Ever Since Eve (The Keeping Secrets Series, Book 1)

by Pamela Browning

  In her room, Eve set aside the book she was reading and pulled herself to her feet with the aid of one of the bedposts. The bigger she got, the harder it was to stand up on her own. The baby turned a somersault; with a grin she patted the hard mound of her belly.

  "We're going to go see your daddy," she whispered to the baby.

  Derek saw her as she rounded the landing, the big grandfather clock chiming six times in welcome as Eve slowly made her way down the flight of stairs, her hand barely skimming the banister. She looked so beautiful that she took his breath away.

  She was smiling in welcome, showing those tiny white teeth, so perfect except for the one bicuspid, and she was rounder in places than she had been just a couple of weeks ago. He was so happy to see her that he felt like scooping her into his arms and whirling her around, which of course would never do.

  He fell back on the mundane for something to say.

  "You're all moved in? Everything is comfortable?"

  "Everything is lovely," she said honestly. "Lenny helped me move my things in his truck, and Aunt May was so happy to see me that she baked my favorite kind of cookies. Peanut butter."

  "Should you be eating cookies? Are cookies junk food? Don't you have to watch your weight or something?" He looked so boyish in that moment. He looked like a suitor come to call, which was ridiculous, considering that it was his foyer in which they were standing, gabbling like idiots about inconsequentialities, and she was the guest, not he.

  "Peanut butter is very nutritious, Derek," she assured him solemnly. "So I'm sure it's okay to eat peanut-butter cookies."

  "Ah," he said, rocking back on his heels. "Will you join me for a drink before dinner? No, you won't. Bad for the baby."

  "I could have Perrier," she suggested, suddenly wanting very much to sit down with Derek.

  Louise appeared in the hall.

  "Please get Eve a glass of Perrier with lime and a bourbon and branch water for me," he instructed.

  "I'm so glad you're back," Louise whispered, squeezing Eve's arm as she passed on the way to the kitchen. She flashed Eve a wide smile. Louise's reassurance made Eve feel good, as though her presence here was desirable in and of itself, not just because she was gestating the Langs' child.

  "Your father never changed his mind about moving here with you?" Derek asked carefully once their drinks had been served and they sat in the living room, Derek on a Chippendale couch, Eve in an armchair with her feet resting on a footstool upholstered in needlepoint.

  She shook her head. "I'm afraid not. He's renting a room from a former neighbor, and he seems happy with his decision."

  "Why didn't he want to live here?"

  Eve didn't want to offend Derek. "You have to understand my father's background. He's very Greek, came to the U.S. when he was a boy. He doesn't approve of my being unmarried and pregnant. He doesn't approve of our living together."

  Derek tossed down a long draft of his drink. He stared at Eve. "He thinks you're some kind of scarlet woman? Letting your body be used for pay?" There was irony behind Derek's voice, and something more, too.

  "More or less," Eve said, and she couldn't look at him. Why did she always cast her eyes down when caught in his intense gaze? Why couldn't she return his look with one of her own, one that told him she was proud and strong and could handle any circumstances that came along? Was it a ploy learned subconsciously from her black-garbed grandmother long ago on those visits every summer to the Greek community in Tarpon Springs?

  "How terrible that this should come between you and your father." Derek's words were heavy and oppressive, falling as they did like dead weights into the tightly strung atmosphere of the room.

  Eve tried to speak around the lump in her throat. She would never understand how she managed to cope when she was on her own, and then when Derek came along and put his thoughts about her situation into words, she choked up.

  "It's not your concern," she said unhappily. "My father and I are on good terms, and I'll visit him often."

  "He'll never understand why you did this."

  "Probably not."

  "Eve." She couldn't avoid his eyes when he spoke in that authoritative tone of voice. And when she looked at him, his expression was tender and compassionate.

  "Eve," he went on, watching her with total absorption, as though he wanted to get inside her head and hear his words from the inside out, as though he wished he could be her for this short moment in time and therefore hear what he had to say solely from her point of view. "Eve, please accept my apologies. I am sincerely sorry that Kelly and I ever started this, that we ever got you into this—this mess. If I had it to do over again, I would never agree to it. Never."

  "But—"

  "Never, Eve," he said with heart-stopping earnestness.

  "Let me say what I was going to say," she said softly. She became aware of the glass in her hands, of the dampness from it running down her palms. She set it carefully on a coaster on the burled-walnut cocktail table in front of her. She stood and walked to the fireplace where she stared at the huge gold-framed oil portrait of Kelly over the mantel, summoning the words she wanted to say. She drew strength from the sweet expression in Kelly's eyes.

  "I'm glad I'm pregnant," she told him, turning to look at him. "I love the feeling of a child within me. And if I hadn't decided to be a surrogate mother, I might never have had the chance. So don't feel sorry for me."

  Derek shook his head and lifted his brows in disbelief. Her pear shape was starkly outlined against the white of the wall behind her. Eve was absolutely, unmistakably pregnant, her neat, compact body forced into new lines by the baby. He couldn't imagine that she actually enjoyed the process. Still, he said in a quiet voice, "Don't be silly. You would have eventually married some nice fellow and settled down to raise a bunch of kids."

  Eve shook her head vigorously. "I'm not so sure. I'm twenty-eight, Derek. I've never dated much—only one serious romance, which ended when the man left for another job far away—and after that I concentrated on my job. I was a good Greek daughter, taking care of my father, never planning to do much else. I might never have borne a child. Now I will. I'm not sorry."

  "This man of yours—did you want to marry him?" He was way out of line, asking. But somehow he had to know.

  Eve took her time answering. What she and Burke Whitlaw had experienced was more a commonality of interest than anything else. When Burke left Wrayville, there'd been no great sadness. In fact, Eve had been aware only of a sense of moving on, of growing. Marry Burke? She'd never considered it seriously. They hadn't been right for each other.

  "No," she said slowly. "I didn't want to marry him. Or anyone."

  "You're so pretty, Eve. A woman like you—" Derek left his sentence unfinished, thinking about men competing for her warm smiles, wanting to touch her body and kiss the nape of her neck, to press their lips against the insides of her wrists. He couldn't believe that there weren't men flocking around Eve Triopolous.

  Eve blushed slightly. She was glad when Aunt May chose that moment to descend upon them in a fit of unbecomingly girlish enthusiasm.

  "You know what I did today?" Aunt May asked, bounding without pause into the conversation. "I planted the pansy beds. They're going to be so pretty in the spring! I planted lots of those big yellow ones with purple petals. My grandmother used to call pansies heartsease. They do kind of ease the heart just to look at them, don't they?"

  Aunt May prattled on, but Eve welcomed her ramblings. Derek looked as though he could barely tolerate them, and she was uncomfortable under his frank and undisguised gaze, but it was only a short time until Louise announced dinner.

  Aunt May insisted on lighting tall candles, which cast the wainscoted dining room in a mellow glow, and Eve took her customary place to Derek's left with Aunt May at the foot of the table. The three of them avoided looking at the place to Derek's right, where Kelly used to sit. Other than that, dinner was unremarkable except for a warm, familiar sense in Eve's heart th
at she was happy to be back.

  * * *

  "And how did your visit to Dr. Perry go today?" Derek asked when he came home the next night.

  "Fine. I'm fine, the baby is fine, and when the weather is fine, I'm supposed to do lots of walking." Eve smiled at him as she pulled on a cardigan that she kept in the foyer closet.

  "You're going for a walk now?" Derek seemed surprised.

  "Of course. The leaves are changing color, and the neighborhood is beautiful."

  "I'll come with you. That is, if you don't mind."

  For one long, terrible minute she seemed taken aback, and he was afraid she was going to say no. But then she nodded briskly. "All right."

  They stepped out into the crisp, cool air. "Let's stop and look at Aunt May's pansy plants," Eve said on impulse. Aunt May had not only planted huge beds of them but had bordered a long brick walkway alongside the house with little green plants, flowerless now.

  "They seem so fragile," Eve said, staring down at the tiny green sprouts. "As though they won't make it through the winter."

  "Oh, they'll make it," Derek said confidently. "Aunt May has a wonderfully green thumb. She's the one who created the rose garden for Kelly, you know. Those pansies will come up blooming in the spring; wait and see."

  Wait and see? It was not likely. The baby was due in February, and she would be gone by the time the pansies bloomed. But the baby, if Derek kept it—surely she could persuade Derek to keep it—would be able to see the bright colors of the pansies, their nodding little faces.

  "Heartsease," she murmured, wondering how her heart would be eased if she had to leave the baby. She didn't dare think about it, not now. She turned and walked swiftly down the path. Derek, with his longer strides and without the handicap of being off balance, could barely keep up with her. She didn't slow down until she reached the sidewalk.

  They strolled down the tree-lined street. Dogwood leaves had already turned various shades of red—carmine, ruby, scarlet. Lagging just behind were the leaves of the ginkgo trees, bright bursts of yellow now.

  "What else did the doctor say today?" Derek's eyes fixed on her with interest.

  "I'm gaining too much weight. And I should remember to take my vitamins. I didn't know you'd be so interested," ventured Eve, casting a curious sidelong glance at him.

  "Of course I am," he said quickly. He shoved his hands down in the pockets of his suit trousers. A little girl in a smocked dress ran out of one of the houses across the street and stood watching them.

  "I wonder what she's staring at," Derek said amiably.

  "You strolling down the street for a casual before-dinner walk, relaxed and comfortable in your suit."

  Derek pulled his hands out of his pockets and looked down at himself. "Honestly? Do I look out of place?"

  This brought a peal of soft laughter from Eve. "Yes, Derek. Most people take off their ties and jackets when they come home from work and put on something more comfortable."

  "Comfortable? You mean a sweater?"

  "A sport shirt, a sweater, a T-shirt. Don't you have any?"

  "Well, of course," he said, sounding miffed. "People give me gifts, but I feel perfectly comfortable in what I'm wearing."

  "Don't you ever unbend? Have fun?"

  "Well, I don't openly cavort, if that's what you mean." He was looking down at her with laughter in his eyes. "It's sort of like eating junk food. Bad for the image."

  "Oh, Derek. Is the image so all-important?" She spoke in a teasing tone, but he chose to answer her seriously.

  "I became the president of a Fortune 500 company when I was only thirty-one. I never thought people would take me seriously if I showed up at the office looking less than dignified."

  "And at home?"

  There was a long silence, and then he said very quietly, "I wasn't home much."

  His tone made her bite back the light retort on the tip of her tongue.

  "I'm getting winded," Eve said after they had walked another block in silence. "Do you mind if we sit on that wall for a minute?"

  "No, of course not."

  She rested her hand on the stone of the wall for a lingering moment. It was cold, but she sat down anyway, and Derek joined her. He stared moodily into space. Leaves freed by a stirring breeze drifted down. One landed on Derek's shoulder.

  Without thinking, Eve reached to flick it away. So did he. Their hands touched.

  Eve quickly pulled her hand away and clasped it with the other in her lap. The buoyancy of their mood had vanished, fading during their conversation, but it disappeared entirely when their hands brushed each other. Eve shivered.

  "It's chilly now with the sun going down," Derek said abruptly. "We'd better be getting back to the house."

  Unhappily, Eve stood up, avoiding his eyes, and they headed toward home. Derek didn't speak, and neither did she. In the houses along the way, lights were winking on, and it was dark enough for windows to cast geometric shapes onto the spacious grounds of the houses they passed.

  "I had so much responsibility at work," Derek said suddenly. "There was so much to do."

  With a start, Eve realized that Derek was talking about his absences from home, the effect they had had on his life with Kelly. Her cheeks colored when she recalled the conversation she had overheard when he and Kelly had been on the terrace and she had been in Derek's study.

  "I—I'm sure there was," she said, wondering why he was telling this to her.

  "Most of the time Kelly understood, I think. Dad groomed me to be president of the company from the time I was a boy. I never dreamed that my father would decide on early retirement and run off to Rio de Janeiro with a woman younger than I am."

  "Is that what happened?"

  Derek nodded grimly. "It left me holding the Lang Industries bag. Not that I didn't relish it at first. The company had begun to diversify after much of the textile industry moved out of the Carolinas. We expanded into different areas. Putting my ideas to work was—and still is—a challenge. But I should have known what a toll it would take on my marriage."

  What was he telling her? That his marriage hadn't been as perfect as it seemed? That he and Kelly weren't really the "golden couple" she'd imagined? Eve groped in her memory for something Kelly might have told her that would help her understand.

  As close as she and Kelly had grown, Kelly had never revealed any problems with her marriage. Kelly had always been cheerful and smiling, delighted about the baby, supportive of Derek. The only sour spot Eve could remember was that scene on the terrace when she had run away before they'd detected her presence, and even that had ended in tenderness between Kelly and Derek.

  Derek's words bewildered Eve. But she knew by the deeply etched line between his eyes that he was tormented by something that she knew little about and perhaps never would. It was enough to know that Derek needed someone to talk to.

  "Do you want to tell me about it?" she asked softly, ignoring her chill and forgetting everything but the human being who walked beside her and seemed so lost and alone.

  The faraway look in Derek's eyes was replaced by one of guardedness. He studied Eve's face, upturned toward him in the dusky shadows of early evening. Then his gaze dropped to her belly, more noticeable than ever now that her hands, tucked into the sweater's pockets for warmth, pulled the fabric taut. He seemed to come to his senses.

  "Not now," he said unhappily.

  Eve knew that only if Derek felt whole and well would he take this baby. Let me find the best way to help him, Eve thought fervently as she preceded him into the brightly lit foyer. And inside her, his child stirred, reminding her that time was growing short.

  Chapter 7

  Her cell phone rang bright and early on this Saturday morning. Eve, who had been awake since seven and had just come in from retrieving the newspaper from its accustomed place beneath the boxwood hedge, took the call.

  "Eve?"

  She recognized the male voice immediately. "Doug! I haven't talked with you in weeks!"
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  "We're going to remedy that. How about dinner tonight?"

  "Nothing's wrong, is there? Al's not sick?"

  "No, he's looking chipper. Living at Nell's house agrees with him. Do I need an excuse to see an old friend?"

  Eve sank down on the bottom step, then regretted it. How would she get up again?

  "Eve?"

  "You don't need an excuse to see me, Doug, but I'm very pregnant. I'm not sure—"

  "I have nothing more strenuous in mind than sitting in a quiet restaurant and lifting forks to our faces."

  "Since you put it that way, how can I refuse?" She smiled into the phone. She'd like to see him.

  "I'll pick you up, say, at seven?"

  "Could we go earlier? Since I've been pregnant, I don't like to eat that late. I mean, would you mind?"

  Doug's voice was warm, caring. "Have I ever minded adjusting my plans for you? Remember the time I gave up a junior high school track meet to stay home and help you nurse a sick hamster? I was a sure bet to win the hurdles, too."

  "I remember, all right. The hamster gave birth to a fine, healthy litter." Doug had been so genuinely interested that day. He hadn't changed a bit.

  "So after I gave up a track meet, picking you up at six o'clock instead of seven seems minor. I'll see you then, Eve."

  "Okay," she said before clicking off.

  "How's this for a casual weekend at home?"

  Eve looked backward up the staircase to see Derek descending with a sheepish grin on his face. He wore a charcoal-gray fleece pullover with a white T-shirt under it.

  "Very nice," she murmured approvingly. "Are you wearing that to work?"

  Derek noticed that Eve, perched on the bottom step, looked strangely reflective. Something leaped inside his chest, and for a moment it threatened to distract him. But he recovered when he recognized the warm interest in Eve's eyes.

  "I," he announced, parading in front of her and giving his reflection in the hall mirror a thorough once-over, "am not going to work today."

  "You always work on Saturdays," she pointed out, trying in vain to lurch off the bottom stair to a standing position.