Divine Design by Mary Kay McComas Read Free Book Online Page A

skills and mind. A change of pace, so that when I come back. I’ll be ready and more than eager to get back to corporate law again.”
    “When’s all this supposed to happen?”
    “Well, I wanted to give you plenty of notice. Enough time to break in a couple of extra paralegals. I thought maybe mid-December. The holidays are generally a slow time. Business doesn’t usually pick up again until February. By then you’ll have forgotten all about me, except for my name on the door,” she had said, grinning at him infectiously.
    “Never,” he had retorted, affection shining in his eyes. “Just get well and get yourself back here before the whole place falls down around me.”
    Everything had been going according to plan, until she’d made a weekend trip to Boston. Contrary to her hope that her father would react calmly, he had seethed at the news that any man would defile his beautiful young daughter.
    “I’ll kill the bastard with my bare hands,” he roared, his normally pale skin ruddy with anger.
    Meghan sighed wearily. She almost wished she hadn’t started any of this in the first place, until her hand fell to the small mound of her abdomen.
    “Look, Pop. None of this is his fault. I’m a grown woman. I knew the risks, and I’m responsible for my own actions.” Seeing the disappointment and disapproval in her father’s eyes, she added more gently, “No one is pure and innocent forever, Pop. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you.”
    “Sounds to me like she’s taken on the morals of an alley cat now that she’s living in the big city,” her brother Donald had commented.
    “Shut your mouth,” Sean Shay had ordered his son, his attention still on Meghan. “Will the father do the right thing?” he questioned.
    The fact that the father didn’t know and that she had no intentions of telling him went over like a lead balloon as well.
    Her best-loved brother, Connie, was the only one she told the whole truth to. She told him about that night and watched him turn pale with anger and fear.
    “Good Lord, Meghan. Where were your brains?” he exploded angrily when she’d finished. “Not only is that the stupidest, most immature thing to do, but it’s also a hell of a way to get yourself killed. What an idiot!”
    He had reluctantly admitted to understanding her need, but refused to condone her selfish attitude and what she had done. Meghan had left her childhood home in turmoil. She hadn’t deluded herself into thinking they’d be overjoyed, but she hadn’t been prepared for their condemnation.
    Oh, she knew they’d come around and love the baby once it was born; after all, a Shay was a Shay, even under the worst circumstances. But knowing she had hurt and disappointed those she loved most only brought forth another tidal wave of culpability and disgrace.
    Pulling her thoughts to earth, she left Central Park and made her way back to the office.
    “Any messages, Greta?” she asked.
    Greta, a gray-haired woman in her late forties, who was the motherly-type herself, and the most efficient secretary Meghan had worked with, smiled her greeting.
    “Henry wants to see you before you leave for the day. Lucy called, but you don’t need to call her back. She’ll be over tonight,” Greta informed her, and then added, “and that woman called.”
    “What woman?” Meghan asked, smiling at the way Greta had called her “that woman.”
    “The foreign-speaking female you have in your home now,” she clarified indignantly. “I simply dread her calls. It takes forty-five minutes just to find out who she’s asking for.”
    “Oh, it does not,” Meghan teased good-naturedly. “Her accent is thick, I’ll grant you that, but you should be able to tell by now that when a woman with a thick Polish accent calls this office—on my private line, no less—it’s more than likely Mrs. Belinski. What did she need, did she say?”
    Greta gave her an obtuse look, and Meghan laughed and asked, “Anything else?”
    With a