The Lover Read online

  The Lover

  Nia Forrester

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in, or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  Copyright © 2017 Stiletto Press, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1548920180

  ISBN-10: 1548920185

  For the survivors.

  ~1~

  She wanted babies.

  It wasn’t fashionable to admit it. Especially not for a career-minded, independent woman like herself, but that was what she wanted. And no more so than now, on her thirty-fifth birthday when it seemed like her chance was slipping away.

  Looking at her reflection in the full-length mirror in her bedroom, Ryann thought she looked pretty good. No, she knew she did. And her date was sure to think so as well. He had been pestering her for months to go to dinner, but Ryann had rebuffed every attempt.

  His name was Spencer Hall. Spencer. Hall. It was a name more suited for a dormitory in a small New England college, than for a man. True, it was a real geek name, but one that could not have been more incongruent with its bearer. Spencer was a buff, handsome and successful man-about-town who had beautiful women on his arm wherever he went, and a reputation as a heartbreaker.

  Everyone knew he wasn’t the settling down type, and if he asked you to dinner, he had every expectation that you would be sleeping with him, because he was That Guy. He didn’t need to woo the panties off women, they threw them at him. So, Ryann had been saying ‘no’ for a while. Not because she had any compunction about dropping the panties if that was what she felt like doing, but because sex-partners she could get any day of the week. Spencer brought nothing new or original to the table.

  This time she’d only said ‘yes’ because he caught her at a bad time.

  She had been exiting the JW Marriott on Pennsylvania Avenue after a brunch meeting with a funder when she bumped into a woman pushing a stroller with a toddler in it and tugging on the hand of a reluctant little boy about three years old. The woman was looking down, trying to reason with the three-year old when she collided with Ryann who almost tripped over her and her kids.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” She sounded harried and close to tears, and when she looked up, Ryann was all prepared to tell her not to worry about it when the woman exclaimed.

  “Ryann Walker?”

  And then it was one of those moments Ryann lived in dread of—running into someone she was supposed to recall but didn’t. Someone who would be offended because she had forgotten their name. But the fear of offending people was one she only had in the context of her work, and this person did not look like a professional acquaintance. So, she simply squinted and began her apology.

  “I’m sorry. I …”

  “It’s Grace. Grace Evans! Remember? From …”

  High school. Grace Evans. The pretty girl, the popular girl, the girl Ryann wanted to be.

  Except now, she wasn’t lithe and athletic and polished. She was nothing like Ryann remembered her. Back then she had the build of a young Naomi Campbell. She had the confidence and poise of a twentysomething-year old, and an impenetrable group of equally popular and pretty girlfriends; a group that Ryann buzzed around on the outskirts of, hoping against hope to one day be let in.

  “Grace! Hi!”

  Then there was an awkward moment when they tried to decide whether their former acquaintance was the kind that merited a hug, or something less than that. They opted for the half-bodied hug, moving quickly apart, both of them laughing nervously.

  Grace looked her over and Ryann could see the admiration and surprise in her eyes. She was a solid size 12, inching up to a 14, and was wearing a smart, custom-tailored suit in powder grey that followed rather than clung to her curves, and dark grey pumps that added four inches to her height. Her short platinum-blonde hair had only recently been re-done, and was the perfect hue—show-stopping, without being brassy or cheap.

  “You look …” Grace took a step back and looked her over. “Amazing.”

  “Thank you. You …” Ryann couldn’t even manage the lie.

  The truth was, Grace looked dowdy as hell. She was wearing Mom-jeans, and a blouse that looked like it had long ago outlived its usefulness as the casual-but-trendy-top-that-goes-with-anything. And Grace’s hair … Holy Christ, her hair. It was brittle, with a mass of split-ends, pulled back into a short ponytail.

  “I’m surprised you’re still in the area,” Grace said.

  Next to her, her little boy whined and pulled on her hand. The toddler in the stroller, another little boy, fussed.

  “Still here,” Ryann shrugged. “You too? Or are you staying at the hotel?”

  Grace laughed as though the notion of her staying in a hotel was ridiculous. “My husband is one of the managers here. I just stopped by with the kids to have lunch with him. And I’m actually not even ‘Evans’ anymore. It’s ‘Irving’ now. Grace Irving.”

  Ryann nodded, not knowing what else to say. She and Grace hadn’t had much to say to each other as teenagers, so it was no shock that they wouldn’t now, either.

  “You were always so ambitious, Ryann. And from the looks of you, you’re living the dream. What do you do?”

  “I’m a political fundraiser. And a development consultant for non-profits.”

  “Wow.” Grace nodded. “You were always that girl. The one who did the stuff the rest of us only talked about.”

  Ryann tried not to read too much into Grace’s words. Instead she smiled and nodded, and tried to swallow the gnawing realization building at the bottom of her gut.

  “Well, it was good to see you, Ryann. You look incredible, really.”

  “Thank you. Great to see you as well, Grace.”

  And then her former classmate continued on her way through the lobby, pushing one kid ahead of her and tugging the other behind. Ryann watched her for a few moments and tried to shake loose the realization that she still envied Grace Evans. Even with her ratty hair, awful jeans and world-weary blouse, Ryann envied her.

  Because she was a mother.

  Suddenly the commitment she had secured from that funder at their meeting didn’t seem like quite the accomplishment it had just minutes before. And it was in that frame of mind that she had attended her next meeting, which was of the executive board of a non-profit organization that helped former prisoners reintegrate into society.

  Spencer Hall was chair of the board, and had presided over the meeting. And afterward, when he stepped to her again, reissuing an invitation to dinner that had repeatedly been turned down, Ryann decided to accept. Spencer had looked at her skeptically for a moment.

  “Yes?” he repeated, eyes narrowed.

  Ryann shrugged. “Sure. Why not? You should be rewarded for your persistence, if nothing else.”

  He laughed. “I don’t care why you’re comin’. I’m just glad you finally said ‘yes’. So, when? When exactly can I take you out? I’m not letting you leave here till I have you pinned down.”

  Ryann hid her smirk at the phrase ‘pinned down’. He needn’t have worried about pinning her down. She had precisely that—or something like it—planned for their date.

  “Friday,” Ryann said as she walked away. “And you better make it good.”

  She didn’t bother telling him that Friday was her birthday, and that she was
a little afraid of being alone then, because of the inevitable taking account of her life she would do. And the inevitable conclusion she would reach, that it amounted to a whole lot of nothing, despite the car, the clothes and the job.

  She wanted babies. That’s what she would be thinking about: she wanted them, and she didn’t have them.

  “So, how’d I do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is the restaurant to your liking?”

  Spencer didn’t look up from his menu, and there was the hint of a smile playing about his full lips. Those lips. They might even have been his best feature, though, honestly, it was tough to choose. And … was it ‘to her liking’? He was teasing her, she realized, because that was not the way Spencer usually talked.

  “It’s fine I guess,” Ryann pretended not to see the smile.

  Actually, it was much more than ‘fine.’ BlackSalt was a restaurant she’d always wanted to go to, and had planned to go to. About a dozen times. But the forty-dollar appetizers always made her palms clammy. Ryann had spent more than a few afternoons, fingers poised over the mouse on their website, while she contemplated making a reservation to take a potential donor there for dinner. But some quick math always convinced her that that would be a reckless decision. What if they decided to order caviar? Between that, and a few alcoholic beverages, the tab could easily climb to well over three hundred dollars.

  That was the thing about people with a little money—they had no sense of scale. They could order an ounce of caviar for fifty dollars and not blink an eye. She, on the other hand could not.

  But … wait. Could Spencer Hall afford to pay fifty dollars an ounce for caviar? Ryann decided to find out.

  “Have you decided on a starter?” she asked sweetly.

  Spencer looked up then.

  He was devilishly handsome. Devilishly. She had always thought that was a ridiculous turn of phrase, but it described Spencer perfectly. He had a square jaw, perfectly chiseled; and full lips. Café au lait complexion, and golden-brown eyes. His eyebrows had an almost malevolent, natural arch to them, making him appear either mischievous, or calculating. And the body … it wasn’t to be believed. The only thing she hated about Spencer Hall besides his smug certainty of his own attractiveness was the way he dressed. Like a self-made man who was not fully actualized.

  His taste in suits, for instance, was that of someone who still believed that prosperity had to announce itself. The number he was wearing now was a perfectly respectable light-grey, appropriate for the season but it had lavender piping. Lavender. It wasn’t immediately visible from a distance, so Ryann only noticed it when he was right in front of her. It was the kind of flourish that only new money would think spoke of wealth. That, the flashy watch, and the scars on his knuckles gave Spencer away, as someone who had come from a much humbler past than his present.

  She was curious about that past. But for the moment she would satisfy herself with figuring out whether he would balk at paying fifty bucks for an ounce of caviar.

  “I have,” Spencer said.

  “You have …”

  “Decided on a starter. I always have the Farmed Italian Ossetra. You want to give it a try?”

  Ryann glanced down at the menu and tried not to express her surprise. The hell with the caviar for fifty an ounce, Spencer had just ordered the one that cost more than twice as much.

  “Sounds delicious,” Ryann said evenly. “I’ll try some of yours.”

  When their server came though, she couldn’t help herself, she had to test him anyway, by getting the butter poached lobster, and then the BlackSalt crab cakes, which was the most expensive entrée on the menu. For a pairing, she accepted without challenge the overpriced wine selection their server suggested. When she looked up, she could almost swear Spencer was laughing at her.

  He gave his order, and they handed over their menus.

  “With that bill you just racked up, you’d better be planning on giving up a little somethin’-somethin’ later,” Spencer said leaning across the table and lowering his voice.

  “Of course I am. Why do you think I even accepted this dinner invitation in the first place?”

  She couldn’t be sure, but Ryann thought she saw his throat bob as he swallowed. He was just teasing her, and clearly hadn’t been expecting that response.

  “It’s my birthday,” she added, with a little shrug. As though that explained it.

  He smiled and took a sip of his water. “So, I’m glad I brought my ‘A’ game. Happy Birthday,” he said, rebounding from his initial surprise.

  “Your ‘A game’? Don’t be corny, Spencer. Now that you already know you’re going to get some, maybe we can have a conversation like normal people do during a meal.”

  He stared at her for a few moments, his eyes changing from amused to serious. “You know what?” he said. “I think I’d like that. And that was a joke before, by the way. About you givin’ up …”

  “Oh really? That’s too bad, because I wasn’t joking at all.”

  Ryann stood naked at her bathroom sink and looked at the flexible, silicone cup in the palm of her hand. Six hours. A minimum of six hours. That was how long she should have kept it in if she wanted to prevent pregnancy. By taking it out, she was breaking an almost sacred trust between consenting adults; one which said that neither party would do anything to make the other procreate without their knowledge and consent. The kinds of women who did what she had just done were most frequently younger, and lacking in personal accomplishments, the kinds who wanted to hitch their wagon to a man who could be a provider. Or a man that they simply wanted to keep, however unwilling he might be.

  Ryann did not want to ‘keep’ Spencer. And she hadn’t even premeditated what she had just done, in removing the barrier between her egg and his sperm. That hadn’t been her goal in inviting him back to her house, and she had only removed it on a whim. It wasn’t as though anything was likely to happen.

  What were the odds, after all? That she was ovulating? That when she removed the diaphragm, enough of his little swimmers remained to make their way toward her waiting egg? That the egg would be fertilized and then implant in her uterus? Thinking about it that way made the possibility so remote, that Ryann almost believed it was a miracle anyone ever got pregnant.

  By the time she had wrapped the little cup in toilet tissue and disposed of it in the trash, Ryann convinced herself that that was the most shocking thing that had happened that evening. Not that she had invited Spencer back, not that he had eventually, in a rush of passion and recklessness literally said ‘fuck it’ when he couldn’t find a second condom; and not that she had removed the diaphragm just now. What shocked her most was that she was getting rid of it altogether.

  Someone was going to make her a mother. Tonight, she’d made up her mind, and Spencer just happened to be the man in her bed when she did. It could just as easily been some other man, and Ryann didn’t much care. Her sex partners were always good specimens of manhood in one way or another, even if just physically. Any one of them might make a beautiful baby. And if they did, they need not know it was theirs.

  “You comin’ back, or what?”

  Ryann jumped a little at the sound of Spencer’s voice from the next room. She flushed the toilet and turned on the faucet, running her hands under the warm water.

  “Peeing after sex is good for your urinary tract health,” she called back.

  Suddenly the bathroom door opened, and Spencer walked in, still naked. Looking at him was almost as pleasurable as touching him, and being touched by him. And talking to him over dinner had its own pleasures. She was always surprised, though she shouldn’t have been, that people as good-looking as Spencer could be good company as well.

  “Why are you shouting?” he asked smoothly.

  Ryann turned to look at him. “I had no idea you were sneaking up on me,” she said, smiling.

  He came closer, close enough that his semi-erection brushed against her hip. Her body clenched
in response, and she felt the warm, viscosity of his semen on her inner thigh.

  See there? It was all coming out, anyway.

  She knew the thought was foolish. But she clung to it, because it made her less of the villain in this scenario. Handsome, charming hapless Spencer had only been looking for a roll in the sack, poor man. And all he knew about her probably convinced him that she was no more likely to want a surprise baby than he was.

  “It’s still your birthday,” Spencer said. “Let’s go back in there and celebrate some more.”

  “Or I could make you a nice, strong cup of coffee so you don’t fall asleep during your drive home,” Ryann suggested.

  Spencer’s hands were on her waist now. He shook his head. “I’m not going home,” he said. “Not unless that’s what you really want. I’ve waited way too long to spend some time with you. So I plan to be here till morning if you let me.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Ryann said.

  “Are you listenin’? I said I want to.”

  He leaned in and kissed her neck. She squirmed.

  “I’m sticky,” she said.

  She didn’t expect him to be one of those who wanted to hang around after. She was all primed to show him the door, take a shower, put on her plush terry robe and wait for dawn with a glass of wine in one hand, and a book in the other.

  “So go ahead take a shower,” Spencer said. “Whatever makes you most comfortable.”

  Ryann stepped out of his grasp. “Okay, but …”

  “But?” he prompted.

  “I’d prefer to take it alone.”

  Spencer nodded. “I’ll take one after you.”

  “Okay.” Ryann didn’t know what to make of this. Everything she’d heard about him had led her to believe he would be more than happy to duck out once the deed was done.

  He left her alone in the bathroom and she took a hot shower, but a short one, because she wasn’t sure how comfortable she was leaving him alone to poke around in her house. When she got out, he was reclined on her bed, watching CNN with the sound turned all the way down.