rolled her eyes.

‘Three points regarding the details of our union? I suppose I could re-outline.’

‘No, just hit me with the first one,’ he replied, leaning back. ‘I’m ready.’

‘Okay.’ She took a quick breath. ‘Would we share the same house?’

‘Yes,’ he answered promptly, surprised at just how strongly he felt about that. ‘If we have a baby together, we’re not going to live separate lives any more. It wouldn’t be good for our family.’

‘Whose house?’

He shrugged. ‘I really don’t mind.’ He thought of his soaring bachelor loft apartment in Soho, with its retro ironwork and huge skylights, and then her more stately brownstone on the Upper West Side, three stories of carefully curated shabby chic. ‘Maybe yours, since it’s a bit more family friendly? I don’t want Junior to try climbing the spiral stairs to my loft.’

She seemed pleased by that idea, a small, relieved smile curving her lips before she nodded. ‘Okay, that makes sense.’

‘Next point?’ Maybe this would be even easier than he’d thought. Hoped.

She glanced down at her phone. ‘After I became pregnant, assuming I did, would we...?’ She paused, colouring a little, and Christos filled in, knowing already what she was going to ask.

‘Would we continue our state of joyful union?’

Something flashed across her face, a cross, perhaps between amusement and alarm. ‘Well, yes.’

He shrugged expansively. ‘What would be the reason not to?’

She swallowed. ‘I can think of several.’

‘Oh?’ Now he was curious. ‘And what are they?’

‘Well, what I said before, about sex complicating things.’ She was definitely blushing now, and she put her phone down and reached for her espresso, mainly, Christos thought, to hide behind her cup.

‘I thought we dealt with that last night. We haven’t fallen in love with each other, and we’re not going to.’

‘All right, but...’ She put her cup down. ‘If we were married—’

‘We are married,’ he reminded her.

‘Properly married. Living together, raising a child together, sleeping together... I’d expect... I’d need you to be faithful.’ She spoke as if he would find this difficult, as if it might be a deal-breaker for him, to be faithful to his own wife.

Christos stared at her for a moment, wondering what was going on in her mind. What experiences, whatpain, had led her to think that he would find such a clause unacceptable?

‘Which makes us continuing our joyful union all the more essential,’ he replied. ‘Of course I’d be faithful to you. And I would expect you to be faithful, as well.’

Relief as well as surprise passed across her face in a wave. ‘That wouldn’t be a problem, trust me.’

Oh, no? How intriguing. Of course, he’d known her attitude towards sex was a little...cold, but now he wondered what made it so. Her seeming reticence didn’t alarm him. He was a patient man, and he knew, no matter what Lana liked to believe, that she responded to him physically. He’d seen it, felt it—in her hitched breaths, the flush of her face, the way her gaze found his in a crowded room. Yes, she most certainly responded. And he looked forward to having her respond to him even more.

‘So, we’ve covered two points,’ he said as he took a sip of his coffee. ‘What’s number three?’

CHAPTER FIVE

LANAHESITATED,because number three was one she desperately wanted to know the answer to, but it was also the one that made her feel the most vulnerable, the most emotionally exposed, and that was a state of being she tried never to let herself experience. Not any more. She took another sip of her coffee, while Christos waited. Then she put her cup down, and still didn’t speak. How to say it? Frame it, without sounding, well, a little pathetic and needy andsad?