Reclaiming His Bride (DiCarlo Brides book 3) (The DiCarlo Brides) (8 page)

“I’m always happy to have you join us,” Blake said. As always, his southern manners were impeccable. “Bless Lana’s heart for thinking to ask you.” He added more drawl to his words than usual. The colloquialism was more suited to a little old lady than to him, but he made his point well enough.

Lana managed not to smile. But only just. “I’m very thoughtful like that.” She opened the menu and selected a breakfast of fresh fruit. The baby was behaving at the moment, but there was no reason to antagonize it with greasy food.

Conversation stayed away from her relationship through the meal—thanks to Sage’s presence—and they managed to discuss what had happened the previous evening without Sage insisting that ghosts were real—a success in Lana’s book. After they said goodbye to her sister, Lana and Blake walked side by side down the hall to housekeeping.

“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” Blake asked.

“Sometimes. Though it’s not so much cleverness as self-preservation.” She checked her watch, thinking of everything that needed to be done when this situation was cleared up.

“You don’t trust yourself alone with me? Afraid to risk your virtue?” Blake asked.

She glared at him. “Don’t start with me.”

“Fine.” He opened the door to housekeeping, and they found Vanessa talking to one of the guys in maintenance. She motioned that she’d seen them, finished her instructions and turned back to them. “Graciela’s down the hall; let me go with you.” She stood from the desk and followed them into the hall. “What happened, you never said last night.”

Blake filled her in as they walked down the hall. They found the laundry cart in front of room 233. Lana stuck her head into the room and spotted Graciela, a sweet young woman from Belize who always had a smile and greeting for everyone around her.

“Graciela, could we speak with you for a minute?” Lana entered the hotel room, followed by Blake and Vanessa.

“Is something wrong?” Graciela’s accent was thick, though her English was quite good.

“Could we see your key card?” Lana asked.

Graciela looked embarrassed and glanced at her companion, then back at Lana. “I don’t know where it is.”

Julia came around the bed and put a hand on Graciela’s arm. “She lost it sometime yesterday.” Her eyes flashed to Vanessa, who had a frown on her face. “We hoped she’d accidentally left it in one of the housekeeping carts, but we haven’t found it so far. Did you find it somewhere?”

“No. It appears someone else found it.” Blake’s face was serious. “Someone else used your key card to play a practical joke on a guest.” He asked several questions, trying to figure out when and where it was lost, and managed to narrow it down to a short period the previous day.

He made eye contact with both of them. “Joel is checking the cameras to see what happened last night, and he’ll see if he can figure out who picked it up. Keep closer track of your key cards, okay? That’s a major liability for us if someone gets a hold of one and uses it to steal from the rooms.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Vanessa said to them both, her mouth drawn in a thin line.

They left the two maids. “Is it easy enough to prove?” Vanessa asked.

“It ought to be, but whoever is doing this is pretty skilled. They’ve been playing with the cameras and who knows what else.” Lana was a little surprised Joel hadn’t caught them yet. Of course, he’d been a bit distracted with other, slightly more pressing problems until a couple of weeks earlier. Namely, Sage’s stalker.

“We’ll let you know what Joel finds out,” Blake said.

“Good. I’m embarrassed that one of my maids lost her card.” Vanessa clasped her hands in front of her, and her face was pinched, making her look much older than her forty years.

Blake and Lana went to the security office to see what Joel found out.

“I’ve checked the video,” he said. “There wasn’t anything there—not even the guest leaving her room. We knew the person behind this has been messing with the cameras upstairs. Apparently they messed with the ones on that floor too. It’s not a common skill, but I’ve been through the list of employees, checked their backgrounds, and I don’t think there are any who have the ability.”

“Dead end, then.” Lana said. This problem didn’t seem to be getting better.

Lana rinsed her mouth to get the bile out, then spit the water into the sink before taking a clean mouthful to drink. She couldn’t wait until this trimester was over. She was sick and tired of being sick and tired. She adjusted her clothing and fixed the smudged makeup by her eyes where she had teared up—as she always did when she vomited—then stepped back into her bedroom.

Rosemary sat on the bed, an eel-shaped throw pillow on her lap.

“Hi, what are you doing in here?” Lana wondered if Rosemary had heard her vomiting and if she was going to go all protective on her.

“I could hear you puking from my bathroom downstairs. As I quite often do at this time of morning.” Rosemary set the pillow out of the way and patted the empty spot beside her. The quiet, tactful move surprised Lana; Rosemary wasn’t known for her tact.

Lana sat beside her. “It’s really nothing you need to worry about.”

“Of course, because pregnancy is totally natural, so why should I worry about you puking your guts out every morning, pushing yourself at a killing pace all day, then falling asleep over paperwork in the evening? You never give it a rest.”

Though she opened her mouth to protest, Lana couldn’t. It actually felt good to have someone to talk to—though she wasn’t sure Rosemary was the one she would have picked, given the choice. She glanced over and saw the door to the hall was closed and felt grateful this was at least private. “I sometimes fall asleep at my desk, actually. And I snuck home for a nap on Monday. It makes me feel like a slacker,” she admitted.

“That makes me feel a little better. You need to take care of yourself—unless you don’t intend to keep it.” Rosemary sent her a sideways look.

Lana found herself covering her flat stomach with her hand, as if to protect her child. “Of course I’m keeping it. It’s my baby!”

“Your call. I won’t judge you either way.” Rosemary smirked a little. “The question is whether or not Blake knows he’s going to be a father.”

Swear words escaped and Lana wondered just how transparent she’d been. “What is it with you people? Seriously. I thought we were being far more discreet than that—I mean there’s really nothing going on with us right now.”

Rosemary laughed out loud. “If there’s nothing between you, it’s one of the most interesting nothings I’ve ever seen. You try so hard to act professional, but the personal chemistry just seethes every time you’re together. Who else mentioned it?”

Lana wished she hadn’t said anything. “Cami. But if both of you noticed, surely everyone else has by now as well. No one keeps anything from Sage, no matter how hard they try, and the others aren’t exactly morons, either.”

“The sisters would know, yes. Vince for sure. Joel never misses a trick.” Rosemary leaned back on her elbows as she considered the list. “And Alex seems to know everything about everyone—that’s Dad’s fault, probably. I bet Harrison is blind to it, though.” She seemed to get an unnatural amount of joy out of that.

“Great. Why don’t I just hang a neon sign on my forehead?” Might as well anyway, except she and Blake were getting a divorce. And having a baby. And she
still
didn’t know how to tell him.

“So tell me when it happened?” Rosemary prodded after a moment. “You haven’t exactly been going on dates. Not that you need to
date
to get pregnant, but a quickie in the office doesn’t seem your style.”

“No, it’s not,” Lana jumped in, not wanting Rosemary to follow that thought any further. “It only happened once. The night of the grand opening.”

“You tried so hard to pretend you were thrilled about the celebration,” Rosemary tugged at a pucker on a curve of the eel pillow. “I think part of you was excited, but you were upset, too. Missing your mom. And missing Dad—we all do, even if we don’t admit it. The old letch.” Her lips tipped a little and her voice took on an edge of fondness.

“Your mom didn’t come,” Lana pointed out, curious and hoping for details. Rosemary hadn’t made a comment one way or the other about that, and she never talked about her mom. Ever.

“No. But we’re not discussing me, we’re talking about you.” Rosemary shifted to face Lana better. “So you guys had a little recreational time together that night?” Her brows wiggled. “Did you have something going on before we all came here?”

Lana felt her face flush. She wasn’t a prude, but she wasn’t used to discussing this kind of thing, either. “We had a thing last winter.” She squeezed her eyes shut and knew she needed to come out with it. Eventually everyone would know—it was a miracle it hadn’t been revealed during the media frenzy over the summer. “Don’t tell anyone else, because I’m not ready, and Cami doesn’t deserve to hear it third hand, but we eloped last January.” She held her breath for a second, waiting for Rosemary’s response, but she didn’t say anything. Lana peeped over at her, but Rosemary looked stunned, uncharacteristically speechless, in fact.

“We were in Vegas for a hotel convention and got a little tipsy and just got married on the spur of the moment. But then we didn’t tell anyone and I caught him cheating a couple of weeks later and now we’re haggling over divorce papers.” She said the last part in a rush, wanting to get it all out before Rosemary could regain her power of speech.

“Whoa. You guys are married? Really? And he cheated on you? I’m seriously going to pound him to a pulp.” Rosemary stood as if she were going to do so right that minute, then whirled around and faced Lana in disbelief. “And then you
slept
with him again? You need to work on your self-control, sister.”

“I know!” Lana put her face in her hands. “I was lonely and sad, and again, more than a little tipsy, and he looked so good and when he kissed me—Rosemary, his kisses just make my knees melt and I couldn’t help myself. I’ve never felt that way with anyone else—ever. I want so badly to believe in him and to trust him when he says nothing happened with Fiona, but I just can’t take the chance.” She peeked out between her fingers. “Do you think this is the way Dad charmed all of our mothers?”

“Okay, first off,
Fiona
? Really? I didn’t know they named people things like that. I thought that was strictly for cartoon characters.”

Lana snorted in amusement. “I wouldn’t have thought they named people Delphinium if our sister didn’t get stuck with it.”

“True. But Fiona is such a floozy name. Seriously.” Rosemary waved her hand in emphasis. “And what do you think happened between him and
Fiona
, if he’s claiming it was nothing?”

Lana remembered the way Fiona had latched onto Blake’s arm, looking over his shoulder, and the way he’d touched her hand. Lana had turned away then, jealousy and despair eating at her. “It wasn’t like I caught him en flagrante, or anything, but they were cuddling up together in public. It was disgusting.”

“And heartbreaking.” Rosemary’s voice was filled with sympathy.

“Who are you?” Lana turned eyes on Rosemary. “I thought you were supposed to be the devil-may-care damn-all-men sister. What has you all mushy and nice? Do you need something? Like medication to put you back to normal?”

Rosemary stood and threw her hands up and swore. “I can’t believe you. I try to show a little sympathy and you think I have an ulterior motive?”

Lana wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “Okay, sorry, it’s just I’ve never seen you like this.” Everything was upside down and topsy-turvy at the moment.

“I can be nice. I have feelings too, you know. I like who I am most of the time, but sometimes I can be a friend too. And you’re in a bad spot.” Rosemary turned toward the window, from which Lana could just make out the upper edge of the hotel as it peeked above the trees. “And I’m spoiling for a fight, so I’d love to have a round with Blake about cheating on you.”

Lana was amused and a little touched, even though she told herself she shouldn’t be. “If you want to have a fight, go pick on Harrison. The two of you have seriously got to learn to get along. Leave Blake to me.”

Rosemary sat again, setting a hand on Lana’s knee. “So does he know?”

Lana wet her lips, not wanting to admit it. “No. It hasn’t been long since I found out. I haven’t told him. I don’t know how.”

“You’re have to do it soon. You’ll probably be showing by Christmas. It would be good if he didn’t find out the first time you wear maternity clothing.”

Lana put a hand to her stomach. “Maternity clothing? Don’t even say that. I’ll have to buy a whole new wardrobe.”

“So?” Rosemary shrugged. “You probably love clothes shopping. You’re always going gaga over a pair of boots in magazines—and I’ve seen your closet. You have enough shoes to fit every woman in this town.”

“It’s not that bad, and that’s boots, shoes—not clothes. I hate clothes shopping. Nothing fits quite right and all of the business-appropriate suits drive me a little crazy. I could have clothes tailored, but I hate standing for fittings. And then it’s going to come out that Blake and I are married, and the whole scandal thing will start all over again—as if the mess with the ‘ghost’ isn’t bad enough.”