Baby Times Two

by Marie Ferrarella

  Gina pulled the book away and placed it on the top of the pile she was making. He should have been a lawyer, not an accountant. “I doubt it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”

  That sounded like him four years ago, he thought. Had he been that abrupt with her? Was this payback on her part, or just a quirk of nature that arranged for things to be this way?

  Gina scooped up all her files into her arms and turned. The box of disks on the top slid off and fell unceremoniously down on the desk. Chase retrieved it before she could, then walked toward the door. He held it open for her.

  She raised a brow before she walked out. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He gestured for her to exit, then followed, still holding the small box of multicolored disks. “Helping.”

  Because her arms were loaded, she walked quickly to James’ office. “That’s not what I call it,” she muttered under her breath.

  The door to the office was still open. Chase let Gina walk in first and deposit her things before he set the single box down beside the stack.

  A whimsical smile played on his lips. “You know what I just said about us trading places?”

  Gina pretended to be busy and inattentive as she began putting things away. The desk she’d ordered for James was twice as large as the one she’d been forced to work on.

  “Yes?”

  She was trying to ignore him, he thought. She was going to discover that it was impossible. He’d already made up his mind to make sure of that. “Well, this is an example.”

  She stacked her files neatly in one corner, then looked up. He was watching her every move and it was gnawing away at the air of self-confidence and efficiency she was trying to project. That she had, damn it, at least when she wasn’t around Chase.

  She blew out an edgy breath. “You’re going to enlighten me on this whether I ask or not, aren’t you?”

  She was doing her best to push him away, he mused. But her best just wasn’t good enough. Not this time around. This time around, he was digging in and getting to the bottom of things. He was older now and knew that he had to. Things didn’t just resolve themselves. “You just said you had work to do.”

  That much, she thought, was obvious. They both did. “I do.”

  She still didn’t see, did she? If anything, this should have made her more understanding of what he had been through during their marriage. Working long hours only to come home to an argument because he hadn’t been there.

  “Didn’t you always say that was what was wrong with me? That I always had work to do whenever you wanted me around?”

  There had been a lot more to it than that. The long hours he had stayed away were just the tip of the iceberg. But she wasn’t in the mood to go into that. There was no reason or use in discussing it.

  “Yes.” The edge in her voice grew more pronounced.

  He leaned a hip against the desk and played with the tiny spheres of gold at her ear. One flick of his finger and the balls swayed back and forth, catching the light.

  Gina drew her head back. The man was crowding her space just as he had crowded her mind before.

  Chase pressed on doggedly. “Now I’m the one who sees the need to take a break and you’re the one who seems to be hip-deep in work.”

  She never took criticism well, especially not when her emotions felt like a serving of mulligan stew. “Maybe I’m just using work as an excuse to stay away from you.”

  His eyes darkened. She’d made a direct hit. Gina felt a sting of regret at hurting his feelings. But she was only giving voice to what she believed Chase had been doing during their marriage.

  Remorse won out. She opened her mouth to mumble some sort of an apology, but she never had the opportunity to form the words.

  Chase dropped his hand to his side and rose. “Okay, then I’d better leave you to it.” If that was the way she wanted it, fine.

  No, not fine, a small voice echoed within him. Because that wasn’t the way he wanted it, and in his heart, he didn’t believe she did either.

  He stopped in the doorway and looked at her. “Are you still going to have dinner in the dining room at seven?”

  Without James to report to, there was no need for regimentation any longer. And no excuse to eat with Chase either.

  Gina switched on the computer and sat down. “It’s too early to think about dinner.” She lifted a shoulder and then let it drop carelessly, an odd frustration gnawing at her. She felt as if she was standing in the middle of a crossroads and didn’t know which fork to take, the one endorsed by her heart or the one supported by her mind.

  She opted for safety. “I think I’ll just have something sent up.”

  And then again, Chase thought, maybe he was butting his head against a brick wall. Maybe it was supposed to be this way. He knew he was certainly saner without her.

  “I see.”

  Chase closed the door.

  A moment later, Gina had exactly what she had asked for. Peace and quiet.

  She sighed and buried her face in her hands. Peace and quiet weren’t nearly as alluring as she’d thought they would be.

  Taking a deep breath, she raised her head. What she’d said to Chase was true. She did have work to do. A great deal of it, and she’d better get to it if the hotel was going to be ready on time.

  Gina picked up the telephone receiver and pressed 0. A warm, sexy voice came on. Gina smiled to herself. Talk about deceptive voices. This one belonged to a matronly woman who had long gray braids and enjoyed needlepoint and basket weaving.

  “Shirley. This is Gina. I’ll be in Mr. James’ office for the next week. Have all my calls put through to this extension. Thank you,” she said when Shirley murmured her agreement.

  Gina let the receiver settle into the telephone cradle and got down to work.

  * * *

  Nine phone calls and several frustrating problems later, Gina was in desperate need of a break. She felt as if a band were being tightened around the top of her head. Any second it was going to explode like a pumpkin being dashed on a concrete driveway. Her condition wasn’t alleviated any by the fact that the air-conditioning system kept whimsically shutting off and then going on.

  Daring the phone to ring again, she turned her chair 180 degrees and looked out the window at the guest pool.

  The sunlight danced along the surface of the water with light, airy limbs, all but beckoning to her. It looked incredibly inviting. She’d settled an argument between the painters and the paperhangers on the seventh floor and as a result there were now knots the size of boulders all through her shoulders and neck.

  She hadn’t thought when she took on this job that she would be doubling as a labor-dispute arbitrator. On a whim, Gina left the office.

  “Good training,” her father would have sternly said to her in reference to her exasperating day if he’d been there. Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Delmonico had always looked upon every obstacle as a challenge that built character. More than that, he had always been searching for the next obstacle, the next challenge. And it always involved moving.

  She must have gone to eight different schools in the twelve years that it had taken to get through her basic education, Gina thought as she went down the hall to the elevator. She tried to tick the names off in her mind and was stumped by two of them. It had been a terrifying experience for her. But if she complained to her father about how lonely she felt, always being on the move, always being the new student in the class, his response was always the same. He told her that it was good training.

  “Makes you tough, Gina.”

  She could hear his words echoing in her head as she got into the elevator.

  It had done just the opposite. All that moving, all that loneliness, had made her vulnerable as hell. Which was how Chase had gotten in, she reminded herself as she pressed a button. Chase with his warm mouth and his clever hands.

  The doors closed smoothly, without a shudder this time. The ride to her floor was just as s
mooth. And fast. The elevator, now covered in heavy drop cloths to prevent damage to the new furniture which was being delivered daily, and the old, which was being donated to charities, had indeed been “souped up,” just as James had wanted.

  Now if they could only get the air-conditioning in gear as well, she mused as she opened the door to her room.

  Benjamin had told her earlier, when she’d run into him during the seventh floor arbitration, that there were men still working on it. There was a helicopter on the roof right now, with the crew replacing the chiller, whatever that was. He had promised her that, with a little more patience, everything would be just fine.

  She was fresh out of patience, she thought, feeling uncommonly irritable.

  Had to be the heat.

  Yes, but what sort of heat? a small voice within her inquired.

  Perturbed, annoyed with herself for allowing Chase to prey on her thoughts, Gina took the one maillot she had packed and slipped it on quickly. She really needed this swim.

  Gina paused in the bathroom to take one of the new towels she had ordered for the hotel. It was soft and fluffy, a decided improvement over the near-threadbare towels she had replaced. She rubbed the soft nap against her cheek and tried to will the tension from her body.

  Taking a deep breath, she draped the towel around her shoulders and walked out again.

  All her life, she had loathed being alone. She had given her possessions names and carried on one-sided conversations with them to escape the bitter sting of being alone. But now she discovered that alone was not necessarily lonely. On occasion, she liked, even welcomed, solitude. She had grown to like and be comfortable with her own company.

  Gina stepped through James’ private entrance to the pool area. She supposed that, in a perverse sort of way, she had Chase to thank for the way she felt now. He, not her globe-trotting military father, had made her tough. She had had no alternative.

  Gina tossed aside the towel and, bracing, dived into the water. It felt exhilaratingly cold against her skin. Surfacing again, she let out the breath she was holding and began to swim laps.

  She liked being alone right now, she thought. Liked the fact that she had the pool all to herself. After all those raised voices, this felt like heaven. Slowly, the knots in her shoulders began to dissipate as she swam from one end of the pool to the other.

  * * *

  Chase crossed his arms in front of him and leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb as he watched Gina in silence. It was almost like watching poetry in motion. Fast-moving poetry, he mused as she went at it with a vengeance, but poetry nonetheless. It was a peaceful, yet very stirring sight.

  As was Gina.

  He’d had no idea what had suddenly drawn him here. One minute he was wrestling with the ledgers from 1991, trying to make sense out of what appeared to be red chicken scratch. The next minute, like the rodents hypnotized by the piper’s flute, Chase had had an overwhelming urge to go to Gina’s temporary office.

  As he’d made his way down the hall, he’d searched for a pretext to explain why he had come.

  He hadn’t needed one. The office had been empty. But then a splash of color had caught his eye. The sun had turned the surface of the pool into liquid emeralds.

  And then he’d seen Gina.

  Watching her slice through the water the way she did reminded him of their honeymoon. All of their friends had chipped in, in lieu of gifts, to help fund the trip. The money had purchased six glorious days in Acapulco. What time they hadn’t spent locked in their room, locked in a fevered embrace, they had spent on the beach.

  She’d been the swimmer, while he had lain back on the sand, content to watch her and absorb the sun. He could have spent hours just watching her.

  Seeing her now brought it all back.

  With the sun highlighting the drops of water on her body, Gina looked like a goddess rising out of the sea, bedecked in sparkling finery.

  Drawn by the sight, Chase walked out of the office to the side of the pool. As she swam in his direction, he pretended that she was actually coming to him and not just the edge of the pool.

  “Trying to work off some steam?”

  Gina’s head jerked up as she touched the side of the pool. She’d been so involved in the laps, she hadn’t realized that there was anyone else there. Least of all Chase.

  She waited until her breathing leveled. It was the exertion that made her breath so ragged and not seeing him appear just when she was thinking about their honeymoon. Odd the way it had just popped into her mind, evoking all those feelings from her.

  How did he manage to turn up every time she felt so vulnerable? Did he have some sort of radar that kept him informed?

  Treading water, she remained where she was and brushed back her wet hair from her face. “The telephone calls got to be too much. I thought I’d take a break.” She blinked several times to rid herself of the drops of water that clung to her lashes. “I think the closer we get to the deadline, the more frustrating everything becomes.”

  He liked the way the water gleamed on her lashes. Like jewels. She deserved jewels. She deserved the best, he thought.

  Chase crouched to be closer to her. “It happens with stress.”

  She braced herself with one hand on the side of the pool and looked up at him. “You don’t look very stressed.”

  He grinned, a dimple winking in his cheek. A dimple she had once liked tracing with her fingertip, she thought, remembering.

  “I’ve got the easy part, wrestling with numbers and bad handwriting. You’re handling people—always a tricky proposition.”

  She’d readily agree to that. “Sometimes I think they’re handling me.”

  They were having another normal conversation, he thought. He wondered if she realized that. They’d been having more and more of them in between her disappearing acts.

  “I’ve seen you in action. I don’t think anyone puts anything over on you.” His expression grew serious. Four years ago, he’d fallen head over heels in love with a girl. This was a woman who was drawing him in now. A very strong, determined woman. “You’ve done a lot of changing, Gina.”

  Compliments weren’t supposed to mean a great deal from him any longer. They would have once, she reminded herself, but not now.

  So why was this small Roman candle glimmering within her just because he’d given her one?

  She tried to sound nonchalant. “You grow or you stagnate, right?”

  “That was one of my lines.” Was she feeding it back to him on purpose, or had she really come to believe that?

  She nodded. “I know. I remember.” She tried not to notice how good he looked, how time had only enhanced all his features, taking that appealing face of his and adding character to it. “You had a lot of axioms to spare in those days, as I recall.”

  He crossed his legs beneath him and sat down at the edge of the pool, content to remain here like this and talk. Maybe some things could finally be resolved between them. “All meant to get me where I was going.”

  She cocked her head. Wet strands of hair dipped into the water again. “And did they?”

  He nodded. “Pretty much.” He’d lived by the best of them and achieved his goals. Alone.

  There was just a hint of something in his voice that told her he wasn’t completely satisfied. The old Chase had made extensive plans for himself.

  “Was it worth it?” she asked softly.

  He looked at her, the sound of her voice evoking an entire new rash of memories. She’d whispered like that against his ear in bed, just before they’d make love again. Chase banished the memory from his mind. He was getting ahead of himself.

  He thought her question through. She deserved an honest answer.

  “At times. At other times, no. Don’t get me wrong,” he was quick to clarify, “I like my work, like being a junior partner with options. And I like being a success.”

  She heard more than the words. She heard what was missing. The enthusiasm. “There’s a �
��but’ in there.”

  He laughed and nodded, beginning with the word she’d given him. “But it gets lonely sometimes.”

  She couldn’t picture him being lonely. Or alone. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  He saw the mischief in her eyes and was fascinated by it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He’d had a reputation before she’d married him, and she had to admit that she had enjoyed the fact that he’d chosen her out of all the others. She loved showing him off. He was gorgeous and he was hers.

  “When I married you, Larry Parker said I was taking the chief stud out of the stud pool.”

  Chase frowned at the name of his old fraternity brother. He’d lost touch with Larry. “Larry Parker never knew when to shut his mouth. He always was crass.”

  She crossed her arms on the lip of the pool and rested her head. Her smile was goading. “But right.”

  He wanted to set the record straight once and for all, in case she had any misconceptions. “My swinging-singles days ended when I married you.”

  Chase made it sound so final that she stared at him. “You’re telling me that you became a monk after our divorce?”

  That would be lying and he didn’t want to pave their new beginning with a lie.

  “No, I did get out of the monastery on occasion.” He saw just a hint of disappointment flicker in her eyes. Then she did care. “But then I’d go back.”

  Right, like she believed him. With good-looking men in short supply, she was supposed to believe that he led an almost chaste life. “Oh? Why?”

  His expression was very, very serious. “Because I never met anyone to compete with you.”

  The look in his eyes had her breath backing up in her lungs. “If I believed that—” Her voice trailed off abruptly.

  He wanted to hear what she had to say. “What, Gina? If you believed that, what?”

  No, she wasn’t going to go down that route again. She wasn’t naive anymore. “Then I’d be that same pathetic person you married.”

  He took offense for the girl she had been. “You were never pathetic.”