Pursued by the Playboy (23 page)

Kate nearly swallowed her tongue.  Had Emma somehow guessed?  She risked a glance at Emma’s face, but the other woman seemed focused on digging the croutons out of her salad.  Catching Kate’s eye, she smiled and shrugged.  “It’s illogical, I know.  But pizza I absolutely adore.  These, on the other hand,” she said, piling the crusty cubes of seasoned bread on a spare napkin, “I can live without.”

Kate nodded, hoping that Emma’s casual attitude meant that she had no hidden agenda.  The question about children was probably simple curiosity about her brother’s girlfriend, and a natural extension of Emma’s own confidences about her twins.  Still, it put Kate in an awkward position.  The last thing she wanted to discuss with Marc’s sister was her unexpected pregnancy and all the wildly careening emotions it had set off inside her.  Especially since she had yet to tell Marc about the baby.  And she had no idea how he would react. 

The ringing of her cell phone saved her from having to think up a response.  She dove for her bag, and quickly extracted the Blackberry.  It was Marc, calling to find out when she was coming home.   She had left him a note before heading out earlier, but apparently he started worrying that it was getting late and she still wasn’t back.

She reassured him, and after hanging up, told Emma, “He cooked some kind of vegetarian tofu dish, ‘light on the ginger and soy sauce’.  Said it’ll keep ‘til tomorrow.”

Emma grinned.  “I won’t tell him about the pizza if you don’t.”

“Deal.”

###

That evening, lying in bed beside a sleeping Marc, Kate considered Emma’s descriptions of family life.  Even when she was poking fun at the idiosyncrasies of various relatives, Emma’s affection for them was clear.  No question about it, the DiStefanos were a close-knit family.  They took care of each other.  Their lives and interests intertwined by choice rather than circumstance. 

And Marc, by all accounts, was a natural caregiver.  His fussing over Emma’s—and now Kate’s—diet, his roundabout way of providing Kate with a car to ensure her safety without infringing on her independence, his generosity of spirit toward the important people in Kate’s life, all confirmed the fact. 

She couldn’t have picked a better father for her child if she’d tried.

Unless, of course, she took to heart what her female colleagues at the university said.  According to them, it was always easier for a professor to have a stay-at-home spouse.  Like their male counterparts, the women in her department who made tenure were career-driven, worked incredibly long hours, and didn’t have to rush home to take care of the kids.  Many were childless.  Those who weren’t either had a spouse who was primarily responsible for childcare or had an extensive infrastructure in place in the form of live-in nanny, extended family support, or some combination thereof. 

“It’s not even the university that’s the problem these days,” one woman confided over coffee.  She was a molecular biologist with an office down the hall from Kate’s.  “It’s the NIH funding issue.”

NIH stood for National Institutes of Health, which provided much of the federal funding for medical and basic science research at academic centers across the country.  “What do you mean?” Kate
asked
.

“If you take a break from publishing, you lose your funding.  You know how competitive it is these days.  Even ten years ago you could count on at least a quarter of R01 grant applications getting funded.  Now?  It’s less than ten percent.  No funding, no lab, no tenure.  End of story.”

“And if you don’t get tenure,” added another woman, who was fast approaching that critical juncture in her own career, “then you have a year to get the hell out of Dodge.  Find a job somewhere else.  Another
, lower
-ranked
university if you’re lucky, industry if you’re not.  And you end up uprooting your husband and kids yet again.  After they’ve already followed you from grad school to post-doc to here.  There aren’t many husbands out there willing to be the “trailing spouse”.  Once, okay.  Twice, maybe.  Three times?  Forget about it.”

“Unless you g
et lucky and snag
a guy who can work from home,” said the molecular biologist.  “Or who doesn’t work at all.” 

Kate replayed the conversation a dozen times in her head over the days that followed.  The only advantage she possibly had was the three-year grant she’d received from the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation.  At least it gave her some breathing space.  A drop-off in productivit
y as measured by publication
s wouldn’t hurt her too much as long as she was able to ramp back up pretty quickly after giving birth.  That way she would be able to stay competitive from the standpoint of grant applications, which in turn would help support her tenure case. 

And if she didn’t get tenure?  Could she really pull up stakes and move elsewhere for a job?  She had a hard time imagining Marc as a “trailing spouse”.   His career was as demanding, time-intensive, and all-consuming as hers.  Plus, his family was here.  Would he really be willing to give all that up to start over with her?

She took a deep breath to ease the tightness in her chest, but it refused to budge. 
Stop being an idiot,
she chided herself.  Even thinking about the issue was premature.  Somehow she’d lost sight of the fact that her time with Marc was self-limited from the outset.  All they had agreed to was an affair.  No strings, no commitments.  They were living together on a temporary basis, and even that had dragged on beyond the necessity for it.  Her mother had moved out.  Kate’s apartment was ready to be reclaimed.  All she needed was to get her act—and her things—together, and get on with her life. 

That she’d fallen in love, and gotten pregnant, didn’t change the rules.  She’d deal with it once she was back on her home turf.  Maybe after the DiStefano gathering was out of the way.  No sense risking any fireworks before that.

She curled on her side and burrowed beneath the covers.  It took her a long time to fall asleep.

Chapter 23

The first thing that struck Kate when she and Marc arrived at his parents’ party was the noise.  Several large tents were set up on the extensive manicured lawn behind the house.  Guests milled nearby and gathered at the tables beneath the tents.  A five-piece band played oldies at one end, close to the back terrace, where an entire wall of doors was thrown open to accommodate the flow of catering staff between the kitchen and buffet tables.  Children of all ages chased each other across the grass, laughing and yelling. 

Kate hung back a bit, wary of venturing into the fray.  “I thought this was supposed to be your parents’ anniversary celebration.”

“It is.”  Marc deposited their gifts on a table already overflowing with presents, then urged her out onto the paved flagstone path beyond the terrace.  His hand felt warm and solid against her back.  “But one thing you quickly learn about the DiStefanos is that kids are always included in the festivities.”

“No adult-only entertainment?”

Marc shot her a heated look.  “We reserve that for after-hours.”

She flushed, but before she could come up with a fitting response, he continued in a bland tone.  “As you can see, we’re a rather prolific lot.  Which means that if you want to avoid complete pandemonium, you need to have plenty of distractions on hand.”

She followed his gaze toward a large castle-shaped bouncer set up beyond the tents.  A steady stream of children clambered in and out, jumping and dancing inside, under the supervision of several adults watching from the sidelines.   A handful of preschoolers sat on a colorful canvas spread nearby, giggling at the antics of a clown, while another cluster of children awaited their turn at getting their faces painted by a woman in princess costume. “All these children are related to you?”

“Maybe not all.  A few belong to friends.  But the majority—yeah, they’re ours.”  At her look of disbelief, Marc laughed.  “They’re not all DiStefanos, if that’s what you’re asking.  There are three branches of extended family that always get invited.  My mother’s older sister, Mary, and her brood—two kids, five grandkids in all.  Sophia’s family:  parents, brother, brother’s kids.  My dad’s sister, Lucia, and her kids and grandkids.  And of course Emma, Izzy, and me.”

He urged her forward and started pointing out individual faces in the crowd.  “Snow White over there is Liza.  She’s eighteen, my cousin Becky’s oldest.   The miniature pirate whose moustache she just finished is her cousin Dave.  He’s starting kindergarten this year.   Zia’s the one who just pushed him.  She’s six.  And see those teeny-boppers, pretending like they’re bored with the clown, but still hanging on to the edge of the crowd?  That’s Kevin, his sister Marissa, and their cousin Aidan.”  He paused to scan the sea of faces.  “Looks like my cousin Nick’s kids are raiding the buffet.  Nick Jr, Sam, Lucy.  And right behind them is Sara, my cousin Paul’s oldest.”

A streak of movement, accompanied by squeals of “Dada, dada!” interrupted Marc’s cataloguing of the junior family members.  To Kate’s surprise, he grinned and crouched down, catching the sturdy little body in mid-launch.  “Hiya, buddy.”

“Dada!”

Marc laughed and hefted the toddler up.  “Kate, meet Dan.
Last time I saw him he was just starting to walk.”

Kate glanced warily at the boy, who promptly stuck three fingers in his mouth and pressed closer to Marc.  Two pairs of identical blue-ringed gray eyes looked back at her.  She swallowed, a sick feeling settling in the pit of her stomach.  Had she somehow missed
a crucial connection here?  Despite the evidence before her, she balked at the idea that Marc could have had a child and failed to mention it.  Surely something that important couldn’t have remained hidden all this time.   Besides, it made no sense that a man who spoke so passionately about personal responsibility, for whom family seemed so critically important, would father a child and then leave its upbringing to someone else.  And where was the mother? 
The question stuck in her throat.

Emma took that moment to arrive, out of breath.  “Glad you made it,” she said, giving Kate a warm hug, and throwing a stern look Marc’s way.  “The elders were already starting to wonder where you were.”

“I’m on call,” Marc told her lightly.  “Had a few pages to return.”

Kate blinked, refocusing on the conversation.  Marc was covering for her.  While it was true he was on call, his pager had been silent so far.  What had actually delayed them was the inopportune recurrence of her nausea.  She didn’t know whether it was the morning sickness that seemed to strike at random times, or her apprehension about meeting Marc’s parents, or her anxiety about the looming confrontation with Marc regarding their living situation—which she had decided to finally address this weekend once the party was over.  Whatever the cause, she’d spent half the morning hugging the toilet, a solicitous Marc crouched beside her, offering her cool cloths and sips of chamomile tea. 

“I must have picked up a bug,” she told him, during a lull in the dry heaves.  “Why don’t you go without me?”

“I don’t think so.”  He studied her, eyes narrowed.  “We’ll go when you’re feeling better, or we’ll skip it.”

“You can’t skip your parents’ anniversary!”

Another wave of nausea hit, and she missed his response as she succumbed to the upheaval of her stomach. 

They’d made it out of the house, eventually.  Marc had assured her no one would notice that they were more than fashionably late.  She wondered now what was going on behind his bland expression. 

“Dada.  Dada.”  The insistent voice brought her attention back to the child in Marc’s arms.   Marc snuffled against the squirming little body, raising peals of laughter.

Emma smiled.  “See, Marc’s a natural.”  She turned to welcome a tall sandy-haired man carrying an identical toddler on his shoulders.  “Alex.  Come meet Kate.  Kate, these are my other two boys.  My husband Alex, and Dan’s brother Ben.”

“Dada.”

“You’re breaking my heart, kiddo,” Alex said.  To Kate, he explained with a rueful smile, “Apparently at this age they’re pretty indiscriminate.”

“What he means,” Emma said, “is that the vocabulary is still quite limited.  Do you know how embarrassing it is when you’re at Starbucks and one of them toddles over to some strange man and starts calling him ‘Dada’?”

The tight feeling in Kate’s chest started to ease.

“I figure I’m lucky they didn’t decide to call me ‘mama’.”
Marc grinned and blew a sloppy raspberry on Dan’s stomach before handing his giggling nephew off to Emma.  “Where are Dad and Sophia?”

Emma waved vaguely in the direction of the nearest tent. 

Their progress was slowed by multiple stops along the way as various relatives and friends waylaid them, and introductions were made.  The five-year-old wearing pirate face-paint, whom Marc had identified earlier as Dave, rushed up and tried to pull them into a game of tag.

Marc crouched down to the boy’s eye level.  “Did you eat?”

“Yep.”

“My friend Kate hasn’t eaten yet. 
I’ll feed her first, and then we’ll play.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”  Marc got up and slipped his hand into a pocket.  “Right ear or left?”