Mistletoe Over Manhattan

13

On Saturday morning, the first day of Hanukkah and five days before Christmas, Carter lay in bed staring at the ceiling. All day yesterday he'd fought the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he did his best to carry on with the depositions. But that was all the fight he'd had in him. He could feel himself giving in to the-he guessed it was heartbreak.

He didn't know men got heartbreak. He thought they just got mad.

He reached over to his night table, picked up his pen between his fingers and felt a little better, but not much. For reasons he couldn't imagine, Mallory had changed from a steady, trustworthy woman to a manipulative one. He hadn't thought it could happen. He'd thought she was one of the most ethical human beings he'd ever known.

That was one of the things he'd liked about her.

Maybe she'd actually been mad that he hadn't gotten her a separate room and had decided to show him she knew what he'd really had in mind. Or maybe it had bothered her that he hadn't seen any problem with them being in the same room and she had set out to show him how wrong he'd been about her, that she wasn't "good old Mallory" anymore but a hot little number.

Try as he might, he couldn't have imagined Mallory going to bed with a man she didn't respect. That was another thing he'd liked about her.

I love so many things about her.

No, loved. Past tense. He'd been wrong about her ethics, wrong about her need to respect the man she gave herself to, because it was clear she didn't respect him at all.

He needed to move out of this suite. The St. Regis was still fully booked, but New York had thousands of hotel rooms. He'd assumed they couldn't all be occupied by shoppers, theatergoers, and folks in town for a taste of a New York Christmas season.

But a blizzard had raged through the night. With all three airports socked in, all the hotels just might be fully booked. Where would he go? It didn't matter. He'd sleep on a bench in Grand Central station. He had to move.

But to move, he'd have to pack. To pack, he'd have to fold everything that was lying around and sort through a thousand scattered pieces of paper.

He'd reimburse Mallory for the ornaments she'd insisted on buying, but he was taking the tree. He'd leave her the mistletoe to remind her of the way she'd tricked him into that first kiss.

Because he was carting the tree out, he'd have to take a taxi. Of course, the taxis wouldn't be running today. The city would get the streets cleared by tomorrow, but it hardly seemed worth the effort just for the relief of getting away for a mere three days. A couple of weeks ago, when they were still speaking, they'd agreed to suspend the depositions for the holiday, go home to Chicago early on the twenty-third and start up again on the first Monday in January.

He'd have to find the hotel room himself. Brenda wouldn't be back at the office until Monday. He'd have to figure out a way to get the tree from here to-wherever-without breaking its balls.

Or he could just lie here. That would be the easiest thing to do. Maybe Mallory would decide to move.

Wearing her original black jacket and pants, Mallory sat cross-legged on her bed organizing her makeup and toiletries. Carter would probably make fun of her, call it micro-organizing, but it wasn't. Arranging lipsticks according to depth of pink was simply-organizing.

Anyway, he was the one who should move. All this was his fault. Since he didn't seem to be making the slightest attempt to do the right thing, however, it seemed she would have to pack all her clothes, old and new, and roll her suitcases through the snowy streets to her new hotel room, assuming she could find one.

She could end up homeless, sleeping in a doorway. Her eyes filled with tears.

She drew herself up. She was taking the Christmas tree with her and that was that. Furthermore, she'd thought of two ways she might do it. She'd buy an ornament box and tissue paper or bubble wrap, wrap each ornament individually and put it in the box, then carry the tree in her biggest Bergdorf's tote bag-she'd saved them all for reuse.

The other plan was somehow to shrink-wrap the tree, decorations and all, in plastic. She was certain it could be done. She just didn't know where to find the closest shrink-wrap machine. So she'd better stick with the plan she could implement all by herself.

Could she carry all that on foot? It sounded like a lot of work, didn't it? Just to save herself three days of living with the silent, accusing presence of Carter?

She'd see how she felt after she finished organizing.

But what if it was micro-organizing? Why was she doing it? Her gaze dropped to the Ellen Trent book, remembering what Maybelle had said about locking up her heart until she got her house clean. It was time to give up the Ellen Trent system and make room for a life. Grimly she rose out of bed, carrying the book in two fingers, and dropped it in her wastepaper basket.

She couldn't say it made her feel good, just immeasurably better. Still, what was the purpose of getting a life if she couldn't have it with Carter?

There was also the question of what to do with the navy-and-white-striped shirt she'd bought. She'd intended to give it to him for Christmas if she succeeded in her plan, which she clearly hadn't done. Maybe Macon could wear it. She still had no idea what he was doing in Pennsylvania-except falling in love. Some people never changed. She almost wished she hadn't. With a deep sigh, she added the shirt to her open suitcase, and saw a tear drop onto the gift box.

The real problem was that Carter had been right. She had set out to seduce him. What he didn't know was that she'd done it because she loved him.

When the housekeeper arrived, Mallory peeked out to see if Carter was answering the door, and when she heard the sound of his shower running, she told the woman to start in her room first.

She went down to breakfast. Gazing blankly out the windows, she observed that the storm had blown itself out. It was now merely snowing, adding more to the piles that still covered the streets and sidewalks. With many thoughts running through her head, she broke one of her own cardinal rules-never use a cell phone in public-and called Maybelle's office. "There's not much point in seeing her again," she told Richard, "but I'd like to come in this afternoon and settle the financial matters. My usual weekend time? Four o'clock?"

"Oh, dear," Richard said, "she thought you wouldn't want to see her and gave the president a double appointment so they could dig a little deeper into anger management and verbal communication skills. Could you come at six?"

"Sure. Why not?" Nothing else would be happening in her life. She'd do her shopping first, then see Maybelle.

Her shopping list was on her PalmPilot. She went to it, wrote in "ornament box" and "bubble or other wrap." Scanning the rest of the list, she zeroed in on "condoms."

She erased it so violently that the top section of her stylus popped off and landed on another table in somebody else's oatmeal.

Carter heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner and speeded up the dressing process. When he'd pulled himself together, he warily stuck his head out into the sitting room. Not seeing Mallory anywhere, he came out more confidently. "I'm through in there," he told the housekeeper, who was dragging the vacuum cleaner out of Mallory's room. After giving the woman a wave, he stepped outside the suite.

The housekeeper had set a bag of trash just outside the door. Even Mallory's trash was neat. On top lay a book. Carter swiveled his head to read the title. Efficient Travel by Ellen Trent. Trent? A relative of Mallory's?

He picked it up. Stealing trash. That's what he'd sunk to. Inside was a note that began, "Dearest daughter." Ellen Trent was Mallory's mother?

He took the book with him and went out into the snow, slogging along in search of one of those bookstores with a café where he could settle in with coffee and something unhealthy like a cinnamon roll. He had some reading to do.

"Richard?"

"Yes, Mr. Wright. Or I suppose I can call you Mr. Compton now."

"Sure, sure," Carter said into his cell. "Call me whatever you want to. I just wanted to confirm my three o'clock appointment today."

"Oh, dear," Richard said, "Maybelle thought you were too mad at her to want to see her again, so she gave the president a double appointment so they could go more deeply into-"

"The president?" Carter said.

"Not our president," Richard explained. "Another president. Anyway, she can't see you at three, but she could see you at six."

"Fine. I'll be there. Get my bill ready, okay?"

He got up from the spot he'd barely moved from since the café opened this morning. He'd only risen to refresh his food and beverage supply and track down a couple more Ellen Trent books. He felt cross-eyed from speed-reading and dizzy from carbohydrate overload.

And overwhelmed with insight.

He knew what was wrong with Mallory. Her mother was insane, that's what. That stuff about checking the expiration dates of everything in your house before you left on a trip-psychotic, in his opinion. No dirty laundry. When did you ever have no dirty laundry?

He felt newly sympathetic toward Mallory for growing up with an insane mother who'd taught her to be an automaton instead of warm and womanly.

He'd realized something else as well. Mallory had become warm and womanly. She'd given up most of the routines she'd been brainwashed into performing in order to make love with him. They'd eaten in bed, trashed the room, and he knew for a fact she hadn't cleaned off every scrap of her makeup, brushed her hair one hundred times and hand-washed her unmentionables every night before going to bed. He hadn't given her time. She'd bought those sexy clothes to snag him, yes, but she'd changed in other ways, too.

Was it possible she actually cared about him, or was her behavior an act of rebellion toward her insane mother, and he'd just been a convenient excuse to lose her inhibitions?

That was what he intended to talk over with Maybelle.

He had time to spare. Too much time. Aimlessly strolling along a newly cleared sidewalk, he caught sight of Bloomingdale's to the east and remembered the dress he'd spotted from the escalator on that first trip to the store to buy socks. When he'd suddenly wanted to kiss her. When his life had changed forever.

His pace quickened.

The darkness was thick and heavy at six o'clock. Muted street lights, tasteful Christmas displays and menorahs displaying two lighted candles shone through the tall windows of the town houses on the street, illuminating the deep snow and the flakes still falling from above. Mallory had her hand on Maybelle's new doorknocker when she heard footsteps on the sidewalk and spun to see Carter standing there, hesitating.

Without exchanging a word, he turned on one heel and started off to the east and she ran down the walkway and took off to the west. Maybelle tackled her at the corner, and when the dust cleared, she saw Richard propelling Carter back toward the mansion.

"You two," Maybelle scolded, "are gonna sit down and talk whether you want to or not. Kevvie," she screamed, "get that there door open before they get away!"

Mallory let herself be steered into Maybelle's office. Carter was digging in his heels, looking as if he'd like to take out Richard by slamming Kevin into his gut, not that he'd do something like that, but he looked furious enough to think about it. Two chairs sat in front of Maybelle's desk-a new and extremely conservative desk-and when their captors had deposited her and Carter into them, Maybelle sat down, flanked by Kevin and Richard, who were rocking from foot to foot, their hands clasped behind their backs, like bodyguards.

If nothing else, it was dramatic.

"What are you doing here, Kevin?" Carter was the first to speak.

Kevin relaxed his pose into a slump of despair. "I'm here because I feel as if I started all this," he said mournfully, gazing at Mallory, "by giving you Maybelle's card instead of just sticking to my ho-ho-hos."

"Naw, y'all was just lookin' after my bidness interests," Maybelle said. "I was the one started it by tawkin' her into sexy clothes and stuff instead of telling her just to let her insides show on the outside. I sent that there tree hopin' it'd warm her up a little-"

"You sent the tree?" Mallory and Carter spoke in chorus. She darted a glance at him, saw he'd sent one toward her and quickly looked away.

Richard spoke up. "Well, I didn't start anything but coffee, which is what I'm going to do again. Now. Every conceivable kind of coffee," he snapped. "No need for custom orders."

"Bill actually started it," Mallory said with a stab of remembrance, "by appointing me to the case, but he's not to blame for anything. I am." She sighed and wrung her hands together. "I started it by deciding to catch Carter, make him see me as a woman, because-"

"I started it," Carter said abruptly.

Mallory swiveled her head to stare at him.

"I asked Bill to appoint you to the case."

From the distance came the whir of a coffee grinder, but Mallory's gasp was the only sound in the room.

"Why?" she said finally.

The gaze from his dark blue eyes was full of pain as it locked with hers. "Because I trusted you, for one thing. But the other thing, well, I wanted to show you I'd grown up. Prove to you I was a good lawyer. No, a great lawyer. A man you could respect."

"But I've always respected you," Mallory whispered. "All those years ago, I respected you for not giving up. You were always so smart, smart in ways I wasn't. But nobody ever expected good grades out of you, so you'd never learned to study. That's all I did for you, really, was show you that you could succeed."

"Whoa," Maybelle said. "Minute ago Mallory was about to say why she wanted you to see her as a woman. So. Why?"

Under Maybelle's compelling stare Mallory knew the moment of truth had arrived. "Because I think, even way back then in law school, that's what I really wanted."

"You did a great job of hiding it," Carter said suddenly. His voice was a fierce growl.

"I know." She tried to shrink her voice, tried to pretend she was hardly there. "I was afraid you'd reject me. Every woman I knew wanted you. Why would you ever choose me?" She sneaked a peek at him. The fierceness was fading from his expression, which gave her the courage to add, "All I meant to do here in New York was, well, stop hiding it."

"An', Carter," Maybelle went on inexorably as if the tension in the room wasn't already close to explosive, "why'd y'all care what Mallory thought of you?"

"I guess it had always been a sore point thinking she saw me as a dumb jock who couldn't have made it through law school without her," he mumbled. Now his eyes were downcast.

"But why was it a sore point? Come on, Carter, am I gonna have to get out my sledgehammer?" Maybelle's voice rose sharply.

"Because…" Now he sounded a little desperate. "Because I…"

"Keep goin' hon," Maybelle said. "You'll get there evenshully."

"Because I… liked her."

"You did?" Some sensation flooded through Mallory-either relief, or building desire, or maybe it was just that simple affection she'd felt that afternoon in New York when all he was doing was getting into a football game.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mallory saw Kevin quietly leave the room. She was focused on Carter, though, who was giving her a defensive look and shifting uncomfortably in his chair. "Yes, I did," he said.

"I wish I'd known," Mallory said. "All I knew-" she was embarrassed to feel tears rising into her throat "-was that I was the only woman in law school you never came on to. Even when we spent the night alone in your apartment."

"'Scuse me," she barely heard Maybelle say.

"I wanted to kiss you that night," he said, and she saw the beginnings of a crooked smile, "but I didn't think you wanted me to, and I was trying to act like one of the good guys."

Mallory got up, tired of this side-by-side conversation when the things she had to say were the most important things she would ever say in her whole life. Carter got up, too, looking appealingly nervous. "Carter," she said gently, "if you'd kissed me that night, I would have made love with you right there on the desk on top of Roev. Wade."

Now he seemed stunned. "You would have?"

Mallory sighed. "Probably not. I probably would have filed Roe v. Wade first, in a file labeled Roe v. Wade."

They gazed at each other for a long, long moment, suddenly aware they were alone in the room now.

Carter said, "I could have handled that." He moved close to her, folding his arms around her, holding her tight, his face buried in that sensitive spot just under her ear. "I could probably have handled it if you'd checked the expiration date on my condoms first." She jolted in his arms. "Oh, Mallory," he said, "can we start over now that we have full disclosure?"

"No way." She searched for his mouth with hers. "It was too tough the first time around. Let's call that the cross-examination. Now we make our closing statements." She found his mouth at last, or he found hers. Who knew, who cared? All that mattered was that they'd found each other.

"Let's talk settlement," Carter said to Phoebe when they'd trapped her in her office Monday morning. "We're going to trial."

"Phoebe, I've done a lot of research on these kinds of lawsuits and going to trial is a big gamble," Mallory said. "Even when the plaintiffs win, they often don't win enough to make them happy."

"Settlement is in your clients' best interests and in yours," Carter added. "That was the judge's opinion after reviewing the items of evidence and reading through the court reporter's transcript to date. You were there. You heard him."

Phoebe's lips tightened. "You don't understand. I have to go to trial. I have to win. I have to prove…" She stared at the wall behind Mallory and Carter where the portrait of her father hung.

"You don't have to prove anything to your father," Mallory said quietly.

"How would you know anything about my father and what I do or do not have to-"

"Because I have a mother. Have you ever heard of Ellen Trent?"

"Everybody's heard of Ellen Trent. Martha Stewart minus the charm."

Mallory winced. "The very same."

"She's your mother."

"Yes."

"If you settled a case when she'd told you to hold out for trial-"

"She'd disown me."

"And you wouldn't care."

"I'd care. But I'd still do what I knew was right."

Under the apron of the desk, Mallory crossed her fingers.

"In fact," Carter said, "you don't have to work with your father."

Phoebe's olive skin paled, but with her remaining bravado, she said, "Of course I don't have to. I work with him because-"

"You work with him because he convinced you you'd never get a job anywhere else."

"He did not!"

"Not in so many words."

She crumpled. "I guess he did."

"He's wrong," Carter said. "You're good at your work. Terrific at your work." He smiled broadly. "Look what you put us through."

"You really think-"

"I absolutely know. I would be more than happy to write a letter of recommendation to my firm on your behalf-"

Mallory kicked him.

He gave her a look. "-for a position at the San Francisco branch of Rendell and Renfro," he said distinctly, still looking at Mallory. "I hear they're looking for a couple of experienced and super-sharp lawyers."

Mallory held her breath through a lengthy silence. At last, with a look of steely determination in her eyes, Phoebe said, "Okay, what's your offer?"

Mallory swallowed the whoosh of air that emerged involuntarily from her lungs. Carter handed Phoebe several stapled sheets of paper. "This is a summary of the offer. The full document is being prepared right now and you'll have it by this afternoon."

"As you can see," Carter went on, not sounding at all like a man who'd been up all night working on that document, "we're offering restitution in the amount of damages, doubled. You get half, the client gets half."

Phoebe nodded, then looked up. "What in the world is this bit about a demo tape?"

"We looked over the transcript and observed that a majority of your clients had aspirations such as show business or modeling. Not surprising in New York, when you think of it."

Phoebe nodded.

"Sensuous is offering each interested client the opportunity to have a demo tape made. It will be professionally filmed and directed, something Kevin's agent can use to get auditions for him, something Mrs. Ross can use to get an agent for little…"

Mallory supplied him with the baby's name, which she remembered from the interrogatories.

Carter's head swiveled toward her. "Desiree? Did she really name that baby Desiree?"

"Carter…" She hummed a warning.

He cleared his throat. "Little Desiree," he said calmly. "God bless her."

Phoebe was quiet again, reading. "I'll take this offer to my clients and see what they think of it." She granted them a slight smile, her gaze going back and forth between them. "Maybe you'll have more than one thing to celebrate before you go home for Christmas."

"Could we have our own private Christmas tonight?" Carter asked her during the walk back to the hotel.

They were both dragging along, tired but victorious, clinging to the good feeling that they'd done their best and everybody had won. "I'm not up to a huge celebration," Mallory said, proving her point with a huge yawn, "but a little champagne around the tree would be nice. It's our last night in the suite," she added with heartfelt regret. "Home to Chicago tomorrow. The first thing I'll have to do is go through the mail-"

"The first thing you have to do is spend the night in my apartment," Carter instructed her.

"Okay. That way I won't feel as if I've actually gotten any mail."

"And we won't mess up your apartment."

"Good point."

"Then it's my parents for Christmas Day," Carter said.

"After mine for Christmas Eve." She'd thought that of the two options, her mother's frozen oyster stew on Christmas Eve would be preferable to her frozen turkey on the day itself. "Try not to scatter anything around while you're there," she said. "And remember, no shoes in the house, and after you shower, you're supposed to wipe down the tile."

"I'll be on my best behavior," he promised. "Don't you think your mother will be flattered that I read her book?"

"Until you tell her what you thought about it," Mallory said.

"I would never! Would I ever?" he protested. "Will I get to meet the invisible Macon?"

They'd spent a lot of time the day before just getting to know each other, telling childhood stories, discussing their parents' eccentricities. Mallory laughed. "He finally answered my last e-mail this morning. He was doing a top secret job in Pennsylvania, where he met a woman who'd never laid fingertips on a computer-"

"No!" Carter said.

"But she has now." She glanced up at him. "There's a possibility, a strong possibility, that she might come to Chicago with him. Carter, I think the Trent kids have finally grown up."

Carter looked thoughtful for a minute, then turned his heart-stopping smile on her. "So has the Compton kid."

"And beautifully, I must say," Mallory said. They reached the suite. "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable," she told him.

"How about bed?"

"Champagne around the tree, remember?"

She came back wearing her pink gown and robe, carrying the box with Carter's shirt inside, and noticed that he was sitting on the sofa holding an identical gift box. She stopped short. "When did you buy me a present?"

"Saturday."

"You couldn't have Saturday. We came right home after-"

"I bought it before we met at Maybelle's," he said, standing up to take her in his arms.

She clasped her hands around his neck. "I bought yours that first day at Bloomingdale's," she said, one-upping him quite nicely, she thought.

He smiled at her. "Never said you weren't smarter than I am. Let's open them now."

"Just like a kid," she teased.

"Yeah, because I think I know what mine is." He ripped open the package and pulled out the striped shirt. "How can I afford you if you're going to buy me designer shirts?" he grumbled.

She could tell he was pleased, but her attention was focused on the champagne-colored dress she'd pulled out of its box. It was exquisite, slender and clingy, and if she were not badly mistaken, it matched her hair exactly. "Carter, it's beautiful," she breathed.

"So are you." He took her in his arms. "You were beautiful in those sweaters you used to wear in law school, the great big ones that hung down almost to your knees."

"Oh, no, I wasn't."

"I didn't say sexy." When she tried to pummel him in the stomach, he said, "But I-"

She stopped trying to pummel him and looked up into his eyes. "Liked me anyway?" she whispered.

"Loved you anyway," he said against her cheek.

His kiss left her breathless. "We can try on our new clothes in the morning."

"At the earliest."

Still she struggled a little in his arms. "We really should call Maybelle and tell her what happened today." She drew back to look at him pointedly. "I think we'd better do it now, if you intend to kiss me like that again."

"You dial. I'll pour champagne."

She dialed. The telephone rang three times, after which a recorded message came on. "You have reached the offices of Events by Ewing, razzle-dazzle parties in no time flat. Ms. Ewing can be reached during regular office hours, which are…"

Stunned, she put down the phone. "Event planner," she muttered.

"Aw, Mallory," Carter said plaintively, handing her a glass of pale bubbles, "do we have to have that kind of wedding? The kind you get an event planner for? I thought you were going to call Maybelle."

"We drove her out of business," Mallory said. "Strongest woman I've ever known and we ended her career."

"What are you talking about?"

When would she stop falling in love with him all over again every time she looked at him? Never, probably. All of a sudden she realized he'd said the magic words. He'd said love, and he'd said wedding. She put down her glass, threw her arms around him and said, "Don't bother your pretty head about it. I'll explain it to you in the morning, darling."