“They’re just getting started. Olivia’s mother has been chatting up the reporters. She gave permission for them to take a picture of the babies and Olivia is steamed about it.”
The first questions concerned the births and deliveries with a heavy emphasis on the long odds against a natural occurring quadruplet conception. Olivia politely responded to the questions, but she was definitely lacking enthusiasm. Her mother, on the other hand, expanded on Olivia’s terse replies. The two sisters seemed to be suffering stage fright and sat there with deer-in-headlights stares.
Inevitably, the questions moved on to inquiries about the father. Where was he? What did he think of having four children? What about his family? All dead, what a shame. When they sensed a story behind the fact that Anthony wasn’t at the hospital, the questions got more pointed and Olivia just shrugged.
But not her mom. She was prepared. She spoke clearly into the microphone as she said, “Olivia’s husband is unfortunately away on business.”
Olivia scanned the room as her mother spoke. Her gaze landed on Zac with an almost physical jolt. He knew she was desperate for information. He had little to tell her, but her reaction upon seeing him hadn’t gone unnoticed by a nearby cameraman who turned the camera on Zac. It seemed everyone in the room swiveled their heads in his direction. Zac resisted the urge to throw an arm across his face. A reporter shouted, “Is this man your husband, Mrs. Capri?”
“He’s just a friend,” Olivia’s mother said before Olivia could respond. Juliet produced a large, professional-looking wedding picture of Anthony and Olivia. That surprised Zac as he’d heard the photographer’s studio burned to the ground before the photographs were developed. Nevertheless, Juliet had managed to salvage a picture and she held it up. The cameraman zeroed in on it.
“This man is Olivia’s husband, Anthony Capri, a very successful entrepreneur,” Juliet said with pride. Zac didn’t really think Juliet was a snob, but when her husband had died, she’d gone from being a rich woman to being poor as a church mouse. Olivia’s marrying Anthony Capri must have thrilled her beyond reason.
“You’ve only been married a few months, isn’t that true, Mrs. Capri?” one of the reporters asked.
“Yes.”
“If he’s so successful, why didn’t he take time off for such an important event?” This came from a woman reporter on the side.
Olivia’s dark eyes flashed. “I know he wanted to be here.”
“Where did you say he went?”
“I didn’t,” she said, doubt sneaking into her voice. “He didn’t have a chance to tell me.”
It appeared all the reporters, who had been growing bored with another multiple baby story, smelled fresh blood. “Would you say your husband is a secretive man?”
“Absolutely not,” Olivia said immediately, but her eyes betrayed her uncertainty. She squared her shoulders and added, “Anthony tells me everything. We’re partners, there are no secrets between us. It’s just that lately I’ve been out of the loop. I’m sure you understand.”
Partners. Did Olivia really believe she and Anthony were partners?
He looked around the room. He could see the hunger in the reporter’s eyes, the cameraman next to him zooming in closer and closer on Olivia’s face. The headlines would read, Woman Gives Birth to Quadruplets, Dad Disappears. His heart went out to her. They had to find Anthony and nip this thing in the bud.
“What’s next for you, Mrs. Capri?” someone asked.
“I just want to take my babies back to Westerly. I want to take them home.”
“With your husband?”
“That goes without saying.”
“That’s enough,” Juliet said, casting her daughter a concerned mom type glance. Amid much grumbling, the crowd began to disperse. Zac caught up with Olivia by the elevator and greeted her family, who explained they were on their way upstairs to feed and cuddle the infants. He asked Olivia to linger behind for a moment.
Faith, who had trailed him, hustled the family onto the elevator. “Catch up with us when you can,” she murmured as the doors slid shut.
He put a hand under Olivia’s elbow and guided her to a small sofa across the room from where the hospital maintenance crew was in the process of dismantling the table and chairs used for the interview. Their corner of the lobby was quiet.
Her mouth set in a straight line, she said, “I can’t believe those reporters. They were digging for some kind of intrigue.”
Zac tried to look sympathetic, but his own chore lay ahead and he dreaded it. “There’s no way to sugarcoat what I have to tell you. Anthony was not staying at the Marina Inn.” He hadn’t told her this on the phone because it had seemed cruel to do so. Then he’d gotten waylaid by his case and finally, like the big chicken he was, he’d hoped Anthony would come to his senses and Olivia might never have to know her husband lied to her.
The time for that kind of sensibility was over as the man was still missing.
She blinked a couple of times. “What do you mean? He checked out?”
“He was never there.”
“But he said he was.”
Zac waited without speaking.
She blinked thick black lashes a few times, her dark eyes almost liquid. “He lied to me.”
The last forty-eight hours of little sleep—and none of it in an actual bed—had made his head fuzzy, his eyelids feel grainy. Sidestepping the lying thing, he said, “I saw your mother hold up a wedding picture. If you’ll get her to loan it to me I’ll take it back to the hotel and find out if anyone recognizes him.”
“You’re saying he used a different name.”
“I’m not saying anything. It’s the next logical step.”
She peered closely at him for a second. “You look tired, Zac.”
“Nothing eight hours in the sack won’t take care of. Go get the picture. I’ll wait right here for you.”
She nodded once and got to her feet, moving a little slowly, no doubt due to the recent operation. Her soft gray skirt swished against her long legs as she paused in front of him.
When had he first started noticing things like Olivia’s breasts and shapely legs and the way her supple body curved? When had he noticed she was no longer a kid? When she came home from college to help out her mother and little sisters after her father died? He’d been in the middle of a divorce. He could barely remember anything from around that time, but at some point it had finally registered in his sorry brain that she’d changed.
And yet he’d never done a damn thing about it. The timing was always off. The chance she’d laugh in his face—well, there was that, too.
“I’ll be right back but it might take a few moments,” she said and he realized he’d been staring at her lips.
“I’ll wait right here,” he said, and watched her cross the lobby, her gait cautious but fluid. There was nothing wrong with the way her hips moved, either.
Not a damn thing.
OLIVIA CHECKED on each of her babies, leaning close to them, whispering assurances, kissing silky foreheads, promising each she would find their daddy. They indiscriminately threw their little arms wide or jerked their tiny legs up against their chests and made baby faces that charmed her down to her toes.
Olivia told Faith where she was going and while her mother was busy cooing over Brianna, swiped the lone wedding picture from the oversize handbag.
She stared at it on the way down in the elevator, bypassing