Expecting the Boss's Baby (2 page)

Michael began to sweat. He’d just figured she wouldn’t get pregnant. After all, he’d never intended to be a father or a husband. It wasn’t part of his plan. He was cut out for neither role. It wasn’t part of his destiny. In fact, he’d nearly convinced himself he was genetically designed never to be a father.

“Earth to Michael, come in,” Dylan said, knocking on the wooden bar top. He laughed, but his eyes held a trace of concern. “Something you want to tell us?”

Michael thought of Kate and shook his head slowly. “No. Don’t mind me. I’ll do the research on the unwed teenage mothers’ home myself. I’ll see you guys later,” he said and rose.

“But your beer,” Justin said, clearly uncomfortable with the waste. “Dylan just ordered you another beer.”

“Thanks, but I’ll take a rain check. You can have it.”

“I don’t want it,” Justin said.

Dylan shrugged. “We’ll give it away.”

Justin shook his head. “You two take this charity thing too far.”

“It’s just a beer,” Dylan said with a smile tinged with glee. “You’ll be writing a much bigger check when the Millionaires’ Club makes its first donation.”

Justin’s queasy expression amused Michael despite his preoccupation with Kate. “You’re looking a little green around the gills, bud. You must be so full of money you need to get rid of some. Don’t worry, Justin. No cans of Beanee Weenees in your future. Later, guys,” he said, and as he left the bar his mind immediately turned to Kate. Was she pregnant?

He drove to his apartment, brooding all the way.
He examined the possibility of her pregnancy, turning it around in his head first this way, then that. Walking into the apartment that was more a place to sleep than a home, he didn’t bother turning on a light. The dark suited his mood. Although pregnancy was a physical possibility, every time Michael seriously considered it, he felt a dull thud in his stomach.

Tugging the buttons on his shirt loose, he stood in the quiet dark and swore at himself in disgust. How could he have been so careless? So stupid? Potentially to bring a baby into the same single-parent situation that he’d faced as a child. Granted, Kate was neither ill nor uneducated, as his mother had been, but she was young and alone. A smoky visual of his mother just before she died slithered through his mind.

The memories were poison, he knew, and he deliberately closed his mind to them. Sleep, he told himself. Eight hours would clear his head, and if ever he needed a clear head, it was now.

Sleep, however, eluded him. He paced and turned the TV on. In no mood for late-night infomercials, he turned it off and tossed and turned. Finally, he drifted off. The gray images he’d successfully deflected during the day invaded his dreams.

Short flashes of turning points in his past, all seen through a child’s eyes, kicked him back in
time. He might as well have been a six-year-old again.

“Your mother is dead,” the social worker said, patting his small, cold hand.

He tasted the metallic flavor of fear and terror and felt his thin body begin to shake.

“Do you have any other family?” she’d asked.

Unable to speak, he shook his head.

“Don’t worry, Michael. We’ll find someone to take care of you.”

The suffocating aloneness and loss of control wrapped around his throat like a vise. He couldn’t breathe. His mother couldn’t be dead. She was all he had. He ran from the social worker.

“Michael!”

He heard her voice calling after him, but he kept running. His hand connected with something hard. Glass shattered. Pain shot through him and he bolted upright in bed, his chest heaving for breath.

Disoriented by the darkness, he reached for the bedside lamp, but it wasn’t there. He groped for a flashlight in the drawer. The lamp lay on the floor in pieces. Perspiration dampened his skin and his heart pounded as if he had indeed been running.

The images of his childhood continued while he was awake. He’d always felt like an unnecessary visitor. For various reasons, three foster families had been unable to keep him longer than a year or so at a time. Too old for adoption, he’d made a home of sorts at the Granger Home for Boys. There
was little possibility for forming any emotional connections. That suited Michael fine. But it was a place that fostered dreams. At night in a room with three sets of bunk beds, a boy could sleep. A boy could dream.

He’d dreamed of being a man in control of his life and destiny, a man of wealth and power. But he’d never dreamed of being a father.

Kate’s alarm rang at the regular time, waking her just before 6:00 a.m. She slapped the snooze button to quiet the morning deejay who sounded as if he mainlined coffee. She gently eased herself toward the edge of the bed for a shower to clear her head for work when it occurred to her that she no longer worked at CG Enterprises. She still wasn’t accustomed to the change in routine. At the thought of being unemployed, her heart raced. Then she remembered her stock options and breathed normally.

Her brain began to whirl like a scratched CD. Thoughts of Michael slid into her mind with the insidious ease of smoke, and the pain of her last encounter with him returned full force. Every time she thought of him, she felt like a fool. Although she’d had strong feelings for him, it hadn’t been love on either end. Thinking of him reminded her how much she’d fooled herself. She squeezed her eyes tight and told herself she had more important considerations now. Like the baby.

For the hundredth time Kate wondered how she would tell her parents. Kate had been what her mother called a change-of-life baby. As the long-awaited only child of a woman over forty, she knew she embodied all her parents’ hopes and dreams. She winced, picturing her mother fainting and her father’s face full of disappointment. Stall, she thought and wondered how she might stall for a year. She had a temporary respite since her parents had taken an extended RV trip to Branson, but that wouldn’t last forever.

Pushing back her worries, she rose from bed determined to forge ahead. After a shower and a breakfast of tea and toast, she heard a knock at her door.
Neighbor,
she thought, and opened it to Michael.

Her heart jolted at the sight of him. His grim expression etched a sharp contrast from the morning sunshine and spring flowers on the porch of her duplex townhouse. Kate read a lack of sleep on his face, but he still managed to emanate rock-hard strength. It was part of the reason she’d fallen for him. Something about him said he might fall, but he wouldn’t break and he would always get back up. He studied her for a long, uncomfortable moment before meeting her gaze head-on, and Kate felt the full power of Michael Hawkins’s undivided attention.

“Are you pregnant?”

Kate’s breath stalled. She felt as if she’d been
hit by a train. His gravelly voiced question scraped over raw nerve endings. Off-guard, unprepared and rattled, she worked her mouth, but nothing came out. She eyed the door and thought about shutting it against him.

He must have read her mind because he planted his foot in the doorway. “Are you pregnant?”

Unaccustomed to having his undiluted intensity solely focused on her, Kate continued to struggle for balance. He stood too close to her. When she forced herself to take a breath, she inhaled his scent and her body softened in the same way it had the night they’d shared together. “Yes,” she said, more whisper than voice.

“We need to talk,” he said and entered her house.

Struggling to clear her head, she crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself, and left the door open. Heaven help her, she wished she was better prepared. “I’m not sure I agree.”

He lifted a dark eyebrow of inquiry.

“You pretty much covered everything during our last discussion. You said you would be a rotten father and I shouldn’t count on you.”

He rested his hands on his hips. “That was before I had all the facts.”

“And how does having the facts change things?” she asked, refusing to give into her weakness for him. Her weakness for him had gotten her
into enough trouble already. “Do you suddenly have the ability to be a good father now?”

He narrowed his eyes. “No. I may not be able to do much for this baby, but I can be financially responsible.” He paused a half-beat. “I can give this baby a name.”

“How?”

“We can get married,” he said with the same emotion with which he could have proposed buying a car.

Kate forced her brain to work. “Let me get this straight. You don’t love me, you don’t want to be a husband or a father, but you think it’s a good idea for us to get married so the baby will have a name and financial security?”

“I can provide well for this child,” he said with a steely resolve that surprised and unnerved her.

“Financially,” Kate said, holding fast to her resolve. “But children need more than money from moms and dads. A child needs security, attention, love, affection, instruction, laughter. A child needs to see that love is possible, and you don’t believe in love. Why should I marry you, Michael? You don’t—” Out of the corner of her eye a familiar vehicle caught her attention. “Oh no!” Kate watched in horror as her parents’ RV pulled into her driveway.

She glanced back at Michael. “You have to leave,” she told him. “We’ll talk later. Go away.”

He looked at her as if she’d sprouted another head. “Why?”

“It’s my parents. You have to leave,” she said, fighting panic and a return of nausea.

“You haven’t told them,” he concluded.

“I haven’t told anyone.”

“When were you planning to tell them?”

Kate watched her father climb out of the vehicle and wave. “Oh, four years sounded good,” she said in a voice that sounded thin to her own ears. She pasted a smile on her face for her dad. “My mother has this minor heart condition. It’s not really dangerous, but I don’t want to tempt it. You need to leave,” she whispered emphatically.

“I can’t. They’ve blocked me in,” he said, and his logical statement made her want to cry.

“Katie,” her mother called with a smile as she climbed the steps to Kate’s porch. “Surprise! I hope you don’t mind. I promise we won’t stay long. Just the day. I needed to see you to make sure you’re okay.” She studied Kate with a mother’s knowing eye. “You look a little pale, sweetheart.”

Kate felt her stomach twist and turn with the familiar nausea, but continued to smile as she embraced her mother. “I’m fine. It’s good to see you too. I thought you two were in Branson.”

Her father gave her a quick squeeze and chuckled. “You know your mother. She’s not happy if
she hasn’t seen her little chick in a while. Who’s this?” he asked, looking at Michael.

More than anything Kate wished for a magic wand. She would make both Michael Hawkins and her nausea disappear.

“T
his is my boss,” Kate said. “I’m taking some time off and he wanted to go over a few minor details on a special project. Michael Hawkins, Tom and Betty Adams,” she said, making speedy introductions. “We’re done,” she added cheerfully. “You can leave now.”

“Oh, there’s no need to rush on our account,” Kate’s mother said. “Katie sent us a newspaper article about your company. Very impressive. She’s always had high praise for you.”

“Thank you,” Michael said, giving Kate a speculative glance. “Kate’s been invaluable. Irreplaceable.”

Irreplaceable as his secretary,
Kate firmly reminded herself.

“That’s our Katie,” her father said beaming with pride. “She’s always been special to us.”

Kate’s stomach twisted viciously at how quickly her father’s pride and joy would disintegrate if he knew the truth. She might be a grown woman, but the thought of hurting her parents made her ill. She felt herself go light-headed and blinked. “Come in and make yourselves at home. I’ll be right back,” she said, and dashed for the bathroom.

She sat down on the brass stool beside the pedestal sink for a moment to regain her equilibrium, then splashed her face and took several deep breaths. She wasn’t given to anxiety attacks, but Kate couldn’t imagine a more nerve-wracking situation. Michael Hawkins pressing marriage when he didn’t love her and sitting in her living room with her parents. Biting back a moan, she sank back down on the stool.

The door opened, and Michael appeared.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered. “You’re supposed to be gone.”

He stepped in front of her, crowding her with his body and unhinging her with his intense stare. “Do you do this often?” he asked, crouching in front of her.

“Do what?”

“Pass out.”

“I’m not passing out,” she retorted, irritated
with his proximity and her continuing lightheadedness. “I was making sure I didn’t pass out by coming in here. I’m sure I’ll feel much better when you leave. We need to get back out there or my parents—”

“Your mother already suspects something,” Michael said. “She said you looked pale.”

Kate squeezed her forehead. “Oh, no. I knew this would happen,” she wailed, then lowered her voice. “I can’t hide anything from her. I always suspected she had X-ray vision when it came to me. I can’t tell them. It will hurt them terribly.”

“You’ll have to tell them sometime,” he said with a shrug that indicated he truly didn’t comprehend her situation.

“Sometime doesn’t have to be now.”

“What if you were married?” he asked in a tone entirely too intuitive.

“Oh, don’t even go there.” Kate knew her mother had been planning her wedding since before she was born. If Betty Adams could have done things her way, she would have arranged a marriage between Kate and the boy down the street who’d become a dentist, had them move next door and start a family right away. Kate shook her head and stood. “I refuse to compound my bad judgment by making another decision with long-term consequences.”

“Bad judgment?” he said, slowly rising to tower over her.

“By falling for—” She broke off. “By falling into bed with you. You need to leave.”

“Kate,” Michael said, taking her arm.

Her heart tripped, unsettling her, confusing her. She pulled her arm away. “You’ve barely looked me in the eye for two months. Why are you touching me now?”

He paused a half beat, his gaze trapping hers with a power that rocked her. “Circumstances are different now.”

Not different enough, she thought, remembering how he had shattered her hopes to smithereens just weeks ago.

“Kate, you know me better than just about anyone.”

She licked her dry lips and feigned a careless shrug. “So?”

“So you know I get what I want,” he told her, and his eyes might as well have nailed her to the bathroom wall.

Her stomach sank. Kate had seen that look of determination on Michael’s face before, but it had always been about business. Now it was about her, yet not about her. It was about the baby. Hearing footsteps, she felt another sliver of panic and it gave her an urge to argue a rain check. She flung open the door and raced out to greet her mother in the hallway. “Mom, Michael was just leaving and wanted to say good-bye,” she continued without breathing. Maybe if she talked fast, no one would
ask questions. “Do you think Dad would mind moving the motor home?”

Kate tossed a quick glance at Michael and saw him watching her the same way a very clever tiger watches his prey. Her pulse picked up.

“It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Adams. I look forward to seeing you again,” he continued, letting Kate know her reprieve was temporary. “We’ll talk soon, Kate.”

“Bye,” she said, biting her lip as she watched him leave.

“I think he might like you, Katie,” her mother said, ever hopeful.

Kate shook her head.

“He couldn’t take his eyes off you,” her mother said. “A man like that, he might make a good husband.”

Kate bit back a dozen corrections and squeezed her mother instead. “Mother, you say every man can’t take his eyes off me. You just want me married,” she teased lightly, but her heart felt heavy.

Michael allowed the evening spring breeze to wash over him as he sat parked in his Lexus down the street from Kate’s duplex. Her parents’ RV had just pulled out of the driveway. Glancing at his watch, he decided to give Kate a five-minute respite before he rang her doorbell.

Despite his reputation as Tin Man, Michael had been unable to dismiss Kate’s pregnancy. The
whole situation made him nuts, and he couldn’t recall being more driven about anything than he was now to protect his child from every bad thing that had happened to him during his childhood. Long-buried bitterness roiled in his gut at the thought of his child being deprived or feeling abandoned and trapped.

If that weren’t enough, his protective urge extended to Kate. The idea of her being alone and pregnant with his child was untenable to him. His blood pressure rose just thinking about it and he was determined to convince her to agree to his plan. Checking his watch again, he pulled into her driveway.

Grabbing a sheet of paper from the passenger seat, Michael got out of the car and climbed the steps to Kate’s porch. He rang the doorbell and a calico cat mewed up at him. The outside of her cozy home echoed the warmth of her personality.

Kate answered the door, rubbing her eyes as if she’d been crying. “I didn’t expect you.”

He would be back every day until they got this settled, he thought grimly, wishing she would smile again. “I drove by and noticed your parents had left.” She didn’t invite him in, but that didn’t stop him from entering. “Why are you crying?”

Kate picked up the cat and cradled it in her arms. She shrugged. “I feel very stupid for getting myself in this situation.”

“It took two,” he pointed out, thinking that her
home might have had a calming effect on him if he hadn’t felt like climbing the walls. He remembered when Kate used to have a calming effect on him. That time was long gone, he thought with irritation. “We didn’t finish our conversation this morning.”

She shot him a wary glance. “Yes we did.”

“No we didn’t,” he said, fighting a tightening cord of impatience. “There’s only one thing for us to do. We need to get married. There’s no other choice.”

Kate blinked. “That’s not true. We’re not living in the dark ages. Many single women give birth to children.”

“Is that what you want for our child?”

“No, but—”

“Exactly. Kate, I won’t take no for an answer.”

“You seem to forget that marriage takes two. You also seem to forget that you told me in no uncertain terms that you are neither husband nor father material.”

Michael narrowed his eyes, knowing the essence of what she’d said hadn’t changed. “I didn’t have all the facts during that conversation. You hid a very important fact from me. Why?”

“I didn’t want you to marry me because I was pregnant,” she returned heatedly. “Which is exactly what you’re trying to do.”

He ground his teeth. Reasoning with her had been so much easier when she’d been his em
ployee. “People marry for lesser reasons. For the well-being of this child, you and I must marry. Dammit, I won’t have a child of mine born illegitimate and without the financial security I can easily afford. I knew too many kids who suffered under those circumstances and this will not happen to my child.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “You never talk about your family,” she finally said.

He hated like hell to discuss his childhood, but he was determined to make her see the only right course. “I don’t have a family. My father left my mother soon after she became pregnant with me, and my mother died when I was six. I spent time in foster care and at the Granger Home for Boys. I can give you a first-hand account of what it’s like to grow up without a father and it’s not pretty. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

Kate put the cat down and turned away from Michael. She’d always wondered about his family, but had never asked. Michael had seemed to be a man with no personal attachments. Now she understood why. With a sinking feeling she also understood why he would be adamantly opposed to putting his child through an illegitimate upbringing. His disclosure took the wind out of her sails. “So what kind of arrangement are you proposing?” she asked in a low voice.

She felt him step closer to her. He gave her a
sheet of paper. She scanned it, but the numbers were a blur. “What is this?”

“My financial statement. I’ve had my accountant put aside—”

Kate’s stomach roiled. “Oh my God,” she said, tossing the offending paper to the floor and walking to the other side of the room.

Michael stepped in front of her, his hands on her arms, male frustration emanating from every pore. “I want you to know that I can and will take care of you and the baby. I want you to see it in black and white. I don’t want you to ever worry about it.”

In some corner of her mind, she suspected his intentions were good. She could see it was vital to him to protect her and the baby, but the timing couldn’t be worse. This was a far cry from the sweet, sentimental tale her mother had often repeated to her about her father’s proposal on bended knee in an ice-cream parlor. “So this is a business arrangement. You sign over part of your money to me and the baby, you and I get married, we live separately, and I raise our child.”

“No,” he said firmly, immediately. “You and the baby will live with me.”

“Why?” she demanded. “You don’t want me.”

His gaze traveled over her, and Kate felt a surprising flicker of the forbidden but mutual attraction she’d thought he’d killed. “I never said I didn’t want you. I may not have much of a heart,
but I am a man. I wanted to take you to bed from the beginning. Every day I saw you, I thought how it would be to touch you and feel you hot and wet. But you were too valuable to me as an assistant to muddy the waters with sex.”

“And now?”

“Now you’re no longer my assistant,” he said. “You’re fair game.”

Confused, rattled and, embarrassingly, a little turned on, Kate backed away. She took a careful breath and shook her head. “This is just a little too primitive for me. Your protectiveness, the money, the—” she groped for a benign description and came up empty “—the sex.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t feel like I know you at all, yet you’re insisting we marry.”

“Do you remember what it was like between us before that night we spent together?”

She nodded, remembering that underneath the forbidden wanting, there’d always been an ease, occasional laughter, and respect. Everything had felt so dreadfully tense between them, however, ever since that night. “We laughed a lot more.”

“You were a friend.”

Kate felt the push and pull of loss and confusion. He called her friend, and she felt elated, yet she knew he wasn’t offering her a lifetime of love and devotion. She crossed her arms over her chest, then lifted a hand to rub her forehead. “I don’t—” She bit her lip. “I don’t know. I need time to think.”

“You said you cared for me as more than a boss,” he reminded her.

She felt the sting of humiliation at how she’d laid her emotions bare for him to see. “That was before you told me you didn’t believe in love.”

“So you prove my point. You can’t count on emotions. Yours have changed.”

“I think it would be more fair to say I didn’t have all the facts. I didn’t know everything about you.”

“When do you ever know everything about someone else?” he asked. “You don’t.” He took her left hand in his and rubbed her ring finger, then met her gaze. “It’s right for us to be married.” He closed his hand around hers and drew her to him. “Right in a lot of ways.”

He lowered his head and took her mouth in a gentle, but firm caress, and she felt the coil of sensual tension inside her tighten. She felt his fingers splay through her hair, tilting her head for better access. He was a heady combination of masculine control and passion, and Kate struggled with overwhelming seductive and forbidden wishes.

He slid his leg between hers and she felt the evidence of his hard arousal against her. Kate remembered how easy it had been to fall into his arms before. Was she ready for that again? The thought cut through the haze of passion, and she pulled back and ducked her head. Her lips and mind were buzzing.

“I need to think,” she said, staring at the open collar of his shirt. She knew his chest was strong. She knew how his bare chest felt against her hands and cheek. Kate closed her eyes. “This isn’t helping.”

She heard him exhale deeply; his impatience shimmered between them. She knew that sound. She’d seen it and heard it a hundred times, but it had always been business-related.

“I don’t remember you being this stubborn,” he said in a wry voice.

Kate glanced up at him. “Different circumstances,” she said.

He tilted his head to one side. “How’s that?”

“You used to be my boss,” she said. “Now, you’re not.”

He nodded, taking her measure. “Works both ways.”