Black Ties and Lullabyes (8 page)

Now, twenty years later, it was Eleanor’s own daughter on the hot seat, and nothing had changed.

Bernie had no doubt her churchgoing mother was going to bring down the wrath of God right onto her head. And in the event that God chose to spare her an instantaneous death, Eleanor would simply drag her to church every day for the rest of her life to save her from eternal damnation.

“Bernadette?” she said slowly, careful y. “Are you…

p-pr…?”

Oh, God.
She couldn’t even say the word. This was going to be bad. Very,
very
bad. But there wasn’t much that Bernie could do now to stop it from happening.

“Yeah, Mom,” she said. “I’m pregnant.” Bernie braced herself. As much as Eleanor loved her daughter, a sin was a sin, after al , and any moment she was going to throw her arm skyward and beseech God to send down that thunderbolt. But to Bernie’s total amazement, the whole Old Testament thing never happened.

Instead her mother started to smile. A look of delighted relief swept over her face. She dropped the box and threw her arms around Bernie, hugging her so tightly Bernie swore she was going to throw up al over again.

What the hell…?

Eleanor pul ed away and took Bernie by the shoulders. “So it’s real y true? You’re pregnant?

You’re going to have a baby?”

“So… you’re not mad?”

“Mad?
Mad?
Why would I be mad? I’m going to be a
grandmother
!”

And then she was hugging Bernie al over again.

For several stunned seconds, Bernie just let it happen, wondering what portal she’d fal en through to land in this alternate universe. Then Eleanor slowly backed away, putting her hand on her chest, and closed her eyes, taking a deep, relaxing breath. When she opened them again, they glistened with tears.

Bernie blinked. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, dear. Nothing.” She wiped beneath her eyes with her fingertips. “It’s just that…” She exhaled.

“I’d given up hope. You’re so independent, and since you’ve never said you have any interest in getting married, I assumed that having a baby was out of the question. I’ve always wanted to be a grandmother. So much. At church, they show me photos of their grandkids. Katherine has eleven. Did you know that?

Eleven grandchildren, and I don’t have even one. And I always smile and tel them how beautiful they are—

and I’m not lying, they are—but I can’t help it. I’m always so envious. That’s one of the seven deadly sins. Envy. I know that. But surely God understands, doesn’t he? How I feel? How much I want just
one
?” Then her eyes grew wide with understanding. “That’s it! He must know! He must, because look at what he’s done!” She took Bernie’s hands. “This is a blessing, Bernadette. A blessing from heaven.”

Bernie didn’t have a clue what to say. A blessing?

This?

“How far along are you?” her mother asked.

“About two months, I think.”

“You have so much to do. But don’t worry. I’l help you. Have you cal ed Dr. Underwood?”

“No, not yet. But—”

“You need to get an appointment right away.

Prenatal care is a must. Have you been eating properly?”

“I’ve been eating just fine,” Bernie said.

“Wel , you have to make sure to from now on.

You’re eating for two, you know.”

Her mother kept prattling on, wearing an expression of pure ecstasy. Given her diagnosis, Bernie thought she’d never see that look on her mother’s face again. But everything about this wasn’t wonderful, and Bernie couldn’t let her go on thinking that it was.

“Hold on, Mom. Wait a minute.”

Her mother stopped short. “Yes?”

Bernie swal owed hard. “I haven’t real y decided…”

“What?”

“What… you know. To do about it.”

For

several

seconds,

her

mother

looked

bewildered. “Wh-what do you mean?”

When Bernie just stared at her, her mother’s face slowly fel . Bernie could actual y feel the joy slip away from her, leaving her body as if she’d drawn her last breath.

“Oh,” Eleanor said, leaning away. “I see.” She drew herself up in the way she always did when emotion was getting the better of her and she was trying not to fal apart. “I just thought that maybe, for just a little while, I’d have a grandchild, you know? Even if the time comes when I don’t remember, at least I’d have had one for a little while.”

Please don’t say that!
“Mom—” Eleanor held up her palm. “No. It’s okay. It’s your decision, Bernadette. Not mine. I know that.” She took a deep, shaky breath, trying to get a grip, but her eyes stil fil ed with tears. “And contrary to what you might think, I’l love you no matter what you choose to do. No matter what. I mean that. I just hope you’re thinking of adoption. Not… not the other.”

Bernie felt her own eyes fil ing with tears. The thought of having a baby was so overwhelming that she almost couldn’t imagine it. “The other” was out no matter what. But adoption… could she have this baby, only to give it away?

No. She couldn’t. And not just because it would break her mother’s heart. Now that she was facing the reality of the situation, she realized it would break her heart, too.

At first she’d been in total disbelief that her life had taken such a drastic turn, but now she was starting to think that maybe this was a shot of good luck, not bad.

She’d never had a relationship with a man that had leaned toward marriage, and the older she got, the less she expected that would happen. And if it didn’t, she’d always assumed she’d never have a child.

Now she was going to.

The longer she sat there, the more her conviction grew. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe this real y was a blessing. This was probably going to be her only chance to be a mother, and if that were true, she didn’t want to let it go.

She took her mother’s hands. “Oh, no, Mom. You misunderstood.”

Eleanor blinked, and another tear went south. “I did?”

“I didn’t mean that I don’t know what I was going to do about the baby. I just meant that I don’t know what I’m going to do about my job. It’s going to be kind of hard to be a bodyguard and pregnant, too, you know?

But I’l figure out something.”

“So… so you’re going to have the baby?”

“Wel , of course.”

And then her mother was smiling and hugging her al over again. And for the first time since she’d seen those two lines, Bernie was smiling, too.

So what now? Gabe already knew she was pregnant, so that was the last she was going to see of any personal protection jobs. But even with this incredible nausea, maybe she could stil fil some kind of contract position for Delgado & Associates that didn’t involve carrying a weapon and protecting somebody’s life, a job that wouldn’t put her or her baby in danger or under stress. One way or another, she was going to work it out.

Her mother eased away, tears stil shining in her eyes. “Bernadette?”

“Yes?”

“Have you…”

“Have I what?”

“Told the father?”

Not a question Bernie wanted to hear right now. But it was one she’d eventual y have to answer. She could beat around the bush, or she could get the issue out of the way right now, once and for al .

“The father won’t want to be part of this,” she told her mother. “And believe me, Mom—it’s for the best.” Her mother’s brow furrowed with consternation. “A man who doesn’t want to know his own child?” Eleanor said. “Are you sure that’s the case?”

“Yeah, Mom. I’m sure.”

“Maybe things wil change as time goes on.”

“Please don’t count on that.”

“Can you tel me who the father is?”

Bernie bowed her head with a heavy sigh. Then she looked up again. “I’d rather just pretend he was never in the picture at al . Do you think you can do that, too?” Her mother’s expression fel . “Oh. Yes, of course. I won’t say another word about it.” She paused. “But that isn’t going to stop me from praying that he somehow sees the light and you al eventual y become a family.”

Bernie gave her a shaky smile. “Nobody’s ever been able to stop you from praying, Mom.” And speaking of the father, there was something Bernie had to do before her pregnancy progressed one day further. Bridges might be the biological father, but the last thing she wanted was for that heartless, soul ess, control ing man to have anything to do with her baby.

She’d watched him in business. He wasn’t above getting what he wanted by any means necessary, as long as it was legal. She’d watched him with women.

Even as he smiled and seduced, she’d never seen a shred of a connection on an emotional level. It was one thing for her to enjoy the mental chal enge of bantering with a man whose IQ dwarfed the average person’s, but it was quite another to imagine him as the father of her child. When she thought of her own father, of the warmth and acceptance she’d felt from him, it nearly brought her to tears. To subject her own child to the complete opposite of that was something she refused to do.

It could take her a week or two to get the legalities in place, but by the time she was finished, she was going to make sure Jeremy had no hold over her, or her baby, for the rest of their lives.

Jeremy crossed the motor court behind his house and approached his black Lincoln sedan, his briefcase in one hand and his laptop case slung over his opposite shoulder. Max Delinsky stood beside the back door of the car, waiting to drive him to work just as he had every weekday morning for the past few months. For the short drive to the office, Jeremy opted for the sedan over the limo, which meant Max acted as both his bodyguard and his driver. But even though it was only a fifteen-minute drive to the office and back, Max stil drove Jeremy nuts from the moment he got into the car to the moment they arrived.

It had nothing to do with the protection he offered.

He was six-five, two-forty, with a body like a slab of granite, wearing the rugged, deadpan expression of a lifer in Huntsvil e. Nobody would think twice about messing with Jeremy when Max was around. Not groupies, not kidnappers, not assassins. Hel , Max Delinsky could take down a pit bul . A mountain lion. A charging rhino. He’d annihilate a zombie or a mutant creature from outer space before it knew what hit it.

But just once Jeremy would like to have a decent conversation during his downtime in this car, and Max seemed to do everything he could to keep communication to a bare minimum. And unless it was practical y dark outside, he insisted on wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses. With his eyes obscured and his face immobile and not a word coming out of his mouth, Jeremy was at a total loss when it came to getting inside the man’s head.

When he reached the car, Max opened the door for him.

“Good morning, Max,” Jeremy said.

“Sir.”

“Nice morning, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

In the World According to Max, they’d just had an extensive conversation and now had absolutely nothing left to say.

After Jeremy slid inside, Max circled around, got into the driver’s seat, and started the car.

“Watch the Rangers game last night?” Jeremy asked.

Max flicked his gaze to the rearview mirror. At least Jeremy thought he did. Hard to tel with him wearing those damned mirrored sunglasses. “Yes, sir.”

“Good game, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you think of their pitching game these days?”

“It could be better.”

Wel , that was a real conversation starter. Unless every Rangers pitcher threw a perfect game every time, it could
always
be better.

As Max steered the car along the tree-lined drive leading to the main road, Jeremy started to bring up another subject, maybe global warming, or possibly the state of Britney Spears’s career. Something had to get Max’s attention. Then he thought,
oh, screw it,
and pul ed out his iPod and earphones. It was like trying to talk to Koko the goril a. Maybe if he learned sign language, they could actual y communicate.

Unfortunately, just having Max around reminded him of who
wasn’t
around.

Damn it, when was it ever going to stop?

When several cal s to Gabe Delgado failed to bring Bernie back no matter how much money he offered, he decided he’d been humiliated enough and quit picking up the phone. But that didn’t stop him from thinking about her, which irritated him no end. No matter where he was or what he was doing, even the most insignificant trigger could shift his thoughts to her. In this limo, Max and his silence made him wish she was around to argue with. At his house, al he had to do was glance down the hal way leading to his safe room, and she popped into his mind. And every time he so much as looked at a member of the opposite sex, he heard Bernie’s voice in the back of his mind, asking him if he had any clue what it was like to be with a
real
woman.

And then the memory would come roaring back—

the wildness of that night, the breathtaking heat, the indescribable sensation of sex with a woman he’d barely realized was a woman at al until that night, only to have her become a woman he couldn’t drive from his thoughts if he’d wanted to. Several times he’d come close to asking Max about her, but fortunately he’d stopped himself. How pitiful would that have been?

But no matter how much his thoughts were consumed with Bernie, he was starting to get some perspective on what had happened between them.

He knew now that the reason he couldn’t get her out of his mind had nothing to do with sex. It had nothing to do with wanting her back. It had to do with the fact that she’d walked away from him before he’d had the chance to tel
her
to go to hel , and he hated unfinished business.

A few minutes later, Max checked in at the guardhouse in front of the Sybersense office complex, then pul ed through the gates. He circled the western edge of the man-made lake, which was enhanced with fountains and stone retaining wal s. Green hil s undulated around the various buildings, dotted with perfectly placed crape myrtles alive with dark pink blooms.

Jeremy felt the same swel of pride he always did when he looked at this place. He’d built every bit of it from the ground up with money he’d sweated to earn even when the whole damned world said he couldn’t, creating a thriving business empire in a place where he control ed every inch of the environment. The moment he saw anything that wasn’t quite right—a brown patch on the lawn, a cracked sidewalk, a sprinkler head shooting a few degrees in the wrong direction—al he had to do was pick up his phone.

Within a few hours, perfection was restored.

Max pul ed up to the entrance. Jeremy tucked his iPod away, grabbed his briefcase, and got out, the August sun already beating down relentlessly even though it was only seven-forty-five in the morning. As he walked into the building, Max pul ed away from the curb, leaving Jeremy covered by the security force at the Sybersense complex. Max would be on cal for the remainder of the day, but Jeremy al owed him to use the car any way he wanted to as long as he stayed fewer than fifteen minutes away. A bodyguard on cal didn’t come cheap, but that was one of the reasons Jeremy had amassed the fortune he had—so he could create a world where his convenience was the only issue.

He could have used the private elevator leading to his fourth-floor corner office, but he rarely did. Instead, he enjoyed walking through the front doors and hearing the low buzz of his employees’ voices echoing through the four-story atrium. He loved how the morning sunlight streamed through the windows, making a crisscross pattern on the polished mahogany floor. His running shoes squeaked as he walked across it, and he loved that, too. It was a sound that said he’d risen to the point where he made his own rules and nobody could tel him what to do, and that included wearing dress shoes to work.

Phil Brandenburg came through the door from the parking garage and fel into step alongside him, carrying his usual Starbucks Venti Cappuccino and wiping the sweat from his brow with the shoulder of his shirt.

“Christ, it’s hot out there,” Phil said. “Thought I was gonna melt on the way here. Dal as in August—
God
.

Swear I’m moving to Siberia.”

“Might want to turn on the air conditioner in your car,” Jeremy said.

“Had it going ful blast.”

“Or skip the hot coffee.”

“You know I can’t think without coffee.” Not only could Phil not think without coffee, he couldn’t eat, watch TV, drive, play golf, or probably have sex without it, either. He subsisted on caffeine, fried food, and beer, which meant that in ten years, when he reached age fifty or so, he’d be in danger of dropping dead. But Phil had always said he’d rather live it up and die young than eat crap he hated and wear himself out exercising. When they were in col ege, he was the kind of guy who smiled a lot, partied hard, and found a reason to like just about anybody he came into contact with. They’d both taken potluck on roommates their freshman year and ended up with each other. Jeremy had sworn Phil’s exuberance would drive him nuts before the first semester was out, but as it turned out, Phil was the perfect foil for his own relentless intensity. Jeremy learned to lighten up around Phil. Learned that women were actual y interested in him now that he wasn’t the poor scholarship kid at a rich private high school.

Learned to ditch his bad attitude and charm the world with a smile instead. He could leave his past behind and re-create himself any way he wanted to. And the result, twenty years later, was that he was living a life not one man in ten thousand had any chance of experiencing.

Three years ago, he’d reconnected with Phil and brought him on as his chief financial officer, and it was as if twenty years had never passed. Not only was it a plus to have a trusted friend in such an important position, Phil also had a knack for identifying acquisitions that turned out to be pure gold for Sybersense’s bottom line, which also made Jeremy very, very happy.

“Fair warning,” Phil said, as he pushed the button for the elevator. “Alexis has you in her sights for a benefit on the sixteenth.”

“Which does she want this time? My money, or me?

Can I get out of it by writing a check?”

“Not this time. A donation is always nice, but what she real y wants is to introduce you to ‘the future Mrs.

Jeremy Bridges.’ ”

“Ah, God.”

“Sorry. She’s matchmaking again. You know Alexis.”

He did. From the time he brought Phil on board at Sybersense, his wife had made it her personal mission to fix Jeremy up.
You have everything else
on earth,
she told him just about every time she saw him.
Now it’s time for a wife.

Jeremy couldn’t even fathom it. For nearly twenty years he’d had blinders on, running at warp speed toward his target, almost fanatical y staying on course, building his company into the juggernaut it was today.

Women were a pleasant diversion, but the moment one got in the way of his business, she was history.

And that was never much of a loss, because there was always another one waiting just around the next corner.

“You haven’t poked your head above water for several weeks now,” Phil said. “What’s up?”

“With everything going on at Sybersense, you have to ask?”

“Alexis tel s me this woman she wants to introduce you to is knockout gorgeous. You might want to put it on your calendar.”

“I’l think about it.”

The elevator doors opened, and they got off on the fourth floor. “It isn’t like you to hole up at home,” Phil said. “Is everything al right?”

The truth was that it
had
been weeks since he’d been out of the house in the evening. With Sybersense’s new software package only a few months away from hitting the market, he’d been so busy that he’d barely bothered to go out at al . Lately he’d just worked late at the office and then headed home, where he ate whatever Mrs. Spencer left him for dinner, flipped around on ESPN for a while, then went to bed. Maybe if he took Alexis up on her offer to introduce him to a beautiful woman, he could get back in the swing of things. For the first time in a long time, maybe he wouldn’t be going to bed alone.

“Everything’s fine. I just have a lot to think about right now.”

“Meant to ask. How are you and Max getting along these days?”

“Okay.”

“Frankly, he scares the crap out of me. Almost as much as Bernie did.”

Jeremy flinched a little at the mention of her name, but he kept on walking.

“You never told me why you dumped her,” Phil said.

“I didn’t. She had to quit.”

“Why?”

“Personal reasons.”

“What personal reasons?”

Jeremy stopped short. “Phil? Wil you stop being so damned nosy? A bodyguard’s a bodyguard. Who gives a damn?”

Phil held up his palms. “Hey. Sorry. Forget I said anything.”

Jeremy hadn’t meant to snap at Phil, but real y. Why was the man even asking?

“Are we al set for this morning?” Jeremy asked.

“Right on target,” Phil said. “The team’s ready. We’l see you at eight to wrap up the last-minute details, but we’re on track to be at the Simcon building by ten-thirty to start due diligence. If everything looks good, we can get this acquisition wrapped up in a hurry.” After they passed through the glass doors leading to the executive suite, Phil veered to the left to head to his office, while Jeremy strode ahead toward another set of doors leading to his.

He entered his outer office, where Ms. Keyes sat behind her computer, staring at the screen through her bifocals. He swept by her desk just as she was pul ing a hard copy of his schedule off the printer.

“Good morning, Mr. Bridges,” she said.

“Good morning, Ms. Keyes. Nice day, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever told you how attractive you look in that shade of beige.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bridges,” she said, never looking up, her expression never changing. “How kind of you to say so.”

She might as wel have said
I put a new box of
paper clips in your desk drawer
for al the emotion in her voice. It had become a game he played just for the hel of it. Could he get a reaction out of her? Coax a faint blush to her cheeks? A demure smile to her lips?

So far, no luck.

For years he’d hired secretaries who were young and stunningly beautiful, only to have them get married and then pregnant in short order, or have them show up every morning with happy-hour hangovers. Final y he decided that sooner or later he needed some work done, so he’d hired Ms. Keyes.

She took no personal cal s at work. She took no time off with sick kids because she didn’t have any. In fact, she’d never even been married, so she had no husband issues to deal with. She leaked nothing to the press. She didn’t question or comment on anything concerning his personal life. He could moonlight as a serial kil er, and she’d ignore the bloody scratches on his neck the next morning when she brought him his cup of Colombian dark roast with a splash of cream. In short, he’d hired a highly dependable, highly efficient secretarial robot, and if he could find a way to mass produce her and send the resultant product into the marketplace, his net worth would shoot straight into the stratosphere.

He grabbed the hard copy of his schedule, knowing she’d also sent it to his iPhone and synched it with the calendar program on his PC.