Boston Avant-Garde 6: Chiaroscuro by Kaitlin Maitland Page B

new cousin.”
    Great, just effing perfect. Turn the knife in the wound, why don’t you?
    The room was filled with his family. Lars had conveniently forgotten that Erik and Talia would be stopping by before returning to New York with their now five-month-old son Gabriel. Lars had made it just in time to join the party.
    “Come and hold the baby, Lars.” Selena was offering the little guy a pacifier while cuddling him to her chest.
    Lars gingerly sat on the chaise next to Selena. He didn’t want to hold the baby. He didn’t want anything to do with it. Putting his hands on his thighs, he gripped hard enough to crease his slacks.
    Erik leaned back in his seat and put an arm around his wife. “You look dressed for the office.”
    Lars was glad for the safe topic. “Figured I would go in and finish up the proposal for that new contract so you didn’t have to deal with it your first week back.”
    “Appreciated,” Erik murmured. His gaze flickered toward his son. “It’ll be hard to settle back into the office, but I think Talia will be glad to get me out from underfoot for a few hours every day.”
    She swatted him gently. “It’s not like that, and you know it.”
    Lars’s mother snatched the baby from Selena’s arms and hoisted Gabe onto her shoulder. She hummed while she rocked back and forth with the little boy settled comfortably over her shoulder. There was no masking the desperate longing for grandbabies of her own. His lungs seized, and it felt as if he were being flayed alive.
    His aunt Annaline entered the room with a bottle. “Here, Caroline. Would you like to feed him?”
    Caroline took the offered bottle and swept the baby off her shoulder. “Lars, when are you going to settle down and give me one of these to love? Annaline has one grandchild, and I have none at all. She has two married children, so I’ll never have a prayer of catching up in that regard, but you could help me with this if you ever took the notion.”
    Lars felt Selena tighten up beside him, and he realized his mother had snubbed her yet again. This time it was probably unintentional.
    “Actually,” Annaline inserted. “Gabriel is my second grandchild, though he is the first boy. Selena’s daughter, Alisa, is my first.”
    Desiree shared a smile with Selena. “And God knows Mama and Allie share every characteristic but the blood tie. That girl should’ve been born an Aasen.”
    Caroline made a harrumphing noise and didn’t spare Annaline or Selena a glance when she settled down to bottle-feed the baby. Lars wished his mother could accept Selena’s choice. Unfortunately, his mother wasn’t wired that way. She never had been.
    Selena stood up. “That reminds me. I should call and remind Malachi to pick up Allie at school.”
    Lars watched his cousin leave the room. There was no way Malachi would ever forget Allie at school, and they all knew it. Selena just needed a moment away from Lars’s mother.
    Caroline smiled softly at the little boy in her arms. “I think you should plan something special for Isabel, Lars. Maybe flowers or jewelry would remind her why she fell in love with you the first time.”
    Erik cocked his head to one side. “You’re escorting Isabel Adams-Channing to the reception this Friday night?”
    The disbelief in his cousin’s tone mirrored the feeling in Lars’s gut. “Mother arranged it so it would have been impossible to refuse.”
    Caroline cooed at Gabe, pitching her words like baby talk and making the little boy smile. “My son isn’t going to find the perfect woman and settle down without some help. Isn’t that right, precious one?”
    Lars decided Selena had the right idea. He got up to leave the room.
    His mother frowned. “Where are you going?”
    “To check on Selena.” Lars wished his mother weren’t so overbearing. He did love her, but sometimes she forgot that he was a grown man capable of making his own choices.
    Or screwing up my own life. Whichever works.
    He found Selena