Free Holiday Magic (Second Chance) by Susanne Matthews Page A

two. She was going to let it go to the message when she saw it was Eleni, and suddenly no matter what had happened on the weekend, she needed her sister.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    “Hey, it’s the middle of the night,” she answered trying to keep the sound of her hours of crying out of her voice, but twin intuition kicked in.
    “ Something’s wrong, Georgia. I’ve felt it all evening. I’ve been waiting for you to call, but I can’t wait anymore. Are you sick? I think you’re hurt. Did Mark do something? I’ll kill him if he did something!”
    Georgia smiled. Trust Eleni to get right to the heart of the matter.
    “I told Joe that I had to call. I know something is wrong, Georgia; talk to me.”
    “ I will if you give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. I ran into Lucy today.”
    She pulled the phone away from her ear as Eleni let out a stream of curse words that would make a longshoreman blush. She pressed speaker in case Eleni felt the need to yell again. Her piercing shrieks could probably cause hearing loss.
    Painstakingly, Georgia relayed what had happened and what had been said. She knew that Eleni had her on speaker, so the ever-vigilant Joe was probably there, but she no longer cared. It felt so good to talk to her other half, the sensible half, or so she thought, that nothing else mattered.
    “ I told you that bitch couldn’t be trusted,” shouted Eleni, her voice on speaker echoing throughout the apartment. “She probably set the whole thing up to break up your marriage and make Anton, that’s her husband, jealous. I’m sure that’s why she claimed to be pregnant. I’d heard they’d had a big fight about a week before, and he’d threatened to have nothing to do with her. She probably expected him to find her with Mark.”
    Eleni was incensed. From the way her voice got louder and lower, Georgia could envision her pacing across the carpeted floor of her suite.
    “That cow deserves to die for doing this. I should take out a contract on her,” ranted Eleni. “I’ll bet Joe would know where to find one. This is Atlantic City. There must be hit men all over the place.”
    “ Hey! Calm down! Remember me? I’m the wronged party here. You lose points for trying to get a hit man to take out a pregnant woman, so settle down, but you’ve made me feel better, so thanks. “
    “ Have you told Mark?” Eleni asked.
    “ No, he’s out of town until Friday. I’ll talk to him about it this weekend. Give him a chance to tell his part of the story.”
    “ Georgia, he’s said all along he doesn’t remember anything, sweetie. Joe just came in to check on me. Hang on.”
    Georgia listened as Eleni related the story, putting her very ‘biased against Lucy’ spin on it.
    “I’m sorry you’ve been so badly hurt, Georgia.” Somehow, she recognized he meant it. He had suffered because of someone too.
    “ She sounds like a real piece of work. I probably could find a hit man,” he laughed, “but I’d hate to see either one of you end up in the slammer over her. I’m glad she isn’t one of my friends. You know, if the guy doesn’t remember anything, I’ll bet somebody slipped him a mickey. It’s happened a few times in the casino. If that’s the case, and it’s really the only thing that could account for that kind of memory loss, he didn’t do anything in that bed but sleep.”
    Eleni agreed, and insisted Mark had never dated Lucy afterward. When she’d called a month later claiming to be with child, he had agreed to do what was best for the child, but had spurned her offer to come over. Eleni knew, because she’d been there when that little discussion had taken place in his office.
    By the time they finished talking, Georgia had stopped her off-again-on-again crying jags, and had agreed to give Mark the benefit of the doubt—she would assume that he had been an innocent pawn in the game, but where was she prepared to let their relationship go? For three years, she had