Blame It on Paradise (22 page)

Back downstairs, Jack and Harrison enjoyed a couple of Sam Adams out on the deck. Talk turned to Anderson and the two dates he’d scheduled for the same night—with twins, no less—and the progress the dockworkers’ union was making with the help of one of the attorneys Jack had recommended. Nightfall quickly drove the temperatures down, and the two men went back inside.

“I better get going before Beth starts callin’ around,” Harrison said. He started for the front door with Jack trailing after him. “I never know if she’s going to greet me with kisses, tears or a tartar sauce pizza when I come home these days.”

“No, sir,” Jack groaned, reverting back to his Southie roots.

“A small cheese from Prince Pizza with tartar sauce from The Lobster Claw slathered all over it,” Harrison said. All three DeVoys shuddered. “It’s her first major craving. She can’t get enough of the stuff. She keeps me busy hustlin’ my hump from Saugus to Reading and back to Southie twice a week.”

Once Anderson trotted outside to sit behind the wheel of Harrison’s car, an old Ford Bronco that Harrison kept one step ahead of the salvage yard, Jack pulled a square of paper from his back pocket. He pressed it into Harrison’s hand. “I got a few estimates for that patch job, and that’s the average there.”

Without looking at the folded check, Harrison shoved it back. “I don’t want your money, Jackie. I’ve been working at MacNeil’s Auto Repair. Our noses are still above water.”

“You should get paid for your work. Besides, I’d rather pay you than some stranger. I know where to find you if it turns out that you did a shoddy job.”

Harrison hesitated a moment longer before sticking the check in his back pocket. “You could have done just as good. Pop taught you how to scrape and spackle same as he did me and Andy. Do a better job with the hammer next time. Make it really convincing.”

Jack tried too hard to look innocent.

“You left the hammer on your bed, dude,” Harrison said, his short, snappy Southie ‘dude’ wholly unlike the California surfer version. “If you ever want to talk…” He took a deep breath and rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to abuse an innocent house to get me out here.”

“Thanks, Harry.”

He patted his pocket. “Back at you, bro. But don’t expect me to pay
you
if I ever need legal advice.”

Jack gave his brother a light punch in the arm. “Dude, you couldn’t afford me.”

* * *

Jack wasn’t far behind his brothers when they left Nahant for Boston. Traffic was light for a late Sunday afternoon, so Jack was able to see Harrison’s battered old Bronco exit I-93. Jack took the same exit, only he continued straight to Berkeley Street rather than driving left to go into Southie with his brothers.

He traveled west on Berkeley, then turned left, traveling south on Tremont Street. He half-heartedly fiddled with his CD player as he passed the Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center and Roxbury Community College. He gave up on music altogether and turned off the CD player when the playground near the Jackson Square T station came into view. Jack had felt fine when he left the house, but now that he was driving in reverse to parallel park in a spot near the basketball courts, his heart began to throb in his ears.

Once parked, he sat in the car, watching a group of men play. One of the men looked at Jack and then did a double take. Jack recognized him, as well as R.J. and perhaps one other man who he’d seen play the day he’d come to the park with Lina. There was no invitation in
umass
’s expression, but there was no menace or intimidation either.
umass
nodded, and it was so subtle, Jack might have imagined it.

umass
spoke a few words to one of his teammates, who then peered at Jack. They started toward him, and Jack’s first instinct was to grab the keys in the ignition and start the car. His heart still battering his sternum, Jack started the engine, but only so he could lower the passenger window as
umass
approached.

Working the basketball gracefully from hand to hand,
umass
bent over to speak to Jack through the window. “Slummin’ again?”

“Nope.” Jack tipped his head toward his backseat. “I happen to know for a fact that this a good place to catch a good ball game.”

umass
peered into the backseat, where Jack’s gym bag was slumped. The two men looked at each other. Just when Jack thought he’d made an embarrassing mistake,
umass
stopped working the basketball and grinned. “If you’re gonna play, come play, but don’t sit over here like Jeffrey Dahmer eyeballin’ a bunch of brothers.”

* * *

Lina and Levora sat in a cozy coffee shop in Cambridge long after Louise, Levora’s daughter, had kissed them goodbye and returned to the MIT campus. Levora had been in town for two weeks, and Lina appreciated the amount of time she’d devoted to her when she should have been spending all of it with her own daughter.

“Lou thinks of you as a big sister,” Levora assured her over a bucket-like cup of hot chocolate. “You saw her. She’s excited about becoming an aunt.”

Her elbow on the tiny circle of their dark wood table, Lina rested her chin on her palm and turned her gaze to the plate glass window beside her. Cambridge was a student ghetto populated by undergraduates dressed in Gortex and hunched against the cold evening as they walked past the coffee shop. Lina supposed that most of the students she saw belonged to Harvard and MIT, and although the two schools were no Stanford, they did manage to turn out some of the finest minds in the country. One day, Louise would be one of those minds, and Lina couldn’t help worrying a little about how her behavior might influence the smart young woman who’d been the closest thing to a real sister she’d ever had.

“Do you think I’m setting a bad example for Louise?” she asked.

Levora looked confused. “How so?”

Lina met Levora’s gaze directly, hoping to gauge her true feelings with her next words. “I’m pregnant and I’m not married.”

“And…you’re afraid that I’m going to knit a scarlet ‘A’ and pin it to your turtleneck?” Levora chuckled. “You’re not some horny high school kid who got herself in trouble, doll. You’re twenty-nine years old, and you have the resources to properly care for a child. Yes, it would be nice if Jack was a part of the equation, but until he comes to his senses, you’re all this baby’s got. Well, you, me, Louise, Ben and Errol—it takes an island to raise a child, love, and you’ve got one. So no worries, okay?”

Lina reached past their cocoa cups and empty cheesecake plates and grasped Levora’s hands. “Thank you for coming. It really means a lot to me.”

“Anything for you, kiddo, even Massachusetts in April. It’s spring everywhere else in North America, but there’s still snow on the ground in New England. Everything’s backward here.”

Lina chuckled. Three decades in the southern hemisphere outweighed the time Levora had spent growing up in the northern. She sounded like a true native of Darwin.

“It would be perfect, you know,” Lina said wistfully. “We could spend September to February on Darwin, and March to August here in New England. Jack could practice law six months here and then teach sailing or something the rest of the time on Darwin.”

Levora peered over the top of her glasses. “That might work for a few years, but you can’t split time on two continents once your sprog begins school. I’m all for showing a kid the world, but a child also needs stability. Would you be willing to consider moving here permanently? You could always visit Darwin during the summer when your kids are out of school, and Louise will be here for a couple more years, too, so it’s not like you wouldn’t have any family at all here, and…”

Levora’s voice faded into background noise as Lina’s attention strayed. She had wrestled with the notion of resettling in Massachusetts, Nahant to be exact. The Commonwealth had its charm, but it was not her home. It was a whole different world, a whole different ocean. The only reason she’d be willing to move would be Jack, and for now, as things stood between them, that just wasn’t enough. Shaking her head, she stared at the glop of melted marshmallows and cocoa in the bottom of her cup.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be thinking that far ahead anyway,” Levora suggested, gently reclaiming Lina’s attention. “Jack hasn’t exactly come around yet, has he?”

“We still talk, still see each other. That’s something. We tried to get together once, but…” She gave a dismissive shake of her head.

“But what?”

“We can’t keep our hands off each other,” she laughed sadly. “We turn into a pair of howler monkeys in heat and nothing gets resolved about the baby.”

Levora patted Lina’s hand. “Maybe—and I’m not saying this to be cruel, doll, ’cause I got nothing against Jack even though he abandoned you once already and you shouldn’t forget that—but maybe he doesn’t want this baby.”

Lina smiled through a trickle of unexpected tears that she quickly swiped away. “He wants us, Levora. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Lina hoped that her reason made as much sense to Levora as it did to her. “Whenever we talk about the baby, Jack always says ‘him.’ From the first, he never referred to the baby as ‘it.’ Only ‘him.’ ”

* * *

A light but steady rain pattered against the tall, wide window nearest Lina as she gazed at Hyde Park. She’d chosen the Berkeley Hotel solely for its views of London’s spectacular little park, but she hadn’t factored in the weather, which seemed to reflect her mood. She had literally piles of work stacked on the table before her, and still more awaited her in the cozy study of her suite, but she found it impossible to focus on contracts and legal maneuverings with Jack crowding all other thoughts out of her head.

She picked up the morning’s
Daily Mail
, which she’d discarded earlier after deciding to get cracking on the business that had brought her to London. An item in the celebrity pages caught her eye, a long-winded paragraph about singer Lucas Fletcher and his American wife, Miranda Penney. The couple, and all of Conwy, Wales, it seemed, were rejoicing in the birth of their second child, a son they named Reilly.

Lina tossed the newspaper atop her work papers and resolutely surrendered to her sodden view, her hands clasped possessively over her abdomen. “Reilly,” she murmured. “That’s a nice name for a girl or a boy.”

Her back sank further against the arm of the comfy sofa as she brought her knees closer to her chest. “Your father thinks you’re a boy,” she told her baby. “Let’s hope not, if for no other reason than to avoid calling you Henderson, Robinson or, God forbid, Johnson.” She giggled, her still mostly concave belly moving beneath her hand. “Perhaps we should call you Bullseye.” Her merriment faded as she recalled the steamy night she’d pinpointed as the moment of conception. She’d been wonderfully out of her head, her whole self and soul given over to Jack. Even now, so many weeks later, the memory of that occasion weakened her knees and started a flame of yearning that melted her insides.

Just as much as she loved the child she had yet to meet, she missed its father. She knew that she should be with Jack testing out names, not alone in yet another hotel on yet another island. Darwin, Nahant or Great Britain, the island didn’t matter. Lina wanted only to be with Jack.

She replayed their angry parting—her angry departure, rather—on Nahant, and tried to justify the abruptness of it by calling up the way Jack had left her on Darwin. She reluctantly admitted that the two events couldn’t have been more different. “I didn’t have to go,” she mumbled under her breath. “I never gave him the chance to properly digest the news. I left because I didn’t want to give him the chance to leave me again.”

Lina winced at the painful memory of Jack’s disappearance from Darwin. For nearly a week after, she had haunted the island, a mere ghost of her former self, visiting the places she had learned to love anew by sharing them with Jack. He had ruined her precious spot high above Tuanui Bay. She’d been unable to enjoy the first light of each new day without hoping that it would bring Jack back to her.

After Edison Burke’s deplorable behavior on the island, she’d decided to meet with the Coyle-Wexler execs in Boston herself rather than subject the island to another version of Edison Burke. The prospect of a good fight had actually helped her forget about Jack. Until she’d come face to face with him in the Coyle-Wexler boardroom.

She covered her face with her hands, even though there was no one in the room to see the scorching blush heating her face. As long as she lived, Lina was convinced that she’d remember the hot rush of joyous desire that had exploded within her when she saw Jack sitting at the conference table. She crossed her arms and allowed herself a satisfied smirk at the way she had handled the surprise. Jack had played the moment cool, too, but she’d caught the confusion in his eyes and the slight lift of his brow before he’d been able to work his face into a placid mask of indifference.

In so many ways, he’d told her that he wanted her with him there in Nahant. Had she given him a chance to cool down, Lina was certain that he’d want their baby, too. “But only on Nahant,” she sighed. “And that, my darling,” she said to her belly, “is the problem.”

CHAPTER 17

This time, the conference room was almost completely empty when Lina walked into it promptly at ten, the time Reginald had designated for this latest meeting. Jack, Reginald, Edison Burke and a transcriptionist were clustered together at the end of the table farthest from the double doors. This time, Jack sat two seats away from Reginald’s left while Burke occupied the chair at Reginald’s right elbow.

The men politely stood in deference to Lina, who opted to sit directly opposite Jack. They exchanged a look, Jack mutely conveying that he had no idea what the meeting was about.

Reginald began by loudly clearing his throat. “Ms. Marchand,” he said with a glance at Jack, “or Lina, if I may, we—”

“You absolutely may not,” she said.

Jack stifled a dry chuckle. If Reginald had meant to intimidate her by facing her three on one, he was about to be disappointed. Just as she had at their first meeting, she immediately established the hierarchy in the room by denying Reginald the use of her nickname.

“
Ms.
Marchand,” Reginald began again with a frown, “we have a very grave issue to discuss.”

In a white wool jersey dress perfect for the cool but sunny morning, Lina was radiant with the famous glow attributed to pregnant women. Other than the glossy sheen of her hair and the warm glow of her skin, she showed no outward signs of her condition. It had been two weeks since their lunch date, and Jack could not stop looking at her.

Lina held his intense stare, struggling to read his thoughts. She wondered if there would ever come a day when the sight of him did not jumpstart her heart, or make her belly leap in happy circles. He looked so different than he had from the first time she’d seen him in the conference room. His hair was slightly unruly, his jacket unbuttoned, and even more amazing, his pricey tie didn’t match his ridiculously expensive suit. Tempted to look under the table to see if he even wore shoes, Lina might have done it if Reginald’s booming voice had not stolen her attention.

“We’ve made no headway in isolating the component that gives Darwin tea its weight loss properties, Ms. Marchand, and as you know, we’re rapidly nearing the end of our twelve-week trial,” Reginald said. “It is not my intention to walk away empty-handed from this situation, not after all the time and expense Coyle-Wexler has devoted to it.”

“Then I wish you all the best in the next two weeks,” Lina said cheerfully. “I’ve always believed that desperation, not necessity, is the basis of great scientific discovery.”

Reginald exchanged a sly look with Burke. Jack sat up a little straighter, unsure of what was going on. “Your relationship with Mr. DeVoy has created a conflict of interest, Ms. Marchand,” Reginald went on slickly. “The non-disclosure of your personal interactions with Jack constitutes fraud on your part, and therefore makes any agreement between J.T. Marchand and Coyle-Wexler Pharmaceuticals, Inc. hereby null and void.”

Jack launched himself to his feet. “Are you seriously trying to pull this, Reginald?”

Without looking at him, Reginald said, “Sit down, Mr. DeVoy.”

“It’s Mr. DeVoy now? If you think you’re going to get away with—”

“Mr. Wexler,” Lina snapped, cutting Jack off, “surely you can do better than this. What you got is all you’re going to get. No more time and no more tea. It’ll take more than a petty manipulation of circumstance to make me even consider revising our original agreement.”

The old man smiled, and Lina thought he bore a sad resemblance to a frilled lizard. “I thought it might.” He turned to Jack. “I’m sorely disappointed in your lack of good judgment, Jackson. You started your career here at Coyle-Wexler, and I had stellar hopes for you. I’m not going to live forever, and someone will have to take the reins someday. I’d hoped that that someone would be you.”

A rapid, muffled thudding distracted Reginald. “Are we having an earthquake?”

Burke reached down and grabbed his own thighs, quieting the eager tapping of his knees against the underside of the table. “Sorry,” he smiled awkwardly.

Jack ignored Burke’s obvious delight at his turn of fortune. “Are you letting me go, Reginald?” he asked, his calm exterior camouflaging the fury bubbling under his skin. “Are you actually using me as a brokering chip against Lina?”

“For all I know, Jack, your pillow talk with this woman might have jeopardized Coyle-Wexler’s interests,” Reginald said with a victimized expression. “How do I know that it won’t happen in future deals?”

Lina’s unflappable composure kept Jack’s growing temper in check. “What do you want from me, Mr. Wexler?” she asked.

“You know what I want, young lady. I want the rights to cultivate and harvest that tea on Darwin.”

“Jack has served you well and faithfully for years, and now you mean to trade his career for my tea?”

Reginald gestured toward the transcriptionist, and her fingers froze over the keys of her typing machine. “That’s one way of putting it. This is strictly business, my dear, and business is like a war. Sometimes the commander-in-chief has to sacrifice a general to the cause.”

Jack’s ears steamed.
All these years,
he thought furiously, in his mind’s eye watching everything he’d worked for swirl away.
I’ve gone from one end of the world to the other acquiring his products, I’ve sat back and shut up when he’s needed me to, I’ve made excuses for him…
He heard Lina’s voice in his head, simply stating what he was finally acknowledging.
I’ve been his pet, and now
that lying, backstabbing, deceitful—
“Don’t do it, Lina,” he blurted toward Lina. “Don’t give him the tea.”

Reginald laughed in disbelief. “Do you know what you’re saying, Jack? You’re the one who’ll lose everything if Ms. Marchand does not surrender the rights to Darwin mint.”

“You’re clever to play on my emotions, Mr. Wexler,” Lina said. “I love Jackson DeVoy. You’re not wrong to gamble on that. If you’ll spare his position, I’ll happily give you the secret to Darwin mint tea.”

Jack felt as though he’d been kicked in the gut. “Lina, don’t give in to him.”

“One more word from you, DeVoy, and I’ll have you escorted from the room by security,” Reginald said. He knuckled away a dab of drool as he turned back to Lina. “You’ll surrender the rights to the tea? Just like that?”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Just like that. Do I have your word that you’ll spare Jack?”

“Yes. Indeed, yes.”

“I want it noted on the record.”

Reginald motioned toward the corner, and the transcriptionist’s fingers began dancing across her keyboard once more.

“Lina, don’t do this,” Jack pleaded, stretching his arms toward her across the table. “Don’t sell out Darwin to protect me.”

“Tell me the secret, Ms. Marchand.” Reginald greedily leaned forward as though he could taste her answer. Burke leaned in, too, likely hoping to catch the crumbs from Reginald’s mouth.

Jack issued an earnest appeal to Lina. “I don’t deserve your loyalty, so don’t do this.”

“Does Darwin’s tourist trade deserve it?” Burke interjected. “Our campaign is ready to go. Jack loses his job and Darwin loses its number-one economic resource if you don’t give us what we need, Ms. Marchand. It’s not like you aren’t getting anything in return.” He shoved a red folder at her. “Our original offer still stands, minus the use of the properties in Europe and the apartment here in Boston.” He cast a sly, knowing glance at Jack. “We were fairly confident that you wouldn’t need us to provide you with room and board here, that you’d make other, more comfortable, arrangements.”

Lina held Jack’s gaze, and he thought he glimpsed a spark of impishness in her eyes. “Mr. Wexler,” she began, still pinning Jack with her bright eyes, “the secret to Darwin mint tea is that there is no secret.”

Silence. Then the transcriptionist jumped back into action. The skip of her fingers over her keys was the only sound in the room until Reginald sputtered, “Wh-What?
What?”

With cool reserve, Lina rose from her chair and clasped her hands at her back. Jack knew that she was a savvy negotiator—her undefeated record was as good as his. Actually, it was one better. Jack folded his arms over his chest and relaxed back into his chair, eager to see how Lina would handle Reginald.

“You and your wife were on Darwin for six weeks, Mr. Wexler. Please, correct me if I’m wrong,” she started casually.

“This isn’t a courtroom and I’m not some young lawyer with the hotsie-totsies for you,” Reginald said derisively. “You’re not going to talk circles around me, so don’t even try it.”

“How many automobiles did you see on Darwin?” she asked before catching Jack’s eye and mouthing,
Hotsie-totsies?

“Four, perhaps five,” Reginald guessed. “I hope this goes somewhere fast, Ms. Marchand, I’m really losing patience.”

“Did you visit the beach?” she continued. She passed Jack’s chair, close enough for him to catch the faint scent of her hair.

“That whole island is beach,” Reginald answered.

“Did you reside in a homestay?”

“There’s no hotel on Darwin, so of course. We rented a bungalow about a mile outside the town center.”

“Did you take meals in your room, or did you eat out?”

“We ate out, for the most part.” Reginald’s face screwed into a childish pout. “How much longer are we going to play this game?”

“And the tea your wife enjoyed every day,” Lina said, unruffled by Reginald’s impatience. “Was it delivered?”

“No,” Reginald stated loudly enough to startle the transcriptionist. “My wife picked it fresh every day, said it tasted best fresh from the valley. She brewed it herself, right there in our little kitchen.”

Lina stopped at her seat and rested her hands on its back. “
Darwin
is the secret, Mr. Wexler, not the tea. You and your wife walked everywhere. A mile into town for meals and a mile back to your homestay, a quarter mile to and from the beach, a mile to and from the mountain where your wife picked the tea.

“Darwin has no taxis, no buses, no hired cars. There are no fast food restaurants, and our cuisine comes primarily from the sea, so it’s naturally low in fat and high in protein. You and your wife ate healthy foods and moved your bodies. That’s how she transformed her figure, Mr. Wexler. It had nothing to do with the tea.”

“If that’s true,
Ms.
Marchand, then why is it that Millicent continued to lose weight even after our return to the States?”

“Your wife and I had a lovely conversation at your nephew’s wedding,” Lina said pleasantly. “She has quite a number of hobbies. Tennis, swimming, hiking…as a matter of fact, she mentioned that she’s planning to get a bicycle. You dine with her regularly, so I’m sure you’ve noticed that she’s cut processed sugars, alcohol and trans fats from her diet.”

“She’s no fun,” Jack smirked.

Reginald turned purple. “It was the tea, I tell you!”

“The tea has nothing to do with your wife’s success,” Lina persisted calmly, “unless she tends to retain water. Perhaps your research team has discovered that Darwin mint tea has mild diuretic properties.”

Reginald slammed his hands on the tabletop and shot to his feet. “You could have told us that ten weeks ago, missy!”

Unfazed by Reginald’s display of temper, Lina smiled, and it almost looked sympathetic. “Would you have believed me if I’d told you that there was nothing in the tea…but tea?”

“This time next year you’re going to be sorry you ever tangled with Reginald Wexler, Ms. Marchand,” he promised through gritted teeth. “When Burke launches his campaign, tourists won’t come within ten miles of Darwin’s shores!”

Her eyes flashing, Lina dropped all pretenses of politeness. With the stealthy swiftness of a magician, she produced three large photographs and slapped them onto the table. “In the past two and a half months I put aside all my other clients and devoted my considerable resources and energies solely to Darwin. I’ve visited the ministries and departments of tourism in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan—I’ve been all over this planet bolstering Darwin’s reputation as a vacation destination. While you were trying to squeeze a miracle from a tea leaf, I was securing my island’s economic future.”

She slid the photos to Reginald and Jack. They stared at the publicity stills, Jack’s smile growing as Reginald’s mouth grew tighter. The first photo showed Carol Crowley laughing and clapping with a large crowd gathered to watch Maori performers. The second showed the diverse, smiling faces of the staff physicians and specialists at the island’s medical center. Studying their list of credentials, Jack noticed that several of them were Stanford and Harvard graduates. The third photo invoked bittersweet memories in Jack. It depicted the cheery counter clerk in a bright, open space offering assistance to a woman traveling with a caged chicken, while in the foreground Levora appeared to be giving directions to a relieved looking businessman.

Jack looked up at Lina, and she gave him a pointed stare as if to say,
Now you know what I was up to.

“Darwin is bulletproof,” she told Reginald. “Or should I say bullyproof?”

With a final half-smile and a flip of her hair, she turned and started for the doors.

“Wait a minute,” Jack mumbled in quiet confusion, the best he could do now that he realized that this was the end of the meeting. He started after Lina.

“You’re not going anywhere, Jackson,” Reginald barked.

“Is that so?” Jack challenged. He kept walking, but before he reached the door, Reginald’s voice reeled him back.

“I made a mistake, son, a huge mistake.” Reginald left the head of the table and met Jack halfway to the door. “We’ve wasted so much time, so many resources on this tea fiasco. I’ll need my number one out there securing new products.”

“Sir,” Burke interrupted, “I’m your number one now, remember? You said that you were going to fire Jack, no matter what happened today.”

Reginald dismissed Burke, who left the room in a full-fledged huff. Jack was on his way out, too, when Reginald reached up to put his arm across his shoulders. “Don’t pay any attention to Burke. All that nonsense was part of my strategy. I’d never let you go, son. You’re my number one, my go-to guy.”