…But not one from Monica Warren. When that phone number lit up her screen a few minutes later, Lana was compelled to sit back in her seat and wonder why someone like Lady Warren was ringing her up so late in the afternoon.
“Monica!” Lana greeted with her all-frills voice. She tossed one leg over the other and pretended she didn’t hear sweaty grunts and curses (and not the sexy kind) going on in the other room. “What brings you to my phone on this lovely gray afternoon?” She glanced outside. Sunset was early that time of year, and the sky was already covered in disastrous gray clouds. It would probably storm on the way home. Good thing she and Ken were taking the same car – and that they had brought a driver to deal with it. Lana wanted to curl up in the backseat with her husband and search for some warmth, with or without the tinted partition up. Was it too much to ask for a make-out session that lasted the whole twenty-minute car ride? Never mind the kissing. Lana could think of some other things for them to do.
“Good to hear you in such a pleasant mood, Mrs. Andrews,” Monica replied. Lana was always disappointed to hear Lady Warren in such no-nonsense spirits. Either the flesh-peddler was running behind schedule, or she wasn’t calling to have a pleasant conversation with one of her biggest clients. “I take it that the Christmas season finds you well?”
“Well and busy.” Lana could tone down her attitude at will, and right now she willed it to match Monica’s demeanor. “Wrapping up the loose ends before the holidays get us while dealing with a renovation right outside my door. Now, what can I do for you? There’s no chance you called me while we’re both supposed to be busy just to shoot the breeze.” Lana chuckled. “This must be business related. What is it, Mrs. Warren? Need to buy a new condominium complex for your expanding sex business? Kenny and I just came into the possession of a lovely little thing overlooking the waterfront. Fifty million and it’s all yours!” She was offering a bargain, honestly. For ten units? That could easily go for ten to fifteen million each? Monica should be thanking her!
“No thank you.” The diplomacy with which Monica always spoke should have shaken Lana to her core, but she was not easy to faze. Quite the opposite. She was always trying to find ways to faze women like Monica. She had yet to come up with a solid, workable plan, however. One of these days… “But you are correct in that this is partially business related. First of all, I am calling to confirm your attendance at the Château’s annual New Year’s party.”
Lana’s chuckle turned into a well-timed cackle. “Monica, please! You know we’ll be there as we RSVP’d over a month ago. Besides…” She leaned forward against her desk, staring at a framed photo of her and Ken on their second honeymoon a year ago. Lana licked her bottom lip before continuing. “What a bullshit reason to call me. What’s the real reason?”
Monica was not quick to respond. Ha! Had Lana fazed her after all? “I have some news I thought you might be interested in.”
Monica? Rumor mongering? That honestly wasn’t much like her. Or at least… she never went out of her way to rumor monger with the likes of Lana. Whatever it was, surely it was serious… and without a doubt the truth. Monica was too much of a lady to engage in the type of tawdry half-truths Lana loved to indulge. “Do tell. I hope it’s sexy.”
“Perhaps.” Monica took her sweet time getting to the point. “It has to do with Cassandra Welsh.”
Wow. There was a name Lana hadn’t heard in a long time. Perhaps too long, if her memories served her right. “Little Cassandra? I never thought the day would come in which you and I had a conversation about her. What is she up to these days? Last I heard she moved to California or wherever.”
“Seattle,” Monica corrected. “And I hear that she’s coming back to town. For the Christmas gala her family is a part of.”
“Oh. Is that so?” Lana’s finger traced a broad outline of the gilded photo frame. In it, she and Ken stood before the Caribbean waves, taking in the sun and smiling just before sharing a kiss. They had conned some other beach lover to take the photo for them. The person had been more than willing after hearing it was a ten year wedding anniversary kiss. “I haven’t seen her since she moved. Why are you calling me to share this wonderful bit of information, though? I can’t imagine it has anything to do with you.”
“Off the record?”
“Of course, darling.”
Monica’s sharp breath almost worried Lana. Why would Monica Warren be worried about sharing information like this? Surely there wasn’t anything that bad…
“It has to do with why she left the city to begin with.”
“Ah.” Well, that certainly changed the mood. “You mean the baby thing.”
“Yes. The baby. The baby she had.”
So, Monica knew too, huh? The truth, that was. The rumor the Welshes made sure propagated was that their darling little virginal (ha! Hahaha!) daughter had a miscarriage. No, it wasn’t supposed to be an open open secret, but people were certainly supposed to whisper that half-truth in order to divert from the reality.
Oh, Cassandra Welsh had a baby, all right. She left the city before she started showing. How long had she been gone? Almost two years? Plenty of time to give birth and recover. As the well-to-do daughter of such a prestigious family, there was no way the Welshes were going to let it become common knowledge that Cassandra was an unwed mother. Even if she was participating in the rearing of the child, it probably wouldn’t grow up knowing she was its mother. Too much of a liability. The Welshes would want their daughter married to a good match at some point, after all. No man was going to take her and her child that belonged to some other man… that she was never married to!
But that still didn’t explain why Monica was ringing Lana up during business hours to talk about this. Not that Lana would hang up anytime soon. She was too enthralled in the scandal of it all.
“Any idea why she’s picking now to return?”
“I’m sure you share some of my same suspicions, Mrs. Andrews.”
“Hmph.” Suspicions, suspicions. “She’s come to confront the father of her child.” That was the most delicious suspicion that Lana wanted to believe in. “That’ll be wonderful. I hope she does it at the gala in front of everyone. Oh, can you imagine…”
Monica uncharacteristically interrupted her. “So you don’t believe that the child could possibly be your husband’s?”
Lana hooted loudly enough to get Ken’s attention in the other room. Wonderful! He had heard her over the construction! “Kenny’s baby? You’ve got to be joking. The timing isn’t right, for one.”
“Are you sure? With rumors like this, we can’t be sure what the exact timing is.”
“Ahaha, Mrs. Warren, you’re distressed that this child could be your husband’s?”
“It’s not entirely farfetched. She and Henry dated several weeks before she moved.”
“Yes, and Kenny and I were one of the last ones to show her a good time before she left.” Lana did not mention that the poor dear already seemed withdrawn. Not that Lana would have ever guessed that Ms. Welsh was pregnant at the time. Why, she couldn’t have been that far along. Lana had seen plenty of naked pregnant women, even if she had never been pregnant herself. First trimester, at the most. “I doubt that means she was pregnant with my husband’s child.” She didn’t even want to entertain the idea. The thought of her husband having a toddler somewhere out beyond the Purple Mountain Majesties and Amber Waves of Grain was too much to bear. The child support alone! Lana wasn’t ready to be a step-monster! The only good thing that could’ve possibly come out of it was having an heir to raise to take over their company when they were too old to do so. (Like the Welshes would allow that…) “Please, Monica. Let’s not entertain that silly notion. I do appreciate you calling to let me know to expect to see her at the gala. In fact, I’ll be looking for her.” Lana did love making extravagant appearances, after all.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Andrews. I crossed a line.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve just had a baby and are now wondering if your husband already had another out there somewhere. Honestly, if I were in your position, I’d probably be a bit beside myself.”
“Thank you for your understanding.”
“Now, if that’s all you truly called me to chat about, I’m afraid I really must be going. I have a stack of work as tall as you that I’m trying to clear before Christmas… with this misophonic bullshit assaulting my ears every two minutes.” Some contractors really had no manners.
They hung up gracefully, Lana exhaling a pent-up sigh as she gathered a folder and used it as an excuse to go out and see her husband. Not that she needed an excuse, of course, but with so many other strange men around, Lana liked having reasons to be seen marching her hot derriere back and forth across the office.
“Who was that, Bunny?” Ken slapped his pen down with firm finality. What had he been signing? Looked like something very official. Although Lana was of the opinion that her husband should be signing her skin. With something not ink. “Friend of yours? Or someone you just decimated for being a prick?”