CS-Dante's Twins

by Неизвестный

  "What do you mean by ‘everything’?"

  "I thought you might like to tell me," he replied shortly, his knuckles gleaming white around the steering wheel.

  Her anxiety level rose another notch. She’d been right; he was full of anger and it was directed at her. "Are you upset about something-beyond the fact that we’ve had a falling-out, I mean?"

  "Should I be?"

  "No," she said, annoyance supplanting her dismay.

  "And if all you’re going to do is answer a question with another question, we might as well abort the evening now because I don’t have the energy for that kind of game."

  He drove another few hundred yards along the main road before saying casually, "You don’t seem to have energy for much of anything lately. You weren’t in the office again today, I hear. Care to tell me why?" Oh, no! Not with him in his present mood. She’d wait and hope a good meal would improve his disposition.

  "I had a couple of appointments elsewhere," she said and left it at that.

  "I see," he said, and when it became clear she wasn’t about to elaborate, switched to another topic. ‘‘And how is your good friend Mr. Fletcher? Or haven’t you had time to see him with your busy schedule?"

  "Interesting you should mention him," she replied, matching the irony in his tone. "As it happens, he’s much improved. I spoke to him briefly yesterday and he told me his memory is gradually returning. Although he has no recollection of the days immediately prior to the accident, he does remember how things were left be-tween us before he went away. He knows that we were never engaged and that I turned down his proposal." Dante braked for a red light and drummed a light tat-too on the steering wheel. "You’re beginning to accu-mulate a lot of practice in that regard, aren’t you?" he remarked. "First Fletcher, then me."

  "I refused Anthony because I was never in love with him," she cried, stung that he seemed so willfully deter-mined to cast the worst possible light on her actions.

  "That was not the case with you."

  "What was‘?"

  "You and I have problems which, unless we find some way to resolve them, preclude our ever being happy together."

  "What kind of problems, Leila? Be specific."

  "Your lack of trust in me, for a start. I love you, Dante, but you seem more inclined to believe Carl Newbury’s vicious gossip than anything I say or do." He almost looked shamefaced. "Newbury’s a jackass whose opinion doesn’t mean squat to me. I was out of line even bringing up his name the other day, let alone implying anything his gutter of a mind could come up with might influence the way I see things."

  "Well, that’s nice to hear," she said softly, wishing he’d back the words with action. If only he’d reach for her hand, touch her aim, make some gesture, however small, in an attempt to bridge the estrangement be-tween them. But he appeared sunk in black thought, and with each second of silence, the distance grew wider, deeper. When he did eventually speak again, what he had to say did nothing to mend matters. "Unfortunately, Leila, it doesn’t alter the fact that you and I have arrived at an impasse. The bottom line is that we enjoyed a holiday romance which, by itself, is a harmless enough diver-sion. Our mistake lay in thinking we could predicate a marriage on it and I have to shoulder the greater pro-portion of blame for that. I’ve handled enough business deals to realize that no contract stands a chance of hold-ing together unless it’s based on cold logic and hard facts."

  "What about emotions, Dante, or trust? Aren’t they what a gentleman’s agreement is all about‘?"

  "They have no place in binding legal contracts. Emotions are too volatile, too ephemeral. As for trust, it’s just a word and not worth the paper it’s written on unless it’s backed up by tangible proof it exists. I think you must agree we’ve already established that, you with your little secrets and me with my lack of faith." The rain scurrying in from the Strait that afternoon had passed, leaving the sky to the west tinted with a soft melon sunset. The avenues were lined with trees droop-ing under the weight of damp pink blossoms. Lilacs were on the brink of bursting into bloom. The willow trees already had sprung their leaves. It was an evening for lovers, for strolling hand—in—hand along quiet streets and stealing kisses in the warm shadows.

  But she and Dante, who only a week before had been so desperately, deeply in love that they’d thought noth-ing could ever come between them, sat like strangers, the rift between them impassable. She could have wept for the sadness of it all and had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from crying out, "Don’t be so ready to give up on us! I need you to fight with me right now, not against me!"

  But he wasn’t the only one with pride and she’d have died before she let him see the extent to which he’d devastated her. "I daresay you’re right," she said, striv-ing to retain her composure. "But deciding to write our affair off as a business deal gone sour and behaving as if it never took place won’t work, Dante, because I’m afraid it doesn’t end there."

  He swung into the restaurant parking and brought the car to a stop. " Really? Why not?",

  "There’s something you don’t know. Something I should have told you about before now."

  Stepping out of the car, he tossed the keys to the park-ing valet before coming around to hold open her door.

  "Am I going to like what I’m about to hear, or should I fortify myself with a good stiff drink before you un-burden yourself?"

  "I’m bowled over by your sensitivity," she said, un-able to repress a flare of resentment. "Anyone would think I’m the one who suggested getting together this evening. If you find my company so intolerable, why did you bother bringing me here? I’m in no mood to enjoy soft music and candlelight and nor are you."

  "You’re right. But we’re here now, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon stay and order a meal. It’s been hours since I last ate."

  "You might find what I have to tell you kills your appetite. It’s certainly taken the edge off mine." Grasping her by the arm, he propelled her up the steps and into the restaurant. "Then I’ll definitely order that drink first."

  Once they were seated at their table, he immersed himself in the menu, looking up only long enough to inquire, "Would you care for a cocktail or shall I just order a bottle of wine?"

  She’d never developed a taste for cocktails. Even when she’d attended her parents’ glamorous parties where predinner drinks were de rigueur the most she’d take was a small sherry or dry vermouth. But at that moment, with her courage and hope withering under Dante’s dispassionate stare, she could have downed a double Scotch without blinking and come back for sec-onds. It was just as well she was pregnant and alcohol was off limits. "Neither, thank you," she said. "I’d prefer sparkling water with a twist of lime."

  He nodded at the waiter hovering at his elbow. "A Perrier for my associate and a Scotch with ice for me." Despite everything that had gone before, his use of the word "associate" cut her to the quick. "How did we end up like this, Dante? How could we have mis-calculated so badly that we’ve gone from lovers to as-sociates in less than a week?"

  "Well, we’re agreed that you’re no longer my blush-ing bride-to-be, it doesn’t strike me as tasteful to call you my sex partner, and I’m a bit past the age where I refer to women as girlfriends, particularly once the re-lationship has died, so what would you like me to call you‘?"

  "I don’t know," she said miserably. "I only know that you’re not making it easy for me to say what I’ve got to tell you."

  "If you’re waiting for me to beg you to confide in me, honey, you’re wasting your time. I’ve already been on my knees to you once this week and I can’t say I relish the idea of doing it again. So either spit out what-ever it is that’s rattling you, or save it. It’s up to you."

  "Oh, I’ll tell you," she said, hating the way he called her honey, as if she were some cheap pickup he’d met in a bar.

  "I’m listening," he said.

  She took a sip of water to steady herself. "First," she said, "I’m leaving Classic Collec
tions. I’ll be handing in my notice on Monday morning."

  "The earth didn’t move for me, Leila. If that’s your big news, rest assured we’ll find someone else to take your place. Of more interest to me is why you’ve de-cided to quit." She stared down at her fingers, tightly linked in her lap. "Because I’m pregnant, Dante."

  Well, hallelujah, she’d finally managed to spit it out!

  He’d begun to think he was going to have to drag it out of her a syllable at a time. "Yes," he said calmly. "I know."

  That shook her, as he’d known it would! She reared up in her chair as if she’d been electrocuted, "You know?" she gasped. "That’s impossible! I haven’t told a soul except...oh, did my mother—?"

  "I’m not a complete fool, Leila. I figured it out for myself, with a little help on the side from Megan Norris." No need to tell her Meg had practically had to draw pictures!

  She glared at him, up to her pretty little earlobes in injured innocence. "Then why didn’t you say something before now?"

  "Because I wanted to see how long it would take you to get around to telling me. And I think I finally figured it out."

  "There’s nothing to figure out, Dante," she said, the flush which had briefly colored her face fading and leav-ing her pale with shock. "Unless you’re implying that the baby isn’t yours."

  "Oh, it’s mine, all right-I know a virgin when she’s lying under me—but I think you wish it weren’t. I think you’d far rather it were Anthony Fletcher’s."

  "That’s absurd!" she exclaimed, and for a moment he almost believed her. Until she added, "For a start, Anthony’s no longer interested in me. He met someone in Croatia, an English nurse working with the Red Cross. As soon as he can arrange it, he’s going back to look for her."

  "Jeez," he said, disillusionment almost choking him.

  "How bloody inconvenient and inconsiderate of him!

  Just when you needed him most, he ups and finds an-other love." Just briefly, he wondered if he’d gone too far. She turned ashen and he was afraid she was going to pass out on him again. Against his will and certainly his bet-ter judgment, he almost reached out to touch her and tell her not to worry, that he’d take care of her.

  But she had more stamina than a racehorse, despite her dainty frame and big, innocent eyes. Snatching up her bag, she pushed away from the table and said, "I have clearly deluded myself into believing that you’re capable of caring about anything beyond your over-weening pride and your unfounded jealousy of Anthony. Thank you for inviting me to dinner but I really don’t have the stomach for it. Don’t bother to drive me home. I’ll call a taxi."

  "Sit down!" he said, without a pang of regret at the tone he used, which he knew from experience could re-duce obdurate clients to quivering surrender. But she didn’t so much as blink. She turned her back on him, her spine as straight and rigid as if she had a yardstick shoved up the inside of her dress, and marched away.

  Almost blind with anger, he got up and raced after her, catching up with her just in time to see her disappear through a door near the entrance to the restaurant. Smacking it open, he followed her. "Don’t you walk away from me!" he bellowed. "Whether you like the idea or not, that’s my child you’re carrying and I’m not about to be sidelined because I don’t quite measure up to your standards of gallantry."

  "Get out of here!" she hissed back. "You’re in the ladies’ room."

  Oh, hell, he was! A quick glance at the little benches set before mirrors and the bowl of fresh flowers arranged on the vanity told him that. Men’s rooms were a lot more basic, in design and function. But he was damned if he was going to let that deter him. "I don’t give a flying f...fig!"

  A toilet flushed behind the last of a row of smaller doors in an adjoining area and a woman with freshly penned hair framing her horsy face stepped into view.

  "Perhaps," she said, regarding him as if she’d seen bet-ter specimens lining the gutters of skid row, "she’s right to expect more. I don’t know which charm school you attended, young man, but I pray it’s no longer in busi-ness."

  "Speaking of business, madam," he snapped, trading glare for glare, "why don’t you mind yours?" Leila uttered a barely audible moan and rushed into one of the cubicles. Ignoring the outraged gasps of the society matron, he followed her in there, too.

  She was bent over the bowl, her entire body heaving. Deftly, he supported her with an arm around her shoul-ders and waited for the retching to stop. At last she said weakly, "Please go away. I don’t want you to see me like this."

  "You think you’re the first woman I’ve seen lose her lunch?" he said, leading her to the row of sinks and filling a paper cup with water. "I’ve got five sisters, remember? And they all put on the same floor show when they were pregnant. Here, rinse out your mouth."

  "You might want to do the same with yours while you’re at it," New Perm said tartly, apparently too fas-cinated by the drama taking place in the can to care that her lamb chops were growing cold at the table. "Your language is a disgrace. I’m going to call the manager and have you thrown out of here."

  "I’ll save you the trouble," he said, half carrying Leila toward the door.

  "Please just take me home," she said, when he’d fi-nally shoveled her limp body into the car.

  "No," he said. "First, you need to eat, and second, we’ve got unfinished business to take care of."

  "I can’t eat," she said. "The thought of all that food is enough—"

  "Then you can drink," he said, and took her to a place he knew from his university days where they made the best milk shakes this side of heaven.

  "The lady will have vanilla, and make mine choco-late," he told the waitress, when they were settled in a booth conveniently close to the washrooms.

  Leila said nothing until they’d been served, except to remark, "You don’t strike me as the milk shake type."

  "I guess that brings us back full circle to what you were saying earlier," he said. "We really don’t know each other nearly as well as we thought we did, do we'?

  Why, for instance, did you wait until tonight to tell me you’re pregnant, Leila? Why didn’t you say something on Monday when you practically passed out at my

  feet?"

  "Because I didn’t want to premise our relationship on the fact that I’m expecting your baby. I still don’t want that. But I realize that you have a moral right to know about the pregnancy?

  "Pity you didn’t arrive at that conclusion before half the office was in on the secret."

  She sighed and leaned her head on her hand. "I hadn’t realized it was so obvious, though I suppose, in retro-spect, I should have. I’m falling so far behind in my work and leaving others to pick up the slack that it’s no wonder the word’s leaked out."

  "And now that it has," he said carefully, "where do I fit into the picture?"

  She pushed aside her milk shake as if it had turned suddenly sour on her. "Well I don’t expect you to marry me, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’ve already dis-missed your feelings for me as nothing but a bad attack of tropical fever, and I—"

  Her eyes filled with tears and he wished to hell she’d look somewhere other than at him. Those eyes, that face, made it very difficult for a man to keep his head. "You what?" he said brusquely.

  "I can’t trust my own judgment, let alone yours, be—

  cause I’m afraid of the future," she said, completely falling apart. "It would be very easy for me to say I’ve changed my mind, and that I want us to go ahead with our wedding plans. But I know I’d be making that choice for all the wrong reasons."

  He should have felt encouraged, elated even. At least she wasn’t trying to con him. Instead he felt unutterably depressed. "So what do you want, Leila?" She hesitated, seeming to roll her answer around in-side her mouth as if not sure whether to swallow it or spit it out. Deciding in favor of the latter, even though it practically choked her, she said, "I need a loan. If you could see your way clear...I hate to ask, it sounds so mercenary but I have to stop w
orking because .... " By then, the tears were splashing down her face and onto the fake marble tabletop. "Go on," he said.

  "Because I’m expecting twins and there’s a risk I might miscarry if I don’t," she wailed.

  At that, he thought he might lose his own milk shake.

  "Huh‘?" he said.

  "I’m having twins," she said again. Struggling to contain his shock, he said, "And all you want from me is money?"

  "It would just be a loan," she said again. "I’ll repay it, as soon as the babies are born and old enough to be left. My mother and Cleo will look after them then, and I’ll find a job. I wouldn’t ask you, Dante, but I don’t know who else to turn to. I don’t have the collateral the banks require, and-—-"

  They’d hit some rough spots in the last week. His pride tended to blind him to reason sometimes and he’d probably been somewhat hard in the way he’d handled matters. But as the evening progressed and despite him-self, the suspicions he’d entertained about her that after-noon had begun to melt in the face of her distress. She’d looked so frail and, even at her worst, still so beautiful, that he’d begun to believe they might be able to go back to the way things were, after all. Until she made it clear that she saw him only as a lending insti-tution.

  "I’ll advance you the money," he said tightly, strug-gling to contain his anger. Either she didn’t notice his resentment or she didn’t care. Her voice was breathless with relief when she said,

  "Thank you, Dante. I know what the going interest rate is at the major banks and I’ll be happy to—"

  "On my terms, Leila, not the bank’s and most cer-tainly not yours. I will assume full financial responsibil-ity for our children and clean up the mess your father left behind. And in return--"

  But he’d caught her off guard again. "What do you know about my father?" she whispered, her eyes huge with shock.

  "Enough to be glad that I’m nothing like him. You’re familiar, I’m sure, with the saying ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’? Well, I’m one tough cus-tomer, honey. I’ve yet to back away from a fight and the moon will turn to green cheese before I put a gun to my head and leave a woman clean up the mess I leave be-hind. So, to continue with the terms of our contract, I’ll take care of finances and you’ll become the perfect cor-porate wife. In short, Leila, we’ll be getting married within the month and no one needs to know that neither of us is wild about the idea."