“Richard.” There was a sharp intake of breath. “I don’t believe it.”
“What don’t you believe?” Michael’s voice was quietly insistent, and his eyes didn’t leave her face. Everyone else had faded into insignificance now. For Michael there was only this woman in the room. Everything depended on the next few minutes. His future. His love for Jenny.
No way could Gloria realize that!
“I can’t-”
“Look at him,” Michael said, and he took two steps forward so Gary was almost touching Gloria’s black cashmere cardigan. She took a step backward, then another. She did look just like Wallis Simpson, Michael thought suddenly, and wondered whether that was the image she aimed for. A woman who swayed men’s emotions.
“Look at your grandson,” Michael said again, and pressed Gary forward, as if he would entrust her to hold him.
Gloria didn’t take him, but she did look down.
Gary’s hair was so red, Michael thought ruefully, and wondered for the sixtieth time whether it had been crazy to bring him here. But…
“Dear God,” Gloria said, and her face crumpled as she saw the tiny child. Her hands flew to her cheeks, and she stared, while the icy mask of self-control and vicious intent faded to nothing.
There was only awe.
“Richard had red hair,” she whispered finally. “My Richard.”
“Peter’s father?” Michael frowned. Jenny hadn’t said that. It hit him with a pang. Last night, Jenny’s words had been like a gift to him. If she’d known the red hair came from her dead husband’s family…
But Gloria was shaking her head. “My Richard,” she said again. “Not Peter’s father. Peter’s brother.”
Another silence. The air was thick with it, and suddenly Shelby couldn’t bear it.
“Hey, I need a cup of tea here,” she told everyone loudly. “There’s a kitchenette through here, right? You don’t mind if I make one, do you, Gloria? I’ll make one for you, too. You English always want tea. You two-I need help.” And before Gloria’s hired men could say a word, she’d taken an arm apiece and marched them to the other room.
“I know when I’m not wanted,” she told them as she propelled them forward. “I’ll bet you do, too. You look like the sort of guys that can take hints real well. Speaking of which… Garrett! Lana! Come!”
And Michael was left alone with his son and Gloria.
And with the silence.
“You want to hold him?” he asked, and he proffered the baby as if he was the most precious thing in all the world.
“You mean it?” She looked at him in disbelief.
“I mean it. If you want.”
“I do…oh, I do.” And Gloria gathered Gary into her arms and burst into tears.
“HOW COME…” Michael asked, when he figured Gloria could speak again. He’d pushed her into an armchair and found a tissue or two to mop the flood. “How come I never got to hear about this Richard? About Peter’s brother?”
Gloria looked at him, then at Gary. She could scarcely keep her eyes from him.
“Peter didn’t know about his brother,” she said. “No one did.”
Michael frowned. “I don’t understand. You want to run that past me again?”
“I had a baby before Peter,” she whispered, almost as if she was talking to herself. “In those days…well, a baby that hardly made it through the delivery was hushed up. Not spoken off. Especially in a family like ours. He… Richard lived for a day, and he was just perfect, but then he died while I was asleep. It was my first sleep after having him. I went to sleep thinking I had the most beautiful little boy in the world, and when I woke up they’d simply taken him away.”
“Why?”
“Because he was dead,” she said flatly, and the bitterness was still there after all these long years. “So they took him. I don’t even know where they buried him. ‘Never mind, dear,’ they said, ‘there’ll be another.’ And I was expected to get on with it. My mother burned everything. Every single baby thing. Start again, she said. She told me I shouldn’t even think about him.”
Michael stared at her, then looked at Gary. No! His heart simply balked at the thought. How would he feel now if that happened to Gary? How would Jen bear it?
How must Gloria have felt?
Maybe the lady wasn’t quite as bad as she was painted, he thought, a sick feeling churning his gut. Maybe there were reasons she acted the way she did.
“So then you had Peter?”
“He was my replacement baby,” she said bitterly. “Everyone said that. Have another one to replace it. It! Like replacing a broken cup. So I did, but he didn’t-replace him, I mean. The pain…it never went away.”
No. It wouldn’t. Unaired and unacknowledged, it had simply festered, like a canker. Michael saw that as clearly as any psychologist would, and he saw why Peter could never have been satisfactory. Poor Peter!
“And now I have a grandson who looks like him.” Gloria’s voice was choked. “I can’t bear it.”
“What can’t you bear?”
She lifted her tear-drenched face to his. Her mascara had run, causing two black rivulets to stream down her wrinkled cheeks. She was looking older by the minute. “I can’t bear that I can’t have him,” she whispered.
“You can.”
She stared. “You’re saying you’ll give him to me?” An incredulous hope flared in the woman’s eyes, extinguished almost as soon as it was lit.
“Of course I won’t,” Michael said flatly. “You’re his grandma, not his mother. Jenny’s his mother, and to all intents and purposes, I’m his father. You’ll have to accept that as fact, and we can go from there.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean you’re giving no middle ground,” Michael told her, his voice gentle again. “You want him all or not at all. But Jenny doesn’t want him to grow up without knowing you.”
The woman looked at the sleeping baby, and her face twisted in pain. “I can’t believe that.”
“After the way you’ve treated Jenny, neither can I,” Michael said frankly. “But this little boy has an English heritage. He needs to learn about it.”
“You only want my money!”
“There is no way Jenny or I will touch any money that has any connection with you,” Michael told her flatly. There was no joy to be gained in letting her think she had any control. “But if you want access…”
“You’d let me have him part-time?”
“You could visit him here,” Michael told her, “while Jenny and I are present. And if we were invited, then maybe we’d bring Gary over-stay awhile, so Gary could get to know what he’s in for. Maybe a month or so every year.”
“What, all of you?” The thought was clearly repulsive.
“It’s all or nothing,” Michael told her, and he stooped and lifted the white-wrapped bundle from her arms and held him close. “Jenny and Gary and I…we’re a family. You accept us all or you don’t accept any of us. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it, but that’s the way it has to be.”
“I don’t-”
“Think about it before answering,” he said urgently. “Think of what you’re losing if you refuse. Jen wants to do this-for Peter’s sake.” There was no point in saying he hadn’t mentioned this to Jenny. “Jenny’s staying here.” He handed her a card with Megan’s address on it. “If you want, go and see her and see if you can rebuild a few bridges before you lose everything. I’m sorry, but that’s all I have to say to you. Think about it. Garrett! Lana! Shelby! Let’s go.”
And he whistled up his siblings and marched them out of the hotel room before she could say a word.
“HOW’D IT GO?” Garrett asked curiously as the elevator doors closed behind them.
“Who knows?” Michael’s face was grim.
“We heard what you said.” Garrett grinned and shrugged. “There wasn’t a lot of tea-making going on in the kitchenette. There were five pairs of ears flapping so hard they’d almost have powered the kettle on their own. It’s true. She loses everything if she doesn’t agree.”