Booties And The Beast. Valerie Parv

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      It tore at Haley to recall that Ellen’s tumor had been in remission for a whole year when she’d started working with Sam as an illustrator for one of his books. They would never know whether the remission would have gone on if not for Ellen falling pregnant—and after seeing him, Haley didn’t doubt that Joel was Sam’s baby—but the strain of pregnancy hadn’t helped. Ellen’s life had ended one short month after giving birth to Joel. Only seeing the joy the baby had given her sister, eased Haley’s grief. She knew that Ellen wouldn’t have wanted anything to be different.

      Except Sam’s reaction. Her sister had been devastated by his rejection. After all her medical treatments, Ellen had been so sure she couldn’t become pregnant that she hadn’t taken any precautions. Ellen hadn’t gone into details, but Haley assumed that Sam hadn’t taken any, either. Despite the obvious fact they’d slept together, he couldn’t know Ellen very well if he thought she was the type to have any doubts about who had fathered her child.

      He probably thought she had picked on Sam because of his fame and obvious wealth. Only Haley knew that Ellen had given herself to Sam out of a moment of acute loneliness and fear. She had been awaiting the results of her latest checkup.

      Haley had heard the whole story late one night, several months after they’d learned that Ellen’s illness was back, when her pain made sleep impossible. Hearing her toss and turn, Haley had gone in to see if she could help, not that there was much she or anyone could do, but talking was one way she could take Ellen’s mind off her suffering for a little while.

      After Ellen had been working with Sam for some time, she told Haley, she had arrived to find Sam methodically tearing to shreds the divorce papers he’d received in the mail that morning.

      In turmoil herself as she waited for her doctor to call with the results of the checkup, she had been as averse to working as Sam and they had taken comfort in each other’s company. He hadn’t known why Ellen was so distressed but he’d sensed that she’d needed his arms as much as he’d needed hers. Joel had been the result.

      Knowing what hell her half sister had gone through before she went into remission, Haley couldn’t blame Ellen for taking what pleasure she could in the moment. She also knew her sister’s instinct would have been to try to help Sam. She had always been a giving person.

      Haley didn’t blame The Beast for seeking comfort after receiving the cold, hard proof that his marriage was over. Haley knew only too well how it felt when a relationship blew apart. She had been seeing Richard Cross, a business associate, for a few months, and had thought they were becoming close, when he told her bluntly to choose between him and her sister’s baby. She had felt as if her world had come to an end. There had been no real choice. She didn’t regret choosing the baby. But it still hurt.

      She couldn’t do anything to hold Richard, even supposing she wanted to after his cruel ultimatum. But she could and did blame Sam for his coldhearted refusal to accept his share of responsibility for Ellen’s baby. The thought gave Haley the strength to do the job Miranda had trusted her to do. Haley opened her brief case and took out a file. “I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather skip coffee and get on with the purpose of this meeting.”

      Sam gave a suit-yourself shrug. “I hope you don’t mind if I have some. I’ve been working since five this morning.” Without waiting for a reply, he disappeared into his office. Her anger notched higher as she heard the hiss of an espresso machine followed by the chink of a spoon against porcelain. Sam definitely didn’t stint himself.

      Apart from the luxury of an espresso machine in his office, the room around her screamed affluence from the Cedric Emmanuel etchings on the walls to the designer furnishings. Thinking of Joel back at the office with Miranda, Haley began to seethe. How dare Sam spoil himself while his son had so little?

      When Sam returned, cup in hand, the rich aroma of the coffee teased at her nostrils. She wished she hadn’t been so hasty in refusing some. Depriving herself wasn’t going to bring Sam into line, and her prickly behavior just might make him suspicious of her real motives.

      “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?” he asked, setting his cup down on a side table.

      “No, thank you,” she said, astonished that she could actually speak through clenched teeth. She had known that meeting Sam wouldn’t be a picnic, but she had never expected it to be this much of an ordeal. Nor that it would bring back so much of the past tragic year, when she’d nursed Ellen through her pregnancy, knowing that her illness had recurred.

      She had had to put her grief at losing her sister aside to take care of the baby. She had come to look upon Joel as her own child. Her anger at Sam was precisely because she now thought of Joel as her baby, she realized. There was no way she could be as objective as she wanted to be—as Miranda needed her to be—so they’d better get this over with before she said something she would regret. “I’d like to get down to business.”

      He prowled to the couch and sat beside her, so close, their thighs were within a whisper of touching. “Not until you tell me why you’re so angry with me,” he insisted. The invasion of her personal space was the last straw.

      Yet anger was the last thing she felt when he was practically touching her, she found to her astonishment. What she felt was insanely, vibrantly aroused, and it was not how she wanted to feel around him.

      “What makes you think I’m angry?” she asked, managing to keep her voice steady with an effort that made her teeth ache.

      “A writer’s instinct for reading people,” he said. “My guess is, you can barely restrain yourself from throwing something at me, and I’d like to know why. It can’t be because I growled at you over the intercom. I was still in midscene and when I’m writing, I can be a real bear. Miranda must have warned you about me.”

      She shook her head, taking refuge in the truth. “I got the impression you’re one of her favorite clients.”

      He smiled and the change was dramatic. She felt as if someone had turned on a sunlamp in the room, and actually found herself leaning toward him as if to the source of the energy. She pulled back with an effort. “Mine is a personal problem.”

      The word “personal” would have been enough to deter most men. But Sam looked interested. “Personal as in a man?”

      Without meaning to, she had hooked the writer in him, she saw. She would have to be more careful. “I really don’t think—”

      “My point exactly,” he cut in. “You can’t think straight when you’re preoccupied with another matter. Do I remind you of this man who’s on your mind?”

      If he only knew. She tried to keep her face impassive. Sam was too intuitive to accept an outright denial. “Perhaps.”

      “It would explain the displaced antagonism,” he said as if to himself. “Sorry, analyzing people is a hobby of mine, as it is with most writers.”

      “But you’re a children’s writer.”

      He looked affronted. “My readers still expect believable characters with convincing motivation. The only difference is that my stories are written at an appropriate level of vocabulary.”

      “I didn’t mean to suggest anything else.”

      His shoulders lifted. “I’m used to it. Demeaning children’s literature is a spectator sport for some people. Do you have children of your own, Haley?”

      “I hardly see—”

      “That it’s any of my business?” he finished for her. “You’re probably right, but if we’re to be on the same wavelength, I need to know more about you.”

      If it was a line, it was as smooth as silk, Haley thought. No wonder Ellen had found him so easy to fall for. Luckily she wasn’t going to make the same mistake. “All you need to know about me is that Miranda sent me to take care of your staffing needs.”

      “Precisely,” he concluded. “So, do you have children?”