Chasing Temptation

by M. S. Parker

  After she made her sandwich, the two of us moved to the table and sat down, munching in companionable silence.

  “I was wondering,” Florence said when we’d finished. “I have a party to go to tonight. Astor hates parties.”

  She rolled her eyes, but the smile didn’t fade. “I don’t like them as much as I used to, but it’s part of the job. I don’t suppose you’d go with me, would you? Going alone is such a chore.”

  “A party?” I didn’t know if that was a good idea.

  “It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” she said softly. “Maybe we can find you a job. You’ve been mentioning wanting one. You were a wonderful assistant. I have a new assistant of course, but there are people I could introduce you to.”

  I did need a job. Frankly, nothing I saw in the paper seemed to fit, and if I didn’t find one soon, I have to apply wherever I saw a help-wanted sign. Not exactly what I had in mind.

  “Besides, you need to lighten up and have a little bit of fun.”

  “Fun.” I scoffed—because that idea was ridiculous.

  “You can’t let him color the rest of your life, honey. You know that.”

  Slowly, I looked up at Florence. The remains of our casual meal lay between us and my belly, sated now, decided it was a good time to pitch and spin. I didn’t feel nauseated, though. Just…uneasy. I had no idea what to expect from the rest of my life. I didn’t even know what to expect from tomorrow.

  “Maya?”

  “I know,” I said finally, giving her a determined smile. She was, after all, right. Glenn had moved on and he’d made it more than clear that he not only wanted me out of his life—he outright hated me.

  And damn if it didn’t hurt.

  I tried to come up with excuses not to go.

  I didn’t know the people throwing the party.

  Florence flippantly replied, “Neither do I!”

  I didn’t have anything to wear.

  “I have scads of clothing, darling.”

  I hadn’t had time to get a decent haircut in ages.

  “Your hair is lovely, Maya. I only wish I could make my hair look like that with hardly any effort.”

  Each excuse was rebuffed with barely any effort.

  Finally, I submitted to her relentless pestering and ended up on her bed as she went through her closet. More than four or five pretty pieces joined me on the bed and after a few minutes, I got up to wander the girly bedroom she now shared with Astor. On her vanity, I found a picture of the two of them—their wedding—and I smiled at the happiness I saw on their faces.

  It made my heart ache—and not just because I envied what they had. But because I was glad she’d found it.

  As I went to put the picture down, Florence tapped me on the shoulder. Caught off-guard, I spun around, and my elbow hit her purse where it sat just on the edge of the dress.

  “Oh!”

  As everything came spilling out, I put the picture down. “Sorry,” I said, sighing. “I’m not very graceful, even on my good days. Today isn’t one of them.”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  As I passed over lipsticks, a comb, a mirror, Florence tucked the odds and ends back inside. I went to pick up what looked like a small leather binder—a planner, maybe—Florence gasped. I had it in hand before she could reach it, and she snatched it away. “I…um, that’s…well, you see, it’s personal,” she said, babbling.

  “Okay,” I said mildly. “After all, this stuff goes in your purse. It’s all personal.”

  “Of course. Well…” She laughed, patting her hair as she did when she was nervous. Her eyes slid around the room before coming back to meet mine. “Can you keep a secret?”

  She didn’t even wait for a response. “I’m…keeping track, you see. Of my monthlies.”

  Her cheeks went bright red.

  I blinked. Then, as I caught on to what she was saying, I found myself blushing a bit as well. I don’t know why. It’s not like having a period wasn’t a normal thing. Women had been having them since the dawn of time. “Um…okay. Is there a reason?”

  “Astor and I…well, I want a baby.”

  “Oh!” I threw my arms around her neck.

  She hugged me back. “He’s nervous about it. But…I want a baby, Maya. I want one so bad.”

  “You’ll make a great mother. I know it.”

  She laughed as we broke away. “You always sound so sure of things, sweetheart.”

  I winced, ducking my head to cover it up as I finished scooping up everything that had spilled out of her purse. “Well, here’s the rest of it…unless you want all those gum wrappers and pieces of lint.”

  “Heavens, yes. I collect everything.”

  We laughed and went back to searching for the dress I’d wear that night.

  An hour later, I wasn’t laughing.

  I had multiple pieces of paper in front of me and my head was spinning.

  I couldn’t possibly track down a calendar from my time, so I’d had to make do with scribbling out dates as best as I could. I’d done a pretty decent job, and there was no denying it—

  I was almost two months late.

  “How could I have missed this?” Wiping a shaking hand over the back of my mouth, I stared at the irrefutable proof in front of me until the words and numbers started to blur. Pushing myself away from the desk, I got up to pace.

  Of course, it made sense.

  How tired I was.

  The incredible nausea that had hit me that morning, out of the blue.

  And man…a peanut butter and tomato sandwich?

  If I wasn’t already craving another one, I’d be repulsed.

  I was pregnant. I had to be.

  How could I possibly explain this to anybody? How could I explain it to Glenn?

  “You can’t,” I said, and the hysteria in my voice almost brought on tears. But I knew, without a doubt, if I went to Glenn and told him I was pregnant with his child, he’d never believe me. I’d been gone three years in his time.

  He’d never believe it.

  I barely believed it, and I was living this madness! How was I supposed to expect anybody else to buy into this bullshit?

  Sweat broke out on my brow at the very thought of explaining it to anybody, and it took no time to come to one conclusion. I couldn’t tell anybody. I just couldn’t.

  I was going to have to find a way to explain the baby, once I began to show. Assuming I stayed.

  Assuming…

  “Shit, that makes it sound like I have any control.” My thoughts flicked back to how I’d ended up here again and I thought of the locket, the diary. I had the locket, although I’d kept it carefully tucked away in the jewelry box that sat on the dresser of my borrowed room. Every day, I checked to make sure it was still there and it glowed, beckoning to me to put it back on.

  I didn’t dare.

  Now, though…I was tempted.

  Could I risk raising a baby on my own in this time?

  Even in my own time, a single mother came with its own stigmas, but now, it would be…awful. It might not be as bad in California, but I didn’t have any of the advantages that might have protected me. I didn’t have my family name, I didn’t have my family’s money.

  I was just…me.

  And I was carrying the baby of a man who didn’t even want to look at me.

  I grabbed the pages and crumpled them up, letting the short, sharp scream building inside me break free. Throwing the hand-drawn calendars toward the enameled waste can, I spun away and wrapped my arms around my middle. Anxiousness raged and burned inside me and I started to pace.

  “What am I going to do?”

  I came to a stop in front of the mirror and that was when I realized I’d been rubbing my belly.

  Abruptly, I smiled. Glenn’s baby was growing there.

  Whether he loved me or not, whether he believed me or not, I was carrying his baby. I knew it, deep inside.

  And I’d figure all this out, somehow.

  “You’re m
ore quiet than normal.”

  Sipping from the glass of water I’d asked a server to bring me, I smiled at Florence. “Sorry.” I gestured to the crowd with my free hand. “I don’t really know anybody here. Hard to make small talk with total strangers.”

  “Honey, the only kind of talk you make with total strangers is small talk.” She looped her arm through mine. “You comment on a woman’s dress, tell a man he is looking fine tonight—just not if the man is with a woman. Ask what he thought of the latest movie, or if she loves the Beatles as much as you do. Or you can talk about fashion…I hear this new mini-skirt craze is going to be big.”

  “Mini-skirt craze?” I eyed her narrowly.

  “Some people are calling it scandalous.” She laughed. “But I love it.”

  She sipped her champagne while I thought about the skirts I’d seen when I’d been doing my research, or when I’d just watched movies set in the sixties and seventies. Mini-skirt craze, indeed. I wonder what she’d think of the cheek-baring shorts that would be a big hit later on?

  “You haven’t had any champagne.” Florence sipped hers. “Are you still feeling a little under the weather?”

  “No.” Just like that, my pseudo-happy mood evaporated, and I tugged my arm free of hers. I’d been pretending to have a good time, pretending because I needed to not think about everything I had to deal with for a little while. And I really could have used a drink. But with the baby…

  “Excuse me.” I managed a weak smile. “I need to get some air.”

  Air wasn’t going to do it.

  I could be breathing the freshest, purest mountain air, untouched by mankind’s pollution—and it wouldn’t help.

  As futile as it was, I’d stayed outside, avoiding Florence when I heard her come looking for me almost twenty minutes after I’d bolted. Feeling guilty, and realizing that my efforts to calm myself were useless, I went back inside to find her pacing the hallway where she’d last seen me.

  Now, taking my hands, she said, “You—I have to tell you something you won’t want to hear.”

  “What?” Wary, I studied the grim look in her eyes.

  “Glenn is here.”

  “He’s…what?” I felt lightheaded. I couldn’t handle the thought of seeing him. I was only just adjusting to the thought that I was probably pregnant—trying to figure out if I should try and get back to my time. I couldn’t see—

  “He’s with the woman he’s been seeing. Her name is Kimberly.” Florence squeezed my hands. “Maya…are you okay? Did you hear me?”

  A semi-hysterical laugh was the only answer I could come up with.

  “Oh. I’m fine.” Flinging my hands up, I said, “I’m just fine.”

  “You want to get out of here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  16

  Glenn

  I hated parties.

  I hadn’t always, but then again, I hadn’t always come with Kimberly, and she had a habit of putting us both on display.

  Being put on display was something else I hated.

  It all added up to one thing: I should definitely not be at this party with Kimberly. So why in the hell had I decided to go? I didn’t have an answer.

  “Would you stop standing there and glaring at everybody?” she hissed while somehow still managing a perfect smile. She waved at somebody across the room then came to a stop beside a tuxedoed waiter and grabbed a flute of champagne. “Have one, baby. You look like you need it.”

  “I don’t drink anymore,” I reminded her. I had deliberately put the thought of the night out with Cane out of my mind. I couldn’t think about him without feeling guilty, and if I was going to survive Kimberly’s claws, I needed to be focused on the here and now.

  “At least carry the glass.” She gestured at the tray.

  “No.”

  The waiter moved off, saving me the trouble of arguing with her anymore.

  “You always make us look like such sticks in the mud.” She was gritting her teeth now. I could hear the enamel grinding.

  “Keep that up and you’ll get scowl lines,” I said. I wasn’t above poking at her vanity if it got her to leave me alone.

  “Sometimes I wonder why I even tolerate you.” She huffed, then sipped her champagne. “Ugh. This shit is terrible. And they wonder why people complain about the parties. Listen, Glenn, you’ve been in a mood ever since Cane left. I don’t know why. He can’t do anything for your career. And he’s a bit of a jerk, really. Just—”

  She fell silent as I nudged her into an empty alcove. “You don’t want to go insulting my friends, Kimberly, understand? You just don’t. And you wouldn’t understand why I’m in a mood. Friendship is clearly an idea that escapes you.”

  “Please.” She rolled her eyes, not looking the least bit offended. “I don’t need a girlfriend to go shoe shopping with, and I have no desire to go sip sodas at the drug market and be seen. I’ve already been seen. I’m a star, Glenn. I’ve got bigger concerns than whether or not I have friends.”

  “Of course you do. It’s all about whether or not you get the next big contract, isn’t it?” I studied her big, pretty eyes, so bright against the soft ivory of her skin. She was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met. She could have been carved from ice. “That’s really all that matters.”

  “Like you care about anything else.” She fluffed her hair. “Not until that tramp Maya led you around by the nose, then disappeared, did you figure out what a waste real emotions are.”

  Unconsciously, my hand had tightened on her arm. I forced my fingers to uncurl as I stepped back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “Jackass.” She thumped her fist against my chest, and I said nothing. “I don’t why you are so touchy about her, either. She abandoned you, remember?”

  Give her a chance to explain… Cane’s words rose up to haunt me, but I pushed them down, just like I had before. I couldn’t think about them, or what he could have possibly meant. I couldn’t think about Maya here.

  “You don’t know the first thing about Maya and me, okay? Don’t pretend otherwise.” I eased out of the alcove and waited for her to join me. She tossed back the rest of her champagne as she sauntered out, trading her empty glass for a fresh one. If she kept it up, she’d be stumbling drunk within the hour.

  I was just fine with that.

  “Come on, let’s find the host you were so determined to meet.”

  “I’m almost afraid to introduce you to her,” Kimberly muttered. “You’re being such an asshole. Will you behave?”

  “Will it get me out of here sooner?”

  “Oh…” Kimberly leaned against my arm, her breasts warm and full. But her soft curves really weren’t tempting me. We hadn’t had sex in weeks and I wasn’t about to change that now.

  I had to get the only woman I’d loved out of my head before I did something humiliating—like call another woman by her name.

  “Is there something in particular that’s got you in such a hurry?” She slid her fingers up my nape and tugged me down, but I evaded her attempt to kiss me. She barely noticed, murmuring in my ear things that probably would’ve done the trick a month ago.

  Today, I had no interest.

  After a few more seconds, I eased away and caught her hand. “Come on. Let’s find our hostess.”

  She sulked along at my side, but once we found the recently transplanted French heiress, Kimberly was all smiles and charm, showing the side that the American public had fallen in love with. Too bad she couldn’t act like that twenty-four hours a day. It would’ve been so much easier to be around her.

  Once we were done making nice, Kimberly thrust her arm through mine. “Man, what a bore! She comes all the way here from France and what does she want to do? Talk about how exciting it is to make movies, the marches down south and whether or not the US will be the first people to walk on the moon! Who cares?”

  Clearly, since Kimberly didn’t, nobody should.

  “W
as there anything else you wanted to do? Anybody you wanted to…”

  I came to a dead halt as somebody rounded the corner and entered the hall just ahead of us.

  Kimberly was yanked to a halt as well and glared up at me. “Pay attention, Glenn!”

  I was.

  Just not to her.

  “Maya,” I said, my throat tight.

  “Maya…” She turned her head, gaze locking in on the trim woman who’d just descended a set of stairs with Florence.

  What was she doing here?

  “Maya?” Kimberly planted herself in front of me. “Are you telling me that’s Maya? With Florence? The Maya who up and left you? That Maya?”

  I hadn’t told her that Maya had returned.

  But then again, it wasn’t like Kimberly and I really talked.

  Looking past her, I strained for another sight of Maya, but both she and Florence were lost in the crowd inside the main room again.

  Without even thinking, I started back into the room myself.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Kimberly said, yanking on my arm.

  I shrugged away, single-minded focus driving me.

  You need to go and see her, Glenn. Give her a chance to explain. Cane’s voice haunted me like a ghost, and I decided that the next time I saw him, I just might punch him again. Right after I apologized for punching him, to begin with. He’d just been doing what friends do, trying to set them straight or offer advice. Not that I needed the advice. I didn’t need to talk to Maya, give her a chance to explain. She’d had three years that she could have found me, talked to me.

  But she hadn’t.

  Still, seeing her was an ache inside me, and I couldn’t wipe away the memory of her stricken face and how she’d looked when I’d gone to see her at Florence’s.

  “Are you even listening to me?” Kimberly demanded.

  I moved through the crowd, her trailing along behind me. Shooting a look at her, I said, “I just need to take care of something.”

  “Something to do with her?” Her face scrunched up as she tossed the word out, refusing to even say Maya’s name now. “Whatever could you have to say to her?”