Baby Before Business. SUSAN MEIER

barely suppressed a gasp. He was gorgeous. Thick black hair perfectly matched his onyx eyes and accented his character-filled, strong-boned face. His impeccable black suit, white shirt and silver tie spoke of elegance and sophistication—the kind of elegance and sophistication she didn’t expect to find in a scrooge or ogre, as his employees referred to him.

      “Are you the PR woman my brother hired?”

      “Yes, I’m Madelyn Gentry,” she said, ignoring the slight in the way he said “woman” as she extended her hand to shake his, but Ty Bryant acted as if he didn’t see the gesture and tossed the paper he’d been reviewing across his desk.

      “What’s this?”

      Madelyn picked up the sheet and glanced at it. “It’s the details of your PR event,” she said, smiling as she sat on one of his two guest chairs.

      But Ty’s livid expression caused her smile to fade. He might be one of the most attractive men on the planet, but he could be pretty darned scary-looking. If nothing else, he was intimidating.

      Still, that didn’t surprise her. His employees had complained about him all three days he had been away from the office for his cousin’s funeral. Plus, Ty’s brother Seth had filled Madelyn in on Ty’s background. She knew the Bryant brothers had lost their parents when Ty was twenty and Ty had taken responsibility for his fifteen-and eighteen-year-old siblings. He had struggled to support them with the family’s ailing construction company and, against the odds, had transformed the local contractor into a supersuccessful development business.

      It was a no-brainer to realize Ty’s difficult life had made him somewhat harsh. But, justifiably grouchy or not, the guy had to clean up his act. That was why his much nicer brother Seth had hired her.

      “You need to get out into the community—”

      “Cancel it.”

      Madelyn took a silent breath, remembering how Ty’s employees had called him Tyrant Ty, the boss from hell. As far as Madelyn was concerned, if his employees couldn’t even be kind to him while he was away for a funeral, there was no telling what they would say to the Wall Street Journal reporter scheduled to arrive in three weeks. Madelyn couldn’t let a member of the media anywhere near the unhappy residents of Porter, Arkansas, until Ty’s employees at least stopped name-calling.

      “I can’t. It’s all arranged. Besides, you—”

      “I said cancel it. I will give the Wall Street Journal an interview because Seth thinks it’s necessary to get our company name in a newspaper with national circulation so we’re recognized when we begin bidding on federal projects. But I won’t participate in a sap fest.”

      Madelyn gasped. “This isn’t a sap fest! You’re presenting playground equipment to a day care! You need this event to soften your reputation in the community.”

      That made him laugh. “Ms. Gentry, I spent fifteen years getting this reputation, there’s no way in hell I want it softened.”

      So, he was an ogre by choice. Great. There was no way she could repair his image. The best she could hope for was that his employees would feel better about him after he gave the gym sets to the day care, and pray the afterglow from his donation lingered at least until the reporter came to Porter.

      “I understand that, but…”

      “And I’m not giving away thirty thousand dollars.”

      “You’re not giving away thirty thousand dollars. You’re donating equipment to the day care that babysits most of your employees’ children. Think of it as thirty thousand dollars of goodwill.”

      “Baloney. Swings and gym sets and volleyballs—”

      “Will win over parents,” she interrupted, finding the perfect opening to get her point across, but Ty didn’t let her finish.

      “And that’s another thing,” he said, rising and tossing a second piece of paper at her. “Who wrote this speech? It’s the most disgusting piece of drivel I’ve ever read. Giving some kid a swing does not turn him into a leader.”

      “It’s not the swing. It’s the sense of community…”

      “Elitist liberal crap,” Ty said, walking to the wall of window behind his desk and looking out at the rural Arkansas town that housed his company. Tall and broad-shouldered, he stood ramrod straight. His dark hair gleamed in the late-afternoon sun. Madelyn couldn’t help noticing again that the man was hot, but it was too bad all those good looks were wasted on a grouch.

      “The last thing kids need is to be mollycoddled. What they really should learn is to earn what they get and to pull their own weight. If you think otherwise, you’re certainly not the person to be doing Bryant Development’s public relations. You’re fired.”

      Madelyn blinked, stunned. “What?”

      He faced her. His dark eyes were cold and serious. “You…are…fired,” he said, enunciating each word as if he were speaking to a slow-witted child. “Pack your things and go.”

      Madelyn’s mouth fell open in complete shock. Suddenly grouch, ogre, scrooge and troll seemed too kind to describe Ty Bryant. Even tyrannical dictator didn’t hit the mark. He was the coldest man she had ever met. He was, quite simply, a public relations nightmare and she realized nobody was going to clean up this guy’s image—not even somebody who desperately needed to.

      She was at the end of the money she’d saved while working for a high-powered PR firm in Atlanta. Her father had recovered from the heart attack that had brought her home the year before, but she still didn’t feel right about leaving. She and her sister and their two brothers had all moved to other parts of the country to find work, and her parents were alone. Arlene sold medical supplies in the northwest and couldn’t live in Arkansas. Jeff and Marty both worked for big corporations that didn’t have offices anywhere near Porter. Madelyn was the logical choice to return to their hometown.

      She’d tried drumming up consulting jobs, but in little Porter she didn’t get much work. She wrote a few press releases for local politicians and helped some people enhance their résumés, but that had been about it.

      Seth Bryant had dangled two enticing possibilities when he offered her this assignment. First, working for Bryant Development would give her exposure enough to get new clients—maybe not in Porter but close enough that she could still live in Porter. And second, Seth planned to talk Ty into creating a permanent PR department. If she succeeded in cleaning up Ty’s image, she would be the logical choice to head it.

      But after meeting Ty Bryant she had to be realistic. He wasn’t the kind of guy positive PR could change overnight—or even in the three weeks she had before the reporter arrived—and there was a bigger chance she would fail than succeed. Then there would be no job at Bryant Development. Plus, if word leaked that she’d failed, she wouldn’t attract new individual assignments. She might even lose the résumé business she had. Either way, she would be returning to Atlanta.

      “Excuse me?” Joni O’Brien, Ty’s secretary, poked her head into Ty’s office doorway, and Madelyn and Ty’s attention turned to the petite brunette.

      Clearly annoyed, Ty said, “Joni, I’m meeting with someone. You know better than to disturb me.”

      “Well, okay. Then I won’t tell you that I’m leaving to take my kids to the dentist or that the attorney for your cousin Scotty’s estate is here to see you.”

      “Why is Scotty’s attorney here?” Ty asked, obviously surprised by the visit.

      “I think I’d better let him answer that.” Joni turned toward the reception area and said, “Mr. Hauser, why don’t you go ahead in?”

      “Joni! I can’t see him…” Ty began, going from annoyed to furious in under five seconds, but when Pete Hauser, one of only two attorneys who had offices in Porter, stepped into the doorway, Ty stopped talking.

      Madelyn’s face scrunched in