“Oh, I definitely don’t intend to sell it,” Mr. Harrington cried out. “I would much prefer to donate it to a museum that would have it.”
“Based on my daughter’s assessment,” Enrique assured him, “I’m certain there is no shortage of museums that would be happy to receive it into their collections.”
Mr. Harrington nodded. “My wife would have been very happy to hear that. She loved art museums.”
Alma recognized the quiver of nostalgic heartbreak in his voice. “It sounds like your wife had excellent taste.”
“Yes, she married me, surprisingly. That was my first clue that I should hang onto her. And I did—for over forty years.”
Alma smiled. “Is that the secret to a good marriage, Mr. Harrington? Hanging onto someone you love and never letting them go?”
“Oh, dear me, no,” he huffed. “That is the secret to insanity. The secret to a good marriage is hanging onto her while trying your damndest to be a loyal, decent husband, and then stepping back on occasion and waiting for your wife to forgive you when you inevitably do and say the stupidest things of your life.”
Alma glanced over at her father who shrugged in agreement.
“Please,” her father said, inviting the gentleman into the rear room of the shop. “Let us take pictures of the box so that Alma may draw up a formal appraisal.”
Enrique ushered him into the rear room. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. The horrible sickly green goblin seeped up from the pit of her stomach without warning. She didn’t even make it to the bathroom. Instead, she grabbed the wastebasket and gagged into it.
Returning for his spectacles left behind on the counter, Enrique paused to survey Alma, cradling the wastebasket with her glasses slanted off her face.
“Todo está bien, mi amor?” he asked as a look of concern furrowed his brow.
“Yes, just something I ate, I think.” She was lying; her father sensed it.
“Perhaps you should take the day off?”
“Yes, Papi. Thank you. I think I will.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Alma swept in front of her sister and face-planted her forehead onto the display of frosted marshmallow Rice Krispy treats, neatly arranged like bars of chewy gold across the counter.
“Well, hello to you, too,” Conchita muttered, pushing the more fragile caramel-topped cream puffs and delicate chocolate eclairs to the side. “I can see you’re having a difficult morning. Cinnamon bun?”
Alma didn’t respond. She simply whimpered and held up something long and plastic in her hand.
“Ugh…? Is that what I think it is?”
Alma whimpered again—a faint, but discernible, yes.
“Oh - my - God.” Conchita covered her gasp. “One line or two? One line or two?!” Grabbing the plastic stick out of Alma’s hands, she stared down at the results. “Holy freaking crap—two lines. Two, two, two!!!! This is my dream come true!” She clapped her hands and jumped up and down like she had just won the baby lottery.
Alma lifted her head and glared at her. Conchita’s glee over something that was specifically her fault was truly irritating.
Conchita ignored her sister’s stink eye and buzzed with joy. “This is so a-m-a-zzzzzing. So what did Harvey say? What – did – he - say!”
“I haven’t told him.” The look on Alma’s face said everything.
“Oh.” Conchita stopped bouncing. “But you’re gonna tell him, right?”
Alma flopped her forehead again onto the Rice Krispy barricade with an indistinguishable answer.
“Alma…you have GOT to tell him,” Conchita asserted.
“How does this even happen?” Alma whined. “I mean…we were married for years and
nothing ever happened. Then the one time we have sex like teenagers…boom.”
“You get knocked-up like a virgin on her prom night!” Conchita sang out.
“You’re enjoying the fact this is me and not you.”
“Hell, yes. Because given the number of shameless one-night stands I’ve had this year, this is totally something that should be happening to me and not you. But thank God, thank freaking GOD, it’s you. Two lines. It’s you!!!!”
“Ugh. What am I going to do?”
“Well, duh? You’re going to tell your billionaire baby daddy that he boinked you up, that’s what. Hopefully after that, everything will end up like something out of one of my smutty romance novels.”
“Can’t I just disappear into a convent where nuns will take care of me and the baby in secrecy?” Alma offered.
“You seriously read too many Victorian novels. Besides, Papi would find out from me and spill the beans to Harvey. Especially if he and Harvey are still going to those Sox games every other week. You know how neither one of us can keep a secret.”
“Gee, thanks, family.”
“Just sayin’.”
“Well, I actually have no idea if he’s even in town. The last time I heard from him, it was over a month ago, when he sent me something that I tried to give back to him. He told me it was mine forever and that he couldn’t keep it.”
“A vibrator?”
“A necklace,” Alma stressed. “A ridiculously expensive one-of-a-kind antique Tiffany necklace for our fifth wedding anniversary.”
“Awww…” Conchita melted into a sigh. “And you tried to give it back? You heartless bitch.”
“I don’t even know if I still have his number or if he changed it again. For all I know, he could be in China, working on his buildings in Shanghai.”
“Well, you have to tell him.” Conchita lifted a stick of vanilla ice rock candy and gnawed on it.
“Via text? And say what? Please come home. We have a ‘situation’?”
“Yes, and then you say…P.S. please bring Oriental massage oils and a whole suitcase filled with expensive jade jewelry because I’m having your love child.” Conchita suddenly rummaged through her purse for her phone.
“What are you doing?” Alma asked.
“I’m doing what you should be doing,” her sister replied, punching out the message. “Texting your Preggonator.”
“Dear God. Don’t do that!” Alma tried to grab the phone, but Conchita successfully pressed send. Holding up her screen, she read aloud, “Hi Hot Stuff…are you in town? Very important. Smiley face emoji hitting himself with a sledgehammer.”
“A sledgehammer?”
Conchita shrugged. “Yeah, it’s sort of my fav right now. You’d be surprised how hitting yourself with a sledgehammer gets people’s attention.” Conchita’s phone suddenly pinged in her hands. “See…?” she cooed, indulging in her success before reading aloud his message. “Yes, but leaving in two days. Would prefer not to change plans. Are u in trouble?”
Alma’s stomach dropped like she was on an emotional rollercoaster. “He’s leaving in two days? Am I really supposed to dump this news on him before he leaves?”
Conchita gazed at her as if she understood her predicament.
“Well, let’s just see what he’s up to…” Conchita cued up her next text and read it to Alma before hitting send. “No trouble. Just wondering if you will be keeping this same number? Smiley face with question mark eyes.”
Immediately, her phone buzzed in her hands like an annoyed wasp. Conchita read his response. “Love you, C., but don’t be playing matchmaker again. I’m tied up right now and don’t need any more relationship complications. Ouch—” Conchita waved her hand with the imagined sting of his slap.
“He’s moved on,” Alma said somberly. “It was the one thing that I wanted from him, and now he’s finally done it.”
Sensing her sister might be right, Conchita pondered her next text before replying, “Okey-dokey, Smokey Pokey. Have a nice trip. Talk to ya later. Smiley emoji in Hawaiian shorts and holding sun umbrella.” She tossed her phone onto the counter. “Well, okay. Maybe you are screwed if he leaves before you have a chance to tell him. That just means you’ll have to find a way to tell him tonight.”
“Alma, it is his baby, after all. Even if you guys don’t officially get back together, he still deserves to know.”
“And I will tell him.” Alma waffled. “Just not tonight.”
“When then? Via text? After he’s gone because you pushed him away and made him think it was completely over between the two of you?”
Alma locked eyes with her sister. “Isn’t it completely over between us?”
“I don’t know, Alma…but even if you’re never going to be a couple again, don’t go messing up this new chapter before it’s even started.”
Alma covered her glasses and bowed her head, certain she could deal with anything but this… Not this.
“Hey listen—” Conchita reached over the counter and squeezed her hand. “I know you don’t feel like it, but this is going to be the most amazing gift of your life.”
Alma grimaced. “I feel like I want to vomit.”
Conchita handed her a stick of rock candy. “Ginger-flavored. It will help with the morning sickness and I’ve got you covered with an unlimited supply. Just make sure I’m consulted when it comes time to pick out baby names.”
“Harvey is going to want Harvey Jr.”
“And you’re going to want some ridiculous literary Gothic name like Rochester or Esméralda.”
Alma sucked on the ginger rock candy, easing her sickness. “Those are both really good suggestions.”
Conchita rolled her eyes. “Yeah, exactly my point. This poor baby is already going to need me to come to the rescue.”
Chapter Thirty
When the doorbell rang, Harvey considered loading his hunting rifle and shooting the bastard trespassing on his private riverfront dock and up four flights of stairs to his front door at the crack of dawn.
“A dead man,” he cursed, rolling out of bed and stumbling through the dark hallway. He was hungover and dazed. He hadn’t slept three straight hours since everything fell apart a month ago, and he had been dealing with the insomnia in the only way he knew how—by drinking himself into oblivion every night.
He decided against his rifle as he trudged into the foyer, barely bothering to peer out of the glass prisms of the Weese-inspired triangular windows before swinging the front door open.
He just did it. And then he wished he hadn’t.
Alma stood there, staring at him. He hadn’t bothered to get dressed because he had intended to holler at the ding-door-ditching teenager and use his shameless nakedness to frighten him away.
But he didn’t scare away anyone, much less impress her. She barely noted his absence of clothes like it was as normal as her unannounced visit before sunrise.
“You look terrible,” she confirmed, pushing past him into the foyer, as if she still lived there.
“Thanks,” he said, tracking her entrance in a daze. “I smell even worse.”
Was he dreaming? Was he still drunk from downing half the bottle of Cognac?
She removed her coat and hat, and hung them up on the stainless steel folk art sculpture that she had bought at an estate sale before they were married.
As if she still lived there… For a brief moment, it seemed as though it could be true. She still had keys. Her clothes were still hanging in the master bedroom closet. Her pink towels were still folded on the shelves in the master bathroom. And her bottles of shampoo, body lotions, and decorative jars filled with bubble bath beads were still arranged on the bathroom countertop. He never threw out any of her things. He just drifted around them like a ghost haunting her possessions until she came back to claim them. Except she never came back—until now.
Why was she here? Quickly, the most obvious reason resonated in his inebriated mind—to shout at him, clearly.
Yanking open the foyer’s closet door, he fumbled through its contents until he found his beanie cap with ear flaps. It had a pom-pom on the top and a rabbit fur lining, exactly what he needed to do the trick.
She eyed his curious choice of head gear. “Are you planning on going…skiing?”
“No, I’m getting prepared.”
“For a blizzard…in the buff?”
“No, for your arrival.” He pulled the cap snuggly over his ears. “Okay…now, I’m ready.”
He crossed his arms and winced, waiting for her to let him have it. He couldn’t specifically recall what he had done wrong lately, but he knew the list of his faults was endless and his penance was lacking.
“You’ve been drinking.”
“Only a modest amount.” He hiccupped. “In my modest state.”
They both looked down at his naked body.
“Would you like me to wait here while you get dressed?” There was irritation in her voice.
Lifting up his foot, he removed his sock and hung it on his swelling cock, aroused by her observation of its immodesty.
Between the beanie on his head and the sock on his cock, his sobering consciousness knew he looked ridiculous. But at least she wasn’t yelling at him.
“I used to have pajamas,” he stated, like it was a serious concern. “But I have no idea what happened to them.”
She frowned, as if his answer unexpectedly annoyed her. “I took them.”
“Oh.” He frowned back, pondering the most confusing revelation of his life. “You refused to accept my fifty-million-dollar divorce settlement, but you took my fifteen-dollar pair of flannel pajamas?”
“You never bought more?” she shot back.
“I’m a man, Alma. I’m useless when it comes to practical, common sense things like buying pajamas.”
“Or underwear,” she noted.
He leaned against the wall, fighting off a yawn. It didn’t work. “Are we going to have a long intellectual discussion about pajamas and underwear in the hallway? Or would you like to come inside?” Breaking into another yawn, he shuffled down the corridor without waiting to see if she would follow him. He was too tired and his head pounded like the heavy wheels of a freight train, trying to roll over which misdeed had brought her there to scold him.
She glanced around the living room, taking in everything familiar. “You haven’t redecorated?”
“Nope.” He flopped onto the couch and watched as she anxiously bit her fingernails. It strangely relaxed him. All the blood rushed out of his throbbing head and into his sock puppet cock, simply because it was aware that she was in the room. “Not unless you count my collection from Italy.” He nodded to the obscene tower of empty pizza boxes, winding upwards like a spiral staircase, just barely grazing the industrial steel rafters supporting the soaring glass atrium. “I’m shooting for a world’s record. I figure it’s easier than attempting to be domestic again. Apparently, I’m only good at being domestic when I have a mate to impress. If it wasn’t for the cleaning lady, I’d be buried under a pile of my own plastic forks and dirty gym shorts.”
His confessions of squalor were clearly more than she could take. Without warning, she turned and ran into the bathroom. Seconds later, he heard the sound of violent vomiting and subsequent groans.
Hmm, he pondered. Either the thought of his dirty gym shorts had that effect on her or she had been drinking even more than he had.
Harvey waited and waited and waited. “Everything okay in there?” he finally called out.
“No.”
Hmm, he pondered again. Well, at least she’d still have her pink bath towels.
After an awkward length of silence, he tried again. “How about now?”
“I just need a minute, Harvey…please,” she requested softly.
Pulling himself up from the couch, he plodded into the kitchen and flipped open the refrigerator door. “How about something to eat like…” he dithered, uncertain about what he had to offer. “Like some beef jerky and…a packet of ketchup?”
Then he heard her—all the way from the bathroom—puking out her guts.
Okay, definitely not an appeti
zing combination.
Moving back into the living room, he said, “Or maybe I should call for a pizza?” Whenever she was hungover, he remembered she liked to eat anchovy pizza.
She answered with the flush of the toilet.
Harvey paused and listened. Rinsing and gargling, he thought, as she took her time. Apparently, she felt like she was home. He missed her being home.
When she finally emerged from the bathroom, she looked sexier than when she had entered it. She had removed her glasses. Her hair was tossed out of its ponytail and her cheeks were flushed from bending forward and hurling into the toilet bowl. Taking out a candy stick from the pocket of her overalls, she sucked on it. Harvey felt himself grow shamelessly harder. Mr. Sock Puppet approved.
“It’s five o’clock in the morning, Harvey,” she said, acting as if nothing had happened. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?”
“Why are you here?” he mechanically repeated, having absolutely no idea until his original theory popped back in his brain—to yell at him.
“Because…” she started to say, then stopped sucking on her candy stick to collect her thoughts. “I heard you were leaving town in two days and I wanted to say something important to you.”
Oh, brother…here we go. He exhaled in resignation and pulled his hat snuggly over his eyes as if he was about to be slayed by a firing squad. “Okay, shoot.”
“It would be better if you looked at me, Harvey.”
He peeked open one eye. “Only if you promise not to throw anything at me.”
“I definitely promise not to throw anything at you.”
“Or break anything that’s mine and not yours. Your collection of antique opera glasses is fair game, but my baseball card collection and flat-panel TV are off-limits.”
She wheezed out her sigh. “Yes, fine. I promise.”
Harvey nudged up his beanie and peered out at her. “Okay, good. Shoot.”
She took in a deep breath and blurted out, “Harvey, I’m…” She stopped again when she spotted a curious light emanating from the master bedroom in the loft above them. “I’m…”
Exes (Billionaire Romance #3) Page 27