Bravo Christmas Reunion

by Christine Rimmer

He went where she took him, up into midnight, over the moon….

  Chapter Seven

  Hayley felt the bed shift as Marcus got up.

  For a few lazy seconds, she kept her eyes closed, kind of drifting, still half-asleep. But eventually, she peeked.

  Marcus was getting dressed.

  “Hey.” She sat up, shoved her hair back from her face and squinted at the clock. “It’s not even six yet….”

  “Gotta get a move on.” He dropped to the bedside chair to put on his shoes.

  She flopped back to the pillows. “Ugh. The driven business tycoon returns. I knew last night was too good to last.”

  “Look who’s talking. Who’s still working when she doesn’t need to be?”

  “Marcus.”

  He winced. “When you say my name like that, I know there’s a lecture to follow.”

  “I’m…in balance, when it comes to working. I have my job in perspective.”

  “See? What’d I tell you? Next you’ll be shaking a finger at me.”

  “Me? Never. Just remember. Work fast. I want you back here in time to go to the reunion with me.”

  “I remember. Let the being begin.”

  “Oh, that is exactly right.”

  He frowned. “Is it safe for you to go to Las Vegas in your condition?”

  She blew out a breath. “Oh, stop. Of course, it’s safe. It’s not like I’m having any problems, or even any signs of early labor.”

  “Are you allowed to fly?”

  “Far as I know. I think it has to be a pressurized cabin, though. Pressure changes rob the baby of oxygen, or something like that. I can check with my doctor if you’re worried.”

  “Do that. If you’re good to go, we’ll take a company jet. Faster. And more comfortable. Ask your sister and brother if they want to fly with us.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  He hadn’t stopped frowning. “As far as I know, they still allow smoking in Las Vegas casinos.”

  “Marcus. Stop. It’s going to be fine. I’ve had no complications. This is a perfectly healthy pregnancy and the two casinos we’ll be in are new, with those amazing, state-of-the-art air filtration systems. They suck that smoke right out of the air.”

  “I just don’t think it’s good for you.”

  She grabbed her robe from the foot of the bed and put it on while he sat there and watched her, looking grim. “Marcus…” She waddled on over to him and held out her hand. He took it, but he still looked a long way from happy. “Stop worrying.” She gave a tug. Shaking his head, he rose. She cradled his beard-rough face in her hands and went on tiptoe to kiss his scowling mouth. “Be nice and I’ll make you some coffee before you go….”

  “I just want you to be safe.”

  “I will be. I promise.”

  At last, he gave in and put his arms around her. They shared a sweet, slow kiss, after which she took his hand again and led him to the kitchen where the coffeepot waited.

  He was gone by seven, promising to return Friday afternoon to take her to Vegas and her family reunion. She ate breakfast and got ready for work, where they had three parties that night. Amazingly, Federico was working quietly in the kitchen when she arrived. Sofia told her that she’d had a long talk with the chef. Things would be a lot less noisy around there from now on.

  Hayley’s trainee looked relieved.

  Hayley smiled while she supervised her replacement and hummed Christmas songs under her breath. The new girl was doing fine.

  And she and Marcus would have two whole weeks, together.

  Who knew when she left him all those months ago, that before their baby was born, they’d be together again—for the holidays, at least?

  And maybe forever. Hey. Wilder things had happened.

  But she wasn’t going to get ahead of herself. Uh-uh. For now, the two weeks ahead were miracle enough.

  Marcus met with his managers early that afternoon. Actually, things were going damn well. The company hadn’t gone under in the few days he’d been away, after all.

  He explained that he was taking a two-week hiatus. Hiatus. He hid his smile as he said it. It sounded more…elevated, somehow, than an ordinary vacation. He told them to get together with their people. Any issue that required his input should be on his desk by six that night.

  They would meet again the next morning before he left for Sacramento to handle any immediate problems. He returned to his office feeling pretty good about things. He’d have his ring on Hayley’s finger before the agreed-on two weeks were up. And next month, he’d be a dad.

  The dad part was damn scary. But hey. One day at a time and all that.

  He spent a half hour with Joyce, clearing his calendar. Once she left him, he got down to cleaning out his in-boxes. When his BlackBerry vibrated, he figured it was probably Hayley and answered without looking at the display.

  “What?” He was smiling.

  “Marcus?”

  Adriana. His stomach hollowed out and his pulse went racing. Damn. His hands were sweating.

  He knew he should disconnect the call. He had nothing to say to her.

  And yet, for reasons he didn’t care to examine, he stayed on the line.

  “Oh, Marcus. Are you there? Tell me you’re there….”

  Somehow, he found his voice. “What do you want?”

  “Oh, God. How are you?”

  He realized he was absolutely furious. Coldly, for the second time, he demanded, “What do you want?”

  “Oh, no. I can tell from your voice. You haven’t forgiven me. I’m so sorry. It was terrible, what I did. I know it. Believe me. I know it too well….”

  He had a sudden gut-twisting certainty that she had returned to Seattle. “Where the hell are you?”

  “London. I’ve left Leo.”

  So she’d walked out on VonKruger, too. Why wasn’t he surprised?

  “Oh, Marcus. I know now. I see. I’ve made a horrible mistake. It was always you. Always. A nation of two, that’s what we are. Nothing can change that. Our love is forever. You’re alive because of me. And I can’t live without you. I’ve been selfish and so wrong. I need to talk to you. In person. I need to see you.”

  “No.”

  A stunned silence, then, “You can’t mean that. Tell me you’ll—”

  “Leave me alone, Adriana. Do not call me again.”

  “Oh, no. Please—”

  He disconnected the call. Finally. And after that, he just sat there, holding the phone in a hand that wouldn’t stop shaking, remembering….

  Everything. Down all the years. In a series of knife-sharp flashing images.

  You’re alive because of me….

  He saw himself at twelve. Skinny. Lonely. Scared. So sure that his father would kill him finally. Kill him in a drunken rage and still find some way to weasel out of facing the consequences. After all, his father was Darien Reid, heir to the Reid fortune. An important man. A man like Darien Reid didn’t beat his only son to death….

  It was a gray, rainy day. Like so many Seattle days. Marcus had stolen the housekeeper’s stash of Darvocet and gone to school. He swallowed all the pills in the bottle, washed them down with a can of ginger ale and waited in the boys’ restroom to die.

  Adriana had found him.

  He recalled that he came swimming up to a foggy half consciousness to find…

  His head in her lap, her hair like a halo of pure gold around her beautiful face. She had screamed at him, hadn’t she? That he’d better not die, that he couldn’t die…

  The device in his hand vibrated, yanking him back from the past.

  He dropped the thing to the deskpad as if it had teeth. And he waited, until it finally stopped buzzing like a furious bee and sent the caller to voice mail. Then he picked the thing up, set it on the floor and ground it into the travertine tile with the heel of his shoe.

  When the phone rang at eight that night Hayley knew it would be Marcus. Her caller ID said otherwise. “Hello?”

  A low chuckl
e, then, “Tell me you quit your job today.”

  “Marcus. It is you.”

  “You thought it would be some other guy?”

  “No. I thought it would be you. But the number on the display is different.”

  “New cell number. Got a pencil?”

  “The number’s in my phone. Why a new one?”

  “Long, boring story. Use this number from now on.”

  “Okay—and no, of course I didn’t quit my job.”

  “You said you were training someone.”

  “Well, I am, but—”

  “How are we going to be together if you’re working all the time?”

  Together. It sounded so good when he said it. And, well, he did have a point. “Actually, my replacement is doing really well….”

  “Quit. Tomorrow.”

  “I wasn’t planning to quit. I’m taking a six-week leave.”

  “And if I tell you again to quit, that will be pushing, right? And I’m not supposed to push.”

  “See? You’re learning.”

  “Start your leave tomorrow.”

  “Ever been called relentless before?”

  “Frequently. Do it. Tomorrow.”

  All at once, she had the strangest sense that something wasn’t right. Where did the feeling come from? She had no idea. He didn’t sound any different, did he?

  And there was nothing that he’d said….

  “Hayley?”

  “I’m right here.”

  “You all right?”

  Funny he was asking her that question. “Fine. Truly.”

  “For a second there, I thought we’d lost the connection.”

  “Nope. And DeDe says to tell you she can’t wait to ride in your jet.”

  “Will she be wearing her ballerina shoes?”

  “Probably not. But only because Kelly won’t let her.”

  “Your brother?”

  “He’ll fly with us, too. There’s a big family dinner at Impresario tomorrow night to kick off the weekend. Think we can make it for that?”

  “Sure. Things are in pretty good shape here. I should be there to pick you up by one tomorrow. If your sister and brother could meet us at Executive Airport around two, we can take off by two-thirty.”

  “I’ll pass the word along.”

  “Did you talk to your doctor, about whether it’s safe for you to be flying?”

  “I talked to her nurse, will that do?”

  “And her nurse said…”

  “Just what I already told you. Really. I’m fine and it’s perfectly safe for me to fly in a pressurized cabin—which the jet has, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I have to tell you. I can’t wait.”

  “You sound like a kid at Christmas.”

  She laughed. “Right season. And I feel like a kid—well, except for the big stomach and the swollen ankles, I mean.”

  “You’re pretty amazing.” He said it so tenderly. So…admiringly. “You don’t let life get you down. You don’t…expect to be taken care of. I always know I can count on you. Trust you…”

  “Thank you—and is everything all right?”

  He made a low sound. “What? You get suspicious when I tell you how terrific you are?”

  “No, it’s just…I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. As long as you’re sure you’re all right…”

  “I am. Very much all right.”

  “Well. Good.”

  They said good-night. As soon as she hung up, she copied his new number into her address book. And then she got busy packing for the weekend trip.

  Strangely, the vague feeling that something was wrong didn’t go away. It lingered in the back of her mind the rest of the evening and into the night, even kept her awake for a while.

  When she finally did sleep, she dreamed of the father she’d never met, of herself as a little girl, Blake Bravo looming over her, more a shadow than anything real. She whimpered in her sleep as he bent down to reach for her.

  Marcus lay in bed in his house in Madison Park. He’d moved when Adriana left him, but he’d kept the same home phone number.

  Big mistake.

  The phone rang, as he’d known that it would. He waited through the four endless rings, until the answering machine in his office finally picked up. Once he was sure Adriana had had enough time to leave her message and hang up, he took the phone off the hook.

  Before he left for California the next day, he’d make arrangements to have the number changed.

  Chapter Eight

  “You’re a half an hour late,” Hayley said when she opened the door.

  Marcus shrugged. “That final meeting…”

  “I know the rest. It went long. Problems?”

  “Nothing my managers can’t handle. I hire good people. Time I gave them a chance to show their stuff.”

  She reached out and took his hand and pulled him inside with her, shoving the door shut as soon as he cleared the threshold. Then she threw herself into his arms.

  “Oof,” he said.

  She slid her hands up to encircle his neck. “A hundred and sixty pounds of pregnant person. It’s a lot to hug.”

  “Kiss me.”

  So she did. A long, wet one. He lifted his mouth from hers eventually, but only to slant his head the other way.

  In the end, she was the one to pull back. “If we keep on like this, we’ll never get to the airport.”

  “You started it.”

  “Yeah. Wild, huh? I don’t understand it. I just couldn’t help myself somehow.”

  He looked almost misty-eyed. “It’s good. This. With us.”

  “It is.” She beamed. “Who knew, huh?”

  “A second chance…” He looked…bemused. It was so not an expression she’d ever expected to see on his face.

  “Well, after all,” she replied, “it’s the season for miracles.”

  “Wow.” DeDe giggled in delight. “It’s like in the James Bond movies.” The jet’s cabin was furnished with easy chairs and tables, set up like a living area, where the Kaffe Central execs could work or relax en route. There were even bud vases mounted on the walls between the windows, each holding its own fresh-cut red rose. DeDe turned her bright eyes to her mother. “We could have martinis, shaken, not stirred.”

  “Only if you prove you’re twenty-one first,” muttered her uncle Tanner.

  The grown-ups laughed and DeDe demanded to know if there would be movies.

  “The screen is right there.” Marcus pointed at the spot on the ceiling from which the forty-five-inch screen would descend before the movie began.

  The attendant showed DeDe to a chair, gave her a set of headphones, handed her a remote and showed her how to scan the movie choices. They all took seats and buckled up for takeoff.

  Once they were in the air, DeDe had a 7-Up and chose The Santa Clause 3 in honor of the season. She put on her headphones and settled back as the big screen came down.

  Her only complaint about the trip was that it was too short. The movie wasn’t over when they landed. Marcus reminded her that she could watch the rest on the way home.

  High Sierra and Impresario faced each other across the Las Vegas Strip. A glass breezeway crossed the Strip five stories up, connecting the two lavish resorts. Hayley had a suite in Impresario. Kelly and DeDe were next door and Tanner two doors down along the red-and-gold carpeted hallway.

  One inside their suite, Hayley and Marcus wandered together from the sitting room, with its gold-trimmed velvet sofa, to the bedroom where the enormous bed with its intricately carved headboard sat on a dais.

  He said, “Kind of a French bordello effect, huh?”

  “It’s a Moulin Rouge theme, thank you very much.”

  “Oh. Well. I should have guessed.”

  She climbed up on the dais and perched on the bed, striking a playfully seductive pose by lacing her hands behind her head and fluttering her eyelashes. “What do you think?”

  “Sexiest pregnant lady I ever saw.”
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br />   She got up and went to have a look at the bathroom. In there, it was stark and simple, very modern, the walls and floor of some gray-and-gold stone, with an open shower. The long sweep of granite counter had double sinks. The tub was big enough to swim in. And through a door by the counter, there was also a big dressing area, complete with lots of closet space, a vanity with stage-style makeup lights and a four-foot-wide floor-to-ceiling mirror.

  “All courtesy of the Bravo Group,” she told him as she rejoined him in the bedroom. “Ever heard of the Bravo Billionaire?” She climbed the dais again and reclaimed her spot on the bed. “Turns out he’s my second cousin.”

  Marcus was nodding. “That’s right. The famous Jonas Bravo of the L.A. Bravos. Bad Blake Bravo was his uncle….”

  “Yes, he was. Four or five years ago, Jonas got together with one of my half brothers, Aaron, who was already running High Sierra at the time. Jonas provided the funds to make High Sierra a Bravo enterprise. They brought Fletcher Bravo in when they decided to build Impresario. The way I heard it, Fletcher was running a casino in Atlantic City at the time. Had no idea at the time that he was one of us.”

  “Us? One of Blake Bravo’s children, you mean?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How many Bravos are coming for this thing?”

  “Somewhere between fifty and a hundred, I think. Caitlin Bravo, one of my notorious father’s many wives, put it together, with the help of her daughters-in-law. Aaron is one of Caitlin’s three sons.”

  “Aaron. That’s the one who…”

  “Runs High Sierra.” She laughed. “It’s confusing, I know.”

  He mounted the dais and stood above her. “I hope someone’s passing out name tags.”

  “Not a bad idea.” She tipped her head back to look at him and a happy glow spread through her. “I’m glad. That you’re here.”

  He sat beside her and put his arm around her. “Me, too.”

  She rested her head on his strong shoulder. “I started my leave from my job today.”

  He hugged her a little closer. “I was hoping. But you notice how I didn’t ask?”

  “You are becoming downright restrained.”

  “So glad you noticed.”