Sleeping with Beauty (26 page)

Jana grabbed another tissue. She needed her friends. It wasn’t like she could rely on her mother. Hell, she hadn’t even told her about the baby yet. Wanted to get used to the puking first. No way she could handle that and the obligatory visit from Angie Fraser at the same time. After all the years of distance between the two of them, Jana wasn’t sure how her mother would take the news that she was going to be a granny, but she was damn sure it wouldn’t go over well. Jana was still not allowed to address her as “Mother” in public, but she would take enormous delight in ensuring her child’s first word was “Nana.”

She took another fortifying sip of peach-flavored tea, thankful to have Lucy here. “Dave’s been great. His whole family is just beside themselves with excitement. The way they’re behaving, you’d never know he had seven brothers and sisters who’d already given his parents and assorted aunts and uncles a pile of grandbabies.”

Lucy smiled a little. “It’s good they’re happy, but I guess it’s a bit daunting.”

“A bit,” Jana said dryly. Dave
was
great. In fact, her husband was over the moon and had been incredibly attentive. Being from a huge family had left him with absolutely zero fear about having a child. The Pelletier clan was great, too, but Jana was thankful they didn’t live nearby. For an only child of a single parent who had been largely absent her whole life, being sucked into the bosom of the extended Pelletier family was all a little overwhelming at times.

Then there was Lucy and Grady, who were without a doubt the only two people in the world she could always turn to, though she wasn’t sure they could help her this time around.

“But that’s not really the problem,” she said, blotting her cheeks with another napkin. “I mean, it is, but it’s not.” She sighed. “I’m not making any sense, I know. It’s just . . . this is hard to even think, much less say out loud.” She looked at her best friend. “But it’s making me crazy, keeping it to myself.”

Lucy squeezed her hand. “So don’t. That’s what I’m here for.”

Jana held her friend’s gaze steadily, and even though she knew Lucy was right, it still didn’t make what she had to admit any easier. “We had just started talking about having kids, you know? Dave has been ready since forever. I was the one who wasn’t sure. My career is going well, I’m making my mark, but I have to fight so hard just to keep a toehold in that world. I . . .” She trailed off, shrugged a little. “Selfishly speaking, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to give any of that up.”

“Do you have to?”

She looked at Lucy. “I don’t have to, no. But you know better than anyone that I was left alone a great deal of my life growing up. I don’t want to do that to my kid.”

“Having a job isn’t exactly like what your mother did to you. Physically being gone for eight hours a day is an entirely different thing than complete emotional abandonment.”

“I know that. In here,” she said, tapping her forehead. “And I think maybe I can juggle it, at least a little. But it still means making a major compromise. And then I worry that maybe I’m exactly like my mother, putting my own needs first, being so selfish.”

Lucy snorted.

Surprised, Jana said, “What’s so funny about that?”

“You. Selfish. Are you kidding me? You’re like the Mother Teresa of our little group. You’re what keeps us together: the settler of squabbles, the arbiter of conflicted plans, and overall general nurturer. How you of all people could question your maternal instincts is, well, to laugh.”

Jana felt a warm spot loom in her chest as her heart swelled. And, as was the case more often than not lately, her eyes immediately stung with a fresh wave of tears. She sniffled and wiped them away. “Don’t mind them. I’ve turned into a virtual waterworks lately. The other day I went through half a box of Kleenex after reading the fat content on the package of Double Chocolate Milanos I just polished off.” She laughed a little even as she sniffled. “Thanks for saying that, though.”

“I meant it.”

Jana looked down for a moment, tried to collect herself. “It’s more than just having to possibly give up my job, or worrying that I’ll resent the baby for it. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with having kids later in life, but I’m fortunate enough to have Dave and be financially solvent now. It’s just . . .” She let the sentence trail off. Because how could she admit that she was pretty sure she’d made the biggest mistake of her life?

Bless Lucy’s soft but wise heart. She didn’t push, she just stroked Jana’s hand, let her come to it in her own way. That was Lucy’s gift. Patience. Grady was always the first to find the humor in any situation, the defuser of tension. Jana was the first to leap in and try to make it all better, to soothe over ruffled feathers. Lucy was the thinker, the ponderer of the group—the one who patiently analyzed the situation, came up with a game plan, then announced the rational solution.

Only Jana didn’t think there was any rational solution to this problem. Not one she could even consider, anyway.

She tried a weak smile. “So, about that date with Jason.”

Lucy pulled the corners of her mouth downward. “Oh, sweetie, that bad?”

Fighting the tears, she nodded. “I—I thought it would take longer, you know? That I’d have time to get used to the idea. And then
wham!
, it happened all at once and I’m . . . I’m—” She gulped a little air, frowned fiercely to keep the tears at bay, sniffed again, then lost the fight. Helpless and more hopeless than she’d ever felt in her life, she looked to Lucy with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t think I’m ready for this, Luce. Not now. I shouldn’t have agreed to even try.” Hands clutched over her stomach, she sobbed. “I thought I could handle it. And I—I can’t. I—I don’t want—oh, God, Lucy, I can’t even say it.”

Lucy tugged her from her chair and they stumbled awkwardly to their feet as Lucy pulled her into a tight embrace. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered fervently. “So sorry. I so wanted you to be happy.”

“Me—too,” Jana said between sobs and gulps of air.

Lucy held her away, still gripping her shoulders, but looking into her eyes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you think this might be the hormones, too? Every expectant mom is probably plagued with doubts like this. If you can’t talk to Dave about it—”

“God, no, it would crush him.”

Lucy pushed Jana’s hair back. “Then maybe you should consider seeing someone. A trained someone. To talk it out. I mean, you can talk to me all you want, but I don’t know enough about this to know what’s what. I mean, it’s coming no matter what, right?” Then her face went pale. “You’re not—”

Jana shook her head vehemently. “No. I couldn’t.” Guilt filled her. “But I won’t lie and say I didn’t lose a little sleep thinking about it.”

Lucy hugged her again. “I can’t believe you’ve been torturing yourself like this and haven’t said anything. I’m so sorry I haven’t been more aware.”

“It’s not you. I’ve done a pretty good job of hiding it. Even from myself. I kept thinking I’d get past it, that, like you say, it’s normal to be besieged by doubt and fear.”

“You’re not even past your first trimester. Maybe that is what this is. And if you weren’t throwing up every other hour, that might help you gain some perspective, as well.”

Jana sniffled, scrubbed her cheeks with her palms. “I wish I could believe that. You have no idea.” She plopped down in the chair. “You can’t know how ridiculous and foolish I feel, having taken such a major step so unprepared.” She laughed without humor. “I mean, I’m the one who does all the prep research for every interview; I’m the one who plots out every story idea before I even approach my editor about it. And yet, for the biggest event in my life, I just leapt off the cliff and never even looked down to see if there was water below, or just rocks.”

Lucy sat down in her chair. “Didn’t you and Dave talk this through?”

“Yes, of course. But he’s just so enthusiastic about all of it. To listen to him, it’s one great big adventure.” She smiled through her misery. “And you know how cute he can be when he’s wound up about something.”

Lucy smiled, too. “Yeah. Pound puppies could take lessons from Dave.”

Jana’s smile turned wistful. “I trust Dave with my life. He has my whole heart. And I just, I don’t know, sort of went with the flow of the whole thing. I want him to be happy and I guess I felt like if he was this excited, it would be fantastic for both of us. Crap, I don’t know what I thought.” She huffed out a helpless sigh. “I wasn’t thinking, obviously. And then, you know, we started anyway, and I figured it would take some time before anything happened. I’d have time to explore my feelings more, read a few books on the subject, talk it to death with you and Grady, you know, all the things I normally do when I’m tackling a new project.” She picked up her bottle, then remembering it was empty, set it back down. “Little late to be doing all that now, huh?”

Lucy sat there, staring at her hands, and didn’t say anything for a few moments. Finally she looked up. “Pregnancy strikes a lot of couples when they aren’t ready. On the good side, you have one half of this couple who is more than ready, and he has a big old teddy-bear heart that will support you no matter what.”

“I can’t tell him, Luce.”

“Yes, you can. You have to. You can’t take this on all by yourself.”

Jana visibly shuddered and her hands fluttered across her stomach. She shook her head.

“The baby
is
coming. What do you think Dave would do if he found out you’d been torturing yourself with this alone and didn’t tell him?”

“He’d be crushed. And probably a little angry.”

“Exactly.” Lucy leaned forward and grabbed her hands again. “You’re in this together, for better or worse. So get him to help you deal with this. And get outside support, too, if you need it. You know I’m on call twenty-four-seven, but I think the one person who can help you with this is—”

“The guy that got me knocked up in the first place?” Jana said, wisecracking even as she wiped away the last vestiges of her tears. More would follow, a lot more, she knew that.

Lucy laughed. “Well. Yeah.”

“Thanks, Luce,” Jana said, as heartfelt a thanks as she’d ever given. As long as they’d been friends, she felt ashamed now that she hadn’t been more trusting, more open. She should have known Lucy would be there for her. “I should have said something sooner.”

“It’s okay. We’ve all been going through a lot lately.”

Jana gave a watery laugh. “You should see the way Dave is behaving lately. It’s pathetic how adorable he is, shaking the rattles and squeezing the rubber duckies. Go figure.” She leaned back, took a full breath, and pasted on a huge grin. “What say we go storm Grady’s place and drag him out for some pizza or something? If I’m not allowed to hide from my problems, then neither is he.”

She might not have a clue what she was going to say to Dave, or how she was going to handle things in the months to come, but Lucy was right. Torturing herself by keeping it all in wasn’t doing her any favors, either. Far better to torture others and share the pain.

What were best friends for, anyway?

And if she had to grow up and deal with stuff that was this terrifying, then dammit, it was time Grady did, too. Maybe she wasn’t doing him any favors by letting him sit and mope and feel sorry for himself. Torturing himself over his feelings for Lucy wasn’t getting him anywhere, either. And she’d let him get away with it for far too long.

Lucy said Jana was the maternal one. So maybe it was time, as lead hen, to look after her fellow chicks. She had to practice the maternal arts on someone, right?

Besides, screwing around with someone else’s future was a hell of a lot less terrifying than facing her own.

“Are you sure we should do that?” Lucy asked as Jana went and fetched her purse and made sure she had what she’d come to call her “American Express Package”—a baggie of sour balls, a liter bottle of seltzer water, and a small bottle of Listerine. Ice blue, please. She never left home without them.

She looked at Lucy and laughed. “Hell, no. But why should that stop us?”

“Right,” Lucy said, sounding less than sure as she led the way out of the condo. She paused, turned back. “It’s just—”

“March,” Jana commanded, pointing forward.

Lucy scowled at her over her shoulder as she continued down the hall to the elevator. “And you doubt you’ll make a good parent.”

Chapter
21
                                                                                                                                       

I
’m not surprised in the least, darling,” Vivian assured her. “I’d have only been surprised if he hadn’t tried to sweep you off your feet.”

Lucy sipped her mimosa, dazzled as always by Vivian’s natural aplomb. She’d called to give Vivian the requested update on the reunion and to thank her once again for all her personalized attention, and Vivian had promptly demanded Lucy meet her for Sunday brunch in Old Town to hear all the juicy details firsthand. Lucy eagerly accepted the invitation, knowing Vivian was the perfect person to cast a fresh perspective on her current situation.

Just in the past week alone she’d survived the annual October outbreak of lice in the school—always a thrill, and the timing couldn’t be worse. Like she didn’t have enough to worry about on her date with Jason next week. Just thinking about it made her scalp itch.

Then there was Jana, who was stoically trying to make her believe things were okay between her and Dave and the whole baby issue, when Lucy suspected things hadn’t really changed all that much. She still had that lost look about her and her eyes were perennially red. The morning sickness wasn’t getting any better, either. Jana had confided to her that she’d finally worked up the nerve to talk to Dave on Wednesday—blurting everything out right in the middle of their first sonogram together. Lucy agreed that her friend could have chosen a better venue, but Dave, stunned and hurt by Jana’s confession, hadn’t exactly been as supportive of his wife’s problem as either Lucy or Jana would have hoped for. So Lucy had been doing a lot of Friendship 911 these past couple of days.

Grady, on the other hand, hadn’t been home last Sunday when Lucy and Jana tried to storm his castle, wielding a sure-to-bring-him-down Domino’s pepperoni pizza and a steaming pack of cinnamon sticks. Jana had talked to him since, but even with her intervention, Lucy’s calls were going unanswered.

With all of this going on, Lucy hadn’t been able to indulge herself in a detailed rehashing of her fairy-tale reunion night with Jason, much less obsess over their upcoming date this Friday. So when Vivian had been excited for her—the first and only person to feel that way besides herself—she’d jumped at the chance to spill all.

“You’ll have to tell him, of course,” Vivian stated, spearing a cherry tomato with deadly accuracy.

“I have to tell him what?”

“Who you really are.”

“I didn’t lie. I told him my name.”

“First name. Clearly he has no idea who you were in high school.”

“Clearly,” Lucy readily agreed. “And I plan to keep it that way. I mean, it’s enough for me to know I managed to get his attention ten years later. Besides, why put myself up for the possible fresh mortification of explaining prom night to him, and have him
still
not recall me. A highly probable scenario.”

Vivian sank her teeth into her tomato, making quick work of it. Vivian did everything with a confident intensity. Even the salad wasn’t being spared.

“You do have a point,” Vivian went on. “Could make things somewhat awkward. Unless of course you wait until after you’ve bedded the man.”

Lucy choked on her snow pea. After taking a throat-clearing sip of water, she said, “Excuse me?”

Either oblivious to her embarrassed blush or simply not caring, Vivian went on as if this were perfectly normal brunch conversation. “Darling, what’s the point of becoming a beauty if you’re not going to sleep with beauty?” She reached across the table and patted Lucy’s hand, then shot her a wicked smile. “The spell has been broken, sweetheart. Sleeping Beauty is alive and well and ready, as they say, to get her groove on.”

Lucy’s lips quirked. “There’s more to it than that.”

Vivian waved her empty fork. “Yes, yes. Confidence, self-esteem, of course, of course. But let me tell you something,” she said, leaning forward, the recessed lighting glinting off the heavy earrings dangling from her lobes and the multitude of gold bracelets adorning her wrist. “Having a gorgeous man woo you to his bed is a great way to put an exclamation point at the end of your personal mission statement.”

Lucy couldn’t help it; she laughed. She was no prude. God knows, she’d harbored many a detailed fantasy over the years. But actually acting them out? Entirely different scenario. She might not be a virgin, but clearly her experience up to this point had left her sadly lacking certain . . . skills. Namely the ones that would help her figure out how to go from reunion dance kiss to naked in Jason Prescott’s bed. Preferably without revealing what a total dweeb she really was in the process.

Five minutes into their salads, however, and Vivian not only made the idea of turning those fantasies into reality seem possible, she made it seem downright probable. Exciting, even. What a coup!

Lucy’s thoughts drifted to how the night in question would play out. . . .

“Care to have a drink at my place?” Jason murmured next to her ear as he helped her on with her coat. She could only nod in excited agreement as they left the restaurant together, deep in each other’s personal space. Lucy all but floated behind him into his apartment, tingling with anticipation for what was surely to come next. She watched with mounting desire as Jason slid off his evening jacket and sauntered over to the wet bar to pour her something dark and potent. He rolled up his sleeves, revealing tanned forearms, corded with muscle, then wrapped those big hands of his around the bottle before turning back to her, with that look in his eye.

You know. That look.

“You think to seduce me with cognac?” she purred as he crossed the room, the expression on his handsome face making it clear that was exactly his intent. She rewarded him with a clever smile, careful to stay cool and composed on the surface, not giving him the merest hint of the tempest her raging hormones were swiftly becoming.

She took the glass of amber liquid as if she parried like this, with men like him, every Friday night. Maybe even on the occasional school night. He laughed at her wry sense of humor, his sexy eyes twinkling with ever-increasing desire as he slid his hand down her bare arm and asked her if she wouldn’t like to take their drinks somewhere, you know, more comfortable.

His bedroom was pure animal magnetism on four-hundred- , no, make that six-hundred-thread-count sheets. He set his drink on his mahogany dresser and unbuttoned his shirt before sliding his slim leather belt through the loops of his perfectly tailored pants. The lights were low, the music a purring background rhythm perfect for . . . that. He crossed the room to where she still hovered by the doorway, obviously expecting a more direct invitation, the kind of seduction a woman like her demanded as her right. He slipped his tie around her neck and tugged her into the room with a smile meant to melt her resistance . . . and possibly her stockings.

“Would you like to get more comfortable?” he asked, and the Lucy she wanted to be smiled with wanton abandon and proceeded to put on a show worthy of any Vegas showgirl, ending with her wearing stockings, her CFM pumps . . . and little else. Swirling the remains of her drink, she crossed the room to where he now sat in his overstuffed leather chair, and propped her heel on his knee.

He slowly ran his hand up her calf, trailed it along her thigh until he reached the smooth, bare skin at the lacy edge. Then his fingers slid a fraction higher and she—

Who was she kidding? She’d excuse herself and run to the bathroom so she could cling to the toilet bowl while she lost her dinner. That was what the real Lucy Harper would end up doing.

“There is no possible way that I can go to bed with Jason Prescott!” Lucy put down her fork with a small clatter, as several heads turned.

“Of course you can, darling,” Vivian calmly replied, then shot a wink at the spectators, causing them to quickly return their attention back to their own salads, as if they hadn’t been caught gawking. “Ah, some things never change,” Vivian said with a delighted sigh as she turned her attention back to Lucy. “People love anything that smacks of scandal.”

Lucy could only shake her head. Vivian dePalma was in pure diva form today.

“Women just like you bed the Jason Prescotts of the world every day,” Vivian firmly stated. “And I daresay the Prescotts of the world somewhat expect it as their due.” She stabbed a pepper. “Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have to work for it, mind you. Keeps them humble.” She glanced up and grinned before sinking her whitened and perfectly capped teeth into the hapless vegetable. “And more dedicated to the art of pleasure.” She chewed with relish before swallowing. “Men don’t understand how much better it is to give than receive. Until we show them why, that is.”

Vivian’s voice had risen just enough to rouse the interest of the spectators once again. Lucy was sure the added inflection in her tone, along with the wicked smile, were also calculated to draw attention. She loved her for it, while also realizing just how many of the important details her mother had glossed over when they’d had their “little talk” all those years ago.

“Vivian, I’m not sure I can keep up this pretense.” There. She’d finally uttered the words.

Now Vivian lowered her fork and leveled her with the most serious gaze Lucy had ever been on the receiving end of, though between the Botox and the exquisitely tattooed eyebrows, it was sometimes hard to tell. “‘Pretense’?”

Lucy searched for the right words. The ones that would convey her growing concerns about this whole princess business, while not offending the woman who’d been mostly responsible for her transformation in the first place—one she’d asked and paid handsomely for. “Part of me, a big part of me,” she hurried to assure her, “is very happy with everything I’ve learned. I do feel better about myself, more confident, and at least some of the times, less dorky. Or at least I know how to come across that way if I have to.” She fiddled with the linen napkin in her lap.

“Why, of course you do, darling.”

She forced herself to meet Vivian’s gaze, relieved to find no judgment there, just honest interest in her concerns. “But there is a part of me that still feels like I’m playing dress-up or something.”

“Darling,” Vivian said, pausing just long enough to run a glossy, bloodred, exquisitely manicured nail across the netting adorning her black pillbox hat, then slowly outlining the knife-edged lapel of her vintage Chanel suit as it dipped elegantly between her abundant bosoms, before finishing her thought, a knowing smile hovering around her perfectly painted mouth. “Playing dress-up is the best part of being a woman.”

“I guess. And I admit, I did feel good in that outfit, those jewels. I don’t want to sound ungrateful.”

“No worries on that score. Just tell me what’s bothering you.”

“I like the attention. Being noticed. It’s . . . nice. More than nice. But I can’t help feeling like I’m putting on some kind of show. That when I hit it off with someone, the person in question will figure out I’m really a fraud. That beneath the highlights and the French tips, I’m just doofy old Lucy with big feet and lumpy hair.”

“Darling, no one expects us to wear our best face all the time.”

Lucy stifled a little sigh.

“You went to that dance to prove to yourself that you could fit in anywhere and everywhere you so pleased. You chose to remain anonymous.”

“I was already anonymous. I was invisible in high school. College, too, for that matter. It wasn’t about seeing shocked faces. In fact, most of them probably don’t even remember me, so they wouldn’t get the transformation anyway. It was just for me. My own experiment, a little rite of passage. Proof, I guess, that I’d achieved my desired goal.”

“You achieved a little more than that.”

“Jason Prescott.” Just saying that filled her with both a delicious sense of anticipation. And abject terror.

“Precisely. In fact, as a measure of success, I’d say that was your master’s degree.”

Lucy flushed a little.

“So, he noticed you. He asked you out. No need for any additional proof. You’ve definitely fulfilled your stated goal and then some.”

Lucy nodded.

Vivian lifted her hands, palms up. “So if you feel that by continuing to embrace the new, improved version of Lucy, you are setting him up for some kind of false expectations, then why not call it a day?”

“What?”

“No one is holding a gun to your head, you know. You don’t have to remain a blonde. And fake nails aren’t forever, darling. You can certainly wear whatever you feel most comfortable wearing. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And it is certainly true that now you are both the beholder, and the beheld.” Vivian rested her chin on her folded, heavily accessorized fingers. “Just ring up Jason and tell him you won’t be able to see him. Then move on with your life, date whenever and whoever makes you feel comfortable. The kind of man with whom you don’t have to feel you’re something you’re not.” She paused and smiled. “Unless, of course, you behold Jason Prescott as a desirable thing of beauty. It’s not simply about what he sees and wants, my dear, and you already know he wants you.” Her smile grew. “Tantalizing position to be in, isn’t it, darling?”