The Boss's Baby Surprise. Lilian Darcy
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a party of new arrivals trooped past to the group of low chairs in the far corner. Delaney’s was filling up, and getting noisier.
“Let’s get out of here,” Nick said. “I want to put a good meal into you, and I want to talk about this. But not here, where I’m thinking about Delaney’s and trends and the next advertising campaign. Let’s go somewhere quiet, where nothing else is going to impinge.”
Celie didn’t argue.
Nick flung some cash on the table and they left immediately. Celie paid no attention to where they were going until he parked in front of one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants. Salt was the kind of place where most people needed a reservation, even on a weeknight. Nick Delaney didn’t, because unlike the college-student waitress at his own restaurant, the deferential maitre d’ at this establishment knew at once exactly who he was.
“Better?” Nick said, as soon as they were seated.
Only a few tables were filled as yet, and the clientele was well-dressed and very well-behaved. So were the staff. The waiters skimmed back and forth on silent feet, and even the sounds that came occasionally from the kitchen were muted against a background of soft, smoky music.
With effort, Celie created a smile. “Are you saying you don’t like your own restaurants?”
“I love our restaurants. Tonight, this place seemed like a better idea. Somewhere more discreet, where we can relax. With staff who’ll protect our privacy. I want to hear about the dreams, Celie.”
She told him about the image of her mother lying on the kitchen floor, and the image of cameras flashing, somehow telling her Cleveland. She didn’t tell him what she knew about the crying baby yet, but she did tell him about the hat pin, the woman in front of the mirror and the scrap of torn broderie anglaise.
Since she still had the hat pin in her purse, she took it out and showed it to him.
“You’re right. It has to be the renovations upstairs,” Nick said. He ran a fingertip along the gray metal toward the point, and for half a second Celie could almost feel the touch of his finger on her own skin.
His confident tone reassured her, but she pushed at the issue, all the same. “Renovations give people dreams that come true?”
“Renovations could give someone a hat pin on their windowsill.” He looked up. “Isn’t that what you thought, yourself?”
“I’m not so sure, anymore.”
“And, yes, renovations are stressful and unsettling. People dream more when they’re unsettled. The dreams themselves can be explained.”
“Then do it, Nick, please. I want explanations for this.”
“You were already concerned about your mother, right?”
“She’s elderly. Her bones aren’t strong, and she takes risks without thinking about them. I’ve been responsible for her since my father died, eleven years ago, and she’s never regained the ground she lost when she lost him. Part of her just…left…and I’ve had to pick up the slack.”
“You don’t talk much about all that.”
“There’s no need. It’s under control and it’s not your concern. I love Mom, and I’m happy to help her. But, yes, I do worry.”
“So there you go. Both your conscious and your subconscious mind feared an accident, and it happened.”
“And the flashing cameras? What do they mean? Why are they saying Cleveland to me?”
“The exhibition opening next Tuesday night is a big deal. You know that. The press will be there. No surprise if we get cameras flashing in our faces. Subconsciously, you must be a little nervous about it.”
Celie pretended that he’d convinced her. She wanted him to have convinced her, but he hadn’t. Not really. The dreams remained too vivid in her mind for that. They threatened her own sense of who she was.
As she’d just told Nick she’d run her mother’s life, and her own, from the age of seventeen. She didn’t have a mystic, intuitive streak. She had responsibilities. She couldn’t afford to have dreams that competed with reality in her mind.
Their waiter brought menus and they both ordered. Celie chose a fennel bisque soup and grilled chicken, while Nick decided on shrimp and beef. “Would you like some wine?” he asked.
“Just a glass.”
Even one glass turned out to be a mistake. It loosened her tongue just that little bit more, and as they ate she found herself telling him, “There’s another dream I’ve been having, too, Nick, repeated night after night. It makes even less sense than the others.”
“More predictions? Do I want to hear this? I’m trying to help you get your feet back on the ground, Celie.”
“Are you?”
“For the best of reasons. You’re getting too stressed over this. It’s eating at you more than it should. Look at the way you’re frowning at me.”
“You’re right. I am.” She squeezed out a smile and touched her forehead with her fingers, trying to smooth the frown away. “I—I don’t know if the dream is a prediction. But it gets a little clearer, each time. Maybe you can tell me, because I do think that there’s a message in it, and the message is for you.”
She took a breath, and twirled the hat pin between her finger and thumb. Its rounded, pearly end gleamed in the leaping golden light from the candle in the center of their table. Nick’s china-blue gaze was fixed on her face, and she felt as if she was swimming in the deep pools of his eyes.
“Tell me, Celie,” he said. “Don’t hedge it, or qualify it, just tell me.”
“Okay, then, here it is. Is there any chance, Nick, that somewhere in this world—” Cleveland, let’s say “—you have a baby you don’t know about?”
“A what?” Nick almost yelled the words.
“A baby,” Celie repeated.
She leaned forward and captured Nick’s big, firm hand in hers without even realizing she’d done it. It felt warm and dry and strong—even stronger when he twisted it out of her grasp and closed his fingers over her knuckles. He squeezed them and looked down, drawing her attention to the body contact. “Pick up your spoon, Celie,” he said.
“I’m sorry.” She slid her hand away at once, and continued, “It’s a little boy. I hear him crying, and I get up to go to him, and then there’s a woman who tells me it’s all right, I don’t have to, because you’ll go. And the crying stops, and I feel a sense of peace because I know you’re there, holding him, belonging with him. Only last night, you didn’t go.”
“I…didn’t…go.”
“To the baby. And I realized it was because you didn’t know that he exists. Believe me, as I’ve said, I’m not happy about these dreams, and I know this one sounds—”
“He doesn’t exist, Celie. The dream is nonsense.” He frowned. “Boy or girl, I’ve never fathered a child.”
“But I’m wondering if that’s true,” she persisted, still caught in the strong, sticky web of the dreams, forgetting her allotted place in Nick Delaney’s life, overlooking her own doubts. “You know, sometimes a woman gets pregnant and she has reasons for not wanting to tell the father. It happens. I don’t want to trespass into your personal life, but if you think back, look through your diary, isn’t there someone who could have gotten careless with—?”
“No.” The flat of his hand came down hard on the table. “I’m telling you, it’s not possible, Celie, and you need to believe me on this. I really hope you’re not suggesting that I give you a list of the women I’ve slept with.”
“No, of course not.”
“And