Kitabı oku: «Baby and the Boss»

Kim Lawrence lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

Kim’s latest book, Secret Baby, Convenient Wife, will be available in April, only from Mills & Boon® Modern™.

Baby and the Boss

by

Kim Lawrence

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

NIA was breathless by the time she reached her desk. The connecting door was open and to her relief her boss unusually wasn’t back from lunch yet, either. She glanced at her watch, two minutes late. Hastily pushing her packages under the desk, she slid into her seat and adopted her best cool, unflappable expression.

It wasn’t that the cool capable part was an act, it was just that her present boss always looked as though he thought it was.

Working as a temp had made her adaptable, but some employers were a lot easier to adapt to than others. Jake Prentice wasn’t the most difficult boss she’d ever had to work for, but he was, she reflected, tightening the barrette that was meant to hold back her rich auburn curls, right up there in the awful category.

It was nigh on impossible to build up a good working relationship with someone who didn’t appear to think she was capable of breathing without being given detailed instructions on the process!

She didn’t think his antipathy was actually personal, despite his initial reaction—one she now knew was extremely uncharacteristic. She suspected he had her in the same mental file as office furniture. She’d always known a successful temp had to be a bit of a chameleon, but you had to draw a line somewhere. She wasn’t about to start wearing a wig even for the sake of industrial harmony!

‘You’ve got red hair.’

The awkward thirty-second aftermath which followed that startled accusation was the only time she’d ever seen Jake Prentice display anything approaching embarrassment. The fact that her expression hadn’t done much to disguise that she thought it had been a pretty stupid thing to say probably hadn’t done much to improve matters.

He’d been treating her like a nasty smell ever since, but honestly what had the man expected her to do? It hadn’t been a very imaginative comment for someone who was supposed to be one of the most brilliant, innovative architects of his generation. He must be good, he was young—early thirties—to be an architect with the sort of international reputation he had.

He didn’t come across as her idea of a sensitive creative type, but he had a cupboard full of awards proclaiming he was, so she must be missing something. She hadn’t missed the signs of Grade-A workaholism, though, nor his teeth-clenching unremitting attention to detail!

If she’d made any mistakes she’d have known about it, he’d have made sure of that! Without saying a word—one raised brow and a pained expression had done it—he’d made it pretty clear that the cluster of family photos and the discreet pot plant she’d brought in were unwelcome additions to the office.

She hadn’t made a song and dance about it. He was a man heavily into the minimalist look, and he paid her salary. She’d taken it philosophically and had made no further attempts to personalise her space.

‘Miss Jones, would you arrange coffee for my brother?’

She started and knocked a manila folder onto the floor.

‘Brother?’ She didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about.

Fortunately mind-reading wasn’t one of his talents, although with those eyes—who knew! There was something almost spooky about his grey eyes, really pale grey with a distinctive dark rim around the iris, fringed by lashes that were luxuriantly long and curling—they struck her as a frivolous detail in an otherwise austerely handsome face.

Not for the first time she wondered how he managed to enter a room totally silently. She sounded like a regiment when her heels clattered on the pale elm flooring that had been used throughout the building. The man must have been an assassin in a previous reincarnation. Yes, she decided, there was something sinister and predatory about those finely chiselled features. She looked at the uncompromising line of his square jaw and it clicked—the man on the stairs!

‘Your brother has left,’ she informed him confidently.

The interrogative quirk of one dark brow had her rushing on to explain herself. ‘I bumped into him on the stairs. I didn’t actually realise he was your brother at the time, but he looked…’

It wasn’t the similarity, which now seemed obvious, that had made the incident and the stranger stand out in her mind, just the terrible haunted expression in his eyes. Well, that, and the fact he was the most sinfully gorgeous creature she’d ever laid eyes on. Didn’t that mean he was the second most sinfully gorgeous creature…? The similarity was striking… She only conceded her employer’s gorgeous status with the utmost reluctance.

Perhaps it was something to do with expressions, she pondered thoughtfully. She could never imagine anything about Jake making her want to run after him and ask if she could help. His brother had made her want to do just that.

Nia had been in the big city long enough to know you didn’t follow a gut instinct to run after total strangers and offer help. No wonder she hadn’t made the family connection, Jake Prentice was the least needy man she’d ever met!

Jake’s lips tightened fractionally before he nodded abruptly. ‘We’re twins. Put the call from Stockholm straight through.’

Twins! Yes, the mental photo fit was an exact match.

So alike, but so different, she thought, letting out a gusty sigh as he vanished into his own room. She had developed the silly habit of holding her breath since she’d been working for this tiresome man. Would Jake Prentice really look like the man on the stairs with a couple of days’ growth of beard and his neatly trimmed dark hair falling almost to his shoulders?

She mentally replaced the dull lank locks for something with a nice healthy sheen, her employer wasn’t the sort of man you associated lank hair with. The first thing she’d seen on the stairs had been a pair of very long muscular legs coming towards her. The stranger’s upper body had been just as impressive.

It naturally followed that his twin would be equally blessed—physically speaking. This wasn’t a big shock, it had always been obvious that inside those conservative but beautifully cut suits there lurked a super-fit body. Vitality simply oozed out of every pore.

The intercom interrupted her private contemplation of her employer’s physical attributes. Her cheeks were pink but her tone cool and composed as she responded.

‘Miss Jones, there’s an animal in my office.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked doubtfully.

‘Of course I’m damned sure! I can hear it. A cat. Is it yours?’

Someone who brought in a photo of her parents and loved ones was obviously capable of starting a farm in his office—especially if they had red hair!

‘I’m allergic to cats. Now if you’d said dog… Shall I call security?’ she asked politely.

‘I think I can cope with a cat, Miss Jones.’ She heard his startled intake of breath and then the shaken, ‘Oh, my God!—I really don’t believe this! Josh, you damn fool!’

Men like Jake Prentice didn’t sound that gobsmacked without pretty good cause! Nia leaped to her feet, her actions, it had to be said, impelled more by curiosity than a noble desire to be helpful.

Nia had a weakness for shoes, without the bank balance to compensate. The beautiful, impractical creations she wore today had been a sale bargain that she hadn’t been able to resist, even if they were a bit on the tight side. She did a lot of clattering before she erupted breathlessly into the inner sanctum.

The inner sanctum had a glass wall, views to make your average estate agent break into spontaneous song, and individual pieces of furniture that were earmarked to be the collectible antiques of the next century.

Nia didn’t have eyes for the interior decor, her attention was focused on the unlikely spectacle of her boss, all six foot five of him crouched on all fours on the floor in front of the vast curved blonde wood desk.

‘What’s wrong?’

As Jake lifted one unsteady hand to his dark head and spared her a fleeting look before shifting his stance slightly, Nia saw for the first time what he was staring at.

‘Oh, my goodness! That’s a baby,’ she said, staring with disbelief at the tiny creature strapped into a car seat. ‘It’s not mine,’ she added defensively as her employer’s stunned eyes reached her face.

He looked at her as though she’d said something even more imbecilic than usual. ‘I’m well aware of that, woman.’

‘Then it’s yours!’ she gasped, leaping to the obvious conclusion. On closer inspection there was something very familiar about those darkly fringed grey eyes.

‘No, it’s not mine!’

‘Are you quite sure?’ she persisted doubtfully, looking from the small chubby unformed face to the forbidding mature version.

Holding the carrying handle of the baby carrier at arm’s length, as though the contents were contagious, Jake got to his feet.

‘Miss Jones, I am one hundred percent sure that this baby could not possibly be mine.’ He was trying hard to be patient, but there were limits and this female seemed determined to stretch them to the breaking point.

Comprehension flooded over her and Nia gave a grimace of sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.’

‘Didn’t know what?’ he said in a measured tone that suggested he was trying desperately to retain his grip on reality in an increasingly surreal situation.

‘That you’re infertile. You shouldn’t give up hope. You know, they’re making the most amazing medical advances in that field. Why only the other week I saw this documentary…’

‘Miss Jones!’

His bellow of rage cut through her helpful observations. Nia’s rather full lips thinned to a line of disapproval and a militant light entered her green eyes.

Had this woman never heard of professional distance? Why couldn’t she keep to normal topics like the weather? In a few weeks his office had become a sanctum for every lovelorn soul in the building. He found all that damned empathy uncomfortable.

He closed his eyes briefly and cursed the day his real secretary had decided to extend her family. When Fiona had been here there had been no babies or children of any variety left under his desk.

‘Shut up…please.’ He forced himself to smile patiently. Fiona didn’t wear earrings that jingled in that distracting way, either. On her return he would give her an outrageously generous rise on the strict understanding she never left his employ again.

His attention was diverted to the infant he still held at arm’s length. The baby’s gurgles had become less contented and more urgent and its little face had deepened to an alarming shade of red.

‘Babies don’t like loud noises,’ Nia observed, not without a certain degree of spiteful satisfaction. ‘Neither,’ she added pointedly, ‘do I.’

‘I am not sterile.’

‘Of course not,’ she agreed kindly.

The damned woman was humouring him! ‘No really,’ he insisted, speaking from between clenched teeth. ‘I just happen to know for sure this baby isn’t mine because it’s my brother’s.’

‘Oh! I see.’ Nia screwed up her nose and gave a frown. ‘Well, actually, I don’t. Why did your brother leave his…is it a boy or girl?’

‘Boy.’

‘Why did he leave his son under your desk?’ That sort of carelessness went a bit beyond the forgetful.

‘When we find him, you can ask him,’ he promised grimly.

‘We?’ she queried suspiciously.

‘Do I have much scheduled for this afternoon?’

‘You might have the odd fifteen seconds to spare.’

He let this display of sarcasm pass, unfortunately he needed a bit of female cooperation right now. The baby let out an ear-piercing screech just to reinforce this fact at that precise moment.

‘Reschedule my appointments,’ he said hastily. ‘I’ll find Josh and you can watch the baby.’

The high-handed assumption of her automatic cooperation was so typical of the man, she thought indignantly. ‘Me! Why me?’ Why didn’t he ask Victoria or Jasmine or who was the other one…? She stifled a grin at the thought of these ladies’ responses if they’d been asked to babysit.

‘You’re a woman, aren’t you?’ He raised his voice to be heard over the baby’s wail.

She was amazed he’d noticed. ‘And that automatically qualifies me to look after babies?’ she suggested with a wide-eyed attentive look.

‘I’m just asking for a bit of give-and-take here, Miss Jones. This is an emergency.’

He must be desperate, he was using that high-voltage smile that he reserved for Jasmine, Victoria and, of course, Selina. How could she have forgotten Selina? His smile made all of those pencil-slim, extremely tall beauties very understanding when he kept them waiting for hours.

Well, if he expects me to start panting to please him, he’s doomed to disappointment. She’d been brought up in a male-dominated household and when the male of the species said give-and-take in her experience she was expected to do most of the giving!

‘I did the giving when I came in two hours early three days this week, on the understanding, you recall, that I could leave promptly at three this afternoon. If you go off searching for your brother, who might very well not want to be found, what chance is there of that?’

‘That’s a very selfish view to take,’ he observed regarding her with deepening dislike.

‘If it’s any comfort, my big brothers all share your opinion of my selfish disposition—all five of them. If you were looking for a temporary doormat, Mr. Prentice, you lucked out,’ she told him frankly. ‘I’m not about to sacrifice my personal life for your convenience, but I might make a rather obvious suggestion—why don’t you just phone your brother’s wife?’

‘I would if I could—she’s dead,’ he announced expressionlessly.

This flat matter-of-fact statement wiped the superior smile clean off her face. She looked from his grim face to the tiny baby and felt the prickle of tears at the backs of her eyelids.

‘That’s…that really…’ She swallowed, dreadful didn’t really sound adequate to cover such a tragedy. The mystery of the distressed young man on the stairs was sadly solved. She wished now she’d obeyed her instincts and had approached him. Her tender heart ached and his disappearing act became more understandable.

‘It is,’ he agreed.

One solitary tear escaped her swimming eyes and Jake watched it progress over the smooth contours of her face before she flicked a careless finger to blot it.

‘Does this work for you as a compromise?’

Compromise! Jake Prentice! She blinked, she was amazed the term was in his vocabulary.

‘All three of us,’ he glanced towards the baby, ‘go to look for Josh, and when it’s three o’clock you go and do whatever it is you so urgently need to do.’

‘I suppose that might be all right,’ she conceded, still not sold on the plan.

Jake didn’t feel any more enthusiastic about the plan than she sounded. ‘Do you think possibly you should change or feed him or something?’

‘I thought this was a joint venture? I might come from a large family but my experience of babies is nil, I was the baby.’

And used to getting her own way from day one, he thought, eyeing that dimple in her right cheek with cynical suspicion. When she smiled, and he’d noticed she did so indiscriminately at everyone from the sandwich boy to visiting government dignitaries, it deepened in a very beguiling way. She didn’t smile at him, a fact that was naturally a deep source of relief to him.

‘Now, if you wanted me to strip an engine…’

‘How hard can it be?’

Nia assumed he was referring to babies, not the internal combustion engine. She watched as he placed the distressed baby, still strapped in his seat, on one of the chunky leather sofas.

Nia bit her lip to stop herself grinning—actually she knew a lot more about babies than she’d let on.

‘I do admire a confident attitude.’ She bent over and picked up a large holdall emblazoned with big fluffy yellow rabbits. ‘This looks promising,’ she added, tossing it towards him.

Jake automatically caught it one handed. He had an enviable athletic coordination, which was probably why she found herself staring when he walked across a room.

‘But…’

‘I’ll cancel your appointments,’ she said, turning a deliberate blind eye to his stereotypical display of helpless male panic.

When she returned a few minutes later Jake was struggling with the plastic tags of a disposable nappy, several ruined ones lay on the floor beside him. The baby was kicking happily, enjoying his freedom.

He glanced around as she came in. His eyes moved upwards from her slim ankles, moving up the shapely curve of her calves before eventually reaching her face. His colour was slightly heightened.

‘A very poor design,’ he grumbled as she dropped down onto the floor beside him.

‘Perhaps you don’t have the gentle touch?’ He’d used his folded jacket as a changing mat for the baby and through the fine fabric of his shirt she could make out the shadowy suggestion outline of dark hair across his chest.

Anyone would think the man was stark naked, she told herself impatiently. That neat jolt of inexplicable sexual awareness had been impossible to misinterpret even if she’d wanted to. Remember rule number one, Nia. Never, never get romantically interested in your boss. She’d seen too many friends take that particular path to disaster.

‘Nobody has ever complained about my touch.’ It was impossible to tell from his sardonic expression if any double entendre was intended. The mere possibility was enough to make her lower jaw drop. ‘I thought you didn’t know anything about babies?’

Hands flat on the floor, Nia leaned over the baby, making those unintelligible noises small helpless things inspired in the female breast. Half of her hair was loose again, he’d noticed it didn’t usually last beyond midmorning no matter how she tried to restrain it. The swathe of pre-Raphaelite curls swung with a life of their own over her shoulders and brushed the floor. Jake could smell the fresh scent of her shampoo, and a muscle in his lean cheek jumped.

The baby watched the fiery cloud apparently fascinated—genetics had a lot to answer for, Jake thought drily. Then his nephew did something he’d spent far too long thinking about, either by design or accident, he reached up and wrapped his small chubby fingers in a handy strand. Nia let out a yelp and then a soft chuckle.

‘Aren’t you a strong boy,’ she admired warmly, trying to loosen the tenacious grip with little success.

Jake doubted her response would have been as mild had he chosen to sink his fingers deep into that glowing mass that was composed of shades that ran the full length of the spectrum from gold to deepest Titian.

‘What’s his name?’ A smile on her face, she turned her head and found that Jake was watching her with an odd, stomach-tightening intensity.

He didn’t look away, just held her eyes. She didn’t know why, perhaps just because he could? He could make female hearts—not to mention stomachs, go haywire, even if their owners didn’t actually like him. Even if their owners were supposed to be happily engaged to someone else.

‘Liam.’

‘What a lovely name.’ Nia didn’t like the way her voice had dropped a husky octave. It had a worrying come-hither sound to it. She waited hopefully for her pulse rate to slow down.

‘Bridie was Irish.’

‘How did she…? Sorry it’s none of my—ouch!’ She winced and bent her head closer as the baby tugged.

‘Let me.’ With one hand he took some of the slack out of the long silky hank of hair to protect her scalp from sudden assaults and with the other he gently prized the tiny curling fingers from her hair.

It was just as well the task didn’t take him long because she’d forgotten to breathe for the duration. The couple of deep restoring breaths she took to compensate had the middle two buttons on her shirt popping. She hastily pulled the two sides together to cover the pretty lavender lace of her bra.

Whilst she’d automatically adapted her clothes to blend in with the conspicuous conservative office dress policy she’d seen no need—until now—to extend that trend to her undergarments.

‘Is he a toucher?’ her flatmate Toni had sympathetically asked when she’d confessed she wished she’d never started this particular job. Nia had laughed—her laughter had been a little strained. The idea of Jake Prentice chasing her around his desk, or even hers, had been so ludicrous she couldn’t even bring herself to think about it—you couldn’t count one or two disturbing dreams as thinking, could you? The subconscious was a law unto itself.

She hadn’t realised until that moment that he’d never touched her before, not even the casual touching of hands—she’d have remembered. She skipped swiftly over the worrying fact she was so certain of this. It was almost as if he had actively avoided touching her. With an impatient shake of her head, she dismissed this silly idea.

‘Thank you,’ she said huskily as, cheeks pink, she tried to refasten the buttons with clumsy fingers.

What would she do if he tried to help her out of that situation, too? She had a sudden mental image of his long clever fingers dextrously addressing the problem of her buttons—only he wasn’t fastening them! She could feel the warm surge of blood that washed over her fair Celtic skin.

‘I think he’s hungry.’

‘Is he bottle fed?’ she wondered out loud.

‘The poor little tyke didn’t have the option.’

‘Of course not,’ Nia said, miserable that she’d been so tactless. Then as she saw the direction of his oddly distracted gaze she glanced down to check that she was still fully buttoned.

When she raised her relieved eyes, they collided explosively with his. The impact shuddered through her body, awakening all sorts of embarrassing physical responses. Rather than draw attention to the most obvious of these, she didn’t lift her hands like a shield over her tingling breasts.

Jake was astonished that his eyes had strayed as obviously as a schoolboy or some sort of pathetic lecher when he was speaking to the woman. The breast-feeding connection had just been too much for his self-control, especially after that tantalising glimpse of creamy cleavage.

‘Perhaps there’s a bottle in the bag?’ Her voice was desperately normal.

‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ Because you were too busy ogling your secretary is why, he silently replied with a self-derisive shrug. He had no intention of getting a reputation as a serial sucker in the workplace. Besides, she wasn’t available… which was just as well because they had nothing whatever in common.

‘Let me hold him.’ The darkened damp patch on the lining of his jacket was pretty obvious as she picked up the baby. ‘Oops.’ Considering the name she’d seen hand-stitched into the lining, that was quite a costly accident.

To her surprise Jake gave a quick grin—the spontaneous nice sort of grin that she hadn’t known he was capable of. Nia frowned, she’d felt safer when he was an inhumanly demanding boss; she didn’t need any hints of niceness. Not when she had developed this worrying tendency to think lustful thoughts about him. Actually she didn’t even think them—they’d been springing fully formed into her head all afternoon!