Now here he was, running on fumes from another sleepless night. Oh, but there was more. On top of everything else, he now had to deal with his family, starting with Andrew. Scowling, Eric turned away from the view of the sparkling aquamarine waters of the Olympic-sized swimming pool.
“What am I doing here?” he echoed. “You might recall that you asked me to drop everything I was doing and cut my Florida trip short so I could be here for your son’s baptism.”
But Eric’s irritation died as soon as he saw who Andrew had with him. Baby Andy, who was about a year old now and as adorable as ever, was slung over the shoulder of Andrew’s navy suit jacket, chomping on one of those colorful chewy toy things that he held in his chubby little hand.
The poor child wore the unfortunate starched white suit of a baby about to be baptized and Eric wondered if they’d be able to keep it clean long enough for the ceremony. Behind Andrew trailed his adopted son, Nathan, who was now about ten years old.
Nathan wore a miniature version of Andrew’s dark suit, and his black shoes were shined to a sleek finish. Instead of a red power tie like Andrew’s, Nathan wore the bow tie with the Star Wars logo on it that Eric had given him at Christmas.
The boy had his head bent low and his face scrunched up over his beeping, chirping handheld computer game. Without watching where he was going, Nathan wandered to the nearest sofa, stopped when he bumped his shins against it, turned, and collapsed on it. Never once did his fingers stop flying over the game.
Eric grinned, his bad mood dissipating.
The kids were really something. Eric had always liked children, but these two were clearly exceptional. His children—God willing and assuming he had a major breakthrough with Izzy and convinced her to marry him—would be like this: smart, adorable and irresistible.
All his life he’d known that one day he’d have children and add to the Warner family tree, unfortunate though it was. But for the first time he felt that ache of longing in his chest. That raw need to make love with the woman he loved, to watch her belly swell and see her nursing his child. That primitive desire to hold his child in his arms and teach it, protect it.
Eric could even see the blurry outline of his and Isabella’s future baby. She’d—he didn’t know how he knew their first child would be a girl—have Isabella’s pretty brown skin and eyes and the same lush pouty lips. Maybe his height, but maybe not, and it didn’t really matter either way.
All those platitudes he’d always heard from expectant parents—We don’t care what the baby looks like, we just want a healthy child—now seemed like the wisdom of the ages. A healthy child and a loving wife was all Eric wanted or needed from his life. Could the universe offer a man any greater blessing? For the first time he felt impatient and realized he was ready for the adventure to begin, ready for that next, and most important, chapter of his life.
So, yeah, he wanted children. In the meantime, he’d enjoy these two.
“What’s up, man?” Eric rubbed his hand across Nathan’s skull trim, shaking the boy’s little head until it wobbled. “What’s the good word?”
“No good word.” Nathan didn’t tear his gaze from the game but raised one hand long enough to receive Eric’s high five. “Andy can pull himself up now. And he tried to eat my baseball mitt.” Nathan stuck his tongue out in a disgusted scowl. “Gross.”
Laughing, Eric shook Andrew’s hand and reached for the baby. “Come here, little guy. Come here.”
“What I meant was,” Andrew said, passing the baby along and then sitting on a loveseat, “what are you doing here now? I thought you were meeting us at the church in an hour.”
“Yeah, well. Change of plans.”
Big upsetting change of plans, but Eric didn’t want to dwell on that, especially with little Andy in his arms. He balanced the baby’s sturdy weight on his hip and Andy stopped chomping on his rubbery toy long enough to give him an intent blue-eyed stare that was a miniature copy, down to the heavy straight brows, of his father’s.
No need for any paternity tests here, Eric thought; Andy was his father’s son, no question. The baby studied Eric with the keen intelligence that was to be expected of any child of Viveca’s and Andrew’s, and then, apparently deciding that Eric was, in fact, okay, gave him a wide, dimpled smile featuring four tiny but perfectly square teeth—two on top, two on the bottom—like Chiclets.
Some answering chord of emotion squeezed Eric’s heart hard. Laughing, he leaned in to kiss Andy’s fat cheek, and Andy seemed to think that was the funniest thing that had ever happened in his young life. Giggling and delighted, he offered his toy to Eric, who pretended to take a loud bite. Andy screamed with laughter.
The drumming of high heels in the hall announced the coming of a woman, and they all looked around to see Viveca stride in looking beautiful, as always. She’d done something with her hair and it was longer and straighter now, but that wasn’t the only different thing about her. Her blue dress emphasized the generous curve of her bosom and, below that, the small but unmistakable curve of a baby bump.
Seeing the direction of Eric’s gaze, she grinned and shrugged—What can you do?—and they both laughed. Eric pulled her in for a hug against his baby-free side. Viveca was one of his favorite people in the world and unmistakably the best thing that had ever happened to Andrew in his life.
“Another boy,” she told him.
“For crying out loud, man,” Eric said to Andrew over the top of Viveca’s head. “Can’t you give this poor woman a chance to catch her breath?”
“That would be a negative.” Andrew gave Viveca a swift proprietary glance—the look was filled with immense satisfaction, like a cat that’d jacked a milk truck—but had the grace to flush. “And that’s enough of you hugging my wife. I told you to get your own.”
“I’m working on it,” Eric muttered before he could stop himself.
Andrew looked around with surprise.
“Uh-oh,” Viveca murmured, perching on the arm of Nathan’s sofa. “You’ve done it now, Eric.”
Eric had already figured that out from Andrew’s laser-sharp gaze, which was now riveted to his face. Eric tried not to fidget although he couldn’t stop his cheeks from heating. Andrew’s eyes narrowed and a shrewd, sly smile, the kind that was always a precursor of trouble, crossed his face.
“Oh no,” he said on an annoying laugh. “So that’s what the two of you were yakking about on the phone.”
Eric and Viveca shot each other furtive glances, saying nothing, and then Eric concentrated on Andy, who was now purposely dropping his toy on the nearest side table so Eric repeatedly had to pick it up. None of this deterred Andrew, who now looked positively gleeful.
“Isabella making you jump through a few hoops, is she?” Andrew shook his head in a mock-regretful way that made Eric want to tackle him to the floor and acquaint the side of his face with the antique Persian rug. “Want me to talk to her for you?”
“No,” Eric said, making a rude gesture. “I want you to go—”
“Children,” Viveca quickly interjected, clapping her hands over an oblivious Nathan’s ears. “There are children in the room.”
Andrew laughed and held out a hand to his wife, who got up and moved to his love seat. The two of them settled together until they were practically in each other’s laps, with one of Andrew’s hands around Viveca’s shoulders and the other on her belly.
Eric felt renewed irritation. “Why don’t you two get a room?”
One of Andrew’s heavy brows rose with smug amusement. “Given your rotten mood,” he drawled, “I can only assume that things are not going well with you and the lovely Isabella. Did you blow it already?”
“No,” Eric snapped. He supposed this was karma coming back to bite him in the ass since Andrew was teasing Eric the way Eric had teased Andrew last year, when he and Viveca had hit a rough patch. “We’ve just got a few things to work out.”
This time it was Viveca who narrowed her eyes at Eric. “You didn’t—�
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“No.” Eric glowered, not bothering to hide his annoyance. His increased volume earned him a perplexed and vaguely worried frown from Andy. Eric soothed him by rubbing his back, and then lowered his voice. “I haven’t done anything, so don’t start accusing me.”
“She’s not still leaving…?” Viveca asked.
“Leaving?” Andrew looked from Viveca to Eric. “Where’s she going?”
There was a long pause during which Eric wished he’d cut out his own tongue with pinking shears rather than open this whole topic for discussion with Andrew. “Johannesburg. To teach.”
This, finally, seemed to kill Andrew’s amusement. “Shit, man,” he said, pity creeping across his face. “You’ve got a serious problem.”
“Who’s got a problem?”
They all looked around to see the owner of this new voice, Arnetta Warner, the family matriarch, sweep in from the hallway. Today the Silver Fox wore a bright blue suit along with her usual strand of fat gumball pearls, and held a pair of white gloves and a hat that seemed to have a peacock’s worth of feathers hanging from it.
Close on her heels came Franklin Bishop, the man who’d started out a thousand years ago as the butler and was now concierge, personal assistant, manager and occasional confessor to the entire Warner clan.
“Good morning, Grandmother.” Eric balanced the baby, leaned in to kiss the cheek Arnetta tilted up for him and shook Bishop’s hand. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes-I-did!” Arnetta, who lost all sense of decorum whenever her great-grandson was in the room, grinned at Andy, shook his chubby little hand, and spoke in the singsong voice that people couldn’t help adopting when addressing a baby. “Yes-I-did-sleep-well! Yes-I-did!”
Andy laughed and reached for Arnetta, who happily, though gingerly, took him. “Andrew,” she said, her voice crisp now, “where is this boy’s blanket? I don’t want to get drool on my suit before—oh, here it is.”
Bishop passed her a yellow blanket. Arnetta sat next to Nathan, kissed the top of his head, and then arranged Andy on her lap. Andy immediately twisted at the waist, reached for Arnetta’s pearl necklace, and tried to put it in his mouth. Arnetta pulled the pearls away and turned to Eric.
“If the problem you were referring to is Isabella’s dress for church,” she said, “I’m happy to loan her one of my suits. That dress she had on last night when you got here was a little, ah, colorful, dear.”
Eric tried not to be too irritated at this doting grandmother, but he just couldn’t manage it. What was it with this family? Appearances were always far more important than anything else. Better to be a couture-clad witch, for instance, than a kind soul who shopped the sales at Macy’s. Better to maintain a miserable fifty-year marriage than put the family through the scandal of a divorce. The content of your character didn’t matter around here as long as you looked like you belonged.
“I loved that dress,” Eric said flatly. In dire need of fortification, he headed for the granite-topped bar in the corner. “I love it that Isabella always dresses like a flower garden exploded on her. I love Isabella. I want to marry Isabella. Bloody Mary, anyone?”
“Eric.” Too scandalized to maintain her baby voice, Arnetta turned to track his progress across the room. “You can’t drink before church—”
“With the kind of morning I’m having?” Eric splashed vodka in a tumbler and topped it with tomato juice and hot sauce. Normally he drank very little and never in the morning, but on a day like this, such measures seemed basic and essential. “God will understand.”
“—and what’s this nonsense about marrying Isabella? Why on earth would you want to marry a kindergarten teacher from Greenville, North Carolina, when you can do so much better?”
“Better than what?” Eric snarled. “Marrying a wonderful free spirit who makes me happy? There’s something better than that?”
“Who’s getting married?” asked a new voice.
No, Eric prayed as he glanced over his shoulder. Please no. Not them.
He froze, wholly unprepared for this kind of horror so early in the day. He’d known his parents were in town, of course, but that knowledge didn’t prepare him for hearing his mother’s voice, which had exactly as much warmth and emotion as the voice of Hal the vengeful computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, or for seeing her walk into the room on the arm of Eric’s father, the man who’d hated her for the bulk of their forty-year marriage.
Recovering in what he thought was a reasonable period of time, all things considered, Eric raised his glass, toasted the massive oil painting of his late unlamented grandfather, Reynolds Warner, which frowned down at the proceedings from over the mantel, and, with a flick of his wrist, downed the entire Bloody Mary in two hard gulps.
Spicy and coppery, the drink burned his throat and cleared his sinuses, but did nothing for the red anger clouding his vision at having to deal with his parents. Still, a quick drink was better than nothing and he was glad to have it.
Thus armed, Eric made the slow turn to face his parents, Gifford and Della Warner, the poster children for Passive-Aggressives Anonymous.
They were the same, of course. Spending part of the year in Phoenix would never change their core nastiness. Mother was still tall, thin and sleek, with perfect makeup highlighting her Botoxed face, and her hair perfectly done in that same French twist she’d been wearing since the Nixon administration.
Someone seeing her for the first time might have an initial impression of a black Grace Kelly in her tailored gray suit with wide belt, but that quickly passed because Della gave new meaning to the term cool elegance.
Her eternal lack of human warmth, her complete inability to smile, and her unwillingness to engage with people on any kind of personal level made her, as far as Eric was concerned, a human mannequin. It was a constant surprise to him, whenever he kissed her cold cheek, like now, to realize she was made out of flesh rather than marble.
As for his father, well, Gifford Warner was no more a man than a neutered bovine was a bull. From the day of their marriage all those years ago, Della had grabbed the poor guy by the balls and held them, twisted, in the fisted grip of her manicured hand.
From his stooped shoulders swimming inside the seersucker suit that Della had no doubt picked out and told him to wear, to his hesitant voice and distant, usually vacant expression, Gifford, the second, usually forgotten son of Arnetta and Reynolds, screamed that he was a man who’d checked out of life years ago and saw no need to check back in.
“Mother. Dad.” Eric mustered what he thought was a passable smile as he shook his father’s hand, but apparently it wasn’t up to snuff because Della managed to unfreeze her Botoxed forehead long enough to frown at him.
“It’s been six months since we came back home to Cincinnati, Eric.” She sat in a tall-backed chair, crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt while her husband escaped to a chair in the farthest corner of the room and disappeared behind a newspaper. “You could look a little happier to see us.”
Eric almost snorted. Why would anyone ever be glad to see them? They brought a cold front with them wherever they went, like a traveling iceberg.
Already everyone in the room was looking distinctly uncomfortable. Andrew shot Eric a sympathetic glance and tightened his arms around Viveca as though he needed to protect her and their unborn child from nuclear fallout. Arnetta and Bishop exchanged worried looks and Baby Andy made a fretful noise.
Even Nathan, who’d been engrossed in his own little world this whole time, looked up from his game and squinted at Della and Gifford through his wire-framed glasses. No doubt the negative energy emanating from Eric’s dysfunctional parents was now interfering with the game’s batteries. If things kept up like this, the electricity in the mansion would flicker and die.
“Mother,” Eric said with utmost sarcasm, “who wouldn’t be glad to see you?”
To no one’s surprise, she ignored this barb. “What did you say about getting married? Or was I hearing things?”
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“Nope.” Eric figured he might as well jump in with both feet and get the whole ordeal over with. “I was just saying I want to marry Isabella.”
Gifford peered out from around his newspaper.
“Isabella?” Della’s dramatically lined cat eyes narrowed with obvious dismay. “Your little friend from college? The one with the tie-dyed dresses? Isn’t her father an electrician?”
This dismissal of the woman he loved on the basis of her clothes and father’s occupation left Eric speechless with rage, but a new voice joined the conversation.
Nathan put his game down and spoke with a child’s earnest conviction. “I like Isabella. I think Eric should marry her.”
Viveca and Andrew smiled at Nathan. “You know what, son?” Andrew said. “I agree. I like her, too.”
“Of course you agree,” Della murmured in her silkiest voice as Gifford disappeared back behind his paper. “You seem to have picked a wife on the basis of her, ah, obvious breeding skills.”
This comment, which was nasty even by Della’s standards, elicited an outraged bark of laughter from Viveca, but Andrew was already on his feet, his face purple with rage.
“You know what, Della?” Andrew forced the words through his throbbing jaw and tight lips. “If Isabella can make Eric a fourth as happy as Viveca has made me, then he’ll be the second luckiest man in the world.” Here he paused and turned to address the far corner of the room. “Gifford, you didn’t make the luckiest-man-in-the-world list, but then you probably already know that.”
There was a faint cough from behind the newspaper.
Della sprang to her feet and wheeled around to face her husband. “Are you going to let Andrew talk to me like that, Gifford?” she said to the newspaper.
Road to Seduction (Kimani Romance) Page 17