to cry.
“Oh, I hate being pregnant, all I ever do is cry!” She laughed at herself, and Brad came over to stroke the soft blond hair that fell past her shoulders and onto the pillow.
“You just take it easy today, and I'll be back as soon as I can.” He left the room then, to go check on Greg. He was nervously getting ready in his own room down the hall. He had had his own apartment for years, but for his last night as a bachelor he had come home and slept in his old room. He knew that way, no matter how drunk he got the night before, he wouldn't be allowed to oversleep on his wedding day.
But as soon as Brad had left the room, Teddy narrowed his eyes and looked at her. “What really happened?”
“Nothing.” But she didn't look directly at him and he knew something was wrong.
“Don't lie to me, Serena. Why won't you go?”
It was uncanny the way this man could make her talk, and how much she trusted him. She told him things she wouldn't even tell Brad. But she also knew that he had kept her confidence the day before, and so now she let go, as the tears filled her eyes once again. “Your mother thinks I shouldn't go. But don't tell Brad. I don't want him to know.”
“She told you that?”
“She said that it would be unkind to Pattie, and if I had any decency, I wouldn't go, that I had done enough to Pattie already.” Serena looked woeful, and Teddy almost jumped off the bed.
“What a lot of crap. God damn it, Serena. If you don't stand up for yourself, my mother is going to push you around for the rest of your life. You can't let her!”
“It doesn't matter. She doesn't want me there. I think she's afraid I'll disgrace all of you.”
“Serena.” Teddy looked at her pointedly. “Everyone last night wanted to know who you were, I mean who you really were. There was talk all over the restaurant about your being a principessa, and it probably annoyed the hell out of Mother. All that garbage about your being a nobody, and somebody's maid, nobody will buy any of that crap after last night. You look every bit what you are: a beautiful, aristocratic lady. I don't know what the hell is eating my mother, except that Brad did something he wanted and made the decision for himself. But if what she wanted was Pattie Atherton as a daughter-in-law, then she's getting that too. One of these days she's going to get over her feelings about you, Serena, and you can't give in to her all the time before she does. What she did to you yesterday is not only outrageous but immoral, and the truth is that Brad should know, but if you insist, then I won't tell him. But what she's doing today is the last straw, dammit, it's indecent.” It crossed his mind for only a moment that his mother was jealous. Perhaps she couldn't bear all that Serena was, and that Brad had found her for himself, won her, and planned to keep her. Maybe she had wanted to lose him to someone she could manipulate, some girl she could push around, which she seemed to think she was going to do with Pattie. “But you can't let her keep doing this to you, dammit. It's not right.”
“What's not right?” Brad stood in the doorway, looking at them both, and there was sudden tension in his face as he searched their eyes. “There's something I'm not being told, and I don't take kindly to secrets in my own family.” He looked at his wife. “What is it, Serena?” Serena looked down, away from his gaze. He held up a hand. “No tears this time. Just tell me.” But she couldn't and she wasn't going to. It was Teddy who spoke first.
“She doesn't want to tell you, Brad, but I think you ought to know.”
Serena almost leaped off the bed at him, her arms outstretched as though she could stop him, but he had just said something to her with his eyes. Instinctively she almost shouted “No!”
“I'm going to tell him, Serena.” Teddy spoke quietly and Serena burst into tears.
“For chrissake, what is it?” Their little melodrama was making him extremely nervous, and he was already unnerved. He had just come from Greg's room, he had got so drunk the night before that the