Scruples Two (63 page)

Spider sighed and turned over so that his back was toward her. Billy, alert, stared at the outline of his body wistfully and edged herself closer, so that her abdomen came into warm contact with his backbone. Now, just when a major bout of kick-boxing would be welcome, the twins had perversely chosen to make peace. There was a rosy glow outside the drawn curtains that told her the sun was rising. What would happen if she opened them and let in a flood of light? Would even that wake her husband? Was ever a man so gifted at unconsciousness as Spider? So gifted at loving, so gifted at living, so gifted at being gifted? Was ever a woman as unselfish as she, Billy wondered, to allow such a gifted man to waste his time sleeping?

She sighed deeply and plaintively a half-dozen times without result, gave up sighing—it took too much energy—and turned her busy mind to Gigi and Zach. He had been in San Francisco on location for months, and now he was directing a big film in Texas, but when he was in Los Angeles the two of them lived together in her apartment, Zach quickly turning her place into a West Coast version of the ongoing, crowded party of devoted friends he’d created in New York
.

Billy approved of Gigi’s decision—unshared by Zach—not to rush into marriage. Gigi felt that since she was barely twenty-two, there was plenty of time to think about settling
down to serious domesticity after they had actually lived together for a lengthy period of time. But, oh, Gigi was marvelously happy! She was able to handle her job at Scruples Two so routinely that she was considering a tempting offer to work as a copywriter at a rapidly growing advertising agency. She could manage to do both jobs, since the copy for Scruples Two didn’t have to be rewritten for each repeat catalog mailing, and her ambition had grown with the wildly enthusiastic acceptance of her antique lingerie, even though men bought it for women in far greater quantities than women bought it for themselves
.

Sasha was planning to combine motherhood with a part-time career after a maternity leave of at least four months—she’d already hired a nanny who would help her out from the day she brought the baby home from the hospital. Yes, Sasha had all her bases covered, Billy thought, but she herself couldn’t seem to manage to make any firm plans at all besides finding a warmhearted and experienced nurse to help with the twins. How could she possibly know in advance what balance of motherhood and work would be right for her? She still felt very much a working woman by deep temperament and Scruples Two was in its early days, yet surely she’d want some solid time out to plunge into all the experiences of maternity? On the other hand, wasn’t it possible that too heavy a dose of the nursery might drive her up the wall? Nothing in her life had prepared her for a sensible compromise about the wonders and problems of motherhood. They were as unpredictable right now as the rest of her surprising tumble through life.… she knew only how lucky she was to be able to afford the inestimable luxury of choice
.

The future was far too exciting, complicated and full of magic to contemplate for long, Billy concluded, closing her eyes at last, since even the back of Spider’s neck was so fascinating to look at that she was bedeviled by the desire to nuzzle it and there was no possibility of maneuvering herself that close to him. It had been so different only a year ago, she remembered dreamily.… the weekend of the fashion show, when she and Spider had barely managed to pry themselves apart long enough to shake hands with everybody from
the press, much less make sense when they were interviewed. He’d been at her side during every jubilant day, his arm tightly around her waist or thrown around her shoulders, proudly and possessively, the two of them so intensely aware of each other that everything else had been an illusion, a fiction mounted for shadows. Their rapture had been contagious, too strong not to be visible, and soon Gigi suspected and Sasha, of course, took one look and knew right away, and then Prince caught on and rushed to inform all of his closest contacts in the media, which quickly meant that half a hundred relative strangers felt the right to ask them the most amazingly personal questions.… professionally intuitive questions.… somehow impossible to effectively.… deny.… even if … she’d wanted to.…

“Wake up, my darling,” Spider urged her four hours later, so persistently that Billy finally blinked in protest and opened her eyes
.

“I didn’t want to wake you earlier,” he said, leaning over and kissing her, “but I’ve been wandering in and out of the bedroom like a lost soul, watching you sleep so sweetly—for more than four whole hours—and I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I felt too lonely for you. Anyway, it’s lunchtime and I’m positive it’s not good for the boys when you miss a meal, they need their nourishment, and if you sleep so late during the day, how will you get back to sleep at night?”

“Good question,” she murmured, yawning, stretching and feeling wonderfully refreshed
.

“Aren’t you glad I woke you up?” he asked anxiously, gently pushing her blunt curls away from her forehead so that he could look at her more closely
.

“Oh, I am,” Billy answered truthfully, on a wave of flawless, untroubled peace. “I’m so glad, sweetheart … sleeping is highly overrated, a complete waste of time, when we could be doing something else, like kissing or touching or talking or maybe.… even.…” she added hopefully, “trying to hug …?”

“You don’t look seriously undernourished to me after all, my beautiful girl, now that your eyes are open,” Spider said as he started to unbutton his shirt. “If sleeping is overrated, so is
lunch. How about a little kissing and hugging while my arms are still long enough to get around you?”

“You have an admirable sense of priorities,” Billy sighed happily, as she made room for him in bed
.

To be continued …

Dedication

For my granddaughter, Kate Mattie Krantz, my younger most adorable and most promising heroine
.

For Steve, first, last and forever my one and only—without him I would never have written
Scruples
and there most certainly would never have been a
Scruples Two,
fourteen years later
.

Acknowledgments

I owe a special debt of gratitude to these two friends who helped me by sharing inside knowledge of their professions:

Emily Woods, President of J. Crew

Gordon Davidson, Artistic Director/Producer of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and to
Edwina Lloyd, my wonderful, unflappable assistant
.

Other books by Judith Krantz

SCRUPLES
PRINCESS DAISY
MISTRAL’S DAUGHTER
I’LL TAKE MANHATTAN
TILL WE MEET AGAIN
DAZZLE
LOVERS
SPRING COLLECTION
THE JEWELS OF TESSA KENT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Since the publication of her first novel,
Scruples
, J
UDITH
K
RANTZ
has been one of the world’s bestselling novelists. Born and raised in New York City and a graduate of Wellesley College, she and her husband, Steve Krantz, live in Bel Air and Newport Beach, California. They have two sons and two grandchildren.