The Tycoon's Baby. Leigh Michaels

she offered. Webb’s hand closed on her arm and she had to hurry her step to keep pace with him.

      He’d learned his lesson about holding private conversations in the hallway, Janey deduced. Instead he practically dragged her up the stairs and into an alcove in the upper hall, where he released her, planted his hands on his hips and glared at her.

      “I had no idea she could hear me,” Janey said.

      “Great excuse that is!”

      “Well, you didn’t, either,” she said reasonably. “That was obvious.”

      “What the hell happened? You took one look at the house, fell in love with it and decided to go for broke? Or did you already have this planned before you even got here?”

      “Go for broke?” Janey frowned. “You mean try to marry you for real, in order to get this house? Not a chance. Not even a Henry Bellows masterpiece would be worth putting up with you.”

      “You lied to me.”

      Janey faced him squarely. “I did not. You never asked about my background—you simply assumed because of my job that I’d climbed out of the primordial ooze just last week. ‘Janey doesn’t own a dress. You should have seen her trying to learn to walk in heels!’” Her voice was bitter. “What were you planning to say next, I wonder? ‘Of course I’ll have to teach her to read and write’?”

      “That’s not what I said.”

      “Maybe not the words, but it’s exactly what you meant.”

      He looked a little ashamed of himself. “All right,” he admitted. “It’s what I wanted Gran to think, and maybe I went a little overboard. But what happened to playing your part?”

      “I don’t have to have hayseeds sprouting in my hair to get the message across that we’re all wrong for each other. So what if I’m not quite the poster girl for ignorance and poverty? She’s still going to hate me, Webb.”

      He looked as if he’d really like to believe her but didn’t quite dare.

      Janey caught a glimpse of movement in one of the long hallways that stretched away from the staircase seemingly into infinity. She turned her head just as a woman who was wearing a heavy coat and carrying a dark-haired child in a red velvet dress came into sight.

      Webb looked over Janey’s shoulder and said pleasantly, “Mrs. Wilson. I was just coming to get Maddy.”

      “And about time,” the woman said flatly. “Or had you forgotten I’m supposed to have an afternoon out, not just a couple of hours?”

      “I’m sorry. We were a little distracted downstairs.”

      Janey couldn’t believe her ears. Webb Copeland was actually apologizing?

      He took the child from the nurse’s arms. Maddy snuggled close, and Mrs. Wilson pulled a pair of gloves from her pockets and briskly put them on. Her gaze slid over Janey, summarized and dismissed her. “Since I’m not leaving on time, I will of course be later getting back as well.”