“Mommy, phone.” Toby held her cell phone out to her, and confusion clouded Meg’s thoughts.
“The phone was off.”
“I turned it on to play a game.” He thrust the phone closer to Meg.
She squinted at the touch screen, making out the contact data scrolling across the top. Mom & Dad - Home. “Shit,” she whispered.
“It’s Nanna Maura. Take it! Commercial’s ending.”
Meg just stared at the phone. Her mother? What would she say? Did she know what Meg had done?
Well, of course she did. She would have had to by now.
Meg ran her tongue over her dry lips and tilted her face up toward Seth.
His curious expression softened to…one of mercy, perhaps? He took the phone from Toby.
“Hi. This is Sergei Rozhkov. Sorry to keep you waiting. Megan has her hands full at the moment.”
Chapter 8
Silence filled the line, and finally, an elegant soprano voice said, “Mr. Rozhkov, please don’t take this personally, but you have to put yourself in my shoes. This is the second marriage of my daughter’s I’ve had no prior warning about.”
Seth cut his gaze to Meg, who was now transferring the uncooked beef into the pot and watching him as she did it.
She raised both eyebrows.
He’d always assumed that her first marriage had been well coordinated, as most everything else in her life seemed. What had happened? Did her parents discourage the match, but go along with the marriage after the fact?
Seth cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. Once things started moving, it was like trying to stop a rolling ball from going downhill.”
Was that right, or had he botched another idiom?
He looked at Meg, who nodded and grunted. “Sounds about right,” she whispered.
“Tell me—and I promise that if you want to keep it a secret, I won’t say a word—is she pregnant? Is that why you did it?”
His jaw dropped so fast the hinges creaked, but he couldn’t stop himself from staring down at her belly. Even clad in horizontal stripes, and white ones, to boot, it was flat as a board. If she were pregnant, she probably wouldn’t have had all that wine back in Bermuda.
Meg must have figured out what the conversation had turned to because she poked his shoulder with her index finger and spat, “No!”
Seth cleared his throat once more. “No, Mrs. Scott, she is not.”
“Dammit.”
“I’m sorry?”
She blew out a breath, and something on her end slammed. Suddenly, the sound of cawing seagulls filled the line. Static crackled over the din, and after about ten seconds of that, she said, “Sorry. Her father walked into the room. He lives under a rock and hasn’t heard yet. I’ll be honest with you. After Toby, she swore up and down that she wouldn’t have any more children, and it broke my heart. You’ll understand it when you’re my age and your entire legacy is one grandchild.”
Meg reached in and pressed her finger over the phone speaker. “Is she giving you the grandchild guilt?”
He nodded.
She rolled her eyes and drew back her hand.
“It’s not like Stephen’s ever going to get it together. You’ve met him. Wouldn’t you agree I should count him out?”
Seth felt the burn from that statement, and it wasn’t even about him. “Uh, I don’t know, Mrs. Scott. I’d say he has a lot going for him. He just needs to find the right woman.”
At that, Meg’s cheeks flushed a deep red, and she set down the packet of Italian seasoning she’d been fondling. Had he said the wrong thing? Embarrassed her?
“Well, I hope he does it soon. He’s the last of the line with the Scott name.”
And Seth bet Stephen would never be allowed to forget it.
“Have you talked about children at all? Stephen was coy on how long you two have been together but certainly family planning has come up at least once.”
This time when he looked at Meg, she could give him no clues, and he didn’t know which lies to tell. He hedged. “We’ve decided to let nature take its course. Whatever will be will be.”
“So, you’re not fixed?”
“I’m sorry?” He mouthed the word fixed to Meg.
She closed her eyes and sighed.
When she opened her eyes again, she pointed to his crotch and brought one hand down in a bladelike motion toward the other one.
Oh. “No, Mrs. Scott, as far as I know, I’m intact.” He felt dirty even discussing it with his sorta-wife’s mother. His mother-in-law.
“Good to hear. Maybe you’ll have an accident.”
“Um…”
Meg grabbed the phone.
“Hello, Mother. I’m going to take a wild-ass guess that whatever you just said to my husband was either offensive, obscene, or far too forward. Which was it?” She walked off with the phone, and Seth stood reeling.