Broken Circle Read online

The dancer statue that Alex admired, and must have peeked at a while ago, had been glazed and fired in her kiln. The finished piece was what she’d hoped for with its graceful posture and the life that radiated from the peaceful expression and bright colors of the woman’s dress. It reminded Alex of his mother, which was why he wanted to keep it.

  When he talked about his mom, her vibrancy filled the room. But there were times he refused to discuss his life growing up with a single mother, and that made her wonder. When he told the few stories he was willing to share, he painted a picture of her spirited and bubbly personality. Why occasional sadness permeated his words remained a mystery. Alex assured her they wanted for nothing, so the only answer in her mind was that he must have longed for a father figure.

  Maybe she would keep the sculpture for him. There were others, completed ones she could put in one of the galleries that represented her work.

  Her gaze skittered over the shelves, and she noticed the pieces that sat on them were dry. They would have to wait until the one she had just created was dry too. It would be at least three to four weeks before she would have to candle the kiln for her finished piece. Plan in place, she again focused on the table. Her tools were laid out, along with a spray bottle of fresh water to dampen the clay if and when she needed to.

  Ideas came as her hands pressed into the unformed lump. The images were sluggish in materializing, but there. A tiny spark of excitement lit, and she moved her thumb in a sweep across the water-based clay. She knew what the malleable object would yield.

  She began to form the head, which then determined the size and scope of the rest of the figure. As it always did, the clay became a connection to her thoughts, desires, dreams, and experiences. What was born wasn’t always what she set out to create. That was the beauty, the gift. The finished product occasionally surprised her. Rachel would say that some pieces were an unconscious transference from Liv’s mind to the clay, a premonition of sorts. It was a whimsical thing to say and held some merit, but those pieces were most likely a manifestation of her innermost feelings.

  This one was no different.

  Hours passed, and from the slant of the sun, Liv guessed she’d been in her studio the entire day. She stretched her hands over her head, elongating her stiff fingers and sore back muscles, as she observed the sculpture before her. The four figures represented her family: her parents, Alex, and herself. In exquisite detail, she’d duplicated her mother and father, their hands clasped. Liv’s right hand seemed to slide partway into her father’s large grasp, as if she was being pulled away. They formed a semicircle, facing one another, loosely mimicking Circle of Friends or Tom Friedman’s Circle Dance. Her mother’s hand was outstretched, reaching for Alex. Alex held Liv’s left hand in a firm grip, stepping into their unit. Or away? His posture made it difficult to tell.

  She would call this piece Broken Circle.

  With a critical eye, she observed every nuance, ensuring it was complete before setting it on the shelf to dry. At least two to three weeks would pass before she could bisque fire the piece, along with the others waiting. When finished, she would use an under glaze to retain the intricate detail.

  Even though she was exhausted, the need to work on the lovers’ poses compelled her to continue, and she would…tomorrow. While Alex golfed, she would have plenty of time.

  With the new day, Liv’s energy was restored, and she quickly began working in her studio once more. She molded the clay into Alex’s form. As if she traced him, she imposed his characteristics in the manner he held his body—the cast of his head, angles of his face, and flow of his thick hair. The personality he exhibited to the world imprinted into the material and breathed life into the clay. His body language—the tilt of his shoulders and the way his body leaned both into and away from the blob she would soon craft into herself screamed of the conflicting push and pull of emotion.

  Taut, sinewy cords in his arms popped. His slacks strained against the front thigh and slightly bent knee and pulled across his stabilizing back leg. It was near impossible to tell the outcome of his movements from his posture, even for her. Would he reach for her and clasp her hand in his, or was the separated contact a forced break?

  The ache in her back and neck made her straighten from working on the facial features, and she observed the piece with a critical eye. A mask covered the top part of Alex’s face, symbolizing the portion of his life she hadn’t known about when they’d married.

  She set her tool down then stood, stretched, and twisted her body to crack her back. One thing she had to remember was to get up every now and then and move around. When she was deep in her art, she found it difficult to pull herself away, or return to reality, as Alex would say.

  A glance out the wall of windows showed her the sun had travelled a good distance across the sky. Despite the growl from her stomach, she couldn’t bring herself to walk away from her work just yet. There was more she needed to do. The other half of her sculpture begged to be fashioned—the part that represented her.

  A frown pulled her lips down as she studied the piece in its partially formed state. Would this be the last sculpture in her lovers’ series?

  Liv took her seat and, with tentative fingers, began on the next figure. The rough shape was almost the way she wanted, as if the inner workings of her subconscious had transferred to the clay. While Alex wore a shirt rolled up at the sleeves and soon-to-be black slacks, her body was covered in a breezy summer dress. Leaving the face for last, she molded the shape of the dress over her body to cling to her chest and abdomen.

  As she worked the folds in the skirt that rippled away from her clay body, sadness swamped her, and tears rolled unchecked down her face. Absently, she swiped them away with a clean cloth. There was no doubt any longer about the outcome of the sculpture. Another thought formed—an idea that screamed premonition, one she refused to contemplate. The title for the piece sliced through her mind, leaving her bloody and bruised.

  Fractured.

  Chapter 6

  Liv woke disoriented. With the weekend over, she and Alex were back in their apartment in the city. She wondered what had disturbed her as she peered through the dark at the red glowing numbers on her bedside clock. It was just past one in the morning. Another muffled sound reached her ears, and she threw off her covers and tiptoed down the hallway, halting when she heard the noise coming from Alex’s office.

  She was about to knock when his voice carried through the cracked door. Fury and frustration roared through his words. Instinctively, she froze. He sounded so…vicious. The scuff of his shoes against the hardwood brought him closer to the small opening of the cracked door.

  “It’s done. I’ve been setting things up.” A beat passed. “I didn’t tell you about her because it’s none of your damn business. Keep your spies away from her, or I’ll get rid of them myself.” His words whipped out on a growl. “I realize what’s expected.”

  Despite her resolve to leave him to his work, her curiosity and his cryptic speech held her prisoner. With small steps, she inched closer, worried for him, worried for herself. Through the sliver of an opening, she spied on his pacing form. Menace rearranged his features into a man she didn’t know. The phone he pressed against his ear was black, not the silver one they’d purchased together.

  His gaze met hers, and his palm smacked the door, slamming it shut and sending tendrils of alarm through her body. What just happened?

  Shaking off her momentary paralysis, she continued to the kitchen for a glass of water. The phone call had to be in relation to the job, not anything to do with her or their life together. She must have misunderstood. His cases were intense, dangerous. With trembling hands, she took a long drink. It was just that Alex rarely brought his work home with him. There was a call here and there that he took in his office, but nothing like what she had just witnessed.

  They’d been married just over a year. Did this mean his work world was converging with hers? Setting the glass on the counter, she conti
nued to rationalize his behavior. She was acting foolish, wasn’t she? He liked their lives to be disassociated from the details of his investigations. That was why everything—property and utilities—were in her maiden name. Safe. He always insisted they do whatever they could to keep her location and connection separate from him. Over and over again, she had experienced the depth of his feelings and compassion. She needed to do that again and extend her support and love in a time that was obviously tumultuous in his career.

  Even so, worry licked up her spine, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip. There was a reason she’d married him. He was not like her father or the majority of the men she’d grown up around, who were now lawyers, doctors, ran their daddies’ companies, or in politics. At least he wasn’t like that yet.

  Soon, he would be entering that political arena, with her father’s and two other senators’ full support. That dark gleam and dangerous aura that surrounded Alex when she’d first met him during her rebellious years lost some of its appeal. Was she being foolish?

  A conversation she’d had with her mother surfaced. They had been having a heated discussion about what was expected of her. Again. She tasted blood as her teeth pierced her bottom lip. Her mother’s taunt rippled through Liv’s mind as clear as if Evelyn were still alive and in the room with her.

  “Well, thankfully, Alex is driven and utilized the minimal effort you’ve made as his wife,” her mother had said.

  Liv flinched at the veiled disappointment in her mom’s voice. “He has goals, Mother. I’ve done what you and Father asked and introduced him to the right people.” She’d done what they had expected of her, but even so, she refrained from defining her and Alex’s relationship. There was no talking to her mother when their social status was involved.

  “You’ll need to do more than that, dear, to ensure his foothold, and essentially yours.”

  “Stop, Mother. I don’t want the same existence you have. It’s brought nothing but heartache. Alex and I live a different life than you and Dad.”

  “Do you really think that, Olivia?” Her mother’s voice dripped with cool disdain. “It’s a small price to pay to put up with your father’s minor indiscretions. In return, I have money, friends, social status, and the life I want. The only reason, and I do mean only, that you were allowed to marry Alex is because we didn’t want you running off with some bohemian, starving artist who planned to strip you of your trust fund and your inheritance, and because his goals lined up with ours where you are concerned. Make no mistake, Olivia, your life is not that different than mine. Everybody uses each other for something. What do you think Alex needs from you?”

  “Me! He wants me, Mother. There are no secrets between us.” Even as she said it, the odd, pendulum-like moods her husband sometimes displayed weighed heavily on her mind.

  “Don’t be too sure, Olivia,” her mother had said.

  Shoving the memory from her thoughts, Liv pivoted to return to the bedroom so she could go back to sleep and came to a halt. Alex stood in the doorway, wearing an expression that was new to her. Was that fear? Regret?

  Resting a hip against the counter, she ignored her racing heart and offered him a smile. “Did you want something to drink?”

  Without a word, he opened the refrigerator, took a beer out, and downed half before he let it hang from his fingers by his side. A ragged whoosh of air left his lungs as he held her gaze, intensity oozing from his features. “That was work.”

  With a slight nod, she relented and gave in to her spiraling imagination, despite her determination to offer support only. “On a different phone?”

  He tracked her every nuance as if assessing, reanalyzing, and finally coming to a conclusion. “Yes. That one’s for informants and calls regarding specific cases…dangerous ones.”

  Her brows furrowed, unease still churning in her stomach at what she’d overheard. “I can’t handle secrets, Alex. Living in a politician’s household…”

  He crossed the distance in a few steps and pulled her to his chest, one hand cradling her head. “I’m sorry, babe. I have no intention of hiding anything other than the job from you. There are no mistresses and never will be. You’re it for me.” He leaned back and tilted her chin up. “I need to keep you safe. That means the cases I work on have to remain separate from our lives, even if the call comes in the middle of the night like this one did. I’m a different person on those calls. Just bear with me. I don’t want them bleeding into our private world, and I’m doing everything I can to ensure it stays that way.”

  She wasn’t being fair. The job he did helped people, regardless of whether she had to endure a smidgen of doubt. Self-doubt and mistrust needed to stop. Relaxing in small degrees, she gazed into his eyes, worried by the repressed fury lingering there. She’d never seen him like this before. Needing to believe him, she rose up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his mouth.

  She wasn’t being entirely fair. The secret she held close needed to be shared.

  A mass of jumbled nerves, she couldn’t wait. “I know you are, and you’re right. We shouldn’t have any secrets between us. Alex, I have some news.” Squeezing her hands behind her, she tilted her head back to look into his eyes. With his full attention on her, she forged ahead and ripped the Band-Aid off. “We’re going to have a baby. I’m pregnant.”

  He stopped with the beer halfway to his lips. Silence reigned between them until violence exploded from his features in a menacing sneer and dilated eyes. “Fuck!” He hurled the beer, and it exploded across the backsplash diagonal from her.

  Her heart hammered against her chest, and her breath sawed in and out.

  Alex raked his hands through his hair, tilted his head back, and pushed out a breath. “How? How did this happen? You’re on the pill!”

  “My parents died, and I forgot how to live, and that included my birth control pills. I missed a few, or a lot. God, Alex, it wasn’t planned.” Sliding her foot sideways, she inched away, wanting nothing to do with him.

  Raking his hands through his hair, he tugged on the strands then reached for her. His hands locked on her arms, and she froze. Several breaths wheezed through his nose, and his lips were tightly clenched. He drew out a blink, and his pupils returned to their rightful size. His reaction was more than unexpected. Shock, sure, but violence?

  Caught in his remorseful gaze, she waited. The emotional blow from his outburst radiated pain along her insides.

  “Liv, I’m so sorry.” Enfolding her against his chest, he cradled her head, swaying from side to side. “I never meant… It was a huge shock.”

  Small tremors coursed through her stiff body. He’d never displayed his anger like that. In slow increments, her shock turned to outrage.

  A small smile, which looked more like a grimace, flashed across his face. “A baby. So unexpected. It’s just…we talked about this. I thought we agreed that, at the very least, we’d wait. Even then, bringing a kid into this world, especially with the dangers from my job… I don’t want my past to touch our future. You hold my future.”

  “I’m aware of all that,” she snapped. “Hearing you tell me, after we were married, that you didn’t even think you wanted kids was upsetting. This wasn’t planned, Alex. But it’s happening, and you need to get on board with it.”

  A tremor shook his hand as he lifted it. “Sweetheart, you’re right.” His swallow was audible. “You’re everything to me, and you don’t even know it.” With gentle fingers, he caressed her cheek. “I don’t expect you to understand, or even forgive me.”

  “I get that you didn’t want kids and that this is a shock to you too, Alex. You need to be happy, to accept this. Not throw a tantrum.” She pushed his hands off her and paced the length of the kitchen floor. “The way you reacted, throwing a beer, doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s the job, babe. The pressure is beyond intense, and my reaction was unwarranted. A baby with you is a good surprise, just not expected so soon. Dammit, I thought we’d have more time. I hoped we
would.” His teeth clenched, and he held still before he visibly relaxed once more. “I like having you all to myself.” He pulled her into his embrace.

  She tilted her head back, glared at him, and gave his chest a small push. Once he loosened his hold, she studied his face and the cocktail of emotions swimming across his features. Did fear swirl through the mix?

  “Well, there’s really no excuse for what I did.” He dropped his arms from her and ran his hands through his hair, his mouth a grim line. “There are things going on right now. It’s risky and dangerous, and I worry about it touching what we have.” He flinched. “Then I go and do this instead. I promise I’ll work harder to never let my stress touch you or what we have together.”

  She threw her hands up in the air, frustrated that he only partially understood her distress. “What happened here is proof. You’re bottling too much up. You’ve got to let me in, even if it’s just so I can understand what’s going on. Because this, tonight, can’t ever happen again. If it does, you’ll lose me.”

  Needing to, she forgave him for his less-than-thrilled response to her news. Rachel had also told her that it was horribly intense at the station. Something was going down, and it must have been nearing a critical stage. Normally, he withheld everything from her about his job and his career. It worked for them. Upon the completion of a big case, or in the event of a promotion, he shared a few things…sparingly. She knew he needed time to decompress, and their dinners were usually just the thing to do the trick.

  Alex opened the fridge for another beer then took a long drag before speaking. The mess he made went unaddressed. There was no way she was going to clean that. He would take care of it later, not Stephanie who cleaned for them, but him.

  She stood there, unsure what would come next. Hopefully, he would show a smidgeon of acceptance and excitement at the very least. He would come to accept their baby, right? His fingers tightened on the neck of the bottle, and she worried further.