Baby's First Christmas

From out of nowhere, Cynthia Breckinridge swooped down on them with the unerring instinct of a woman who had been bred to be a hostess from early on.

“Hello, darling.” She kissed the air near Marlene’s cheek. “I’m so glad you could make it, given your situation and all.”

Her eyes swept over Marlene in a quick appraisal, before turning her attention to Sullivan.

“I didn’t know that you two knew each other.” She hooked an arm through Marlene’s, simultaneously slipping the other through Sullivan’s.

“Not really,” Marlene politely corrected. “We’ve only just met.” She saw that the information somehow pleased Cynthia rather than deterred her.

Very carefully, Marlene extricated her arm and turned her back on Sullivan, cutting him out of her range. “Cynthia, I was wondering—”

“—If I could have a word with Ms. Bailey,” Sullivan concluded the sentence. Very smoothly, he moved to Marlene’s side. Marlene gave him a murderous look.

With a look that bordered on elation, Cynthia spread her hands benevolently.

“That’s what parties are for. Talk away.” Her eyes almost danced with gleeful anticipation. “Go forth, mingle. I’d say ‘be fruitful,’ but our Marlene already seems to have covered that area.”

If she didn’t like Cynthia so much, Marlene would have been tempted to strangle her. She redirected her anger to the man beside her. She turned on him as soon as Cynthia was out of earshot, fluttering away to tend to her other guests.

Marlene struggled to keep her voice low as she allowed Sullivan to usher her off to the side. “Is that how you and your father built up your company? By strong-arming people?”

“Only if they refuse to return my calls and won’t meet with me.” She was wearing some sort of heady perfume that managed, even in this crowd, to be distinctive. He felt it subtly surrounding him and struggled to block out its effect.

Marlene disengaged her arm from his grasp. “I’ve already told you, we have nothing to discuss—especially if you take that tone with me.”

Maybe he did sound a little high-handed. It happened when his temper became frayed. But that didn’t change matters between them. “You’re carrying my brother’s child.”

“We’ve already established that—according to you,” she said pointedly.

She didn’t add that she had retained Spencer to look into Sullivan’s background for her. Though there seemed to be no real reason to doubt Travis, she wanted verification that he was who he claimed to be and that the situation was exactly the way he presented it.

Why in heaven’s name would he make any of this up? “What does that mean?”

Marlene shrugged. “What proof do I have that you’re not conducting some elaborate ruse?”

She knew it sounded as if she were fishing, but stranger things had happened. Not all uncanny situations took place in the pages of a book.

Now she was being absurd. He took a small step backward. Anything more would have caused him to bump into the wall. “Do I honestly look like a man conducting a ruse?”

Marlene strove to look bored. In truth, she was growing uneasy. She looked around for someone to rescue her from Travis.

“I don’t know. People don’t come with labels stuck to their foreheads.” She thought of a newspaper story she’d read recently about the breakup of a black market that dealt in selling stolen babies to desperate, childless couples. “You might not be who you say you are. For all I know, you might be involved in some sort of blackmail scheme.”

“And what is Cynthia?” he asked mildly. “My front woman?”

He made her feel like an idiot. He had managed to rattle her so that she wasn’t making any sense. Something else to hold against him.

“I have to admit,” she said primly, silently damning him to hell, “your knowing Cynthia does verify your identity.”

“Thank you.” With Marlene, it was going to be one small step at a time. He had no other choice if he wanted to settle this without publicity. “So now are you willing to listen to my proposition?”

She raised her chin, a cool smile on her lips. She would be willing to bet that he was just as averse to a scene as she was. Escape would be simple as long as she kept her head.

“I wouldn’t go that far. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

“Work?” He looked around the room with its elegantly dressed people and tastefully arranged Christmas decorations. Cynthia Breckinridge had been determined to throw the first holiday party of the season, and she had succeeded royally. “But this is a party.”