Chapter 9: Conned by a Con
Normally, on the Friday's when Remington wasn't playing poker, he and Laura would indulge themselves with dinner out followed by either a movie, ballet or theater. Every once in a blue moon, she'd convince him to forgo the latter, and after batting her beautiful brown eyes at him, would talk him into a trip to Venice pier, where she'd indulge her enjoyment of cotton candy and he'd indulge himself in her. This Friday night, however, he'd willingly forgone poker since Monroe thought him to still be in London, and, given Laura's tumultuous tummy, they'd agreed to a movie in. In a nod to the news they'd received on the day, Remington had selected Another Thin Man (William Powell, Myrna Loy, MGM, 1939). The third movie of the saga of Nick and Nora Charles, bantering husband and wife and crime sleuths extraordinaire, it happened to be the installment of the movie in which they became parents to Nick Jr.
Reclining with his back against the pillows on the couch, and Laura's head on his lap as she rested stretched out on her side, he absently fingered her silken locks of hair. She'd been silent for a while, a good indication she'd soon be asleep.
There was a time, not so long ago although then and now seemed a world apart, when he'd spent many a long, lonely evening watching The Thin Man and imagining this is what it would be like between he and Laura. A rarity, it was, for a film from the genres of his liking to extend beyond that final kiss and the illusion happily-ever-after was in the making. When marriage was depicted, it was often because of the nefarious dealings of one spouse towards the other. Gaslight (Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotton, MGM, 1944) – a man driven to hide his secret attempts to drive his wife insane before she can uncover it. They Drive By Night (George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Warner Bros, 1940) – a woman conspires to kill her husband so she can be with the man she imagines she really loves. No, when he envisioned the future with Laura, duplicitous plots against one another were not only nothing he wished to imagine, but he knew were an impossibility as well.
No, they'd be Nick and Nora, he'd long ago decided… well, sans the overindulgence in alcohol. They'd dance, argue, play, banter, and be devoted to one another. 'Two sleuths, hurling themselves into the unknown, desperately seeking to find the truth behind a baffling mystery-,' as he'd once said to her three years before. The only exception being of course, he as Cary Grant fulfilling the role of Nick and she as a cross of the two Hepburns fulfilling the role of Nora. The fantasy had fil—
His idle thoughts came to an abrupt halt when Laura leaped from the couch, running with hand clasped over her mouth towards the bathroom. He followed quickly on her heels, gathering back her hair in the nick of time.
And, as her body convulsed and shuddered, Laura learned two lessons known by pregnant women since time began: Firstly, what tasted wonderful going down was not what that food tasted like coming up; and, secondly, there was absolutely no graceful way to vomit when the entirety of your stomach contents were determined to come up all at once. Panting, with tears streaming down her face, she sat backwards pressing her face against the cool porcelain of the tub. She watched as Remington flushed the toilet then ran a washcloth under the sink faucet, before wringing it out. Squatting down in front of her, he handed her the cloth, feeling utterly helpless.
"Are you alright?" he asked quietly. She gave him a beleaguered look although her lips titled upwards in a small smile.
"I've sworn off noodle soup for life, but other than that, I'm fine… or at least I will be." She pressed the cloth to her face with both hands while releasing a slow breath. Dropping it from her face she held out a hand to him and he helped her to her feet. "I'm going to go get ready for bed. Finish watching your movie," she told him before laying cloth on the bathroom counter and leaving the room.
Laura detoured through the dining room to grab the book she'd planned to start reading, then went upstairs to their bedroom. Stripping down, she washed her face, brushed her teeth, used some mouthwash, then pulled on one of Remington's pajama shirts before climbing into the bed. Laying back against her pillows, she pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, wishing she'd thought to bring a drink upstairs with her to soothe her burning throat, wondering again how she'd make it through two more months of this. She blew out a long breath and slung an arm over her eyes.
While watching Another Thin Man with Remington downstairs, her thoughts had turn to Minor and Anna. In her opinion, it was only natural they had, after all, the very premise of the movie was a man believing someone was out to the kill him. When it came to Remington and herself, it was an inarguable fact someone was trying to do just that, at least in Minor's case. But what about Anna? Was she somewhere, lurking, even now? Did she have murder on her mind, blackmail or were they even on her mind at all? Was she on the lam, even now planning or executing her next con? She knew too little about the woman to even speculate.
She lifted her arm from her eyes, surprised as she heard Remington's footfalls on the carpet. Approaching the bed, as she pushed herself up into a sitting position, he handed her a cup and saucer.
"Tea with a spot of honey and lemon. I thought it might soothe your throat after…" He tapped his lips to her forehead before walking into the closet, stripping his clothes as he went. When he reemerged he was bare as the day he was born, thoroughly comfortable in his own nudity. Stopping at his dresser he tugged on the pair of pajama bottoms which matched the shirt she wore, then climbed into bed beside her. She took several more sips of the tea before setting it on the nightstand then stretching out across the width of the bed and lying her head on his lap, she claimed his hand in hers. She lifted her eyes to look at him.
"If I asked you to tell me about Anna, all of it, would you?" He tensed beneath her, even though he'd already come to the conclusion he'd have to share the whole of it when asked. Having accepted it didn't make it any easier now that the time had come. He nodded slowly then summoned up the courage, from where he didn't know, to say the words.
"I was twenty-six when I met Anna and bloody well full of myself," he began. "My…" he grimaced and lolled his head as he said the next words, "..professional pursuits… had been quite successful and word had spread that if something needed to be … retrieved… especially when held under tight security, I was the man for the job. Not that anyone knew precisely who I was. Word would reach the street and, if interested, I'd contact the party directly under whatever guise I was using at the time. It was one such job that brought me to Monte Carlo. A ten-carat diamond valued at nearly five-hundred-thousand pounds, stolen in a home invasion in Florence and rumored to be traveling to Monte Carlo after a backroom deal." He shrugged. "I took on a couple of smaller jobs to bankroll my stay while awaiting its arrival, projecting the image of a carefree bachelor with too much time and money on his hands, only wishing to play." He sighed deeply, looked down at her and found her rapt attention on his hand, although he'd not a doubt she'd absorbed every word. "Monte Carlo, like most resort cities at the time, was rife with women seeking little more than a good time, in or out of bed." He tilted his head. "How was it you once described the early eighties?"
"… the age of many vices, no convictions. A quick hop in the sack, no ties… hell, in some cases no names."
"It could be said even more so about the late seventies, especially on the Cote d'Azur." He lifted a hand and covered his mouth, closing his eyes for several seconds. Finally, with a weary shake of his head, he dropped his hand and continued. "I went by Paul Fabrini in those days, having long before established his spendthrift, playboy persona. I'd been invited a party. I was in the mood for a liaison and what better than an evening of a little dance, good wine and frivolity followed by an enjoyable romp?" He stopped again then shook his head before abruptly slipping out from beneath her and leaving the bed to pace.
"What? What is it?" she questioned as she sat up, curling her legs to the side.
"Damn it, Laura. This isn't easy for me, that's 'what'. There's every chance once I tell you the whole of it, you'll never look at me quite the same way again. Or worse, when you look at me from here forward I'll see that same look in your eyes that was there from the time Anna entered our lives and every day thereafter until recently!" She frowned and shook her head at him.
"What look?" she demanded to know. Raking a hand through his hair, he stared at, before his shoulders drooped and he held up a defeated hand.
"That look that says maybe your instincts about me were wrong, that I wasn't the person you thought me to be, and those damned walls between us will go up once more." Closing her eyes, she lifted her fingers to her brow, kneading at it as she tried to find the words to convince him otherwise and realized there were none. This time it was her hand that dropped, deflated.
"I could sit here for hours telling you that won't be the case, but you won't believe it," she told him as much. "The only way you'll believe it is by telling me then seeing nothing will have changed. At least, not how I feel about you."
The silence lulled between them as he continued to pace for two long minutes. Looking ceilingward and scrubbing his face with his hands, he held them up in surrender then continued.
"When I first saw Anna, she was on the dance floor with another man; the man I now know, of course, to be Merleau. The way she held herself, with a confidence I seldom saw in a woman, her bearing almost regal as though only deigning to mingle with the peasants like the rest of us. It was…" he held a hand over his mouth briefly, then dropped it shaking his head. "I don't know the words to describe it, but she certainly caught my attention. And I, hers, I assumed, given the way her eyes wandered over me from head-to-toe then gave me a look that all but dared me to attempt to make her acquaintance." He let out a long breath and began pacing anew.
"I bided my time, waiting until her latest partner had left her side, leaving her alone to look out over the guests. I asked her to dance." His eyes flicked to Laura then away. "The song… in Club 10 which was playing when she arrived? It was the song we'd danced to that night, the song she knew at some point I'd equated as 'our' song, although I've no idea when that even came about. I'd never ascribed such to a song, a movie, a poem… not before or since. Until you and then with purpose…." he looked upon her with bleak, haunted eyes, before turning them away again, "… because I wanted that connection with you." He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"When the song ended, so did our dance. She walked away without so much as a glance back. It was a first for me. I'd never been left standing on the dance floor and, in truth, it intrigued me all the more, in both its insult and daring. Then, as I'd gone to get a fresh glass of wine, I found her room key in my pocket." He laughed without mirth. "Full of myself, yet again. I'd danced, I'd flirted, and it was I that would take the lady 'home', so to speak, that evening." He stopped walking, lost in thought.
"What happened?" Laura asked quietly. He turned to look at her, seeming to return from somewhere far away. He held two fingers to his lips while considering the questioned then resumed his pacing.
"I foolishly believed myself to be the seducer… the one who conquered. Given how she'd left me on the dance floor, I thought to… I don't know… make a point, I suppose. I waited for hours, well after guests had begun departing before arriving at her room. Of course, we ended up in bed together. It had been the whole point of the dance we'd been doing that evening, hadn't it?" He sat down heavily on the couch against the wall, and held his chin in a hand supported by an arm against his knee, unable to look at her for this next part. "She… knew things. Knew how to take a man hard and fast to the very edge, with only touch and leave him dangling there in sweet torture. It was… overwhelming… addictive even." Especially for a man who needed touch to feel truly connected, she thought to herself.
"And the next morning I found myself yet again in an unfamiliar place: the one left, even if that leaving had been promised before it all began. It wasn't enough. I'd never experienced anything like it before. She'd bewitched me… so I pursued." Anxious hands tugged through his hair, before settling against his face as he leaned back and tilted his head towards the ceiling.
"Given I know it didn't end there, I gather she was receptive?" Laura prompted. Remington shook his head, and dropped his hands with a long sigh, before resuming his prior position.
"I don't know, I don't know," he answered quietly. "At the time, yes, it appeared she was quite receptive. We began seeing each other regularly. Not every night, but more often than not. Initially, only to share another of those intoxicating romps, she always walking away after. But she'd said enough during those times, for me to believe, in a very short time, she was interested in more than just a fling, and surprisingly, I found, so was I. By a month in I was as… dazzled… by her as I was the sex. I'd never met a woman before who was so bound and determined to live on her own terms, to write her own destiny. I didn't see it then. Still so full of myself, still recklessly believing I was the one in control, or at the very least shared equally in it. Only once I was hopelessly tied to her did… other things about her begin to truly surface."
"Such as?"
"We'd arrive at a party, together, and only later as she left with another man, did I realize she'd other plans in mind on the evening. Taking some man into her bed, seducing him with the very things she did to me, then, as her target slept, would escape with whatever bauble or trinket she'd set her mind on possessing." Unaware, so lost in his thoughts was he, that he'd turned to look at Laura, he spoke directly to her for the first time since the conversation began. "She was remarkably cruel about it, making her own point to me as well, though I failed to see it at the time. Anna Simpson belongs to no man. She'd kiss whatever man was on her agenda that evening, even fondle him in my full view, all the while giving me a look that clearly said just that. Then she'd take them off to her bed, and the next morning arrive at the room I held, bragging about her success, showing off whatever it was she'd lifted." Standing, he again began wearing a path in their carpet.
"Ah, Laura," he said, his voice fraught with frustration. "She was little better than a prostitute, trading her body for whatever it was she coveted. Yet, I couldn't admit that to myself, not then. She'd mock me, in a manner of speaking, finding my 'provincial' views amusing, would tell me monogamy between a man and a woman was little more than a myth and impossible to obtain. Despite her actions, I found myself constantly wondering if this was it, was I in love with her? Why else would I put up with it? Why else would I allow her to convince me she was doing it for us, for the life we'd soon have together. Contributing to our 'nest egg' she called it," he laughed harshly. "Why would I take her back into my bed the morning after another man had had her if I wasn't?"
"It wasn't long before even the sex changed." He'd lost himself in the story, the words now just falling from his tongue freely, unmonitored. "Oh, she still used those devilish, intoxicating tricks of hers, but now to make the sex more… carnal. Bordering on violent, even, I'd dare say." He looked at her, his eyes begging her to believe the next. "I never left a mark on her, not like she did me. I can't tell you how many times, afterwards, I'd find my skin so deeply scored by her nails I'd be left bleeding, bit so hard, I could actually count the teeth marks. I'd find myself, after those encounters, repulsed by her, by myself for having allowed it to happen. Many times I vowed to walk away, and each time, she drew me back in with her words… tender words, promises of how it would soon be, by the way she touched me, allowing me to believe that she loved me."
"At some point, I don't know when, though no doubt by no one's fault but my own, she set her sites on my work. Oh, we had the devil of some fights over that. She wanted to accompany me, 'help me', but I wouldn't hear of it." He looked at Laura again. "You know better than most how quickly things can fall apart. The Five Nudes, the Masters, the Jennings diamond."
"I do," she concurred, nodding her agreement.
"I didn't… trust her, not on a heist. She was too impulsive, reckless." He blew out a sharp puff of air. "We'd made plans to go away together. Things would be wonderful once we'd left Monte Carlo, that's what she'd assured me. My take on retrieving the diamond would be fifty-thousand pounds. A good sum to get us started off in the right way without my having to nip into the funds I'd squirreled away. I had it planned for that night, the night we were to leave." He laughed sardonically. "Oh, we had a row about my refusing to allow her to come along. She promised if I didn't take her, she'd contribute in her own way, on her terms. I knew what it meant: taking yet another man into her bed, robbing him after. It made me sick, knowing that she'd carry through and do just that, but not enough to make me put my proverbial neck on the line. She went about her business and I, mine. After I'd retrieved the diamond and collected my fee, I returned to my room to wait for her. Despite knowing what she was doing, would have done before returning to me, I'd every intention on following through on our plans to leave, believing that once we were away from all of it, we'd finally find peace."
"But she never arrived…" Laura prompted again.
"I found out by way of her obituary in the morning paper. Anna Simpson, not only dead but having left behind a husband, Merleau." He stopped stalking about the room to rub at his face again and peer at the ceiling as though it held all the answers. "I'd compromised so much of myself for her by that point, what was one more thing, eh? I'd allowed myself to be drawn in. Had broken my longstanding promise to myself to never believe in another. I'd given nearly all my trust to the woman, when she'd done nothing to earn it. Why not make sure I broke the one last vow still intact: to never usurp on the territory of another man? I'd been bedding a married woman straight along, planning to run away with her even."
"But none of that really mattered in the end. The only thing that did was she was dead, at least in part due to my own hand. Had I taken her with me the night before as she asked, we might be behind bars, but she'd at least be alive."
"Remington—" Laura broke in, taking to her knees on the bed and stretching a hand out to him. He held up a hand, palm facing her, and shook his he adamantly in the negative.
"The guilt absolutely gutted me. For the first time in my life, I lost myself in drink for a while. Sought refuge away from the memories with friends in various locales across the world. It took a few months, but I pulled myself together. Made those vows anew: no entanglements, trust no one but myself, and, by God, never to believe in love. I focused fully on my work, taking on bigger, bolder assignments each time. Maybe hoping I'd get caught, I don't know. If I were, maybe it was kismet's way of atonement." He turned to look at her again while rubbing at his chin. "But instead, it brought me to you."
"When Anna appeared here, alive, I won't deny I was overwhelmed, confused even. The night I went home and found her waiting in my apartment it wasn't only relief I felt that she hadn't died but a form of absolution as well. And, however brief it might have been, memories of the good times overcame me. Despite the rest, there had been some truly wonderful times mixed among the bad. But even then, it didn't take long for me to recall the rest of it and put together pieces of the puzzle I'd been blind to then."
"Like what?" she asked.
"My name to start. In time, I did share with her those aliases, though not that I hadn't the slightest idea what my real name was. To her, I was Paul Fabrini, or at least I thought, given it is the identity I went by at the time. But never once did she call me by it, not even in.." he waved a hand at the air "… the throes of passion. I was always nothing more, or less, than 'darling'" She couldn't have come up with a more damaging way to cause you harm, even if she'd known, Laura ranted to herself.
"What else?"
"The manipulations. I'd gotten into a bit of a scuffle one day while in Anna's company. An acquaintance, knocking about a woman less than half his size. I had a bit of a go at him and made it clear it'd be in his best interest that I not discover he'd attempted a repeat with the young woman ." He rubbed at his face.
"I see," she could only say. There was no explanation needed. She knew all too well that Anna had identified the protectiveness which was inborn to him in order to manipulate him, nearly to the point of murder.
"I'm sure you do," he acknowledged, wearily sitting on the side of the bed and raking his fingers through his hair. "When I confronted her at Patton's estate, she'd the audacity to claim she'd been unable to tell me she was alive because I would've discovered she was nothing more than a 'swindler,' as though she'd led such a virtuous life while we were together." He laughed sadly. Sensing he was winding down, she clasped him softly by the shoulders and eased him back until he lay down on the bed. Stretching out next to him, she faced him, and dared to run a hand soothingly through his hair. To her immense relief, he didn't flinch away from her, but briefly closed his eyes, before opening them again and staring at her, intently.
"Anna knows… things, Laura." She nodded slowly when he voiced her fears aloud.
"What things?"
"My aliases, of course. A couple of small jobs I performed while in Monte Carlo as well as the diamond." She allowed herself to feel a little relieved in that.
"Which can no longer harm you as Paul Fabrini's record is not only clear, but he doesn't even exist," she pointed out.
"True, but Remington Steele does," he countered.
"Whose passport never shows him having been in Monte Carlo," she argued back. "What else?"
"You," he answered, picking up a strand of her hair and fingering it. "She knows about you. She'll know you're my Achilles heel," he answered, giving voice to his greatest fear.
"And you mine. Unless I'm mistaken, she blames both of us for ruining her scam, for putting her behind bars," she pointed out, logically. "We can't do any more than we're already doing, Remington. We know Minor is out there gunning for us. We take our normal precautions." Rolling to his back he scrubbed at his face.
"It's what you always feared most, isn't it? My past coming back to do harm? If anything happens to you or our child because of what I've done, I won't be able to live with myself." With a shake of her head, she turned off her lamp then wriggled herself over to close the space between them, and lay her head against his chest.
"We all have a past. My fear of your past had far less to do with it visiting, than it taking you away." Her hand settled against his side, began to stroke, trying to get him to relax. "My own past has come to visit, in the form of DesCoine, now his daughter. But you've never held me accountable for it."
"It's not the same, Laura," he answered irritably. "This is not a job coming back to haunt us."
"You're right, it's not. It's worse. She conned you and when she was done with you, first she left you in shambles and then the next time around planned to leave you for dead. It's much worse." This earned a rich laugh from him.
"Conned me? Laura, the woman never got a bloody thing from me. Might I also add the old colloquialism, 'never try to con a con'? There's a reason for that saying, you know." She hummed.
"I think you were too close to see what was happening, still are even now," she said thoughtfully. That thought irritated him and he fought the impulse to place distance between them.
"Care to explain that little gem?" he clipped. She sighed with a little frustration of her own.
"You said it yourself. When you first saw her you were 'bloody well full of yourself.' A woman who uses sex to get what she wants can spot that type of arrogance in the blink of an eye. Arrogance is, by itself, a weakness and for that reason alone can be exploited. She played yours to perfection, I should know," she commented thoughtfully, absently thrumming her fingers on his chest.
"Laura," he said warningly, taking offense at her comparing herself to Anna on any level.
"Just listen to me. In those first couple of months of our association, I think I made myself clear enough that I wanted to go to bed with you…"
"Let our passions erupt into something outrageously fulfilling-"
"You mean hop in the sack?"
"Little crude, but- to the point."
"Love to."
"Well then?"
"But I can't."
"You did," he agreed.
"But I knew the only thing keeping you around was the fact I wouldn't. I even said as much to Bernice at the time."
"You know, it's not just the free ride that keeps this clown around. It's the challenge. I'm probably the only woman he's ever met who didn't tumble right into bed with him."
"I was a challenge: a woman who wouldn't just tumble into bed with you when you turned those rather lethal charms on her. I used that arrogance against you, because I wanted to keep you here," she shrugged. "It's not all the different from what Anna did. She left you standing on that dance floor alone because she knew it would draw you in." She sighed. "And after you'd taken the bait, she identified one vulnerability after another to exploit, not only making sure she was the one that retained control, but to bind you to her."
"I think you're attributing far more to this than there was," he disagreed.
"Am I? The first time to two of you hit the sheets, she would have recognized you're not a man who would appreciate a coupling that left either of you with injuries. By nature you're a…" she searched for the right word, "… a sensualist, prone towards gentle touches, soft caresses. Even nine months after we've crossed that line, you're still inclined to apologize when our sex life takes what is, in your eyes, maybe a little too robust of a turn. She used her skills in the bedroom to bind you to her in a way, then once she had, she changed the rules. She would have known by then that even though you were the one left bleeding and bruised, you'd feel guilty, sickened even. And then she'd twist things even further by using the two things you need most against you: touch and to be loved without qualification. It was a sick game, Remington, but a game, none the less."
"For what purpose?" he demanded to know, even as the truth of what she was telling him was taking root. "I've already told you she never got a damned thing from me." She shook her head against his chest.
"You won't like it," she warned.
"Because I've enjoyed so much as a moment of this conversation tonight already?" he countered.
"I think you were her contingency plan. If everything went south on the con she was working with Merleau, there you were at the hotel, waiting to depart to places unknown." He nodded his head slowly at the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that she was right.
"And LA?" he asked tightly.
"Merleau was blackmailing her, that much I believe is true. She needed to silence him." She tilted her head back to look at him in the darkened room and lay a hand upon his cheek, knowing the words she was about to say would wound.
"And since I now lived in LA where Patton resided and knew her not to be Lydia Van Owen, I needed to be eliminated as well," he supplied, saving her from saying it.
"Yes," she agreed quietly, shifting her hand back to his side.
"Daniel will be having a bloody good laugh at me from his grave for this," he noted with a great deal of bitterness.
"Did he know Anna?"
"He met her, once. Told me he didn't trust her as far as he could toss her, which wouldn't have been very far. Caused a bit of a breech between us for a time," he confessed.
"Why? He certainly had his issues with me, but it didn't cause a rift between the two of you?" she asked, sensing he needed to leave the subject of Anna behind. He shifted beneath her, getting more comfortable beneath her.
"Ah, it wasn't that he never trusted you but because he knew he'd never draw me back into the game again. At least not so long as there was a chance for us. I couldn't very well fault him for that." She smiled at the thought, then laughed as another came to her.
"Can you imagine how he'd feel now? Not only have I wedded and bedded you, but have turned you in to a father-to-be as well." He chuckled lightly.
"Something tells me we'd have seen a lot more of him here in LA… sufficiently enough to drive you batty, at least." He frowned when she suddenly bolted upright. "What is it?"
"His letter. We forgot his letter again," she answered, scooting towards the opposite side of the bed to get up. His arm wrapped around her waist and wrangled her back to him.
"Tomorrow. I've had enough for one day, and you…" he stressed the last word, as he wrapped an arm around her slim frame and spooned his body around hers, "…need your rest." She smiled as his hand slipped under the shirt she wore to rest against her stomach.
"I've had two naps today," she protested for form's sake.
"Which I suspect you'll be doing a lot more of in the weeks to come." He nuzzled his chin against the top of her head.
"Speaking of which, I'd like us to wait on announcing we're expecting a child, at least for now. I want us, just us, to be able to enjoy this for a little while before all the well-meaning advice, all the questions begin." He smiled over top of her head.
"Before your Mother…" he let her finish the thought and would have laughed openly had he seen the pained expression on her face.
"Yes," she breathed, drawing the word out. "Not to mention Frances. Just the thought of them hovering. If Frances finds out I have morning sickness, she'll stalk me, suffocate me, all the while giving advice and recommending I stay in bed. I'm already getting a headache just thinking about it!" He chuckled silently behind her, drawing her full attention. "It's not funny!" That chuckle turned into a full out laugh. It was the first time in his memory Laura Holt Steele had given in to a full-out whine.
"Of course, it's not," he gasped. Flipping to her back, she glared at him.
"Mr. Steele, by some miracle, in the eight-and-a-half months we've been married, you haven't been sent to the couch for the night. That's about to change," she warned. He held up a hand in defense of himself.
"Laura, do you realize you've just admitted to being afraid of a woman who once imagine sparrows as vampire bats, who saw UFO's hovering over Tarzana?" Helpless to stop it, a fresh new round of laughter shook his body. She pursed her lips, trying to suppress her own laughter.
"Be careful, buster, or I might suggest to Frances that you're in need of some suggestions for meals which will decrease the likelihood of me getting sick," she warned with a lift of her brows. His laughter came to an abrupt halt and he eyed her warily. "I'm sure she'll be here nightly, giving you pointers, advice—"
"You would, wouldn't you?" he accused. She lifted her brows at him in the dim room.
"You'd better watch your step. I'm sure Mother would be more than happy to move in for the first month or two after the baby's born if I expressed concern that we might be overwhelmed…" He swallowed hard at the mere thought.
"Lau-ra…" he warned.
"Who's afraid now?" she asked jauntily, before laying her head on his chest and sprawling partway across his lean frame.
She fell asleep with a smile still on her lips and he? Laughing softly.
(TBC)
