AFTERGLOW (29 page)

He stroked her hair for a moment, then said, "I'd like a drink. How about you guys?"

"A margarita," said Mimi.

"White wine, like my little girl. Come on, Cookie, we couldn't give you gold. You might outshine your old man."

David grinned ruefully as Harold Lattimer ran his fingers over his gold necklace.

"First," David said, "I want to see Chelsea in the necklace. Go blow your nose, sweetheart, then get back here."

The necklace looked exquisite, and David took back every snobbish thought he'd ever entertained about her parents. He wished suddenly that his own parents could show their love so openly and warmly.

After the Lattimers left for the evening David took himself off to the shower. Chelsea went to the other bathroom and took off the incredible necklace. "Well," she told her image in the mirror, "if you ever run out of ideas, you won't starve for at least six months." She lovingly laid the, necklace back in its box. Her gold band caught on the clasp and she gasped, terrified that she'd hurt the necklace. Slowly, carefully, she pulled the clasp free of the ring, and in the process scratched her wedding band.

"Oh, no," she wailed. For the first time she tugged off her ring and examined it under the light. Just a very slight scratch. She held it in her palm for a moment, wondering suddenly what woman had sold the ring. She hadn't felt at all strange about wearing another woman's wedding ring until now. Had she been an obsessive gambler? How sad if it were true. She held the ring up to the light again, closely examining the inside of the band. She realized that it was old, very old. She squinted.

There was writing. She rubbed the inside with a tissue and looked again.

She froze.

David was tired when he emerged from the shower, but not that tired, and he was surprised and disappointed to see Chelsea curled up on her side, her back to him, sound asleep.

He didn't wake her. She must be exhausted. He quietly got into bed beside her and turned off the bedside lamp. He lay on his back, his head pillowed on his arms, and stared up at the dark ceiling. Day after tomorrow and it would all be over. Of course, that thought led to his inevitable confession. He groaned to himself. He should be up for the Chicken of the Year award. What the hell should he do now? What if he told her before the wedding and she freaked out and told him to go to hell? What if she just looked at him, her wonderful, expressive eyes wounded? Would she ever trust him again? What if? What if? He was making himself crazy. He couldn't go on like this. He had to come clean.

"No, David. No way. Just forget it."

"I can't, Elliot," David said miserably. "I love her, and what I did was—"

"What you did was give Chelsea what she wanted," Elliot said, interrupting him firmly. "Besides, it's a little late, isn't it? The wedding's tomorrow."

David cursed.

"Hasn't she been saying continuously that she wished she'd asked you to marry her sooner? Isn't she happy as a pie-eyed clam? Doesn't she love you to distraction?"

"Yes and yes and yes, but—"

"Fine, tell her, or better yet, go talk to her parents."

"You think it would be a good idea? Get their opinion and all that? What if they look at me like
I'm
some sort of fiend straight up from Hades?"

Elliot studied his friend closely. David was suffering, and here Elliot was being glib and a know-it-all. David felt guilty, and Elliot didn't blame him, but it
had
seemed the best thing to do at the time. They were all guilty, guilty as hell. But what to do? He couldn't begin to imagine Chelsea's reaction if David confessed prior to the wedding. She would laugh and forgive him—that's what she'd do. At least it sounded good, he thought. Elliot sighed. Why wasn't life ever simple?

The matter was taken out of David's hands. The night before their wedding Chelsea's parents insisted she stay at the Fairmont with them. Chelsea, who had agreed to her parents' request with more enthusiasm than he liked, smiled up at him and gave him a subdued goodbye kiss. He thought indulgently that she had a super case of nerves. In all honesty, though, he was feeling subdued himself.

He spent a lonely night in the empty expanse of the bed. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning when he made his decision. He would tell her on their honeymoon. He felt like an Atlas who no longer carried the world on his shoulders.

The wedding, at the Mallorys' house, was as private as David and Chelsea wanted, and it went quite smoothly, with only the Mallorys and Chelsea's parents present. Chelsea, to David's chagrin, whispered to him after the Reverend MacPherson had pronounced them husband and wife, "Did our ceremony in Las Vegas go as quickly?"

"I don't remember," David said, his stomach curdling.

She looked so perfect, he thought, dressed in a soft cream silk dress, the beautiful necklace at her throat. She was now wearing both an engagement ring and her wedding band.

They had an hour before the reception to unwind a bit. George, a bird of such glorious plumage that it almost hurt to look at her, sidled up to her husband and whispered, "'All's well that ends well,' I've decided."

"Yes," Elliot said. "Yes, indeed. And Alex kept decently quiet through the whole thing."

"A perfect child," George said.

"I'd best go upstairs and see if his nurse had to gag him."

George crossed the living room to hug Chelsea. She watched her friend for a moment. Chelsea was holding her marriage license. The expression on her face made George frown a bit. It was an odd look. She tried to remember if she had stared with a bemused expression at her own marriage license. She didn't think she had.

Well, no accounting for people's reactions. She heard her small son's lusty cries from upstairs and grinned. He probably had been gagged during the ceremony.

"Every time I marry you I buckle up," Chelsea said, fastening her seat belt on the plane that would take them directly to Maui.

"Ah, yes, it seems so," David said.

They were silent until the plane was in the air.

"You happy, sweetheart?"

She turned to face him, and he felt himself melt. "You're so very beautiful," he said, and kissed her. They separated at a slight cough from the flight attendant.

"Honeymooners?"

"Yes," they said together.

"Well, a present was sent on board for you." The woman lifted a bottle of Dom Perignon for their inspection, a huge red bow around its neck.

"From my publisher," Chelsea said, carefully pulling away the card from the bow. "Just look at this list of names, David!"

He did and was impressed. He was married to a very successful woman, and it pleased him inordinately. It occurred to him that even a year ago he would probably have been threatened by his wife's independent success. No, he corrected himself, he would never have been such a stuffed shirt as all that.

"Will you support me in the manner to which
I'm
accustomed?" he asked as the flight attendant poured them two glasses of the champagne.

"Well," Chelsea said quite seriously as she toasted him, "my income has steadily increased with each contract. Who knows? Maybe in five years you'll be eating bonbons on the beach, giving lewd looks to underage girls in scanty bikinis."

"Now that sounds like a plan," he said, and felt the champagne bubbles tickle his nose as he drank.

The flight passed pleasantly, and they weren't too conked out by the time they reached the Kapalua Bay Hotel on Maui. The drive from the airport took a good hour, but the scenery was beautiful, and David, who had never been to paradise before, was duly impressed.

They spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, emerging only at seven in the evening for dinner. A walk on the beach in the moonlight, David was thinking. Tonight was D-Day. Or D-Night, as it were.

Yes, he repeated grimly to himself as he forked down a delicious bite of lobster, tonight it would be. He watched his wife down two glasses of white wine.
I'm
a cunning, devious bastard, he thought as he offered her another.

Chelsea slipped off her panty hose behind a tree and stuffed them into one of her shoes. It was idyllic. Moonlight, the crashing ocean waves, the balmy evening.

"Chelsea," David said finally, the word barely emerging from his tight throat.

"Yes, love?"

Dreamy voice, he thought. Onward. "There's something I need to tell you."

She stopped a moment and turned to face him. She had a sweet smile on her face. "Yes?"

He loosened his tie. "It's about Las Vegas."

"Yes?"

More interest in her voice now. But still dreamy. "Well, you remember how we were playing poker that evening with Delbert, Maurice and Angelo?"

"How could I forget? I lost over fifty bucks." Voice smooth, unsuspecting—loving, in fact.

He blurted out, "I slipped you a Mickey!"

She didn't say a word, merely stared up at him, her shoes dangling in her hand.

"Well, actually, it was one of the guys who slipped it in your glass. Then you spilled the wine and we did it again."

"Hmmm," she said. "So that's what made my mouth feel like a drought had hit."

He stared at her, not believing her calm, matter-of-fact voice.

"Chelsea," he said, his voice desperate now, his confession almost finished, "we really didn't get married in Las Vegas. I lied to you. I wanted you so much and I knew you wanted me and so
…
well, I did it."

Silence.

She said, very softly, "Did you regret doing it, David? Pretending to marry me, I mean."

"God, no! But I've felt so guilty, like a damned worm. I was too chicken to tell you sooner."

The moonlight fell over his face, and the gentle breeze ruffled his hair. She slowly raised her hand and smoothed it back from his forehead.

"Say something, damn it!"

"All right," she said agreeably. "I know."

"Know what?" he said, stiffening.

"A lot of things, actually," Chelsea said, teasing him just a bit.

"Chelsea—"

"Here, David, hold this for a minute."

He watched silently as she slipped off her engagement ring. He took it from her, feeling edgy, wary and bewildered.

She worked off the wedding band and held it up in the moonlight. "I don't think you can see anything out here. The light isn't bright enough, but I'll tell you. There's an inscription inside the ring. It says,
Rebecca Winter, 1915.
Your grandmother, David?"

"Yes," he said. "I loved her very much."

Another couple strolled past them, hand in hand.

"When did you find out?" he asked finally.

"Does it matter?" she said, a small smile playing about her mouth.

"You don't want to send me to the castration center in Sacramento?"

"Perhaps, but for just a little while. It was a marvelous Mark I thing to do, I decided. Forgive me for letting you suffer, but I thought you deserved it for just a little while."

"You wouldn't have said anything?"

"Not until you did."

"I
was thinking at one point that I'd wait until our tenth wedding anniversary."

"Then," Chelsea said in a serene voice, "that's when I would have said something. Who knows? Maybe our kids would have overheard."

"Put the ring back on, Chelsea."

She did, then the engagement ring.

He pulled her into his arms. "Is this as romantic as one of your novels?"

"More so," Chelsea said, pulling his head down so she could kiss him. "This is real."

"You truly forgive me for what I did?" he said, nuzzling his mouth against her hair.

"I'll probably use it in a novel," she said. "Now, David, how's your energy level?"

"You want a moonlight swim?"

"That's a start, I suppose."