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“Listen, asshole, you may consider the ambassador’s baby a trivial matter. I’m pretty sure he won’t agree. The appointment is for three-fifteen next Thursday. End of discussion.”
* * *
As instructed, she arrived at Dr. Martinson’s office a half hour prior to her scheduled appointment. The time was required for a final review and signature on the forms she’d downloaded from the office website. She hadn’t heard from Jack or from his stick-up-the-butt chief of staff. So when she walked into the reception area and didn’t spot a familiar face, she wasn’t surprised.
What did surprise her was how deep the disappointment went. She’d been so busy she hadn’t had time to dwell on the confused feelings Jack Mason stirred in her. Except at night, when she dropped into bed exhausted and exhilarated and wishing she had someone to share the moments of her day with. Or when her body reminded her that she wasn’t its sole inhabitant anymore. Or when she happened to spot a tall, tanned male across the room or on the street or in the subway.
“Don’t be stupid,” she muttered as she signed form after form. “He’s making the world safer for our embassy people. That has to take precedence.”
She was concentrating so fiercely on the clipboard in her hand that she didn’t hear the door to the reception area open.
“Good, I’m not late.”
The relieved exclamation brought her head up with a jerk.
“Jack! I thought... Vickers said...”
Of all the idiotic times to get teary-eyed! How could she handle every crisis at work with a cheerful smile and turn into such a weepy wimp around this man? She had to jump off this emotional roller coaster.
“Vickers told me what he said.” Grinning, he dropped into the chair beside hers. “He also told me what you said.”
“Yes, well, you shouldn’t piss off a preggo. The results aren’t pretty.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Guilt wormed through the simple, hedonistic pleasure of looking at his handsome face. She let the clipboard drop to her lap and made a wry face.
“You shouldn’t have come. Vickers said you had a top-level conference going on all week.”
“We wrapped up the last of the key issues this morning. All that’s left is to approve the report once it gets drafted. I can do that by secure email. Which means,” he said as he took the clipboard and flipped through the forms, “I don’t have to fly back to D.C. right away. Here, you forgot to sign this one.”
She scribbled her signature and tried not to read too much into his casual comment about extending his trip up from D.C. Didn’t work. When he tacked on an equally casual invitation, her heart gave a little bump.
“If you don’t have plans, I thought I might take you and the duchess to dinner tonight.”
“Oh, I can’t. I’m working a fiftieth anniversary party. I had to sneak out for this appointment.”
“How about tomorrow?”
The bump was bigger this time. “Are you staying over that long?”
“Actually, I told Dale to clear the entire weekend.”
“Ha! Bet he loved that.”
“He’s not so bad, Gina. You two just got off on the wrong foot.”
“Wrong foot, wrong knee, wrong hip and elbow. How long has he worked for you, anyway?”
“Five years.”
“And no one’s ever told you he’s officious or condescending?”
“No.”
“It has to be me, then.” Grimacing, she rolled out the reason she suspected might be behind his aide’s less-than-enthusiastic response to her call. “Or the fact that the paparazzi will have a field day when they hear you knocked me up.”
“They probably will,” he replied, not quite suppressing a wince. “But when they do, you might want to use a different phrase to describe the circumstances.”
“Really? What phrase do you suggest I use, Mr. Ambassador?”
He must have seen the chasm yawning at his feet. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to come across as such a pompous jerk.”
The apology soothed Gina’s ruffled feathers enough for her to acknowledge his point. “I’m sorry, too. I know the pregnancy will cause you some embarrassment. I’ll try not to add to it.”
“The only embarrassing aspect to this whole situation is that I can’t convince the beautiful and very stubborn mother of my child to marry me.”
She wanted to believe him, but she wasn’t that naive. She chewed on her lower lip for a moment before voicing the worry that had nagged her since Switzerland.
“Tell me the truth, Jack. Is this going to impact your career?”
“No.”
“Maybe not at the State Department, but what about afterward? I read somewhere that certain powerful PACs think you have a good shot at the presidency in the not-too-distant future.”
“Gina, listen to me.” He curled a knuckle under her chin and tipped her face to make sure he had her complete attention. “We met, we were attracted to each other, we spent some time together. Since neither of us were then, or are now, otherwise committed, the only ones impacted by the result of that meeting are you, me and our baby.”
“Wow,” she breathed. “That was some speech, Mr. Ambassador. Those PACs may be right. You should make a bid for the Oval Office. You’d get my vote.”
He feathered the side of her jaw with his thumb. “I’d rather get your signature on a marriage license.”
Maybe...maybe she was being blind and pigheaded and all wrong about this marriage thing. So he didn’t love her? He wanted her, and God knew she wanted him. Couldn’t their child be the bridge to something more?
The thought made her cringe inside. What kind of mother would pile her hopes and dreams on a baby’s tiny shoulders?
“We’ve had this discussion.” Shrugging, she pulled away from his touch. “Let’s not get into it again.”
Surprise darkened his brown eyes, followed by a touch of what could have been either disappointment or irritation. Before Gina could decide which, a nurse in pink-and-blue scrubs decorated with storks delivering bundles of joy popped into the waiting room.
“Ms. St. Sebastian?”
“Right here.”
“If you’ll come with me, I’ll get your height and weight and show you to an exam room.”
Gina pushed out her chair. Jack rose with her. The nurse stopped him with a friendly smile. “Please wait here, Mr. St. Sebastian. I’ll come get you in a few minutes.”
The look on his face was more than enough to disperse Gina’s glum thoughts. Choking back a laugh, she floated after the nurse. When Jack joined her in the exam room five minutes later, she was wearing a blue paper gown tied loosely in the front and a fat grin.
“I set her straight on the names.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Come on,” she teased. “You have to admit it was funny.”
The only thing in Jack’s mind at the moment was not something he could admit. How could he have forgotten how full and lush and ripe her breasts were? Or had her pregnancy enhanced the creamy slopes he glimpsed through the front opening of her gown?
Whatever! That one glimpse was more than enough to put him in a sweat. Thoroughly disgusted, he was calling himself all kinds of a pig when the doctor walked in.
“Hello, Ms. St. Sebastian. I’m Dr. Martinson.”
Petite and gray-haired, she shook hands with her patient before turning to Jack. “And you’re Ambassador Mason, the baby’s father?”
“That’s right.”
“I read through your medical and family histories. I’m so pleased neither of you smoke, use drugs, or drink to excess. That makes my job so much easier.”
She included Jack in her approving smile before addressing Gina.
“I’m going to order lab tests to confirm your blood type and Rh status. We’ll also check for anemia, syphilis, hepatitis B and the HIV virus, as well as your immunity to rubella and chicken pox. I want you to give a urine sample, as well.”
Her down-to-earth manner put her patient instantly at ease...right up until the moment she extracted a pair of rubber gloves from a dispenser mounted on the wall.
“Let’s get the pelvic exam out of the way, then we’ll talk about what to expect in the next few weeks and months.”
She must have caught the consternation that flooded into Gina’s china blue eyes. Without missing a beat, the doc snapped on the gloves and issued a casual order.
“Why don’t you wait outside, Ambassador Mason? This will only take a few moments.”
Five (#uf787832a-bba3-5d25-8934-389f8b91f761)
When Jack accompanied Gina out of the medical plaza complex and into the early throes of the Thursday evening rush hour, he was feeling a little shell-shocked.
The news that he would be a father had surprised the hell out of him initially. Once he’d recovered, he’d progressed in quick order from consternation to excitement to focusing his formidable energy on hustling the mother of his child to the altar. Now, with a copy of A Father’s Guide to Pregnancy tucked in the pocket of his suit coat and the first prenatal behind him, he was beginning to appreciate both the reality and the enormity of the road ahead.
Gina, amazingly, seemed to be taking her pregnancy in stride. Like a gloriously painted butterfly, she’d gone through an almost complete metamorphosis. Not that she’d had much choice. With motherhood staring her in the face, she appeared to have shed her fun-loving, party-girl persona. The hysterical female who’d called Jack from Switzerland had also disappeared. Or maybe those personas had combined to produce this new Gina. Still bubbling with life, still gorgeous beyond words, but surprisingly responsible.
She’d listened attentively to everything the doctor said, asked obviously well-thought-out questions and made careful notes of the answers. She also worked the calendar on her iPhone with flying fingers to fit a visit to the lab for the required blood tests and future appointments with Dr. Martinson into her schedule.
In between, she fielded a series of what had sounded like frantic calls from work with assurances that yes, she’d confirmed delivery of the ice sculpture; no, their clients hadn’t requested special permission from the New York City Department of Corrections for their grandson currently serving time at Rikers to attend their fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration; and yes, she’d just left the doctor’s office and was about to jump in a cab.
Jack waited on the sidewalk beside her while she finished that last call. The sky was gray and overcast but the lack of sunshine didn’t dim the luster of her hair. The tumble of shining curls and the buttercup-yellow tunic she wore over patterned yellow-and-turquoise tights made her a beacon of bright cheer in the dismal day.
Jack stood beside her, feeling a kick to the gut as he remembered exploring the lush curves under that bright tunic. Remembering, too, the kiss they’d shared the last time he put her in a cab. He’d spent more time trying to analyze his reaction to that kiss than he wanted to admit. It was hot and heavy on his mind when Gina finished her call.
“I have to run,” she told him. “If you still want to take Grandmama and me to dinner, I could do tomorrow evening.”
“That works.”
“I’ll check with her to make sure tomorrow’s okay and give you a call.”
He stepped to the curb and flagged a cab. She started to duck inside and hesitated.
Was she remembering the last time he’d put her in a cab, too? Jack’s stomach went tight with the anticipation of taking her in his arms again. He’d actually taken a step forward when she issued a tentative invitation.
“Would you like to see where I work?”
The intensity of his disappointment surprised him, but he disguised it behind an easy smile. “Yeah, I would.”
“It’ll have to be a brief tour,” she warned when they got in the cab. “We’re in the final throes of an anniversary celebration with two hundred invited guests.”
“Not including the grandson at Rikers.”
She made a face. “Keep your fingers crossed he doesn’t break out! I have visions of NYPD crashing through the doors just when we parade the cake.”
“You parade cakes?”
“Sometimes. And in this instance, we’ll do it very carefully! We’re talking fifteen layers replicating the Cape Hatteras lighthouse that stands on the spot where our honorees got engaged.”
She thumbed her iPhone and showed Jack an image of the iconic black-and-white striped lighthouse still guarding the shores of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
“We’re doing an actual working model. The caterer and I had several sticky sessions before we figured out how to bury the battery pack in the cake base and power up the strobe light at the top without melting all his pretty sugar frosting into a black-and-white blob.”
“I’m impressed.”
And not just with the ingenuity and creativity she obviously brought to her new job. Enthusiasm sparkled in her blue eyes, and the vibrancy that had first snared his interest bubbled to the surface again.
“Hopefully, our clients will be impressed, too. We’re decorating the entire venue in an Outer Banks theme. All sand, seashells and old boats, with enough fishnet and colorful buoys to supply the Atlantic fleet.”
Unbidden and unwanted, a comparison surfaced between the woman beside him and the woman he’d loved with every atom of his being. The vivid images of Catherine were starting to fade, though, despite Jack’s every effort to hang on to them. He had to dig deep to remember the sound of her laughter. Strain to hear an echo of her chuckle. She’d been so socially and politically involved. So serious about the issues that mattered to her. She had fun, certainly, but she hadn’t regarded life as a frothy adventure the way Gina seemed to. Nor would she have rebounded so quickly from the emotional wringer of Switzerland.
As his companion continued her lighthearted description of tonight’s event, Jack’s memories of his wife retreated to the shadows once again. Even the shadows got blasted away when he and Gina exited the elevators onto the third floor of the Tremayne Group’s midtown venue.
They could be on the Outer Banks, right at the edge of the Atlantic. Bemused, Jack took in the rolling sand dunes, the upended rowboat, the electronic waves splashing across a wall studded with LED lights.
“Wow. Is this all your doing?” he asked Gina.
“Not hardly. Mostly my boss, Samuel, and...uh-oh! There’s Samuel now. He’s with our big boss. ’Scuse me a minute. I’d better find out what’s up.”
Jack recognized the diminutive woman with the salt-and-pepper corkscrew curls at first look. Nicole Tremayne hadn’t changed much in the past eight years. One of the underlings in her Boston operation had handled most of the planning for Jack’s wedding to Catherine, but Nicole had approved the final plans herself and flown up from New York to personally oversee the lavish affair.
He saw the moment she recognized him, too. The casual glance she threw his way suddenly sharpened into a narrow-eyed stare. Frowning, she exchanged a few words with Gina, then crossed the floor.
“John Harris Mason.” She thrust out a hand. “I should have made the connection when Gina demanded to know if Jack Mason had contacted me.”
“I hope you told her no. She almost bit off my head when I offered to call and put in a word for her.”
“She did? Interesting.”
