My Father’s Wife Chapter 07

My Father’s Wife Chapter 07

Julian’s POV

Greenwich in July smelled like fresh-cut country club grass and stale old money.

After the Cape, everything went back to normal.

Dad left for Manhattan at six every morning. I left half an hour later for my wealth-management internship in Midtown.

The job was boring as hell.

I spent my days staring at Bloomberg screens, fixing Excel models, and fetching coffee for men who forgot my name before lunch.

By the time I got home every night, I was tired, irritated, and sick of pretending I cared about asset allocation.

Clara was usually already upstairs.

Her door stayed shut.

Good.

That made things easier.

Except the house was too quiet at night.

I would lie awake with the window cracked open, sweat cooling on my chest, and think about the Mobil restroom.

The thin door.

The sound she made behind it.

The look on her face when she opened the door and saw me standing there.

Then I would think about the laundry room at the Cape. Her legs around my waist. Her nails in my back. Her mouth open against mine while the ocean slammed outside.

It had been sex.

Stupid, hot, filthy sex.

That was all.

Clara was still Dad’s wife. I was still his son. The house still looked perfect from the street.

Nothing had changed.

On Thursday night, I got home late from a networking dinner.

The downstairs lights were dim, and Dad’s study door was half open.

I loosened my tie and headed for the stairs.

Then I heard Clara’s voice.

“I don’t want a child.”

I stopped.

Dad answered in that calm, expensive voice he used when he expected people to be grateful.

“We’ve been married three years, Clara. Your loans are paid off. You’re settled here. A child would secure your place in the family.”

Clara didn’t say anything.

I leaned against the wall and listened.

I shouldn’t have cared.

Dad made everything sound like business. Houses, trusts, wives, babies. It was all the same when he said it.

Clara finally spoke.

“You’re not asking me.”

Dad sighed. “I’m thinking long-term.”

“For me?”

“For us.”

Dad’s glass clinked against the desk.

“We’ll talk about this when I’m back from Tokyo.”

A few seconds later, Clara walked out. She passed the stairs with her face blank, her arms folded tight across her stomach.

I watched Clara disappear down the hall.

Dad stayed in the study and made another call.

“Tokyo is confirmed,” he said. “Have the car ready tomorrow morning.”

I stood by the stairs, one hand still hooked around my loosened tie.

A child.

Of course Dad wanted that next.

He had paid off her loans, moved her into Greenwich, put his name on her life, and let everyone call her Mrs. Vance. Now he wanted something with blood in it. Something that would keep her tied to the house even if she stopped liking the deal.

Clara had to know that.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew what she had married. She liked the money, the clothes, the easy way people stepped aside when she walked into a room on Dad’s arm.

Maybe she thought that was where the bargain ended.

The thought amused me.

Clara Vance, shocked to learn marriage to Arthur came with terms and conditions.

She had looked comfortable enough for three years. The house, the clothes, the black card, the quiet little charity lunches where everyone treated her like she had been born into all of it.

I couldn’t think of a single reason she would draw the line at a baby.

Then again, it wasn’t my problem.

My internship was already eating me alive. The girls in my analyst class were pretty, sharp, and more than willing to flirt over overpriced drinks after work. I had enough ways to kill time without standing in a hallway wondering why my father’s wife didn’t want his child.

So I went upstairs, stripped off my suit, and left Clara’s little refusal where it belonged.

Behind Dad’s study door.