Page 68 of Ten Beach Road

Twenty-two

Maddie sat next to Kyra in the ob-gyn’s office they’d been referred to by their GP in Atlanta, waiting for Kyra’s name to be called. Kyra had come reluctantly. “I feel fine, Mom. The morning sickness is over, and I don’t feel all that tired anymore.”

She didn’t seem to understand the importance of prenatal care or preparing for the baby’s future, but then Kyra had always been more of a dreamer than a planner. As demonstrated by her apparent faith that despite all evidence to the contrary, everything would simply work itself out.

“Did you hear what Deirdre said about Tonja Kay?”

“Hmmm?” Maddie was pulling out the order forms forAmerican BabyandParentingmagazines. She planned to stop at the bookstore and buy Kyra a copy ofWhat to Expect When You’re Expectingon the way home. She could still remember how eagerly she’d read each chapter and marked off each developmental milestone when she’d been pregnant with Ky and then Andrew all those years ago. “I’m sorry?”

“I said, I think it’s a really positive sign that Tonja has moved out. Daniel told me he loved me and that they were only still together because their publicists insisted on it.”

Maddie slipped the forms in her purse and pushed the magazines aside. “I hate for you to pin your future happiness on someone else’s marriage falling apart, Kyra,” Madeline said. “I don’t care who they are or why they’re together. Marriage is meant to be a sacred vow.”

The phrase “for better or for worse” flitted through her mind. She and Steve had had a lot of “better” and only now were dealing with the “worse.” Kyra was starting out backward; what sort of mother would she be if she allowed her daughter to hold on to such hollow hope? “Have you even heard from him?” She still couldn’t bring herself to refer to the movie star by his first name. Her daughter had no such problem.

“No, but I’m sure that’s because Daniel doesn’t even know where I am. His people won’t take a message.” Kyra said this with absolute certainty as if it were just a matter of logistics that needed to be circumvented.

“And you don’t think that means something?” Maddie asked, trying and failing to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

“It means he’s not getting my messages.”

“Kyra, honey. If he loved you, wouldn’t he be asking if there were messages? Better yet, wouldn’t he be calling you?”

Her chin quivered the tiniest bit.

“You have the same phone number, Kyra. You are completely reachable. And it’s not like you’re not checking your voice mail constantly.” Kyra flinched at that, but Maddie was determined to make her see reason. She needed to be facing reality and preparing for the future.

“He’s busy with the film. You don’t know how it is for him,” Kyra said. “Always surrounded by people, everything handled and intercepted. His life isn’t his own and neither is his schedule.”

She could feel Kyra clinging to her fantasy and rationalizations. She actually believed, or wanted to believe, that she and Daniel could be out of touch for months and somehow, suddenly and miraculously, he would appear and proclaim his love for her and their child—a child he didn’t even know existed.

“Well, he seemed to find enough alone time to get you pregnant. Or did his people schedule that for him?”

Kyra gasped in shock and outrage, but Madeline did not, could not, let that stop her.

“Kyra, this is not a movie you’re in. And Daniel Deranian is not going to ride in on a white horse and carry you and your child off into the sunset.”

“Not my child,” she said. “Our child. And that’s only because he doesn’t know about it.”

Maddie closed her eyes against Kyra’s foolish certainty; somehow she had to get through to her. “This is real life, Ky. And it can turn hard and gritty practically overnight. If he loved you as you seem to think he does, he’d be here with you. Or at the very least in touch with you and making plans.”

“Like Dad is for you?” It was a taunt, cruel and intentional.

Madeline flinched at the truth of it as she was intended to. “I hope to God your father is going to come through. We have twenty-five years of being there for each other, which gives me real reason to believe that this will still happen.” She held Kyra’s gaze with her own, refusing to let her look away. “What do you have?” she asked quietly. “A couple of weeks of sex with a celebrity on a movie set for which you lost your job and now face a completely altered life as a single mother.” She paused to let her words sink in. “How many months are you going to spend hoping the sex was good enough to motivate him to figure out where you are? And whatever makes you think he’s going to care about or help support your child when he didn’t have enough conscience or honor to keep his marriage vows?”

There was a dead silence as the bomb she’d dropped detonated. Maddie could read the direct hit in her daughter’s stunned eyes.

“Kyra Singer?” The nurse walked into the waiting room and looked around expectantly.

Maddie gathered her purse and began to stand, but Kyra hissed at her to stop. “No,” she said as she rose. “I don’t want you in there thinking your poison about Daniel and me. You can just leave if you want to. I’ll find my way back to the house.”

Maddie began to protest. “I only wanted to make sure you understood your situation. You can’t . . .”

“Oh, I understand all right. And I’m not interested in hearing another word of it. If you are here when I come out, this conversation is over. I’ll help you with the house and we’ll be civil to each other. But I won’t listen to any more of your opinions about Daniel.” She drew a breath and squared her shoulders. “Do you understand?”

Maddie nodded. But she could barely swallow the tears that rose up to clog her throat as her daughter turned her back and followed the nurse through the doorway and down the hall. She looked at the empty seat on the other side of her and knew Kyra’s words wouldn’t have been half as painful if Steve had heard them, too.

Deirdre had apparently given the good-looking fisherman free access to the house; not that he would have needed her permission, given his training and the fact that the only upstairs room with a door was the lone working bathroom. The package Nikki found on her bed contained a list of charitable organizations and the amount of money each had lost to Malcolm Dyer. There were pictures, too, many of them of Malcolm entering or leaving banks in tropical-looking countries or lounging in elegant settings. He looked well dressed and well rested—not at all like someone grappling with his conscience or suffering from remorse.

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