A Baby for the Boss

by Maureen Child

  He nodded as if he cared and she knew he didn’t. Please. Were most of her gender really so easily manipulated by a gorgeous face and the appearance of interest in what they were saying?

  “So what color do you want for that wall?” he asked.

  She glanced at the wall in question. It was the first thing you saw when you walked into the hotel. Right now, it was cream colored, with sun stains from where framed paintings had once hung. But when Jenny was finished with it, it was going to be...mystical.

  When she spoke, she wasn’t really talking to Rick-With-Dimples. Instead, she was describing her vision to herself, sort of putting it out into the universe.

  “Deep purple,” she said, tipping her head to stare at the blank space as if she could see the wall changing color as she spoke. “I want it the color of twilight just before darkness falls. There will be stars, just barely appearing in the sky, with dark clouds streaming past a full moon, making them shine like silver.” She sighed and continued, “There’ll be a forest beneath the stars and moonlight threading through the trees. And in the shadows, there will be the hint of yellow eyes, red eyes, staring out at you, and you won’t be sure if you see them or not.

  “But the night will draw you in, make promises, and you’ll dream about that forest and the eyes that follow you as you walk.”

  She fell silent and was still staring at the blank wall when she heard Rick say, “Damn, lady, you’re a little spooky, you know that?”

  She laughed, until Mike’s voice came from right behind her.

  “You have no idea.”

  Whipping around, she looked up into Mike’s eyes and noticed the all-too-familiar flare of anger. Well, for heaven’s sake, what had she done now?

  “Don’t you have work to do?” Jacob asked Rick and he immediately left, doing his best to look busy.

  “Thanks for the tour, Jacob,” Mike was saying. “We’ll meet up here again tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be here,” the older man said, with a nod acknowledging Jenny. “You make a note on the paint colors you want where, miss, and I’ll make sure the painters get the message.”

  “Thank you. I’ll have them for you tomorrow, then.”

  “That’s good.” Jacob looked back at Mike. “The crew starts on the main floor in the morning. You and I can look at the upper floors and talk about what you want.”

  “See you then.” Mike took Jenny’s elbow and began steering her toward the front door.

  She pulled free though, because A, she wasn’t going to be dragged around like a dog on a leash. And B, she needed her purse.

  “Just wait a minute,” she snapped and marched across the front room like a soldier striding across a battlefield. Snatching up her black leather bag, she slung it over her shoulder and stomped right back to Mike. “Now I’m ready.”

  He gritted his teeth. She could see the muscle in his jaw twitching and she almost enjoyed knowing she had the ability to irritate him so easily. Of course, she’d enjoy it even more if she knew what exactly she’d done to make him walk as if there were a steel spike between his shoulder blades.

  Without waiting for him, Jenny walked out the front door, down the overgrown walk and stopped at the passenger door of the shiny red rental car to wait.

  He looked at her over the roof of the car and demanded, “What the hell were you doing?”

  “My job,” she shot back, then threw the door open and slid inside.

  He did the same, slammed the key home and fired the engine. Neither of them spoke again on the short drive to the hotel where they’d be spending the night.

  When they got there, Mike turned the car over to the valet and Jenny was inside the hotel before he caught up to her. Again, he took hold of her elbow and pulled her to a stop.

  “Will you quit doing that?” Her gaze shot from his hand on her arm up to his eyes.

  “Quit walking away from me.”

  “Quit being a jerk and I’ll quit walking away.”

  “You make me nuts,” he grumbled.

  “I think you were born that way,” she said, “but Sean seems perfectly reasonable, so it’s probably not hereditary.”

  All around them, tourists swarmed through the lobby and into the casino. Bells, whistles and loud bursts of laughter played backdrop to their hurried, angry whispers.

  “I’m not having this conversation here.”

  Jenny flinched at the cold, sharp edge of his voice. “I’m not having it at all.”

  “Yeah you are. We’ll talk about it upstairs. Your room or mine?”

  “Ha!” She laughed shortly. “Despite that charming invitation, I think I’ll pass.”

  “We talk privately,” he said, lowering his voice until it was a hush, “or we do it right here in the middle of the damn hotel.”

  “Fine. Upstairs. My room because I want to be able to tell you to leave.”

  He snorted, took her elbow in a grip firm enough she couldn’t shake him off and steered her to the bank of elevators. One of them opened instantly as soon as Mike stabbed the call button. The two of them stepped into the open car as soon as it emptied and were joined by a half-dozen other people.

  The elevator was crowded and the piped-in music was straight out of the 1980s. Mirrors on the walls made it seem as if there were fifty people crammed together, but the only person Jenny really looked at was Mike. He was at least a head taller than anyone else and in the mirror, his gaze shifted to hers and held. The car stopped, people got off, got on, and then they were moving again. Conversations rippled around them, but Jenny hardly heard them. All she could focus on was the glint in Mike’s eyes and the grim slash of his mouth. Finally, though, they hit the eleventh floor. Jenny stepped off and Mike followed after.

  The hallway was dimly lit and narrow, and with Mike right behind her, felt even tighter. She reached her door, slid the card key through the slot and opened it. Jenny’d left her drapes open, so afternoon sunlight swamped the room as she walked to the bed and tossed her purse down on it.

  Mike closed the door and was walking toward her when she turned to face him.

  “What the hell was that all about?”

  “What was what about?” Jenny threw both hands high and then let them fall.

  “You and the carpenter.” Mike bit the words off. “When I walked into the lobby, you were flirting and he was drooling, so I ask again, what the hell was that about?”

  Sincerely stunned, Jenny gaped at him for a second or two. “Flirting?” she repeated as anger bubbled and churned in the pit of her stomach. “I was talking about paint. About the mural I want on the wall in the lobby.”

  “Yeah, I heard the end of the performance.” Mike cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Deep, breathy voice going all dreamy and soft. Hell, you had that carpenter standing there with his mouth open and his eyes bugging out.”

  “Dreamy? Soft?” Had she really sounded like that, she wondered, then shook her head to dismiss the question. Didn’t matter if she had, Jenny thought. She hadn’t been flirting, she’d been sort of lost in her own vision.

  Mike inhaled sharply and said, “You sounded just like you did when you woke up in my arms.”

  Now it was her turn to drag a deep breath into her lungs. Reminding her of their most recent night together wasn’t playing fair. “You’re wrong.”

  He took a step closer, grabbed her upper arms and pulled her up against him. Jenny’s heart leaped into a gallop and as he was holding her so tightly to him, she felt his heart raging in the same rhythm.

  “I know what I heard,” he said, staring down into her eyes. “What I saw.”

  She fought the natural impulse to wrap her arms around his waist and hold on. To go up on her toes and kiss him. To feel that rush of incredible sensations one more time. Instead, she reminded herself just how little he
really thought of her. Of the fact that he didn’t want her—it was only desire driving his reactions.

  “I wasn’t flirting,” she told him. “But even if I had been, what business is that of yours? You’re my boss, Mike, not my boyfriend.”

  “I am your boss,” he agreed. “And I don’t want you playing with the crew. I want them focused on the work, not you.”

  Stunned all over again, Jenny demanded, “Can you hear yourself? Do you even realize when you’re being insulting? I mean, is it just instinct or is it deliberate?”

  “Insulting? I walk into a room in my new hotel and find you practically salivating over some guy with a tool belt and a set of dimples, and I’m insulting?”

  “You are, and what’s worse is you don’t see it,” Jenny said and slapped both hands against his hard chest to shove her way free. He let her go. Taking a few steps away from him just because she really needed the distance right now, she faced him and said, “I’m here to do my job, Mike. You’re my boss, not my lover.”

  “I remember it differently.”

  She flushed. Damn it. Jenny could actually feel heat race into her cheeks and could only hope that with the sunlight behind her, her face was in shadow enough that he wouldn’t notice. “A couple of nights together doesn’t make you my lover. It makes you...”

  “Yeah?”

  “A mistake,” she finished. “Isn’t that what you yourself called that first night? Oh, and the last one we spent together?”

  He shoved both hands into his pockets and stared at her with an intensity she could feel. “I did. It was. That doesn’t mean I enjoy standing by, watching you work some other poor guy into a frenzy.”

  “I had no idea I had so much power,” Jenny said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Didn’t realize I was so oblivious, either. I didn’t see Rick—”

  “Hmm. First-name basis already, huh?”

  She ignored that and punched home what she most wanted to say. “I didn’t see Rick in a frenzy—but you surely were.”

  “I was angry, not in a frenzy.”

  Was he jealous? Was it possible that Mike Ryan had seen her talking to Rick and had felt territorial over her? If he had, what did that mean? “Really. Angry that I was ‘flirting’ with someone other than you?”

  “That you were flirting on the job, that’s all,” he said, and pulled both hands from his pockets to fold his arms across his chest. “Don’t read more into this than there is.”

  “I don’t think I am,” Jenny said, moving close to him again. This was the weirdest conversation she’d ever had. Just a week or so ago, she’d pledged that she wouldn’t be sleeping with Mike again. She already knew that this was a ticket to disaster. That the man had believed her to be a thief. Maybe he still did, she couldn’t be sure. And yet, here she was, surrendering to the very need and hunger that had led her to his bed in the first place.

  No. She couldn’t. Not again. She would not allow herself to willingly walk right into more pain. With that thought firmly in place, she stopped where she was, looked up at Mike and said, “We’re not going to do this again. I won’t go to bed with you again.”

  “I didn’t ask you to.”

  Now she smiled sadly. “Yeah, you did. In everything but words.”

  “Now you’re a mind reader?”

  “I don’t have to be,” Jenny told him and took a breath, hoping to ease the gnawing inside her. “I just know what happens when the two of us are alone together.”

  Seconds ticked past and the silence was heavy with a kind of tension that nearly vibrated in the air. Jenny held on to the ragged edges of the control that was rapidly slipping out of her grasp. If he pushed back, if he kissed her, then she’d be lost and she knew it.

  “Damn it,” he finally said in a gruff whisper. “You’re not wrong.” His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips and back again. “I saw you with the carpenter and... Never mind. Like you said, none of my business.”

  Jenny nodded and said, “Let’s just forget today, okay? We’ll get the job finished tomorrow, then go home and things will get back to normal.”

  His blue eyes flashed with emotions that came and went so quickly, she couldn’t identify them all, and maybe that was for the best.

  “Normal.” He nodded sharply. “Fine. We can finish up at the new hotel by noon, probably. Then we’ll head home and forget the whole damn trip.”

  Her heart gave a tug that unsettled her, but Jenny only forced a smile, keeping that small sliver of pain to herself. He wanted to forget the whole trip. Forget being with her, even that way-too-short moment they’d shared on the dock, where they’d talked like friends—or maybe more.

  Forgetting wouldn’t be easy, Jenny told herself, but it was the one sure path to sanity. Holding on to what she felt for Mike—feelings she didn’t want to examine too closely—was only going to add to the misery later on. She had to find a way to let go of what-might-have-beens and focus instead on the cold, hard facts.

  The man she wanted didn’t want her beyond the nearest bed.

  And that just wasn’t good enough.

  “So,” Mike said, interrupting her thoughts, “I’ll see you in the morning, then. Nine o’clock. Be ready to go to work.”

  “I will be.” Once he was gone, Jenny dropped to the edge of the bed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  This would be so much easier if only she didn’t care.

  * * *

  Mike spent the evening working in his suite. He figured if he kept his mind busy with figures, budgets, plans for the future of their company, he’d have no time to think about Jenny. Or how she’d looked when he heard her describing the painting she wanted to do. He wouldn’t hear the magic in her voice or see the interest in that carpenter’s eyes when he watched her.

  And he wouldn’t keep seeing the look on her face when he had acted like some kind of demented comic-strip moron by accusing her of flirting with the guy. Hell, even if she had been, like she said, it was none of his damn business. But it sure as hell felt like it was. He’d hated watching that other man so focused, laser-like, on Jenny’s face. Hated that he’d blamed her for whatever he was feeling.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here,” he muttered darkly, “but I don’t like it.” He’d always been in control. Of his feelings, his emotions—until Jenny. And what that meant, he didn’t have a clue.

  Mike scrubbed one hand across his face, pushed out of the desk chair and walked to the terrace. When his cell phone rang, he dragged it out of his pocket as he opened the sliding door and stepped into the teeth of a cold desert wind.

  He glanced at the screen, then answered. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi. How’s Vegas?”

  “Laughlin.”

  “Same diff,” she said and he could almost see her shrugging. “Sean told me you’re out there inspecting the new hotel. What’s it like?”

  He dropped one hand on the iron railing, squinted into the wind and looked down to watch the river below froth beneath the hulls of flat-bottom boats taking tourists on a short ride. Neon fought against the stars for supremacy and won. On the Riverwalk, golden lamplight sifted onto the people strolling in and out of the shadows beside the river.

  “It’s run-down and sad right now, but I think it’ll come together.”

  “Of course it will,” his mother assured him. “My sons always do what they set out to do.”

  Mike smiled to himself.

  “Sean says Jenny Marshall has some great ideas for the artwork, too.” She paused for a moment. “He says you and Jenny are there. Together.”

  “Does he?” Shaking his head, Mike ignored the blip of interest in Peggy Ryan’s voice. He had to wonder if all mothers were as determined as his own to see her children married, with kids.

  “Yes, he told me that you and Jenny would
be working together for months on this new hotel...”

  “Don’t start,” he warned her, amusement softening his words.

  “Well, why shouldn’t I?” she demanded with a huff. “You’re not getting any younger, you know. And I’ve met Jenny. She’s a nice girl. Talented. Pretty, too.”

  All true, he thought. She was also smart, opinionated, desirable and oh, yeah...untrustworthy. He scowled and remembered how cozy she’d looked with the damn carpenter today.

  “Mom...”

  “You can’t fault a mother for hoping,” she said, cutting him off before he could tell her to dial it back.

  “Not interested in getting married, Mom,” he said flatly. And she should know why, but he’d learned over the years that Peggy Ryan wanted nothing more than to forget the day that had changed everything for Mike.

  There was a sigh in her voice when she said, “Fine. You are so hardheaded. Just like your father.”

  His frown deepened, but he didn’t say anything. His mom didn’t notice, or chose not to notice, because she rushed right on.

  “I wanted to remind you, your dad’s birthday is next week, and I want you and Sean both to show up, okay?”

  Mike took a breath and blew it out. No way to avoid it and he knew it. But he never really looked forward to spending time with his father. It was...awkward. Uncomfortable.

  Not that it had always been. Up until the year Mike turned thirteen, he’d thought of his father as his hero. Big, strong, with a wide smile and a kind nature, Jack Ryan was the kind of father most kids dream about. Jack had taught both of his sons to surf. A Little League coach, he’d spent hours at batting cages with them.

  But the year he was thirteen, Mike had discovered that the father he idolized was also a liar. And that discovery had colored his image of his father ever since. He hadn’t been able to forget or forgive. Jack had tried to close the distance between them many times, but Mike couldn’t do it.

  Memory was sometimes a hard thing and the images from the day when his father tumbled off that pedestal were as clear now as they had ever been.

  “Oh, Mike,” his mother said on a sigh, “I’m so sorry. You can’t possibly know how sorry I am.”