The Playboy’s Unexpected Bride

by Sandra Marton

  For God’s sake, Aldridge!

  “Just get out the chicken,” he muttered, “and the salad, set the kitchen counter and remember this is a meal, nothing more.”

  Still, by the time Ana reappeared he’d set a table on the terrace. Hey, it made sense. It was a warm night; the trees in the park were an intense green. Why have a terrace if you didn’t use it?

  He opened a chilled bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for the same reason. Why not? Didn’t a meal deserve some vino?

  They chatted easily while they ate. Ana had a dozen Jenny stories and Linc smiled at all of them. Then they fell silent.

  He cleared his throat. “So,” he said, “what do you think of New York?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen much of it but what I have seen seems wonderful.”

  He almost winced. As brilliant conversation-starters went, his had just fizzled. Ana was being polite. She couldn’t have had more than glimpses of the city, and whose fault was that?

  His.

  She’d come to the States for a nine-to-five job and he’d pushed her into a 24/7 arrangement she’d never have considered under normal circumstances.

  “Well,” he said, “you should take a day off. I’m sure Mrs. Hollowell can watch Jenny.”

  “That’s all right, Lincoln. I don’t—”

  “The Empire State Building. The Statue of Liberty. The museums.” What in hell was the matter with him? He sounded like a travel brochure. “There’s a lot to see.”

  “I know, but—”

  “I’d like to show the city to you.”

  Their eyes met. He could have sworn he felt electricity sizzle across the table.

  “Thank you, Lincoln, but—”

  “I like that, too,” he said. “The way you say my name.” “What?”

  He reached for her hand, enfolded it in his. “Lin-cone. As if it were two separate words.”

  “My English,” she said, her voice a little breathless, “isn’t always per—”

  “Yes, it is. Perfect. Everything about you—”

  Ana wrenched her hand from his and shot to her feet. “I—I have to check on Jenny.”

  Linc pushed back his chair and stood up. “Ana—”

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  All he had to do was reach out and take her in his arms. He knew what would happen. So did she. He could see awareness in her eyes. But he’d done enough to this woman already. He’d crushed her dream of coming north and getting a job with his company. Worse, he’d taken that dream and used it for his own purposes.

  Only a true SOB would want more from her. Except, God help him, more was exactly what he wanted.

  He took a step toward her. Saw the pupils of her eyes enlarge and darken. One kiss. Just one kiss—

  The baby’s tentative cry trailed down the stairs.

  “Jenny,” Ana said in a rush.

  Linc nodded. Jenny. And reality. Just in time.

  “Sure.” He forced a smile. “Go on. I’ll clean up here.”

  Then, before he could weigh the consequences, before she could protest, he cupped Ana’s face in his hands, lowered his head and brushed his mouth lightly over hers.

  Her eyes closed. She swayed toward him. For a moment, nothing existed but the magic of their kiss.

  Linc dropped his hands to his sides. And Ana fled.

  * * *

  So much for quiet, friendly dinners.

  At least things were peaceful. No more sniping cold looks and turned backs. But there were also no more smiles from Ana. No more easy conversation, either, not even when he gave Jenny her bottle or went to the nursery to tuck her in. He was doing those things now, coming home earlier, not going out at night, working hard at getting to know his niece.

  The baby made it easy. She beamed whenever she saw him.

  He just wished Ana would beam. Or at least smile. She was unfailingly polite, doling out Yes, senhors and No, thank you, senhors as if they were part of the job requirement—which, he supposed, they were.

  But he kept remembering that for one evening, at least, she had not behaved as if this were a job. He knew, deep inside, that was wrong. She worked for him; he had rules about that. Okay. So he shouldn’t have kissed her. But that didn’t mean she had to stop talking to him, did it?

  Saturday, he decided to find out.

  He waited until he knew she had Jenny in the stroller. Then he ambled into the foyer.

  “You going to the park?” he said, as casually as if they chatted like this all the time.

  He’d caught her by surprise. He could tell by the way she looked up from adjusting Jenny’s harness.

  “Yes.”

  “Great.” He smiled. “I’ve been cooped up in the office all week. A walk in the park sounds great.”

  Ana didn’t miss a beat. “Jenny will love having you with her,” she said pleasantly. “And I can have a little time for myself.”

  “To do what?” he said, before he could stop himself.

  “Go shopping. Wash my hair. You know.”

  What he knew, he thought grimly as he pushed the stroller through Central Park, was that those were things women offered as excuses when they didn’t want to see a man. When they didn’t like a guy.

  Well, that wasn’t what was happening here.

  Okay, it was. But not because Ana didn’t like him. She liked him, all right. That evening they’d spent together, the way she’d slipped into using his first name, her easy laughter…

  It made him angry. At her, for not admitting she’d wanted to kiss him as much as he’d wanted to kiss her. At himself, for doing something stupid.

  At the entire situation, because he couldn’t seem to find a remedy.

  So, as time passed, he did his best not to think about it. He had other things on his mind. Meetings. Appointments. Business.

  And there was this thing with the social worker.

  The woman had paid two home visits. He’d been there for both. They’d seemed to go smoothly, but he’d caught her giving Ana what could only be called suspicious looks.

  “Your nanny is such an attractive woman, Mr. Aldridge,” she’d said the last time, when Ana took Jenny from the room to change her diaper.

  Linc, remembering his lawyer’s initial warnings, had felt something cold tap-dance along his spine.

  “I guess she is,” he’d said with lazy ease, “but what matters to me is that she’s wonderful with Jenny.”

  He knew it was almost decision time. The social worker asked him more and more questions about the future. Had he thought about Jenny’s schooling? About her possible need, as she got older, for a female figure in her life?

  Was she measuring him against Kathryn’s mother-in-law? What he knew, for certain, was that the mother-in-law was turning up the pressure.

  She had the right to visit Jenny. She never came when Linc was there, and at first her visits had been cursory. Hello, goodbye. Ana had told him they’d lasted maybe five minutes.

  Lately, though, she said, the visits were lengthier and more frequent.

  “She doesn’t hold Jenny or anything, but she brings a toy each visit, and she makes a point of asking me the time when she arrives and when she leaves.”

  His lawyer grew solemn at the news.

  “She’s building her case, Lincoln. Little presents. Longer visits. It’s a way of showing she’s interested in Jennifer’s welfare.”

  “But Ana says she never goes near Jenny.”

  The attorney shrugged. “Trust me, she will if she’s there at the same time as the social worker. She’s a clever woman, working at looking like Mother of the Year even though we know she isn’t.”

  “Then why hasn’t Child Protective Services kicked her out on her butt and given me formal custody? This woman is only after Jenny’s inheritance, Charles. Surely they can see that?”

  “Be patient, Lincoln. We’re gathering information.”

  Linc had been patient. And finally his lawyer called to say it was paying off.

&nbs
p; “The detective we hired came by this morning,” he said. “He gave me a folder two inches thick. The woman has a long history of men and addiction. Give me a week and I’ll be ready to move ahead.”

  Linc sighed with relief. “That’s great news, Charles.”

  “This should all be resolved in your favor pretty quickly. Well, assuming the social worker doesn’t pop in for a visit and find you and the nanny in, shall we say, a compromising situation.”

  Both men laughed.

  “Speaking of things going well, how is she working out?”

  She’s so polite she makes my head ache, Linc thought. “She’s working out fine,” he said.

  He hung up the phone and pushed back from his desk. Why think about that now?. Except for Charles’s phone call, the day had been rough. A hush-hush security system his people were installing in a Dallas museum was causing problems. A fire had crippled production of a new computer chip.

  Add Ana’s attitude to that mix and his head might just explode.

  He thought about taking a couple of aspirin, glanced at his watch, saw that it was almost five. Ana would be bathing Jenny. Mrs. Hollowell would be getting ready to leave. His home would be quiet. He could shower, get into jeans and a T-shirt, sit on the terrace with a cold beer for company and watch twilight overtake the park.

  It was, he decided, an excellent plan.

  * * *

  Definitely excellent.

  By the time Linc stepped out of his private elevator, the ache in his head was easing. And he’d figured right. The place was as silent as a tomb. Ana and the baby were undoubtedly in the nursery. Mrs. Hollowell was still here—he could hear her humming softly in the kitchen—but she’d be leaving soon.

  He headed for the stairs. He’d take those aspirin now, then a long shower…

  “Whoa!”

  He saw the tracks and the gaily colored wooden trains, but by then it was too late. He only had time for a couple of frantic dance steps, a pirouette over the tracks that would have delighted Baryshnikov…

  Then he went down on his ass.

  The resultant crash was impressive. He heard his housekeeper call out. Ana shouted something, too, and then he heard both women running toward him.

  “Mr. Aldridge,” Mrs. Hollowell gasped, “are you all right?”

  “Lincoln, ohmygod,” Ana said, and followed that with a lot of other things he couldn’t understand.

  He told himself it was because she was saying them in Portuguese. It couldn’t be because she was kneeling beside him, wearing nothing but a frantic look and a bath towel.

  Venus, Linc thought, rising from the sea.

  Venus making a fool of him the last weeks, treating him as if they hadn’t had that quiet meal together, as if she hadn’t sighed when he kissed her. Did he have to break his neck before she deigned to notice him?

  “Lincoln. Please, do you need a doctor?”

  Linc glared and got to his feet. His tailbone hurt, but he’d sooner have said he was Bobo the Clown than admit to that.

  “What I need,” he said coldly, “is a no-toy zone in this place!”

  She turned pale. Who gave a damn? How much crap was a man supposed to take from a woman?

  “There’s a closet in the nursery. And a big toy box. That’s where these trains belong.”

  “Yes. You are right.” Ana rose to her feet, one hand clutching the edges of the towel together. “I apologize, but—”

  “But what? If the nursery needs more storage space, tell me and I’ll arrange for a carpenter to build some shelves.”

  He knew his voice was rising but he was done with tolerating disrespect in his own home, and to hell with anyone who didn’t see Ana’s avoidance of him as that.

  “Uh…uh…” Mrs. Hollowell, wise soul that she was, began backing out of the room. “I’ll—I’ll just—it’s late, sir, and—”

  Linc nodded and turned his attention back to Ana.

  “If you needed shelves,” he snapped, “you had only to say so, but how could you do that without talking to me?.”

  She was trembling. Good. Let her remember her place here. She was his employee. When had she lost sight of that?

  “And what is Jenny doing that you thought you could leave her alone?”

  “Jenny is asleep. I would never—”

  “People take showers in the morning. They take them at night. They don’t take them in the middle of the day.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “It is not the middle of the day, and I do not need your permission to shower.”

  “Walking around like that. In a towel. Where’s your sense of decorum?”

  Where was his sanity? was a better question. She hadn’t been walking around, she’d been in her room until he took that stupid fall, but how could a man be logical when a woman as beautiful as this, as impossible as this, stood before him wearing nothing but a towel?

  “Stop yelling at me!”

  “I am not yelling,” he roared. “And never mind crying. Tears will get you nowhere.”

  “You think I weep because of you?” Ana jerked her chin up. “Hah! I cry for myself. For ever agreeing to work for a—for a—”

  She spat out a word. He took a step toward her.

  “What did you call me?”

  “Trust me, senhor. You do not want to know.”

  Linc grabbed her by the shoulders. “I’ve had enough of your attitude!”

  “And I have had enough of your dictatorialness. I quit.”

  “There is no such word,” Linc snarled. “And you can’t quit. You’re fired!”

  “You are a horrible, arrogant man.”

  “You are an insolent, ungrateful woman.”

  “You—you—”

  “That’s right, baby.” Linc jabbed a thumb into the center of his chest. “Me. I set the rules. I am in charge. And you are—you are—”

  He cursed, hauled Ana into his arms and kissed her.

  Ana gasped.

  The pig! The no-good, despicable brute. The insolence of him. The audacity. The impudence…

  Oh, God, Ana thought, and she dug her hands into Lincoln’s dark, silky hair, dragged his head down to hers and kissed him back.

  He groaned and gathered her closer.

  She sighed and rose toward him.

  Wrong, her fevered brain shouted, this was all wrong. Lincoln was her employer. There were rules. There was propriety.

  And there was this.

  This, Ana thought, and opened her mouth to his.

  Lincoln said her name. Cupped her face. Tilted back her head and took his mouth from hers just long enough to nip at her throat.

  Ana shuddered with excitement. “Lincoln,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he whispered back. “God, yes—”

  His hands slid under the towel and cupped her bottom, lifting her into him. His body was all hard, powerful muscle; his erection, pressing against her belly, made her moan with need.

  Another minute and surely her heart would burst. Nothing she’d ever imagined had prepared her for this.

  His kiss deepened. Ana felt the sweep of his tongue against hers; delicately she sucked on the tip, and he made a sound deep in his throat that sent heat racing from her breasts to her groin.

  His hand moved. Moved again. Slid between her thighs, where she was hot and wet. So hot. So wet. So—so—

  Ana cried out. She tore at Lincoln’s shirt. Buttons popped and then her palms were against his hot, silky, hair-roughened skin. He lifted her; her legs wrapped around his waist as backed her against the wall…

  “What in heaven’s name do you people think you’re doing?”

  The voice cracked through the room with the force of a whip. Linc and Ana sprang apart, just as they had that day in his office, only this was worse.

  A thousand times worse, Linc thought in horror.

  Ana, damned near naked, was twined around him.

  His shirt was in tatters, his hands were all over her. And the woman who’d barked those words, who
stood staring at them with revulsion, was the social worker.

  CHAPTER SIX

  LINC swept Ana behind him.

  Think, he told himself furiously. Disaster loomed but there had to be a way to avoid it. He’d made presentations that turned hostile CEOs into allies; once, in Colombia, he’d even fast-talked his way out of what associates said would have been a kidnapping.

  Surely he could talk his way out of this?

  “Miss Harper,” he said calmly.

  Mrs. Hollowell stepped into view, took in the scene and went white. Hey, why not? A man might as well have an audience for a performance like this.

  “I’m so sorry, sir,” she said, clasping her hands over her bosom. “The doorman rang and he said this lady wanted to come up and he knew she’d been here before and I said to wait until I spoke with you but you—but you were occupied, sir, and—and—”

  “I understand, Mrs. Hollowell. Perhaps you’d make some coffee? I’m sure our—guest—would appreciate it.”

  His housekeeper shot him a look of gratitude and fled, but the social worker’s expression grew even more frigid.

  “I am not your guest, Mr. Aldridge. I am here on official business. What we call an unannounced visit.”

  Linc thought of the joke his lawyer had made about being caught in a compromising position. Damn, damn, damn. Behind him, Ana was trying to tug her hand free of his. He tightened his grasp. The last thing he needed was her racing across the room in that towel.

  “We find such visits most illuminating.” The woman’s smile could have curdled cream.

  Ana gave a soft moan of despair and buried her face in his shoulder. Despite everything, this disastrous encounter, his unconscionable loss of control, he wished he could draw her into his arms to comfort her.

  What he had to do was think. Hadn’t Charles said they had almost everything they needed to push Jenny’s money-hungry grandmother out of the picture? To lose the baby now…

  And in that instant Linc saw the path to salvation.

  “Miss Harper,” he said carefully, “I know how this appears—”

  “Appears, Mr. Aldridge?”