Читать книгу Baby's First Christmas - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 9

I t had been one of those extremely long days that felt as if it would never end. Marlene sighed as she kicked off her high heels and entered the living room. The thick rug felt good beneath her stockinged feet, and she allowed herself to absorb the sensation, letting it settle over her. It always took her a while to unwind.

She had thought, once she had gotten through her fourth month, that she would cease to feel so tired. But she supposed she hadn’t taken into account marathon days that began at six and lasted until seven in the evening. Tonight she felt like the rag that had been used to wipe the benches at Dodger Stadium.

Sinking down in the wing chair, she raised her feet onto the ottoman. Even that little movement was a tremendous effort.

She knew she really should make more of an attempt to cut back on her hours. Dr. Pollack had been pretty adamant about it, saying that if she wasn’t careful, she ran the risk of coming down with toxemia. Then she would really be out of commission. That warning had put the fear of God into her. Temporarily. Marlene had compromised by restructuring her work day—down to ten hours from sixteen.

Except for today.

A rueful smile lifted the corners of her mouth. God knew she tried, but in reality she didn’t know how not to work. And she had completely forgotten how to actually relax for more than a few minutes at a time. Her usual pattern was to work until she was numb and then collapse into bed.

Just like Father, she remembered ruefully. The comparison didn’t please her.

Marlene lifted her hair from her neck. It was the end of November, but she felt uncomfortably warm. She hoped it wasn’t a warning sign that something was wrong.

Her thoughts returned to her father, making her frown. She liked to think that she was different from James Bailey. Yet here she was, working long hours and still living in the family house, just as he had continued to do after her mother had left.

The house was hers now, just as the business was. She hadn’t been able to convince him to divide it equally between Nicole and herself in his will. He’d hung on to the feud with Nicole until the day he died.

After his death, Marlene had tried to persuade Nicole to move in with her, especially after Craig had been killed in a race car accident. But, widowed and pregnant, Nicole had remained stubbornly against it. To this day she wanted nothing to do with her father’s things and insisted on going it alone. There were times when Nicole could be maddeningly independent, Marlene mused.

Just as she was.

It was a Bailey trait, Marlene supposed. But it did tend to get in the way when the Baileys’ dealt with each other. It would have been better for Nicole to have moved back in. Just as it would have been better if she had never run off to marry Craig in the first place.

Marlene let her head drop back against the padded chair. That was all in the past, she thought. Her hand rested on her abdomen. And this was her future, at least a very important part of it.

The house was almost eerily quiet. Sally had gone to bed after straightening up the kitchen, complaining about the meager dinner Marlene had consumed.

“You’re doing harm to the baby, see if you’re not,” Sally had announced, her dark brows forming a single accusing line over the bridge of her hawklike nose.

Marlene had let her grumble. She knew Sally enjoyed fussing over her. The old woman anticipated the birth of the baby almost more than she did. Sally liked to boast that after the baby’s arrival, she was going to add nanny to her résumé, right after housekeeper.

Sally didn’t need a résumé, Marlene thought. She intended to keep the woman on forever. Without Sally, she would be lost.

She passed her hand over her eyes. The beginning of a headache was taking hold. It did nothing to improve her mood. She hated these mood swings that insisted on battering her. Something else she had been unprepared for in this pregnancy.

One more month to go, she promised herself. It seemed endless when she thought of it in single minutes.

The phone rang, startling her. Habit had her glancing at her watch before answering. Nine o’clock. She wondered if it was Harris calling from London. She’d sent him there a week ago to handle the final negotiations of their first transatlantic account.

She preferred handling everything on her own and had wanted to make the trip herself. But her due date was less than a month away, and she didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances. She wanted nothing to ruin this precious opportunity she had at becoming a mother.

If that meant trusting someone else to take care of the negotiations for the agency, so be it. If this deal fell through, then there would be other contracts. But there was never going to be another child for her. This one was it.

That feeling alone, she thought, separated her from her father. Nothing had ever gotten in the way of negotiations for James Bailey. Not his children, not his wife, not the death of his father. It was always business—first, last and always.

If Robby had lived, perhaps things would have been different.

She was getting maudlin. This had to stop. Marlene jerked up the receiver on the third ring, shaking off her mood. “Yes?”

She snapped out greetings like a commando. He wondered if it was going to set the tone of their conversation. “Ms. Bailey?”

The rich voice that filled the receiver didn’t belong to Harris. His was higher with an undertone of nervousness that never left him. She knew instantly who it was. The man whose calls she’d refused to return at the office.

Marlene tensed. “Why are you calling me at home?”

“I would think that would be obvious. You won’t return my calls during office hours.” He had left a dozen messages in the last three days. She hadn’t returned any of them.

She had hoped that he would get the point and tire of calling her. Wishful thinking. “How did you get this number?” she demanded.

He laughed and the sound was oddly warming, like wine drunk too quickly on an empty stomach. Marlene pressed her hand to her forehead. She was more tired than she’d thought.

Getting her number had been relatively easy with his connections. “To quote a cliché,” which might be more than apt here, he thought, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, Ms. Bailey.”

“Not always,” she snapped. Why didn’t he just go away?

Charming to the end, he mused. And yet, there was something about her that was compelling.

He read the message in her voice loud and clear, then disregarded it. “You’ve had a few days to think about our conversation. I’d like the opportunity to discuss it further with you. How about lunch tomorrow?”

When hell freezes over. “Sorry, I’m busy.”

“All right, dinner then.” He had a previous engagement, but this was more important than attending one of Alan and Cynthia Breckinridge’s parties.

She smiled smugly. Usually, her evenings were free, but not tomorrow night. It spared her the trouble of lying. She’d accepted the invitation to the party over a month ago. “I’m sorry, I have a social function I have to attend tomorrow evening.”

“Black tie?” he guessed.

She didn’t see why that would make a difference to him. “Yes.”

“Lucky for you I own one.”

Marlene sat upright, removing her feet from the ottoman. Was he actually inviting himself along? “What you have in your closet doesn’t interest me, Travis. You’re not invited.”

He could easily swing an invitation, too, if necessary. Almost anyone throwing what Marlene termed a social function had to be on his list of acquaintances. If not his, then his father’s.

“You need an escort, don’t you?”

There was no end to this man’s gall. “What makes you think I don’t have one?”

He laughed. This time, the sound annoyed the hell out of her. “You went to a sperm bank to become pregnant, Marlene. I think it’s safe to assume that you do a lot of things by yourself. So, when do I pick you up?”

He’d called her Marlene, not Ms. Bailey. He was getting way too personal.

“You don’t.” With that, she broke the connection and left the receiver off the hook. She let out a long breath. That should stop him from annoying her tonight.

Tomorrow was something she would deal with when the time came—and it would come all too soon. Right now, she didn’t want to think about it.

Nicole eased the door open and slipped quietly across the threshold into the office. Marlene’s secretary, Wanda, had momentarily stepped away from her desk, so there was no one to announce her. She liked it that way.

She observed her older sister for a moment before she greeted her. Marlene was so immersed in her work, she was oblivious to the fact that there was anyone else in the office with her.

Marlene worked too hard, Nicole thought reprovingly. She’d always worked too hard. There’d never been a financial need to do so, but Nicole knew that for Marlene there had been an emotional one.

As if James Bailey had ever noticed.

Nicole remained in the doorway and crossed her arms over the swell of her abdomen. It’d been a little over a year since their father had died, but it still felt odd seeing Marlene sitting behind that desk.

The few times that she had been ushered into this office along with her brother and sister, her father had been sitting in that very chair. Like as not, he would be bent over his work, just as Marlene was now. He would ignore their presence until the last possible moment, even when one of them made a noise to catch his attention.

Whether it was to put them in their place or because he really was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t notice them, Nicole never knew. But even as a child, she’d been aware of being angry. Angry because he was making all of them feel so insignificant.

Or trying to.

And now Marlene was sitting there in his place, frowning over a report just the way their father had done countless times before.

Nicole felt like taking her sister and shaking some sense into her, forcing her to realize what she was in danger of becoming. Making her stop before it was too late. Before Marlene traveled down the same road their father had.

Nicole sighed quietly. Maybe things would change once the baby finally arrived.

At least she hoped so.

Nicole closed the door behind her and walked over to the desk. She cleared her throat loudly. “You realize, of course, that you are going to have to stop working long enough to give birth. Two, three hours might be forever lost.”

Marlene looked up, startled. She hadn’t heard her sister come in. Nodding a greeting to Nicole, Marlene straightened, pressing her back against the chair’s padded upholstery. She flexed her shoulders slightly. There was a crick in them that traveled down the entire length of her spine.

“I’m trying to work that into my schedule.” Marlene smiled fondly at her sister. She blinked, clearing her mind of statistics. It wasn’t easy. They seemed to cram her head just like the baby crammed her body. “What are you doing here?”

Nicole glanced at Marlene’s desk. The surface was an ode to compulsive organization, folders all neatly piled and placed parallel to the edge of the desk. No flurry of papers the way there would have been if she was working here instead.

But advertising campaigns weren’t her forte. Neither was neatness. They would have clashed inside of a day. It was better this way.

Nicole moved a folder with the tip of her index finger, her eyes on Marlene’s. “Well, I thought that since Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain, the mountain would come to Mohammed.”

Very carefully, Marlene returned the folder to its original position. It made her feel better to have things exactly where she wanted them. Where she could easily put her hands on them when she needed them. It was comforting. The reason the company ran so smoothly was due to creativity, but it also owed its success in no small part to organization. Her organization. That meant a great deal to her.

Marlene nodded at her sister’s widened waist. “More like the mountain coming to the mountain and forming a huge range.”

Holding on to the armrests, Nicole lowered herself into the chair before Marlene’s desk. Due roughly a couple of weeks after her sister, she was larger and appeared even more so because she was almost three inches shorter.

She let out a long sigh of relief as she sat back. “I’m on my lunch break, and since you haven’t taken one in five years unless it involved a client, the odds were that I’d find you in, so I decided to pop by.”

That still didn’t explain what Nicole was doing here. Marlene knew firsthand that these days it was difficult for Nicole to just “pop by” anywhere. There had to be a reason behind this so-called spontaneous visit.

Marlene rose from her desk and rounded it until she was beside her sister. Only concern about Nicole’s welfare ever managed to get her mind off her ever increasing mound of work. “Is anything wrong?”

Nicole shrugged casually, shifting the point of focus back to her sister. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

Marlene looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

It wasn’t actually the main reason she’d stopped by, but now that she’d thought of it, Nicole followed up. “You didn’t make any sense on the telephone when I talked to you yesterday. I thought maybe things might sound a little clearer if I watched your lips while you talked.”

Marlene laughed shortly. She supposed she had sounded a little distraught when she told Nicole about Travis’s appearance. She’d meant to keep the whole thing to herself, but Nicole’s call had caught her at a bad time and part of the story had tumbled out. Not wanting to upset Nicole, she had glossed over the rest of it.

“Believe me, it won’t sound any clearer now.” She thought of Travis and the annoying phone call last night. “All I know is that my unborn child’s uncle is an ass.”

“He just appeared out of the blue? For no reason?”

“Oh, there’s a reason, all right. I told you, he wants custody.” Just talking about it had her throat tightening. “The bastard is willing to make ‘compensations.’ As if I’d sell my baby.”

Nicole knew that look in Marlene’s eyes and could almost feel sorry for Sullivan Travis. She had no doubts that Marlene had put him in his place royally. “Do you think he’ll try to bother you again?”

“I don’t think, I know.” She sighed, exasperated. “I’ve been refusing his phone calls, but he got through last night at the house and wanted to meet with me again now that I’ve had ‘time to think it over.”’

“Did you tell him to go to hell?”

“I think he got the message.” Marlene rested her bottom against the top of the desk. She tried very hard not to let pregnancy slow her down, but there were times when it seemed to hit her right between the eyes. Or a little lower, she thought in momentary amusement.

“Do you think you should get in contact with Monty?” Nicole asked, referring to their family lawyer.

“Not yet, but I will if I have to. Right now, I’m not going to think about Travis. The holidays are coming. I’m pregnant, and I’ve got a social function to attend tonight.” Her mouth curved as she remembered. “One he wanted to ‘escort’ me to. That’s when I hung up on him.”

“That sounds like you.” Nicole looked at her sister’s face. “You look tired, Marlene. Why don’t you stay home tonight instead of going out?”

Marlene knew exactly what Nicole thought of the social get-togethers she attended. Her sister felt that they were full of pompous people who liked to hear themselves talk. Who liked to have other people hear them talk. She thought the assessment unfair. But whether it was true or not, business was business. She had to attend. Besides, she had promised Cynthia.

“It’s the best place to make connections, Nic,” she reminded her.

Nicole rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, those almighty connections. Where would we be without them?”

A wall materialized between them, the one that always rose when their diverse approaches to life came up. “Don’t use that tone with me, Nicole. You sound just the way you did when you talked to Father.”

Nicole’s eyes held her sister’s. James Bailey had been heartless; Marlene wasn’t. She couldn’t stand to see her sister waste her life away in some office. There were more important things than work. Marlene had to know that, or why else would she have gone to the trouble of getting pregnant?

She frowned. “Maybe that’s because sometimes you sound just like Father. Like now.”

Marlene retreated behind the desk. Splaying her hands across the chair’s high leather back, she drew herself up. “You’re pregnant and your hormones are running havoc on your judgment, so I’ll overlook that remark.”

“Don’t overlook it, take it to heart.” It was a frustrated plea.

And then she relented. Nicole rarely employed retreat, but she knew its value. Because Marlene was her sister and she hadn’t come by to antagonize her, she dropped the subject.

Nicole rose slowly from her chair. Another couple of minutes and she wouldn’t be able to get up at all. Her leg felt as though it had fallen asleep. The baby, ever restless, had apparently shifted its elephantine weight over a nerve. “Maybe I’d better get going and let you do what you do best.”

Marlene frowned as the buzzer sounded on her desk. She depressed the speaker button. “Yes, Wanda?”

Her secretary’s crisp British accent filled the air. “You wanted me to remind you of your twelve-thirty meeting, Ms. Bailey.”

Marlene mechanically reached for the folder she’d been reviewing earlier. Where had the morning gone? She’d meant to finish up the idea she was working on before joining the others for a brainstorming session to revamp a car manufacturer’s stodgy image. She’d always liked being prepared, but it still wasn’t completed.

“I’m already on my way.” Marlene’s finger slipped from the small key, and Wanda’s presence instantly vanished. Marlene could feel Nicole’s eyes on her, studying her critically.

“Slow down, Marlene, or this baby you’re about to have isn’t going to have a mother to help him or her celebrate a first birthday.”

Marlene opened her mouth, then closed it again, reshuffling the words that were on the tip of her tongue. Nicole was only being concerned. And sometimes, it did feel good to have someone care if she ran herself into the ground.

“You’re right, I am doing too much. It’s just that—”

“You can’t let go.” Their father had always said that. Nicole’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but those aren’t original words.”

Marlene had been at the office since six, and she wasn’t in the mood to argue. “Stop hinting that I’m Father.”

“Who’s hinting? Aren’t you listening? I’m stating it outright.”

The baby kicked hard, hitting something that felt very vital. Marlene winced. “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”

Nicole merely nodded as she began walking toward the door. Almost there, she stopped and turned around. “Oh, and by the way…”

Her tone was far too nonchalant for Marlene to be fooled. Now they were getting down to it, she thought, crossing to where she stood. Now they were getting to the real reason that Nicole had come by.

“Yes?”

Nicole dug into her purse and produced an envelope. “This came yesterday.” She held it up to her sister. “I’m sure it was sent in error.”

Marlene didn’t have to look at the contents to know what her sister was talking about. She’d mailed the envelope herself the day before yesterday. It contained a single piece of paper. A check against Nicole’s trust fund.

Exasperation shimmied through her. Nicole could be so damn stubborn. Marlene made no move to take the envelope from her. “So that’s why you’re here?”

“That’s why I’m here.” Crossing to the desk, Nicole dropped the envelope on top of a folder.

Marlene struggled not to lose her temper. “Nic, grandmother’s money must be gone by now.”

Nicole shook her head. “Not yet,” she answered mildly. “There’s still some left.”

Nicole’s tone belied the feelings of frustration churning within her. She hadn’t wanted to wind up in these circumstances, pregnant and widowed, on the threshold of the rest of her life but caught in a holding pattern. But she would be damned if she was going to take handouts. She had always wanted to earn her own way, and she was going to do just that. Very soon.

“I stretched it,” she told Marlene. An ironic smile curved her soft mouth. “Some things I did pick up while living under James T. Bailey’s reign of terror.”

It felt right referring to her father by his given name, more so than calling him Father. He’d never been that to any of them. Only biology had made him a father, not love. Never love.

Nicole shrugged. “Being frugal comes in handy these days. And,” she added needlessly, “I do work at the art gallery.”

That wasn’t earning her anything and they both knew it. “A few days a week.”

Nicole remained unfazed by her sister’s sharp tone. “The holidays are here. I’m almost full-time. It all adds up.”

Marlene felt her temper sharpening. Lately, it took very little to set her off. “Why will you accept the art gallery owner’s money and not that?” She waved a hand at her desk to where the check lay. “It’s rightfully yours, you know.”

The money was part of a trust fund that had taken all of Marlene’s best negotiating skills to set up. Initially her father had staunchly refused to allow it. He’d wanted to cut Nicole off without a penny after she’d run off. But Marlene had finally convinced him, utilizing his vanity as a tool. How would it look, his cutting off his penniless daughter? He had always been concerned with what others thought of him. In that light, he’d thought of his children as extensions of himself. So he had agreed, and Nicole had benefited—if she would only accept the money.

“Answer to question one…” Nicole said, holding up a finger. “Because I work for Lawrence, and what I get from him is a paycheck, not charity. Answer to question two…” A second finger joined the first. “It’s rightfully mine when I’m thirty, not now. I can get by, Marlene. And I really don’t want his money.”

It always came back to that. The feud. “He’s dead, Nicole, can’t you forgive him?”

“No.” Nicole snapped, then relented. “Not yet.”

Marlene felt the clock ticking away the minutes between her and the pending meeting. Still, she couldn’t let this matter go just yet. “At least come live at the house.”

Nicole smiled at Marlene, but she remained adamant on that point as well, even though the invitation was extended to her almost weekly. “No way.”

For all intents and purposes, their parents were gone. Their father was dead and their mother had disappeared out of their lives years ago. There was no one in the house but her and Sally. Marlene’s voice lowered. She didn’t hear the trace of wistfulness in it. But Nicole did. “I’m not that bad company.”

Nicole didn’t want to hurt Marlene, but she couldn’t turn her back on what she felt was right, either. “You have nothing to do with it. Call it stubborn pride. Call it not wanting to encounter the ghost of our ‘beloved father,’ whispering, ‘I told you you’d come crawling back.”’

“Nic—” Marlene reached out to touch Nicole’s shoulder, but Nicole moved aside.

“Call it whatever you want,” she continued, “but I want to do this on my own—financially.” She tempered her voice and looked at her sister. “Just let me lean on you emotionally once in a while and I’ll be fine.”

Marlene smiled at Nicole. This was what she wanted, to have Nicole turn to her. If they did it in degrees, that didn’t change things. For now, they were all the family they had. Until the babies were born.

She shook her head at Nicole, her expression a fond one. “God, but you are stubborn.”

Nicole agreed readily. “Also learned at Ye Old Inn of Sadness. Besides,” she said, nodding at Marlene’s desk, “I wouldn’t throw any rocks if I were you.”

The buzzer sounded again like an angry goose that had been ignored. Nicole sighed.

“Try to enjoy yourself tonight, Marlene.” She patted Marlene’s arm as she slipped by her into the hall.

Marlene thought of the hours she would be on her feet and sighed inwardly. “I’ll do my best.”

Marlene slowly slipped on her black pumps.

She really didn’t want to go to this party. She felt tired and heavy tonight.

If she could, she would have just collapsed onto the bed and closed her eyes. But even as the idea suggested itself, she knew it was impossible. She had responsibilities. Clients to socialize with and new ones to garner.

She looked into the mirror, slowly running her hands along the outline of her stomach, trying to visualize the occupant housed within. The one who made her so tired all the time.

Never had eight months taken so long to drag by. Part of her couldn’t wait for the baby to be born, and part of her, the part that secretly feared the unknown, could hang on just a while longer until she was more prepared.

She sighed. It felt as if she had been pregnant forever.

Marlene focused on her reflection. Her hair was piled up high on her head, with tendrils curling along her neck. She knew she looked attractive, but that didn’t change things. She still didn’t feel like attending the party. The prospect of talking about nothing but business wearied her before the night had even begun.

Not that she wasn’t good at networking. Despite what her father had implied, she had a flair for it. It was a gift. She was good at dreaming up campaigns that could take a flagging product and boost its sales until the manufacturer made an exceptional showing on the market. Schooled at her father’s unbending knee, Marlene had a knack of tuning in to the right buzz words, the right attributes to showcase a product and capture the public’s attention.

She supposed that it might seem odd to some that with a knack like that, she couldn’t manage to transfer it directly to people. But she couldn’t.

She’d never had time to relate to people and their natural foibles. Whatever friendships she had were all work related.

Marlene curled one stubborn wisp until it fell like the others along her neck. Maybe if she had succeeded in getting her father’s approval just once, she wouldn’t have been so intensely involved in work.

Marlene smiled to herself. It was a sad, knowing smile. If she had succeeded once, she probably would have tried even harder, hoping lightning would strike twice.

In the privacy of her own room, in the shadows of her own mind, there was no denying the hunger she had always had to win his approval. To win his love. She had believed—hoped really—that there was more to him than he outwardly showed. That was why she had tried so hard to relate to him on his own territory.

Marlene glanced one last time at her image in the full-length mirror. The flared black velvet evening jacket gracefully camouflaged the fact that she was bordering on something that Greenpeace was taking under its protective wing. Beneath the jacket she wore a wide, floor-length black velvet skirt and a crimson camisole that flowed over it. It was flattering and made her feel a little less like a Sherman tank.

But not by much.

Sally looked up as Marlene descended the stairs. “You look like a knockout,” she told her matter-of-factly, and Marlene knew she meant the compliment.

Sally never wasted time with words she didn’t mean. She was more like a drill sergeant than a housekeeper, but she had her soft edges. Marlene loved her because she felt that Sally always told her the truth, whether it was good or bad.

“You’re wasting it on those bozos tonight.”

Leave it to Sally to take everyone down to a common denominator. “I don’t think the head of Acme Oil sees himself as a bozo.”

Sally grinned as she handed Marlene her purse. “That makes the title all the more fitting. I sure hope you’re not going to be doing this once the baby’s here.”

Once the baby was here, everything would change. “No, I promise you, the pace will lessen.” She smiled. “You sound like Nicole.”

“The girl makes sense. Well, if you’re determined to go, go.” Sally shooed Marlene to the door. “Have a good time.”

Marlene leaned over to brush her lips over the old woman’s wrinkled cheek. “Just for you, Sally.”

She grinned as she heard the woman muttering under her breath as she closed the door behind her.