Baby's First Christmas

She smiled smugly. Usually, her evenings were free, but not tomorrow night. It spared her the trouble of lying. She’d accepted the invitation to the party over a month ago. “I’m sorry, I have a social function I have to attend tomorrow evening.”

“Black tie?” he guessed.

She didn’t see why that would make a difference to him. “Yes.”

“Lucky for you I own one.”

Marlene sat upright, removing her feet from the ottoman. Was he actually inviting himself along? “What you have in your closet doesn’t interest me, Travis. You’re not invited.”

He could easily swing an invitation, too, if necessary. Almost anyone throwing what Marlene termed a social function had to be on his list of acquaintances. If not his, then his father’s.

“You need an escort, don’t you?”

There was no end to this man’s gall. “What makes you think I don’t have one?”

He laughed. This time, the sound annoyed the hell out of her. “You went to a sperm bank to become pregnant, Marlene. I think it’s safe to assume that you do a lot of things by yourself. So, when do I pick you up?”

He’d called her Marlene, not Ms. Bailey. He was getting way too personal.

“You don’t.” With that, she broke the connection and left the receiver off the hook. She let out a long breath. That should stop him from annoying her tonight.

Tomorrow was something she would deal with when the time came—and it would come all too soon. Right now, she didn’t want to think about it.

Nicole eased the door open and slipped quietly across the threshold into the office. Marlene’s secretary, Wanda, had momentarily stepped away from her desk, so there was no one to announce her. She liked it that way.

She observed her older sister for a moment before she greeted her. Marlene was so immersed in her work, she was oblivious to the fact that there was anyone else in the office with her.

Marlene worked too hard, Nicole thought reprovingly. She’d always worked too hard. There’d never been a financial need to do so, but Nicole knew that for Marlene there had been an emotional one.

As if James Bailey had ever noticed.

Nicole remained in the doorway and crossed her arms over the swell of her abdomen. It’d been a little over a year since their father had died, but it still felt odd seeing Marlene sitting behind that desk.

The few times that she had been ushered into this office along with her brother and sister, her father had been sitting in that very chair. Like as not, he would be bent over his work, just as Marlene was now. He would ignore their presence until the last possible moment, even when one of them made a noise to catch his attention.

Whether it was to put them in their place or because he really was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn’t notice them, Nicole never knew. But even as a child, she’d been aware of being angry. Angry because he was making all of them feel so insignificant.

Or trying to.

And now Marlene was sitting there in his place, frowning over a report just the way their father had done countless times before.

Nicole felt like taking her sister and shaking some sense into her, forcing her to realize what she was in danger of becoming. Making her stop before it was too late. Before Marlene traveled down the same road their father had.

Nicole sighed quietly. Maybe things would change once the baby finally arrived.

At least she hoped so.

Nicole closed the door behind her and walked over to the desk. She cleared her throat loudly. “You realize, of course, that you are going to have to stop working long enough to give birth. Two, three hours might be forever lost.”

Marlene looked up, startled. She hadn’t heard her sister come in. Nodding a greeting to Nicole, Marlene straightened, pressing her back against the chair’s padded upholstery. She flexed her shoulders slightly. There was a crick in them that traveled down the entire length of her spine.

“I’m trying to work that into my schedule.” Marlene smiled fondly at her sister. She blinked, clearing her mind of statistics. It wasn’t easy. They seemed to cram her head just like the baby crammed her body. “What are you doing here?”

Nicole glanced at Marlene’s desk. The surface was an ode to compulsive organization, folders all neatly piled and placed parallel to the edge of the desk. No flurry of papers the way there would have been if she was working here instead.

But advertising campaigns weren’t her forte. Neither was neatness. They would have clashed inside of a day. It was better this way.

Nicole moved a folder with the tip of her index finger, her eyes on Marlene’s. “Well, I thought that since Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain, the mountain would come to Mohammed.”

Very carefully, Marlene returned the folder to its original position. It made her feel better to have things exactly where she wanted them. Where she could easily put her hands on them when she needed them. It was comforting. The reason the company ran so smoothly was due to creativity, but it also owed its success in no small part to organization. Her organization. That meant a great deal to her.

Marlene nodded at her sister’s widened waist. “More like the mountain coming to the mountain and forming a huge range.”

Holding on to the armrests, Nicole lowered herself into the chair before Marlene’s desk. Due roughly a couple of weeks after her sister, she was larger and appeared even more so because she was almost three inches shorter.

She let out a long sigh of relief as she sat back. “I’m on my lunch break, and since you haven’t taken one in five years unless it involved a client, the odds were that I’d find you in, so I decided to pop by.”

That still didn’t explain what Nicole was doing here. Marlene knew firsthand that these days it was difficult for Nicole to just “pop by” anywhere. There had to be a reason behind this so-called spontaneous visit.

Marlene rose from her desk and rounded it until she was beside her sister. Only concern about Nicole’s welfare ever managed to get her mind off her ever increasing mound of work. “Is anything wrong?”

Nicole shrugged casually, shifting the point of focus back to her sister. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

Marlene looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

It wasn’t actually the main reason she’d stopped by, but now that she’d thought of it, Nicole followed up. “You didn’t make any sense on the telephone when I talked to you yesterday. I thought maybe things might sound a little clearer if I watched your lips while you talked.”

Marlene laughed shortly. She supposed she had sounded a little distraught when she told Nicole about Travis’s appearance. She’d meant to keep the whole thing to herself, but Nicole’s call had caught her at a bad time and part of the story had tumbled out. Not wanting to upset Nicole, she had glossed over the rest of it.

“Believe me, it won’t sound any clearer now.” She thought of Travis and the annoying phone call last night. “All I know is that my unborn child’s uncle is an ass.”

“He just appeared out of the blue? For no reason?”

“Oh, there’s a reason, all right. I told you, he wants custody.” Just talking about it had her throat tightening. “The bastard is willing to make ‘compensations.’ As if I’d sell my baby.”

Nicole knew that look in Marlene’s eyes and could almost feel sorry for Sullivan Travis. She had no doubts that Marlene had put him in his place royally. “Do you think he’ll try to bother you again?”

“I don’t think, I know.” She sighed, exasperated. “I’ve been refusing his phone calls, but he got through last night at the house and wanted to meet with me again now that I’ve had ‘time to think it over.”’

“Did you tell him to go to hell?”

“I think he got the message.” Marlene rested her bottom against the top of the desk. She tried very hard not to let pregnancy slow her down, but there were times when it seemed to hit her right between the eyes. Or a little lower, she thought in momentary amusement.

“Do you think you should get in contact with Monty?” Nicole asked, referring to their family lawyer.

“Not yet, but I will if I have to. Right now, I’m not going to think about Travis. The holidays are coming. I’m pregnant, and I’ve got a social function to attend tonight.” Her mouth curved as she remembered. “One he wanted to ‘escort’ me to. That’s when I hung up on him.”

“That sounds like you.” Nicole looked at her sister’s face. “You look tired, Marlene. Why don’t you stay home tonight instead of going out?”