Free Designs On Daphne by Lilly Christine Page A

and hot entrees local restaurants could provide as early as tomorrow night, together on his mother’s carpet, she hoped.
      Of course, there would be a few things she’d whip up herself, now that she’d seen to it that he had the right mixer, the right saute pans, and everything else she’d need.  
    He’d damn well have the right chef’s knife - he’d have nine of them, and the steak knives, and the boner and the cleaver, two sized of cleaver, actually, and the Japanese knives that Anthony Bordain recommended, and the parers and other incidentals. . . .In fact, he’d have everything she’d ever wanted in her dream kitchen, and a few things she hadn’t thought of yet, too.
      Surveying the goods in front of her, she smiled, thinking about his guests ooh-ing and aah-ing over her special appetizers. She decided to suggest they shop for his everyday plate ware and silverware too, that weekend. They’d go to Sak’s, look at the selection there, and then on to Neiman Marcus, to compare. What am I thinking? Am I leading him on a wedding registry tour!
      But no, that wasn’t it: Rodric had already had a wedding. With Caroline. They’d done that together.
    He hadn’t done anything with Caroline in the shower all tiled in travertine marble, with double detachable shower heads, she was sure of that.
      Well, not the same shower, anyway.
      She was a professional, she reminded herself. Rodric and his mother had asked for her help. They were paying for her services, her design ideas, the organizational and planning skills manifest in her industrious, miles-long lists. Divorces were painful, and Rodric needed her caring and support so he could start his life over.
      But as she carefully inventoried all the boxes and consulted her list again, making sure she’d remembered everything, she couldn’t repress the re-emergence of a nagging fear. In the not too distant future, Rodric would be doing some selecting of his own: he’d be choosing a fiancee slash wife slash mother, the woman who would bear at least two of his babies, but probably more. . .
      And before she gives him those babies, he’ll put a ridiculously large, freakishly uber-sparkling engagement ring on her finger. Then she’ll be able to quit her job and spend all of her time planning their humungous, outrageously elegant wedding!
      She was certain it would be a who-cares-its-a-second-wedding-for him whopper of an affair, a no expense spared full on connubial extravaganza.
      Because Rodric had not mentioned budget as much as once. And she was a professional, so she’d bet the bank it would be no-holds-barred for his fiancee. He’d hand the girl the reins, and let her run with them, whomever she might be. But who would she be??
      Yesterday in the restaurant, Rodric had very specifically made her aware that this apartment was not a bachelor pad. It had been his duty to alert her, as a professional, she’d decided late last night, after she’d been awake for hours tossing and turning, trying to pretend she wasn’t disappointed he hadn’t kissed her.
      The penthouse overlooking Lake Travis with the pool on the roof that she had not even summoned the courage to ask to see was his, “I’m going to find the perfect girl very, very soon. I’ll marry her and take her to Paris, then we’ll come home so I can wake up with her every morning and kiss her every night, touch her and keep her safe while planting my seed in her over and over and over again, on the sofa and in the bed and in the shower against the glass and in the tub with the jets stroking our wet bodies and maybe even on the kitchen table, anywhere and all the time so she’ll have my baby really soon,” place.
      Til death do us part.
      It was the ‘I’ll take her every which way and six times on Sunday place.’ A first home, a place for romance, the ‘just-until-the second baby comes and and we move to a big Texas house with gardens-place.’
      Like he’d had with