Park Avenue Secrets: Marriage, Manhattan Style

“Hanna said I looked sexy.”

He grinned. “Just how drunk are you?”

She giggled. Then she tilted her chin in determination. “I am getting a job.”

“We’ll talk about that in the morning.”

Her expression changed, and she reached out to him. “Please, make me pregnant tonight.” And then her arms went limp, slinking down to the bed, and her body relaxed into sleep.

“Not like this,” he whispered, smoothing back her hair and kissing her on the forehead. “Never like this.”

He gently removed the rest of her clothes, and tucked her under the covers, stepping back to gaze at her beauty and vulnerability. His cell phone rang, and he quickly opened it, afraid of disturbing her. But she didn’t even stir.

Still, he kept his voice low and moved out of the room. “Hello?”

“It’s Collin. Selina’s at my place.”

Reed glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty. “Is anything wrong?”

“Can you come down?”

“Why don’t you come up here. Elizabeth’s asleep.” For some reason, Reed didn’t want to leave her alone right now.

“Good enough. Be right up,” said Collin, signing off.

Reed pocketed his cell phone then pulled the bedroom door closed. Odds were, they’d completely missed their window of opportunity for this month. Because, he expected it to be twenty-four hours before Elizabeth was feeling remotely romantic again.

And she’d be upset about that.

Well, he was upset, too.

In fact, he was beginning to feel bone weary. The blackmail, the murder, the SEC, all the usual problems at Wellington International. Added to that, his father’s values and the persistent infertility trouble were wearing him down. He needed to fix something, anything. But he was operating on every front and, so far, it was to no avail.

For the first time in Reed’s life, he wondered if hard work and ingenuity would be enough.

There was a light knock on the front door, and he crossed the foyer to answer it, escorting Collin and Selina to his home office where they took seats around a polished black table.

Reed directed the conversation. “I thought you had somebody on Elizabeth,” he told Selina.

She looked startled. “I do.”

“She went downtown today. I need a report on things like that.”

She jotted down a note in her book. “Sure.”

Collin looked at him strangely. “Did something happen while Elizabeth was downtown?” he asked.

“She visited a friend. But I didn’t know where she was.”

“Just to be clear,” Selina added. “Do you want a report on Mrs. Wellington’s daily activities or on potential threats?”

Reed took in the expressions on their faces. “I’m not spying on my wife,” he protested. But neither did he want her wandering around drunk downtown when there might be a murderer on the loose.

“Perhaps if we changed the nature of the operation,” suggested Selina. “Put Joe a little closer to Mrs. Wellington. Say, as her driver? That way, he doesn’t have to stay concealed, and he can report to you at intervals.”

“I like it,” said Reed. “What else do you have?”

“Kendrick,” said Collin.

“You found him?”

Collin shook his head. “He’s still in Washington, elusive as ever. But some more information has come to light.”

“Does it help us?”

Collin and Selina glanced at each other.

“Unfortunately,” said Collin, “Hammond and Pysanski also invested in Ellias and made a bundle.”

“But, they’re—”

“Kendrick’s former business partners.”

Reed rocked back in his chair.

“It does look pretty bad,” said Selina.

Reed couldn’t help but defend himself. “Do you honestly think that if I were going to put together a conspiracy to insider trade, that this would be my master plan? A senator giving a heads up on a contract award to four of his closest associates, hoping nobody would notice? It’s lame-ass. It’s beyond stupid.”

Collin leaned forward, eyes hard as he mimicked Reed. “‘I’m a smarter criminal than that, Your Honor.’ Is that really going to be the cornerstone of your defense?”

“You got a better one?”

“Not at the moment. But if I don’t come up with something better than that, Harvard Law School wasted a lot of time and money on me.”

“I want this behind me,” Reed growled. “There are problems cropping up in the Irish merger, and Germany is talking about changing their safety standards. I don’t have time for distractions.”

“I’m meeting with the SEC tomorrow,” said Selina.

“Take Collin with you.”

Something twitched in her expression.

“What?” asked Reed.

She hesitated. “Sometimes Collin cramps my style.”

Reed felt his hands curl involuntarily into fists. “There are problems between you two?”