Mr Destiny (32 page)

“Well, you'd better take time to explain right now,” Grace told her. “You're acting as crazy as…”

“My parents?” Kate finished for her.

Grace refused to answer.

They stared at each other in the bathroom mirror.

“I guess I am as crazy as my parents after all, Gram. I'm crazy in love. Just like they've always been. But I'm not going
to leave you. I'm not going anywhere except to tell the man I love that I can't imagine my life without him in it. Before
I lose him forever, I'm going to tell him that, Gram. Please say you understand.”

Grace stood there, looking at her for a moment.

“Oh, go on,” Grace said with a sigh. “If you love him enough to go wandering through Central Park in a wedding dress, go tell
him.”

Kate tore open the second package.

She pulled out the framed sixteen-by-twenty painting.

She fumbled in her purse for a twenty-dollar bill.

She kissed Grace and Margaret.

Then she bolted for the door.

“I love you both,” she called over her shoulder, “and thanks for taking care of my things.”

“I'm not sure what just happened here, Grace, are you?” she heard Margaret say on her way out.

She heard her grandmother reply, “All I know, Margaret, is that I'm definitely going to need something stronger to drink than
afternoon tea.”

“Central Park. The entrance near the Met. As fast as you can get me there,” Kate told the taxi driver.

He was a young guy, cute. She didn't miss his slightly raised eyebrow at her wedding attire, but he didn't ask. That's what
she loved most about New York City—everyone just accepted the fact that trying to figure each other out was too damn exhausting
to even put forth the effort.

When the driver pulled away from the curb, Kate propped the painting up beside her and fell back against the seat with a relieved
sigh. Until she realized she didn't even know if Tony was on duty. He'd told her about his crazy work schedule, how he rarely
worked the same shift two days in a row.

A glance at her watch only increased her angst.

It was already 4:15 P.M.

If Tony had worked days, she would miss him.

She held to the hope that destiny wouldn't let her down.

Please let him be on second shift.

“Work with me here, destiny,” Kate said aloud.

“Did you say something?”

“No, forget it,” Kate said, but she was getting more anxious by the minute. Especially since the taxi was inching along at
a snail's pace. She looked behind her. They were still practically right in front of the Waldorf.

Kate leaned forward. “Can't you go any faster?”

“Sure,” the guy said, holding her gaze in his rearview mirror. “I'll just have Scotty beam us up and over this nasty old gridlock.”

Smart-ass.

Kate leaned back against the seat again.

They were completely stopped.

Sheesh.

Did every day have to be the dawn of a new freaking
error
for her?

She tried not to count the minutes.

She couldn't stop herself.

Two minutes.

Five minutes.

Ten damn minutes.

What is going on?

Kate jerked upright in the seat.

People were pouring out of the buildings on both sides of the street. Fear's cold hand grabbed her with an icy fist. The same
fear no New Yorker would ever be free of again.

Her eyes met the driver's in the mirror.

She knew he was thinking the same thing.

“Hey, what's going on,” he yelled out the window.

A guy with his cell phone to his ear was cutting in front of the taxi. The guy hurried back to the driver's side of the cab
and bent down to look in the window.

“Blackout,” the guy said, holding up his phone. “Can't even get a cell phone signal. None of the buildings have power, either.
Everything in the city must be shut down.”

“Holy shit,” the driver said.

Kate sat there for a moment.

She tossed the twenty over the seat.

Grabbed the painting.

Opened the door.

Hopped out of the taxi.

“Hey,” the driver yelled after her. “You don't owe me anything. We hardly even moved.”

Kate kept walking and never looked back.

“Don't worry, babe, I'm sure this is only a minor glitch. We'll be out of here in no time.”

Alex reached for John's hand and finally found it in the pitch-black elevator. They were stuck somewhere between the ninth
and tenth floors of the Madison Avenue office building where the agency was located.

She knew that's where they were stuck, because the agency was on the tenth floor. She'd been watching the digital numbers
as they changed, praying John would change his mind before the elevator came to a stop.

The elevator had come to a stop.

An abrupt stop.

Knocking out the lights just as quickly.

At least they were alone, Alex kept reminding herself.

There were no other people in the elevator with them to increase her growing hysteria. Her hope that John would change his
mind was the reason she had kept him from piling into an elevator with a crowd of other people when they first arrived in
the lobby. She'd held him back, wanting him to be on the elevator alone with her.

She'd wanted to give him that one last-minute opportunity to turn to her and say they should forget the whole surrogate nightmare.
She knew her husband well. Even if he'd felt that way, John never would have discussed their private business in front of
anyone else.

But how long had they been trapped?

Fifteen minutes, maybe?

Twenty?

Longer?

She wasn't sure.

But it had been long enough for both of them to feel their way along the side of the elevator car and sit down in the floor.
Fearing the worst, she knew—yet sparing each other the agony of saying out loud what both of them were already thinking.

This wasn't just an isolated elevator glitch.

They'd checked; neither of their cell phones worked.

Whatever had happened, it couldn't be good.

John's strong arm slid around her shoulder, pulling her close. Alex couldn't keep from thinking how tragic it would be if
this really was it. If life really was going to cheat her out of growing old with John.

She'd always teased John that the thing she liked best about marriage was finding that one special person you wanted to annoy
for the rest of your life.

Suddenly, that joke wasn't funny.

John had to love her to have put up with her all these years. If anyone had ever annoyed the hell out of someone, she'd sure
annoyed the hell out of him.

Alex reached up and touched his face. She couldn't see him, but she didn't have to. She knew exactly the look that would be
there in his kind gray eyes. A look that told her he loved her whether she was a giant pain in the ass or not.

She reached up farther and pushed his sandy blond hair away from his forehead, knowing instinctively that his stubborn front
cowlick had caused his hair to fall forward despite his attempt to keep it slicked back with gel.

What if this really is it?
Alex kept asking herself.

What if I've wasted my life worrying about all the wrong things?

What if life isn't going to give me a chance to have my own children with John one day?

What if this is my punishment for not realizing that my husband and the children I do want matter more to me than any CEO
position ever could?

Alex wiped at the unexpected tear as it rolled down her cheek. She just wasn't one of those sentimental people who slobber
all over everybody, dammit!

But Alex was sentimental enough to snuggle against her husband and say, “Whatever happens, John, I want you to know that I
love you with all my heart even if I don't show it most of the time.”

“What's that?”

“I said I…”

“No,” John said. “That!”

Alex heard the banging.

They both managed to pull themselves to their feet.

“Hello,” John yelled out. “I'm John Graham. My wife and I are trapped here in the elevator.”

A man's voice yelled back, “Just stay calm. We'll have you out as soon as possible.”

“What's going on out there?” John yelled back.

“We've had a blackout,” the guy yelled. “The whole city has ground to a halt.”

Unless the entire city of New York grinds to a screeching halt.

Her own words came rushing back so fast, Alex gasped.

John grabbed for her. “Don't panic now, babe. You heard the guy. They'll have us out of here as soon as possible.”

Don't panic?

Panic didn't touch what she was feeling.

Life had just slapped her in the face with a huge wakeup call.

Alex yelled out herself, “How long do you think we'll be in here?”

It took a second, but the guy yelled back, “An hour, maybe a little more. Just remain calm. We'll get you out as soon as we
can.”

One hour, maybe a little more.

Destiny had granted a reprieve from her selfish ways.

Alex didn't intend to waste a perfect opportunity to prove she was sincerely grateful for her second chance.

“Now, dammit, Alex,” John said when her wandering hand found exactly what she was seeking. “Stop that! Unless you happen to
have your diaphragm, the condoms, and that spermicidal spray stuff in your purse, don't play games with me.”

“Poor John,” Alex said, lowering his zipper. “I guess I have been a bit obsessive when it comes to birth control, haven't
I?”

“Obsessive?” John laughed and pushed her hand away. “I'd say hysterical is a better word. So, stop it, Alex. I'm not kidding.”

“I'm not kidding, either,” Alex told him.

“Alex?”

“John?” Alex said.

She pulled her devoted husband back down onto the floor with her. The devoted husband that she hoped would get her pregnant
on the first try.

“Oh. God. You
are
serious. Oh. Man. Alex!”

“Just promise me one thing,” Alex whispered as she helped guide John right where she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that
she wanted him. “Promise me we'll never tell our child he or she was conceived in an elevator. That could screw the poor kid
up for life.”

The pole. Just the pole. Nothing but the pole.

That's what Eve was thinking as she held tightly to the pole beside her seat in the subway car. At the moment it was so dark
she couldn't see a blessed thing.

Which was actually a relief.

She didn't have anyone staring at her.

Nor was she imagining that everyone was staring at her.

The backup lights in the car had been coming on, then going off again for the last thirty minutes or so. The first time the
lights went off, several people screamed.

Everyone had settled back down for the moment.

But Eve knew everyone was still nervous.

Too bad she still had to listen to the faceless voices who kept coming up with the type of worst-case scenarios she never
would have thought of on her own.

“At least we're not stuck in the tunnel,” some woman said. “We're sitting right here in the station. We'll be the first ones
to be rescued.”