“She would have loved you, chérie. She always said I needed a strong woman who would keep me in order.”
Theresa laughed. “I think I would have liked her, too.”
“So, item three?”
“Item three.” They both looked at her list. Neither of them knew how to find a way to a compromise.
“We don’t have to decide this now, do we?” Emile said, eventually.
“It’s important, Emile. We should at least talk about it. You want children, don’t you?”
“And you don’t, do you?”
She squirmed away from him, but he set his hand on her cheek and gently forced her to meet his gaze.
“Do you?”
“It’s not that I don’t want children, per se.”
“Heaven forbid you should want them per se. Could you possibly do this bit like a normal, non-lawyer person, Thérèse?”
“Sorry.” Some things were easier to talk about when you depersonalized them. The legal speak was a defense mechanism, but apparently, he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
“Go on.”
“I don’t have anything against children. It’s just that I’ve seen what happens to women at work when they go on maternity leave.”
“Tell me,” he asked patiently.
She frowned, trying to think how to explain it. “They always plan to come back.”
“And don’t they?”
“Sometimes. More often than not, they come back in a part-time job.”
“That’s a problem?” He wasn’t disagreeing, just trying to understand, and she appreciated that.
“You don’t get promoted if you’re a part-timer. You certainly don’t make partner.”
“That is your ambition?”
“Yes. I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t matter to me, because it does.”
“You’ve made that very clear, chérie. And if it matters to you, then it matters to me. I will not ask you to make that sacrifice. I don’t want to ask you. I want you to have the things which are important to you, Thérèse.”
He kissed her softly, reinforcing his promise. He wouldn’t ask her and he wouldn’t try to change her mind. She relaxed in his embrace.
Only it wasn’t that simple. “I want you to have the things which are important to you, Emile. You shouldn’t be making sacrifices, either.”
There was the rub. What he wanted and what she wanted weren’t compatible. She sat up and moved off his lap. Emile laid his hand on her thigh, preventing her from going too far.
“It is no sacrifice to be with you.”
“That’s sweet, but it isn’t true. You want a family and you would have to sacrifice that to be with me.”
“There is really no way you could have your career and a child?”
“We could have nannies, I suppose, but I hate the idea of that, especially when they’re small. I’d want to be back at work within a couple of months at the most.”
“The children would have two parents, chérie.”
“Yes, but you work as well.”
“I do now. But I will be retiring in two, three years. I will need something to do with my time.”
She stared at him. “You’d stay at home and raise our children?”
“Can you think of a better thing for me to do?”
“No but…” She covered her face with her hands and started to shake with laughter. “My mother is going to have a fit when she finds out.”
“Your mother adores me.”
Theresa shook her head and started laughing again. “She’ll have to explain it at the golf club. Her unnatural daughter who won’t give up her career to look after her own children, while her hen-pecked son-in-law has to spend his days changing nappies. She’ll never speak to me again.”
“Thérèse.” Emile took hold of her hips and shifted her so that she was lying on her back, looking up at him. “Are there any more items on that agenda of yours?”
“Only one. Any Other Business.”
He touched his fingers to her lips, tracing delicately.
“Any Other Business means kissing.”
“And anything else you can think of.”
He nodded, and a teasing grin crossed his face. “I expect I can think of quite a few things. But we’ll start with kissing.”
“Emile?”
“Hmm?” He was busily exploring her neckline with his lips.
“I do love you.”
“And I love you.” His hand was sliding deliciously up her thigh. “Madame Renaud.”
“Ms. Chartley,” she corrected him. Then laughed. “Are we always going to bicker?”
“As long as it turns you on, ma femme.”
“Emile!” She pulled away in shocked delight. “You do that deliberately?”
He winked. “Only because you love it.”
One Year Later
“Cynthia Williams is going to have a baby, you know.”
Melanie handed a cup of weak tea to Theresa and poured coffee for Emile.
“Who is Cynthia Williams?” he asked politely.
“No one,” Theresa told him. “The daughter of one of Mum’s golfing friends.”
“Cynthia Bentley, I should say. She married a surgeon.”
“Ah, but your daughter married me.” Emile said smugly.
“Yes, well. She seems to be very happy.”
She had to hand it to her mother. Confronted with the least suitable son-in-law that Theresa had been able to find, Melanie had worked hard at getting to know him. She’d even been trying to take an interest in football for his sake.
“I am.” She kicked Emile under the table. “Though you can stop smirking about it.”
“The baby’s due in May, apparently. They’ll have the christening in St. Bertolin’s, I expect.”
“That’ll be nice for them.”
Her dad gave her a stern look. “Don’t tease your mother, Theresa.”
“No. Sorry, Mum.” She’d half thought about keeping it a secret, just for the fun of it, but there wasn’t really any reason this time round.
“You’re not getting any younger, that’s all. I wouldn’t want you to leave it too late.”
“My biological countdown, you mean? I don’t think you need to worry about that just yet, Mum. I’m only thirty-two. And besides, I’m pregnant.”
The china teapot smashed to the ground.
“Theresa Mary Chartley! How dare you?”
Theresa laughed and reached for Emile’s hand. “We thought you’d be pleased.”
“Well, of course I’m pleased. But I’ll never understand why you can’t just tell me these things like a normal daughter.”
“I told you just now. Anyway, it’s due in April.”
“After the end of the season,” Emile put in.
“And before Cynthia Williams,” Theresa added.
A slow smile crept across Melanie’s face. “I couldn’t be happier.”
When Emile squeezed her hand and gave her a look full of love and laughter, Theresa had to admit, neither could she.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Josh Winfield for making it possible for me to go to an Arsenal match, and to Zack Winfield for taking me and patiently answering all my inane questions. Any accuracies concerning the football in the book are entirely due to them. The inaccuracies are, of course, all mine. Thanks also to Erin Satie for checking Emile’s French and making some excellent suggestions for things he might say that my French teachers never taught me at school. And finally, thanks to the editorial team at Entangled who helped me wrangle this manuscript into something resembling a book.