Читать книгу And Babies Make Four - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 8

“Why that no-good so-and-so.”

Grabbing up the newspaper from her desk, Eloise Vale narrowly avoided tipping over her coffee cup and sending a creamy, off-brown river pooling over the exact article she wanted to read. The one that announced that the ever-dapper, much-sought-after mayor of New York, Bill Harper, once her Bill Harper until she’d come to her senses, was debating overwhelming budget cuts in order to balance the city’s budget. Budget cuts that would, in addition to other things, cripple a great many much-needed charitable programs. Her program was on the list of possibilities.

Ignoring her newly rescued coffee, Eloise sat staring at the article, the words bouncing off her eyes like so many misfired photon torpedoes, her stomach cramping up as it wound itself into one huge knot.

There it was, Manhattan Multiples, smack in the middle. The mayor might as well have placed a gun to her head. Or her heart.

“How could he?” she demanded out loud of the cool pastel-blue walls that surrounded her Madison Avenue office.

Her office was the very hub that was Manhattan Multiples, an organization that had begun as a support group championed by one lone woman. Manhattan Multiples had grown like the proverbial weed until it had mushroomed into a foundation occupying three floors of the ten-story building. Rather than just a single small group of people, it now encompassed services that ranged from support groups—including career counseling, Lamaze, yoga and meditation classes—not to mention a thriving day-care center, all for women faced with the frightening and overwhelming reality of giving birth to not just one life-changing child, but two or more.

Eloise knew what that was all about. She’d had to face up to it herself when she’d given birth to her three boys, now all entering their adolescence together, a state guaranteed to turn her ash-blond hair as gray as her eyes. She hadn’t had a clue how to handle the situation, not then. And she wouldn’t have had much more than a hint now if it wasn’t for the organization she’d started and now oversaw, an organization blessed with knowledgeable people who came to share their experiences, their advice and their acquired wisdom with women who were scared out of their minds.

“And he wants to pull the plug on us?” Eloise drew the newspaper closer as she looked at the face of the man she had almost married instead of Walter. “Think again, Billy-boy. If you think I’m capitulating without one hell of a fight, boy have you got the wrong woman.”

With a pronounced sigh, Eloise threw the paper aside and picked up her coffee.