Сьюзен Мэллери – Pregnant!: Prince and Future...Dad? / Expecting! / Millionaire Cop & Mum-To-Be (страница 14)

Liv still held the apple she’d carried from the kitchen. Her appetite for it had vanished. She set it on the counter in the built-in bar area and moved nearer the chair where her mother sat. ‘‘Finn was here last night when you called me, wasn’t he?’’

Her mother sighed again and nodded.

‘‘Then you know about what happened between us?’’

‘‘Yes, darling. I do.’’

Did the humiliation never end? One night’s indiscretion and everybody had to know about it, her mother included. ‘‘How did you find out?’’

‘‘I spoke with your father. He called yesterday. We had a long talk.’’

Liv wondered if she’d heard right. ‘‘Wait a minute. The way you say that, you seem to be implying that you and Father had an actual conversation.’’

‘‘Yes. I would say the word ‘conversation’ pretty much describes what took place between us.’’

‘‘But…you never have conversations with Father.’’ The two had barely spoken in over twenty years.

Her mother was smoothing her skirt again. ‘‘Well, sweetheart, I’ve been doing some thinking. And I’ve come to the brilliant deduction that things change. If we want to survive in life, we have to adapt.’’ Ingrid looked up. A rueful gleam lit those sea-blue eyes. ‘‘With Elli married and living in Gullandria, and with Brit suddenly deciding to—oh, how should I put it?—explore her Gullandrian roots—I can see I’ll have to be willing to talk to Osrik now and then if I want to have any idea of what’s going on in my daughters’ lives.’’

‘‘You could try asking us.’’

Ingrid made a sound of frustration low in her throat. ‘‘I have. I don’t get a lot of answers—and what are you saying? That you’d rather your father and I went back to not speaking?’’

Maybe she would. Especially if they were going to discuss things like her sex life. ‘‘Whether you speak to him or not is completely up to you.’’

‘‘Thank you, darling.’’ There was a definite note of sarcasm.

Liv decided to ignore it. ‘‘So Father called and he told you…’’

‘‘About how you spent Midsummer’s Eve, about how you experienced the Freyasdahl symptoms the following night, about Finn’s offer of marriage and your refusal. Your father said Finn had decided to come here, to Sacramento, for a few weeks, to see if he might somehow manage to change your mind.’’

Liv felt her anger rising again. ‘‘And you want that to happen, right? You want him to change my mind. That’s why you invited him to stay here, in the house where I grew up—to show your support for him. You actually think that I ought to marry him.’’

Ingrid reached out. ‘‘Oh, Livvy…’’

Liv stepped back and sat in the chair across from her mother. ‘‘Just say it. You think I ought to marry him—marry a man I hardly know, a man with whom I have absolutely nothing in common, a man who’s been under just about every skirt in Gullandria.’’

Ingrid said nothing. For a moment, they sat in silence, mother and daughter, at odds.

Then Ingrid was leaning forward again, a wild, warm light in her eyes. ‘‘Oh, Livvy. I like him. I do. And he’s from a good family. And if you give it a chance, you might find the two of you have more in common than you realize. And besides, I saw the way he looked at you just now.’’

‘‘Mom.’’ Liv leaned forward, too. She spoke softly, taking care that no one but Ingrid would hear. ‘‘He’s a…playboy. Flirting to him is like breathing. He does it without having to give it a thought. He looks at all the women as if they’re the only one.’’

‘‘No, he does not. I’d bet a huge sum of money on that,’’ said Ingrid firmly. ‘‘And please don’t scowl. I do understand exactly what you mean when you speak of his flirting skills. He’s flirted with me, for heaven’s sake, and I loved it.’’

‘‘Well, at least you admit it.’’

‘‘Why shouldn’t I? He’s a joy to flirt with. But the way he looked at you…it was an altogether different thing.’’

Absurd, but Liv felt her heart lift a fraction. ‘‘Oh, I don’t think so.’’

‘‘You’re so bright, Liv. So strong and sure. Focused and determined, way beyond your years. And you’re also domineering. And overbearing. And it wouldn’t hurt you to stop and smell the flowers now and then.’’

Liv tried to keep from rolling her eyes. ‘‘Your point being?’’

‘‘That I think Finn sees your value, as a person, as a woman he could love. And you have to admit—’’ her mother dared a naughty grin ‘‘—he’s certainly experienced enough with the fairer sex to know a special woman when he meets her.’’

Liv did roll her eyes then. ‘‘That’s an interesting way of looking at it.’’

‘‘It’s merely the truth.’’

‘‘Mom. You are working on me.’’

‘‘Yes, I am. I want you to give Finn a chance.’’

‘‘I have a boyfriend, remember?’’

‘‘Darling. Simon Graves is a lovely man. But if he was really all that important to you, I doubt you would have spent Midsummer’s Eve with Finn.’’

Liv felt her face flaming. Okay, okay, maybe some of her fury at Finn was misdirected anger at herself. What she’d done with him four nights ago told her things about herself she really didn’t need to know.

‘‘Finn,’’ Ingrid said, ‘‘is, after all, the father of your child.’’

Liv groaned. ‘‘Please. It was only one night—to my lasting shame. And it’s way too soon to—’’

‘‘No, it’s not. What happened to you always happens to the Freyasdahl women when—’’

‘‘Mom. Let’s just…not go there, okay? I’ve been over it with Brit and Father and Finn. I really don’t feel up to going around and around about it with you, too.’’

Her mother’s eyes were very bright. ‘‘There will be a baby. Deny it now, if you feel you have to. But that won’t make it go away. And yes, I am… supporting Finn in this, in his effort to get to know you better. In his willingness to try and do the right thing. He seems a lovely man to me and he’s welcome in my home. I’m only too happy that the father of your baby was well-brought-up, is well-to-do and wants to marry you and give your baby his name.’’

‘‘Oh, Mom…’’ Liv knew she was softening. How could she help it, seeing the way her mother looked right now, that gleam in her eyes, the glow on her cheeks?

Liv supposed her mother’s reaction wasn’t surprising. A new baby in the family, to Ingrid, would mean new hope for the future, someone on whom to lavish all the love she’d never be able to give her lost sons.

‘‘Darling, I’m not saying you should marry him just because of the baby. This is not Gullandria and you know your family will support you, whatever steps you feel you have to take. I’m only saying, what can it hurt to give Finn a chance?’’

At dinner, by tacit agreement, they kept things light.

Finn entertained them with stories of his adventures during his first day in Sacramento. Yes, he confessed, he had once or twice driven over the speed limit.

‘‘But, as luck would have it, no one was hurt.’’

He’d eaten lunch at McDonald’s. ‘‘Excellent French fries.’’ And pumped his own gas at a Jiffy ServeMart. ‘‘There was a small market beyond the pumps. I went inside. Rows of muffins and biscuits, individually packed. Racks and racks of crispy snacks made of mysterious ingredients the names of which I found difficult to pronounce. And self-serve beverages. They offered something called a Super Huge Gulp. A massive plastic cup and you fill it up yourself. In my rental car, along with the computerized mapping system and the state-of-the-art stereo, there’s a small device between the seats for holding beverage cups. Not big enough to hold a Super Huge Gulp, however. I was forced to drink the entire thing before I dared to get back behind the wheel.’’

Ingrid suggested teasingly, ‘‘And from this you learned?’’

He laughed. ‘‘Absolutely nothing.’’ He asked Ingrid about her work. Liv’s mother owned an antique shop in Old Sacramento. He listened, rapt, as she described how she’d sold two French Empire armchairs with bronze sphinx mounts and a Winged Victory gilt candelabra.

And then he turned to Liv. ‘‘And how are things at the Attorney General’s Office? Did they manage to get along without you for an entire week?’’

Liv admitted with a good-natured smile that somehow they had.

There were candles on the table, tall white tapers in her mother’s favorite silver candlesticks. Liv looked across at Finn. His eyes met hers, gleaming more golden than amber with the candle flames reflected in them. She thought of the two of them, on Midsummer’s Eve, dancing like moonstruck fools around that blazing Viking ship, the rim of the red Gullandrian midnight sun dropping at last below the horizon. Her pulse quickened. Her whole body was too warm.

She felt a smile quiver across her mouth as she accepted the fact that he was here, in Sacramento, that he really did seem to want to make it work between them. And even if she didn’t believe it could work, even if she didn’t really believe she was pregnant, even if the last thing she needed in her life, at her age, with her career goals, was a baby…

Well, if by some crazy trick of fate it turned out she was pregnant, her choice would have to be to keep the child. She had plenty of money, a loving family to provide emotional support and she was strong and self-directed. For her, it would be a coward’s act to do otherwise. Yes, it would slow her down a little, as far as her goals were concerned. But it wouldn’t stop her. Nothing would stop her. She meant to make a difference in the world, no matter what curves life decided throw her.