Baby's First Christmas Read online

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if her anger ever rechanneled itself into passion. If it did, she would be more than a handful for that same unfortunate man he’d pitied earlier.

  “Since opportunity seems to have knocked on my door, I’d be remiss in not opening it.” He waited for her to contradict him.

  “Open any door you please, as long as it’s not near me.” If she was forced to pull her arm away from him in order to get away, she would. She didn’t want to spoil the evening by getting into a discussion with him.

  From out of nowhere, Cynthia Breckinridge swooped down on them with the unerring instinct of a woman who had been bred to be a hostess from early on.

  “Hello, darling.” She kissed the air near Marlene’s cheek. “I’m so glad you could make it, given your situation and all.”

  Her eyes swept over Marlene in a quick appraisal, before turning her attention to Sullivan.

  “I didn’t know that you two knew each other.” She hooked an arm through Marlene’s, simultaneously slipping the other through Sullivan’s.

  “Not really,” Marlene politely corrected. “We’ve only just met.” She saw that the information somehow pleased Cynthia rather than deterred her.

  Very carefully, Marlene extricated her arm and turned her back on Sullivan, cutting him out of her range. “Cynthia, I was wondering—”

  “—If I could have a word with Ms. Bailey,” Sullivan concluded the sentence. Very smoothly, he moved to Marlene’s side. Marlene gave him a murderous look.

  With a look that bordered on elation, Cynthia spread her hands benevolently.

  “That’s what parties are for. Talk away.” Her eyes almost danced with gleeful anticipation. “Go forth, mingle. I’d say ‘be fruitful,’ but our Marlene already seems to have covered that area.”

  If she didn’t like Cynthia so much, Marlene would have been tempted to strangle her. She redirected her anger to the man beside her. She turned on him as soon as Cynthia was out of earshot, fluttering away to tend to her other guests.

  Marlene struggled to keep her voice low as she allowed Sullivan to usher her off to the side. “Is that how you and your father built up your company? By strong-arming people?”

  “Only if they refuse to return my calls and won’t meet with me.” She was wearing some sort of heady perfume that managed, even in this crowd, to be distinctive. He felt it subtly surrounding him and struggled to block out its effect.

  Marlene disengaged her arm from his grasp. “I’ve already told you, we have nothing to discuss—especially if you take that tone with me.”

  Maybe he did sound a little high-handed. It happened when his temper became frayed. But that didn’t change matters between them. “You’re carrying my brother’s child.”

  “We’ve already established that—according to you,” she said pointedly.

  She didn’t add that she had retained Spencer to look into Sullivan’s background for her. Though there seemed to be no real reason to doubt Travis, she wanted verification that he was who he claimed to be and that the situation was exactly the way he presented it.

  Why in heaven’s name would he make any of this up? “What does that mean?”

  Marlene shrugged. “What proof do I have that you’re not conducting some elaborate ruse?”

  She knew it sounded as if she were fishing, but stranger things had happened. Not all uncanny situations took place in the pages of a book.

  Now she was being absurd. He took a small step backward. Anything more would have caused him to bump into the wall. “Do I honestly look like a man conducting a ruse?”

  Marlene strove to look bored. In truth, she was growing uneasy. She looked around for someone to rescue her from Travis.

  “I don’t know. People don’t come with labels stuck to their foreheads.” She thought of a newspaper story she’d read recently about the breakup of a black market that dealt in selling stolen babies to desperate, childless couples. “You might not be who you say you are. For all I know, you might be involved in some sort of blackmail scheme.”

  “And what is Cynthia?” he asked mildly. “My front woman?”

  He made her feel like an idiot. He had managed to rattle her so that she wasn’t making any sense. Something else to hold against him.

  “I have to admit,” she said primly, silently damning him to hell, “your knowing Cynthia does verify your identity.”

  “Thank you.” With Marlene, it was going to be one small step at a time. He had no other choice if he wanted to settle this without publicity. “So now are you willing to listen to my proposition?”

  She raised her chin, a cool smile on her lips. She would be willing to bet that he was just as averse to a scene as she was. Escape would be simple as long as she kept her head.

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

  “Work?” He looked around the room with its elegantly dressed people and tastefully arranged Christmas decorations. Cynthia Breckinridge had been determined to throw the first holiday party of the season, and she had succeeded royally. “But this is a party.”

  “Exactly.” Marlene began to move away from him and was annoyed when he followed. “And I’m here to see and be seen.”

  The comment made him smile as he surveyed her silhouette. “I’d say there was no missing you.”

  That sounded like sarcasm. She turned to look at his expression, but she couldn’t read it. “You’re not married, are you?”

  He had no idea where that had come from. In light of Cynthia’s effort to pair them together, he would have thought the answer was obvious. “No.”

  Marlene saw Tim Sakiota standing by the huge Christmas tree in the center of the room and decided he would be her first target. She began making her way toward him. “I didn’t think so.”

  Sullivan managed to sidestep a waiter with a full tray of champagne glasses and followed her. “Meaning?”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. It wasn’t crowded enough to lose him, she realized. “You’re just a little too blunt around the edges to make it in the romance department.”

  What was she talking about? “I wasn’t aware that I was trying to do anything of the sort.”

  “Good,” she said with finality. “Because you weren’t succeeding.”

  He shook his head as if to clear it. The momentary pause allowed her to move further away from him. “I hope your ad campaigns are clearer than you are. Otherwise, I’d advise selling your agency. Quickly.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Her voice drifted back to him as she began to make her way toward Sakiota.

  Sullivan took hold of her wrist before she had managed to take two steps. She turned and looked at him accusingly. “You have my wrist.”

  He was beginning to see why she’d had to resort to artificial insemination. “You can have it back if you tell me when I can talk to you.”

  “If you want to discuss advertising, I’ll listen to anything you have to say. Otherwise, I’ve already told you twice that we have nothing to talk about.”

  Sullivan struggled to contain his annoyance. “At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is the matter of my brother’s unborn child.”

  His father had called him just before he’d left for the party, demanding to know what headway he had made with securing custody. Sullivan didn’t want to continue putting him off with platitudes. Besides, he heartily felt that the child belonged in their family.

  She was about to tell Travis that his brother had given up all claim to a child when he was paid his fee, but she refrained. That would only be opening up an argument, and she wasn’t here to argue.

  With a sigh, she nodded. “All right. Let me mingle a little and pay my respects. Afterward, we’ll talk.”

  And probably not resolve a damn thing, she added silently. She was beginning to think that Nicole was right. She was going to have to get in contact with their family lawyer. Travis wasn’t going to back down the way she�
��d hoped.

  And it went without saying that neither was she. She hadn’t gone to all this trouble just to act as a vessel for some pompous family’s benefit.

  “I can wait. It’s a deal.” What choice did he have, really. Maybe if he was gracious, she would reciprocate and give him a chance to sway her mind. It was still his hope that all this could be handled privately, without coverage on the eleven o’clock news.

  In a moment of whimsy, she placed her hand in his and shook it, sealing the bargain. With that, she turned away and began to do what she had come to do.

  Her lips barely seemed to move when she talked. It was an interesting trick, Sullivan thought a few hours later. He wondered if they did when she kissed.

  He had to stop allowing himself to be sidetracked this way.

  But looking at her, it was difficult not to be. She was, what his grandfather would have termed, a handsome woman. Derek’s appraisal of Marlene would have been summed up in a single word: Wow.

  She deserved that reaction and more. Which made the mystery of why she had opted to do what she had done even more mystifying. Her sharp tongue notwithstanding, she wasn’t the type of woman he would have thought lacked admirers. Observing the way men looked at her even now told him that. The woman at the Institute had said that Marlene was impregnated March 25th, making her eight months pregnant.

  It didn’t seem to put a crimp in her style, though. He wondered what she would look like approximately twenty-five pounds lighter.

  That, he reminded himself, was totally irrelevant.

  Deciding that he had been patient enough, Sullivan made his move, disrupting the circle of men around Marlene. He knew several of them and nodded a greeting as he took Marlene’s hand. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I believe that this is our dance.”

  Holding her hand tightly in his, Sullivan led Marlene away.

  Stunned, Marlene was rendered temporarily speechless by his intrusion.

  “Our dance?” she finally echoed.

  She hadn’t been dancing since…she couldn’t remember when.

  The Mulcahy account, she suddenly recalled. Dave Mulcahy had been very heavy on his feet. The weight was only outdone by the size of his wallet when it came to the account. All things considered, it had been worth a few squashed toes. This wasn’t going to be.

  “We don’t have a dance.”

  He looked at her innocently as they found a place near the five-piece orchestra that the Breckinridges had hired for the evening. “I had to think of something to get you away without causing a scene.”

  “I think it would cause more of a scene if you danced with me. I’m not exactly built for graceful movement at the moment.”

  She could laugh at herself. He hadn’t expected that from her. He found it oddly pleasant. “I thought you weren’t going to let this pregnancy impede you.” Or so he had heard from a mutual friend.

  She looked at him, wondering who had told him that. Obviously he had been talking to people about her, and it annoyed her.

  “No, and neither has it made me simpleminded.” Her tone low, her lips tightened as she spoke. “I’m not dancing with you, Travis. I’m not talking with you, I’m not doing anything with you. Is that understood?”

  She didn’t wait for confirmation. Determined, Marlene cut a space in the crowd and moved past the fifteen-foot Christmas tree with its antique decorations. Her goal was to reach the French doors that led out onto the terrace. They were slightly ajar, and she could do with a whisper of air. The press of bodies was making the room stifling. As was Travis.

  A waiter stopped and lowered the tray he was carrying before Marlene as she reached the doors. Offering it to her, he waited for her to make a selection.

  Marlene shook her head, a small, perfunctory smile on her lips. She would have enjoyed something a little stronger than mineral water right now, given the situation. But her condition was always uppermost in her mind. “No, thank you.”

  Marlene started as a glass seemed to materialize from nowhere at her right. Turning, she saw Sullivan holding out a filled fluted glass. Bubbles rose to the rim. “I’m not drinking champagne, either.”

  His eyes dipped to her abdomen, then back to her face. “I would hope not. This is ginger ale, disguised as something more potent.” His mouth curved. “Rather like you.”

  She wanted to demand to know what the hell he was talking about, but that would only lead her down a road she didn’t think she wanted to go. Accepting the glass, she took a tentative sip.

  “Ginger ale,” he affirmed again. “You’re going to have to learn to be more trusting than that.”

  Sullivan looked away, surveying the room. He saw Cynthia looking in their direction, a satisfied smile on her crimson lips. He nodded at her, seeing no reason to burst her bubble at the moment. She would find out about her error soon enough.

  Marlene took another sip, then drained the rest of the soda. There was no point in working herself up. For the moment she would endure him. The evening would be in the past soon enough.

  Just like everything else.

  Marlene looked at Sullivan’s profile, all angles and planes. Funny how they seemed to come together to make him appear almost pretty. The impression was intensified by his long, dark lashes. Lashes most women would have killed for. It was only his mouth, firm and hard, that saved him from being labeled pretty.

  He turned his eyes to hers.

  Marlene felt something shimmy in her stomach, something apart from the baby’s movement. It was tempting to look away, but she’d learned at the knee of a master that looking away only left you vulnerable for further attack.

  “Why don’t you stop trying to avoid the inevitable?” he asked quietly.

  The feeling left. Marlene’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning you?”

  “Me, and our common problem.”

  She raised her head. A waiter came and collected her empty glass. “My only problem is you, and if you choose to think of yourself as common, well, you’d be the one to know about that.”

  “I don’t want to spar with you, Marlene.”

  He had a very funny way of showing it. “Then go away.”

  The orchestra was beginning another piece behind them. Sullivan placed his glass on a nearby table. “I still haven’t had that dance.”

  “And you won’t,” she replied mildly.

  Instinctively, he knew how to get to her. “Are you afraid to dance with me?”

  “Afraid of you? That’ll be the day.” She refused to be afraid. Marlene blew out a sigh. “All right. Remember, you asked for this.”

  He found himself smiling. She was feisty, all right. “I’ll remember.”

  The slow piece the orchestra was playing was vaguely familiar. Very gently, he took her into his arms and began to dance.

  She was lighter on her feet than he’d thought.

  Her hand resting against his chest and covered by his, she looked up at Sullivan. The beat of the music and his heart swayed into her body.

  She felt awkward and hated the feeling. “I’m too big to dance.”

  “You’re doing fine.”

  His tone sounded patronizing, or maybe that was just her interpretation. “I don’t need your affirmation.”

  “Fine, have it your way.” Holding her other hand in his, he bent his head so that his cheek rested against her hair.

  Marlene felt herself drifting. She could almost get to like this.

  Her eyes flew open as her thought registered. She didn’t want him this close to her. He was taking advantage of the situation.

  “Look—” Marlene started to draw away.

  “Shh,” he murmured against her hair. “You don’t want to cause a scene.”

  She didn’t like the way her pulse had begun to accelerate, or the warm flush that was creeping over her entire body. She especially didn’t like the way he was holding her, amusing himself at her expense.

  Sullivan pressed his hand against the small of her back. He wondered what she looked like
when she wasn’t pregnant. And what she felt like.

  It was all idle speculation, and he allowed himself to indulge in it. After all, nothing would ever come of it.

  She felt ungainly. It was only a matter of time before she stumbled and stepped on his foot. But if that was the way he wanted it, that was his problem. She would continue dancing.

  “All right. Your funeral.”

  He laughed, looking down into her eyes. “No, that’s when you dance on my grave.” He laced his fingers through hers. It formed a solid union, he mused. “This we do together.”

  There was something about the way he said the last word that sounded as if he were uttering a prophesy. She shook off the foolish thought.

  His eyes slowly appraised her face. She was easily one of the most beautiful women at the party, without benefit of a plastic surgeon’s scalpel or makeup that was strategically applied.

  If he thought that he was softening her up, he was in for a disappointment. “This is the only thing we’ll be doing together,” Marlene countered.

  Her answer amused him. She was sharp, but then he’d already learned that. He appreciated her mind. Nothing annoyed him more than gullible fools. “Tell me, are all pregnant women so cynical?”

  The only other pregnant woman she knew was Nicole. Because of the length of her workday, her experience tended toward the denizens in the corporate world, mostly male. “I wouldn’t know.”

  He had a feeling she was telling the truth rather than just brushing him off. “All right, I’ll settle for knowing what makes you so cynical.”

  Her eyes gave nothing away. She probably played poker well, he thought. It would make for an interesting game someday.

  “I thought by now you would have found out all about me.” If she could resort to a private investigator, she had no doubt that Travis probably employed one to dig up what he could about her.

  “Not enough,” he confessed. He smiled briefly. “I like going straight to the source whenever possible.”

  It was time to place some space between them. She felt as if her air were being siphoned off. As well as her privacy. “The ‘source’ would like to stop dancing now.”