Kitabı oku: «His Baby Agenda»

This book is dedicated to Courtney and Lucas. No mother could be prouder of her children than I am of you.

Thank you to my wonderful editor, Charles, for his insights and knowing the right questions to ask in order to make my manuscripts better. Thank you also to my dear friend Eve Gaddy, who is always available to chat about my plot when I run into problems.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Extract

Copyright

One

The intercom buzzed and Gabriella de la Cruz put down her cup of tea to pick up the phone. “Yes, Melissa?”

“There is someone here to see you,” her assistant said. To Gabi’s ears Melissa sounded excited, the way she’d been that time she’d won five hundred dollars on a scratch-off lottery card. She could only guess that another one of the celebrities Melissa was always cyberstalking had dropped by looking for a nanny.

Gabi had started her nanny service seven years ago after a very successful run as a live-in nanny for the Hollywood director Malcolm Jeffers. Mal and his wife had sung Gabi’s praises and suggested she start her own business when their kids were old enough to no longer need a nanny.

“I have an appointment in thirty minutes,” Gabi said. “Can you ask them to come back?”

“I think you’ll want to see him,” Melissa said.

Doubtful. She was busy; it seemed as though everyone wanted something from her at this time of year. Her parents wanted her to make more time for them and come over to their place this weekend. Her clients were anxious about summer and instead of dealing with the nannies who worked in their homes year-round, they were calling her about activities, vacations and travel documents. Her clientele couldn’t just nip down to Disneyland or Legoland for the weekend. They all wanted to go someplace exotic, which was a big headache.

“Who is it?” she asked at last. Melissa wasn’t going to just tell him to go away. And Gabi needed to get back to writing the column she was working on for a national parenting magazine.

“It’s Kingsley Buchanan. The former NFL quarterback, agent to the best athletes in the world.”

Kingsley.

Of course when she was having a bad day he’d have to walk back into her life. Heck, even just his name sent a shiver through her. She wanted to pretend it was one of dread, but her pulse had picked up and she’d sat up a little straighter.

“I don’t have the time,” she said, hanging up the phone.

Let’s face it; she didn’t owe him more than that. He’d been her first lover—well, one-night stand might be more accurate given that he’d left her in the morning and been arrested before lunch. She’d only been alone with him one time after that. An ill-fated jailhouse visit when he’d told her she’d been naive to think there was more between them than what she’d gotten.

Idiot.

She wasn’t sure if she meant him or herself.

Why was he here?

Why did she care?

She reached up to push her hair behind her ear and then pulled her laptop closer, staring at the screen and pretending she was reading the email her mother had sent about the first communion of her cousin Guillermo’s daughter in Spain this summer. But she wasn’t.

Why was Kingsley here?

Her door opened without a knock and she glanced up to see broad shoulders filling the doorway. She caught her breath. Of course she’d seen him on television in the past ten years—just occasionally—before she quickly changed the channel. But damn, time had been good to him.

His thick dark brown hair, longer on the top, was artfully styled; it must have had some sort of product in it to keep it in place. His eyes were still blue, but in her mind they seemed icier than they had been in college. His jaw was hard, square and stubbornly set, his beard neatly trimmed.

“Can I help you?”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said, walking into the room as if he owned it, closing the door behind him.

“I believe I asked Melissa to schedule you an appointment for later in the week. I’m booked solid.”

“Surely you can make time for an old friend,” he said.

But there was nothing friendly in his manner as he walked over to her desk and perched his hip on the edge of it. He did casual the way a tiger hunting its prey did it. She tried to convince herself she bore no resemblance to a mouse as she looked up at him.

Take control.

That was what she’d learned after years of dealing with recalcitrant parents and children.

She stood up and held her hand out to him. Time to put this on a business footing. She’d shake his hand and walk him back to the door and then gently tell him goodbye.

Solid plan.

She was a genius.

“It’s wonderful to see you again, Kingsley. But I’m afraid I really don’t have time this morning.”

He took her hand in his but didn’t shake it. He held it loosely, stroking his thumb over her knuckles and making goose bumps spread up her arm. His amused look as she pulled her hand free made her want to do something to jar him.

But she wasn’t young and impulsive. He’d been the one to show her that being impetuous was the path to disaster. She stepped away from him.

“Why are you here?” she asked at last. “I think we’ve said all that needed to be said.”

“I’m looking for a nanny,” he said.

“I’m afraid my business only caters to real children, not those stuck in men’s bodies.”

He gave a bark of laughter and shook his head. “I’d forgotten that there was always a little edge to you.”

He had no idea.

“You don’t know me,” she said carefully. “And really, I can see we have nothing further to discuss, so if you wouldn’t mind leaving.”

“But I would mind,” he said. “I’m not one of your naughty clients who you can firmly control with your calm tones.”

She tipped her head to the side to study him. How did he know about her techniques? She’d written those very words last month in her column. Why was he here?

“For the last time, Kingsley, why are you here?”

“I told you, Gabriella, I need you.”

The way he said her name, letting it roll off his tongue as his tone deepened, weakened her resolve to get him out of her office quickly. And he’d said he needed her...the words she’d been waiting ten years to hear.

“Too bad. I don’t want to give the impression of being a clingy woman who doesn’t know when a lover has had enough.”

* * *

Kingsley had known coming back to California would be difficult, but he’d never shied away from obstacles. Experience had taught him that anything that didn’t kill him made him stronger. He knew it was a cliché, but a decade ago he’d spent a rough six months being treated as a murderer before being cleared of charges. Rumors had swirled that his father had bought off the grand jury, but in the end there was no evidence and they’d had to let both him and the other suspect—his best friend, Hunter Carruthers—go. But that reputation had followed him into the NFL and he’d always been considered dangerous by his teammates and a publicity liability by his coaches and managers.

Over the years he’d learned to bury his emotions, beneath a layer of ice so that no one could rattle him. But all that seemed to be out the window now that he was in the same room as Gabi de la Cruz once again.

She’d grown into her beauty. Her caramel-colored hair was thick and long, falling past her shoulders in smooth waves. Her eyes were still deep brown, but instead of revealing every emotion she felt, they were cautious. She watched him warily—something he knew he deserved—as if he were about to pounce on her.

He’d be lying if he said she didn’t still turn him on.

She’d always been different from other women, which was why he’d been quick to distance himself from her after Stacia Krushnik had been found dead. But that was the past. A past that really didn’t concern Gabi, thanks to the heartless way he’d sent her from his life. He was back in California for revenge and he needed someone to keep his son protected from the shit storm that he suspected he and Hunter Carruthers were about to unleash.

“I’m not here for a lover, Gabi. I’m here because I need a nanny for my son.”

“Your son?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. He’d followed her through the years via newspaper articles and online social media; it was a hit to his ego that she hadn’t done the same. “Conner is three and desperately in need of a nanny.”

He’d confused her.

Good. Finally, he felt as though the advantage was swinging back toward him.

She brushed past him; the subtle scent of her flowery perfume surrounded him as she sat down behind her desk. She reached for a piece of monogrammed paper and drew it toward her.

“Conner is three?” she asked. “What kind of nanny are you looking for?”

“You. I have spoken to Mal and he said you were the best. And I’ve read your parenting articles—I like your theories on child rearing.”

“Thank you,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “Why don’t you have a seat while we discuss this?”

“I’m comfortable here,” he said.

She gave him a tight smile. He bit the inside of his mouth to keep from smiling back. He was unnerving her. He liked it.

“Will your wife be part of the interview process for the nanny?” Gabi asked.

“She’s dead.”

“Oh,” she said, looking up at him. “I’m sorry, Kingsley.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Conner doesn’t remember her at all. It happened when he was six months old.”

“What have you been doing for child care up to now?” she asked.

He’d been using his assistant, Peri, but she’d gotten married last month and was retiring. “My assistant. How soon can you start?”

“I can’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t nanny anymore. I have a couple of nannies that are coming off assignments in the next week or so. I can set up some interviews for you, and I’d like to meet your son myself. Where is he?”

“With Hunter,” Kingsley said. Hunter and he had been a great duo on the field in college, and after Stacia’s death, Hunter had stopped playing football, being the second son of a privileged family. Hunter hadn’t needed to work, so he had spent the past few years building his reputation as a playboy. Plus the stigma of being charged with the “Frat House Murder” hadn’t helped.

“Um...we need to talk about that. He’s got a wild reputation. I can’t place one of my nannies in your home if he’s going to be there.”

“He won’t be a problem,” Kingsley said. “I don’t want one of your nannies. I want you, Gabi.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not in the field anymore.”

“I’ll make it worth your while,” he said. If there was one thing he’d learned from his father, Jeb Buchanan, it was that everyone had a price. Many people believed his father had bought Kingsley’s freedom and the silence of witnesses. But Jeb had a strong sense of justice and no one, not even his wayward younger son, could escape that. His father still wasn’t convinced that Kingsley was innocent in Stacia’s death.

But after Kingsley was done with his revenge, there would be no doubt as to who was responsible for her death.

“I can’t be bought.”

“No? What if I offered to fund the new playground you have been trying to get built?” he asked.

Gabi wouldn’t do it for herself, but he remembered her soft heart and how she’d do anything for a good cause. He wondered if that had changed.

She chewed her lower lip and looked down at the paper in front of her.

It hadn’t.

His gut was still right on the money when it came to this woman.

“We are talking a six-figure sum, Kingsley. Is my being a nanny to Conner worth that much?”

It was. He needed her to watch over his son and he needed her recollections of that party the night Stacia had died. Once he had her living under his roof, he’d be able to get the answers he needed.

There were certain parts of the night that didn’t add up. And everyone he and Hunter had spoken to had a different version of the events. So whether it took six figures or nine, it didn’t matter. He needed to put the ghosts of the past to rest. And Gabi was the only woman who could help him do that.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll need you in my home by this evening. I’ve left my address with your assistant.”

“I’ve agreed to be Conner’s nanny, but that’s it. I’m not living in,” she said.

“For the amount I’m paying, I think you are,” he said.

He stood up and starting walking to the door. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. It was time to get back to the rest of his day.

* * *

Arrogant bastard.

Gabi got up from her desk and dashed around in front of Kingsley before he could get to the door. She pressed her back against it and gave him a hard look.

She knew it was important to establish right this moment that he wasn’t in charge. No matter how much it might seem otherwise.

“We’re not finished yet.”

“I can’t imagine what else we have to discuss,” he said.

He didn’t stop as she’d thought he would. Instead he came right up until barely an inch of space separated them and put his hands on the door on either side of her head.

He surrounded her. She could see the flecks of green in his icy-blue eyes and the scar on his left eyebrow that she’d noticed the first time he’d kissed her. Her lips felt dry. Her breath got shallower and she wanted to smack herself in the forehead. Don’t react to him.

This was Kingsley Buchanan—lover and leaver. Not a man she was interested in.

But her body said otherwise.

Every nerve inside her reacted to him as if she didn’t know he was bad news. As if she hadn’t just agreed to live in his house... It was a deal with the devil.

Sure, she’d been battling with the county commissioners for the last eighteen months trying to get that park and playground built. And Kingsley’s offer was too good to pass up. But he didn’t own her. She had to stay in control.

Except his cologne smelled so good.

“We have a lot to discuss,” she said. Her voice sounded thready and breathy to her own ears.

Ugh.

“Like what?”

“I’m not living in your house.”

“Nonnegotiable.”

She frowned at him.

“Everything is.”

“Not that. I travel a lot with my job and I work from my home office. I need 24-7 care for Conner.”

“I can’t work 24-7 for you. I have to run this business,” she said.

“I will give you an office in my home and if your office hours are flexible, I’m willing to work with your schedule to give you the time you need. But you must live in my house.”

No, she thought. She couldn’t do it. But there was something persuasive about him and she felt her resolve weakening. He was a client; she’d keep it all business.

“Okay. We can try it out. But if I feel like it’s not working, then we will have to figure out something else.”

“I’m sure it will work.”

Of course he was.

“Was that all?” he asked.

All?

He leaned in closer and she felt the brush of his breath over her mouth. Her lips parted and she realized that she was never going to be all business with him. There was no way.

“No.”

“No?”

“I need some resolution to the past,” she said. “You can’t be this close to me.”

“You’re the one blocking the door with your body.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. He had a point, but he was still crowding her and he had been since he came into her office. “I mean it. Our arrangement is strictly business.”

His left hand shifted on the door and she felt his fingers in her hair. Her scalp tingled and sensation spread slowly downward. “Things are never going to be strictly business between us, Gabi. The past is always going to be there along with that one question.”

Don’t ask.

Don’t do it.

“What question?”

He leaned in even closer and she had to fight the urge to bolt away from him. But she wouldn’t let him know he was getting to her. She had to stand firm. He was just a man.

No.

He was more than a man. He was her own personal demon. One that she hadn’t exorcised because she’d never been able to see him as anything other than a hot fantasy. They’d barely dated before they’d slept together and then everything had fallen apart.

She couldn’t let him continue to dominate every moment they had together.

“If that one night together was a fluke,” he said.

He leaned in closer. So close that she’d barely have to incline her head for their lips to brush. Sure, she remembered their night together, but it had become hazy over the years, tinged with regret and anger. She wanted to take back something that she hadn’t realized Kingsley had stolen until this moment, a part of her womanhood that he’d damaged when he’d left her.

She put her hands on his shoulders and went up on tiptoe, so they were eye to eye. He was impossible to read. He’d always been hard, but now there was a new layer of ice in his gaze. A new barrier that she couldn’t see past.

For her own sanity, she had to keep this strictly business. She was twenty-eight and finally felt that she was getting her life on track. She wouldn’t let a man like Kingsley derail that.

“Oh, I thought you meant if I’d still want you,” she said, trying to turn the tables on him.

“Do you?”

She dashed to the side, ducking out from under his arm. “I’ve sort of outgrown bad boys.”

“Have you?”

“All girls do when they grow up,” she said. “Melissa will send over a contract. Good day, Kingsley.”

Two

Kingsley wasn’t sure if he’d won or lost the battle with Gabi. She’d always had the unique ability to throw him. Even in college before...everything had gone crazy, she’d rattled him. But the past ten years had changed him. And though he’d enjoyed flirting with her—hell, he was a red-blooded male, of course he enjoyed flirting with her—that wasn’t why he was back in California, and he had to stay focused.

He got in his Porsche 911, driving a little over the speed limit as he headed to his new home. The mansion he’d purchased was perched on a cliff above the Pacific with a path to the beach that he intended to use frequently with his son. He’d been working hard—well, running from his past was more like it—since he’d left California. Now he was back and he knew one thing: he couldn’t raise his son in a world where he had had to face that kind of stigma.

It was one thing that Stacia’s death had left Kingsley mired in scandal. But he wouldn’t let it touch Conner.

His phone rang, blasting out “Bad to the Bone.” He hit the answer button on his hands free.

“What’s up, Hunter? Is Conner okay?”

“He’s fine, the little devil. I’m worn-out. I think he’s got the makings of a running back,” Hunter said. “Did she agree?”

Hunter wasn’t the playboy the media made him out to be. Kingsley knew they’d still be best friends even if they hadn’t been linked together in Stacia’s murder. He was closer to Hunter than he was to his own brother.

“Yes, she did. I didn’t mention anything about Stacia. I want to get Gabi out to my house so I can be subtle about the questioning,” he said.

“Hey, it’s your plan. I’m happy enough to let you set the pace. I just want to get some answers,” Hunter said.

Hunter could barely remember the entire night. And that was a little worrying, since his friend hadn’t been a big drinker in college. One theory they had was that someone had put a drug in Stacia’s drink—she and Hunter had been dating—and that Hunter had ingested some of it over the course of the night.

“When will you be home? I’ve got a meeting with Tristan Sabine in forty-five minutes.”

“I’ll be there in twenty,” Kingsley said. Tristan was one of the founders of a chain of nightclubs called Seconds. In fact, Gabi’s cousin Gui was another owner. Hunter had recently purchased a franchise of the club and opened it in San Francisco, to much success.

“Sounds great,” Hunter said. “I’m glad we’re back here. It’s way past time we got some answers and gave Stacia’s ghost some peace.”

And themselves, Kingsley thought. They’d never been able to live with Stacia’s murder or the fact that it had never really been solved.

He disconnected the call and concentrated on the traffic, but his mind wasn’t really on the past or the drive. Gabi dominated his thoughts the same as she had back in college.

She’d changed.

Really, idiot?

But that was the best he could do. She had changed. It wasn’t just maturing—it was more than that. There was a level of confidence that hadn’t been in her at eighteen. A level of self-assurance that enabled her to stand her ground with him.

He admired that.

He wished...hell, there wasn’t a day that had gone by in the past ten years that he hadn’t regretted what he’d said when she’d come to see him in jail. Regretted it only insomuch as he knew he’d hurt her. He didn’t regret that he’d gotten her out of the jailhouse before the press had descended. He’d kept her safe from the scandal that had rained down around him and Hunter.

But now...

The woman she was today could handle things that the girl she’d been hadn’t been able to. That didn’t mean he still wouldn’t protect her. He had to get his revenge and keep Conner and Gabi from being hit with the fallout. That was going to take all of the skills he’d learned on and off the football field. Things such as faking out the rushers, keeping the press from seeing past his smile and definitely winning.

He pulled to a stop in the big circle drive in front of his house. The front door opened just as he shut off his car and stepped out of it.

Conner came running down the steps, laughing.

“Daddy!”

Kingsley scooped up his son and kissed the top of his head. Conner had Kingsley’s own blue eyes, but Jade’s reddish-blond hair.

“Get back here, imp,” Hunter said, skidding to a halt in the doorway.

“Um, why was my son running outside?” Kingsley asked.

“’Cause he’s spoiled,” Hunter said.

“I am,” Conner said.

Kingsley was pretty sure that Conner had no idea what spoiled meant, but he and Hunter were very close and Conner almost always agreed with his favorite “uncle.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing. He’s quick. I turned my back for a second...”

Kingsley laughed. His son had caught him like that as well. Hunter was right; he’d make a good running back one day. But only if Kingsley cleared up this mess with Stacia’s murder. He didn’t want Conner facing questions about his father in the pressroom someday.

Kingsley walked into the house carrying his son. He put him down when they were in the foyer.

“You heading out?” Kingsley asked.

“Yes. I’m going to stay at my place in Malibu for the next few weeks, but if you get any information I’ll come back.”

“Sounds good. I’ll keep you posted. I’ve got Gabi moving in here and I think I should have something to go on soon.”

“Good. The sooner we get to the bottom of the Stacia situation the better.”

Hunter left and Kingsley watched his friend go until Conner tugged on his hand.

“Who’s Stas?”

“An old friend of Daddy’s. Good news, Con, we’ve got a new nanny coming to live with us.”

“Like Peri?”

Nothing like Peri. For one thing, Kingsley had never gotten excited by the prospect of Peri living in his house. He tried to tell himself that he was only feeling that way because he could finally get to work on figuring out the past, but he knew it was lie.

He wanted more than that one night with Gabi. He wanted to know that what he remembered of their embrace had been real, and he wanted in his own mixed-up way to somehow make things up to her for their one-night stand.

* * *

Gabi paced her office for a few minutes after Kingsley left. She wasn’t sure how it had happened but somehow she was back to being a nanny. A live-in nanny to a three-year-old she’d never met in the house of the only man she’d never been able to forget.

Ugh!

“Melissa, please draw up a contract for Mr. Buchanan,” Gabi said as she walked into her assistant’s office.

“I bet you’re glad I let him in,” Melissa said. “He is even hotter in person than he is on TV.”

Yes, he was. There was no way a television could capture the force of his presence. But then, the meeting today hadn’t taught her anything new.

“He did agree to fund the playground I’ve been lobbying for in town. And he wants me to start tonight.”

“You? You don’t work directly for clients anymore,” Melissa said. “What happened in your office?”

This was what came of being too friendly with your staff. Melissa felt comfortable asking her anything she wanted.

“We used to know each other,” Gabi admitted. “He offered to fund the playground if I took charge of his son and worked out of his home. This is going to take a lot of effort between you and me to make this happen. Because for the amount he’s paying—he wants me there today.”

Melissa put her elbows on her desk, leaning forward. “Oh, my God. Did he make you an indecent proposal? Are you going to be his mistress?”

“What? No! Where do you get these ideas?”

“I read a lot and watch a lot of soap operas,” Melissa said with a wink. “So no to the bargaining with your body?”

She shook her head. “Definitely no. Just the playground and the stipulation that I live and work from his house. Which means that you are going to have to run things at this office. Think you can handle it?”

“Yes. You know I can.”

Gabi did know. “It’ll mean a raise for you, and I’m thinking that you will be my assistant manager. We will probably need to hire another assistant for you.”

“Thank you, Gabi. I won’t let you down,” Melissa said.

“I know you won’t.”

“I’m going to call the county commissioners and get an exact figure on the budget for the park. I want you to draw up our regular contract for a live-in nanny service and in place of the fees reference the addendum. I’ll work on that.”

“You said you have to be there tonight?”

Gabi kept her expression serene only after years of training, but inside she grimaced. Kingsley had doubled her workload for the day. “Yes. If I send you the dimensions of my new office, will you order me some furniture?”

“Yes. Are you sure about this?” Melissa asked. “We still have our fund-raising plan to get the play area built. I think we could do it without you having to jump through hoops.”

Gabi was grateful to have Melissa not just as her assistant but also as her friend. “It would take years to raise that kind of money. This is easier. Besides, I could use some new material for my parenting column. All of my experience is several years old now.”

“Always look on the bright side?”

“It’s worked so far,” Gabi said.

She reentered her office and felt a little better about the encounter with Kingsley. Then she got down to business. She left a message for Rupert Green, the county commissioner who was her contact on the playground. Then she texted Kingsley asking for the dimensions of her office, which he immediately texted back, also assuring her that he would furnish the space. She almost told him that she would do it herself, but she still had to pack her office and her personal belongings so she decided to let him handle it.

She managed to stay busy enough the entire day not to allow herself to think until she was driving out to Kingsley’s house. Butterflies danced in her stomach and she had that stupid tingling in her body that she knew was from excitement. How could she be excited?