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Not giving Marlowe a chance to respond, Selina sidled up to Wallace Bigelow and gave him another once-over, doing it up close this time.
“My, but you’re a big one, aren’t you? But if you think you’ve got yourself a meal ticket in little Marlowe here, think again,” she advised maliciously. “Her father’s going to have you out on your—”
She had had just about enough, Marlowe thought. She raised her voice and broke in, wanting to put an end to this and to rescue Wallace from Selina’s tongue, as well.
“Not that it’s any business of yours, Selina, but Wallace happens to be my bodyguard,” she told the infuriating woman.
“Your bodyguard?” Selina repeated in a mocking voice. “Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days?” She batted her long lashes at Wallace. “Care to do a little moonlighting on the side, sweetie? You might find it interesting.”
“Don’t proposition my bodyguard, Selina. It’s beneath you, and he hasn’t had his antivenom shots yet,” Marlowe said, rising to her feet. Wallace was much too polite. In his place, she would have told Selina to get lost a long time ago. But he had merely stood there, enduring the woman’s close scrutiny. “Although I’m starting to think that absolutely nothing is beneath you,” Marlowe told her father’s ex.
“What a clever turn of phrase, dear,” Selina retorted to her ex-husband’s daughter, her tone nothing if not belittling. “Did it take you long to come up with that?” Selina mocked. “Anyway, I came to find out what, if anything, you and that brother of yours learned at the hospital about how your fake brother wound up going home with your father and that mouse of a first wife of his. Anything?” she prodded.
Marlowe instantly took umbrage for the person she had known all of her life as Ace. “You’ll find out with the rest of the board when we convene tomorrow,” she informed Selina.
“You’re planning on drawing this out, are you?” Selina surmised.
Marlowe didn’t bother to hide the loathing she felt for the woman. “I don’t think it’s fair that you know something before the others do,” she said, deliberately being vague. She knew that it would get under Selina’s skin.
Selina laughed at her. “You’re bluffing. You have nothing. If you did, you’d tell me just to put me in what you deem is my place,” she concluded.
Marlowe was up on all of her tricks. She viewed them as rather pitiful. “You’re not going to goad me into saying anything, so you might as well just drop this,” she told Selina.
Wallace finally spoke up, stepping forward. “Is this woman bothering you, Ms. Colton?”
“Every day of my life, since the first time I ever met her,” Marlowe replied with feeling. “But that’s all right, Wallace. She was just leaving, weren’t you, Selina?” she asked solicitously.
Selina drew herself up. There was pure hatred in her eyes. But she kept her temper. “For now,” the woman replied haughtily.
Turning on the heels of her exceedingly expensive designer shoes, Selina walked out.
“Sorry about that,” Marlowe apologized to Wallace.
“No need to apologize, ma’am,” the bodyguard told her, returning to his initial post. “Almost every family has one of th
ose in their number.”
“Doesn’t make putting up with her any easier,” Marlowe said with a sigh. “I can’t shake the feeling that she’s like this sleek vulture in a designer suit, waiting for one of us to drop in front of her so she can feast on the carcass.”
It suddenly hit Marlowe that she was sharing bottled-up feelings with a man who was, by definition, a virtual stranger to her. It wasn’t something she normally did—ever.
“I’m sorry,” she began. “I shouldn’t have...”
Wallace seemed to understand her discomfort. “That’s all right, ma’am. Talking to me is like talking to a piece of furniture. You don’t have to worry. Whatever you say to me won’t go anywhere.”
Marlowe couldn’t help laughing at herself and the entire scenario. “You were right,” she told him.
“Ma’am?” he asked.
“You really do blend in,” Marlowe said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered agreeably, smiling broadly at her.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all, Marlowe thought. And she had to admit, having this behemoth around to protect her did make her feel a great deal safer. Finding that teddy bear sitting there in her office this morning had made her exceedingly jumpy. That wasn’t a feeling that she welcomed. Though she wasn’t about to admit it out loud just yet, she appreciated having Bowie caring for her and their unborn child.
“You know,” Marlowe said thoughtfully a few hours later as she finished up the proposal she had been working on, “that woman is always trying to stir up trouble between us.”
“Between you and her, ma’am?” Wallace asked, deftly trying to pick up the thread of conversation where it had been dropped earlier.
