Her Foreign Affair (13 page)

Birdie’s face contorted into a mask of horror, and Randi feared what might erupt. She didn’t expect, “You mean my real name is Courtney Robin Robinson?”

A louder choke disguised as a cough from the other end of the couch made all eyes turn toward Drew. His blue eyes were frozen wider than usual and despite his tan, he looked a little pale. Possibly a little green. “Courtney?” He swallowed and forced a grin. “Who’d have thought?”

“You thought Birdie was my real name?” Birdie stared at him as if he’d grown a second head, or the one on his shoulders had rolled off.

Drew shrugged. “I’ve seen it used as a real name.”

“When?” Birdie demanded

“A couple of times…”

“If you say,
Bye, Bye Birdie
and
Hope Floats,
I will shoot you.”

The only person in the room who seemed remotely amused, Drew’s crooked grin trembled at the corner, seeming to regain his composure faster than anyone else, and Randi wondered exactly how he’d processed the revelation. “Okay, I won’t say the movies.”

Birdie threw up her hands with a growl, and Randi wanted to echo her. Another man who dealt with trauma by making jokes? What was it with guys? She glanced over her shoulder at Court who merely shrugged as if to say this was normal.

“Got to admit you got yourself one hell of a name there, Bird. Guess that means you’ll be hanging around longer than a year abroad fling, eh? Aw damn.” His head fell back, and he stared up at the ceiling, hands lying limp on his lap. “Glad you all spoke up now, wish you’d done it sooner, considering what I was…bloody hell.” He straightened and scrubbed his face with both hands. “I suppose if I have to have a sister, I’m glad it’s you. It’ll take a few moments to flip-flop my thinking. But overall, yer, I’m glad to have a sister.” Drew’s sweet face brightened with a wide, toothy grin, to counteract his still pasty pallor. “And if Kevin Westerfield thinks this’ll give him a chance of getting into your knickers, well, I already told him it’d never happen, but now I can back it up with a fist to his nose.” Drew raised a fist and pantomimed a right hook.

Birdie gasped, and by the way her eyes lit up for a moment, apparently, she didn’t think it was so awful that this Kevin person wanted to get close to her.

“Bloody hell.” Drew’s smile dropped and he paled again. “A sister. When’s your birthday, Bird?”

“February.”

“That means…” Drew frowned, then flicked his gaze toward his father.

“Yes.” Court gave his son a crooked smile. “She was conceived roughly four months after you. About a month before I married your mother.”

“Now there’s a story I have to hear.” One corner of Drew’s mouth curled up in a matching crooked grin.

“I suspect you’ll get your wish. Very soon.” Court closed his eyes as his grip tightened on Randi’s shoulder.

Randi couldn’t help but grimace and give a weak, very weak, laugh. Oh yeah, there was a story.

“This isn’t funny!” Birdie shouted.

Stunned by the angry vehemence of Birdie’s voice, Randi swiveled her head to see the normally sunny face dark and stormy. Birdie had never been one to shout when upset and, yet, here sat a girl Randi didn’t recognize. Birdie’s eyes flashed with roiling emotions, her face a mottled mixture of red and white. She obviously couldn’t process the shock as fast as her brother. “This is my life you’ve just turned on its nose!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Forcing herself to stay seated when she wanted to jump up and pace, Randi defended herself. Birdie was upset enough for the time being, and pacing would only increase everyone’s agitation. She needed to bring this under control and fisted her hands in her lap. If her neck got any tighter it might snap in two, which might be a blessing, actually, possibly even less painful than what she felt now. “It all happened so long ago, and the situation couldn’t have been more complicated…”

“The nineteen eighties were not the Middle Ages!” Birdie argued back. “You should have told me from the beginning. You shouldn’t have married my fa—my dad—Wyatt to hide your mistake. You didn’t have to create a false life, a false identity for me.”

Randi dropped her head back, and it thunked against her rocking chair, adding to the headache building inside her skull. “I didn’t want to,” she whispered. “I wanted you to know Court, but other people made different decisions, limiting my choices. However, I did have choices, and the one to marry Wyatt seemed like the best way to smooth out a difficult situation.”

Randi glanced to the left at the painting hanging over the fireplace. It didn’t appear to be much more than a seascape to anyone who didn’t know, but Birdie knew it well. Wyatt had bought it as a gift to the family in general to commemorate his and Randi’s fifth wedding anniversary. The year they’d moved into this house. Birdie looked as well, and it seemed to calm her. They’d all found the painting of Monterey Bay, done by a no-name artist, soothing and peace inspiring. It seemed to work its magic now when they needed it most.

“I don’t see how.” Birdie grabbed a sofa pillow and hugged it to her stomach, huddling around it as if holding her favorite teddy bear. “You’d better explain it to me.” At least now she spoke in closer to normal tones and no longer shouted.

“I’m curious as well,” Drew drawled and stretched out his legs, hands folded across his stomach.

Randi looked up at Court, pleading for… Lord, she didn’t know what. Rescue from a white knight would be nice about now. Apparently, he got the message because he nodded and gave her shoulder a brief squeeze.

“I’ll start it,” Court said. He struck a pose, legs spread, hands clasped behind his back.

“No!” Birdie objected. “I want to hear it from her. That is if you are who you say you are. You are my mom, aren’t you?” A hint of a sneer almost covered the flash of fear in Birdie’s eyes and tempered the hurt and anger tearing through Randi.

“Of course I’m your mother! I even have the scars to prove it.” Reining in her own temper, Randi held up her hands. “Okay, okay. Quite simply, while in London for my semester abroad, I met Court. We fell…” She swallowed hard, thinking of all the times she’d questioned this very fact herself. Court’s hand tightened on her shoulder and certainty returned. “We fell in love and love followed its natural course. The day I was scheduled to leave, several things happened.” Bracing herself, she lowered her arms and clung to the solid arms of the rocking chair.

She closed her eyes and let the memories flow. “Court and I had already said our goodbyes. My flight left that night, and he had a new hire reception he had to attend. He’d just completed his graduate degree, and it was time for him to step into the family business.”

Birdie snorted and Randi opened her eyes. “You know all about family companies and what parents expect. You’ve seen it your whole life, because even though I work from home, I work for my father. It was the same for Court, and he’d been raised his whole life to work for his father.”

“Um, actually, not only my father but my prospective father-in-law as well,” he said, and Randi looked up at him. “See, Beatrice and I were products of an outdated fashion. We’d technically been engaged since we were children. The estates are side by side and the businesses compatible. Our marriage brought about a merger of both concerns.”

Surprise made Randi blink. It certainly explained a few things. “You never mentioned that.”

“I didn’t see any point. Beatrice and I were over and done with at the time you and I met.” Face carefully blank, he shrugged. “She and I spent one night together, decided we didn’t suit after all, and parted ways.” His gaze moved to Drew and softened with a father’s pride. “Of course, all it took was one night to create you.”

“Why’d you split in the first place?” Drew asked, then his eyes widened. “Are you saying you married her because she got pregnant?”

“In part. Many other factors went into the decision process. It wasn’t so cut and dried.”

“Right. The companies.” Drew nodded, not looking like he completely agreed with the practice, but understood the system.

“And your grandparents’ estate, which is willed to you as the first male child on their side in three generations.”

“I don’t see how all that matters,” Birdie said. “Didn’t you know my mother was pregnant? And with your child?”

“No, I didn’t. But if I had known—”

Randi held up a hand again. “I had a chance to tell him, but by then I knew about the other baby.” She glanced at Drew and apologetically grimaced. He smiled in return. “Drew. Only he didn’t have a name then. Not yet. Please, let me do this in order.”

“Oh, please do get on with it. I’m just dying to hear the story.” Birdie imperiously waved for her to keep going.

Randi ignored the heavy sarcasm. Birdie certainly had the right to feel what she felt. “All right, so Court had family obligations. I knew this. I’d applied for a summer internship at the same company, but as no call came through, we both assumed I didn’t get it. So instead of going to the new hire reception myself, which had been scheduled since before I’d left home, my flight was booked for the same time, making it impossible for him to see me off at the airport. We had plans for after my graduation, once he had some work experience, but nothing set in stone. We said goodbye, and then as I started to pack, the phone rang and I got the news I had the internship. I’d barely hung up when the phone rang again, only it was student health services. The doctor told me I was pregnant, despite the birth control I was on.”

Birdie snorted. “Right.” A roll of the eyes conveyed her disbelief.

“Antibiotics, my dear. Remember this little fact well, they can negate the effectiveness of birth control pills.”

The nod from Birdie came reluctantly. They’d discussed it before. Randi had made sure of that early on.

“So.” Randi drew in a deep breath and let it go. “I canceled my flight home, and made all the arrangements I needed in order to stay. I dressed up and went to the new hire reception with every intention of telling Court the happy news. What plans I had.” Sadness and humiliation swamped her as if it were happening all over again. The look on his face, the disdain on
her—Beatrice? What a name—
face, the horror on Danielle Richards’ face…and the sheer loathing of the two older couples standing near them. It had felt as if she faced an arena of man-eating tigers, all of them out for her blood. Except Court. His face alone had showed something else. Surprise, regret, and shame.

“Well it didn’t work out quite the way I’d envisioned. I got to the reception in time to overhear the conversation about his…fiancé’s pregnancy and how, to celebrate the happy event, they’d moved up the wedding date.” Though she turned to look at Birdie, she clasped her hands over her stomach, remembering what it had felt like to carry her daughter.

“I’d opened my mouth to drop my own bombshell, but then I couldn’t speak. All those people looking at me. They all seemed so pleased with the news, and Court looked so…so…right…beside…
her
. Like they’d been made for each other. Cut from the same cloth, so to speak.” Feeling guilty for not being able to say the woman’s name, she glanced at Drew who gave her a tiny smile and nod of encouragement. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t force such a decision on him. He’d have been torn between two babies… And apparently, she’d been there first. I was the outsider. The foreigner. No way would I have ever gained the support of his parents. I didn’t belong in his world.”

Court gripped her shoulder. “We could have made it work, Jeannie. We would have worked something out.”

She was already shaking her head. “No. It wouldn’t have been fair to either child, you, or any of us, no matter what you chose. I’d seen my friends with divorced parents and how the splits affected them. I decided none of us needed such a complication. Especially the children. It would be too confusing with me in California and you in England. Too much distance.”

Court moved in front of her and bent, hands on the arms of the chair, putting his face close to hers. “I think I should have been allowed to have a part in that decision,” Court said quietly, his gaze locked on hers with an expression so tender, yet serious, she couldn’t look away.

“Perhaps,” she conceded. “But I was too numb and too hurt to consider your feelings. I thought it would be easier all around to come home and raise my child alone. If I couldn’t have you, I’d have a part of you. And if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be torn in two. I figured I was strong enough to raise Birdie on my own.” She glanced sideways at her daughter. “And I do have my beautiful daughter to remind me of a precious time of my life.”

“Oh for crying out loud! This is my life you made careless decisions with.” Birdie’s eruption broke the spell between Randi and Court, both of them turning their heads to see her glare as hot and as hurt as Randi had ever seen.

Court crouched, staying close, one hand falling to Randi’s knee in a show of comfort as her head threatened to explode.

“I did not make a careless decision!” She choked back her shout and forced the words through gritted teeth.

Birdie subsided deep into her corner of the sofa. “Keep going.”

Court settled on the carpet, keeping a hand on Randi while another deep breath helped restore a small amount of calm to her thundering pulse. “I flew out the next morning and made it home with no further trauma other than morning sickness. I managed to pass it off as air sickness for a day or two, but your grandmother finally got me to talk. Since I knew I didn’t want an abortion, sooner or later, I’d have to tell them. I wouldn’t be able to hide it for long and returning to Stanford in the fall would be impossible.”

Birdie knew her views on abortion—although right for some people, Randi had never once considered it as a personal choice—Birdie seemed to relax a little, but the scowl didn’t leave her face. “I bet Grandpa swallowed that like broken glass.”

A humorless laugh escaped Randi. “Oh yeah. He yelled, he threatened, and tried to bully.” But she’d stood firm, her mother beside her, refusing to get the abortion he insisted on. There was no point in telling Birdie any of that now. From the moment he’d held her, Birdie had been the apple of her grandfather’s eye. “But your grandmother took my side, and he agreed to back off if I got married.”