Kitabı oku: «Prescription for Romance / Love and the Single Dad: Prescription for Romance / Love and the Single Dad»

PRESCRIPTION FOR ROMANCE

MARIE FERRARELLA

LOVE AND THE SINGLE DAD

SUSAN CROSBY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PRESCRIPTION FOR ROMANCE

MARIE FERRARELLA

About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA^® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written almost two hundred novels, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

Dear Reader,

I love babies. I always have, always will. Unlike a lot of my friends, I had absolutely no trouble getting pregnant. I also know, much to the embarrassment of my children, exactly when each of them was conceived.

Since holding my newborns in my arms and being a mom is something I cannot imagine not being part of my life, I can completely understand how the Armstrong Fertility Institute could be perceived as a beacon of hope to childless couples. This is the first book in a six-book series about the Institute and the people who are a part of helping to make the miracle of birth happen for couples desperate to have a baby. But, along with the miracles come secrets and intrigue … I hope that this book and the books that follow will entertain you.

Thank you for reading, and, as ever, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

Wishing you all the best,

Marie Ferrarella

To

Jessica and Nicholas

with all my love forever,

Mom

Chapter One

Dr. Paul Armstrong was deeply concerned.

His sister Olivia Armstrong Mallory could have never, by any stretch of the imagination, been described as robust or even glowingly healthy, but she sat in his office today, turning to him not just as her older brother, but as the chief of staff of the Armstrong Fertility Institute. He knew talking about this wasn’t easy for his sister. She’d addressed half her story to the crumpled tissue she held in a death grip between her fingers in her lap.

How many times since he’d begun to work here had he heard this same story before? Too many times, and yet, not enough to become insensitive to it.

Olivia wanted to become pregnant and all her attempts, she had confided quietly, had thus far failed.

Even as he listened to her haltingly pour out her heart, Paul began to suspect that there was more to all this than she was telling him. Something beyond the hunger to have a child.

“Olivia,” he pointed out gently, “you’re being too hard on yourself. You’re just twenty-nine—”

Eyes full of misery and unshed tears looked up at him. “And I’ve been trying to get pregnant for five years, Paul. Five very long, disappointing years.”

This, too, he’d seen over and over again. The anguished faces of frustrated women, pleading for help, asking him to make the most natural of dreams come true for them. He’d never imagined he’d see this look on the face of one of his sisters.

“Olivia, there are other avenues. You could adopt a child,” he tactfully suggested.

But he could see, even as he said it, that for Olivia, this wasn’t the solution. She pressed a small, fisted hand beneath her breast, pushing against her incredibly flat belly. “I want to feel life growing inside me, Paul.”

Though his heart went out to her, Paul felt bound to tell her what he told every woman or couple who came in to see him with this same dilemma. “It isn’t all roses, Livy. There’s a very real downside to being pregnant.” Assuming, he added silently, that he could even get her there.

Olivia shook her head, her sleek black hair shadowing the adamant movement. “Don’t you understand I don’t care?” Reaching across the desk that separated them, his sister took his hands in hers in supplication. “I really want to be pregnant. Help me, Paul. Whatever it takes, help me.”

The force of her words had him wondering again. He had to ask. “Olivia, is everything all right?”

Releasing his hands, his sister drew herself up in her chair as she squared her shoulders. “Everything’s fine, Paul.”

Her words only reinforced his concern. “You said that much too fast.”

Olivia inclined her head. “All right, I’ll say it slower. Every-thing’s-fine.” She deliberately drew out the sentence, saying it in slow motion and awarding it a host of syllables.

He would have laughed if he wasn’t so concerned. “Livy, I’m your brother. You can talk to me.”

“I am talking to you,” she insisted. “I’m telling you that I want to have a baby. As the chief of staff you should be able to understand that.” Blowing out a breath and clearly struggling not to cry, Olivia asked, “Now, can you help me?”

Though he had a tendency to be oblivious to the obvious at times, the irony of the situation did not escape Paul. The daughter of the famous fertility expert Dr. Gerald Armstrong was infertile. Somewhere, the gods were chuckling.

If he ever helped anyone at all, Paul thought, he should be able to help his sister.

“Yes,” he answered gently, “I think there’s a good chance that I can.” Of late, there had been a number of allegations of wrongdoing, rumored to be made by a former disgruntled employee, of eggs and sperm being switched, research that was held suspect and too many multiple births, all of which had caused a cloud of suspicion to be cast over the institute and the work they’d done over the years. Paul had been going out of his way to try to right all of this. He began by luring the world-famous Bonner-Demetrios research team away from a prominent San Francisco teaching hospital and getting them to head up the institute’s research operations here.

Just in time, he thought, looking at his sister.

“We’ve just scored a coup and managed to get two top-flight physicians to join our staff here. Both of them have been on the cutting edge of fertility research for some time now. I’m going to refer you to one of them.”

Olivia nodded, desperately trying to draw hope from her brother’s words. “What’s his name?”

“Dr. Chance Demetrios. If there’s any way possible for you to wind up getting morning sickness, he’ll find it,” Paul promised with a quick smile. Paul wrote a few words on a pad, then tore the page off and held it out to her. “I know he doesn’t have patients today until later. Are you willing to go now?”

Olivia looked down at the slip of paper her brother had given her, unable to read a single word. She sincerely hoped that another doctor would have no trouble deciphering the hieroglyphics. “Are you sure he can see me?”

Paul smiled the shy, boyish smile she remembered so well from their childhood, the smile she recalled gracing the lips of her protector. Derek, their other brother, was always the one in the foreground, gregarious, loud and charming. But it was Paul she always felt she could count on. Paul was the dependable one who spoke little, but meant every word he said.

“Yes,” he assured her. “I’m his boss. Chance’ll see you.” Rising, he came around the desk and squeezed his sister’s hand. “Sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”

Olivia stood up and did her best to smile. “I’m sure.”

That wasn’t good enough for him. Paul tried again. “Maybe there’s something you don’t want to tell me, but should?”

“Only that I love you.” Olivia rose on her toes and brushed a quick kiss to his cheek. Backing away, she held up the note he’d just given her. “Thank you.”

Paul sincerely hoped that Chance was the magician the man claimed to be. “Anytime,” he replied.

His sister left his office, closing the door behind her. Paul went back around to his chair.

He’d just managed to sit down when the door flew open again, this time without a perfunctory knock or even the pretense of formality. His other sister, Lisa—the head administrator at the institute—burst in with just a tiny bit less noise than a detonating cherry bomb. Ordinarily, she vacillated between looking harried and looking pleased because another happy couple had left the institute, pregnant and satisfied. Now she looked as if she was about to bite someone’s head off.

“Do you know what he did?” she demanded angrily, slamming the door closed with a bang.

Paul had always found it was best to remain calm in the face of anyone’s tirade. If he remained calm, he could assess the problem more accurately. “Who?” he asked mildly.

Lisa looked at him as if he’d suddenly turned simple on her. “Derek, of course.”

“Of course,” Paul echoed. Taking a breath, he patiently pointed something out—and not for the first time. “Lisa, contrary to legend and a handful of fair-to-bad movies, just because Derek and I are twins does not mean that I automatically know what he’s thinking, so, no, I don’t know what he did.” And then he smiled indulgently at her. “But I’m sure you’re going to enlighten me.”

Lisa let out a loud huff and Paul would have been hard-pressed to say who she was angrier at right now, Derek or him. “He’s gone off on his own, that’s what he’s done.”

He was going to need more of a hint than that. “As in … he left?” He sincerely doubted that Derek would just run off at such a difficult time and leave his siblings to deal with the entire mess. But he had to admit that he and Derek often marched to completely different drummers and there were times when his brother’s actions and motivation completely mystified him. Not only that, but of late, he seemed to be preoccupied.

“No, as in going off and hiring someone to—Now wait a sec—” Lisa held her hand up in case Paul was going to interrupt her”—I want to get this straight. ‘Someone to help us repair our image.’” Then Lisa fisted her hands on her hips. “I’m head administrator here and Derek’s gone and hired a PR manager without so much as saying boo to me.”

Paul sighed. He lived and breathed his work to the exclusion of almost everything else, except for his family. Very seldom did he come up for air, much less to mingle in the everyday dealings of running the institute.

Paul asked his fuming sister, “What do you mean?”

“Public relations, Paul,” she said, even more annoyed. “Derek went and hired a damn spin doctor.”

“So what’s the issue?” he asked, confused.

Lisa threw up her hands in desperation. “For such an intelligent man, you can be so dense sometimes. The point is, Derek is the chief financial officer—he isn’t supposed to hire anyone without consulting us. Major positions are supposed to be filled by the three of us evaluating the candidate for the job, remember?” She didn’t wait for him to respond before she went on. “If you ask me, I think Derek’s beginning to envision himself as Caesar.”

Lisa was the youngest and as such, she was given to exaggeration. “Dial it down a notch, Lisa. I don’t like Derek doing something like this without consulting us, either, but I think it’s a stretch equating him with Julius Caesar.”

“I’m not equating him with Caesar,” she protested. “I think Derek sees himself as Caesar. The bottom line is,” she said with a toss of her short black hair, “we don’t need a PR manager.”

Paul nodded. “At least we’re in agreement about that.”

It never occurred to her that Paul would see it any differently than she did. “Good, then fix it,” she demanded. When he raised an inquisitive eyebrow, Lisa pressed, “Unhire her.”

Even though terminating this unwanted new employee was his first inclination, Paul did want to be fair. That would mean talking to Derek and finding out just what his brother was thinking when he hired this person. “Where’s Derek now?”

Lisa sighed. “I have no idea. You know how he is, social butterflying all over. But I do know where the new girl is,” she said triumphantly. “She’s in Connie Winston’s old office,” she said, referring to a recently retired officer of their board of directors. Lisa was clearly not finished with the topic. “You know, Derek’s got no right to constantly usurp us like that.”

Paul had always been ready to go the extra mile, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. “Derek probably doesn’t even realize that’s what he’s doing. You know he gets impatient when things don’t go as fast as he thinks they should.” Paul shrugged philosophically. “He doesn’t have the patience of a scientist.”

Lisa pounced on her brother’s words. “Good thing you do. Now get rid of this woman and give Derek a piece of your mind when you find him.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “If I gave all the people who I think deserve it a piece of my mind, I wouldn’t have any mind left to use for myself.”

Lisa’s frown was back. “So then you’re not going to tell Derek that he’s got to stop making unilateral decisions?”

“I didn’t say that, did I?” His eyes held hers until Lisa shook her head. “I’ll talk to Derek,” he told her, then added, “not that I think it’ll do any good.”

“You’re probably right,” she was forced to agree. “But you never know, maybe we’ll get lucky. But first,” she emphasized, “you have to give that woman her walking papers.”

There were times when Lisa was like a hungry dog with a bone. She just wouldn’t let go. Which meant he’d get no peace until he gave in. Paul rose again. “Connie Winston’s old office, you said?”

Lisa nodded. “The three of us are supposed to be running this clinic. It’s the Armstrong Fertility Institute, not Derek Armstrong’s Fertility Institute. If anything, it should be Dad’s name, not Derek’s.”

Paul put his hands on his sister’s arms, trying to settle her before she got riled up again.

“Take a deep breath, Lisa—and calm down. There are a hell of a lot worse things going on in the world. Derek playing king is really just small potatoes in comparison.”

“Emperor,” Lisa corrected doggedly.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He was not going to get sidelined with semantics. “Whatever.”

Paul was fully aware that if he even attempted to put off this woman’s termination, Lisa would continue bedeviling him until such time as he would make good on his promise. His sister meant well, he thought, but she tended to get far too worked up. Still, she was right. Derek shouldn’t have just gone off and hired someone without even running the idea past them. This was a completely new post his brother had created.

Did they really need someone to try to restore the institute’s good name? Or rather, their father’s good name even though it wasn’t imprinted on the front of the building?

Dr. Gerald Armstrong had always been a little larger than life when it came to the public eye. Paul was not ashamed to say that he revered his father and the groundbreaking work he had done. He’d gotten away from the boy he had once been. The boy who, when he was growing up, felt his father was accessible to everyone but his own family. He knew his mother felt that. Gerald Armstrong was always far too busy making a name for himself to enjoy the name he had already gotten, almost by accident: Dad.

Still, that was all water under the bridge now. A man was what he was and Gerald Armstrong was an excellent physician, a visionary and the last hope for a great many women who had been told that they would never be able to hold a child of their own in their arms.

The rest of it—the feet of clay, the women, the preoccupation—well, that could all be forgiven, Paul thought, walking down the corridor to the office where, according to his sister, he would find his brother’s latest mistake—and it really was a mistake, in Paul’s opinion. Right now, they needed every last penny to be spent on research, not “spin.” The research team he’d lured away from San Francisco did not come cheaply.

Approaching the until recently evacuated office, Paul knocked on the door, then knocked again when he received no answer. He was about to try again when a melodious voice told him to, “Come in.” Apparently the focus of his sister’s ire was indeed in.

He wasn’t good at firing people. Actually, to his recollection, he never had. He’d always been satisfied with the people he’d selected. There was no need to fire any of them.

Twisting the knob, he opened the door and walked in, not knowing what to expect.

He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

She was sitting at her desk, a slender blonde whose every movement promised curves that would melt a man’s knees. She looked up at him with the clearest, bluest eyes he’d ever seen. The word beautiful pushed its way through the sudden cobwebs that had taken his brain hostage. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t breathing.

She did not look like someone who was hired to do battle with mudslingers. She looked more like a fairytale princess who had sprung up from someone’s smitten fantasy.

The woman seemed to light up as she saw who was walking into her office. Her face became a wreath of smiles.

“Mr. Armstrong, hello.” The young woman half rose in her seat, as if she was eagerly ready to hop to do his bidding at the slightest suggestion. “What can I do for you, sir?”

Bracing himself, Paul said in his kindest voice—because it wasn’t in him to be cruel—“I’m afraid you’re going to have to pack up your things and leave.”

The smile on her perfect face faded, replaced by bewilderment. “Excuse me?”

He hated this, he thought. He tried again, sounding even more gentle than before. “I think there’s been a mistake.” Each word felt more awkward on his tongue than the last. This was definitely not his forte. “I mean, we really don’t need a public relations person.”

The woman was obviously not going to go quietly. “But you just hired me,” she protested with feeling.

She didn’t look angry, he thought, which surprised him. What she looked like was someone who was set to dig in. She still thought she was dealing with his brother, Paul realized. He needed to set her straight before he continued.

“No, I didn’t,” he began, but got no further in his explanation.

“Yes, you did,” she insisted. “Yesterday. We were in your office and you distinctly said you were hiring me.” Her blue eyes seemed intense as she peered at his face. “Is something wrong?” she wanted to know. “I haven’t done anything yet, much less something that would make you want to fire me.”

“I don’t want to fire you,” Paul said and it was true. “I wouldn’t have hired you in the first place—”

“But you did,” she reminded him with feeling.

“No, I didn’t,” Paul told her again. “That was my brother.”

Her eyes narrowed and the frown on her face told him she wasn’t buying it.

“Your evil twin?” she asked with more than a tiny trace of sarcasm in her voice.

Finally, Paul thought. “Actually, I don’t generally think of him in that light, but now that you mention it, yes.”

The young woman stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Excuse me?”

Any breakthrough he’d thought had been made faded like dancing dandelion seeds in the warm spring breeze. “Maybe I should explain—”

He could see that she was struggling to remain civil. Looking at it from her point of view, he couldn’t blame her.

“Maybe you should,” she agreed.

Chapter Two

Bravado was second nature to Ramona Tate. It always had been. Her chosen field of investigative reporting had only honed that ability. She could bluff her way through practically everything.

Because she had never gone through an ugly-duckling stage and had been a swan from the moment she came into the world, Ramona had to constantly keep proving herself. People naturally assumed that a) because she was beautiful, that meant she didn’t have a brain in her head, and b) she’d gotten to her present stage in life because she’d slept her way there.

In both cases, nothing could have been further from the truth.

Blessed with a near-genius IQ, Ramona still had to work twice as hard as the next person to be taken seriously and to keep from being dismissed as “just another empty-headed pretty face.” This while politely, but deftly and succinctly, putting men in their place if they decided to become too familiar with her. In the latter case, whenever “hands-on” experience was mentioned, her antennae instantly went up because most of the men she’d encountered took that to mean their “hands on” her body.

Ramona always made it perfectly clear that working and playing well with others did not refer to the kind of playing that could be done beneath the sheets. She fought her own battles and protected her private life—what there was of it—zealously.

Since wrongdoing on any level was something she abhorred, Ramona found that she took to investigative reporting like the proverbial duck to water. Even at her seemingly tender age of twenty-five, she had already broken a number of stories, revealing fraudulent practices at one of the country’s larger life insurance companies, and exposing a doctor who had made a career out of bilking Medicare, submitting charges for the treatment of nonexistent conditions for nonexistent patients in order to collect Medicare’s payments. Both stories had necessitated her going undercover to get the information she needed to substantiate her allegations.

Ramona had followed the same path here, at the Armstrong Fertility Institute. Once revered as a bastion of hope for the terminally infertile, the institute’s outstanding success rate had bred a certain amount of envy, which begged for closer scrutiny. This scrutiny in turn gave birth to ugly rumors, some that were quite possibly well founded, others that almost certainly were not.

That was going to be her job—to separate fact from fiction, no matter how deeply the former appeared to be buried.

But Ramona had a far more personal reason to have gone undercover at the institute. She needed to gain access to the institution’s older records in hopes of saving her mother’s life. Her mother, who had raised Ramona by herself, had been diagnosed with leukemia less than six months ago. The prognosis was not good. If something wasn’t done soon to stem its course, her mother had only a very short time to live.

Katherine Tate desperately needed a bone-marrow transplant. Ramona would have gladly given up hers. She would have given her mother any organ she could to save the woman’s life, but, as happened all too frequently, her marrow wasn’t a match. So the search was on for some miscellaneous stranger whose marrow might provide the cure.

There was, however, a glimmer of hope when Ramona remembered accidentally stumbling over a piece of vital information packed away in a long-forgotten box hidden in the back of her closet.

Katherine Tate was one of those people who never threw anything away, she just moved it around every so often from one pile to another, from one room to another. In one of her many, many boxes throughout the house was a bundle of receipts and bills dating back more than a couple of decades. Including a receipt from the Armstrong Fertility Institute for the purchase of donor eggs.

In between jobs and desperate for money, Katherine had sold a part of herself in order that “some poor childless couple know the kind of joy I do.” At least, those had been her mother’s words when Ramona had finally confronted Katherine with her find.

Now Ramona could only hope that the eggs had been used and that somewhere out there she had a sibling walking around. A sibling whose bone marrow would turn out to be a perfect match for her mother.

Finding this sibling was far more important to Ramona than breaking the story of any ethical wrongdoing on the institute’s part.

But she wouldn’t be able to do either if this bipolar man made good on his threat to terminate her before she even got started in her search. For that to happen, she needed to get entrenched here. She already knew that calling the institute’s administration office with her plight was an exercise in futility. When she had, the woman on the other end of the line had briskly told her that accessing the old records would be a violation of those patients’ right to privacy.

Yeah, right. As if the Armstrongs and their minions actually cared a fig about doing the right thing.

“You were hired,” Paul began slowly, trying to carefully hit all the salient points, “by someone who didn’t have the proper authority to hire anyone by himself.”

Ramona felt her temper shortening.

“I don’t understand,” she said, hoping that the smile on her lips didn’t look as fake as it felt to her.

Paul backtracked in his head, realizing that he’d failed to state the most obvious part, the part that would instantly untangle the rest. Or so he hoped.

“You see, I’m twins.”

She stared at him, her blue eyes widening. “You are?”

That sounded stupid, he upbraided himself. “I mean, I’m one of twins. I have a brother,” he told her. “He looks just like me. His name’s Derek and he’s the one who hired you.”

Her expression never changed, but her tone was slightly incredulous as she asked, “You’re not Derek Armstrong?”

Finally. The light at the end of the tunnel was beginning to materialize, he thought, relieved. “No, I’m Paul.”

Twins. Damn, how had she missed that? She’d been so consumed with getting ammunition against the institute and being angry because they wouldn’t just help her get at the information she needed to, hopefully, find a sibling, she’d completely skimmed over the Armstrongs’ family dynamics.

She needed to be more thorough, Ramona told herself sternly.

Cocking her head, she scrutinized the man in front of her, doing her best to give off an aura of sweetness. She knew that she could be all but irresistible if she wanted to be. She eased her conscience by reminding herself that this was definitely not for personal gain. This was for her mother.

“Now that you mention it, you do look a little more robust and athletic than you—I mean, your brother—did yesterday.” She was five-seven, not exactly a petite flower. But the man before her was taller, way taller. He looked even more so since she was sitting and he was not.

Ramona raised her eyes to his in a studied look of innocent supplication. A look she’d practiced more than once. “So he—your brother—can’t hire me?”

Now she was getting it, Paul thought. “Not by himself, no.”

Again she cocked her head, employing a certain come-hither look as she asked him, “Can he hire me if you hire me?”

Why did he feel as if the ground beneath his feet was turning from shale to sand, leaving him nothing solid to stand on? “Not without Lisa’s okay,” he heard himself say hoarsely.

Another country heard from, Ramona thought impatiently, trying to remember exactly how many Armstrongs worked at the institute. Her smile never wavered as she repeated, “Lisa?”

Paul nodded, trying not to stare. Was it his imagination, or did she somehow suddenly look more beautiful? “My younger sister. She’s the head administrator here at the institute.”

That had to have been the cold voice on the phone, Ramona thought. “Does anyone else have a vote?”

He smiled and she thought he had a rather nice smile. It softened his features and made him appear less distant and forbidding.

“No, that’s it,” he assured her. “Just the three of us.”

She nodded slowly, as if taking it all in and digesting the information. What she was really doing was casting about for a way to appeal to him and make him let her remain.

“Well,” she said slowly with a drop of seduction woven in, “we know that I have your brother’s vote. Do I have yours?”

For one unguarded moment, he could have sworn that he felt some sort of a sharp pull, an attraction to this young woman. But then he told himself it was just that he had always appreciated beauty no matter where he came across it. He certainly couldn’t allow it to cloud his judgment, especially when it came to the institute.

Still, a public relations manager might prove useful, he supposed. Paul was honest in his answer. “I’d have to think about it.”

She appeared undaunted. “Well, that’s better than ‘no,’” Ramona allowed.

Faced with her optimism, Paul wavered a little more in his stand, shifting in a direction he knew that Lisa would easily disapprove. “I tell you what. Let me talk to the others and we’ll get back to you.”

Ramona smiled. It made him think of a sunrise. Warm and full of promise. And then she looked just a tad shy as she asked, “In the meantime, would it be all right if I drafted a press release?”

“A press release?” Paul echoed, confused. “About what?”

“About doctors Demetrios and Bonner joining your staff. Mr. Armstrong—Mr. Derek Armstrong,” she amended, “said that so far, no mention had been made of the transition. I think it would be a big plus for the institute, not to mention that it would be a huge draw, as well.” Not that the institute actually needed it, she thought. The rich and famous flocked here, and the masses followed. “These two researchers are very famous in their field.”

“I know,” he said, amused that she believed she was telling him something he wasn’t aware of.

“Of course you do.” Holding her breath just so allowed the right amount of pink to creep into her cheeks. She instinctively knew that Paul was the kind of man who reacted to blushes, even though it was as out of date as a silver disco ball. “I just meant that it should be brought to people’s attention. It’s positive reinforcement.” And then she flashed him another guileless smile. “I promise I won’t do anything with the draft until I get your—all of your,” she amended, “okays.”

She sounded so eager and upbeat, Paul found that he hadn’t the heart to tell her to wait until after he’d won Lisa over. Lisa could be difficult at times, especially if she felt that her territory was being encroached upon and threatened. Her earlier tirade was likely only the tip of the iceberg on this matter.

“That’ll be fine,” he told her and then he quickly walked out of the room before he wound up agreeing to something else.

He needed to find Derek and have a few choice words with his brother for putting him in this situation. A few very choice words.

He found Derek just outside his brother’s office, engaged in what appeared to be a very private conversation with one of the newer and younger administrative assistants. From the looks of it, it appeared that groundwork for far more than further conversation was being laid.

Suppressing a sigh, Paul inserted himself between the exceedingly perky young redhead in the platform heels and his brother. “Excuse us, please, um—” He had no idea what the young woman’s name was.

“Danielle.” Both the young woman and Derek said the name at the same time, which caused them to exchange more covert looks. Paul heard the assistant smother a giggle.

“Danielle,” Paul repeated with a slight nod of his head, “I need to speak with my brother.”

“Of course.” Inclining her head, the administrative assistant drew away. But not before she exchanged one more overtly steamy, sexy glance with the institute’s CFO.

Paul walked into his brother’s recently remodeled office and waited for Derek to follow. Which Derek did. Languidly.

The moment the door was closed, Paul immediately started talking. “What the hell were you thinking, hiring that young girl?” he demanded.

Derek looked at him, apparently confused. “Who?”

“The one sitting in Connie Winston’s old office. Your so-called PR manager.”

If he was aware of the sarcasm in his brother’s voice, Derek didn’t show it. “Oh, you mean Ramona Tate.” Derek grinned broadly, obviously pleased with himself. “That was a real lucky break.”

Derek was usually more intuitive than this. Ordinarily, he picked up on tension. Maybe his brother thought it would all just go away if he didn’t acknowledge it. Think again, Derek. If nothing else, Paul wanted some of the ground rules reaffirmed.

“Some of us,” he told Derek, “don’t think so.”

Derek laughed shortly. “By ‘some’ I take it you mean Lisa and you.” Even as he said the words amicably, he knew the answer. Just as he knew that their baby sister was behind this confrontation. Even as a kid, Lisa was into power plays. As the youngest of the Armstrong children, she always wanted to come out on top, to be the one the others listened to.

Putting his hand on Paul’s shoulder, Derek said patiently, “Paul, you’re an excellent physician and a wonderful chief of staff here at the institute. If you ask me, you deserve a lot more credit than you’re getting. But let’s be honest, there’s no denying that the institute needs help.”

“I got us help,” Paul pointed out tersely. “I got Demetrios and Bonner to leave their hospital and join the institute. In case you missed it, they’re the cutting-edge research team who—”

“I didn’t miss it,” Derek answered crisply, cutting in. “But I just might have been the only one around who didn’t.”

Paul had absolutely no idea what that even meant. “What?”

“Exactly,” Derek declared as if Paul had made his point for him. “What newspaper was that where the press release announcing their joining the institute was run? Oh, wait, it wasn’t,” he said with exaggerated enlightenment. “Because we had no one manning our PR desk to make that press release. But we do now,” he concluded with a smug, triumphant smile.

Paul was easygoing up to a point, but he dug in now. If he didn’t take a stand here, he might as well just lie down and have Derek walk all over him. “Not until Lisa and I agree to hire her.”

“Then agree,” Derek told him, trying to control his irritation. “Because she’s already hired.”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?” Derek wanted to know. “I hired her yesterday.”

“And I put her on temporary notice.”

The smile evaporated instantly. Derek exploded. “For God’s sake, why?”

Paul dug deep for patience. Derek, he knew, was accustomed to doing whatever he wanted to unopposed. But when it came to the institute, important decisions had to involve all three of them. They’d agreed on that when they took over the famous facility from their ailing father.

As if it was the first time, Paul doled his words out evenly. “Because you can’t just go off and do this kind of thing whenever you feel like it without at least consulting Lisa and me.”

“So you’re going to let Ramona go because you’re mad at me?” he asked in abject disbelief. Derek shook his head in amazement. “Boy, leave it to you to be such a cliché.”

Paul’s gaze became flinty. “Excuse me?”

Derek frowned, exasperated. “That old chestnut about cutting off your nose to spite your face. That’s what you’re doing.”

Any moment now, his brother was going to throw a tantrum, Paul thought. “You’re carrying on as if I just fired Woodward and Bernstein. That girl looks like she’s barely out of high school, let alone college. We implant embryos here, Derek, we don’t hire them.”

Derek raised his voice to be heard over him. “Ramona Tate is twenty-five years old and she has impressive credentials—”

“Which I’m sure you checked thoroughly.” Paul couldn’t help the note of sarcasm that came into his voice. He sincerely doubted that Derek had done anything but glance at her résumé.

Derek squared his shoulders indignantly. “I was getting to that.”

Sure you were, Paul thought. “Want another old chestnut?”

Derek slanted a glance toward him, a suspicious look entering his eyes. “Like what?”

“Like you’re putting the cart before the horse.” In this case, he’d hired the woman and planned to rubber-stamp her references—if she even had any.

A deep chuckle escaped Derek’s lips. “Maybe you didn’t notice—and if you didn’t, you’d be the only one who wouldn’t—but this ‘horse’ has lines that could stop a charging rhino in his tracks.”

Paul sighed, shaking his head. “So this is about your libido.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Unlike you, I have one, but in this case I was thinking of the institute.”

Paul leaned a hip against his brother’s desk. “This I have to hear.”

“There’s nothing wrong in having an extremely attractive—and able—woman to represent us. To be the ‘face’ of the Armstrong Fertility Institute.” Seeing that he was losing Paul, Derek hurried to add, “Which would you rather look at when it comes to getting your information, a gnarled, short, bald, fat man or an attractive young woman who makes your blood surge and makes you think of fertility just by looking at her?”

“I’d just as soon get it in a report on my desk.”

Derek threw up his hands. “You’re hopeless, you know that?”

Paul made no comment on that. He didn’t feel he needed to defend himself. This wasn’t about him, or Derek. This was about their father’s legacy. “How much is she costing the institute?”

Derek rallied for a second defense. “Not as much as you would think—and Ramona is worth every penny of it.”

Paul gave his twin a knowing look. “I’ll bet.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Paul. I was referring to the press release I asked her to prepare.”

Was that why the woman had asked him if she could draft a statement? “About?” he asked cautiously, wanting to see if the stories agreed.

“Your dynamic duo, of course. Bonner and Demetrios bring their own sterling reputations to the table—just as you planned.” Derek wasn’t above trying to butter his brother up if he had to. “We get the public focusing on that, they’ll forget the rumors.”

He blew out a breath, then looked at Paul hopefully. “So how about it, Paul? Can we take her off notice and just watch her work?” He put his arm around his brother’s shoulders in a gesture of solidarity. “I promise you won’t be sorry.”

There was no way that Derek could guarantee that. “And if I am?”

Derek laughed. “Not even you can be that much of a stodgy old man.” Derek tapped his brother’s chest with the back of his hand. “Loosen up, Paul. You’ll not only live longer, but you’ll get to enjoy yourself, too.”

“I do enjoy my life,” Paul insisted. And he did. He was dedicated to continuing his father’s work and to granting childless couples their fondest wish. That was more than enough for him.

Derek merely shook his head. “Can’t see how, but okay. Do you know where Lisa is?”

Paul laughed quietly. “Most likely sharpening her tongue so she can give you a good lashing.”

“That’s why I want to head her off,” Derek confessed. “I was hoping to make a preemptive strike.”

Paul thought of the expression on Lisa’s face when she burst into his office earlier. “Too late,” he speculated.

Derek was not easily defeated. And he had the ability to talk someone to death—or at least until he got what he wanted.

“Maybe not,” he countered as he went off in search of their sister. Ramona Tate was staying and that was that. He was not about to tolerate being overridden. The institute needed to continue to make money and that was not going to happen if people—wealthy people—stopped coming to avail themselves of what they had to offer here. Their focus needed to be redirected to a positive image, and Ramona Tate seemed just the person to do it.

Both he and the institute would benefit from that.

Chapter Three

Ramona already knew that there was nothing in this small office that could help her with her investigation. If there was data that could openly incriminate one or more of the staff at the institute for engaging in the wrongful substitution of eggs or sperm, it wouldn’t be readily accessible. She was also fairly certain that nothing tangible would turn up to back the claim that too many embryos were being implanted purely to up the success ratio.

There was no way she was going to learn how to access records that had been archived just by sitting here, staring at the walls. Ramona wasn’t even certain that there were archived records. Since they might prove to be incriminating, they might have been destroyed years ago. She knew for a fact that they weren’t on any database within the institute.

All she could do was hope that Gerald Armstrong, who ran this facility until ill health had forced him into retirement, had been vain enough to hang on to everything—good or bad—that even remotely testified to his accomplishments and his genius. From what she’d read and heard, the man had a more than healthy ego.

If the senior Armstrong had played God and implanted her mother’s eggs into someone, she thought, adrenaline rushing excitedly through her veins, that had to have been noted in the recipient’s file. She might be looking for a needle in a haystack, but at least she’d know that there was a needle.

Dr. Gerald Armstrong had been in charge of operations and treatments when her mother had sold her eggs to the institute, Ramona thought. Pacing about her small office, she wondered now if there was any plausible excuse she could come up with in order to gain access to the man. All she needed was about ten minutes. She knew that these days he led a fairly low-key, quiet life, hardly ever leaving his home. He was cared for and looked after by his very long-suffering wife.

It had to be hell for both of them, Ramona thought. Emily Stanton Armstrong came from a good family and had a high social standing in the community when she married the up-and-coming pioneering doctor. The woman spent her days planning charitable events and her evenings attending them.

From her research, Ramona knew that the good doctor had made sure that he got his share of mileage out of the successes the institute achieved. Handsome, dynamic and blessed with the gift of gab, rumor had it that Gerald Armstrong had more than one illicit relationship. Mrs. Armstrong cast a blind eye to his dealings and partied harder.

Now they were almost like two shut-ins—he, more often than not, relegated to his wheelchair, she to nursing a man she had quite possibly learned to loathe.

Not exactly the type of people she wanted to have anything to do with, Ramona thought. Still, she was not above using any means, fair or foul, to achieve her main goal: finding out if her mother’s desperate action had ultimately resulted in a child who could save her life.

For now, though, Ramona had no choice but to stay in her office and wait for Armstrong—be it Paul or Derek, or perhaps even Lisa—to come and tell her whether or not she was to stay on as PR manager.

Because she wasn’t the type to waste time by aimlessly surfing the Web, Ramona decided to do exactly what she’d told Paul she was going to do: draft a press release about the research team who had recently been enticed to add their names to the fertility institute’s roster.

Even though she was only twenty-five, she already had established several strong connections within the media world. Pulling a few strings, she was certain that she could get sufficient coverage for Demetrios and Bonner’s shift from working at a teaching hospital to bringing their research program to the Armstrong Fertility Institute.

And as for the public, she’d already learned that they were mercurial, as fast to revere as to condemn. All it took were the right words in the right place to achieve either reaction. For the time being, it served her purpose to give the Armstrongs a little something to put in the plus column.

Her mouth curved as she thought about it. If everything went according to plan, this would amount to the calm before the storm. Because, if her information turned out to be correct, she intended to bring the Armstrong Fertility Institute down so fast, the pompous family would wind up choking on the dust that was kicked up.

She crossed back to the desk and sat down to work. Pausing just for a moment to find the right first word, her fingers soon flew across the keyboard, trying to keep up with her racing brain and coming in a close second.

Engrossed in wording the release so that it would pop as a whole, Ramona didn’t hear the knock on her door. She also wasn’t aware of that same door being opened a beat later.

Paul slipped in unobtrusively, a considerable feat for a man who measured six foot one. But then, he had the kind of quiet, easygoing manner that allowed him to blend in with the scenery at will. Unlike his outgoing brother, who had never been known to fade into the background, even for a moment, in his entire life. The very act would have been against everything that Derek stood for.

She looked diligent, Paul observed, completely involved in her work. She was obviously intent on doing a good job.

Maybe Derek had been right in hiring this young woman after all, he mused. Maybe a public-relations spokesperson was exactly what they needed to give them that much-needed shot in the arm. Good works didn’t count for very much if no one knew you did them, and the public, fickle at best in their loyalties, couldn’t exactly be expected to embrace something if they didn’t know about it.

Paul took a step forward and cleared his throat.

The sound caught her attention and Ramona raised her eyes. The next moment she was clamping her lips together, stifling a gasp. When had Armstrong come in? “How long have you been standing there?”

A slight smile curved his mouth. “Long enough to discover that you nibble on your lower lip when you’re thinking—or was that fretting?”

Fretting. Now, there was a word she hadn’t heard in—well, maybe forever. This man definitely had stepped out of the last century. Quite possibly the first half of the last century, she speculated.

“No, no ‘fretting,’” she answered with a straight face. “You were right the first time. I was just thinking something through. Don’t worry. There’s nothing in what I’m writing that should stir up any kind of concern.” She gestured toward the screen, which, given its position, only she could see right now. “It’s just the institute doctors’ backgrounds, plus I’ve added a little family history for each of them.”

Personal histories had never really interested him all that much. They were just fillers, padding that was easily eliminated. It was what a person did, not who their parents were, that mattered. Though he had to admit that maybe his own background tainted his view of things.

Still, he asked, “Do you think that’s really necessary?”

As far as she was concerned, a person’s history was the most interesting part. She always wanted to know what made people tick, how they got to be the way they were. She sincerely doubted that she was alone in this.

“People like to know who they’re dealing with. It makes the whole challenging process of fertility treatment a little more down-to-earth for them—and a little less like science fiction.”

Leaning back in what she hoped would continue to be her chair for at least a modest amount of time, Ramona did her best to appear relaxed. The very act belied the knots in her stomach. She laced her fingers before her and tried to sound cheerful as she asked, “So, what’s the verdict?”

Technically, there was no official verdict yet. He told her what was happening. “I managed to send Derek to Lisa to apologize.”

Well, that didn’t sound very heartening. “For hiring me?” she asked. This would be the part where she would have gotten up and told him what he could do with his apology. But she wasn’t being herself, she was being a subservient employee. She assumed that was what Paul Armstrong wanted and she was willing to go along with it, as long as it eventually got her access to the archives.

“For hiring you without consulting with the rest of us,” Paul corrected.

That still didn’t give her the answer she was hoping for. “So you’re letting me go?” she guessed. She had trouble envisioning the woman who belonged to that cold voice over the phone giving her a thumbs-up. Even so, there was absolutely no way she was going to go without a fight. “Because if you are, Dr. Armstrong, you’re going to regret it.”

“Are you threatening me, Miss Tate?” he asked quietly.

“No, I’m telling you that you need me,” she responded with feeling. “I’m very good at my job.” Ramona straightened and squared her shoulders.

She made him think of a warrior princess. He had no idea where that had come from, only that it seemed like a very appropriate description.

“I’d like you to read what I’ve been writing before you have security eject me.”

Paul held up his hand to stop her before her mouth launched into double time. The woman was already talking faster than he could listen. He had a feeling that, like Derek, Ramona Tate could talk with the best of them, easily winning battles simply by wearing her opposition down.

“No one’s ejecting you, Miss Tate,” he assured her. “You have a temporary stay of execution.”

The surprise came and went from her face in an instant. Had he blinked, Paul suspected he wouldn’t have seen it at all.

“How temporary?” she wanted to know, banking down her eagerness.

“That remains to be seen,” he told her. It depended on whether she actually got results that would do them any good. For now, he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Why don’t we just take this one step at a time, shall we?”

“That’s all I ever wanted, an opportunity to prove myself to you—whichever ‘you’ I happen to be talking to,” she added with an amused smile. Rising, she cocked her head just a tad as she peered at him closely, her eyes swiftly taking inventory and reviewing everything she noted. And then she made her decision. “You’re Dr. Paul,” she declared with just a hint of triumph.

He hid his amusement. “What makes you so certain?” he asked.

Even though he felt that there was a world of difference between his brother and him, Paul knew that as far as looks went, he and Derek were close to interchangeable unless they were standing beside one another. It was only then that someone might notice that Derek was thinner, while he looked as if he availed himself of the gym’s facilities whenever he could, which he did.

When they were younger, both of their parents managed to confuse one with the other, in part, Paul suspected, because neither parent ever really took the time to get to know either of them. Although, if he thought about it, Paul had a feeling that if his parents had taken the time, it would only have been Derek who would have garnered their focused attention.

It wasn’t only the squeaky wheel that got greased, it was the noisy, silver-tongued brother who ultimately got all the attention.

Ramona smiled up at him. The smile penetrated clear down to his bones. “Your eyes.”

He waited, but she didn’t elaborate. “What about my eyes?” he pressed. He fully expected her to say something to the effect that they were dull, that Derek was the one whose eyes looked as if they held a host of secrets and the promise of excitement.

But she surprised him. “You’re the one with the kind eyes,” Ramona said. “Your brother’s eyes are … unfathomable.”

Maybe she didn’t have such a happy way with words after all. Paul interpreted her meaning. “So Derek is the man of mystery while I’m the flat, two-dimensional one.”

Her perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together into a V. She looked surprised at his interpretation of her assessment.

“Not at all,” she protested. “On an absolute level, you’d be the one who people would trust, Dr. Armstrong, not your brother. They’d go to him looking for a good time, not honesty.”

Ramona firmly believed that it was never too early to begin laying groundwork in order to build a viable relationship. That was her goal at the moment to build a connection with Paul. She could accomplish more at a quicker pace if she had one of the Armstrongs in her corner, and Paul, although reserved, struck her as the one who was more real, more open. She had the feeling that Derek had his own, private agenda, one he meant to pursue no matter what. A man like that couldn’t be manipulated.

Besides, Derek Armstrong was far too into himself to be of any use to her.

Paul shook his head ever so slightly. “I already said you had a temporary stay of execution, Miss Tate. There’s no need to try to flatter me.”

Annoyed with herself that she’d come across so transparent, nonetheless Ramona managed to rally quickly. “I wasn’t flattering, I was telling it the way I saw it,” she informed him simply.

She might have given him a simple answer, Paul mused, but he had the impression that this woman was anything but that. As a matter of fact, he would have been willing to say that, despite declarations of honesty and truth, there was something Ramona Tate was keeping back.

The fleeting thought intrigued him.

In case she believed he was fishing for more validation, he changed the subject. “By the way, about your references—”

Ramona was one jump ahead of him. She’d learned that a good defense was to have a good offense. “I have them right here.” Reaching for her oversize purse, she pulled it toward her, then flipped the locks open. “Your brother said he’d be getting around to reviewing them eventually, but I think they should be a matter of record, don’t you?” Taking out a light blue file that contained more than a few letters of praise, she offered the folder to him. “There’s also a copy of my academic transcript and employment history,” she told him.

Taking the folder, Paul opened it and scanned a few of the pages. There were letters from college professors and from news editors, some of whom had the logos of local TV stations stamped on them. One was from the Washington Post. He’d expected one letter, perhaps two. If asked, he would have said that she was too young for more than that.

“And you said that you were just twenty-five?” he asked incredulously.

Maybe Monty had laid it on a little thick, Ramona thought. Monty Durham was the computer geek/wizard she’d befriended in her first year in college. He’d been so grateful to have someone to talk to, he became Sancho Panza to her female Don Quixote. There wasn’t anything that Monty couldn’t make a computer do, including spew out lies and make them look like gospel. There also wasn’t anything that Monty wouldn’t do for her.

“I graduated two years early,” she told Paul by way of an explanation.

Which was true. Eager to start leaving her mark in the world, Ramona had opted for an accelerated course of study. It had allowed her to crunch four years of high school into three and then do the same with college. To make it work, she’d attended school year-round, picking up courses part-time in the summer. In her spare time, she had also worked any job in her field she could get her hands on. That in turn gave her a much-needed solid core for her résumé. Monty had done the rest, embellishing where he could. He was also responsible for half the letters of recommendation in the folder.

She was unusual, Paul decided, he’d give her that. “In my experience, most people like to extend their college experience if they can.”

“Maybe so,” she allowed. “But I wanted to get started with my life,” she countered. “College was great,” she added quickly, not wanting him to think she was bucking for some kind of sainthood, “but college isn’t life. It’s more like the TV version.” Angling the monitor so that it turned in his direction, Ramona realized that she’d come full circle and made the offer again. “Would you like to read what I’ve written so far?”

That would probably be the best way to determine whether or not she could actually do them some good, he thought. Or if having her around was just Derek’s way of having eye candy on hand.

“Actually, I would.”

Smiling, she hit the key combination that caused the wireless printer in the corner to come to life. Within moments, it produced the four pages she’d composed. Ramona crossed to the machine and removed the sheets, then returned and handed them to Paul.

And that was when he realized that he’d gotten caught up in watching her move, and Paul found that for once he couldn’t fault his brother for admiring Ramona’s looks. He had to admit, the sway of her hips was something to behold. It was enough to even make a man believe in Santa Claus.