Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(38)
How many of them Vanessa would come in contact with during her stay was left to be seen, but one thing she did know was that she would treat them a heck of a lot better than Eleanor did. She would treat them like actual human beings rather than servants or robots programmed to be seen, but not heard, and to do exactly as they were told—nothing more and nothing less.
Coming around to her side of the Mercedes, Marc popped the trunk, then tossed his keys to the kid in the short red jacket that marked him as a Keller Manor employee. It even had a gold crest of sorts embroidered over the left breast pocket.
“We aren’t traveling light,” Marc told him, one corner of his mouth twisting upward. “But it all goes in my suite.”
Vanessa opened her mouth to correct him. Marc had brought a single overnight case with him, while all the rest of the belongings filling the car were hers or Danny’s. And they definitely did not belong in Marc’s rooms.
But he apparently knew what she was about to say, because he pressed his index finger to her mouth, effectively cutting off her disagreement.
“They go in my rooms,” he said again, so that only she could hear. “You and Danny will be staying there with me while we’re here. No arguments.”
Marc might be high-handed and controlling, but just because he said “no arguments” didn’t mean she wasn’t going to give him one. She opened her mouth again to do just that, but he covered her lips with a quick, hard kiss.
“No arguments,” he repeated a shade more sternly. “It will be better for everyone involved. Trust me on this, okay?”
She so didn’t want to. There was something deeply ingrained in her since their divorce that made her not want to trust him or listen to him or even believe a word he said.
But the fact was, she did trust him. Sharing a suite with him would be awkward and uncomfortable, but considering where this particular suite of rooms was located—inside the dreaded Keller mansion—it might actually be safer than staying in a room of her own. In addition to being quite spacious, Marc’s suite also happened to be the one they’d lived in together while they were married, so at least she would be in a familiar setting.
“Fine,” she muttered, slightly distracted by the lingering remnants of his kiss. He tasted of mint, and she could have sworn it was of the mentholated variety, because her lips were still tingling from the contact, however brief.
“Good,” he replied, looking much too pleased with himself for her peace of mind. Then he scooped Danny out of her arms, tucking him against his own chest. “Now let’s go inside and introduce our son to the rest of his family.”
At that, Vanessa’s stomach started to pitch and roll again, but Marc reached for her hand and the warmth of his fingers clasping hers was as calming as a glass of merlot. Well, almost. She was still jittery and her breathing was shallow as they stepped through the wide, white double front doors.
Built of redbrick and tall, Grecian columns, the entire mansion looked like a throwback to Gone with the Wind’s Tara—pre-Civil War destruction, of course. Secretly, however, Vanessa had always thought Marc’s mother was trying to compete with a much larger residence, like the White House. And was winning.
Just inside the main entrance, the foyer sparkled like the lobby of a grand hotel. The parquet floor had been waxed to a high gloss. The chandelier hanging overhead glittered with polish and a thousand bits of glass shaped like teardrops reflecting the light of another thousand brightly lit bulbs.
In the center of the floor, an enormous display of freshly cut flowers rested on a sizeable marble table. And behind that, a wide, curved staircase was only one of the many ways to get to the second floor and opposite wings of the house.
It all looked exactly as it had the day Vanessa had left. Even the bouquet, which was large enough to bring Seabiscuit to his knees, was the same. Oh, they were different flowers, she was sure; Eleanor had new ones delivered every morning for the entire house. But they were the same type of flowers, the same colors, the very same arrangement.
She’d been gone a year. A year in which just about everything in her life had changed substantially. But if not even the flowers in the Keller’s foyer had changed, she had little hope that anything—or anyone—else under the mansion’s million-dollar roof had.
They didn’t have coats, so the butler who had opened the door for them moved on down the long hallway to one side of the stairwell—likely to alert his mistress to their arrival. Seconds later, he returned to help the young man who was unloading the car carry their things to Marc’s suite.
A moment after they disappeared upstairs, Eleanor emerged from her favorite parlor.
“Marcus, darling,” she greeted Marc—and only Marc.
At the sound of her ex-mother-in-law’s voice, Vanessa’s heart lurched and she murmured a quick prayer asking for the strength and patience to get through this agonizing visit with the Wicked Witch of Western Pennsylvania.
The witch in question was dressed in a beige skirt and jacket over a pristine white blouse, all of which likely cost more than The Sugar Shack’s monthly profits. Her hair was a perfect brownish-blond bob and her diamond jewelry—earrings, necklace, lapel pin and one ring—all matched and were no doubt very, very real. Eleanor Keller would never stoop to wearing cubic zirconia or costume jewelry, not even on an ordinary, uneventful weekday.
“Mother,” Marc returned, leaning in to peck each of the older woman’s cheeks. Bouncing Danny slightly in his arms, he added, “Meet your newest grandchild, Daniel Marcus.”