Raindrops on Roses: Book One of the Favorite Things Trilogy (9 page)

Having nothing left, not even her pride,
Amber dropped down to the floor in tears.

Michael stood there a long
time, hands on his hips, listening to her cry. When she began to
dry heave, he got down on the floor and gently pulled her into his
arms. "Okay. Shh, shh," he said. "Hey. Calm down, babe, it's okay.
You're right—maybe I haven't really thought this all the way
through." He sighed. "We
are
a lot to walk away from. Shh. It's okay now. I'm
sorry. Please stop crying, Am...I'm not going anywhere."

He sat there holding her, stroking her head
until her breathing returned to normal. "I have to go in now, but
I'll try to wrap things up early, okay? I have a couple meetings
but I'll try to get home as soon as I can. We'll talk more later,
all right?"

She nodded, too embarrassed to speak as he
helped her up off the floor.

The
begging
.

Having to beg him to stay had wounded her
deep down inside. And she knew she would never be quite the same
again.

•~•

Once Michael had gone and
she was feeling more like herself, Amber picked up the phone and
called her mother. Her chest was in a knot and all she could think
was,
When did this happen? When had he
started seeing Priscilla Bauer?

As the phone rang, she resisted an
overwhelming urge to bite her nails for comfort like she did when
she was a kid. Chewing them had always been one of her favorite
things to do when she got upset.

"Hello?" said Julie Holland. Her deep,
smoke-rich tone had always comforted Amber.

"Mom," she said, trying to
keep her voice even, "you
won't
believe what just happened to me."

"What happened, honey? What's wrong?"

"Michael's cheating."
Amber trembled as she said the words. "With Priscilla Bauer...the
granddaughter of
Veronica
Bauer
."

"The actress?"

"Yes."

"Oh, my God."

"
Okay??
"

"Wha...well..." Julie stuttered. "Are you
certain? I mean, how do you know?"

"I saw a
text
from her right on
his phone," she croaked, "and I immediately confronted him about it
and he admitted it. He didn't even try to deny it."

"Holy."

"I know. And it gets worse."

"
Worse?
" her mom barked. "What can be
worse than that?"

"I'll tell you. He told me
that we were
finished
and he was gonna move out tonight." Amber heard her mom
gasped. "
Yeah
. He
said he'd been planning to tell me, but he's been waiting for the
right time."

"Oh, my God. Amby. I don't
believe what I'm hearing.
Michael?
Moving out? Boy, I didn't see that one coming at
all...am I just out of touch?"

"Apparently. Because your
'prince Michael' started screwing around on me after all these
years." Amber fought back tears. "Here I am
cooking
for him—goddamn homemade
lasagnas and casseroles
by
hand
—doing his laundry, loving him,
fucking
him,
doing
everything
you're supposed to do, to keep your guy happy—and it's not
enough."

"Amby, don't fall apart
over this," her mother pleaded. "Just listen to
me
now. The only way you can make
sure this goes away—and I mean
make
sure
—is to make sure it goes away. You
wanna know something about men? They just blow in the wind, honey.
That's all they really do. And sometimes we women have to
manufacture a wind to blow them in the right direction and make
them do right by
us
." Julie Holland paused. "You’ll have to dry those tears,
sweetheart. You'll have to get tough and fight to keep your
man."

"Well, I fought today. And it looks like I
got through to him; I begged him to change his mind about leaving.
He said he'd come back home and we could talk more later..."

"Well, that's good," her
mother said. "But listen, if he was really
serious
about leaving—it won't be
enough. You want to start a family right? You'll have to tell him
you’re already pregnant."

There was silence as Amber
processed that. "But, Mom, I’m
not
pregnant."

Julie laughed.
"Sweetheart—I said to
tell
him you were. You're on the pill, right? You'll
have to stop taking them
immediately
. Get pregnant.
Yesterday. You and Michael belong together."

"I'll stop taking the
pill, but I don't wanna lie to him about being pregnant, Mom. I
don't want to be one of
those
girls."

"Did you or did you
not
just
tell me
you had to beg him to stay with you? I'd say that calls for a lie
or two, Am. Especially if it's only a temporary lie."

Amber was still hesitant.
"You really think that'll work, though? You don't think he'll be
suspicious? I
never
flat out lie to Michael, he'll see right through
me."

"Not if you play it just
right.
Make
yourself believable. You can do it! Besides, once you stop
the pill, I'm sure you'll get pregnant soon enough." Julie Holland
then fell into a hacking jag before she could continue. "Now, just
relax," she croaked, "and work not to lose him, because we both
know they don't sell Michael Frosts on Amazon. You
can't
afford to let some
other girl get him, Amber—you two have way too much history. So use
it to your advantage and blow him back in the right
direction."

"All right," Amber said,
still unsure. "I guess I’ll try it. I'll find the right time to
make it work. This is my life we're talking about, after all.
My
life
."
And I may even need a plan B
.

"Good girl," said Julie.
"Now, let me know what happens when you tell him you're pregnant."
She chuckled shrewdly. "He'd better hear wedding bells if he knows
what's good for him. We can't just let him trade you in for a new
model, Amby." She sucked her teeth. "
Damn
him! I swear men can be such
fucking idiots."

•
CHAPTER TEN •

P
riscilla was sitting in their grandmother's home office
helping Douglas sort through stacks of paperwork and files that
spanned over forty years of their grandparents' Favorite Things
business enterprise.

"Hey," said Doug, handing her a photograph.
"Ever seen this before?"

He had found a black and white snapshot
taken at the grand opening of Hôtel Blue Satin in Paris, the first
of the three hotels their grandparents had built together.

Priscilla sat staring at
the photograph. It was of her grandmother and Raquel Welch, smiling
together under the royal blue awning of the hotel's entrance. "You
should blow it up and feature it in the lobbies," she told him.
"Guests would
love
this."

"Great idea. I will." Doug got down on the
floor, leaning against the bookcase. "You know, Granddad and Gran
were really something else. They built this little empire without
milking their celebrity much at all. I think it's admirable."

Priscilla nodded. "Very
true. Which is exactly why this Ginger Wallford interview is a bad
idea, Doug. You
know
she wouldn't want you doing it."

He sighed. "I know you
don't agree, Cilla...but
I
want to do it. We've also been asked to sit down
with Sir Gregory Appleton, one of England's most respected
journalists, and I've agreed to do that one too."

"Yes, but do you know how many times she
turned down these same requests? Consistently, year after year?
She's always said that once she'd left the business, that was it,
she was done, and she didn't owe the public any answers or any
insight into her life."

"Well, this isn't really
about Gran, though, is it? It's about
us
."

"How can you say that? Of
course it's not about us. We're not in the public
eye—
she
is. She's
the name people know. We'll only become known once you start
feeding the public interest in her life, giving TV interv—."
Priscilla's phone chimed on the desk. She picked it up and read the
text. "It's Paula. Hang on a sec," she said, shooting off a quick
reply.

When she hit send, she fell back into her
grandmother's chair, biting her lip. "She wants me to get out, go
to the park or something but I told her she should just come on
over. I'm not up for it yet."

"Well, that's
understandable," said Doug. "But you should at least try to keep up
with your work, Cilla. Don't wallow in grief. Gran wouldn't want
that—she wouldn't stand for it. She lived a full, rich life and
accomplished
a lot
. She wanted the same for you. Just think...together we could
take Favorite Things to the next level. For them
and
for us."

"I know," Priscilla said quietly.

Doug smiled. "I won't stop pushing you to
come across the pond, you know. I can show you the ropes and get
your input on things. We'll be a dynamic duo. So start brushing up
on your French."

"Well, I
do
want to come over,"
she replied. "I want to get involved. This is our inheritance and I
know we have to do right by it. I definitely want to keep their
legacy alive, so please don't think it's not important to me—it
is." She exhaled deeply. "But again, just give me some time to
register that Gran's actually
gone
. Please. It hasn't even been
three weeks, Doug. It's so strange being here without her...I'm not
ready to go
anywhere
...not yet. But I must admit," she chuckled, "the idea of
being thousands of miles away from Charlotte tempts me
daily
to
reconsider."

"Well, I do understand," said Doug, nodding.
"And I'll be waiting for you, sis."

He rose up from the bookcase and they got
back to work.

•~•

When Paula came by, she gave Priscilla a
great big, warm hug and said, "A walk in the park would do you some
good, Cilla. I'm just worried about you being cooped up in the
house all this time."

"I'll get out soon, P. Truth is, all the
paparazzi at the funeral kind of freaked me out a little bit. We've
never had that before. Gran was very low key, and you know how
serious she was about leaving all that stuff behind. So it was
freaky, you know?"

"I hadn't thought about that," said Paula.
She laughed. "Sometimes I just forget who you guys are."

Paula Fleischman was the twenty-six-year-old
daughter of one of their closest neighbors in Mayfair. Her family
owned an adjacent estate and was big on the international real
estate scene. They'd been living on the island a long time, even
before the Bauers.

"I just don't want to go down that road,"
Priscilla said. "And I'm worried about Douglas agreeing to sit down
with Ginger Wallford so soon. Can you believe it? Gran's barely
cold in the ground and the media trolls are coming out in full
force."

"I've never exactly seen
Ginger Wallford as a troll, Cilla. I doubt
anyone
does. She's as respected as
they get."

"Oh, please," said
Priscilla. "All those TV people are the same. You really think
she
cares
about
Douglas and me?"

Just then, Priscilla's phone chimed. She
smiled when she saw that it was Michael.

He must be
back
, she thought, opening the
message.

Hi there. Home safe. Need
to talk to u. Call when u can. — M. Frost —

"Haven't seen that smile in a while," said
Paula, watching her face. "Who's the guy?"

Priscilla glanced up with
a sheepish grin. "Give me
one
second."

Leaving her friend in the den, she jogged up
to her bedroom. The text had had a more sobering tone than she was
used to from Michael, so she wanted to call back right away.

"Hey. Glad you made it home safely," she
said when he answered. "Hope everything went well."

"It was okay," he said, his tone sounding
rather dull. "You know, Priscilla..." He hesitated. "I did a lot of
thinking while I was away...about us and what I've sort of forced
you into here."

She sighed, rolling her
eyes. "Haven't we been through all that? You didn't
force
me into
anything—it's okay."

"Yeah, that's what I
thought. But after speaking to my father this weekend, he convinced
me I was wrong. You
do
need more time to grieve, Cilla. And it was selfish and
rather immature of me to push in on you the way that I did and not
allow you that time."

"So, what are you saying?" she asked.

"I'm saying you were
right. The timing
is
wrong. And I'm gonna back off for a while. But for the
record,"—he sighed heavily—"this is
really
hard for me, because I like
you
a lot
,
Priscilla, and I do want to be with you. But you were right. It's
bad timing."