The Baby Claim

by Catherine Mann

  “I’m sorry about your aunt. I saw an article about her in the paper that said she’d locked herself in her apartment for almost twenty years. Was that true?”

  Oliver sighed. His aunt had drawn plenty of interest alive and dead. “No. Only seventeen years,” he said with a smile.

  Monica seemed stunned by the very idea. “I can’t imagine not leaving my apartment for that long.”

  “Well,” Oliver pointed out, “she had a very nice apartment. She wasn’t exactly suffering there.”

  “Will you inherit her place? I know you two were close and the article said she didn’t have any children.”

  The possibility had been out there until this afternoon when everything changed. Aunt Alice had never married or had children of her own. A lot of people assumed that he and Harper would be the ones to inherit the bulk of her estate. Oliver didn’t need his aunt’s money or her apartment; it wasn’t really his style. But he resented a woman wiggling her way into the family and stealing it out from under them.

  Especially a woman with wide eyes and irritatingly fascinating freckles that had haunted his thoughts for the last hour.

  “I doubt it, but you never know. Hold my calls, will you, Monica?”

  She nodded as he slipped into his office and shut the door. He was in no mood to talk to anyone. He’d cleared his calendar for the afternoon, figuring he would be in discussions with his family about Alice’s estate for some time. Instead, everyone had rushed out in a panic and he’d followed them.

  It was best that he left when he did. The longer he found himself in the company of the alluring Miss Campbell, the more intrigued he became. It was ridiculous, really. She was the kind of woman he wouldn’t give a second glance to on the street. But seated across from him at that conference room table, looking at him like her fate was in his hands...he needed some breathing room before he did something stupid.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen before tossing it onto his desk. Harper had called him twice in the last half hour, but he’d turned the ringer off. His sister was likely on a mission to convince him to let the whole issue with the will drop. They’d have to agree to disagree where Lucy and her inheritance was concerned.

  Oliver settled into his executive chair with a shake of his head and turned to look out the wall of windows to his view of the city. His office faced the west on one side and north on the other. In an hour or so, he’d have a great view of the sun setting over the Hudson. He rarely looked at it. His face was always buried in spreadsheets or he was doodling madly on the marker board. Something always needed his attention and he liked it that way. If he was busy, that meant the company was successful.

  Free time...he didn’t have much of it, and when he did, he hardly knew what to do with it. He kept a garden, but that was just a stress reliever. He dated from time to time, usually at Harper’s prodding, but never anything very serious.

  He couldn’t help but see shades of Candace in every woman that gave a coy smile and batted her thick lashes at him. He knew that wasn’t the right attitude to have—there were plenty of women with money of their own who were interested in him for more than just his fortune and prestige. He just wasn’t certain how to tell them apart.

  One thing he did notice today was that Lucy Campbell neither smiled or batted her lashes at him. At first, her big brown eyes had looked him over with a touch of disgust wrinkling her pert, freckled nose. A woman had never grazed over him with her eyes the way she had. It was almost as though he smelled like something other than the expensive cologne he’d splashed on that morning.

  He’d been amused by her reaction to him initially. At least until they started reading the will. Once he realized who she was and what she’d done, it wasn’t funny any longer.

  Harper believed one hundred percent in Lucy’s innocence. They’d been friends since college. She probably knew Lucy better than anyone else and normally, he would take his sister’s opinion as gospel. But was she too close? Harper could be blinded to the truth by her friendship, just as their father had been blinded to the truth by his love for Candace. In both instances, hundreds of millions were at stake.

  Even the most honest, honorable person could be tempted to get a tiny piece of that pie. Alice had been ninety-three. Perhaps Lucy looked at her with those big, sad eyes and told Alice a sob story about needing the money. Perhaps she’d charmed his aunt into thinking of her as the child she never had. Maybe Lucy only expected a couple million and her scheme worked out even better than she planned.

  Either way, it didn’t matter how it came about. The bottom line was that Lucy had manipulated his aunt and he wasn’t going to sit by and let her profit from it. This was a half-billion-dollar estate—they weren’t quibbling over their grandmother’s Chippendale dresser or Wedgwood China. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—let this go without a fight. His aunt deserved that much.

  With a sigh, he reached for his phone and dialed his attorney. Freckles be damned, Lucy Campbell and her charms would be no match for Oliver and his team of bloodthirsty lawyers.

  Copyright © 2018 by Andrea Laurence

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  Off Limits

  by Clare Connelly

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE MIGHT AS well be naked. The dress is skin-tight, bright red and low-cut. Tiny straps slip over her shoulders. The dress is short, too. Not indecently short but, Jesus, her legs are long and smooth, and while she’s wearing that dress I find it impossible to look away.

  She’s hotter than any woman here—and that’s saying something, given that this launch event has brought together most of London’s elite. There are models, actresses, singers, athletes, and lots of those women who’ve married for money and now make it their life’s work to live up to their husbands’ expectations.

  And then there’s Gemma.

  Her blond hair is pulled into a ballerina bun, her face is serious and her body is like pale silk that I want to wrap around me.

  She’s said something funny, going by the way the guy with her leans forward and laughs. Is he her date? A frown pulls at my brow. I stare harder. Did she bring a date? Isn’t she technically here as my plus-one?

  Seeing her with another guy does something dangerous to my equilibrium. A possessive impulse threads through me, knotting at my chest.

  I pull a couple of champagne flutes from a passing waiter and cut through the room. I’m aware of people trying to get my attention but I have no time for them. Gemma is in my sights.

  ‘Jack...’<
br />
  Her lips purse as I approach; her eyes flick to me in that way she has. How is it possible for one person to imbue a simple gesture with a measure of cold disdain even when there’s the hint of a smile somewhere in that symmetrical face of hers?

  I hand her a glass of champagne and she takes it, her fingers briefly wrapping over mine. Immediately my mind puts them elsewhere on my body.

  ‘You remember Wolf DuChamp?’ she says. ‘He manages our accounts in New York.’

  I remember his stupid name, but not the man himself. Nothing memorable about blond, pretty-boy looks and that air of Ivy League he seems to wear like a coat.

  ‘Sure.’ I extend my hand, knowing I have to meet the convention even when my body is singularly focussed on Gemma.

  ‘Good to see you again, sir.’

  Gemma’s lips quiver. I hate being called ‘sir’ and she knows it. Out of nowhere I have an image of her saying it to me, bent at the knees, her eyes moving up my body to meet mine as her lips clamp down on my length. Okay, maybe in some circumstances I could make an exception...

  What the hell am I thinking? These fantasies are one thing, but screwing Gemma cannot happen.

  Cannot happen. Might as well get that tattoo added to my collection.

  ‘I was just explaining the software overhaul we’re looking at to Gem.’

  Is he trying to piss me off? First of all by removing the very nice image I was enjoying by talking about software. And then by referring to Gemma as ‘Gem’—as though they’re best buddies who paint their nails together.

  ‘I’ll summarise it for you later,’ she says, sensing my impatience though I suspect not the reason for it.

  ‘It’ll make a huge difference to our operations,’ Wolf pushes.

  ‘Gem’ angles her body a bit, turning away from me, giving me a chance to escape.

  ‘I’ll look into the feasibility. The problem is going to be short-term. We’ll need to make sure the systems are protected during the transfer of data. You handle some of our most sensitive work—a data breach would be unacceptable.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that, too,’ Wolf carries on—and I am dismissed, it would appear.

  Across the room a platinum blonde with a sensational rack and legs that go on forever is trying to catch my eye.

  I want Gemma, but I can’t have her. And I’m not one to wallow in self-pity. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.

  I have two rules when it comes to the women I fuck.

  No commitment.

  No redheads.

  Commitment was for Lucy.

  And Lucy was a redhead.

  I freeze. A vision of Lucy is in front of me, a scowl of disapproval on her face. I messed around a fair bit before we met, but nothing like this. I’ve taken it to a whole new level and I don’t care. Except for that scowl. Even in death I don’t want to upset Lucy.

  What did you expect, Luce? You left me a pretty big void to fill.

  Don’t blame me, I hear her snap back. Your life. Your choice.

  Yeah, right.

  My eyes wander of their own accord back to Gemma. She’s got her head bent now, and Wolf’s fingers are typing something into his cell phone. She nods and smiles, then presses a hand to his forearm. My stomach rolls on a surge of emotion I don’t much care for.

  I stalk towards the blonde as though she is the only woman in the room.

  ‘I’m Jack Grant.’

  Her lips are painted a bright red. She purrs. ‘I know who you are.’

  ‘Then you have the advantage.’

  Her lips part. ‘From what I hear, telling you my name wouldn’t serve much purpose. You won’t remember it tomorrow, right?’

  I laugh, appreciating her honesty. ‘No...’ I lean forward so that my lips are only a whisper from her ear. My breath flutters her hair and I see a fine trail of goose bumps run across her skin. ‘But you’ll remember me for the rest of your life.’

  Her laugh is husky. She’s everything I would usually find sexy, but in that moment she’s just passably acceptable. If I’m honest, I’m bored. It’s a phone-it-in flirt. A What the heck? situation.

  ‘We’ll see...’

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘I can share yours,’ she murmurs, her eyes dropping to my champagne flute.

  I didn’t even realise I was still holding it. I extend it to her on autopilot, watching as her lips shape over the glass and she tilts it back. The liquid is honey-gold. She passes the glass to me and I take a sip.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she says, with a throaty laugh in the rushed words.

  I nod, reaching down and putting a hand in the small of her back. Gemma and Lucy are both in my head now—a fascinating occurrence. A new occurrence. Are they ganging up on me? Would they even like each other?

  Lucy was so soft and sweet. She looked at me like I was her saviour and I suppose I was. I ripped her out of her old life, away from a boyfriend who used her as a punching bag, and I made all her dreams come true.

  But fate is a bastard of a thing, and it only had bad news in store for Lucy. For a while she managed to jump tracks and sit on a different train, and then—bam. It took her. You can’t outrun destiny, can you?

  Gemma is nothing like her. Her personality isn’t so much hard edges as a single hard face. She is smart—smarter than me by a mile—and focussed in a way that is completely familiar to me. She is also sexy. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. She acts so damned cold around me—as though she’s never so much as heard of an orgasm, much less experienced one. It makes me want her more. Want to show her for the liar she is. To make her orgasm again and again until ‘cold’ is a very distant memory.

  ‘Jack.’

  She catches me as I’m about to leave the room. Her eyes briefly meet the blonde’s. There is nothing beyond a polite acknowledgement of her existence. That iciness is there. I want to push Gemma backwards against the wall and kiss the hell out of her. Right here.

  ‘You’re scheduled to speak in twenty minutes.’

  Whoops. Even for me that’s a bit of a slip. I don’t usually let anything get in the way of business—even my sex life.

  ‘We’ll be back by then.’

  Blondie surprises us both. Her meaning is unmistakable.

  Shit. I can’t remember the last time I had a quickie in the car. Is she seriously suggesting it?

  Gemma shifts her attention to her phone. She runs that iPhone as though she designed the thing. Her fingers fly over the screen like it’s a part of her. Her complacency pisses me off.

  ‘Okay. The talk can be brief. Just an outline of what the foundation is hoping to achieve, thanking the commercial partners, yada-yada-yada.’

  ‘Yada-yada-yada?’ I grin slowly, my eyes linking with hers, daring her to forget the coldness and complacency.

  She looks at Blondie and her smile is perfunctory. ‘Have fun.’

  * * *

  Of course Jack nails the speech. Not so much as a hair on his head looks out of place. The tuxedo is immaculate. The white shirt crisp. The bow tie in place as though glued. He speaks eloquently about the foundation and he also speaks with humour, so the crowd laughs.

  I don’t.

  I am wondering about the blonde.

  No. I’m thinking about Jack—but they’re thoughts that I need to run a mile from. This can’t control me. I’ve worked my arse off in this job, twisting myself in mental knots to stay on top of my workload without breaking a sweat, and I am not going to let the fact that my boss is impossibly hot get in the way.

  Instead I let my attention drift to Wolf.

  He’s talking to someone else now—no doubt about that bloody software. His face is serious, and that makes me smile. Because Wolf is pretty much always serious.

  Warning! Warning! Warning! It flashes inside my mind. Because
I don’t do serious, and if I let the flirtation with Wolf keep going I think he’s going to see roses and candy and wedding bells.

  God help me, I can’t think of anything worse.

  I am suffocating at the very idea of being a bride in white, having Wolf waiting for me at the end of an aisle. He would definitely want children, too. Three of them. And he’d expect me to be the obliging baby-maker and carer. He’d look at me with those puppy-dog eyes, sadness and disappointment on his features, if I so much as dared suggest we get a nanny.

  Maybe I could be like Marissa Mayer and have a nursery built into my office? The nanny could be based there, so I could still be one of those hands-on Pinterest-type mummies. Wolf would never even need to know I’d hired someone to help.

  But Jack would. He’d hate that. A baby crying when I’m trying to talk to him about tariffs on our Chinese imports? No, he’d probably seduce the nanny and then I’d have to either fire her or kill her.

  Okay, now who’s getting ahead of themselves?

  But Wolf has caught me watching him and his heart is so on his sleeve he might as well be a cartoon character, with one of those thought bubbles popping out of his head. I have to let this opportunity pass me by. He’s not right, and when he realises that I’m not going to leave Jack and move to Manhattan, working with him will become a nightmare.

  I look away.

  Right at Jack.

  He’s standing in front of me.

  The band has started to play and I’ve been so lost in imagining the hell of my future with Wolf DuChamp that I haven’t realised.

  ‘Did you like the speech?’

  ‘Looking for compliments?’ I sip my champagne, pleased at how quickly I’m able to recover. ‘What’s the matter? Wasn’t she suitably impressed?’

  His eyes clash with mine. He’s angry. Ooooh. Why? Have I hit the nail on the head somehow?

  ‘Are you wondering if I can please a woman in fifteen minutes?’

  He shifts his body infinitesimally, but enough to spark something low in my abdomen. Anger. Resentment. Heat. Warmth. Need.