“Doesn’t sound so unbelievable to me.” Probably the most realistic part of the whole movie if you asked him. “You said yourself people do stupid things when they’re in love.”
“You mean like your pianist friend, Shirley.”
“Yeah. Like Shirley. Sticking with a loser even when they know it’ll end bad.” His gaze drifted back to the Christmas tree. Or like his mother.
He felt Arianna shift closer. Sensing the thoughts he was holding back. Why not say more? She wasn’t staying.
“The Christmas before my mother died, she and my father didn’t have a tree,” he said. “My father told her it was a waste of money. She wouldn’t let me buy one for them, either, because she didn’t want to tick him off. Instead, she spent the last month of her life in a joyless house.”
“I’m sorry.”
Max kept his eyes on the tree. He wasn’t ready to turn his head in case there was pity to be seen in Arianna’s eyes. Wouldn’t matter if she sat in the shadows or not, he’d see it.
“That’s how it works. No matter how bad he made her life, she stuck it out. Said love meant taking the good with the bad. ’Course in her case, good meant getting through the day without a backhand.”
It was a running theme in his neighborhood. His mom. Darius’s mom. Mrs. Manning on the first floor. Stand by your man until your loyalty dragged you into an early grave.
“They never should have gotten married in the first place really,” he said.
“They must have loved each other once.”
“Nah. Only reason my dad proposed was because my grandfather made my dad do the right thing.”
“Oh.” If it was possible for a word to convey a thousand meanings, that one word did.
“Yeah,” he replied softly. “Funny, but as far as I can tell, doing the right thing didn’t do any of us any favors.”
The two of them sat quietly while his words settled between them. On screen, the heroine and her husband fought for control of his gun. It wouldn’t end well for one of them.
“It would be different, you know,” Arianna said from her corner. “When—if—I marry Manolo. I wouldn’t be ruining his life. If anything, this child is the best thing to ever happen to him.”
“Lucky Manolo,” he drawled.
She was right, though. Her situation was different than his parents’ It involved power, money, tradition—everything that had been absent from their lives. He didn’t hear any mention of happiness, though. That didn’t change.
Why did the thought of her marrying this man bother him so much anyway? It was of no consequence to him what she did. If anything, maybe a political marriage was a good thing. If neither of them loved each other, then there was little chance one of them would spend their days heartbroken and alone.
Who knew? Maybe one day Arianna would learn to love this Manolo guy. She cared enough to try before. And who’s to say the cheating jerk wouldn’t change his spots over time as well? God knew, if Max was in his shoes and had a woman like Arianna to come home to he would.
His chest constricted yet again.
“Is your stomach still bothering you?” Max noticed she’d taken up her tea again. The nausea was why he’d sent her home early. She’d begun looking pale and tired shortly after lunch.
“A little,” she replied, between sips. “I thought I was feeling better, but it started churning again.”
“You’ve been sick a lot.” There it was, that overwhelming desire to protect her coming up again. This time, he welcomed the distraction. Rushing in to solve a problem was a lot easier than dealing with the other thoughts clogging his brain. “Is that normal?”
“From what I read, I believe it is.”
“Still, maybe you should see a doctor to make sure.”
Her hand came down to rest on her stomach. “I’d like to, but I can’t figure out how without identification. I thought perhaps a hospital emergency room...”
But that would mean giving her name, which meant being discovered and heading home before planned. “Leave it to me,” he said. “I’ll get you an appointment with someone who won’t ask questions.”
“You will?”
“Sure.” Because she was special and he was destined to keep bending over backward for her. “Now, what do you say we dump this gangster film and find some dancing elves?”
She smiled. “Sounds lovely.”
Yeah, it did. He reached across her to get the remote from the end table. Their eyes met as he pulled back. Her lips glistened, shiny and bright. Would he ever be able to sit on this couch again without thinking of mint tea? He wondered. The scent had already become a staple in his world. Mint and pine and vanilla cookies. Another lump rose in his throat.
“Thank you again for my Christmas tree,” he whispered.
“Thank you for everything,” she whispered back.
The words rolled through him, settling somewhere near the center of his chest. Squeezing the remote in his fist, Max prayed Manolo Tutuola appreciated the gift he was getting.
* * *
“You do not have to come with me,” Arianna said a few days later.
“Actually, unless you want a lot of questions from the front desk, I think I should. I’m not sure how much Carol has told her staff.”
“How much have you told Carol?” She stopped to adjust her scarf before stepping through the door Max was holding. Winter weather had arrived in earnest. November’s rawness was gone, replaced by a crisp cold that turned every New Yorker pink-cheeked.
Greeting them with a hearty good-morning, the doorman raised his arm to signal a taxi, only to have Max wave him off. Arianna had already said she wanted to walk, despite the cold. She’d been inside too much lately, and craved the fresh air.
“As little as possible,” Max replied in response to her question. “I sort of implied you were here illegally.”
“I see.” They were on their way to a friend of Max’s who’d agreed to examine her “on the down low,” as Max put it.
“You’ll like her,” he continued. “She’s smart. Very dedicated to her patients.”
As well as very fond of Max to do him such a big favor, she mused. The thought sat sourly on her tongue as she voiced more charitable concerns. “Still, she is taking a risk, is she not? Aren’t there rules about these sort of things?”
“If there are, she didn’t mention them. Though I think she would have done the favor regardless.” He flashed one of his knee-buckling grins. “I can be pretty persuasive when I want to be.”
She bet. Arianna didn’t want to know any more. Thinking about Max charming her obstetrician made her morning sickness worse.
That she should feel possessive at all was ridiculous. Max had a love life before she arrived, and he would continue to have one when she returned home. Nevertheless, whenever she thought of another woman sharing Max’s company, sitting on his sofa, drinking tea in his kitchen, she found herself fighting an overwhelming urge to stake her claim.
The reason why was too scary to contemplate. Her life didn’t need another complication.
You mean beyond dragging out your decision so you can spend more time with Max?
“Are you sure you want to walk?” Max asked. “Carol’s office is a good fifteen blocks.”
“I do. The fresh air feels good. Besides, shouldn’t you be cold when you are looking at Christmas decorations?”
To illustrate, she pointed to a store window filled with artificial snowflakes. “Perhaps we can buy more ornaments for your tree.”
“I like the tree the way it is decorated.”
He’d said as much two nights ago. Buying him a Christmas tree had been a spur-of-the-moment idea. When she’d spotted the man unloading them from his truck, she knew an evergreen was exactly what the apartment needed for Christmas chee
r. She hadn’t forgotten what Max said about Christmas being hit-or-miss as a child.
She had a feeling she’d remember a lot of things about Max. Such as how he smiled at her differently from the way he smiled at others. His eyes lit up more. Or like how he looked right now with his reddened cheeks and his perfect hair blown askew by the wind. One particularly thick shock of hair lay across his forehead like sloppy bangs. It made him look like the boy Arianna imagined he used to be. Before cynicism took over.
Yes, she would definitely remember Max for a long time.
She dabbed her scarf at the moisture gathering in her eyes. “I think the wind is making my eyes tear.”
“Definitely stings when it hits your face, that’s for sure. Maybe, if you pulled your scarf higher...”
Or maybe if he put his arm around her shoulders, she thought. In the protective circle of his arm, she wouldn’t care what the wind did. Since their kiss, he hadn’t touched her at all beyond the casual brush of his hand. There was a moment the other night when they were watching television, when she thought he might, but no, he’d remained a perfect gentleman, taking great pains to avoid physical contact. Even when his arm had been stretched out behind her and she’d shifted close.
He was keeping his promise.
She was the one with the problem. The one longing to toss aside all common sense, curl against him and rest her head over his heart. To pretend for a few hours she was more than the latest person he was trying to help.
“If you’re uncomfortable now,” Max said when she sniffed away her thoughts, “wait until it starts to snow.”
“Snow?”
“Uh-huh. Weren’t you listening to the radio this morning? The city is supposed to get two or three inches.”
“Really?” The thought of fluffy white snow banks cheered her immediately. “We rarely get snow in Corinthia, and when we do, it melts almost immediately, except at the top of Mount Cornier. Manhattan is lucky.”
He laughed. “You might want to ask a few New Yorkers before saying so. Snow isn’t so great when it’s mid-January and you haven’t seen the sun for two weeks.”
“But in this case, it means they’ll have a white Christmas. I would love one of those.”
“You could always stick around for this one.”
“Perhaps I will,” she replied.
Neither of them was serious. Max was simply making conversation, and Arianna...she could only hide from her decision for so long, despite visions of a snow-filled Christmas Eve in Max’s penthouse.
“Do you miss it?” Max asked. “Corinthia?”
Funny question. Wasn’t it only a week ago she was wishing she were home in bed waiting on a servant to bring her tea? “A little,” she replied. “I love my country very much. And I miss my family. My father. Other things, however, I don’t miss at all.”
Max made a strangled sound, something between a cough and a snort. He thought she was referring to Manolo.
“Other things,” she told him. “Additional things.”
“Like what?”
“For one, I do not miss having to sit through father’s diplomatic dinner parties.”
“Bad?” Max asked.
“Horrible. Do you have any idea what it is like to spend an entire evening listening to people talk about themselves? I would never tell Father, but there are nights when I’d rather put my eye out than listen to one more self-important windbag.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Put my eye out?” she replied with a laugh. “That would cause a spectacle.”
“No, I mean why wouldn’t you tell your father how much you hate them?”
“Because...” Because he was her father. “With my mother gone, he needs me to act as his hostess. Besides, it makes him happy to have me there.”
For some reason, her response made him look down at his feet. “It makes him happy,” he repeated with a frown.
“Yes. Very.” For a long time, it was one of the few things that did.
“Sounds like that means a lot to you.”
She stiffened a little at his tone. What was wrong with wanting to be a good daughter? “Of course it does. He’s my father. Did it not mean a lot to you to make your mother happy?”
“That wasn’t possible.”
Not as long as she’d stayed with his father. Arianna kicked herself for asking the question. At the same time, she knew he wanted to make his mother happy. Especially if...
“A month after Mama died, I went to my father’s office unannounced,” she told him. “He was sobbing. Not crying—sobbing, in agony.” She could see him still, with his head in his hands, crying as though his heart had been torn from his chest. “This man—the most powerful man I knew—was broken and there was nothing I could do except be the best daughter possible.”
Max nodded. “So that’s what you did.”
“Yes. I became the consummate princess. And then, when Armando’s wife died and everyone was thrown into mourning again...”
“You stepped up even more and started dating Daddy’s favorite industrialist?”
“He was thrilled. The entire country was thrilled.” Max still didn’t understand, did he? The responsibility that sat on her shoulders. “Corinthia is a small country. It’s not like America, where your leader is some person thousands of miles away whom you might never meet. We consider our countrymen to be like our family, and us theirs. When my mother and Christina died, the people mourned as strongly as we did. They needed something positive to focus on as much as my family did.”
She looked up at his face, which was frozen in a frown. “Tell me you would not have done the same in my shoes? If there was a chance for you to make your mother smile, even just for a little while, that you would not have taken it?”
“Yes, but...” He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“What?” If he had an argument, she wanted to hear it.
“It’s just that, despite everything in her life, what would have made my mother the happiest was knowing I was happy. We’re here.”
He reached around her for the door handle, ending the discussion. Just as well. Arianna wasn’t sure how to respond.
* * *
It turned out that, in addition to being a kind person and a respected obstetrician, Dr. Carol Miller was also blonde and statuesque. Arianna spent the entire examination vacillating between appreciating her kindness and hating her guts. It was much too easy to imagine this woman sitting in Max’s kitchen. Or in Max’s bed for that matter.
Speaking of Max, was it necessary to look that pleased when Dr. Miller greeted them in the lobby? Surely he didn’t have to hug the woman for as long as he did.
“Everything looks good, although I’d like to see you on prenatal vitamins,” the doctor said, when she finished. “Otherwise, development seems to be right on schedule. Looks like you’ve been taking care of yourself.”
“I have to, don’t I?” Arianna replied. “It’s not only my health anymore.”
“I’m glad to hear you say so. You’d be surprised, but every once in a while we get a patient who insists they don’t have to change their lifestyle one little bit, including tossing back a few cocktails every Friday night. Trust me, that little baby in there is going to appreciate the fact you didn’t.”
Arianna tried to smile. “Do you think he or she could pay me back by not making me so sick to my stomach?” Darn morning sickness had been acting up since Dr. Miller walked out to greet them. As soon as the woman put her arms around Max’s shoulders, Arianna felt like she was going to lose her breakfast.
“Max mentioned you were sick a lot. I don’t see anything to indicate it’s abnormal, though. Some women are simply more prone to morning sickness than others. You should be feeling better soon.”
“I hope so,” Arianna replied
. She’d had enough churning for a lifetime. “Personally, I do not know why they call it morning sickness since I’ve been sick twenty-four hours a day.”
“One of the great mysteries of pregnancy life,” the doctor replied. Uncrossing her abnormally long legs, she stood and walked across the exam room. “Lifestyle factors can exacerbate the problem, though. Have you been under any stress lately?”
“A little,” Arianna said as she scratched at the seam on the exam table. Stress was hardly the right word for the thoughts swirling in her head.
“Well, that won’t do you any favors, for sure. Try to take it a little easier if possible.”
“I’ll try.”
The doctor took no notice of her reticence, as she was busy opening the exam room door. “Maribel? Would you bring Mr. Brown back now?”
Arianna immediately propped herself on her elbows. “Why are you calling for Max?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I figured he would want to be part of this,” Dr. Miller replied. She had crossed the exam room yet again, to retrieve what looked like electronic equipment sitting on a wheeled cart. “I have to admit, it was funny hearing him be all papa bear on the phone. I forgot how protective he could get.”
“Yes,” said Arianna. “He certainly goes above and beyond for his employees.”
“Employee?” The doctor frowned. “I’m sorry. I thought the two of you were...”
Together. Arianna’s heart leaped at the thought, only to immediately fall hard. “No,” she replied. “We are not together. I’m merely someone he’s trying to help.”
“Wow, I’m sorry. The way he sounded on the phone, I assumed...”
“Assumed what?” Max appeared in the doorway. He looked at her from over the doctor’s shoulder. “Is something wrong?”
The probing concern in his eyes made Arianna feel more exposed than the paper gown.
“My mistake. I thought... Never mind.” Dr. Miller waved her hand. “You can go back to the waiting room. I’ll send Arianna out as soon as she’s heard the heartbeat.”
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