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Hugh didn’t look surprised. “So my lawyer informs me.”
“You already knew?”
“Yep. Teddy called me half an hour ago.”
Mary studied his expression. Unchanged, tired, defeated. She shook her head. “Why aren’t you happy, relieved, something?”
“I am something.” His pale blue eyes, so like her own, brightened with passion. “I’m pissed off.”
“What? Why?”
“I know you, lass. I know you better than anyone. What did you do to make this happen?”
Her heart jumped into her throat, but she remained cool as steel on the outside. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mare.”
“Pop, I talked to the man.”
Hugh snorted. “Ethan Curtis is no man. He’s a devil, a demon with no soul.”
Mary was all set to agree when a memory of the cozy room on Lake Richard flashed into her mind. Ethan was a demon, yes, but there was another side to him—a deeply buried side that held a surprising amount of warmth and tenderness. She’d seen it when he’d talked about his child.
She closed her eyes. His child.
“Well he’s decided to let it go,” Mary forced out. “He agreed that the sculpture wasn’t really worth his time and is even willing to give it back to you. After all, it was just a gift from Grandmother, with zero sentimental value to him and—”
“A gift that old woman had no right to give,” Hugh pointed out gruffly.
Mary gave a patient sigh. “I know, Pop.”
The basket beside him strained with vegetables. No doubt he’d been out here picking for a few hours. Lord only knew what he was going to do with it all. “Promise me you’re not in any trouble.”
Mary’s chin lifted. She’d lied, yes, but she’d done what she had to do. She was no more pregnant than a box of rocks, but her father was free, and protecting him was all she cared about right now.
“I have nothing to fear from Ethan Curtis,” she said tightly. As long as he didn’t find out the truth, she amended silently, as she picked up the basket of vegetables and walked inside the house.
Two
Mary wondered for a moment if she’d fallen asleep and was, God forbid, snoring. Every once in awhile NRR got a client who was so dull one or all of the partners would actually find themselves nodding off while discussing contracts.
Today it was Mary’s turn to down a third cup of coffee and pry her eyes open with toothpicks. She shifted in her chair and focused on Ivan Garrison, a new client who had hired her to design a menu for a party he was throwing aboard his yacht, Clara Belle. For the past thirty minutes the forty-year-old wannabe boat captain had been sorrowfully telling Mary that he’d named the boat in honor of his dead wife, who he’d married for her “outstanding boating skill and formidable rack.”
It had taken Mary a good thirty seconds to realize that Ivan was referring to his wife’s chest and another ten seconds to contemplate passing him on to Olivia, since the job mainly consisted of culinary planning. But he was one of those trust-fund jerks who made Olivia’s skin crawl, and the risk of having her abide by NRR’s seventh vow, Do No Harm might be asking too much.
Who knew? If he took Olivia for a ride in his yellow Lamborghini and insisted she call him Captain like he did everyone else, Olivia just might bop him on the head the night before the party and serve him to his guests with an apple in his mouth the next day.
“The date for the regatta gala as you know is the twenty-fifth,” he said, touching the brim of the snow-white captain’s hat he had worn to both meetings. “I’ll have my secretary send over the guest list. Please make sure to refer to me as Captain on the invitation. That’s how my friends and business associates know me.”
Aye aye, sir! Mary nodded. “Of course.”
“I’d like to really pack this party. We always get enough entrants for the race, but the galas aren’t as well attended.”
“We could make it as a charity event,” Mary suggested.
“I’ll think about that.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Now, have I told you how I came to be called Captain?”
“No.” If Ivan was going to come around every week, she’d have to invest in some NoDoz.
“As you know, it’s not my given name,” he said. “When I was six—wait, no, closer to eight, my nanny, her name was Alisia and she was the one who bathed me—”
“Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt.”
Mary glanced up and smiled thankfully at her partner. “No problem, Olivia. We were just finishing up here.”
Olivia acknowledged Ivan with a quick nod. “Hello, Captain.” Then she turned back to Mary. “Your next client is here.”
“I don’t have—” Mary stopped herself. What the heck was she doing? Her savior, Olivia had clearly noticed her drooping eyelids and coffee-stained teeth, maybe even heard the beginning of the creepy nannyand-the-eight-year-old’s-bath story and was giving her a way out.
“We can discuss the rest on the phone, Captain,” Mary said, standing and shaking his hand. “Or if you’d prefer, we could e-mail.”
The captain sighed wistfully. “My Clara Belle loved the e-mail. Did I tell you she had twelve computers, one for every bathroom? She wanted to stay connected. I haven’t had the heart to remove them.”
After one more minute of commiserating about the impracticality of expensive technology in damp places, Mary told Ivan where to find the little captain’s room and walked toward the lobby with Olivia.
Mary released a weary sigh. “Thank you so much.”
“For what?” Olivia asked.
“The ‘your next client is here’ save. I’m thankful for the business, but sadly Ivan is only eccentric and strange in an uninteresting way. There’s nothing worse.”
Olivia looked confused. “Mary, I’m always happy to help with tedious clients, but in this case, you really do have someone waiting.” She nodded toward the man sitting in one of the lobby’s artfully distressed brown leather chairs.
Mary’s breath caught at the sight of him, and she wanted to kick herself for the girlish reaction, but she walked toward him instead. Ethan Curtis wasn’t the kind of handsome you’d see on the pages of a Businessman Weekly. No three-piece suits or slicked-back hair, no calm, refined demeanor. He looked edgy and ready to pounce, his severe blue eyes alert and ready for a battle. Dressed in tailored pants and an expensive, perfectly cut black shirt, his large frame ate up the leather chair as around them the air crackled with a potent mixture of desire and conflict.
“We didn’t have an appointment today, Mr. Curtis,” Mary said in a gently caustic tone.
Amusement flashed in his eyes. “Yes, I know. But this is urgent.”
Obviously she wasn’t getting rid of him anytime soon. “Let’s go into my office.”
“No. I need to take you somewhere.”
“Impossible,” she told him sharply.
“Nothing’s impossible.”
“I can’t.” Didn’t he see that Olivia was still lurking around? If she overheard them, she’d get the wrong idea…well, the right idea, and Mary didn’t want that. “I have insane amounts of work—”
“This is work.”
Mary pressed her lips together in frustration. She felt caught in a trap. If she refused, made even the smallest of scenes, Olivia would be out here, wondering what was up. That could bring Tess, too. She eyed Ethan skeptically, lowered her voice. “You say this is work?”
“Of course.” He spoke the right words, but he stared at her mouth while he said them.
“Better be.” She tossed him a severe gaze before heading into her office for her purse.
Mary stepped into the world of trendy layettes and custom chintz toddler chairs and felt her heart sink into her shoes. It was the last place in the world she wanted to be. The fact that not only was she lying about being pregnant but that it would be a long, long time before she came into this type of store for any real purpose weighed on her like an anchor. She eyed the blue and pink bookcases and dressers with cute custom airplane and unicorn knobs.
“This is a baby shop, Mr. Curtis,” she said quietly, sidestepping a beautiful whitewashed Morigeau-Lepine changing table.
Ethan dropped into a pale-green gliding chair. “Can we drop the ‘mister’?”
“I don’t think so.”
He raised one brow in a mocking slant and whispered, “Hey, I’ve seen that tiny raspberry birthmark right below your navel.”
A wash of heat slipped over her skin and she could only mutter, “Right…”
“Come sit down.” He motioned for her to take the yellow duckie glider beside him. “You never seem to get off your feet.”
“I’m fine. I’ll stand.”
“Ethan.”
“Fine. Ethan,” she ground out. “Now, are you going to tell me why we’re in a baby shop?”
He picked up a lovely piece of original artwork from a nearby table and studied the drawing of two frogs sailing a boat. “I’m thinking we could add one more item to your workload.”
“Like?”
“A nursery in my house.”
Mary’s pulse escalated to a frenetic pace. “You want me to design a nursery for the…our…”
“Baby, yes. I may have unlimited resources, but you weren’t far off when you suggested I grew up under a rock. It was a trailer park actually. Dark, dirty and decorated with the curbside castoffs of the rich people on the other side of town. So, I have zero taste. And as you can see, I’m a guy.”
She stared at him, not sure how to feel about what he’d just revealed to her. She hadn’t meant to insult him with the “rock” comment. Well, maybe she had a little, but now she felt pretty damn snobby. Although, his need to be accepted by the Minneapolis bluebloods, have a child with one, made way more sense now. Not that his actions were in any way forgiven. “Look, I’m sorry about what I said…the rock thing—”
He waved away her apology with his hand, his jaw a little too tight. “It’s not important. What is important however is that my child has a place to sleep. So? Is this agreeable to you?”
This wasn’t a bizarre request for an NRR client. She’d designed over twenty nurseries and children’s rooms over the past five years. Single fathers, gay fathers who had to admit they had no taste, even busy moms on occasion.
“I thought you might enjoy this,” Ethan said, coming to his feet.
“Did you?” He wanted her to decorate her own child’s room. A child that didn’t exist.
She turned away from Ethan and closed her eyes, took a deep breath. What was she thinking? What was she thinking lying to someone about something so important, something as sacred as having a baby? This was getting out of hand. Yes, she’d had to protect her father, and now that he was out of danger, wasn’t it time to tell Ethan Curtis that he was not going to be a daddy, suffer his censure, his threats, and get on with her life?
Fear darted into her gut. But what if he refiled charges? That was entirely possible—maybe even probable given how angry and spiteful he’d be if he learned the truth. Her father couldn’t survive another arrest. No, there was no way she was allowing that to happen.
Mary fingered a swatch of green gingham fabric. It would work wonderfully for a boy or a girl. Tears sat behind her throat. She wasn’t the most maternal person in the world, but she wanted a child. Someday. With a man who loved her…
“Mary?”
She turned and looked at Ethan. “Okay.”
“Hello, there.” A very perky blond sales clerk appeared before them, her round brown eyes wide with excitement. “So, when’s our baby due?”
Before Mary could even open her mouth to say that they were just looking around, Ethan chimed in with “Early to mid April.”
Mary’s head whipped around so fast she wondered if she’d given herself whiplash.
Ethan shrugged. “I did the calculations.”
“A spring baby,” the salesgirl said, beaming at Ethan as though he were a candidate for father of the year already. “How about we start with a crib?”
Ethan gestured to Mary. “The lady’s in charge.”
The girl looked expectantly at Mary. “Traditional? Round? Any thoughts?”
“No thoughts,” Mary said, feeling weak all of a sudden. “Not today.”
The girl looked sympathetic and lowered her voice. “Mom’s tired.”
You have no idea, lady.
“I tried to get her to sit down,” Ethan said with a frustrated shake of the head.
The girl nodded as if to say, I’ve seen many a pregnant woman and understood their moods. “We can do this another day.”
Mary nodded. “Another day is good.” Another year might be good to.
Ethan checked his watch. “It’s after one.” He eyed Mary with a concerned frown. “Have you eaten lunch?”
Mary shook her head. “Not yet, but I’ll get something back at the office—”
“You need to eat now. You wait here. I’ll go get the car.”
“I have my car,” she said, but he was already halfway out the door.
To make matters worse, the salesgirl sidled up to Mary, clasped her hands together and sighed. “You’re so lucky.”
“Why?”
She looked at Mary as though she was crazy or just plain mean. “That man is going to make a great daddy.”
“If he can stop ordering people around long enough,” Mary muttered to herself.
