CHAPTER NINE
Best Friend to Wife and Mother?
Susan Meier
LAURA BETH MATTHEWS sat on the rim of the old porcelain tub in the New York City apartment she had to vacate by the next morning. Her long brown hair had been swirled into a sophisticated French twist. Her lilac organza bridesmaid gown was an original Eloise Vaughn design. A pregnancy test shook in her right hand.
Tears pooled in her eyes. There was no question now. She was going to have a baby.
“Laura Beth! Come on!” Eloise called from the hall as she knocked on the bathroom door. “I’m the bride! I should at least get ten minutes in the bathroom to check my makeup.”
“Sorry!” She swiped at her tears and quickly examined her face in the medicine cabinet mirror. No real mascara smudges yet, but the day was young.
For the first time since she, Eloise and their third original roommate, Olivia Prentiss Engle, had decided to spend the night before Eloise’s wedding together and dress together, Laura Beth regretted it. She was pregnant. The father of her child, one of Olivia’s husband’s vice presidents, had called her a slut when she’d told him she was late and they might be parents. And now she didn’t just have to smile her way through a wedding; she had to hide a pregnancy test in a tiny bathroom.
She glanced around. “I’ll be two more seconds.” Out of time, she wrapped the stick in toilet paper and tossed it in the little wastebasket. Satisfied neither Olivia nor Eloise would rummage through the trash, she sucked in a breath, pasted on a happy smile and opened the door.
Eloise stood before her, glowing, a vision in her original Artie Best gown, designed specifically by her boss, the one and only Artie Best. Smooth silk rode Eloise’s feminine curves. Rhinestones sparkled across the sweetheart neckline. And real diamonds—enough to support the population of a third-world country for a decade—glittered at her throat.
Tears pooled in Laura Beth’s eyes again, but this time they were tears of joy for her friend. Eloise, Olivia and Laura Beth had moved to New York City with stars in their eyes. Now Olivia was a married mom. Eloise would be married in a few hours. And Laura Beth was pregnant, with a deadbeat for her child’s father and twenty-four hours to vacate her apartment.
She
