The Executive's Baby

by Robin Wells

  Rachel had been driving him crazy ever since the company picnic last week. They’d spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the baby together, and it had been like old times, only better. He’d felt the same sense of connection, the same easy rapport, the same sizzle of attraction they’d always shared. Having Jenny around had somehow just intensified the sense of rightness and intimacy between them.

  When the picnic had broken up, he’d invited Rachel to dinner.

  “Oh, I can’t. I’ve got plans.” She glanced at her watch, then rose from the blanket. “As a matter of fact, I’d better get going.”

  What the devil was she suddenly doing with her evenings? He was dying to know. Was she seeing someone? And if so, who?

  He was pretty sure it wasn’t anyone who worked at Barrington. He’d watched her like a hawk all day Saturday, and although several young studs had hovered around her, she hadn’t treated any of them any differently from the others.

  No, it had to be someone she’d met elsewhere. Where could she have met him, and what the hell was he like?

  Not that it was any of his business. Rachel’s personal life was her own affair.

  Affair. The thought made him loosen his collar. Judging from the heated way she’d kissed him in his kitchen two weeks ago, she was ripe for romance. He didn’t want her getting involved with some no-good playboy who would break her heart.

  Exhaling a harsh breath, Nick rapidly scanned the report, then picked it up and headed to Rachel’s office.

  Through the doorway, he saw her frowning at her computer screen. He rapped on the doorjamb, then sauntered in. “I just looked over your report. Good work.”

  Rachel glanced up and flushed with pleasure. “Thanks.”

  Nick perched on the edge of her desk. “I haven’t seen much of yon lately.”

  Rachel toyed with a pencil. “That report kept me pretty busy.”

  “In the evenings, too?” Nick prompted.

  “No, I was able to do it here in the office.”

  Drats. He was going to have to take a more direct approach. “So what have you been up to lately? In the evenings, I mean.”

  “Oh, this and that.” Nick could swear she deliberately averted her gaze. “What about you?”

  “Not much.”

  “How’s Jenny?”

  “Great. Growing like a weed. Mrs. Evans told me this morning that she’d nearly outgrown all of her clothes.” Nick grinned. “I knew I’d been having more trouble than usual getting her dressed, and now I know why.”

  He was gratified to see her smile. “Guess you’ll have to hit the mall on Saturday,” she remarked.

  Inspiration struck. “I suppose so, but I don’t know the first thing about babies’ clothing. I could really use some help.”

  He waited, hoping she’d take the hint. When she didn’t, he leaned toward her. “Would you come with me? You’d. be doing Jenny a real favor.”

  “Okay.” Rachel paused. “But I have to be home by six.”

  “Why?”

  Rachel looked away again. “I, uh, have plans for the evening.”

  There it was again—those confounded, mysterious plans. Nick frowned. “You’re awfully busy in the evenings all of a sudden. Care to tell me what you’re up to?”

  To Nick’s consternation, Rachel’s face colored. “Not particularly.” Her smile looked suspiciously self-conscious. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Holy cow. Was she about to turn up engaged?

  The thought made him feel as if his heart were being squeezed in a vise. How was he going to deal with it if Rachel became seriously involved with someone else?

  Jealousy, cold and hard, gripped his gut. He had no right to be jealous, he reasoned with himself. He wasn’t the right man for her. He’d told her as much. She needed a husband and family, and he wasn’t in the market for that.

  But what if she’d found someone who was? The thought made it hard for him to draw a breath.

  Struggling to hide the sudden, heavy ache in his chest, he tried to make a joke. “Let me guess. You’re planning a bank heist and I’ll soon be reading about it in the papers.”

  Rachel laughed, but still didn’t elaborate.

  Well, that was fine, Nick thought grimly. It was none of his business. If she was seriously seeing someone, he wasn’t any too sure he wanted to know about it anyway.

  He rapped the top of her desk with his knuckles, then hoisted himself to his feet and forced a smile. “Okay, then. Jenny and I will pick you up at ten in the morning, and we’ll have you home before you turn into a pumpkin.”

  “I’m not sure why we brought this stroller along,” Nick remarked as he navigated the empty buggy through the crowded aisle of the department store the next day. “Jenny hasn’t left your arms since we got out of the car.”

  Rachel smiled at the chubby-cheeked baby who was busily peering over her shoulder. “She loves to be held, doesn’t she?”

  “Especially by you.” Nick reached out and rubbed the nape of her neck as he tossed her a sexy smile. “Not that I can blame her.”

  Rachel’s heart did a little flip at the feel of Nick’s fingers on her skin. Nick had been flirting with her all morning. In fact, the way he kept pumping her for information about how she was spending her evenings sounded positively possessive.

  She turned her head and planted a kiss on Jenny’s cheek, wanting to hide her smile. Patricia’s advice about letting Nick think he had some competition was right on target. He’d evidently jumped to the conclusion that she was dating someone else, and apparently it was bothering him considerably.

  Well, good. Let him be bothered. He’d find out soon enough that she’d been spending her time taking scuba diving lessons. A little jealousy might be just the thing to make him realize how much he really cared.

  For he did care, Rachel thought firmly. She was convinced of it. The problem wasn’t his attitude toward her. The problem was his attitude toward marriage.

  A display of lacy teddies caught her eye as they strolled past the lingerie department. Her lips curved into a mischievous grin. Maybe it was time to turn up the heat a little.

  Before she could lose her nerve, she stopped and fingered a sheer, peach-colored teddy hanging from a padded satin hanger. “Oh, look at this,” Rachel remarked. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Nick’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he stared at the skimpy number. “Uh, sure. But when would you wear a thing like that?”

  “Oh, just about any time.” Struggling not to smile, Rachel lowered Jenny into the stroller, fastened the strap around the child’s round little belly, then turned her attention back to the skimpy garment.

  Nick’s eyes narrowed, and she could practically see the wheels spinning in his head. “I don’t get it. Do you wear it all by itself, or do you wear it under your clothes?”

  “Oh, either.”

  Nick frowned suspiciously. “Under what kind of clothes?”

  This was working better than she’d ever imagined. Rachel shrugged casually. “Any kind. Evening clothes, work clothes, date clothes. Even jeans.”

  She saw him cast an appraising gaze at the jeans and T-shirt she was wearing now and watched his throat move convulsively. Lifting the teddy from the clothes hanger, she held it speculatively in front of her and viewed herself in a mirror. In the reflection she saw Nick running a finger around his neck as though his collar was too tight, even though he was wearing an open-necked shirt.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think you’re about to give me a heart attack,” Nick growled.

  Rachel laughed.

  He wasn’t kidding, Nick thought darkly. When she’d held that thing up like that, it was all too easy to picture her wearing it.

  He swallowed hard as Rachel moved on to a display of bikini panties. She picked up a pair of black ones so sheer and scant, he was surprised they weren’t sold in a brown paper wrapper.

  Dear Lord. The thought of Rachel wearing that speck of lace m
ade it difficult to walk erect. Were these the kinds of things she routinely wore under her clothes, or was she picking out something for a special occasion? Neither thought was at all reassuring.

  He drew a breath of relief when Rachel finally paid for the garments and the clerk placed them in a dark green shopping bag.

  Rachel smiled at him cheerfully. “I need to get a few things at the cosmetics counter. Do you mind making another stop before we head to the baby department?”

  “No. Not at all.” Anything to get out of the lingerie department. Pushing Jenny in the stroller, he followed Rachel to the perfume counter. “I want to find a new scent,” she said, picking up a glass bottle and delicately sniffing the contents.

  “What for? I’ve always liked the way you smell.”

  She flashed him a brilliant smile. “Well, I think it’s time for a change. I’m ready for something a little bolder. Something that makes more of a statement.” She picked up an amber-colored bottle. “Here’s one I’ve been wanting to try. Lioness.”

  Nick gazed at the label. “‘Guaranteed to bring out the animal in your man,’” he read.

  Rachel took it from him and spritzed her neck. “What do you think?” She stood on tiptoe and bent her head, offering him a whiff. Nick took a cautious sniff.

  “It’s okay,” he muttered.

  “Hmm. Let’s try this one.”

  “Mating Call,” he read. “‘Wear this and he’ll get the message.”’ Good grief—what kind of message was she trying to send? More importantly, to whom? A spasm of jealousy ripped through him.

  Rachel sprayed the other side of her neck and leaned toward him.

  “I—I don’t know,” he said noncommittally.

  “Well, what about this?”

  “Frenzy. ‘It’ll drive him into one.”’ Good gravy—didn’t she know she didn’t need a perfume to do that? She’d been doing it to him for years.

  “Why the sudden interest in changing your perfume?” Nick asked, in what he hoped was a casual tone.

  “Just feeling adventurous, that’s all.” Rachel sprayed her wrist and sniffed it delicately. “Mmm. I like this one.” She held her hand out to him, then offered Jenny a whiff. The child grinned widely.

  “Jenny likes it. That seals the deal. Let me get one other item, and then I’ll be ready to go.”

  Nick reluctantly followed Rachel across the aisle, pushing Jenny’s stroller.

  “I’d like to look at your lipsticks,” Rachel told a heavily made-up, middle-aged woman behind the counter. “I understand you have a new kissproof kind.”

  Kissproof lipstick! Just who the heck did she plan on kissing? Nick scowled as the woman nodded and pulled out a tray of samples.

  “That’s right,” the salesclerk said. “It’s guaranteed to stay on no matter what.”

  Rachel pointed to a delicate coral. “That’s a nice shade. Could I try it, please?”

  The saleslady expertly swabbed a sample onto a cotton-tipped stick and passed it to Rachel. Peering in the mirror on the countertop, Rachel carefully applied it to her lips.

  She turned to Nick. “What do you think?”

  He thought her lips looked irresistible under any condition. The lipstick, however, accented the shape of her mouth, calling attention to the little vee in the middle of her upper lip and the bee-stung swell in the center of the lower one.

  But he wasn’t about to tell her that. The last thing he wanted to do was help her look even more attractive to the mystery man she was evidently dating. Nick shrugged indifferently. “It’s not too bad, I guess.”

  “It’s guaranteed not to come off during a kiss,” the saleslady prompted. Her ruby lips curled into a coy smile. “Perhaps your husband here would help you test it.”

  “Oh, he’s not my husband.”

  “Your boyfriend, then.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Rachel said.

  A wave of jealousy, dark as smoke, curled through Nick’s belly.

  The woman batted her false lashes. “Well, maybe he can help you test it anyway.”

  Rachel glanced at him tentatively. The next thing Nick knew, he’d wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her against his chest and pressed his lips to hers.

  If she wanted to test that blasted lipstick, by damn, he’d give her a test worth remembering. While she was at it, she could test his kissing technique and see how it measured up to Mr. Mystery Date’s.

  Winding his arms more tightly around her, he bent her backward and laid siege to her mouth. She murmured in surprise, then gave a soft moan and melted in his arms.

  All thoughts of testing lipstick and teaching Rachel a lesson evaporated in the sweet heat of that kiss. She parted her lips, and Nick was suddenly drowning in soft, hot sensation. The exotic scent of the freshly sprayed perfumes tantalized his nostrils, but what inflamed him to a passion almost beyond redemption was the underlying, subtle, familiar scent of Rachel.

  It didn’t take perfume or lipstick or lingerie to turn him on. It only took Rachel. The feel of her, the sight of her, the sound of her, the taste of her—heck, just the thought of her was enough to send him over the edge. There had never been another woman who made him feel like this, who set all his senses to roaring and keening, who could make him lose all sense of propriety and decorum and reason.

  Reason. The thought pulled him back to semiconsciousness. He opened his eyes to see the salesclerk staring at him in fascination. He slowly straightened, pulling a limp-limbed Rachel upright with him.

  He looked around to see shoppers gawking in the aisle. “Is this some kind of product demonstration?” asked a pudgy blonde with bulbous blue eyes.

  The saleslady nodded. “They’re testing out a new lipstick.”

  Nick drew away and dropped his arms. Rachel gazed up at him, glassy-eyed.

  Dammit, he thought darkly. He wanted to drag her back in his arms and finish what they’d started. He wanted to crush her to his chest and never let her go. He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him, to beg her to never leave.

  But he didn’t believe in happily ever after. He believed in burnout and boredom and the need to be free.

  So why did she make him think about things he’d never thought he’d wanted—things that were light and bright and shiny, things like white picket fences and wedding rings and baby smiles? Things that were normally associated with marriage.

  He realized he was scowling at her. “Well?” he demanded.

  “Well...what?” Her voice was low and breathless, her expression dazed and stunned.

  “Did it pass the test?”

  “The test,” she echoed vaguely. “Oh—me lipstick!” She turned to the salesclerk, her face flushed, her expression flustered. “I—I guess I’ll take one.”

  “Give me one, too,” the blonde shopper piped up. “I’ve been looking all my life for something that would deliver results like that.”

  Desperate to distract himself from the raw emotions pulsing through him, Nick bent down, unstrapped Jenny from the stroller and lifted her into his arms as Rachel paid for her purchase.

  The transaction completed, the saleslady started to gather up the lipstick samples. “Oh, dear—one lipstick has fallen out. Do you see it on that side of the counter?”

  While Rachel tucked her wallet in her purse, Nick looked down at the floor, then shook his head.

  “Uh-oh.” The saleslady gazed at him, her expression alarmed and contrite.

  “Uh-oh. what?”

  “The missing lipstick. It must have fallen into the baby stroller.”

  Nick peered into the empty stroller seat. “I don’t see it in there.”

  “Not in there. On you.”

  Nick glanced down. His shirt was covered with brilliant red smears. Jenny grinned, brandishing the tube in her chubby hand.

  “Great. Just great.” With a heavy sigh, he pried the lipstick away from Jenny’s fingers, handed it to the clerk, then settled the baby back in the stroller. Straightening, he surveyed the d
amage to his blue-and-white shirt. “I look like a victim from a Friday the 13th movie.”

  The grin on Rachel’s face told him she was trying hard to keep from laughing. “The lipstick is guaranteed to be kissproof, not babyproof. Looks like our next stop needs to be the men’s clothing department.”

  Either that or someplace where he could have his head examined, Nick thought darkly. Why on earth had he ever thought that kissing Rachel would be a good idea?

  Jenny might be a hazard to his clothes, but Rachel posed a far more serious hazard to his mind. Not to mention to his heart.

  The phone was ringing as Rachel unlocked her apartment door at ten o’clock that evening. Dropping her bag of scuba gear inside the entrance, she hurried to the living room and answered it.

  “Rachel. I’m glad you’re home.”

  Rachel grinned into the receiver, a little thrill chasing up her arm. Nick. He’d made several pointed remarks about her plans for the evening during their shopping expedition earlier in the day, and now he was evidently calling to see if she’d made it home.

  If she’d had any idea he was so susceptible to jealousy, she would have tried this two years ago.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Nick continued.

  Rachel placed a hand over the receiver, afraid she might laugh out loud. She drew a deep breath and forced her voice to a carefully modulated tone, deliberately sidestepping his question.

  “Is anything the matter?”

  “Well, yes. It’s Jenny.”

  The worried note in Nick’s voice sent a rush of alarm coursing through her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think she has a fever. She seems really warm. She was crying earlier, but now she just seems kind of listless. I bought one of those ear-type thermometers last week, but she won’t let me put it in her ear. In fact, she keeps pulling at her ears as if they bother her.”

  “Ear infections are pretty common in babies. Have you called the pediatrician?”

  “Yes. The nurse who handles the night calls told me to take Jenny’s temperature and call her back.”

  “Do you have a regular thermometer?”