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“So why are you bringing up the subject of adoption now?” he asked, pleased that he managed to sound reasonable once again.
“Because I still want to be a mother—I still need to be a mother—and now I have the chance. But only if you’ll help me,” Charlotte answered in a rush, the look in her eyes one of pleading. “We’ve been approved to adopt a baby girl—as a couple.”
She set the paper and attached photograph on the island countertop and pushed it toward him with a fingertip. But Sean was too stunned by what she’d just said to acknowledge it even with a glance.
Adopt a baby girl? Was Charlotte nuts?
“All I’m asking is that you go with me to Kazakhstan to complete the adoption process,” she added, so amazingly calm and collected that all he could do was stare at her in disbelief. “Of course, we’ll have to pretend that we’re still happily married and living together in Mayfair, but only for a few months. Then you can move back here again and file for divorce if that’s what you want to do. I promise that I’ll agree to whatever terms you choose, and I won’t ask you for anything more ever again—not even child support.”
“Surely you can’t be serious—” Sean began, still unable to believe that she was not only asking something so preposterous of him, but also doing it in such an amazingly blithe manner.
He had prepared himself for the revelation of a serious illness, a request for a divorce, or in the best of all possible worlds, an offer of reconciliation on his terms. But to even suggest that he travel halfway around the world with her— to Kazakhstan, of all places—to adopt a foreign child he neither wanted nor needed in his life… She couldn’t possibly be thinking straight, could she?
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life,” Charlotte assured him, her voice wavering, but not her gaze. “Please, Sean…please, please help me bring our little girl home.”
“She’s not our little girl, Charlotte—”
“Yes…yes, she is. Just look at her—she’s beautiful….”
Sean didn’t want to do it—didn’t want to look at the small color photograph attached to the sheet of paper lying on the countertop. But neither could he ignore completely the desperate urgency he heard in his wife’s voice.
Obviously she was well on the way to irrationality regarding this business of adoption. Maybe by cooperating with her just a little he’d eventually be able to calm her down enough to make her see reason.
His mouth set in a grim line, Sean stared at Charlotte for a long, unhappy moment. She continued to meet his gaze without flinching, and at the same time, pushed the photograph a tad closer to him across the countertop.
With a reluctance much greater than he should have been experiencing under the circumstances, Sean finally shifted his gaze to the small photograph. His eyes focused on the child’s face captured on it and his breath caught in his throat.
Not a tiny baby, but a toddler of more than a year in age, the little girl in the photo was beautiful, indeed. But she was also so much more than that. With her wispy brown hair and wide brown eyes, her pale porcelain skin and bow-shaped lips, she was the very image of his wife. There was something about the tilt of her little chin and the calm, direct expression on her face that also reminded him of…himself.
She could have been Charlotte’s child—and his, Sean thought, his heart softening unexpectedly. Anyone who saw the three of them together would easily assume Charlotte and he were the child’s biological parents.
For a long moment, he wondered why she looked so serious, then imagined how much fun it would be to make her giggle, just like Charlotte often did when he said something amusing. Surely that was a familiar spark of mischief he saw in the little girl’s big brown eyes.
Only he hadn’t the first clue how to make a child giggle, Sean realized. More than likely, with his background and upbringing, he’d actually be more apt to make her cry. Then Charlotte would sweep her off to cuddle and coddle, leaving him on the outside looking in.
Reminded all over again of the perils inherent in his vision of fatherhood, Sean gave himself a firm mental shake. He simply couldn’t afford to waver any further from the position he’d already taken. Bad as it was to be alone, being hurt and alone would be even worse.
“You’re not going to help with the adoption, are you?” Charlotte asked, the threat of tears evident in her quiet voice.
Having judged his mood all too accurately, she stood now, too, and reached for the photograph with a trembling hand.
Sean wanted to give Charlotte all the reasons why he couldn’t help her. He wanted to ask her, yet again, to understand and accept how he felt about being a father. But what he found himself actually saying surprised him as much as it must surely have surprised his wife.
Catching her hand in his, he stopped her from picking up the photograph. Then, in a gruff voice he barely recognized as his own, he made the only offer he could in good conscience.
“If adopting this child is that important to you, then I will help you in any way I can,” he said.
“Oh, Sean—” Charlotte began, the smile lighting up her face a glorious thing to behold.
“But,” he interrupted her, his voice flat and his gaze steady as he held up a warning hand to her.
He refused to be diverted from the course he’d chosen by either acknowledging or encouraging her initial joy.
“What?” she asked with confusion, her smile quickly fading.
Sean hesitated for the space of a heartbeat. Then he laid out his terms in a steely tone.
“I’ll help you only with the understanding that once we’re home again and you’re settled with the child, our marriage will be over, and I’ll be filing for divorce.”
Chapter Three
Charlotte stared at Sean, the echo of his last words resounding between them in the brightly lit kitchen, punctuated only by the still steady drumbeat of rain against the window above the sink.
She felt as if she’d just been treated to a wild, unwanted roller-coaster ride. The emotional ups and downs she’d experienced in the space of just a few minutes had taken her from hope to disappointment, joy to confusion, then to the final rattling halt of sad realization.
Charlotte had seen the way Sean’s expression had warmed and softened when he’d first allowed himself to look at the photograph of the little girl they’d been chosen to adopt. She had sensed, as well, the melting of his heart as he’d wordlessly acknowledged how eerily the child’s physical features resembled their own.
She had been so sure that he must have thought—as she had—that the toddler in the photo had been born halfway around the world, in answer to all her prayers, especially for them.
In all honesty, his reaction to the photograph had seemed to mirror hers so completely that Charlotte had been certain that Sean would be able to set aside his concerns about his ability to be a good father at last and gladly agree to pursue the adoption with her. He had to have seen, as she had, that here was the child she had been meant to mother. Here, indeed, was the child she had been meant to call her own.
But in the blink of an eye, he’d withdrawn into himself again, the lines and angles of his handsome face deepening. Having obviously reminded himself that by adopting a child he would also be taking on the burden of fatherhood— a burden he no longer wanted—he had visibly hardened his heart to her.
Charlotte had been ready to put away the photograph, to admit defeat and start the long drive back to Mayfair. Sean had always been a decisive man. Once his mind was made up, he rarely, if ever, changed it.
The six months he’d chosen to live in the New Orleans town house rather than with her in Mayfair were proof enough of how true that simple fact remained. Had she remembered how unwavering he could be several hours earlier as she stood beside her mailbox back home, she likely could have saved herself a lot of grief.
He had surprised her, though, with a one-two punch that had momentarily rendered her speechless. First he had offered to help her with the adoption in any way he could, sending a shaft of joyous hope straight to her heart. But then he had laid out his terms in such a cool, calm, businesslike manner that Charlotte had barely been able to swallow around the clog of anguish that lodged in her throat.
She knew that she shouldn’t have been all that surprised by the bargain Sean expected her to make with him. Six months ago he had stated very clearly how he’d felt about continuing their seemingly futile quest to conceive a child. He had also warned her only a few minutes ago that his feeling on the subject hadn’t changed.
But apparently Sean had made a decision regarding their marriage, as well. A firm decision, in fact, since he hadn’t given her any choice in the matter, had he?
He hadn’t said that she could either adopt the child or work with him to put their life together back on track again. He had simply offered to help her with the adoption, and then he’d said he would be filing for divorce.
Charlotte wasn’t sure what she would have done if Sean had actually asked her to choose between him and the child. She still loved him, just as she had almost since the first day she’d met him, and surely would until the day she died.
They had been so happy together for such a long time. He hadn’t been wrong back in June, either, when he’d insisted that they could be happy together again without the baby she’d been so desperate to have.
Only then she’d been in the midst of a hormone-induced emotional turmoil that hadn’t allowed her to see reason in anything he’d had to say to her.
No, Charlotte didn’t think she would have ended her marriage to Sean in exchange for the chance to have a child. But if their marriage was already over in his mind, as it certainly seemed to be, then she might as well do whatever she could to at least have the child she’d always wanted, and had always believed she was meant to have.
“I realize that my terms probably seem harsh to you,” Sean added, finally breaking the silence that had stretched between them so uncomfortably for the past few minutes.
Letting go of her wrist, he took a step back from the island that separated them and crossed his arms over his chest again. Charlotte saw in his stance a reflection of the brook-no-argument mentality he’d adopted six months ago, and allowed herself a small inner sigh of resignation.
No sense making things more difficult than they had to be. He was willing to give her some of what she wanted from him, some of what she needed. Why risk having him withdraw the offer he’d willingly made by voicing an all-or-nothing demand that he obviously didn’t have the heart to honor?
“No, not really, all things considered,” she replied, sitting on her stood again.
She tried to smile so that he would know she understood and accepted the decision he’d made, and harbored no ill will as a result. But she couldn’t be sure if she’d succeeded as he continued to eye her in a grim, uncompromising manner.
“I realize that I’m asking an awful lot of you,” she continued. “I want you to know how grateful I am that you’re going to help me. I also want you to know that I’ll try to make it as easy as possible for you to get through the whole…process—”
“Before we go any further here just tell me one thing, will you?” Sean cut in. “Did you move forward with this business of adopting a foreign baby after I left Mayfair back in June?”
“No, of course not,” she answered without hesitation, stung by the accusation of equivocation on her part underlying his question. “For the first few weeks after you left me, it was all I could do to get out of bed each morning. Then I had to focus as much energy as I possibly could on getting ready for the start of the school year.”
She paused and drew a quick, angry breath.
“I certainly wasn’t plotting to thwart you in any way,” she added. “I’m not that kind of person, and you, of all people, should know that by now. I wasn’t expecting to find this in my mailbox.” Charlotte tapped a hand on the envelope for emphasis, and tipped her chin up angrily. “But I am happy that I did, and I don’t intend to pretend otherwise.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
Typically, Sean didn’t attempt to defend his questioning of her or to backpedal even the slightest bit. But for just an instant, Charlotte was sure that she saw the merest flicker of hurt in his pale gray eyes.
Her response must have touched a nerve with him, as well. Though how exactly, she couldn’t really be sure. Unless he had meant to offer her an ultimatum earlier— either go forward with adopting the child or work together to save their marriage.
“I don’t suppose you’d consider—” Charlotte began, then looked away when his expression hardened again.
He hadn’t said that reconciliation was an option. In fact, he’d been quite firm about his intention to file for divorce once the adoption process had been completed.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said, pushing away from the counter, envelope in hand.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know right now? Otherwise, I’ll just run upstairs, collect my clothes and head on back to Mayfair. We can discuss the adoption again in a few days—”
“You are not driving back to Mayfair tonight,” Sean said. “The weather has only gotten worse since you’ve been here, and that’s going to make it even more dangerous for you to be on the road than it was earlier, especially on the interstate.”
“I’ll be fine—” Charlotte assured him.
She didn’t really want to drive home tonight. But neither did she want to spend the night in the town house with her husband, knowing as she now did that their marriage was over.
“There’s also a lot more I want to know about this adoption business,” Sean added, riding over her feeble protest. “Do you have any idea of exactly what we’re going to have to do? Has the agency given you any information on where we’re supposed to go to collect the child and a specific time frame for doing so?”
Charlotte didn’t much care for the way he phrased his rapid-fire questions—adoption business, process, collecting of a child. He made it sound so cold, so…clinical—as if becoming the parents of the precious little girl in the photograph were just another transaction to be brokered as quickly and efficiently as possible.
But she also had to admit that he had a right to know up-front all that he would be required to do.
Unfortunately, Charlotte couldn’t provide him with the information he wanted in the same concise manner he’d just requested it, though she was sure most, if not all, of it was contained in the envelope.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I haven’t had a chance to look through all of the paperwork the agency sent us.”
“All the more reason for you to spend the night here. That will give us a chance to sort through the packet together,” Sean said amenably enough, then added, “unless you’re ready to call it a night, in which case I don’t mind reading over the information on my own.”
Deftly outmaneuvered, Charlotte realized that Sean had given her two choices, neither of which would allow her to leave New Orleans that night.
Going through the adoption-agency information was going to take awhile, and according to the clock on the kitchen wall it was after ten o’clock already. She was barely alert enough to drive now, although with a little coffee she’d probably be good to go. But a couple of hours from now even coffee wouldn’t help her to stay awake during what would be a long, tedious drive in stormy weather.
The only way she could possibly get away that night would be to leave the envelope with Sean so he could review the contents on his own, and she certainly wasn’t prepared to do that.
“I suppose we might as well go over everything together,” she said at last, though not nearly as graciously as she should have.
“Would you like some coffee before we get started?” Sean offered with the benevolence of one who had triumphed.
“Yes, please.”
Charlotte sat on her stool again, making an effort to tamp down her irritation. How bad could spending one night in the guest room of the town house really be when it would also give her a chance to cement her new affiliation with her soon to be ex-husband?
Obviously, she was about to find out.
“Do you still take cream and sugar?”
“Do you still make coffee strong enough to hold a spoon upright?”
“Cream and sugar it is,” Sean acknowledged with the first hint of humor in his voice that she’d heard all evening.
Reminded of how charming he could be when he put his mind to it—as he was apt to do whenever he’d gotten his way—Charlotte was tempted to lower her guard just a little.
She was stuck in the town house with him for the night, so why not relax and enjoy the companionship Sean now seemed willing to offer her? With the rain still thundering down outside, the small kitchen, light and bright, provided a warm and cozy haven for the two of them.
Only by Sean’s choice they weren’t really a couple anymore—at least not in the same sense that they’d once been. If she allowed herself to pretend otherwise even for an evening, she knew that she would find it even more painful to face the reality awaiting her in the not-too- distant future.
Better to think of her husband as a business partner from now on, Charlotte warned herself as she took the sheaf of paperwork from the envelope and laid it out on the island countertop. A temporary partner with whom she would have dealings for only a short time before he walked out of her life for good.
“You’re looking just a mite grim all of a sudden,” Sean observed as he set two steaming mugs of café au lait on the counter, then sat on the stool across from her again. “Have you come upon something disturbing among all those papers from the adoption agency?”
“The number of forms alone that we’re supposed to complete is daunting,” Charlotte replied, glad to have something to use as a blind for her disquieting emotions.
She took a swallow of the hot, sweet, creamy coffee laced with chicory. Then she spread the various forms out in front of her, reading headings aloud as she turned them toward Sean for his perusal.
“To start, we need a written referral from the adoption agency in New Orleans, criminal background checks from the local and state police, and clearance from Immigration and Naturalization to bring the child into the country. Then we have to apply for approval from the adoption agency’s sister agency in Kazakhstan, as well as from the orphanage there. There’s also a form requesting a formal invitation from the orphanage to adopt the child and another one requesting a visa from the Kazakhstan government allowing us to travel to the city of Almaty where the orphanage is located.”
Charlotte risked a quick glance at her husband. She was afraid that the sheer volume of paperwork required to set the adoption process in motion would be enough to make him change his mind. Even with the agency’s help in assembling the necessary dossier—a service they offered that had been included in the fees she and Sean had already paid—the work involved would be time consuming.
Then they would have to spend approximately four weeks in Kazakhstan, meeting with agency and orphanage personnel and bonding with the child. Only after significant bonding between the adoptive parents and the child had occurred would their request for adoption be presented to the court and approval finally be given.
“They’re quite thorough, aren’t they?” Sean glanced at her, then focused on the forms again, adding, “That’s reassuring, at least to me.”
“Me, too,” Charlotte agreed, releasing with relief the breath she’d been holding.
Sean hadn’t sounded as if he’d been thinking about backing out of his end of the bargain they’d made…at least not yet.
“With so many checks and balances in place, once the adoption has been completed and we’re home again, there shouldn’t be any problem with anyone challenging our rights as the child’s parents,” he continued, surprising Charlotte with his use of we and our, and the plural parents.
Just a slip of the tongue, she told herself, trying hard not to get her hopes up again. But she had to admit that Sean wasn’t distancing himself nearly as much as he’d led her to believe he would earlier. Especially considering the fact that he wasn’t planning on sticking around to be a full-time, or even part-time, father once they’d finished with the business of adopting the child.
