Gerry reached out to touch her, but physical contact with him tended to cloud her thinking, so she jerked her arm away before he could make contact. "Keep your hands to yourself, buster." She had survived these last few months without him very nicely, and she wasn't going to have a relapse now. She was too old to die twice in one year from a broken heart.
"Don't you think this separation has gone on long enough?" he said. "I miss you."
She gave him her coolest stare. "What's wrong? Can't you get your face on television, now that we're not an item anymore?" She used to love the way those dark curls brushed along the back of his neck. She remembered the texture of those curls-soft and silky. She would wrap them around her finger, touch them with her lips.
"Don't start on this, Holly Grace."
"Won't anybody let you make speeches on the nightly news, now that we've broken up?" she said nastily. "You really played our affair for all it was worth, didn't you? While I was mooning over you like a stupid fool, you were sending out press releases."
"You're really starting to piss me off. I love you, Holly Grace. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone in my life. We had something good going."
He was doing it. He was breaking her heart again. "The only good thing we had going was sex," she said fiercely.
"We had a hell of a lot more than sex!"
"Such as what? I don't like your friends, and I sure as hell don't like your politics. Besides, you know I hate Jews."
Gerry groaned and slumped down on the couch. "Oh, God, here we go again."
"I'm a dedicated anti-Semite. I really am, Gerry. I'm from Texas. I hate Jews, I hate blacks, and I think all gay men should be put in prison. Now what kind of future would I have with a left-wing pinko like you?"
"You don't hate Jews," Gerry said reasonably, as if he were speaking to a child. "And three years ago you signed a gay rights petition that was published in every newspaper in New York, and the year after that you had a highly publicized affair with a certain wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers."
"He was very light-skinned," Holly Grace countered. "And he always voted Republican."
Slowly he got up from the couch, his expression both troubled and tender. "Look, babe, I can't give up my politics, not even for you. I know you don't approve of our approach-"
"All of you people are so goddamn sanctimonious," she hissed. "You treat anyone who doesn't agree with your methods like a warmonger. Well, I've got news for you, buddy boy. No sane person likes living with nuclear weapons, but not everybody thinks it's a terrific idea for us to throw all our missiles away while the Soviets are still sitting on top of a whole toy box full of their own."
"Don't you think the Soviets-"
"I'm not listening to you." She grabbed her purse and called out for Teddy. Dallie had been right every one of those times he'd told her money couldn't buy happiness. She was thirty-seven years old and she wanted to nest. She wanted a baby while she could still have one, and she wanted a husband who loved her for herself, not just for the publicity she brought him.
"Holly Grace, please-"
"You go fuck yourself."
"Goddammit!" He grabbed her then, pulled her into his arms, and pressed his mouth to hers in a gesture that wasn't so much a kiss as a way of distracting himself from his desire to shake her until her teeth rattled. They were the same height, and Holly Grace worked out with weights, so Gerry had to use considerable strength to pin her arms to her sides. She finally stopped struggling so that he could work her over with his mouth the way he wanted to-the way she liked. Finally her lips parted enough so that he could slip his tongue inside.
"Come on, babe," he whispered. "Love me back."
She did, just for a moment, until she realized what she was doing. When Gerry felt her stiffen, he immediately slid his mouth to her neck where he took a long, sucking bite.
"You did it to me again," she yelped, squirming away from him and clasping her neck.
He had put his mark on her deliberately and he didn't apologize. "Every time you look at that mark, I want you to remember that you're throwing away the best thing that's ever happened to either one of us."
Holly Grace gave him a furious glare and then spun around toward Teddy, who had just come into the room with Naomi. "Get your coat and tell Naomi good-bye."
"But Holly Grace-" Teddy protested.
"Now!" She bundled Teddy into his coat, grabbed her own, and propelled the two of them out the door without looking back.
As they disappeared, Gerry avoided the displeasure in his sister's eyes by pretending to study a metal sculpture on the mantel. Even though he was forty-two, he wasn't used to being the mature one in a relationship. He was used to women who mothered him, who agreed with his opinions, who cleaned his apartment. He wasn't used to a prickly Texas beauty who could outdrink him any day of the week and who would laugh in his face if he asked her to run a small load of wash. He loved her so much he felt as if a part of him had walked out of the house with her. What was he going to do? He couldn't deny that he'd taken advantage of the publicity from their affair. It was instinctive-the way he did things. For the past few years, the media had ignored his best efforts to draw attention to the cause, and it wasn't in his nature to turn his back on free publicity. Why couldn't she understand that it didn't have a damned thing to do with loving her-he was just seizing his opportunities as he'd always done.
His sister walked past him, and he once again leaned over to address her stomach. "This is Uncle Gerry speaking. If you're a male child in there, guard your balls because there are about a million women out here waiting to cut them off."
"Don't joke about it, Gerry," Naomi said, dropping down into one of the armchairs.
His mouth twisted. "Why not? You've got to admit this whole thing with Holly Grace is pretty goddamn funny."
"You're really screwing up," she said.
"It's impossible to argue with someone who doesn't make sense," he retorted belligerently. "She knows
I love her, and she goddamn well knows it's not just for her famous name."
"She wants a baby, Gerry," Naomi said quietly.
He stiffened. "She just thinks she wants a baby."
"You're such a jerk. Every time the two of you get together, both of you go on and on about your political differences and who's using who. Just once, I'd like to hear one of you admit that most of the reason the two of you can't get it together is because she desperately wants to have a baby and you still haven't grown up enough to be a father."
He turned on his sister. "It doesn't have anything to do with not being grown up. I refuse to bring a kid into a world that has a mushroom cloud hanging over it."
She regarded him sadly, one hand clasped over her rounded stomach. "Who do you think you're kidding, Gerry? You're afraid to be a father. You're afraid you'll screw up as badly with your own kid as Dad did with you-God rest his soul."
Gerry didn't say anything, and he damn well wasn't going to let Naomi see him with tears in his eyes, so he just turned his back on her and stalked right out the door.
Chapter 23
Francesca smiled directly into the camera as the "Frances-ca Today" theme music faded and the show began. "Hello, everybody. I hope all of you have your television snacks nearby and that you've finished any urgent bathroom business, because I absolutely guarantee that you're not going to want to move from your seats once you meet our four young guests this evening."
She tilted her head toward the red light that had come on next to camera two. "Tonight we're broadcasting the last show in our series on the British nobility. As you know, we've had our high points and our low points since we've come to Great Britain-even I won't try to pretend that our last program was anything short of a giant bore-but we're back on track tonight."