Eldin shrugged. "It's a perfectly understandable thing to be curious about, wouldn't you say?" he countered reasonably, refusing, as always, to let anyone else's bad temper inflame his own. Eldin prided himself, and quite rightly too, on never losing his temper.
"Maybe," she admitted grudgingly, "but I think it's disgusting the way everyone looks at Stephanie and at me and then at every man in the room, wondering if he might be the one. It's nobody's business but mine!"
"And the father's surely?"
"His least of all." Desi whirled away, hiding quick tears, and bumped a hip into side table, toppling over a pair of silver candlesticks. "Oh, now look what you've made me do," she said as Stephanie startled and began to cry.
"It's all right, darling," Desi soothed, picking up the frightened baby. "Mommie's not yelling at you." She nuzzled her hot face against Stephanie's tiny neck, breathing in the baby-powder sweetness of her. "Shush, darling. Everything's okay." She bounced the quieting baby gently against her shoulder, whispering senseless words of endearment. "No more yelling, I promise. That's my good girl. Everything's fine. Everything's fine," she repeated, shielding her own teary face from Eldin's sharp eyes by hiding it behind the curve of Stephanie's body.
Darn it! Tears came so easily, much too easily, to her lately. She rubbed her cheek gently against Stephanie's back.
"I'm sorry, Eldin. Baby blues, I guess," she said, shifting the baby to her lap as she sat down in a corner of the rose-colored sofa. It was one of her Art Deco pieces, padded and luxuriously comfortable. "I get weepy for no reason." She tried a careless smile, but it came off a little sheepishly. "Sorry."
Eldin uncrossed his legs and reached for his sherry.
"Think nothing of it," he said airily. "I understand."
"Oh, Eldin, if you only did."
"Why don't you tell me about it, then, hmm?"
Desi shook her head stubbornly.
"Come on, luv," he urged. "Tell Uncle Eldin. Why are you trying to turn down the biggest opportunity of your career?"
"Eldin, please." She looked up at him, confusion and a faint shadow of pain visible in the depths of her wide blue eyes. "Just leave it. I can't work on Devil's Lady and there's no point in discussing it."
"I think you owe me an explanation at least."
"No."
He gulped down the last of his sherry—terrible way to treat fine sherry—and set the empty glass on a side table, rising to move slowly around the room. His fingers lingered for a moment on the lace curtains at the window, and then he stood for a minute, staring absently into the tall glass-fronted cabinet that housed Desi's collection of beaded evening bags and fragile fans.
Desi watched him as he moved, knowing he had not dropped the subject, but was only gathering his thoughts to make another, more concerted effort to find out what was troubling her. He looked so dapper, she thought, as her eyes followed him around the room, just like central casting's idea of a well-to-do and quite proper English gentleman with his impeccable tailoring and military school bearing. His neat cap of light-brown hair was going a distinguished gray at the temples, and he wore a little caterpillar of a mustache on his upper lip.
He dressed as if he was in England, too. Sharply creased, gray slacks, with a tweed jacket over a crisp white shirt and an old school tie. Striped, of course. To look at him you would never know that it was an unseasonably warm September afternoon.
"Is it Dorothea Heller?" he asked, stopping in front of her. "I know she's a bit of an eccentric, but I felt sure you'd like her."
"I do. She's a wonderful, charming piece of work," Desi said, and she meant it wholeheartedly.
They had met at the Tadish Grill for drinks and lunch, the three of them, just yesterday. It was supposed to have been four but Eldin's other guest, this mysterious producer of his, was late and they were starting without him.
"You remind me of me when I was your age," Dorothea Heller told Desi, staring at her over the rim of a champagne glass, her black eyes sparkling with health and a sharp, biting wit. "Only I was brunet, of course, and had much more bosom. You young girls these days seem to have no bosoms at all. No hips either, come to think of it," she stated with characteristic forthrightness.
"Red hair, though, that makes up for a lot." She leaned toward Desi with the air of one imparting a priceless pearl of wisdom, "Most men do so admire red hair, dear girl. Remember that. You redheads can get away with a great deal where men are concerned if you handle it right," she rambled on. "They think it hides a passionate nature, poor fools. Even that good-looking devil, Jake, goes for redheads. He—"
Desi had stopped listening at the mention of Jake's name.
"Jake who?" she asked quietly when Dorothea paused for breath. But she already knew.
"Why, Jake Lancing, dear girl. Jake who, really." She glanced sideways at Eldin, smiling coquettishly. "I thought every red-blooded woman in the world knew who Jake Lancing was."
"Yes, of course. Jake Lancing. Is he on the picture?" Desi's voice shook a little as she asked the question.
"Why, he's the star, dear girl," Dorothea informed her grandly, "and the producer, of course. My dear, is anything wrong?" Desi's face had gone deathly pale. "Eldin, quick, I think the poor child's going to faint."
"No, Dorothea, I'm fine, really. Please, Eldin, sit down. I'm fine. It's just... I suddenly felt very weak. Maybe... maybe I'd better not stay for lunch. I think I had better go before—" She almost said before Jake gets here. "Before I get sick," she mumbled, grabbing at the first excuse that popped into her head.
She stood up and reached for her leather satchel from the floor by her chair. "It was very nice to have met you, Dorothea, thank you for the drink. I'm sorry I can't stay for lunch." She was almost running in her haste to get out of the restaurant before Jake arrived.
Jake was the producer! How could Eldin have done this to her?
Simple, she answered her own question, Eldin doesn't know. Or, he didn't know yesterday. But today? Oh, yes, before he left today Eldin would know. He wouldn't leave until she'd finally told him the truth.
"Tell me something," she said then, untangling a lock of her hair from Stephanie's chubby fist. Her eyes were deliberately on her task, avoiding Eldin's. Her voice was as casual as she could make it. "Did Jake Lancing know you were hiring me?"
"Not specifically. As art director I'm free to hire whatever staff I want. I doubt Jake has any interest in exactly who I hire? Why?"
"No special reason," she lied, feeling something inside her let go and relax. Jake didn't know that she was going to be on his picture. Her secret was still safe. She put a pink rattle in Stephanie's flailing hand.
"Jake," Eldin said then with utter conviction, as if something had just that minute fallen into place.
Desi's eyes flew to his face, to ask him what he meant, even though she already knew. Eldin's eyes were fixed firmly on Stephanie's pretty pixie face, as if searching for something in her big brown eyes.
"I didn't even know you knew him." His voice was faintly accusing and incredulous at the same time.
"I don't," Desi snapped, hoping somehow to head him off before he actually put it into words. If he didn't say it she could still pretend that he didn't know.
"Come on, luv. This is Uncle Eldin, remember?" He sat down beside her and reached for her hand. "I don't know why I didn't see it before... those eyes..."
"Her eyes are brown," Desi said. She pulled her hand away and stood up. "Just brown. Nothing unusual about that. My father has brown eyes. Even you have brown eyes."
She laid Stephanie back on the quilt. "Watch her for a minute, will you? I'm going to make us some tea," she said, and escaped to the kitchen, away from Eldin's too-knowing eyes.
If Eldin saw, who else would see? Jake's face, Jake's eyes were known all over the world. Would everyone know just by looking at Stephanie?
No, no, you're being paranoid, she told herself. It's just that Eldin knows Jake, and knows you. And that silly performance at
the Tadish Grill didn't help matters either. It was stupid of her to have run like a rabbit at the mention of Jake's name, stupid to have refused to work on Devil's Lady without giving him a reason, stupid to get all snappy and defensive when he mentioned Stephanie's eyes. It was all those things together that had led him to guess correctly. And that's all it was, a guess. He couldn't have known just by looking at Stephanie.
If she had handled it better, given him a reason for not wanting to work on Devil's Lady, said she didn't like Dorothea Heller; anything except what she had—or hadn't—said.
"Jake's middle name is Stephen," Eldin commented when she came back into the room with the tea tray.
"Yes," was all she said. It would be pointless to deny it now.
She added a squeeze of lemon to his tea and passed the fragile china cup across to him, then busied herself for a few minutes with her own. She took both milk and sugar, "nursery tea," Eldin had told her once, fit only for the underdeveloped palate.
"Cookie?" she offered.
Eldin waved the plate away. "Does he suspect?"
"I doubt he even recalls the incident," she said, a wry smile curving her full lips. "Oh, don't look like that, Eldin. There's no need to pity me." She paused, biting into a cookie. "I don't pity myself. I knew exactly what I was doing." She chuckled and glanced over at Stephanie, asleep now on her blanket. "Almost exactly what I was doing," she amended.
"He should have been more responsible," Eldin burst out, "than to run around, willy-nilly, seducing innocent young girls."
"Oh, Eldin, please," she said, laughing. "Don't play the outraged father figure. It doesn't suit you... and it doesn't suit me either. I'm hardly an innocent young girl."
"Well, I am outraged! Leaving you with an unwanted child to support. Getting off scot-free—"
"Now wait a minute, Eldin," she flared, instantly on the offensive against anyone who might cast a slur upon her child. "Stephanie is not an unwanted child. She was unplanned, yes, but not unwanted. I wanted her from the very first minute I knew I was pregnant. If anything," she continued on a calmer note, "it's Jake who's the loser in all this."
"I don't see how." Eldin's voice was still huffy.
"He'll never know he has a daughter," she explained. "He'll never get to see what a beautiful baby we made together. In a way, I almost feel guilty for keeping her from him."
"Why not tell him then?"
"No, Eldin, I've already made my mind up about that," she said, her lips set in a firm, determined line. "It's better this way, believe me."
"But—"
"Do you think I haven't thought about telling him? I have. A million times. But the answer is always the same. No. Jake Lancing doesn't even like kids. I've heard him say so at least a dozen times and so have you. Every time he's on a talk show somebody brings up those two paternity suits and—"
"I happen to know that he was in Tangiers filming Fly by Night when that Phillips woman claims the deed was done. And he's been supporting Lisa Kendall's child."
"He is?" Desi was flabbergasted. "But I thought... she couldn't prove it was his, could she? She lost the case."
"It didn't get to court. She knew she didn't stand a chance of proving that the child was Jake's. It could have been the offspring of any number of men from what I've heard of the lady. And I use that term loosely," he said, grimacing mildly as if the word left a bad taste in his mouth. "A no-talent ambitious schemer is what she was, trying to get herself a free—"
"Then why is Jake supporting her child, if he isn't the father?" Desi wanted to know.
"Was supporting. He isn't any longer. She's since married—to another man who could also have possibly been the father."
"Yes, but why—"
"Oh, well, as to that." Eldin seemed a bit embarrassed. "It was possible that Jake could have been the father. He'd been intimate with her at the appropriate time."
"Or inappropriate," Desi quipped irrepressibly.
Eldin shot her a quelling glance. "Yes, well. In any case what I've been trying to say is that just because Jake has had a few indiscretions brought home to roost and was able to prove that they were not even his indiscretions, doesn't necessarily prove that he doesn't like children."
"No? Then what about the child he was supporting?"
"What about it?" Eldin was plainly surprised that she should care.
"Does Jake... Did he ever see it? It! Poor thing doesn't even have a sex or a name. Does Jake know or care about that?"
"Well, why should he? The child isn't his. That dratted woman finally admitted as much when she married."
"I suppose you're right—" Desi shook her head "—but I can't help feeling sorry for a child caught up in a mess like that. And I won't let it happen to Stephanie."
"Why should it? There's no doubt that she's Jake's daughter," he paused infinitesimally. "Is there? No, no, forget I said that. Of course she's Jake's daughter." He glanced over at the baby who still slept peacefully in her fading patch of sunlight, one small fist tucked under her chin. "You have only to look at her to know that."
"You can't tell by just looking at her, Eldin. You guessed because of a number of things, the least of which is the color of her eyes. Stephanie looks like me, and like my mother, and that's all anyone sees when they look at her."
"Surely Jake would see his own eyes staring back at him," Eldin protested, but the protest was feeble.
"Maybe yes. Maybe no. And even if he did, Eldin, he doesn't love the mother. Why should he love or want the daughter? No." She shook her head decisively. "He's never going to know she exists." Desi picked up the teapot. "More tea?" she asked, her eyes warning Eldin that the subject was closed.
"Couldn't you..." he began anyway, waving away the offer of more tea.
Desi put the pot down with exaggerated care. What she wanted to do was bang it on the table—hard. But Stephanie was asleep. "No, I couldn't. Whatever you were going to say, the answer is no. Listen to me carefully, my dearest friend. And you are my friend or I wouldn't be telling you this. Are you listening?"
Eldin nodded.
"As far as Jake Lancing is concerned, I am no different than Lisa Kendall. He was intimate with me at the appropriate time, although—" her voice faltered a little "—I probably couldn't even prove that. Stephanie was almost six weeks premature. In any case, all he would remember—if he remembers—would be that he picked me up in an airplane and we went to his hotel room. Period."
"Desiree," Eldin began. There was compassion in his face and a bit of something else. Shock, perhaps. He had not thought that Desi was the kind of woman who did that sort of thing. Go to hotel rooms with men she hardly knew. "I don't know what to say."
Desi patted his hand comfortingly. "I know you don't, Eldin. And I'm sorry to disillusion you, but I had to make you understand why I can't work on Devil's Lady. You do see, don't you?"
"I'm beginning to." He picked up his cup. "I'll take that tea now," he said.
"You English and your tea," Desi teased, trying to lighten the conversation. She filled his cup and then her own. "It's England's national cure-all, I think."
"Nonsense," he replied after a minute, "It just gives me something to do with my hands while I think."
"And what are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking," he said slowly, "that you should take this job."
Desi just stared at him, wide-eyed, over the rim of her teacup. Hadn't he heard a word she'd said?
"Now hear me out before you say no."
"I have said no." Desi's voice was firm.
Eldin ignored the interruption. "This is the biggest opportunity of your career, luv." He leaned forward to emphasize his point. "The biggest. And it has come years earlier than you could have reasonably expected.
"Yes, but—"
"Think for a minute," he said. "Think what it could mean to you. It's the chance to head up the makeup department of a major movie. It's recognition for your work. It's more money than you've ever made before. Desiree, my dea
r, it's what you've worked for all these years, handed to you on a silver platter. Are you really thinking of turning it down?"
"Please, Eldin. I know all that. Believe me, I do but..." She shrugged helplessly, unable to explain it any better than she already had. Nothing was as important to her as Stephanie. Not her career, not Jake, not anything. If she had to give up this chance to protect her baby, she would—gladly. There would be other chances. She tried again to explain some of her feelings to Eldin, but he cut her off brusquely.
"Protect Stephanie," he challenged her, "or yourself? How could Jake possibly harm Stephanie? He doesn't even know she exists and he won't know unless you tell him."
He leaned back on the couch, knowing by her shocked expression that he had finally said something that had gotten through to her.
"I think you're afraid to face him," he went on before she could make any reply. "You're afraid that he might not remember you and you're afraid, too, that he might. Am I wrong?"
"No," she admitted after a minute. "No, you're not wrong." She looked at him with soft, stricken eyes. "I'm terrified, Eldin. I wouldn't know how to act. What to say to him."
"Don't say anything," he advised.
"Don't say anything? I don't understand."
"Play it by ear, luv," Eldin explained. "Maybe you're right. I don't think you are, but maybe he won't remember you. In that case you won't remember either." He shrugged. "Problem solved."
"And if he does remember?" she asked.
"What will he remember? A lovely experience with a lovely woman. What harm could that do you?"
"Or a fling with a groupie?" Desi said crudely.
Eldin winced at her words but went on smoothly, "Or a fling with a groupie," he echoed. "Not something to be proud of, I admit, but not so unusual either. What I'm trying to say, Desi, luv, is to take your cue from him. Play it cool if he does. Pretend you've not given him another thought from that day to this, if you want. There's no need for him to ever know about Stephanie. You won't tell him, and I won't," he said, letting it lie there, letting her come to the obvious conclusion by herself.
One Night With You (The Heart of the City Series, Book 1) Page 6
