Billionaire’s Missing Baby (A BWWM Romance)

by Kayla Watkins

  Just beside Lacey was Andrew.

  Lacey’s slender eyebrows raised a little, where Andrew couldn’t see.

  Dana’s heart smashed against her ribcage painfully. “A-Andrew!”

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Lacey teased with a smile.

  “Y-Yes, Andrew, this is Lacey,” Dana stammered. “I—I work here with her. Lacey, this is Andrew, my… my…”

  “Friend,” Andrew finished for her. He gave Lacey a small smile.

  Lacey looked back and forth between them, unconvinced and curious. “All right, then,” she replied, walking away. “I guess I’ll leave you, ah… friends… alone.”

  They both smiled thinly as she walked out of earshot. And now, they were alone. Dana looked around, and saw several sets of eyes fixed on her cubicle. Well, as alone as they were going to get in her office, anyway.

  “I need to talk to you,” Andrew said immediately.

  “Let’s go somewhere less public,” Dana replied quickly, slipping off her chair. This conversation was not going to be easy, and she had no desire to have it with an audience.

  They left Dana’s office together and stepped out into the hall, where the elevator doors sat closed.

  And here comes the awkward part, Dana thought to herself, crossing her arms, waiting.

  The elevator chimed, and the doors opened. Neither Andrew nor Dana said anything as two men stepped off the elevator and both went to the other suite on Dana’s floor, carrying briefcases. When their office door closed, Andrew cleared his throat.

  “I was hoping to see you on the train this morning,” he said. It sounded like he was planning on continuing, but nothing else came out. He stood there uneasily, hands in his pockets, staring at the floor.

  Dana sighed. Meeting up with Andrew would have been much better than the incident with Marcel. “I know. I’ll admit, I took an earlier train because I was… a little uncertain what I wanted to say to you. I mean, I—last weekend was wonderful, and—that kiss—”

  “I actually want to apologize for that,” Andrew said quickly. “I definitely stepped over the line, there, and I’m terribly sorry.”

  Dana felt herself blushing, and didn’t even know why. “No, don’t apologize! I understand. We—we were both pretty caught up in the moment, and just… sort of… did what felt… fitting…”

  Andrew looked at her, and Dana couldn’t tell whether he looked relived, disappointed, or amused at her ineloquent phrasing. Flustered, she tried again.

  “You don’t need to feel like you did something wrong,” she explained. “I’m not mad at you at all, really.”

  Andrew’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “Really! Actually, I thought it was a very good kiss,” Dana blurted. She realized what she said—too late to stop it. Now truly flustered, she tried to explain further. “I mean, you’re a good kisser. Not—not that that’s really relevant to anything, I meant you—I didn’t think it was good just because you’re good at it, I mean. Kissing you was good. No! Wait, I—that’s not—that sounds different than I meant it,” Dana trailed off finally. She just stopped talking. It seemed the only way to stop the hole she was digging from getting any deeper.

  Andrew stood there with his hands in his pockets, grinning slightly.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not backing out of our deal,” Dana told him with a smile.

  At this, Andrew’s grin vanished abruptly.

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that. Marcel called up and backed out today.”

  Dana’s heart dropped to her heeled boots. Because of her. Andrew didn’t need to say it. She felt it in her gut, that Louis Marcel had backed out of the project in retaliation for this morning. That had been so fast! As if he hadn’t even thought about it! Did this project mean so little to Marcel that he’d yank his hand out of it, just to spite her?

  Andrew was talking, and she’d almost zoned out completely. “It’s extremely disappointing. I really thought I had him… but he called this morning, and broke off the deal. Honestly, he was so rude about it, I’m almost relieved I don’t have to work with him, but still. I really wanted to get this community center built.”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “That’s my fault,” Dana told Andrew immediately. “I saw Marcel on the subway today. I ended up taking a longer route than usual, and I must have ended up on a train that he takes—I thought he said something about how he didn’t like the underground, but that’s not the point, when I saw him today, he came right up to me and started to talk to me.

  “He saw I wasn’t wearing the ring—”

  “Why not?” Andrew interrupted. He looked surprised that the words had slipped out, and tried to take them back. “Never mind, just go on with the story.”

  “I wasn’t wearing the ring because it felt so strange, after we kissed,” Dana admitted quietly. She was wringing her hands together now, coming closer to the part of the tale that most upset her. “I just couldn’t put it on this morning, and I left it at home.

  “When Marcel saw I wasn’t wearing it, I had to make something up fast, so I told him that the setting felt loose and I took it to a jeweler to have it tightened. I thought he bought it, he seemed like he did.”

  Dana twisted her fingers together, trying to find the words to explain.

  Andrew frowned. “What then?”

  How to say this? Dana realized how terrible it sounded, and almost thought for a moment she had imagined it. But she hadn’t been anxious all morning for nothing, and steeled herself.

  “Andrew… he started saying things to me. Very… inappropriate things. He asked whether I would consider… going out with him.”

  Andrew’s face had grown very still, stony, even, as he listened. His blue eyes were like ice chips, and Dana forced herself to continue.

  “Looking back, he didn’t say anything particularly inappropriate, not explicitly. But he meant it that way. I know he did. I’m so sorry, he told me that if I refused, he was going to drop you as a partner, but I just couldn’t. There’s no way! I hit him, and I ran out of the subway. That’s why he broke off the deal. I’m so sorry, but there was no way I could have…”

  Trailing off again, Dana tried to read Andrew’s face. It was impossible. Like trying to read fallen leaves on the street, or a rock face. He’d wiped his thoughts clean off his features.

  “I see,” he said finally.

  Dana waited, hoping, but Andrew didn’t elaborate beyond that. He stood there for a few long seconds, watching the wall as if it might move.

  “Well, that explains some things,” Andrew added.

  “Did… did he mention anything about that on the phone?” Of course he didn’t. That would have been completely stupid, but then Dana wasn’t sure. Andrew seemed as if pieces had clicked together, as if he had just realized something important. And Dana was very curious to know what it was.

  Suddenly, he looked down at her. “I’ve got to go.” He nodded goodbye and hit the ‘up’ button to the elevator. Dana could only nod and agree. What else was she going to say? Was she about to ask him to stick around and keep her company? Could she just tell him that talking with him had made her feel calmer and safer than she had felt all morning? Of course not.

  So the elevator arrived, and Andrew climbed in and waved another brief farewell. Then the doors shut. Dana found herself alone in the hall, watching the metal elevator doors and half-wishing they would open again, and Andrew would be back, less bafflingly abrupt.

  There was nothing left to do by go back in and try to get some work done, so Dana walked back through her office door and into the quiet murmuring white noise of her floor. Her cubicle was just as she’d left it—and the easel was still sitting there with the shapeless, soulless caricature she’d been trying to breathe life into.

  She eyed it sharply, examining the useless lines and scribbles. Then, with a sigh, she took it down, intending to crumple it and toss it.

  But Dana Deshaun had a superstition abo
ut throwing away unsatisfying art. Throughout her life, every time she ever grew upset and frustrated with a piece, she eventually felt the urge to just scrap it altogether and start over. But every time she did, the discarded piece would haunt her anyway, and without the physical artwork to exorcise, her mind would fill with endless thoughts of what might have been.

  So Dana set the marked-up paper at the back of her easel and brought out a new one, for now. The inspiration for the other one would come to her eventually. She just had to wait.

  And at the moment, she found it impossible to think about drawing anyway. Andrew had seemed to believe what she said about Louis Marcel—so what? He hadn’t given his thoughts on the matter, which she very much would have liked to hear. Now, Dana was left wondering if he was still angry, and why. Surely he didn’t think she should have taken up that horrible Marcel man on his sickening offer?

  Worse, what if he didn’t believe her? Dana got more upset than ever at the thought. Did Andrew think she was lying?

  Surely not. Andrew was a smart man, and he trusted her. She had no reason to lie to him, anyway, so he couldn’t possibly think Dana had made up the encounter on the train. That was ridiculous.

  But why had he left to suddenly like that? Dana had not gotten a good feeling from the way he’d shut off all at once.

  Nervously, Dana looked down at her empty ring finger. Andrew had said the deal was off, anyway, so there was no reason why she should need to wear it. Still… she found herself getting her coat and purse. Her boss wouldn’t mind a quick run back home. She’d count it as her lunch, even though it was only ten in the morning.

  Just a quick run back to her and Maya’s apartment, to pick up the ring. She could practically see it in her mind’s eye, still waiting on the bathroom counter (carefully away from the sink drain). It was as if the ring had known all along that she would return for it, as if it had known what was in her heart better than she did.

  Chapter 16

  “Mr. Marcel, a Mr. Poole from Bellwethers is here to see you—”

  “Do not send that man up to my office,” Marcel snapped into the phone. “Under no circumstances is he to be allowed back here.” Marcel slapped the phone back on the receiver, missed, and scrabbled furiously to hang it up correctly, fuming.

  At that moment his office door slammed open and Andrew Pool came blasting into Louis Marcel’s office. He shoved the door shut behind himself.

  “Don’t touch that phone,” Andrew warned. In fact, Marcel had snatched the phone off the receiver and was dialing the number at that moment. He was just listening to the dial tone when Andrew shrugged. “Unless you want your boss to find out about you coming on to my fiancée. Great family values, there.”

  With a snarl, Marcel slammed the phone back on the hook. “Let me guess,” he said, drawing himself up in his chair and straightening his shirt and tie. “You want our deal back on track, and to get back to working together.”

  Andrew walked up to Marcel’s desk in three huge steps and leaned over it. Blue fury was burning in his eyes, a manic light that made his face look just a little mad. “Let me be frank,” his every word was cut and sharp, precise. “If I never saw you again, I’d be delighted. I feel already that after what you slanderously claimed about my Dana—whose name, by the way, I don’t even consider you fit to speak—and the insults you so generously threw around, you are not a good fit for Bellwethers, or for me.

  “But, that being said, you’re what I’ve got,” Andrew hissed. “We had an agreement, and you are going to honor that agreement. Westcorp has a stern reputation for upholding classic American values of family and all that bullshit, so if you stick another damn toe out of line, if you ever speak to Dana again, I’ll tell your bosses, your wife, the press, hell, I’ll e-mail Russia, just to make sure word gets out. I will shatter your reputation, and drag Westcorp through the mud in doing so. I can’t imagine you would come out the other side of that situation in good shape.”

  For almost a full, silent minute, Louis Marcel looked up at Andrew in perfect stillness. The only thing moving were the wheels in Marcel’s head, which Andrew could almost see turning as Marcel almost literally chewed it all over. Andrew felt tight as a guitar string, thrumming with energy, ready to snap with even an ounce too much pressure. In fact, it would be a relief for Marcel to just push him too far. It would almost be a relief to have Marcel stand up and laugh in his face, and call his bluff.

  Andrew was dying to destroy this asshole.

  Perhaps Louis Marcel saw all this in Andrew’s face. Finally, after what seemed like a year of debating, he pulled out a blank sheet of paper and a pen.

  “All right… tell me what you want.”

  “Our project, exactly as it was,” Andrew answered between gritted teeth. He was actually a little disappointed that Marcel had given in. “Not an inch less or more. Rescind your withdrawal, and we’ll pretend none of this happened. The only difference will be that from now on, if you ever speak to my fiancée again, I. Will. End. You.”

  Marcel’s face was drawn into a tight half-snarl, half-grimace. He was scribbling lines on the paper, one after the other. Andrew read them upside down, and grudgingly approved. He stared, unblinking, at Marcel as he wrote, waiting for him to reach the bottom of the page. Tension hummed between them, and finally Marcel put a date at the bottom of the page and signed it. He flipped it around and shoved the paper at Andrew.

  “Sign here.”

  Andrew snatched the pen out of Marcel’s hand and added his signature. Marcel glowered up at him.

  “Make a copy of this,” Andrew snapped.

  Marcel almost seemed to bare his teeth, but he took the sheet of paper back and jerked to his feet angrily. There was a printer/copier on a table behind him. Marcel punched the buttons so hard they crunched, and shoved the contract into the scanner. For another few moments, the whirring and clicking of the machine was the only sound. It roared in Andrew’s ears along with his pulse, beating a raging drum beat in his head.

  Meanwhile, in his thoughts, Andrew was half fury, half nerves. He’d stormed here like a summer hurricane, rushing through doors and bustling past security without a care for protocol. The secretary just outside Marcel’s door had been the last in a long line of checkpoints he’d marched straight through, and honestly, Andrew didn’t know for certain that he wasn’t going to get arrested for his actions. New York was a dangerous place, and most business (especially Fortune 500 companies) didn’t appreciate busting through their levels of security.

  So what if Marcel was cooperating now? He seemed cowed by Andrew’s threats, but not far beneath the surface Andrew was aware that his cooperation now was not a guarantee of cooperation in the future. When he left, he would take a copy of the contract that Louis was duplicating in his briefcase. That meant little. As a business deal, it was binding, but not if Louis Marcel claimed that Andrew came in here and held a gun to his head. And there was no reason at all not to claim that, once Andrew left the Westcorp offices.

  Of course, all this occurred to him now, when he was neck deep and too far out to withdraw to safer shores. If word got back to Brown about what Andrew was doing right now, it could mean his job. It could mean a lawsuit, on top of his job. Andrew kept his face set as inside, panic began to rear its head. Now was not a good time to reveal panic to Louis Marcel.

  The copier was spitting out the duplicate of the contract just then, and Marcel brought both back to the desk. He offered both to Andrew, who took the original and stood there holding it. He couldn’t think of an appropriately impressive way to put the sheet in his briefcase, and found himself unwilling to take his eyes off Marcel. Given the situation, it seemed like a bad idea to have both hands busy and both eyes away from this man, this creep.

  “I won’t be contacting you directly,” Andrew told Marcel, still standing there with the contract in his hand. He felt a little like he’d taken a hostage, or like a hostage himself, with both himself and Louis stuck here in this ever more awk
ward situation. “If you need something, you’ll call my assistant, Nick. I don’t have any interest in ever talking to you again.”

  Marcel sneered. “Is that so.”

  “You better believe that’s so,” Andrew retorted. “You and your company have a hell of a lot of nerve. First, it’s damn presumptuous to make any sort of decision based on someone’s martial state. That if absolutely none of your business, and it has nothing to do with our work. There are a whole of good men and women out there who are single. On the other hand, there a whole lot of married people who are untrustworthy, or downright crooked. You, for example.”

  “I do my job,” Louis replied, throwing out his hands in a ‘so what’ gesture. “You say it’s none of my business if you’re married? Well, shoe fits on the other foot. It’s none of your business what I do in my off time.”

  “That’s why your wife was so pissed off at dinner,” Andrew said suddenly. It clicked into place, and was so obvious Andrew couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it earlier. “She knows you’re always pulling this shit, and so she was mad to have Dana at her house. She knew you were going to do exactly what you did.”

  Marcel shrugged and grinned. “Actually, she was pretty certain that I’d already been sleeping with your little fiancée. I can’t imagine why she didn’t believe me when I told her that I hadn’t been. You should have been around for the fight when you left—could’ve sold it to TMZ and made some extra cash…”

  Andrew found it perfectly simple to imagine all this. It hardly surprised him. “You are possibly the biggest asshole I’ve ever met, and I’m stuck with you until this project is finished. I can’t wait to get started.” He was signing up for a long-term association with this piece of work. There were days when Andrew had no love for his job.

  “You know,” he continued, “there are actually men out there who don’t consider women to be some kind of side dish, and I happen to be one of them. It’s sick that you think you can treat your wife the way you do, but like you said, that’s not my business. Seriously—I don’t want any more to do with you than necessary, so if Lauren doesn’t want to divorce you, that’s her problem.