Kitabı oku: «Baby for the Tycoon», sayfa 7

Ten

“Not about to kick you out of your own bed,” she corrected, a blush tinting her cheeks.

As if she wasn’t irresistible already.

He wanted to argue about the sleeping arrangements. Dear God, he did. But he couldn’t logically make an argument for sleeping in the tub. Besides, he’d doubt he’d fit.

“Oh, I get it,” she said with teasing concern. “You’re embarrassed about your body.”

Clearly she was trying to hide her own embarrassment.

“Wendy—”

“You’re probably all pasty white under those dress shirts, huh?” She clucked her tongue in sympathy. “Maybe you put on a few extra pounds over the holidays? Is that it? Is that why you’re standing there like a statue, refusing to get undressed?”

He wasn’t about to tell why he really wasn’t getting undressed. If she hadn’t figured out how thin her tank top was and how much that turned him on, then he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

“Hey, I won’t even look,” she teased, making a great show of rolling over to face the wall. “Now I can’t see you. You can even turn out the light if you want.”

Rolling his eyes at her silliness, he reached over and turned off the lamp before starting on his buttons.

“I guess you made peace with my dad,” she said after a minute.

“I guess so,” he admitted, slipping off his shirt and tossing it vaguely in the direction of a nearby chair. He toed off his shoes and socks. “He’s not such a bad guy.”

“No.” Her voice was small in the darkness. “He’s not. Everyone comes around eventually.”

He hesitated before unbuttoning his jeans. He hadn’t slept in anything other than his underwear since college. He didn’t even own a pair of pajama bottoms. First thing in the morning, he was buying a pair. No, twenty pair. Maybe thirty just to be safe.

A moment later he lay down so close to the edge of the bed that his left shoulder hung off the side. His awkward position was still not uncomfortable enough to block out the scent of her on his pillow. It smelled warm and feminine and faintly of peppermint.

He lay there stiffly, eyes resolutely closed, keenly aware that she too was still awake. He searched for something to say. “I never knew you liked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

Damn, was he smooth or what?

He heard her roll over in the dark and prop herself up on her elbow. “Doesn’t everyone?”

He turned just his head to look at her, but found himself eye to eye with Peyton. Her tiny face was seven inches from his. Her lips pursed as she dreamed about eating. He remembered his niece doing that, from all those long years ago when he used to help feed his sister’s kids. Lacey would be in college now. He felt a powerful punch of longing. The kind he normally kept buried deep inside. To push it back down, he rolled up onto his elbow to look at Wendy.

At least he understood the longing he felt when he looked at her. Pure sexual desire. He got that. He could control it—at least, he thought he could. God knew, he’d controlled it so far. But this unfamiliar longing to reconnect with his family? That was new and terrifying territory.

He doubled his pillow under his head, allowing him to look over Peyton to where Wendy lay. She’d moved the night-light in from the nursery, a glowing hippo that cast the room in pink light and made Wendy’s skin look nearly iridescent. When he looked back up at her eyes, her gaze darted away from his, as if she was all too aware of the desire pulsing through his veins.

He could see she was about to lie back down, so he said, “No, not everyone loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Most people don’t even know they were a witty and subversive comic book before becoming a fairly cheesy movie marketed to kids.”

She gave a playful shrug, smiling, either because the topic amused her or because she was relieved he’d stopped looking at her like something he wanted to lick clean, he couldn’t tell which.

“That’s me, I guess.” She imitated his hushed tone, obviously no more willing to wake Peyton than he was. “A fan of things witty and subversive.”

“Yeah, I get that. What I don’t get is how I never knew it until now.”

“Oh.” She gave another shrug, this one self-effacing.

“For five years, you’ve dressed like the consummate, bland executive assistant.” Whispering in the dark as if this made the conversation far more intimate than the topic was. “Bland clothing in a neutral palate. Demure hair. Now I find out you’ve been hiding a love of violet nail polish and eighties indie punk rock.” He nodded toward her boxers. “Not to mention the Turtles.”

She frowned. “Punk rock?”

“The Replacements T-shirt you had on the other day.”

“You recognized them?” She gave him a pointed once-over. “And yet you don’t seem like a fan of eighties alternative.”

“I’m a fan of Google. And you couldn’t possibly have been old enough to attend the concert where that T-shirt was sold.”

“I’m a fan of eBay. And of defying expectations.”

“Which brings me back to my original question. Why didn’t I know this about you?”

She paused, seeming to consider the question for a long time. Then she sank back and stared at the ceiling. He watched her, lying there with her eyes open as she gazed into the dark, long enough that he thought she wasn’t going to answer at all.

Finally she said softly, “Working at FMJ…” Her shoulders gave a twitch, as if she was shrugging off her pensive mood. “I guess it’s been the ultimate rebellion for me. When you’re from an old oil family, what’s worse than working for a company that’s made their money in green energy.”

“We do a lot of other things too,” he pointed out.

“Well, sure.” She rolled back to face him. “But even then, it’s all about innovation and change. My family is all about tradition. Maybe when I was working for FMJ, I never felt like I needed to rebel.”

He felt his heart stutter as he heard her slip. When I was working for FMJ, she’d said. Not now that I am working for FMJ, but when I was. But she didn’t seem to notice, so he let it pass without comment.

“Working at FMJ,” she continued, her voice almost dreamy, “I felt like I had direction. Purpose. I didn’t need to define myself by dying my hair blue or getting my navel pierced or getting a tattoo.”

The image of her naked belly flashed through his mind. The thought of a tiny diamond belly-button ring took his mind into dangerous territory.

“A tattoo?” He was immediately sorry he asked. Please let it be somewhere completely innocuous, like her… nope.

He couldn’t think of a single body part on Wendy that didn’t seem sexy.

She gave a little chuckle. “One of my more painful rebellions.” Then—please God, strike him dead now—she lifted the hem of her white tank top to reveal her hip and the delicate flower that bloomed there.

He clenched his fist to keep from reaching out to touch it. For a second, every synapse in his brain stopped firing. Thought was impossible. Then they all fired at once. A thousand comments went through his brain. Finally, he cleared his throat and forced out the most innocent of them. “That doesn’t look like it was done in a parlor.”

As lovely as it was, the lines were not crisp. The colors weren’t bright.

Wendy chuckled. “Mine was done by a boyfriend.” She held up her hands as if to ward off his criticism. “Don’t worry, his tools were all scrupulously sterilized and I’ve been tested since then for all the nasty things you can get if they hadn’t been.” She gave the tattoo a little pat and then tugged her hem back down. “I was eighteen, had just finished my freshman year at Dartmouth and I wanted to study abroad. My parents refused and made me come home and intern at Morgan Oil. So I dated a former gang member who’d served time in county.”

Jonathon had to swallow back the shot of fear that jumped through his veins. She’d obviously survived. She was here now, healthy and safe, but the thought of her dating that guy made his blood boil.

He unclenched his jaw long enough to say, “And you wonder why your parents worry about you.”

She gave a nervous chuckle. “Joe was actually a really nice guy. Besides, after spending the weekend with my family—”

“Let me guess, now he works for Morgan Oil? Interns for your uncle in Washington?”

“No. Even better. He went on to write a book about how to leave the gang life behind. He teaches gang intervention throughout Houston and travels all over the U.S. working with police departments.”

“You sound almost proud,” he commented.

She cocked her head and seemed to think about it. “I guess I am proud of Joe. He turned his life around.” Then she gave a little laugh. “Maybe my family should start a self-help program.”

“Tell me something. What’s with all the cautionary tales?” “What do you mean?”

“This is the second boyfriend you’ve told me about whose life was changed by meeting your parents.”

“I’m just warning you.” Her tone was suddenly serious. “This is what they do. They’ll find your weakness—or your strength or whatever—and they use it to drive you away from me.”

“No,” he said. “That’s what they’ve done in the past. That’s not what they’re going to do to me.”

“Don’t be so sure of that.” She looked at him, her expression resigned. “Can you honestly tell me you haven’t considered how helpful my uncle could be in securing that government contract?”

“That contract has nothing to do with this.”

“Not yet. But they’re doing it already.”

“I don’t—”

“You were up late drinking scotch with my dad and uncle, weren’t you?”

“How—”

“I can smell it on your breath. And you don’t drink scotch.”

“How do you know that I don’t drink scotch?”

“You never drink hard liquor.” Her tone had grown distant. “Never. You keep very expensive brands on hand at the office—and I assume here—for associates who do drink. You read Wine Spectator magazine, and can always order a fabulous bottle of wine. You don’t mind reds and will drink white, if that’s what your companion is having, but you don’t

really like either. You prefer ice-cold beer. Even then, you never have more than two a night.”

He leaned back slightly, unnerved that she knew so much about his taste. “What else do you know about me?”

“I know that anyone who has such strict rules for themselves about alcohol, probably has a parent who drinks. I’d guess your father—”

“It was my mother.”

“—but that would just be a guess.”

“You have any other theories?”

Between them Peyton stirred. He reached out a hand to place on Peyton’s belly to calm her. Wendy reached out at the same time and their fingers brushed. Wendy hesitated, then linked her fingers through his.

“I didn’t say it to make a point. I’m just…” She brushed her thumb back and forth over his. “There’s something about my family that makes people want to impress them. It’s made you want to impress them, or you wouldn’t have bent your no-hard-liquor rule.”

“My mom did drink,” he said slowly. “'Functioning alcoholic’ is the term people use now. You have any other old wounds you want to poke?”

The second the words left his mouth, he squeezed his eyes shut.

Christ, he sounded like a jerk.

He opened his eyes, shoving up on his elbow to look at her. He fully expected to see a stung expression on her face. Instead, she just gave his hand a squeeze and sent him a sad smile.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted.

“Don’t apologize. I got a little carried away with the armchair psychology.” She was silent for a minute and he could hear the gears in her brain turning. “But since you mentioned it.”

“Okay, hit me with it. What horribly invasive question are you going to ask next? You want to know my deepest fear? Clowns. How much I’m actually worth? About—”

“Actually I wanted to know about Kristi.”

He fell silent.

“She was your—”

“I know who you mean.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, all but praying she’d let it drop. She shifted in the bed beside him. Fidgeting, but saying nothing. She wasn’t going to let it drop, and if he didn’t respond soon, she’d think Kristi was a bigger deal than she had been.

“She was just someone I knew in high school. Who told you about her?”

He wanted to know who to kill. He hoped it wasn’t Matt or Ford, because murdering one of his business partners would probably be the end of FMJ.

“Claire,” Wendy answered.

Well, crap. He couldn’t very well kill a woman. Especially when she’d just married his best friend.

“Don’t be mad at her,” Wendy continued. “I practically begged for information.”

“Why on earth would you beg for information about my old high school girlfriend?”

“I dunno.” She rolled over, but with his eyes squeezed shut, he couldn’t tell if she was rolling toward him or away from him. “As dead set as you are against love… well, no one feels that way unless they’ve been hurt.”

“What did Claire tell you about Kristi?”

She didn’t answer right away. “Just that you were crazy about her. And she left.”

She’d paused long enough for him to know she’d been fabricating her answer. Condensing it down to the barest details.

But in his mind, he could all too easily imagine the longer version. The real version. The one where he made a complete ass of himself over Kristi. Where he handed her his whole heart… and did nothing but scare her away. “And?” he prodded.

“I figured… she must have been the one.” “And that’s what you surmised from Claire’s story? That Kristi was the one to break my heart?” “Am I wrong?”

What exactly was he supposed to say to that? Kristi had broken his heart. But he’d only been eighteen. “That was a lifetime ago.”

“What happened with her? What really happened?”

He forced his eyes open and tried to sound casual. “You’re the armchair psychologist. What do you think happened?”

She tilted her head to the side, considering. “I think that you, Jonathon Bagdon, are a pretty intense guy.”

He looked up at her. In the dark of the room, her skin was luminous. Her eyes were so dark they looked almost purple. She was so beautiful, it made his heart ache. As well as plenty of other parts of him.

Damn, but he wanted her. Not just her body. But all of her.

Thinking of her comment, all he could was mutter, “You have no idea.”

“The way I see it, I’m a grown woman. Someone who’s used to dealing with strong personalities. And there are times when even I’m a little overwhelmed by you. So this girl—Kristi?—she probably didn’t have a chance. I’m guessing you falling in love with her must have scared the hell out of her.”

“Yeah. That’s about it.” He let his eyes drift closed again. “This thing between us,” he began, but then corrected himself, “this physical thing between us, it’s pretty intense.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed softly. He opened his eyes to see her still sitting up, looking down at him. The look in her eyes made heat churn through his body, but it was her words that made his heart pound. “I’m not scared of you, Jonathon.”

“Maybe you should be.”

She tilted her head, studying him in the pink glow of the hippo. Indeed, she looked more aroused than frightened.

“Maybe.”

“Scratch that. You should definitely be afraid. If you knew half the things I want to do to you…”

She arched a brow, her expression a little curious, a little challenging. “You think you’re the only one with pent-up desire and an active imagination?”

Was she purposefully trying to destroy any chance he had of getting some sleep? Ever again?

“I think,” he answered her, “there’s a damn good chance you underestimate how sexy you look in a tank top.” It was hard to tell in the pink light, but he could have sworn she blushed. He couldn’t stop himself from going on. “And I also think you underestimate just how hard it is for me to keep my hands off you.”

Her chest rose as she sucked in a deep breath, highlighting all the wonderful things that tank top of hers did.

“You think you’re the only person this is hard for?” she asked.

“I think I’m the only one who’s a big enough jerk to wait until there was an innocent baby here in the bed between us, just to guarantee I’d keep my hands off you.”

She gnawed on her lip for a second then, looking secretly pleased with herself. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the image of her and that sexy bow mouth of hers.

He felt the bed shift as she lay back down. Then, so softly he thought he might have imagined it, she said, “Don’t be so sure about that.”

Eleven

She’d fallen asleep with her body fairly throbbing with unfulfilled sexual tension and she woke up alone. The feeling of jittery anticipation stayed with her as she headed for the bathroom and dug through the suitcases she’d left in Jonathon’s closet the day before. She quickly pulled on an oversize gossamer shirt and a pair of black leggings and headed downstairs to search out food and her family.

She walked into the kitchen just in time for her mother to pile her plate high with the last batch of buttermilk pancakes. Peyton was gurgling happily in the high chair beside the table, being cooed to by Mema. The kitchen was as warm and as welcoming as a Hallmark special. The tangy scent of pancakes mingled with the bitter zing of the coffee to stir long-forgotten memories of her childhood. She swallowed back a pang of loneliness and regret. She’d chosen to leave Texas and to distance herself from her family. That didn’t mean she didn’t miss them.

But with all that was going on in the kitchen, there was one thing that was missing. Jonathon.

Or to be more precise, three things: Jonathon, her father and Big Hank.

She didn’t notice at first, so caught up as she was in the pancake-scented time machine. But she paused, that first bite halfway to her mouth, and listened with her head cocked toward the kitchen door, mentally reviewing the walk down the stairs.

She set down the fork, heavenly bite uneaten. “Okay, where’d you send them?”

Mema’s back stiffened. “Why would you assume I’d sent them anywhere?”

Wendy shoved the bite of pancakes into her mouth and chewed out her frustration. “Well, they’re not here, are they? That means you’ve sent them off somewhere. Either so you can ply him for information. Or me, I suppose.”

Her mother and grandmother exchanged a look that made her very nervous. She forked off another bite and crammed it in. Weren’t carbs supposed to be calming? So why didn’t she feel any more relaxed?

She felt a niggling of fear creep up her spine. If she was honest with herself, she knew why she didn’t feel any calmer. When a pride of lions went hunting, they’d separate the weaker members of the pack from the rest to make it easier to pick them off.

Jonathon had just been separated from the herd.

“Where did they go?” she asked, feigning a calmness the pancakes hadn’t provided.

“Seriously, it’s nothing nefarious. Jonathon offered to show them FMJ’s headquarters. It’s not like they’ve taken him out back to beat him or anything.”

No. Maybe it wasn’t like that. But she feared how buddy-buddy they’d be when they got back.

She and Jonathon had only been married for two days and already her family was driving a wedge between them.

It was no easy task slipping out of the house when her mother and grandmother were there hovering. In the end, she lied. She wasn’t proud of it, but she did it.

I just want to run out to the grocery store for a few things, she’d said. Diapers. New formula. Oh, right. There are several cans in the pantry. But Peyton’s been so fussy I want to try a different brand.

Who knew motherhood would provide such ample opportunity for lying?

“I think between the two of us, Mema and I have raised enough children to muddle through,” her mother had said as Wendy headed for the door.

Wendy took the grocery store at a mad dash, storming the unfamiliar baby aisle as if it were the target of a shock-and-awe military campaign. She raked into her cart five different varieties of formula and enough diapers to keep Peyton dry until college. Then, back in the car, she retraced her path, bypassing Jonathon’s street and heading for FMJ’s headquarters.

Stopped at a light—mentally urging it to change more quickly—she took one brief minute to question her motives. Why was she so worried? What was the worst that would happen?

A few hours alone with her family wouldn’t convince Jonathon to revamp his entire life, write a tell-all and travel the country on the lecture circuit. After a single night of tossing back scotch with her uncle, he wasn’t going to quit FMJ and accept a position at Morgan Oil. Or worse, run for office.

But none of that logic slowed the pounding of her heart. Nor did it dry out her damp palms.

She so desperately wanted to believe that Jonathon was different than every other guy she’d ever dated. But what if he wasn’t?

He had to know how influential her uncle was within the government. One word from Big Hank and that contract they’d been working on could be a done deal. All Jonathon had to do was sell her uncle on the idea.

And when it came to FMJ’s proprietary technology, no one was a better salesman than Jonathon. If he had the chance to schmooze her uncle, he’d be a fool not to take it. She’d just hoped he wouldn’t have a chance.

By the time she swiped her security card at the campus gate, she was twitchy with anxiety. Part of her wanted to just drive. Not back to his house, not even back to hers, but just drive. She’d had a friend once who hopped in her car and drove to Cabo San Lucas every time life got messy. It was a twenty-eight-hour drive from Palo Alto. By tomorrow afternoon, Wendy could be sipping tequila on the beach. But none of her problems would go away. And then she’d be drunk or hungover and two thousand miles from them. That hardly seemed like the perfect solution. Twenty-seven years of rational decision-making wouldn’t let her go the Shawshank route.

She scurried into the front office, dropped her purse on the desk and sank into her chair. The simple familiarity of the actions settled her nerves. How crazy was it that the faint scent of ozone coming off all the computer equipment in the other room could be so calming?

Maybe her family was right and she was a nut for loving this job so much, but she couldn’t help it. Everything felt right in the world when she sat behind this desk.

She knew it was an illusion. If she went down to the R&D lab, she’d find Jonathon there with her father and uncle. And she just wasn’t ready to see that yet. Apparently, she’d run across town for nothing.

Letting out a sigh, she crossed her arms on the desktop and dropped her head into the cradle of her elbows. Then she heard a faint sound coming from the back office that Ford, Matt and Jonathon shared. She stilled instantly, listening. Slowly she stood and crossed to the door, giving it a nudge so it swung inward.

Jonathon stood behind his desk along the west wall. She was unused to seeing him in casual clothes, and couldn’t help admiring how good he looked in a simple cotton T-shirt and jeans. Though his laptop was out on his desk, it wasn’t open. There was a manila file in his hand.

“Oh,” she murmured as he looked up. “It’s you.”

His lips twitched. “Who’d you expect?”

“I…” She paused, momentarily stumped. Finally, she admitted, “I thought you were downstairs in the R&D lab. With my father and Big Hank.”

“Nope.” He frowned, obviously puzzling through why she would have thought that. “We ran into Matt. He offered to show them around.”

“Oh.” Relief flooded her. He wasn’t off schmoozing her family. He hadn’t fallen under their spell.

“Why’d you come in?” he asked.

“Oh, well I…” Not wanting to admit she suspected him of underhanded business tactics, she made a vague gesture toward her office. “Same as you. Wanted to catch up on some work.”

Suddenly, now that her fears about Jonathon had been dispelled, another emotion came rushing into the void left by them: desire. Or maybe it had been there all along, right under the surface, waiting for an excuse to rise to the top, as it always did.

“Right.” He nodded. “Since I figure we won’t be in tomorrow we might as well—”

“Why won’t you be in tomorrow?” she asked, without really listening for the answer, because her mind was back in the bedroom, the night before, hearing him confess how much he wanted her. And she was remembering how he’d looked in the light of that ridiculous pink hippo, the bedsheet pulled only to his waist, the muscles of his chest so clearly defined despite the dim lighting.

“Your family. They’ll still be here then.”

“So? What does that have to do with your work?”

“While they’re here, our first priority is convincing them we’re a happy couple. We can’t do that if we’re not together.” “But work—” she protested. “Can wait for a few days.” Work? Wait? Who was this guy?

Whoever he was, she didn’t like it. Not one bit. She was going to have a hard enough time sleeping in the same bed with him for the next week. She’d been counting on their time at the office to return to normalcy. Now more than ever, she needed him to be the hard, analytical boss she was used to.

Her mind was still reeling from that little bomb when Jonathon said, “Since we’re both here, why don’t you go grab your computer and we’ll try to get some work done?”

“The thing is, Jonathon, I—”

Then she broke off abruptly. Because what could she really say? He was waiting, expectantly. Looking so handsome it made her heart ache. “The thing is, I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Do what?”

“Slip so easily between the work me and the me that has to pretend to be your wife. I don’t know why it seems so easy for you, but—”

“You think this is easy for me?”

“Well. Yes. You barely seem aware that at this time yesterday you were kissing me. Or that last night we slept in the same bed.” She paused, waiting for him to say something. Though his gaze darkened, he didn’t comment and suddenly she felt ridiculous for saying these things aloud. “Which is fine, I mean, this is my problem. I’ll figure it out. But I think I just need to get out of here for a couple of hours. Get my head on straight.”

Maybe that trip to Cabo wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

She turned and had made it most of the way to the door when he grabbed her arm and turned her around. She barely caught her balance when he pulled her roughly against him and kissed her.