The Unexpected Wedding Gift. Catherine Spencer

in her seventy-nine years. She didn’t need anyone to spell it out for her to pick up on the hostility and tension muddying the air. “I think not, Stephanie,” she said. “Ben, you look troubled. Is there anything I can do?”

      “Yes,” he said. “Get Julia’s mother out of here before I wring her interfering neck!”

      “Consider it done, dear boy,” she replied serenely, taking a firm hold of his mother-in-law’s elbow and steering her toward the door. “Come along, Stephanie. You heard the man.”

      The silence they left behind was almost worse than the belligerence that had preceded it. It spread over the room like poisonous gas, paralyzing the three remaining occupants. It seemed to Ben that the space separating him from Julia was too vast for him ever to find his way back to her.

      Marian was the first to speak. “Do you want me to wait outside, as well, Ben?”

      He nodded, too full of pain to trust his voice.

      Leaving the bag where she’d dropped it, she made her way to the door, hesitating only when she reached Julia. “I’m very sorry to spoil your wedding,” she said. “I hope you’ll believe me when I say that was never my intention.”

      “Leave it, Marian!” he barked, the thought of Julia hearing the news from anyone other than him restoring his powers of speech in a hurry.

      Throughout the exchange, Julia remained motionless, her solemn gaze never once wavering from his face. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked, when they were finally alone.

      “No,” she said. “I’d like you to tell me who that woman is and why she came here looking for you. And I’d like to know why she thinks she’s ruined our wedding day.”

      The seconds ticked by as he searched for a way to soften the blow he had to administer, but no matter how he wished it could have been otherwise, in the end a swift, sharp thrust of the sword was the most merciful. “She claims she’s the mother of my child, Julia.”

      The room tilted and, for a moment, she feared she was going to pass out. Too much excitement, she told herself. Too much champagne. I’m imagining all this.

      Blindly, she reached behind her, fumbling for something—anything—against which to support herself. Her hand closed over the doorknob and she squeezed it hard, hoping it would disintegrate into thin air and prove she was dreaming.

      Instead, it pressed against her palm, cool and smooth and hard as glass. So hard and unforgiving that it pinched her wedding ring against the pad of flesh on her finger. Swallowing painfully, she asked the only question that mattered. “And is she telling the truth?”

      “She might very well be, yes.”

      “How long have you known?”

      “I just found out.”

      “I see.”

      But she didn’t, not at all. Pressing her lips together, she let go of the doorknob and folded both hands in front of her, knowing he was watching every shift in her expression, knowing he was waiting for her to give him some sort of sign that she understood what he’d said.

      She couldn’t do that. Her mind was empty, a great barren void. The pity of it was that her heart didn’t follow suit, because the ache in her chest was crushing the life out of her.

      “Julia,” he finally begged, “say something, for God’s sake! Give me hell. Tell me I’m the world’s biggest jerk. Scream at me, if it’ll help. But please don’t just stand there like a wounded deer waiting for another bullet to put an end to your misery! You have to know it’s killing me to do this to you, today of all days.”

      “What’s her name?” she said.

      He flung up his hand. “What does it matter?”

      “I’d like to know.”

      “Marian,” he said harshly. “Marian Dawes.”

      But he hadn’t always felt like that, spitting out the name as if he couldn’t bear the taste of it…or of her. When he’d made love to her, he’d have murmured the word, called her sweetheart, and honey, darling—all the endearments Julia thought he’d reserved especially for her.

      With a little cry, she collapsed on the floor, crippled with the pain of it all. In a flash, he was at her side. She saw his hands, strong and tanned and capable, reaching for her. And in her mind’s eye, she saw them touching another woman, in places he’d never touched her.

      “Julia…sweetheart!”

      “Don’t,” she cried, when he went to lift her, but he swept her up anyway and carrying her over to the sofa, sat down and cradled her next to his heart.

      The ridiculous, overblown skirt of her wedding dress flipped up like a saucer, so that anyone walking into the room would have seen nothing but her white satin pumps and white lace stockings, and the silly blue satin garter he was supposed to throw over his shoulder to all the single men attending the wedding.

      “Julia, I love you,” he said. “No matter what else you might be thinking, please believe that.”

      She forced her next question past the aching lump in her throat. “Did you love her, too?”

      He shook his head and she thought perhaps his mouth trembled a little before he managed to say, “No. Not for a moment. I’ve never loved anyone but you, Julia.”

      “But you made a baby with her.” Once again, the images flashed through her mind: the naked intimacy that had to have taken place; the fact that, even if he’d never loved Marian Dawes, he’d still managed to…!

      Had it happened in his apartment, in the bed he’d so steadfastly refused to let his fiancée ever lie in? Or in a cheap motel, on some dark country road?

      Oh, she couldn’t bear any of it! “Let go of me,” she croaked, struggling to free herself and inching as far away from him as she could get in the tiny room. “I don’t want you touching me—not after you’ve touched her!”

      He wiped his hand over his face, and she had to look away because she found the weariness and grief in his eyes too dangerously moving. “What do you want me to say? I’m a man, not a god. I made a mistake. I was a damn fool. It’s all true, Julia, but it doesn’t change the fact that I apparently have a son.” He sighed. “And there’s more. His mother doesn’t want him.”

      The heaviness in his voice filled her with foreboding. “What else are you trying to tell me, Ben?”

      “She wants me to take him. And if I refuse, she’ll put him up for adoption.”

      “I don’t believe you! What kind of mother could do that?”

      “The kind whose husband won’t accept the child that resulted from an extramarital affair.”

      Extramarital affair? Dear lord, was the horror never going to end? Distraught beyond anything she’d ever experienced before, Julia pressed her fingers to her mouth for a moment to stop herself from crying out loud. “So what did you tell this paragon of feminine virtue?” she asked, resorting to sarcasm when she was able to speak because only by fueling her sense of outrage could she keep herself together, and she’d rather be dead than let him see how he’d devastated her.

      “You and your mother showed up before I gave her my answer.”

      His reply was so evasive, so unlike him, that her next question was redundant. Still, she had to ask, even though having her suspicions confirmed would merely tighten the strands of misery threatening to choke her. “What would you have said, if we hadn’t been so inconveniently interrupted?”

      “You know the answer, Julia. I’ll take him, of course.”

      So there it was, the coup de grâce. Less than twenty feet away, over two hundred guests were waiting for the bride and groom to show up and go through the final hoopla associated with wedding receptions. She