And against all prudent admonitions to remain judicious in her response to the Fersten charm until their discussion was concluded, she couldn't help but return his grin. “Thank you, Mr. Fersten. May I return the compliment. I've never seen your hair so perfectly combed.”

“I bought a comb today as an indication of the full extent of my commitment.”

“I'm flattered.”

“Good. In that case,” he said with a smile, “my ten dollars wasn't wasted. I hope you're ready now, because I can't guarantee this veneer of perfection very long. Once I move, it may shatter.” And he shook his head suddenly, as if breaking free of the stifling ideal, his burnished gold hair rearranging itself to its familiar disorder.

He was cheerful on their way downstairs as if the past week hadn't intervened in their relationship. He filled her in on the progress of the film, as well as on Egon's current state of health. “I flew down overnight to see him day before yesterday. The doctors are running additional tests, trying to decide how to operate.”

“I'm happy he's feeling better,” Molly replied in a polite tone, but her stomach did a brief flip-flop as she visualized Sylvie greeting Carey. Even with Molly in the same room, she'd had no compunction about falling into his arms. How close had she been two days ago, with Molly a thousand miles away?

“I talked to Papa this morning,” Carey said, opening the outside door for her, “and he misses Carrie. By the way, where is she?” He had expected his daughter to greet him, since eight o'clock was well before her bedtime.

“She's sleeping over with Lucy. Lucy has a new video game they've been trying to master the last few days.”

“Does Pooh need one?”

“No,” she said too quickly, her tone as abrupt as a treaty negotiator determined not to relinquish another foot of motherland soil. Immediately embarrassed at her rudeness, she added in a more moderate voice, “Actually, she's waiting for some new model due out next fall. Maybe then.”

“I miss her,” Carey said quietly, haunted the past few days not only by his differences with Molly but by unwelcome thoughts of possibly losing his daughter.

She had no response. Carrie had been asking for her father all week.

“Where's Carey?” her daughter had asked.

“Gone.”

“Are you two fighting again?”

Molly hadn't answered for a moment, trying to formulate an acceptable reply. Although she had expected Carrie to begin one of her curious Freudian interpretations, she had merely said, “I miss him, Mom.” And she didn't sound adult at all, she sounded like a little nine-year-old girl who missed her dad.

“It was only a week,” Molly replied to Carey, a touch of defensiveness in her voice.

“You're right,” he lied. “The week flew by.”

Paradoxically, his casual reply was as irritating as a complaint would have been, and Molly took brief mental pause to consider her irrationality. Everything had been irritating her lately, she reflected, as though her world had tipped askew.

As Carey opened the garden gate, she stepped through and saw the parked car. It was small and sleek and expensive.

“No limo?” she remarked, immediately wanting to bite her tongue at the pettish insult.

“I wanted to be alone with my girl,” Carey replied, his smile ignoring the peevishness of her tone, and she was handed into the low vehicle with faultless courtesy.

Short moments later, Carey slid into the driver's seat, brought the powerful engine to life, and deftly wheeled the car out into traffic.

Molly glanced around the beautiful hand-crafted interior, its walnut dash panels waxed to a soft luster, the smell of leather mingling with Carey's faintly woodsy cologne. “This must be yours. They don't rent these in town do they?”

Carey shrugged, intent on the driver ahead of him, whose left signal was flashing while he exited right onto the freeway entrance. Downshifting around the slow-moving car, he replied with his familiar reticence, “It's mine I think… You'd have to ask Allen.”

“You don't know if it's your car?” She was vaguely offended by his casual admission.

“Look, Honeybear,” Carey replied, glancing over at her briefly, his dark eyes reflective, “I hear the warning whistles of temper. I wish I could give you the right answer, but I own several production companies and corporations. I can't personally keep track of everything and still devote the time I want to making movies. Allen directs all those things for me so I can concentrate on the films.”

“Will he be taking care of me, as well?” She shouldn't have said that; she should have waited for a calm period after dinner when they were sipping liqueurs. But then, she'd never had much restraint.

“Of course not,” he said cordially.

“And I'd appreciate someone telling me when Phoenix Limited decides to pay my bills.” She sounded like a petulant child, but his extreme tranquillity was provoking her. I'm paying you back every penny.”

“Suit yourself, Honeybear.”

There. That same placid tone as though he were dealing with a child. And no acknowledgment of the two hundred thousand dollars he'd paid on her note. Although, she thought, nettled by his calm, two hundred thou was probably pocket change for him. “I mean it, Carey.” She didn't want to hear another word in that condescending tone of his; she didn't want someone taking care of her. “I want to run my own life!”

He pulled the car over to the curb and stopped in a few short seconds. Gently taking her hands in his, Carey said, “No one wants to run your life, Honeybear. I only want to share it with you. Stay with me. Love me. Be the mother of my child. Let me make you happy. And we'll work it out any way you say.”

Molly could feel the tears filling the back of her throat. “I'm sorry,” she whispered, feeling her face flush hotly. His wealth, heritage, and profession couldn't simply be nullified because the distinction between her life and his was an issue. “It's been only Carrie and me the last few years and that old factory building that's home and work and recreation… and maybe my own pilgrimage toward freedom. Now suddenly I'm up against a conglomerate with production companies and film corporations and-” She took a gulping breath to still the turmoil in her mind and stomach. “You see, it's not just Carey Fersten the boy I fell in love with, but… everything else that goes with him. I'm not good,” she said, a small winsome smile curving the beauty of her mouth, “with publicity people.”

“You don't have to be.”

“I don't want photographers hounding me.”

“I'll see that they don't.”

“Carrie needs a normal life-without terrorists.”

“I'll make it normal. I'll do anything I have to. I mean to keep you this time, Honeybear. I won't lose you again.”

“Just tell me,” she softly pleaded, “I won't be overwhelmed by your business and entourage and threats to our lives. And Sylvie,” she murmured in a whisper, wanting to add “and all the other women.”

“Everything will be reconciled, I promise. I love you and you love me. Nothing else matters. Now tell me you love me. I need to know every five minutes for the rest of my life.”

“I love you,” she whispered, fighting back the tumult of her emotions.

“I love you, Honeybear, more than anything.”

And then she threw up all over the burled walnut dashboard.

Carey held her head as she bent over to empty the rest of her stomach on the plush wool carpeting. When it was over, he helped her sit upright again, silently wiping her face dry with his linen handkerchief. Reaching into the back storage area, he pulled out a bottle of spring water, opened it, and handed it to her.

She smiled her appreciation, took a sip, and rinsed her mouth.

Taking the bottle from her hand, he recapped it, then set it on the floor behind his seat. He slipped a gentle finger under her chin and asked, “Do you have something to tell me?”

Molly looked into his earnest dark eyes, her own expression both bewildered and alarmed. “No,” she whispered, horrified. “You're wrong.”

His dark brows, so dramatic in contrast to his hair, rose in mild incredulity. “Wrong?” he returned very gently. “Again?”

“Absolutely,” she whispered. “Positively.” But there was more than a hint of tentativeness in the last word.

He didn't reply, but his eyes were alight with pleasure. After a moment of silence, he patted her hand, a tender, smoothing caress, and said, “I'll be right back.”

She watched him dodge two cars as he ran across the street, then push through the heavy bronze doors of an elegant hotel. Returning in less than five minutes, he pulled Molly from the car, escorted her into the hotel through the magnificent lobby, and took her in the elevator to the top floor. Still without a word, he unlocked the hotel room door, walked her through a sitting room decorated with hunting prints, through a brocade and gilded bedroom, into a bathroom that would have done justice to Nero. Opening the glass shower door, he pushed her in, followed her and shoved the gold embellished door shut. Taking her by the shoulders, he pressed her gently against the tiled wall. He moved his hands upwards until they rested on the emerald tile, palms down and braced on either side of her head. “You're not getting out of here until you tell me what that little episode in the car was all about,” he said.

“You mean about me running my own life?” she said in a very small voice.

He shook his head.

“You mean about the publicity people?” Sublimation at its finest.

“Hey, I've got all night.”

“I'm going to faint,” Molly whispered.

“I'll hold you up. Now, sweetheart, the question that takes home the grand prize,” he gently posed, his powerful body so close she could feel his warmth. “Are you pregnant?”

“I can't be.”

“Any good reason why not?”

Her eyes were wide. “It hasn't been very long.”

He could barely hear her voice. “It only takes once,” he gently said. Lifting his hands away from the wall, he brushed the silky weight of her hair behind her ears and held her face tenderly cupped in his hand. “And I stopped counting a long time ago.”

“I don't think so.” She felt sick again, as if her body disputed her statement.

“Lord, you're naive, Honeybear. Why the hell can't you be?” he murmured. “It's pretty natural, after all, unless they've changed the rules without telling me.”

Looking up into his gorgeous eyes lit with an inner glow of happiness, she asked in a hushed voice, “Do you think I am?”

“I sure as hell hope you are,” Carey replied, his own brand of raw vitality burning through his deep voice. His pulse raced with an excitement he'd never felt before. “It's time Pooh had a brother or sister, and if I'd known of her existence, I'd have barged into your life long ago and insisted on it-husbands be damned. You've always been mine, Honeybear. We both should have admitted it years ago.”

She touched him then, as if touching him made it all real, her hands reaching up, cool and slender, to rest on his temples and shiny hair. She could feel a warm pulse beneath her palms.

“You're cold,” he said with concern, covering her hands with his.

“I'm happy.”

“I'll keep you warm.” And then his brows drew together in alarm. “Do you feel all right?”

She nodded. “I should have known,” she said quietly, as if thinking aloud, “but I thought my nausea was because of all the… well, frenzy and commotion lately.”

“Instead, it was me and my wanting you so badly that first night at Ely Lake.”

“I wanted you more.”

“We both wanted what we'd missed all those years.”

“And after you-we-found out Carrie was yours…”

He grinned. “Yeah… so what did you expect, Ms. Darian?”

“You don't mind then? I mean, I never even thought…” She blushed. “Although I suppose I should have. But-if I am, do you mind?”

“Mind?” He took a deep breath, then released it slowly, his eyes filling with tears. He'd be here this time for the first smile and the baby's first unsteady steps, for the first soft cooing word and the first day of school-all the precious milestones he'd missed with Carrie. “I thought I'd never have children of my own,” he said in a whisper, “and now, Honeybear, you're going to give me two. Mind?” He swallowed hard and wondered how to fully express the sweeping scope of his joy. “Let me give you the universe wrapped in a silver bow,” he said, jubilation in the rich timbre of his voice.

“I don't want the universe, I only want you.”

“Ask for something.” He was elated, dizzy with rarefied happiness. “Everyone always asks for something.” That he fully accepted. “Diamonds at least or a villa.”