The Dark Side - Danielle Steel Page 0,23
couldn’t eat breakfast she was so upset, and gazed at Jaime as she nursed her as though she might never see her again.
“She’s gonna be happy to see you tonight, Miz Roberts,” Jamala said as Zoe handed the baby over to her with tears streaming down her cheeks, and Austin shepherded her out of the apartment. He had offered to drop her off, and Zoe looked beautiful. She had her figure back six months after she’d given birth, and she looked better than ever and had lost a few extra pounds from the exercise classes she went to in the Village where she could take Jaime in her stroller. She was wearing black jeans and a red sweater, her eyes looked vibrant and alive, her dark hair shone, and she’d had it trimmed to shoulder length. As he looked at her, Austin felt he had his wife back. She was no longer hanging around the apartment in worn-out exercise clothes or a nightgown with breast-milk stains on it. She looked as vital and crisp as she always did when she went to work. She was the consummate professional, with a new facet added. She was a devoted mother too, and they both suspected it was going to give her new depth when dealing with the children who required her attention.
Austin was currently handling two pro bono child abuse and custody cases for them, with appropriate grandparents who were anxious to have custody of their grandchildren and deserved to, in opposition to convicted felon fathers and negligent mothers who were in jail. Zoe had fresh passion to bring to the situations they dealt with. He rode all the way uptown with her to keep her company in the cab, so she wouldn’t be crying alone, and then went to midtown to his office. And he kissed her lovingly when she got out.
“Have fun…see you tonight.” He smiled at her, prouder of her than ever, and he loved having her back in her old life. It gave him hope that their married life would return to a semblance of their old life too, which hadn’t happened yet, since they’d had no help when they were home alone together. Every time he tried to make love to her, the dreaded apnea monitor went off with another false alarm, or Jaime woke up on her own timing and cried, and Zoe went to pick her up, and that was the end of their lovemaking until the next attempt, which would be interrupted again.
They had only made love a few times in the last six months, and he missed it dreadfully. Zoe kept promising that things would calm down again, but they hadn’t yet, and at times he wondered if they ever would. He’d asked his brothers about it, and they said the au pairs they hired had saved their marriages, and gave them time alone with their wives. His oldest brother had sheepishly admitted that he’d had an affair after the twins were born, when he felt that there was no longer time or room for him. But they had gotten past it, and he said that their marriage was back on track again, the affair had been a big mistake, and he regretted it. Austin had no intention of making the same mistake, but he appreciated his brother’s honesty. They had a warm relationship and Austin had confessed that things were up and down with Zoe, she was obsessed with the baby, and had turned into an uber mother overnight. He missed the woman he could make love to whenever he wanted, but he was confident they’d get back to their old rhythms soon.
“Yeah, like maybe when Jaime goes to college,” his brother teased him, and Austin hoped that wouldn’t be true for them, or even close to it. Austin had high hopes of getting their marriage back to where it had been before Jaime, until lunchtime, when Zoe called him in a fury.
She had gone home for lunch unannounced, to nurse the baby instead of pumping. And she had found Jaime, just fed and looking milk drunk, sound asleep in Jamala’s arms, and the Jamaican woman crooning to her.
“What’s wrong with that?” Austin interrupted her. It sounded just right to him, and exactly the kind of person they wanted. She wasn’t some teenybopper wearing headphones and dancing to music, or on the phone with her boyfriend. “Did she give her your milk from the freezer?” Maybe she had given