Kitabı oku: «No Ring Required», sayfa 5
Six
Ethan’s body tightened at the sight of Mary walking down the dock toward him. A white T-shirt, pink shorts and bare feet had never looked so dangerous on any woman. Visions swam in his mind, images of soft skin against his mouth and long legs wrapped around his waist, cute round buttocks cupped in his hands. This intense physical reaction was becoming way too famil iar, and he wondered if the only way he was going to get rid of it was to take her to bed again.
Ethan had known many women in his time, but his need for them had faded quickly. Why wasn’t it the same with Mary Kelley? Why had the desire to taste her, fill his nostrils with her scent, open her thighs and bury himself deep inside her only intensified over time? Was it the baby or something else, something more?
Her pale-blue eyes mocked him as she came to stand before him, a grin tugging at her mouth. “You are officially stalking me now, Curtis.”
“Well, one of us has to protect the baby,” he muttered grimly.
“What in the world are you talking about?”
He gestured to the water. “Out there on the open water, no life jacket, no nothing.”
“Open water?” she repeated, laughing. “Come on. This is a lake, calm as a sleeping kitten. There’s no danger here.”
Ethan eyed the man coming up behind her. “Isn’t there?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Mary said as her sailboat buddy walked by with a smile and a wave. She waved back and called, “I’ll call you on Thursday,” then returned her attention to a very annoyed Ethan. “I was wearing a life jacket, and the captain—he’s just a client.”
“The captain,” Ethan drawled with derision. “Please don’t tell me that he makes you call him that?”
Mary regarded him incredulously. “Let’s not get into crazy demands from clients, shall we?”
“Fine,” he muttered darkly, following her down the dock and toward the parking lot.
As she dug the car keys from her purse, she asked, “Now, what’s brought you all the way out here?”
“Do you have a doctor?”
She stopped, turned to look at him. “Why? Do you have a medical emergency?”
Her joke was lost on him and he scowled. “Be serious for a second.”
“I have a doctor, Ethan.”
“For the pregnancy?”
Her gaze flickered to the ground then back up, and he wondered if that was too intimate a thing to ask her.
“Yes, I have a doctor,” she said finally. “A family-practice type thing. Why?”
He shook his head. “That’s not good enough. You need an Ob/Gyn.”
Exhaling heavily, she walked away from him toward the lot, but he was on her heels. “I’m serious, Mary.”
“I’m going to come to your house and take every one of those books away from you. Foot massage is one thing, buddy, but—” she fumbled in her purse again for her keys “—you’re getting way too knowledgeable on Girlfriends’ Guides and Mothering and You, and frankly, it’s making me feel a little weird.”
Ethan paused. He didn’t have those two books, but he made a mental note to get them. “Listen, I have a client whose wife is Deena Norrison.”
“Never heard of her.”
“She’s only one of the best Ob/Gyn’s in the country.”
When Mary reached her car and still couldn’t find her keys, she looked ready to explode. Undeterred, Ethan continued, “She’s agreed to see you.”
“I have a good doctor, Ethan,” Mary assured him, her hand stuffed inside her purse again, perspiration beading on her brow.
“Good is not great, and Deena’s the best. Doesn’t our child deserve the best?”
“Aha!” Mary held up her keys triumphantly, but her glee was short-lived when she noticed the stern look on Ethan’s face. She sighed. “When is this appointment? This week is swamped for me, and next week we leave for Mackinac Island.”
“How’s today?”
“Today,” she repeated, the blood draining from her face.
“Right now.” He took her cool hand in his. “There’s no reason to be nervous. I’m sure everything is fine.”
“Now?”
“I know. Isn’t that great? She’s a pretty cool lady. She’ll fit you in at four. Ultrasound and everything.”
Mary shook her head. “But—”
Ethan didn’t give her time to refuse. Once she saw the kid’s heartbeat and heard from the best doctor in the country that everything was just as it should be, she’d relax. “Come on,” he said, gently guiding her toward his car. “I’ll drive.”
Dr. Deena Norrison’s reception area looked like a photograph straight out of the pages of Victoria magazine. Surrounded by cabbage-rose wallpaper, clients sank down into soft and cushy deep-pink sofas with rolled arms. The love seats and chairs, Mary was certain, had down pillows.
Mary sat on one of the love seats, her purse perched on the Queen Anne table before her. The scent of flowers was dizzying and made her feel as though she was trapped inside an English garden at the height of summer.
“Are you okay?” Ethan asked beside her.
“No. I don’t know.” The deodorant she’d put on this morning had disappeared, and she felt wet and uncomfortable.
“I can get you some water or something?” Ethan suggested.
The woman at the front desk stood, smiled at them and said in a polite whisper, “Mrs. Curtis?”
“Oh, jeez,” Mary muttered.
“We can correct that later,” Ethan assured her, then turned to the receptionist and said, “She’s right here.”
“We’ll be taking you back soon,” the woman informed them.
Mary saw it all in her mind: an examination table covered in a crisp old English linen sheet with exquisite crocheted trim and white slip-covered booties on the stirrups. She giggled a little hysterically.
“You need to relax,” Ethan suggested gently.
“Easy for you to say,” Mary uttered as the receptionist held out a clipboard with a flower pen attached.
“If you can just fill out this paperwork.”
Sensing that Mary was not about to move, Ethan retrieved the papers for her and placed them in her lap. “I could do this if—”
“No, it’s fine.”
As Mary filled out the forms, the words blurred together, and she had to stop and take a deep breath. The front door to the office opened and a woman came in. She was really far along in her pregnancy and looked exhausted. She dropped down in the chair beside Mary’s love seat and exhaled heavily. When she spotted Mary, she smiled. “Long way to go yet, huh? When are you due?”
“What? Oh…ah…” It was all she could get out. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest, and waves of nausea were hitting her every few minutes. She needed air, needed to breathe something other than that damn flower smell. Suddenly panicked, she stood, dropped the paperwork on the table and ran out of the office. She spotted a stairwell to her left and ran to the door. Down the stairs she flew, her shirt spotted with sweat, her breathing labored. She heard Ethan behind her, calling her name, but she didn’t stop. Once she made it to the lobby, she swung the front door open wide and ran to a grassy spot where a few nurses were eating their lunch.
Breathing heavily, she wanted to collapse on the grass, but instead she started pacing.
“Mary?”
She didn’t look at him, didn’t stop moving. “I can’t do this.”
“It’s okay.” His voice was soothing, and she hated him for his concern. He was the one who’d gotten them into this mess in the first place, damn him. “You don’t have to see her,” he continued. “Use your own doctor. I just thought it would be—”
“It’s not the doctor, Ethan.”
“Then what?” When she wouldn’t stop pacing, he grabbed her shoulders and held her against him, his tone worried now. “What the hell is wrong?”
His chest felt so strong and she wanted to sink into it, disappear inside of it, but he wouldn’t allow her to hide. Easing one hand from her shoulder, he tipped her chin up so she had to look at him.
“Tell me what’s going on, Mary.”
Miserably, she shook her head. “There is no baby.”
“What?”
“No baby, Ethan.”
He went white. “Did something happen…that boat ride…”
“No.” She stared at him, into those beautiful dark-blue eyes she’d believed for so long were soulless. What a damn mess. This whole thing. “I just wanted my father to be okay.”
He still looked confused, but after a moment, realization dawned and confusion was swapped for a fiercely accusing gaze. “You were never pregnant?”
Shame coiled in her belly and she shook her head. “No.”
“You were never pregnant,” he repeated.
“I’m sorry.”
Ethan stared at her, his eyes wide in fury. “Yes, you will be,” he uttered, his jaw knotted with the force of emotion.
“Ethan.”
“I should’ve known.”
“Ethan, please, I—” But her words fell on deaf ears. He had already turned his back on her and was stalking toward his car. Feeling as though she’d just assaulted someone, Mary dropped onto a hard picnic bench and watched his BMW leave the parking lot, tires squealing.
Seven
Twenty minutes later, Ethan entered the crumbling stone gates of Days of Grace Trailer Park. As he drove past the shabby office, muscle memory took hold and his BMW practically steered itself to the curb beside number fifty-three. The one-bedroom mobile home his father had sold just before his death looked as though it had been remodeled, as though someone were really trying to make the place a home, with fresh paint, a nice carport and fenced garden.
“About damn time,” Ethan muttered, opening his window a crack before killing the engine.
It was ironic. At sixteen, he couldn’t have gotten out of this park fast enough. He’d had big dreams, big plans, and he’d sworn to himself he’d never be back. But here he was, drawn to it like scum to bathroom tile. How was it that he felt infinitely more comfortable parked outside his father’s trailer than at his home or office? Why was it that he could breathe here? The air was stale and slightly mildewed; nothing had changed.
He shoved a hand through his hair. He should have expected Mary to lie to him. People were never honest, never to be trusted—including himself. Why the hell hadn’t he learned that in all this time? Maybe because he’d thought himself worthy of a family, good enough to make a child with a Harrington.
A large man in his early thirties wearing a baseball hat and ripped jeans came out of the house. When he spotted Ethan, he lifted a hand in a wary hello. Wasn’t the first time the guy had seen Ethan parked there, but he’d never called security. No doubt the guy knew he could’ve handled the situation himself if things got out of control. After all, he was pretty big.
Not looking for any more trouble today, Ethan gunned the engine of his sports car and took off back to his self-made world.
Mondays were usually Mary’s best day. She was well rested, coffeed-up and excited to get back to work. Today, however, she felt as though a semi had been driving back and forth over her body all night long. She felt jittery and exhausted at the same time—a wicked combination.
As she walked into the office, her hand shook a little around the double espresso she carried. The first person she saw was Olivia. The startlingly pretty brunette was sitting at the receptionist’s desk—something she liked to do before Meg, the receptionist, got there at nine. “Hey there, Miss Kelley,” she said in a chipper voice. “You’re here early.”
“And I’m not the only one.”
“I have some phone calls to return. I wanted to get to them early.” Olivia’s eyes narrowed as she stared hard at Mary. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
Mary sighed, placed her plastic coffee cup on the reception desk. “I think somewhere between four and six I dozed off.”
“Work…or—” Olivia hesitated, bit her full bottom lip “—something else?”
For a moment Mary contemplated blowing Olivia’s mind with the entire story of Ethan Curtis and her. She just wanted to unburden herself with a girlfriend for a few minutes, emotionally puke and have Olivia figuratively hold her hair back. But for good or bad, the partners of NRR just didn’t go there with each other—though Mary wondered if any of them wanted to but were afraid to ruffle the feathers of their business.
“I was working late,” Mary said at last. “The captain is very demanding.”
Olivia laughed at that, her dark eyes filled with mirth. “He seems like a semidecent guy, despite the millions and the bawdy reputation.”
“He is, actually. Did I tell you he’s donating all the proceeds from the regatta gala to charity?”
“Would it be uncharitable of me to say that he should?”
It was Mary’s turn to laugh, though the sound felt a little forced. “Ivan’s all right. Not much going on upstairs, though.”
“What a shocker,” Olivia said sarcastically. “Inherited wealth?”
“Yes.”
Olivia rolled her eyes as she stood up and headed into the kitchen. “Do you want something to eat? I made blueberry muffins, and, not to toot my own horn or anything, but both attorneys offices downstairs came up to ask where that amazing scent was coming from.”
Mary’s stomach rolled rudely at the thought of food and she headed toward her office. “Maybe later.”
“Okay. Oh, hey, Mary?”
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Curtis called.”
Mary felt a tremor of nervous energy move through her, and suddenly she felt unable to breathe. She hadn’t spoken to him since Saturday, since her breakdown in the parking lot.
She poked her head out of her office and gave Olivia a weak smile. “Let me guess. He no longer requires my services.”
Wielding a saucepan in one hand and an egg in the other, Olivia looked perplexed. “No. Actually, he asked if you could come by his house today at four-thirty.”
“What?” There was no way she had heard Olivia correctly.
“Four-thirty,” Olivia repeated. “His house.”
“Oh. Okay.” Well, sure. Why should he make the trip to her office to can her when he could do it in person? Her heart pounded so hard in her chest the movement actually hurt.
“Is he an inheritance jerk, too, Mary?”
Mary shook her head. “No, self-made all the way.”
Olivia nodded. “I thought so. He always sounds down-to-earth when he calls. That’s pretty refreshing.”
Mary went back into her office on unsteady legs and dropped into the chair behind her desk. She had to be ready to hear whatever he had to say. There was no doubt he was going to fire her, but what if he wanted to tell her that he was bringing her father back up on charges?
The queasy, dizzy, anxiety-ridden feeling she’d been having since yesterday came back full force, and she put her head down on her desk. Her eyes remained open, and even in the semidarkness of her self-made tent, Mary saw what she’d collapsed upon. The plans for Ethan’s nursery—a nursery she hadn’t even begun. With a groan she pushed the plans off her desk and into the trash can.
Ethan’s housekeeper, Sybil, who Mary had only seen twice before—right before the staff and caterers arrived for a party—answered the door with a vexed expression. “Hello, Ms. Kelley.”
“How are you, Sybil?”
The woman released a weighty breath. “Mr. Curtis is in the game room. Let me show you the way.”
“Game room?” Mary repeated, following behind the housekeeper. She’d been in Ethan’s house several times and she’d never seen a game room.
Glancing over her shoulder, Sybil rolled her eyes. “It’s where he goes when he’s brooding.”
Brooding? Mary tried not to register the shock she felt. First of all, she couldn’t imagine Ethan showing anyone his emotions—it just wasn’t his style. And second of all, did he know that the woman he paid to run his household talked about him this way? She’d bet not.
They passed the dining room and library, then rounded a curve into a hallway that Mary had never ventured down, or even remembered seeing. When they came to a door, Sybil knocked once, then said to Mary, “Here we are.”
“Should I just go in?” Mary asked when she heard no answer.
Sybil nodded. “He’s expecting you.”
After the woman walked away, Mary gripped the knob and pushed the door open. For a good thirty seconds after entering the large room, Mary thought she’d just stepped into kid’s fantasyland, Chucky Cheese. But since she didn’t smell pizza or see a large, furry gray animal with whiskers, she knew she must be in Ethan’s game room.
The room was a perfect square, with one wall devoted to windows that faced the backyard and lake. It was as if the room was meant to have a screen or drape down the center as a divider, as the right side was completely devoted to every arcade game imaginable. Being a fan of arcades from way back, Mary recognized skeet ball right away and smiled wistfully. There was also basketball, air hockey, pound the squirrel, racecar games and many more she saw but wasn’t familiar with. Then there was the left side of the room, which couldn’t have been more different. It was an office, with a very modern desk and furnishings in charcoal gray and chrome, and in the middle of it sat Ethan, reading the newspaper.
She had an urge to turn around and leave before he saw her, but instead she walked into the room and parked herself beside the foosball table. “Quite a setup you got here.”
Still hidden behind the New York Times, Ethan muttered a terse, “These are all the things I couldn’t afford when I was a kid. I wanted to have them now.”
Mary Kelley was no genius, but she sure understood his meaning: he’d had nothing growing up and was hoping to give this to his child. The child he’d thought was coming. The child he’d blackmailed a woman into creating with him.
She got it, and she felt Sybil’s pain, and she, too, rolled her eyes. Why couldn’t he have been in his library beside the bar drinking like any normal pissed-off male?
She fiddled with the handles on the foosball table. “Do you play?”
“I rarely play games,” he said, still masked by the Times.
Neither did she, and she was having quite enough of this one. “Listen, you wanted to see me.”
“Yeah.” The paper came down with a snap, and Mary saw his face for the first time since they’d stood outside the doctor’s office and she’d told him the truth. As he stood and walked over to her, he looked like a determined, really angry devil, his black hair slightly spiky and his blue eyes fierce with a need to hurt. He stood close, stared into her eyes and said in a punishing voice, “I have never felt such disgust with anyone in my life.”
It was a strange thing—in that moment, spurred on by those words, Mary’s nerves suddenly lifted and she was no longer afraid of what he was going to do about her and her father. The only thing she felt in the moment was the need to strike back. “I know that feeling. I had it about a month ago. But we were standing in your office, not your playroom.”
His eyes blazed. “What you did was beyond low.”
“You’re right.”
“And you have nothing to say.”
“Just this. Need I remind you that you basically forced me into—”
“I never forced you to do anything,” he interrupted darkly. “It was your choice—”
“Choice?” she repeated. Was he kidding? “What choice did I have? Tell me that?”
“You could have walked away.”
“And left my dad to…what? Go to jail. Never.” She glared at him. “But you don’t understand that kind of devotion, do you? You’ve never loved anyone that much—so damn much that you’d make a great sacrifice for them.”
His gaze slipped to her belly.
She shook her head, not about to pity him. “No, Mr. Curtis. That wasn’t a sacrifice. That was a need to be met, a blue-blooded medal to hang around your neck to make you finally feel worthy.” His nostrils flared, and he looked dangerously close to exploding, but Mary wouldn’t back down. “At least the child would’ve belonged to the old-money club, right? And maybe you, too, by association? No, it doesn’t work that way.” She was yelling now, frustrated at him, at herself. “They don’t care about association, they only care about blood. Can you get that through your thick skull?”
When she stopped ranting, they both stood there, face-to-face, breathing heavily. His eyes had lost some of their heat and she wondered if she’d finally gotten through to him. But he didn’t answer her, not that she expected him to. He had too much pride. Instead, he did as all highly successful business persons do—he went for the jugular.
“You’re wondering if I’m going to file charges against your father now, aren’t you?” he said evenly, his tone cool.
Mary wasn’t about to deny it. “Of course.”
“I’m not.”
Shock slammed into her and she actually stuttered. “Wh-why?”
With a casual shrug, he left her and wandered over to the air hockey table where he picked up a paddle and examined it. “I’ve decided to close that chapter.”
Mary couldn’t contain her relief. Her father didn’t have to worry about court or jail ever again. She wasn’t about to thank Ethan, but she could feel the tension drain from her body and she sagged against the foosball table.
“But I do want something from you.”
Ethan’s words sent a shock of alarm through her tired limbs. “What?”
“Mackinac Island.”
Oh, no. The trip to the beautiful Michigan island. She was supposed to have planned a party there, served as hostess, but how could that ever happen now? “You want me to recommend someone to take my place, right?” she asked hopefully.
“No.”
“You can’t be seriously considering—”
He slammed the paddle down and glared at her. “Believe me when I say I would rather bring a python with me on this trip. But your reputation has preceeded you, and I need that party to go off without a problem.”
No way. She couldn’t. There was too much between them. She shook her head. “No.”
“You owe me.”
“I owe you nothing,” she assured him, straightening up, forcing her legs to hold her weight and not buckle.
His voice dropped and his lips thinned dangerously. “Don’t think I wouldn’t reconsider opening that paternal book again if I have to.”
She shook her head, knowing she was cornered. “You’re really good at blackmail.”
He lifted one sardonic eyebrow. “I’ll protect my business any way I have to.”
“Clearly.”
“Just as you would, Mary. Mine is administrative business and yours would be personal business.”
The idea that they were in any way alike made Mary’s blood jump in her veins, but she knew when her choices were few. “This will be our final business endeavor together.”
He nodded. “After the last guest has left my party, Ms. Kelley, you and I can pretend that we’ve never met each other. How’s that?”
“Perfect.”
