Park Avenue Scandals. Maureen Child

big a coward?” she asked herself and was half-afraid of the answer.

      “Mail’s here.” Amanda strode into the breakfast room, dropped a stack of envelopes onto the table and headed for her bedroom. “I’ve got an appointment with a nervous bride in about an hour. Her prospective mother-in-law is trying to arrange the wedding her way. Hello, red flag, blushing bride! Run for the hills!” She shrugged, grinned and said, “Should be interesting.”

      As an event planner, Amanda was always rushing to and from meetings with clients, suppliers and site committees. She was wearing a dark red business suit that looked amazing on her. As she walked away, she smiled over her shoulder and said, “Let me know if there’s anything in that stack for me.”

      Julia dutifully flipped through the envelopes. Bills, circulars, party invitations … She stopped when she came to one without a stamp or postmark. It was addressed to Julia Prentice, but there was no street address on the envelope, only her name. Frowning, she broke the seal, took out the single sheet of paper and read the all-too-brief message.

      Ms. Prentice—I know about your baby. If you don’t want the world to know, wire one million dollars to this Grand Cayman account. You have one week to comply.

      There was an account number listed below the message, but obviously, no signature. A blackmail letter? Julia’s hands shook, then fisted on the single page of paper. Who was behind this? Someone in the building? Someone she thought of as a friend? Apart from herself, no one but Amanda and Max knew about the baby. Max didn’t believe her about it, and Amanda would never betray her.

      So how had this … person found out? Had someone been listening at the Park Café? Had she been overheard despite her attempts to keep her conversation quiet? Concentrating, despite the rush of adrenaline inside her, she racked her brain, trying to remember the faces of the other patrons at the café the night before. But she couldn’t. She’d been too engrossed in her own thoughts. Too wrapped up in her own world and situation to take note of anyone else around her. And truth to tell, once Max had shown up, the building could have been on fire and she’d only have seen Max’s eyes.

      “Oh, God.”

      She dropped the letter to the table, slapped one hand to her mouth and fought for air as she suddenly found it hard to breathe. What was she going to do? She didn’t have the kind of disposable income that would allow her to pay out a million dollars in cash. And she couldn’t stand the thought of her private business being the subject of titillating gossip or speculation.

      “Sweetie?” Amanda’s voice cut through the clamoring noise in her mind and Julia looked up through tear-glazed eyes at her friend. “What is it, Jules? What happened?”

      Julia glanced at the letter and Amanda snatched it up and read it.

      “Damn! Who would do something like—” She broke off and said, “Never mind. What are you going to do about this?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “You should go to the police, Jules.”

      “What good would that do?” She shook her head and fought to think clearly, to fight down the panic already clawing through her. Her stomach was churning, her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry.

      “Blackmail’s a crime.”

      “I know that,” Julia said softly. “But what can the police do about it? Find the blackmailer? Would that stop whoever it is? They’d still leak my secret.”

      “It won’t be a secret forever, sweetie,” Amanda reminded her gently. “People are going to find out you’re pregnant. It’s not really something you can hide.”

      “Yes, but they’ll find out when I’m ready. Not when some malicious bastard decides to throw me to the gossip wolves. I can’t let my parents find out about this from reading it in the papers. And I can’t tell them myself yet, either.”

      “So what are you going to do?”

      Julia pushed up out of her chair, walked a few steps, then turned around to look at the other woman. “I can’t go to my parents with this. And I can’t pay the blackmail myself. There’s really only one thing I can do,” she said. “I have to go to Max.”

      Max sat at his desk, trying to focus on the day’s activities. Keeping his finger on Wall Street’s pulse was the secret of his success. He had an innate ability to see which way the market would roll. To make his move before others had even considered the situation in front of them.

      His reputation was such that his advice was taken as golden, and his rivals kept a close watch on him in hopes of getting the jump on him. Which hadn’t happened. Max enjoyed his work. Enjoyed being the best. He relished the swings, the ups and downs, of the market and delighted at defeating it, bending it to his own whims.

      But today, he couldn’t focus. Couldn’t make himself care about oil prices or hog futures or any other damn thing on the screens. Today, all he could think of was Julia.

      He hadn’t slept because his bed smelled of her. He closed his eyes and he could feel her body on his. His mind continued to dredge up image after image of her. Her blond hair mussed, tangled, her eyes soft and wide, or glittering with passion. Her mouth, full and delectable as she rose over him, took him inside.

      The damn woman was haunting him.

      He sat back in his office chair, swiveled it around to turn his back on the view of Manhattan and, instead, swept his gaze around his office. The room was big, the furniture was black, chrome and glass, and the atmosphere quietly successful. When he held meetings in here, this room was enough to put his adversaries on the defensive. This room said plainly that Max Rolland was a man to be taken seriously. With a lot of caution.

      His world was exactly the way he’d always dreamed it would be. He had money. He had prestige. He had the whole city by the damn tail. What he didn’t have was a family. A son. An heir.

      Jumping out of the black leather chair, he stalked across the room, poured himself a cup of coffee from the silver urn atop the wet bar and took a long sip while his thoughts raced. He’d married Camille, fully expecting to build the family dynasty he’d always planned on.

      She’d had good bloodlines. She would have given his children the pedigree they deserved and he would have given them what they needed to excel in the world he’d wanted to hand down to them.

      “Best-laid plans,” he muttered darkly, letting himself remember, however briefly, the look on Camille’s face the last time he’d seen her.

      She’d looked at him with pity. With disgust. And her last words to him still echoed in his mind.

       You can’t give me what I want, Max. A child. So I’m leaving you for someone who can.

      He set his coffee cup down, shoved both hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. That was why he was so certain that Julia was lying to him about her pregnancy. He already knew he couldn’t have children. He was infertile. He’d let go of his dreams of building a family empire.

      There was a brief knock at his office door, then it opened, and his assistant, Tom Doheny, poked his head around the edge of it. “Mr. Rolland? There’s a woman here to see you. A Ms. Prentice. She says it’s urgent.”

      Max smiled and it couldn’t have been a pleasant one since Tom’s features tightened in response.

      “Send her in.”

      Four

      Once she’d explained everything, Julia stopped talking, turned around and faced Max. She hadn’t been able to look at him while she told him about the blackmail letter. She couldn’t force herself to face him and admit that she didn’t have enough ready cash to pay the blackmailer what he/she wanted. And she really couldn’t bring herself to do exactly what she’d gone to him to do in the first place.

      Ask for help.

      Now,