Going Too Far. Tori Carrington

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Dulcy said.

      But she hadn’t said it in the way Marie might have expected. Instead, she seemed surprised by something that didn’t have anything to do with the present conversation.

      Marie looked at her. Dulcy’s face had gone white and she was clutching her stomach.

      “Are you all right?” Marie asked, getting up from her chair and hurrying toward her friend.

      Then Dulcy smiled, so brightly it nearly hurt to look at her. “I’m…fine. I just felt the baby kick.” She laughed. “I mean, at five months, I’ve felt him kick before, but not this insistently.” She rubbed her palms over her stomach. “Ezzie jokes that I’m going to have a horse. I’m beginning to think she may be right.”

      Ezzie was Esmeralda, Dulcy and Quinn’s housekeeper, although she was more family than hired help, especially since she didn’t get paid. Marie got the heebies whenever she was around the old Indian woman because Ezzie looked at her as if trying to figure something out. Marie never stuck around long enough to find out what.

      “That’s why I’m never having children,” Jena said, closing her notepad again. “I don’t want any little hellion kicking around inside of me for nine months.”

      “They don’t kick until after the first trimester,” Dulcy corrected her.

      Jena shrugged. “Six months, nine. Both too long.”

      Dulcy took Marie’s hand and rested it against her round belly. As she always did when she touched her friend’s stomach, Marie wondered at how hard and solid the mass was. “Do you feel him?”

      Marie did. She gasped and nearly drew her hand away at the force of the kick.

      Barry chuckled as he got up and headed for the door. “I think that’s my cue to leave the room.”

      Dulcy looked at him. “Don’t you dare, Bartholomew. You get over here and feel your honorary grandchild along with everyone else.”

      Marie drew back from the group, watching as if from a distance. Her brother Frankie Jr.’s wife had had their two children while Marie was in L.A. Though she’d flown in for the births and the baptisms, she hadn’t actually experienced the pregnancies with her sister-in-law. To watch one of her best friends go through the experience…well, she felt humbled and awed. And maybe, just maybe, a little envious.

      “It’s a girl,” Jena said confidently after shaking her hand as if she’d just touched a bagful of goo instead of her friend’s stomach. “I don’t know why you don’t want to find out what sex it is, Dulc. You keep calling it a ‘he.’ What if it is a girl?”

      Dulcy gave a long, happy sigh. “I use ‘he’ just to keep things simple. Quinn and I would be very happy if it were a girl.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and went through the maneuvers required for her to stand. “But Ezzie’s adamant about my having a boy.”

      Marie shuddered. “That woman gives me the creeps.”

      “That’s funny,” Dulcy said, waving Barry away when he tried to help her get up. “She reminds me a lot of your grandmother.”

      Marie widened her eyes. So that’s why she felt strange around Ezzie. She realized with a start that her friend was right. Ezzie was exactly like Marie’s Grandmother Maria, after whom she’d been named.

      Yikes.

      “So,” Dulcy said, gathering her things from the table in front of her, “what happens with your father from here?”

      Her father? Oh, her father.

      “Um, he meets with the treasury agents tomorrow.”

      “Are you going?” Jena asked.

      “No. But Ian’s going to fill me in on everything.”

      “Mmm.”

      Marie glared at her friend. “Mmm, what?”

      Jena shared another one of those looks with Dulcy. “Nothing. Did I say anything, Dulcy?”

      “I didn’t hear you say anything.”

      “Oh, piss off, the both of you.”

      All three of her friends and fellow attorneys stared at her as if she’d just dyed her hair bleach blonde. Marie instantly wanted to duck under the table until all of them forgot she had just said what she had—which would probably be never because she never swore. Even if the swear word ranked way over on the conservative side.

      Barry held up his hands. “I’m out of here. See you guys tomorrow.”

      He left the room, leaving Marie behind to stare at her friends.

      Great. Just great. First there was everything going on with her father. Now Jena and Dulcy’s shock had turned to acute interest.

      She sighed and pushed her curly hair back from her face. “Look, guys, I’m really not up for this right now.”

      Jena crossed her arms over her chest. “Funny, because we are.”

      “What’s going on, Marie?” Dulcy asked.

      Marie stepped to the table and scooped her things into her briefcase. “Can we talk about this tomorrow—”

      The sound of raised voices coming from the lobby drew all of their attention.

      First Jena, then Dulcy and Marie stepped toward the open conference room door. Given that she was a good four inches shorter than her friends, Marie had to do some maneuvering to see what was going on.

      Just outside, by Mona’s desk, Barry and Mona were arguing hotly. Marie tried to follow the rapid-fire words.

      “I quit,” Mona said, her voice ringing loud and clear.

      Marie raised her brows. Well, that didn’t take much to understand, did it?

      All four of them watched as the woman who had been Barry Lomax’s secretary for the past thirty years, and theirs for the past year, took her purse out of her desk drawer and strode toward the door. And that’s where they all stayed well after Mona had left.

      “Wow,” Marie said.

      Everyone nodded their agreement.

      HERE THEY WERE TALKING about the U.S. Treasury Department and the questions the agents had asked Frank Bertelli Sr., and all Ian could think about was that he wanted to have some major sex with Marie so badly he hurt. And the fact that they were in public, sitting at a small round table in a very busy coffee shop located near their offices was not hindering his condition in the least.

      It was hard to believe that only a day had passed since he’d last seen her…when he’d nudged her skirt up her remarkable thighs and peeked at her underwear. It seemed more like a week. And the truth of that made his mental state that much worse. He hadn’t wanted anyone this bad since…well, since he’d had Marie eight years ago.

      “My father’s accountant’s СКАЧАТЬ