Forgotten Honeymoon (17 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Claire looked up from her desk. “Hi, Kelly.
Lars is in a meeting right now, but I can let him know you’re
waiting outside.”

Kelly shook her head. “Actually, I’m looking
for my Dad,” she said. “My mother said he was at the office
today?”

“That’s right. He’s wandering the halls.
Would you like me to track him down?”

“Yes, please.” Kelly had some questions for
him, questions she should have asked five months ago.

After Claire left, Kelly walked around the
reception area, straightening the chairs. She frowned, looking at
the tapestry on the wall. She should have used more red, she
thought.

After ten minutes, Claire had not returned,
and Kelly stood by her desk, waiting. She glanced at the neat piles
of papers and folders on the desk. One file folder label caught her
eye.

Henderson v. Henderson
.

Was Lars suing someone? She pulled out the
folder and glanced inside. There were the unsigned, unfiled papers
for an uncontested divorce. A memo from the Rawlins attorney paper
clipped to the petition stated that these papers had been drawn up
at Lars’ request.

Kelly looked at the date. This was before
he’d known she was pregnant.

On top of the memo was a yellow sticky note
with Claire’s handwriting. “Shred?” it asked, and underneath it, in
Lars’ bold handwriting, it read, “Keep on File.”

Keep on File
. That meant he was still
considering divorcing her. Was he waiting until the baby was born
to see if he was the natural father?

Kelly’s hands shook so that the papers fell
to the desk. She hastily gathered them up and stuffed them back
into the file folder.

This is what you get for snooping, she told
herself. She never should have looked through the papers on
Claire’s desk.

But didn’t she want to know the truth?

I didn’t want to know this
, she
mentally countered. How could she live with Lars, knowing that he
was just biding his time?

“Kelly!” Her father approached, smiling
widely. “You’ll never guess what Lars has done now,” he said
happily.

Probably not, she thought, and braced herself
for her father’s answer.

“He’s hired me as a consultant.”

“That’s great, Dad,” she said, relaxing. “But
I thought you wanted to retire and enjoy life.”

“Confidentially, I think total retirement
would kill me,” he said. “I wasn’t made to have that much fun.” He
laughed his booming laugh. “This way, I get the best of both
worlds. I can help out and keep an eye on Rawlins without being in
charge.”

And Lars had an expert to teach him how to be
President. It made perfect sense.

Her father added, “Not that Lars needs much
help. I think he’s taking pity on me.” Frank glanced at his watch.
“It’s a little early. Are you meeting Lars for lunch?”

She put her arm through his. “No, I’d rather
go with you.”

Her father smiled down at her and teased,
“You still like your old man, eh?”

Kelly’s heart contracted with love. Lars was
like a son to her father, but she had no reason to be jealous. Her
father would always love her, too.

But it would devastate him if her marriage to
Lars didn’t last.

“I need to talk to you,” she said
quietly.

“Do you want to talk in my office?” he asked,
then corrected himself. “Ooops, I forget that I don’t have an
office, yet. I’m sure Claire can find us an empty conference
room.”

Kelly hesitated. “No, I’d rather go home, if
that’s okay with you.” She didn’t want to run the risk of Lars
interrupting them.

Frank frowned. “Is everything okay with you
and Lars?”

She nodded. Their situation was too complex
to explain right now.

“And the baby?”

“Yes.” Dr. Armanzo said the baby was doing
fine, growing bigger, right on schedule.

“Then, let’s go.”

They drove separate cars to her childhood
home. They sat in the library, a large room with tall oak
bookcases, red velvet curtains and big leather chairs that
encouraged one to choose a book and escape to another world. That’s
what she’d like to do today, Kelly thought: Escape, but there was
no escaping reality for long.

She slipped off her shoes and sat with her
legs folded underneath her.

“Looks like you intend to stay a while,” he
joked.

She nodded.

Frank smiled briefly. “I’ve heard that
husbands and wives start acting like each other, but I’ve never
seen you so quiet, Kelly.”

“Maybe some of Lars is rubbing off on me,”
she said. There was something to be said for thinking before one
spoke, for planning and preparing instead of merely reacting. She
had a habit of going off like a firecracker, and she wanted to
change that. “I need to know more about those last few days before
my accident,” she said quietly.

“You and Lars got married. What else is
there?”

She shook her head. “No, before that. You
said I’d had a fight with Nigel. What specifically did I tell
you?”

He thought back. “Nothing much. You were too
upset. You came into my office, ranting, saying the wedding was
off. You hated Nigel, you never wanted to see him again, you never
wanted to hear his name again.”

That sounded like her. “Did I tell you
why?”

“No, just that you’d had a fight.”

Would she have told her father if Nigel had
raped her? Kelly didn’t know. “What about later that weekend, when
I came back from Reno?”

He smiled. “We didn’t talk. You just sent a
text that you were busy at the studio. I didn’t know you’d been to
Reno. I was just glad that you were home, safe and sound.”

“And I didn’t tell you where I’d been?”

“No.”

She frowned. “Weren’t you worried about
me?”

He shook his head. “Not particularly. I knew
you were with Lars.”

This didn’t make sense. Lars said they’d
planned to surprise her parents with the wedding. “How could you
know that?”

He looked uncomfortable. “Lars had texted me.
He said he’d found you, you were fine, and that you’d both be
coming home in a few days.”

“Found me?” she repeated, voice rising. “Was
I lost?”

He chose his words carefully. “You were very
upset that day in my office. When I called later, you didn’t answer
your phone.”

“I’d lost it.”

“I didn’t know that at the time. I asked Lars
to go after you, to make sure you were all right.”

“Why?”

“I was worried. I didn’t think you should be
driving around when you were that mad. I didn’t want you going
through a red light or --”

“Running into a tree,” she finished, nodding.
Her father was overly protective, but he had his reasons -- he’d
never forgotten the time when she was first learning to drive and
had mistaken the gas for the brakes. She’d driven into their garage
door.

And considering the fact that she had smashed
her car only a few days after her fight with Nigel, perhaps he had
been wise.

She frowned. “But that was a complete
accident. I was upset, yes, but I swerved to keep from hitting a
dog.”

Her words seemed to surprise him as much as
they surprised her. He gasped. “You remember the accident?”

Yes, she remembered the accident. With a
flood of memories, she remembered more and more. The fight with
Nigel, eloping with Lars, telling Lars she wanted a divorce.
Finally, everything made perfect sense.

She sat down weakly in the chair.

“Kelly, are you all right?” her father
asked.

“No,” she said tightly. “I’m not all right.”
Nothing was right any more.

#

Kelly drove home, remembering.

The only good thing about her memories was
that Nigel was definitely not her baby’s father. He’d been
bluffing, trying to stir up trouble.

That Friday night she’d gone to the club with
Brenda who had picked her up at the studio. Brenda said she wanted
to get drunk, so Kelly agreed to be the designated driver. She
drank virgin margaritas while they verbally trashed the men in
their lives and critiqued the ones on the dance floor. Gina and
Andrea joined them, so Kelly hadn’t told Brenda about Nigel
sleeping with Tiffany. She wanted to wait until they could talk
privately.

Unfortunately, with her accident and memory
loss, she’d never gotten the chance. If Brenda had known, she would
have told her, and she would never have gone ahead with her plans
to marry Nigel. But that meant Lars wouldn’t have found out about
the wedding and would have stayed in Boston. It might have been
months before she saw him, and if she’d been pregnant, without him,
that would have been worse.

It was a convoluted web of what-ifs. It was
best to focus on the facts, what had really happened, which was
complicated enough.

Lars. After they’d been at the club an hour,
Lars appeared in the front entry.

Kelly waved at him and motioned for him to
join them.

Brenda said seriously, “Lars is worth ten of
Nigel,” then hiccupped. “Oh no. I’ve got to find a bathroom,” she
said quickly. “I’ll be back.”

Gina said over the noise of the crowd, “I’ve
always fancied Lars.”

Back off
, Kelly had thought, amazed at
how territorial she felt. She didn’t want Gina putting her hands on
him.

“The Iceman?” Andrea laughed. “Good
luck.”

“I’d like to melt him.” Gina tugged down on
her dress so that more of her cleavage showed.

“No,” Kelly said firmly. “He’s mine. I get to
try first.” She slid off her stool and walked through the crowd to
meet him.

She could hear her friends behind her
laughing. They thought she was joking, but she wasn’t joking.

In that moment, she’d realized that Lars was
exactly what she’d been looking for all her life. But she also knew
that he’d never make the first move. Maybe he thought she was too
young, or too silly, but she was determined to finally get his
attention, no matter what it took.

He looked relieved to see her. “Hi,
Kelly.”

She took his hand, not bothering with
conversation. “Dance with me,” she ordered, and pulled him onto the
dance floor.

Kelly frowned, remembering how blatant she’d
been. The poor man didn’t know what hit him. She danced circles
around him, trying to let him know by her moves and her smiles that
she was a woman, in love with him. And then when they were slow
dancing, she slid flat against him, whispering in his ear.

When they finally came back to their table,
she ordered another drink, “Same as before,” and downed it
quickly.

Lars’ eyebrows rose. “How many drinks have
you had tonight?”

She didn’t tell him they had all been alcohol
free. “Five maybe?” she said, and giggled at his disapproval. He
hadn’t seen anything yet. She felt fearless. “Kiss me.”

Something had blazed briefly in his eyes, but
then he dutifully, calmly kissed her cheek.

She’d grabbed his tie. “No, really kiss
me.”

He said stiffly, “I think it’s time for me to
take you home.”

“Your place or mine?”

He escorted her to his car. “I’m not taking
you home, yet,” he told her. “Your mother will have another heart
attack if you show up drunk.”

It had been fairly simple to convince him to
drive to his condo. They ended up on his couch. She told him about
Nigel and cried. He told her Nigel wasn’t worth the tears; that
she’d find someone better. She snuggled up to him. “Do you like me,
Lars?”

“I’ve always liked you, Kelly.”

At that point, she’d kissed him and it was if
a firecracker exploded inside him.

Kelly frowned at the memories. No one was
denying that they were physically attracted to each other, but
marriage had to be based on more than that.

She went upstairs and took out a
suitcase.

#

Lars left his meeting and drove home. He
unlocked the door and ran upstairs, praying that he wasn’t too
late.

Kelly was packing a small suitcase when he
came into the room. Lars stood in the doorway for a moment,
remembering the last time he’d watched her pack. When she said she
wanted a divorce.

This time her actions were less controlled.
She folded a t-shirt and shoved it into the suitcase before looking
up at him. “Hi, Lars. Did my father tell you we’d talked?”

“Yes.”

“So he sent you home to solve the problem.
Just like last time.”

“You don’t understand,” he protested.

“Then correct me if I’m wrong. I get upset
because my fiancé is sleeping around, and everybody overreacts,
thinking I’m going to fall apart emotionally. What is it -- Kelly
can’t handle her own problems? We have to step in and make
everything better?”

She was angry. He’d known she’d be angry once
she remembered everything. “He was worried.”

“So he sends trusty Lars to find me and bring
me home.”

The words were cruel, but accurate.

“What did he say to you, anyway? Do whatever
it takes, but keep her happy?” Kelly laughed bitterly. “I don’t
think he intended you to marry me while you were babysitting, but
hey, as long as we were having a good time, why not?”

Lars winced. He deserved her sarcasm. “That’s
not what happened.”

“You forget, Lars, I remember everything
now.” She pointed an accusing finger at him. “I chased you,
flirting and making the moves, not the other way around. I was the
one who proposed to you. And you, gentleman that you are, went
along with it.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I was so
stupid.”

“You were vulnerable, distraught. You weren’t
thinking clearly. You weren’t yourself.” He reached out to touch
her shoulder, but she pulled away.

“Oh, so now I’m not even responsible for my
sex life,” she said flippantly. “Great. So I’m just this flighty,
irresponsible girl who can’t think for herself. I manage to stay a
virgin for twenty three years and suddenly you think I’m a slave to
my passions.”