He had to admire her in that moment. Most women would jump at a chance to sleep with the boss in hopes of furthering their own career. But not Kayleigh. Leave it to him to find himself attracted to the one woman he’d ever met to declare herself off limits. It was a definite first. He silently observed her and noticed the wide-eyed wonder in her gaze. Was she expecting him to rant and rave? To demand that she finish what they started?
As much as he wanted to, he’d never force himself on a woman. He thought about that for a moment. He may not force himself on her but he knew without a doubt that he wanted her in his bed. A slow seduction was what was called for here. He’d give her time – although he was unsure just how much of it they would have before it was time for her to leave. He didn’t want to think that far ahead. One way or another, Kayleigh Mitchell would be his and on his terms.
Reaching out and caressing her face he said, “I’m sorry, Kayleigh. I didn’t mean to get so carried away. I’ve thought about kissing you ever since that very first day and when I saw you in the nursery with the soft lighting, you just looked so incredibly beautiful that I had to kiss you.” Every word was truth, but Derek had never had to use the ‘sweet-talk’ approach to seduce a woman; he was usually the one being pursued. He kind of liked it this way and knew that no matter how much time they had left together, he was going to enjoy every moment of it.
Chapter Four
Something changed that night, but for the life of her, Kayleigh couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Derek made no attempts to touch her again, but they settled into a simple domestic bliss that she never thought possible.
Derek began to leave for the office a little bit later in the morning – after they shared a cup of coffee – and came home earlier so that they actually ate dinner together. The first time that it happened and he came strolling through the door at six-thirty, Kayleigh was pleasantly surprised. They were so at ease with one another and the conversation never lulled. He finally began to interact with the baby that could be his. Whether it was holding her while Kayleigh was busy at another task or talking and cooing at her while she sat in her infant swing. She took it as a good sign that Derek could quite possibly be coming to grips with the situation.
At midnight, when she woke with Emery for that one bottle that the infant couldn’t seem to do without, she found Derek sitting on the sofa with reports spread out in front of him on the coffee table.
“What exactly is it that has you working all hours of the day and night like this?” she asked as she nodded towards the mass of paperwork. She knew that Derek normally worked long hours and that even though he was home more, that didn’t mean that the work had miraculously gone away.
Reclining slightly and running his hands through his hair in frustration, he replied, “We’ve grown tremendously in the last five years. But our marketing is showing its age and most of my designers have been with the company for too long to count and are out of touch with today’s market.” With a sigh, he stood and stretched. Kayleigh’s eyes caught a brief glimpse of a well muscled torso before he turned and walked towards the windows to look out at the lake.
“They’re all good designers, don’t get me wrong, and I don’t want to let any of them go, but at the same time, I’m ready to do something big. I want to expand beyond the commercial wall coverings and fabrics that we do and move into the residential realm, but I can’t seem to get my ideas across to anyone. They’re a little set in their ways.”
Kayleigh remained silent as she fed the baby. His idea excited her because it was exactly the type of thing that she had wanted to do with her life but without leaving Sloan’s. Finding Emery done with her bottle and back to sleep, Kayleigh quietly excused herself and placed the infant back in the nursery before returning to the living room.
Derek was a little puzzled at Kayleigh’s quick and quiet departure and was even more confused by her sudden reappearance. Sitting down on the sofa, she began shuffling though his papers.
“Um, Kayleigh…”
Finding a sketch pad at the bottom of the heap, Kayleigh began sketching like a woman possessed. “Oh, wait,” she said before bolting up the stairs and then back down again with a small case in her hands. Derek stood back and watched her work. The case held a mass of colored pencils and soon the drawing came to life – colors, patterns, accessories, it was as if she had seen into his mind and was able to put it all down on paper.
Minutes passed before she finally seemed to breathe. Placing the last of the pencils back down on the coffee table, she handed the paper to Derek silently and waited.
“This is good,” Derek murmured as he came around to sit beside Kayleigh on the sofa. “This is exactly what I’ve been talking about.” He tossed the pad on to the coffee table and stared at her, puzzlement written all over his face. “What are you doing wasting your time answering phones in customer service when you have talent like this?”
Awkward. How could she possibly explain to him that he was the reason that she was withering away in that cubicle? It would be incredibly embarrassing to turn to him and admit that she’d had this enormous crush on him for years and stayed in a job that was technically beneath her just so that she could stare at him in the mornings on his way to the office. Worse yet would be to go on and remind him of how he had never even glanced her way or knew of her existence. This would all, inevitably, lead to his assuming that she took this job as Emery’s caretaker just so that she could be close to him and then, knowing Derek as she had come to, he would think her to be some crazy stalker-chick. There would of course be a lot of apologizing as she would be forced to pack up her things in the middle of the night and then she’d be forced to look for another job which – in the grand scheme of things – might be a good thing. Maybe then she’d finally…
“Kayleigh?”
“Oh, right. Sorry. You asked a question.” Nervously, she fidgeted in her seat and stayed clear of meeting his eyes. “Well, I originally took the job at Sloan’s to get my foot in the door with a design firm. I thought that eventually I’d move on or up. There just never were any openings.”
“So you stayed on even though your talents were being wasted?” His tone showed that he thought her to be insane and a quick glance at her confirmed it.
“I guess time just got away from me and I got too comfortable.” Rising from the sofa, Kayleigh walked to the kitchen to pour herself some water. Derek followed.
“Okay, so now that the cat’s out of the bag, I’m curious about your thoughts.”
“On what exactly?”
“Well, for starters, on what my plans are for the company? Do you think it’s something that can be done or am I looking to pursue too broad a spectrum?” Derek almost cringed as he heard himself. Never had he asked for advice from anyone where his company was concerned. Not even his grandparents and it was their damn company to begin with! Now he stood at one in the morning, talking to an employee, a lovely employee at that, about the future of his empire.
Not wanting to seem too anxious, she took a sip of water before answering. “Okay, well, I guess I think that it’s a great idea and that you should do it. You’ve always been successful before in your expansions, and so I see no reason why this one wouldn’t succeed.”
Annoyance flooded through Derek. “Okay, you can put the pom-poms away. I’m not looking for the ‘yes-man’ attitude here, Kayleigh. I thought that you of all people would be honest with me.” Slamming a hand on the counter, he stalked back to the living room and picked a report up to read before sitting back down on the sofa.
Realizing her mistake immediately, she stormed after him. “You want honesty, okay, here it comes. Yes, I think that it is about time that Sloan’s broadened its horizons, so to speak. I think that while the products that you produce now are fine and are selling well, they’re boring. They’re almost generic. I can picture each and every one of them in a doctor’s office. Sometimes when I have to send out a sample to a customer, I think that it wouldn’t matter
if I got the item number wrong because so many of them look the damn same!”
“I think that it’s time to introduce your design team to a little something called color and imagination.” Pacing the room waving her arms around as she spoke, she went on. “I’m not talking about taking on places like chain restaurants or anything remotely corporate. I’d like to see Sloan’s get to the residential, high end homes. For us to work with architects and decorators so that we can do the model homes; and not just your average, run of the mill homes, luxury homes, villas, exotic locations…I mean, the possibilities are endless.”
She was reaching down for the sketch pad again as Derek sat in stunned silence. “Take this living room here for example,” she began as she furiously sketched the room they were in, “the colors are great, your decorator did a fine job, but it still lacks warmth. If we went with warm, earthy colors here and used solids on this piece and more textures here…” Kayleigh had almost forgotten that Derek was sitting there, so caught up in the moment was she. She could see it all in her mind, the room exactly as she wanted it. She sketched and touched and wandered about the room as she went. “Textured wallpaper for the vaulted ceiling would be amazing. So much better than that popcorn stuff that’s up there now. You’d want to be able to offer a complete room; everything that a decorator could possibly want to finish a room they should be able to get from Sloan’s.” Finally finished, she handed the sketch pad to Derek while she continued to prowl the room.
Looking down at the paper in his hands, Derek was speechless. He had always thought that this room was fine, but looking down at the picture Kayleigh had presented to him he found all that he lacked. “Surely this didn’t just come to you this minute?”
“What? Oh, no…it’s something I’ve been thinking about since I came here with Emery. I do that sometimes, sit in a room and make it different in my head.”
“Do you have other ideas down on paper? Not just about my house, but other ideas in general about fabrics and patterns?”
Oh, this was all getting way too tempting. This could be the exact opportunity that she had been looking for. The chance to get into the design department and out of customer service while still working for Sloan’s was suddenly looking like a very real possibility.
“I do,” she said cautiously. “All of my stuff is back at my place. I didn’t think I’d have time for it while I was caring for Emery.”
“Maybe tomorrow you can stop by and get it and we can look at together after dinner. What do you think?”
Her stomach was full of butterflies. “I think I can do that.” Taking a deep breath she turned and caught a glimpse of the time. “I think it’s time I headed back up. Emery is still an early riser and I need to get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” Afraid to get to close to him, she backed out of the room as she spoke. “Good night, Derek.”
He gave her a smile that turned her knees to jelly. “Good night, Kayleigh.”
****
Derek couldn’t wait to get home the following evening. His mind had been stuck on Kayleigh all day. Who would have thought that finding a baby in his office would lead to so many possibilities?
Baby in his office.
Crap, when did he last put any effort into resolving that particular issue? Between work, business trips, and his attraction to Kayleigh, he had put the whole business with Emery out of his mind. He knew she was there, but his mind tended to block out the reasons why – mainly because her arrival had brought so many bonuses with it.
Focus, dammit! Picking up his phone, he first dialed the number for his lawyer and touched base with him on any new developments with finding Brian. With nothing new to report, Derek hung up and dialed his private investigator and hoped to have more luck with the location of the birth mother.
By the time he arrived home that evening, his head was roaring. Never in his life had he felt so out of control. Every where he turned there were loose ends and that could not continue. With no real leads to go on, the private investigator promised to keep in touch, but hadn’t sounded hopeful. With Brian still out of the country they were at a dead end in just about every way. Derek had no doubt that Emery was Brian’s daughter. After going through his social calendar and following up on the women he had been involved with in the last year, nothing had turned up.
The thought of the baby belonging to his brother bothered him more than it should have.
Walking through the door of his home he was immediately hit with sensory overload. Something wonderful was cooking, there was classical music coming from the sound system throughout the house and Emery was having the kind of meltdown that she’d exhibited that first day in his office. Tossing his briefcase down at the door, Derek rushed into the living room in search of Kayleigh.
“What’s going on? Is Emery all right?” his voice was laced with concern and without thinking, he reached out and took the crying child from Kayleigh’s arms to comfort her. He was rubbing the baby’s back, speaking softly to her as he gently bounced her while walking around when he noticed the stunned look on Kayleigh’s face. One dark arched eyebrow in her direction said more than any question.
“She’s been fussy ever since she woke from her nap this afternoon,” Kayleigh said, rising from the sofa. She gently placed a cloth on his shoulder to protect his shirt from anything Emery might do as she walked to the kitchen to check on their dinner. “I called my brother and he said that there are a million reasons why a baby could be fussy.” She turned and stirred the sauce that was on the stove before adding, “We have an appointment with him first thing in the morning.”
Derek was more than a little relieved that Kayleigh was being so thorough in her care of the infant. Carefully, he lifted Emery from his shoulder and cradled her in his arms and his heart ached. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, especially since he had to remind himself earlier that she was a part of his life, but looking into Emery’s tear streaked face he realized that he had come to love her.
And she was Brian’s.
True, she was still his niece, but that bit of information did nothing to make him feel better. It bothered him that his irresponsible brother was going to come home and find out that he had a daughter and not care like he should; there was no way that Brian was going to take kindly to the news of being a father. He was selfish and had no desire to settle down. How was he going to take care of Emery? Who was going to take care of Emery?
Glancing over at Kayleigh, Derek imagined that Brian would try to get Kayleigh to help him. Rage built in him and he started to feel the tension rise. Apparently, so did Emery because her face started to scrunch up as she prepared to cry. Carefully placing her back on his shoulder, Derek went back to rubbing her back and doing his best to keep her calm. It was a bit awe inspiring to realize that this tiny person was so sensitive to his moods. Would his brother appreciate this incredible gift? Would he look down at his daughter in wonder?
“Derek? Are you okay?” He looked up and at Kayleigh across the room, concern written all over her face.
“I’m fine,” he sighed and realized that he wanted to share with her what he was thinking. “We finished part of the search into who Emery is.”
Kayleigh felt all of the blood drain from her face as she dropped the spoon she had been using on to the counter. “And?” She gripped the granite to keep from going across the room to Derek. She knew this day was going to come and that there was a very real possibility of Emery being his daughter, but that thought just made her ill. The thought of Derek creating a child with another woman was almost more than she could bear.
“She’s Brian’s.”
All of the breath Kayleigh had been holding seemed to whoosh out of her with relief. “How can you be so sure? I mean, without Brian being here.”
Noticing that Emery had fallen asleep, Derek gently placed her in the cradle that Kayleigh had set up in the living room. Once he was sure that she wasn’t going to stir, he turned to Kayleigh and explained how all of the wom
en in his life for the last year had been eliminated. He noticed her shoulders sag. Was she relieved? Did it bother her that there was a possibility of Emery being his?
“Well, I guess that’s one obstacle that’s cleared,” she said carefully, not making eye contact with him. “Any word on Brian’s whereabouts?”
“We know he’s in Africa; we just can’t get in contact with him.”
“So what happens now?”
“Unfortunately, until he’s back, we’re no closer to knowing who Emery’s mother is.”
Unable to help herself, Kayleigh stepped around the counter that separated them and placed a hand on Derek’s arm. “Are you okay with all of this?” she asked softly. “With Brian being Emery’s father?”
“A week ago I would have said yes, but now…” he let the statement hang, unsure if he was ready to admit out loud what his heart was telling him.
Kayleigh wanted to push him for more information but could tell that Derek was struggling with all of this new information. Quietly she turned back to the kitchen and finished the meal preparation. Within minutes they were seated at the table, making small talk over their shared meal.
“I went to my apartment today and picked up some of my sketch pads and supplies,” she said hesitantly, unsure if she should have waited for him to ask for her drawings.
Derek’s head snapped up and for the first time since he walked in the door, he looked happy, hopeful. “Great. I’m anxious to see what you’ve been working on.” For the remainder of the meal they talked business, it was a safe topic. Once the dishes were cleared and Kayleigh went to grab her portfolio, Emery started to fuss.
“I’ll get her,” Derek said. “Go get your stuff.”
She wanted to argue; he was paying her small fortune to be Emery’s caretaker and it seemed that since Derek found out that the baby was his brother’s, he was getting more hand’s on. Kayleigh didn’t know what to think of that, but surely it couldn’t be a coincidence.
The Baby Arrangement Page 5