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the cocktail waitress. In the old days he would've had her phone number by now. Hell, he would've talked her into coming up to his room when her shift was over.
    Now he suddenly wasn't sure what he wanted.
    His grandfather had stunned him with his ultimatum. And strangely enough, in the process of drawing up the contract, he'd felt like he was growing closer to Michaela.
    Her husband had been a fool. To have been truly loved by a woman like that and then be stupid enough to throw it all away? He couldn't conceive of it.
    In the deepest part of his soul he knew Julian Black was right. His entire emotional life was one big bluff. His grandfather had called him on it. Secretly he sometimes found himself yearning for a closer relationship with a woman but he still wasn't sure if he was capable of feeling that much.
    "One for the road?"
    The cocktail waitress was cute, with a curvy figure, red hair and freckles. Suddenly he didn't want to lead her on.
    "I'm waiting for my fiancee," he said.
    "Oh." She was flustered for a moment but quickly recovered. "It’s a beautiful night to be with someone you love. There's a full moon."
    He'd noticed it on the way over, sailing luminous and silver through the night sky.
    "So, that’s it?" she asked, and he knew what she was asking him.
    "Yeah." He filled in his suite number on the bill and left her a generous tip. He was about to leave when her words stopped him.
    "You're that teddy bear guy."
    Cautiously he nodded his head. The bar was deserted at this hour, it was clear she was almost at the end of her shift.
    "Then you found her."
    "Yeah."
    "She's a lucky girl."
    "Thank you." He hesitated and thought of going back up to the suite and bedding Nancy. He wondered if he was doing the right thing. Then he thought of his grandfather and how his older relative didn't have that many more years left.
    "What the hell," he muttered. "I'll have another one."
     
    * * *
     
    Julian stood next to the huge window in the master bedroom of his Nob Hill estate. He knew his grandson was at an expensive hotel tonight with the woman he'd picked to father his child.
    He took a sip of his drink and gazed out into the night sky, depressed.
    Nothing had gone as he'd thought it would. He'd pushed his grandson into a compromising situation because he'd been too damn proud to go back on his ultimatum.
    Mary would have known what to do. He was so godawful clumsy and inept when it came to emotions.
    The window was open and the cool, ocean-scented air chilled his pajama-clad body. Turning, he headed back toward his closet, intent on finding one of his silk bathrobes.
    He was rummaging in the vast closet when a small box fell off one of the top shelves. He picked it up and almost jammed it back onto one of the shelves. But something stopped him and he opened it.
    Julian smiled. He and his wife had traveled the world in search of toys that would amuse children. Mary had been something of an artist and he'd encouraged her to sketch various animals. Later he'd sent the pencil drawings to their stuffed animal department, where they'd been painstakingly transformed into accurate playthings.
    He gazed down at the little pre-Columbian Venus in the box, wadded in among a clump of tissue paper. Mary had found it somewhere in South America, in a tiny shop far off the beaten track. She'd been enchanted with the little statue's swollen, pregnant belly, and had brought it back in the hopes that it might give them more grandchildren.
    It hadn't quite worked out that way.
    But maybe it will tonight...
    Julian blinked. For just a moment he could've sworn he'd heard Mary's voice. Carefully, with fingers that trembled, he freed the funny little statue from its tissue paper nest. Then, thoughts of his bathrobe completely forgotten, he took the statue to the large bedroom window and set it on the windowsill.
    The moonlight silvered the swollen little belly and Julian smiled. He could dream, couldn't he? He could hope for a miracle, pray