The Duchess Diaries. Merline Lovelace

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СКАЧАТЬ immediately as a very short, very insecure male suffering from a rampaging Napoleon complex. He kept his desk between him and his boss. Also between him and Gina. She had to reach across it to shake his hand. He acknowledged her greeting with a condescending nod and turned to his boss.

      “I didn’t know you were coming in this morning.”

      What a prick! Gina couldn’t see why Jack put up with him until she spotted the framed 4x6 snapshot on the man’s workstation. Catherine and Jack and Dale Vickers with their arms looped over each other’s shoulders. All smiling. All wearing crimson sweatshirts emblazoned with the Harvard logo.

      * * *

      Images of Catherine Mason hovered at the back of Gina’s mind for the rest of the day. She managed to suppress them while Jack gave her a private tour of the State Department’s hallowed halls. Ditto when they took advantage of the glorious June afternoon to stroll the banks of the Potomac and cheer the scullers pushing against the vicious current.

      After browsing the upscale shops in Georgetown Mall, Jack took Gina to his favorite Thai restaurant later that evening. The owner greeted him with a delighted hand pump.

      “Mr. Ambassador! Long time since we see you.”

      “Too long, Mr. Preecha.”

      The slender Asian whipped around, checked his tables and beamed. “You want by the window, yes? You and...?”

      He made a heroic effort to conceal his curiosity when Jack introduced Gina. She felt it, though, and as soon as they were seated and their drink order taken, the question tumbled out.

      “Did you and Catherine come here often?”

      “Not often. We’d only lived in D.C. four or five months before she died. Do you like shumai? They serve them here with steamed rice and a peanut ginger sauce that’ll make you swear you were in Bangkok.”

      The change of subject was too deliberate to ignore. Gina followed the lead.

      “Since I have no idea what shumai are and have never been to Bangkok, I’ll take your word on both.”

      Shumai turned out to be an assortment of steamed dumplings filled with diced pork, chicken or shrimp. She followed Jack’s lead and dipped each morsel in ginger or soy sauce before gobbling it down. Between the dumplings, steamed rice, golden fried tofu triangles, some kind of root vegetable Gina couldn’t begin to pronounce and endless cups of tea, she rolled out of the restaurant feeling like a python just fed its monthly meal. Too stuffed for any more wandering through Georgetown. Almost too stuffed for sex. When she tried to convince Jack of that sad state of affairs, though, he just laughed and promised to do all the work.

      He followed through on his promise. The chocolate-brown sheets were a tangled mess and Gina was boneless with pleasure when he finally collapsed beside her.

      * * *

      For the second night in a row she fell asleep in his arms. And for the second morning in a row, she greeted the day cradled in the same warm cocoon.

      She came awake slowly, breathing in Jack’s scent, twitching her nose when his springy chest hair tickled her nose. It felt right to cuddle against his side. Safe and warm and right.

      Slowly, without Gina willing them, the images she’d glimpsed of Jack’s wife yesterday took form and shape in her mind. For an uneasy moment, she almost sensed Catherine’s presence. Not hostile, not heartbroken at seeing her husband in bed with another woman, but not real happy, either.

      “We’d better get up and get moving.”

      Jack’s voice rumbled up from the chest wall her ear was pressed against. “Sunday brunch is a long-standing family tradition,” he warned, stroking her hair with a lazy touch. “Hopefully, it’ll just be us and my parents today but you should be prepared for the worst.”

      “Great! Now he tells me.”

      She could do this, Gina told herself as she showered and blow-dried her hair and did her makeup. She could run the gauntlet of Jack’s family, all of whom had known and no doubt adored his wife. She wasn’t looking forward to it, though.

      And damned if she couldn’t almost hear Catherine snickering in the steamy air of the bathroom.

       Nine

      Light Sunday–morning traffic was one of the few joys of driving in Washington. Jack’s Range Rover whizzed through near deserted streets and crossed the 14th Street Bridge. The Jefferson Memorial rose in graceful symmetry on the D.C. side of the bridge. The gray granite bulk of the Pentagon dominated the Virginia side. From there they shot south on 395.

      Once south of the Beltway, though, Jack exited the interstate and opted instead to drive a stretch of the old U.S. Highway 1. Gina understood why when he pulled into the parking lot of the Gas Pump Café just outside Woodbridge.

      “We won’t sit down for brunch until one or two. And this place,” he said with a sweeping gesture toward the tin-roofed cafe, “serves the best biscuits and gravy this side of the Mason-Dixon line.”

      Gina hid her doubts as she eyed the ramshackle structure. It boasted a rusting, thirties-era gas pump out front. Equally rusty signs covered every square inch of the front of the building. The colorful barrage advertised everything from Nehi grape soda to Red Coon chewing tobacco to Gargoyle motor oil. The scents of sizzling bacon and smoked sausage that emanated from the café, though, banished any doubts the place would live up to Jack’s hype.

      It didn’t occur to Gina that he’d made the stop for her sake until they were seated at one of the wooden picnic tables. He obviously didn’t consider the slice of toast and half glass of orange juice she’d downed while getting dressed adequate sustenance for mother and child. She agreed but limited her intake to one biscuit smothered in gravy, two eggs, a slab of sugar-cured ham and another glass of juice. Since it was just a little past nine when they rolled out of the café, Gina felt confident she would be able to do justice to brunch at one or two o’clock.

      She also felt a lot more confident about meeting Jack’s family. Strapped into the Range Rover’s bucket seat, she patted her tummy. “Hope you enjoyed that, baby. I sure did.”

      Jack followed the gesture and smiled. “Have you started thinking about names?”

      She didn’t hesitate. “Charlotte, if it’s a girl.”

      “What if it’s a boy?”

      She slanted him a sideways glance. He’d left his window cracked to allow in the warm June morning. The breeze lifted the ends of his dark gold hair and rippled the collar of his pale blue Oxford shirt. He’d rolled the cuffs up on his forearms and they, too, glinted with a sprinkling of gold.

      She guessed what was behind his too-casual question. If Jack won his on-going marriage campaign, he no doubt envisioned hanging a numeral after his son’s name. John Harris Mason IV. Not for the first time, Gina wondered if she was being a total bitch for putting her needs before Jack’s. Why did she have to prove that she could stand on her own two feet, anyway? This handsome, sophisticated, wealthy man wanted to take care of her and the baby. Why not let him?

      She sighed, acknowledging СКАЧАТЬ