by Robin Wells
THE OFFICE GRAPEVINE
Letter to Reader
Title Page
Dedication
Books by Robin Wells
About the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Teaser chapter
Copyright
THE OFFICE GRAPEVINE
Barrington Corporation News Bulletin
Vol.1 No. 4
April 1999
• The gossip mill is buzzing about former flames Nick Delaney and Rachel Sinclair. The handsome executive has enlisted the help of his pretty employee to give him daddy lessons. After teaching him about the wonders of fatherhood, can Rachel convince Nick that he’s ready for the joys of married bliss...?
• Listen up, all you fellow gossips! Sources say that Sam Wainwright’s marriage plans are off. But Sam may not be lonely for long—we hear his faithful assistant, Patricia Peel, has been secretly in love with him for months, and now that Sam’s single, she plans to seduce him!
• Can you guess who has become the most sought-after bachelor in the office? The answer is Mike the mailman. He is charming, funny and absolutely dreamy. However, ladies, you better act quickly. Seems that Mike has been hanging around Sophia Shepherd a good deal....
Dear Reader,
This April, Silhouette Romance showers you with six spectacular stories from six splendid authors! First, our exciting LOVING THE BOSS miniseries continues as rising star Robin Wells tells the tale of a demure accountant who turns daring to land her boss—and become mommy to The Executive’s Baby.
Prince Charming’s Return signals Myrna Mackenzie’s return to Silhouette Romance. In this modern-day fairy-tale romance, wealthy FABULOUS FATHER Gray Alexander discovers he has a son, but the proud mother of his child refuses marriage—unless love enters the equation.... Sandra Steffen’s BACHELOR GULCH miniseries is back with Wes Stryker’s Wrangled Wife! In this spirited story, a pretty stranger just passing through town can’t resist a sexy cowboy struggling to raise two orphaned tykes.
Cara Colter revisits the lineup with Truly Daddy, an emotional, heartwarming novel about a man who learns what it takes to be a father—and a husband—through the transforming love of a younger woman. When A Cowboy Comes a Courting in Christine Scott’s contribution to HE’S MY HERO!, the virginal heroine who’d sworn off sexy, stubborn, Stetson-wearing rodeo stars suddenly finds herself falling hopelessly in love. And FAMILY MATTERS showcases Patti Standard’s newest novel in which a man with a knack for fixing things sets out to make a struggling single mom and her teenage daughter His Perfect Family.
As always, I hope you enjoy this month’s offerings, and the wonderful ones still to come!
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
THE EXECUTIVE’S BABY
Robin Wells
Published by Silhouette Books
America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance
To Ken with love—as always, for always.
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Robin Wells
for her contribution to the Loving the Boss miniseries.
Books by Robin Wells
Silhouette Romance
The Wedding Kiss #1185
Husband and Wife...Again #1214
Have Honeymoon, Need Husband #1238
Plain Jane Gets Her Man #1262
Nine-to-Five Bride #1311
The Executive’s Baby #1360
ROBIN WELLS
Before becoming a full-time writer, Robin was a hotel public relations executive whose career ran the gamut from writing and producing award-winning videos to organizing pie-throwing classes taught by circus clowns. At other times in her life she has been a model, a reporter and even a charm school teacher. But her lifelong dream was to become an author, a dream no doubt inspired by having parents who were both librarians and who passed on their love of books.
Robin lives just outside of New Orleans with her husband and two young daughters, Taylor and Arden. Although New Orleans is known as America’s Most Romantic City, Robin says her personal romantic inspiration is her husband, Ken.
Robin is an active member of the Southern Louisiana chapter of the Romance Writers of America. Her first book won RWA’s national 1995 Golden Heart Award.
When she’s not writing, Robin enjoys gardening, antiquing, discovering new restaurants and spending time with her family. Robin loves to hear from readers and can be reached at P.O. Box 303, Mandeville, LA 70470-0303.
HOW TO WOO—AND WED—YOUR HANDSOME BOSS!
By Rachel Sinclair
1) Stay at his house while you help him care for his adorable baby. With any luck, midnight feedings will lead to moonlight embraces.
2) Trade in bland, boring business suits for short, sassy dresses to rekindle the sparks that had once smoldered.
3) Be more outgoing, with everyone except the man of your dreams. Men are always attracted to women who don’t seem to want them.
4) Take up an exciting hobby—something he’d never expect you to do. It’s guaranteed that he’ll see you in a whole new light.
Chapter One
A loud wail cut through Rachel Sinclair’s concentration, sweeping aside all thoughts of the profit-and-loss report she was preparing for the monthly meeting of Barrington Corporation’s executive committee.
A baby. Someone in the accounting department had a baby.
A feeling of warmth flushed through Rachel’s chest. Nothing plucked at her heartstrings like an infant. Hoping to catch a glimpse of this one, she clicked the save command on her computer and turned toward her office door just as her friend Patricia walked through it, carrying a squalling pink bundle.
Rachel eagerly rose from her chair. “I knew I heard a baby!”
Patricia grimaced as the red-cheeked, cherub-faced infant grabbed a fistful of her strawberry-blond hair. “You and half of Phoenix. This little gal’s got some serious lung power.”
Rachel rapidly circled her neat desk. “Oh, she’s adorable! Can I hold her?”
“Be my guest. I can’t seem to get her to stop crying.”
Rachel reached out her arms. The sweet, warm weight of the towheaded child settled into them. The baby stopped in mid-yowl, blinked hard and stared up. Rachel gazed down into a pair of sky-blue eyes fringed with long, wet lashes and felt her heart turn over.
“Hello there, sweetheart,” she whispered softly.
The infant blinked again, hiccuped, then stuck her fist in her mouth and leveled a serious gaze at Rachel.
Rachel’s chest filled with a strange ache. There was nothing in the world she loved more than babies—and nothing she wanted more than one of her own. Nothing except a husband and a happy marriage. A family of her own was her fondest dream.
The way things were going, though, she thought ruefully, the dream looked likely to remain just that. She was thirty-one years old and her biological clock was ticking like a time bomb, but she still hadn’t met anyone she even wanted to date, much less marry. Not recently, anyway. Not in the past two years.
Not since Nick.
A wistful stab of longing shot through her. With practiced determination, Rachel steeled herself against it, mentally cataloguing all the reasons why Nick had been Mr. Wrong.<
br />
For starters, he was her complete opposite. She was cautious and careful, while he was a thrill-seeking adventurer. She liked routines and predictability, while Nick thrived on spontaneity and change. She liked gardening and cooking, while his idea of a good time included parachuting out of airplanes and scuba diving in shark-infested waters.
But most importantly, Rachel wanted a home and a family, and Nick had told her from the very beginning that he had no intention of ever settling down.
She should have known better than to ever have gotten involved with him, Rachel thought ruefully, but Nick had been irresistible. Not just because he was handsome, charming, intelligent and funny, although he was all of those things and more, but because of something else—something invisible and electric, something magical that happened whenever they were together.
He freed something inside of her. When she was with Nick, she didn’t feel tongue-tied, didn’t feel boring, didn’t feel caged in by the awful sense of shyness that sometimes made her feel like a lobster trapped in its own shell. When she was with Nick, she felt pretty and fun and witty. She felt attractive...and attracted. So attracted that for the first time in her life, she’d ignored her head and followed her heart.
Well, she’d more than learned her lesson, she thought glumly, gazing down at the baby in her arms. She wanted a man with whom she could build a future, a man who shared her dreams of permanence and stability. The Nick Delaneys of this world weren’t cut out to be husbands and fathers, and no amount of wishful thinking would make them change.
Turning her full attention back to the baby, Rachel gently wiped the tears from one of the child’s cheeks with her fingertip. The baby gave a tentative grin. Smiling back, Rachel dabbed at the child’s other cheek, as well. All four of the baby’s teeth gleamed in a full-fledged smile.
“How’d you do that?” Patricia asked.
“Do what?”
“Get her to stop crying and start smiling.”
“I don’t know. I’ve just always had a way with babies.” She gave the child a little bounce and was rewarded with a delighted coo. The warmth in Rachel’s chest expanded. “This one’s a real little angel. Whose child is it?”
“Your new boss’s.”
“You mean Rex has finally hired a new vice president of Corporate Accounting?”
Patricia rolled her eyes. “Yes—finally. After making all of us in Personnel work like demons ever since Mr. Martin resigned.”
Rachel grinned. The eccentricities of the company’s kindly, grandfatherly owner, Rex Barrington II, were widely known by all the Barrington employees. When Rex wanted something, he wanted it yesterday, and he expected all of his employees to pour all of their energies into making sure he got it. His insistence on immediate action occasionally drove everyone who worked for him crazy, but it was also one of the reasons that the company he’d built from scratch was now one of the world’s most successful resort and vacation property organizations.
“Rex just wanted to make sure he has the right person handling his company’s money, that’s all,” Rachel said. “Especially since he’s getting ready to retire and hand over the reins to his son in a few months.” She smiled down at the baby, then looked up at Patricia. “When does the new vice president start?”
“On Monday.”
“So soon?”
“Well, you know Rex.”
She did indeed. Grinning, Rachel ruffled the baby’s blond curls. “Monday is a whole weekend away. What’s this guy doing here on a Friday afternoon?”
Patricia shrugged. “Rex insisted he stop by to say hello and meet the rest of the executive committee the moment his plane landed in Phoenix. I was drafted as baby-sitter.”
“So who is he? What’s he like?” Rachel adjusted the pant leg of the baby’s pink playsuit. “He must be adorable if he’s this little honey’s dad.”
“That’s what I came to warn you about.” Patricia’s brow creased into a worried frown. “Remember last month when you told me you’d been in love with the boss you had two years ago...?”
As if she could forget. Her old boss had been none other than Nick Delaney. At the time, Rachel had been an assistant junior accountant and Nick had been the assistant director of the department. He’d been unlike any other accountant she’d ever known, the complete opposite of the usual stereotype. He’d had a way of making numbers come alive, of making accounting seem like a thrilling sport. He’ d instigated friendly competitions between hotels, offered monthly incentives to employees with the best new ideas and thrown departmental parties to celebrate both big and small achievements.
He was the most exciting man Rachel had ever met, and she’d fallen head over heels in love with him. She’d foolishly thought he’d felt the same way about her. She’d even thought he’d been about to propose. And then, with no warning and even less of an explanation, he’d abruptly transferred to Barrington’s Canadian offices.
The baby suddenly grabbed one of the two tortoiseshell barrettes that held Rachel’s curly brown hair away from her face, jerking her thoughts back to the present. Rachel reached up and gently extricated the baby’s fingers, giving her friend a grin that she hoped would hide the way the reference to Nick had affected her. “You don’t have to worry. I don’t fall in love with every man who supervises me. I didn’t fall for Mr. Martin, did I?”
Patricia arched an eyebrow. “He was fat, bald and sixty-five years old,” she said dryly.
“Well, I don’t fall for married men, either. And looking at this little sweetie, it’s a sure bet this man is married.”
“You don’t understand.” Patricia’s brow knit in a worried frown. “The new director is...”
“Hello, Rachel.”
Rachel froze. The voice was familiar—too familiar. It was the rich, husky baritone that haunted her dreams at night, and though she’d rather die than admit it, the voice still flitted through more than a few daytime fantasies.
Her heart in her throat, she slowly turned around. Sure enough, Nick Delaney stood in the doorway, his dark hair gleaming against the white woodwork.
Her pulse stopped. Her stomach dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of her knees. She clutched the baby more tightly. “Nick,” she gasped. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
Patricia stepped forward. “That’s what I was about to tell you,” Patricia said softly, her voice concerned and apologetic. “Nick is our new vice president of corporate accounting.”
Rachel felt as if all the air suddenly had been sucked out of her lungs. She took a step back, her legs as unsteady as her emotions, and was grateful to feel the edge of her desk against the back of her thighs. She lowered herself onto the desktop, settled the baby on her lap and tried to regain her composure. “I—I thought you were in Canada, handling the finances for Barrington’s new wilderness destination program.”
“I was.” He grinned, his teeth flashing white in his tanned face. “But Rex offered me a vice presidency and the opportunity to manage all of the corporation’s accounting operations, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Besides, Phoenix is a wonderful place to raise a family, and I have more than just myself to think about now.” Rachel glanced down at the infant in her arms. She’d thought she couldn’t hurt any more over Nick, thought that her heart had already ached as much as it was capable of aching, but she’d just discovered otherwise.
This was Nick’s child—Nick’s baby. The baby she’d dreamed of one day having with him.
The baby he’d evidently had with another woman. She swallowed around a hard lump in her throat, her heart breaking anew.
He’d warned her when they’d first started dating that he was a confirmed bachelor, that he didn’t believe in happily-ever-afters, that he never intended to settle down. She’d gotten involved with him anyway, secretly hoping that if he fell in love, he’d change his mind.
She should have taken him at his word, she thought bitterly. After all, everyone knew you couldn’t change anyone except yourse
lf.
And yet Nick had evidently changed for someone. The thought fired a fresh round of pain through her heart.
Patricia nervously cleared her throat. “I, uh, need to get back to my office. Will you all be all right?”
“Yes, of course.” Nick flashed Patricia a grin. “Thanks for watching the baby. You deserve a medal for calming her down.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Rachel. She’s the one with the magic touch.” With a last worried glance in Rachel’s direction, Patricia disappeared through the doorway.
Rachel gazed at Nick, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. He hadn’t changed at all. He still had the same jet-black hair, the same olive-green eyes, the same devastating smile, the same ability to make her pulse pound and her stomach quiver.
Tension stretched between them like a taut rubber band. Nick shifted his stance and shoved his hands in his pockets, a gesture Rachel found achingly familiar. “I don’t know how you managed to quiet Jenny, but I’m mighty grateful.”
Rachel drew a deep, bracing breath and hoped her voice came out steadier than she felt. “Jenny—is that her name?” The child wriggled in her arms and gave another toothsome grin.
Nick nodded. “It’s short for Genevieve.”
“That’s beautiful. She’s beautiful.” Rachel was mortified to hear her voice crack. She cleared her throat and forced a smile. “How old is she?”
“Seven months.”
Seven months. Add that to a nine-month pregnancy, and it was clear that Nick had lost no time replacing her in his life.
Another stab of pain pierced her heart, along with a familiar, stifling sense of inadequacy. How could she have deluded herself into thinking a man like Nick would be interested in a woman like her for long? She was as bland as macaroni and cheese, while Nick’s tastes ran more to jalapeño salsa.