Love & Learn Page 10

  The cab dropped them off outside of Flair on Grand street. As soon as they set foot inside the door, Henry could see Lizzie pull back. Her eyes widened when she saw the elaborate displays, and when she turned over one of the discrete cardstock price tags, she went pale.

  Well, she wouldn’t be paying for any of this. He turned to Julia. “Just pick whatever you like,” he said. He looked around after a sales assistant. “In fact, just hand that list you made to someone who works here, and they’ll probably sort it all out for you.”

  Julia looked around her. The idea of a shopping spree didn’t seem to excite her. “I don’t know,” she said. “Can’t we go somewhere else?”

  “Why?” He couldn’t understand. “What’s wrong?”

  Julia wrinkled her little nose. “It’s just not my kind of place,” she said, shrugging. “Can we go to Pottery Barn instead?”

  Henry frowned. “Pottery Barn?” He gestured toward the exclusive store. “But I just told you, you can pick whatever you want from here.”

  Julia turned toward Lizzie. “Please, Lizzie? There has to be a Pottery Barn around here, somewhere.”

  Lizzie fiddled with her phone. “There’s a Pottery Barn Kids on 2nd Avenue,” she said.

  “Fine.” Henry sighed. They left the store, and he walked over to see if he could spot a cab.

  “Oh, wait a minute, Henry,” Lizzie said. “We need to find a place where I can change Danny.”

  He turned and stared at her. “You’re kidding?”

  She shook her head. “No, we have to find a place that will let us use their restroom.” She glanced back at the store they’d just come out of, but then shook her head. Looking up and down the street, her shoulders slumped. “I guess we’ll just have to do it right here,” she said, steering the stroller over to a bench.

  Henry just stared at her, but Julia tagged along over to the bench and got the diaper bag out. He just stood there on the sidewalk, trying to look as if he had nothing to do with the madwoman who was changing a diaper on a busy New York street.

  Well, since the people walking by were typical New Yorkers, no one seemed to even register what was going on. He walked over and looked in the store window, his back to the spectacle that was taking place in broad daylight.

  But he didn’t see any of the expensive items in the window display. Instead, he was watching Lizzie in the reflection on the glass. Her long hair fell forward as she bent over the baby and hid her face. It was gleaming, even though it was a dull and overcast day. She was wearing one of her work outfits, and it was obvious, at least to him, that she wasn’t used to the clothes. They were too restricting for her animate body that was made for movement. She was not the kind of woman who sat with her knees together and slightly slanted in that ridiculous way that all the women in his world did. She was a jeans and T-shirt kind of girl, all grown up.

  Oh, he did not want to think about her in those jeans she’d worn the first night they met. That would get him into trouble.

  And this was strictly a business relationship.

  He should give her some money for clothes, though. She would need to accompany him to all kinds of places over the next few weeks, to look after the baby, and she would need clothes that would look good but still make her comfortable. She would probably look good in absolutely anything, but he intended to make sure that she bought nothing with any kind of cleavage showing.

  When Lizzie was done changing Danny’s diaper, they crammed back into a cab and went up to the Upper East Side. As soon as they stepped inside the store, Julia lit up. She and Lizzie walked quickly through the store, pointing out pieces of furniture and this and that. Henry found an armchair that looked reasonably comfortable, even though it was covered in a dreadful pink fabric and slumped down there. He didn’t have much experience shopping with women, but he was a man of the world, and he knew that he was going to be here for a while. He pulled out his phone and started going through his emails, deleting most of them.

  “Alright, we’re done,” said a cheerful voice, and he looked up. Lizzie was standing right in front of him.

  “What do you mean, done?” He looked around the store and spotted Julia pushing the stroller back and forth. She’d reclined the backrest, which he guessed meant that the baby was either asleep or going to be asleep soon. “I thought you needed a ton of stuff.”

  She nodded. “Yep. And they had it all.” She nodded over toward the register. “They didn’t have everything in stock, but I asked if we could get the display pieces for those items that we’d otherwise need to order in, and they said yes. They don’t offer same-day delivery, but she knows a company that we can use, that can bring everything, even the furniture, this evening.” She looked a bit nervous, all of a sudden. “It’s going to be pretty expensive,” she said hesitantly.

  “Fine,” he said, getting up from the horrid armchair. “Whatever it takes.” He looked over at Julia. “You are amazing,” he said. “I thought we’d have to traipse around to every furniture store in New York.”

  Lizzie smiled a little. “She’s not used to stores like the one you brought us to,” she said softly. “And neither am I.” She raised her eyebrows at the understatement. “She just needs to feel a little bit in control. And not so out of her depth. This,” she nodded toward the nearest furniture display, “is familiar to her. They even had the same desk that she had in her room back home.”

  Henry walked over to the register and paid for it all, arranging for the delivery of the furniture and all the bags of stuff that Lizzie and Julia had picked out.

  When they left the store, the sun came out, and Henry felt a weight lifting off his shoulders. He had cleared the first hurdle. Going furniture shopping with kids was probably one of the most challenging activities you could attempt on a Saturday afternoon, but he had survived it. And now, the baby was asleep, and the weather was lovely, and they didn’t have anywhere they needed to be for another couple of hours.

  “What do you want to do?” he said to Julia. “Anything at all.”

  She looked hesitant, glancing at her brother. “Danny’s asleep,” she said. “I guess we should leave him in his stroller. Otherwise, he’ll probably wake up.” She looked up at him. “But some other day, I’d love to go to Central Park.” She shrugged. “I know it’s a typical tourist destination, but I’ve never been to New York.”

  “We could walk over to the park,” Lizzie said. “It’s a lovely day.”

  Julia looked doubtful. “Isn’t it far?”

  Henry smiled. “This is Manhattan,” he said. “Nothing is far.”

  30

  Lizzie

  They walked a couple of blocks. Lizzie didn’t recognize any of the buildings they walked past. But it was a lovely day, and she had enjoyed helping Julia pick out everything for her and Danny’s room back in Henry’s apartment. They passed a street vendor, and she bought Julia a pretzel that she nibbled on for the rest of the walk. The baby slept in his stroller, and Lizzie felt better than she’d ever done, walking down the street with Henry and Julia. Pretending to be engaged to Henry had been a mad shot in the dark, but it had really paid off, and she was enjoying her time with these people.

  As soon as they saw the greenery at the end of the street, Lizzie could tell that Julia got excited. She knew the feeling. Central Park was one of the first places she’d wanted to visit when she’d arrived in New York. She’d been seventeen, so only a year or two older than Julia. But Julia seemed so much younger than she’d been back then. Well, that was to be expected. She’d grown up in a solid middle-class household with two dependable parents. Lizzie didn’t know and almost couldn’t imagine what that would be like. But she didn’t envy the girl now. Losing her mother was a traumatic experience at any age, and having to move across the country to live with a father who was a complete stranger must be very confusing.

  Lizzie had at least known that she was on her own when she arrived in New York. Her mother had OD’d a couple of days before Lizzie’s se
venteenth birthday, and she had packed up her few belongings and left the trailer park as soon as the authorities had collected the body. Everything she’d owned had fit in one duffel bag.

  She’d hadn’t expected to make it big here, but she had underestimated how disadvantaged she would be because of her lack of education and without a social network of support and connections. She’d only ever had minimum wage jobs, and they had never lasted long enough for her to get a pay rise. It was easier for the employers to fire her and hire someone else who’d just stepped off the bus.

  Living hand to mouth in an expensive city like this one had been a struggle. Lizzie didn’t mind hard work. It was just impossible to get ahead if you never got a lucky break.

  She glanced at Henry as they crossed the street and walked into the lush green park. Henry had been her lucky break. The fact that they’d been leaving the cigar club at the same time was probably the only time that coincidences had aligned in her favor in all the time she’d lived in this city.

  And her moving into his apartment was perhaps not a lucky break as such. More like a lucky break-in. The fact that he’d needed her as much as she needed him when everything came crashing down, that had been really lucky.

  She wasn’t stupid, despite what her high school teachers had said. She knew that this wasn’t going to last. But she was determined to do her best for these children, for as long as Henry would let her stick around. And hopefully, she’d have found herself an apartment and put some money aside when he didn’t need her anymore. With her new job, she’d be in a much better place, and hopefully, she’d be able to manage on her own from there on out.

  31

  Henry

  He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t even thought about the sleeping arrangements until now. They had just put the kids to bed and stood in the hallway, looking at each other.

  “I … er … I could sleep on the couch,” he offered sheepishly.

  Lizzie frowned. “Don’t you think Julia would be a bit suspicious? She asked me about our relationship earlier, a couple of times, and it seemed important to her that we would stick together.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Do you suggest that we sleep together?”

  She blushed. Even in the darkness of the hallway, he could see her cheeks redden. “Not ‘sleep together’,” she made quotation marks in the air. “But we could just share the bed. It’s certainly big enough for both of us.”

  Well, that might be true. But it wasn’t the size of the bed that was worrying him. It was her. And all the things they had done together in that stupid four-poster bed. Even though it was many weeks ago, he could still taste her on his tongue. Smell her sweet and comforting scent that was now permeating his entire apartment.

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll give it a try.”

  When he got out of the bathroom, she had unpacked her bags and hung her clothes in the walk-in. As he crawled into bed, she went into the bathroom to change and get ready for bed. When she came back out, she was dressed in yoga pants and an over-sized T-shirt. Her hair was pulled up in a scrunchie bun.

  It didn’t help.

  She was still a very desirable woman.

  Fortunately, Henry was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and he managed to get to sleep rather quickly.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, he thought he heard the baby cry, but it stopped before he’d managed to pull himself out of his sleep state.

  Henry was amazed at what they had accomplished when they sat down to dinner on Sunday evening. The furniture had been delivered last night, and the crib had been one of the display pieces that was already assembled, so Danny got to sleep in a proper bed already on his first night in the apartment. He could always donate it once the boy had gone to live with his aunt, but for now, it was important that Julia felt safe, and it was obvious that she cared more about her brother’s wellbeing than her own. She had insisted that they assemble the chest of drawers for the baby’s clothes and things first, before they built her desk. He had moved most of the boxes and the exercise equipment into his office to make room for all the new stuff. Julia and Lizzie had hung up the new curtains that Julia had picked, and a large, soft carpet now covered the floor. It looked like a completely different room, with plenty of room, even with the two beds.

  The baby still had the sniffles, but his temperature was back to normal, and as long as he could be with Lizzie, little Danny was in a good mood.

  Lizzie … Yes, she was the key to all of this. Every problem that had cropped up over the last two days, she had come up with a solution. She seemed to be a natural at caring both for babies and for teenagers, and she wasn’t too bad at handling him either. Not that he felt manipulated, or anything. It was just that she seemed to always anticipate his needs and make sure that he always had whatever he needed, when he needed it. It was like she could read his mind.

  32

  Lizzie

  When they crawled into bed on Sunday night, it barely even felt weird anymore. They had spent so much non-sexual time together all weekend, buying and assembling furniture, shopping for food and preparing the meals, getting the kids’ room set up, and Julia and Danny settled in. There was barely any trace of the intense chemistry between them after all the mundane conversations about diaper rash and how to interpret the assembly instructions for the new furniture.

  They had worked well together, side by side, but it had been evident that his focus had been on Julia, on getting his daughter to feel at home and settle in here in his apartment. Most of the time, she had been taking care of Danny, and she didn’t mind that at all.

  The baby was a darling, so sweet and funny, and she loved to cuddle him and feel his soft little body in her arms. After a lifetime of loneliness, she finally had someone to shower with love, hugs, and kisses. It was wonderful.

  She hoped that she’d still be allowed to see the kids, even after Henry had settled into his role as a parent. He’d probably need someone to stay with them when he was traveling, for instance, even if he had a nanny. She could be that person. For a moment, she considered the idea that she could be their nanny, but she knew right away that she didn’t want to have to quit her job. Not even to take care of baby Danny. As much as she loved him, she loved the respect and confidence that her new job at the law firm gave her. She couldn’t wait to see what she’d be able to do with a bit more work experience under her belt.

  “I have to go to work in the morning,” she said, crawling under the covers. “Are you going to be fine with the kids?”

  He nodded. “I’ll get hold of a nanny agency first thing and have them send someone over right away. Julia and I can manage until she gets here.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment, she had worried that he would expect her to quit her job and take care of the kids all day.

  As if he’d read her mind, he continued, “No, it is important that you keep working and apartment hunting. I don’t want to get in the way of your goals.”

  They lay there side by side for a while. Then she had to ask.

  “What do we do about the … marriage?”

  He lay with his back toward her, so she couldn’t see his face, but his voice sounded unperturbed. “We get married. It’s no big deal. I’ll arrange a license, and we’ll go down to the City Clerk’s office on Saturday. That way, you don’t have to miss work, and you’ll have time to find a dress and whatever you need.” He paused for a while. “I’ll take Julia shopping for some back to school stuff, once the nanny has settled in. Then we’ll visit some of the local schools and decide which is the best option. When Ms. Fish comes back in two weeks, we’ll be a respectable married couple, Julia will be in school, and she won’t have any alternative but to recommend that I get custody.”

  Lizzie was silent for a long time. “But we are actually going through with it? We’re not just going to tell Ms. Fish that we did it?”

  “No,” he replied solemnly. “Ms. Fish strikes me as the kind of woman that
would double-check something like that. And if she doesn’t, then her boss might.” He shifted under the duvet. “It’s no big deal. Once everything is sorted, we’ll get an annulment.”

  “Once you have custody of the children?”

  He grunted.

  She took that as a yes.

  33

  Henry

  The week went by so fast. Henry’s head was spinning when Saturday morning rolled around. It had been a weird week, with so many new experiences, many of which he hoped he’d never have to repeat.

  On the plus side, he now had a reliable nanny, who made sure that he didn’t have to deal with that baby any more than absolutely necessary. He and Julia had been looking at schools online and then visited a couple of them before making a decision. They had gone clothes shopping for the wedding, and for back-to-school stuff. Julia had protested that it was the middle of the term, but once Henry had offered to buy her a new MacBook and a new iPhone, she had stopped arguing. The dress she had picked out for the wedding was cute and suitable for all kinds of events. Perhaps he’d take her out to brunch tomorrow morning.