The Boss's Baby Bargain. Karen Sandler

on to someone. No brothers or sisters, no parents—a knot twisted inside him painfully—he had to give what he possessed to a child, a child of his own.

      He didn’t completely understand his own motives. As a boy, he’d dreamed of wealth and riches. He’d longed for something as simple as a home of his own during the long, lonely nights spent in a strange bed at yet another foster placement. If he could save even one boy or girl from a life like his, it might begin to make up for those years of deprivation.

      Or at least that was what he told himself.

      He never would have let Carol go if he’d felt the urgency for a son or daughter so strongly seven years ago. He would have found a way to keep her. Never mind that there was no love lost between them, he would have tied her down somehow. Hell, he might have even made her pregnant, if he could have been sure the child would inherit her genes and not his. It was just as well he’d felt differently then. To have brought a child into a marriage like his and Carol’s would have been cruel.

      He pressed his palm against the wall of glass behind his desk, gazed down on his domain. The swan and her mate had disappeared back into the reeds. The breathless stillness of late summer left the man-made pond surface mirror-smooth, forming a near-perfect oval. That was his life, a construction of perfection, from the neatly manicured lawns of the TaylorMade campus to the sleek barren lines of his home in nearby Granite Bay. From the artwork lining the walls of his home to the acres of tastefully decorated office space, he lived a perfect life.

      If only his soul weren’t so damned empty.

      Shooting the cuffs of his jacket, he checked the time on the slim gold watch on his wrist. He had a meeting scheduled in ten minutes with research and development in one of the other buildings. Then there was a lunchtime interview for a project lead position opening up soon. Then, finally, he could return to his office and resume his conversation with Allie.

      Although talk was the last thing he wanted to do with her. He wanted her in his arms, pressed against his body. He wanted to bury his face in the silk of her hair, to grab a handful of her soft skirt and ease it up her legs. To inhale her beguiling scent and trail his tongue down the slender column of her throat.

      Good God, what the hell was he thinking? Gritting his teeth against his body’s response to the all-too-vivid images, he slammed his chair into the well of his desk. Gathering up the papers scattered across the desk, he stuffed them into his briefcase and headed for the door.

      Allie wasn’t at her desk—thank God for that. Lord only knew what he might do with the tantalizing images still dancing in his head. Stepping past her desk, he headed for the elevators and slapped the down button.

      When the elevator door opened, he wasn’t prepared for the sight of Allie inside, head bent down, arms crossed over her middle. When her head swung up and she met his gaze, the impact of the visual contact felt as physical as a punch to the gut. The eager fantasies started up again, made more real by her presence. His hungry gaze took in the picture she made—her wary green eyes, the silky dark hair brushing her shoulders, the contrast of her pale arms to the copper-colored shell top she wore. Her flowered skirt reached nearly to her ankles, but somehow it was more provocative than the shortest of minis.

      The door started to close; he reached out a hand to stop it. Her gaze fell from his as color rose in her cheeks. She moved past him out of the elevator. “Sorry,” she said, her low voice setting off new flares inside him.

      He stepped inside the elevator, keeping a hand on the door. “I’ll be over in R and D.”

      She seemed to want to look anywhere but at him. Good God, had she somehow picked up on his ridiculous middle-aged fantasies? That would be a disaster. At the least she’d want to transfer into another department. At the worst she might leave TaylorMade entirely, take a position at another firm.

      The elevator buzzed, cutting into his thoughts. He wished she’d look up at him, so he could try to read what might be on her mind. The elevator buzzed again, so he called out, “See you after lunch,” then let go of the door. Just before it shut, she did look up at him, but damned if he could interpret what he’d seen in that brief glimpse of her green gaze.

      As he rode the elevator down, his stomach roiled with an unfamiliar anxiety. The sudden fear that Allie might leave, that his own lack of control might have driven her away dug its claws into him. When he should have been planning for the meeting ahead of him, his mind wouldn’t leave that fear alone.

      Was that what she’d come to talk to him about this morning? That she planned to leave the company? Despite his every effort to keep his feelings hidden, had she somehow sensed his passion for her? Lord, no wonder she’d seemed so skittish. She was probably afraid he’d make a play for her at any moment.

      He was such a damned idiot. Striding through the downstairs lobby, he gave the glass door leading to the outside a savage push. As he followed the concrete pathway leading to the next building, he ran over and over every nuance of what Allie had said—and hadn’t said—this morning.

      As he did, snatches of his conversation with John interwove themselves in his mind with images of Allie, and a preposterous idea floated briefly into his consciousness. He didn’t allow himself even a moment’s consideration before abandoning the notion. Instead he concentrated on the points he would use to counter Allie’s intent to leave.

      He’d convince her that her impressions were wrong. That what she’d sensed from him had been merely his admiration for her abilities as his admin assistant. Because that was all that really mattered—her value to him as an employee. The rest was just his ill-timed lack of control, a weakness of approaching middle age.

      Tugging open the door to the research and development building, he forced his attention back to his scheduled meeting. For the next hour he kept his focus there, his mind straying to thoughts of Allie no more than a half dozen times during the meeting.

      When Allie returned to her desk after lunch, she found a yellow sticky note on her phone. She recognized the handwriting on it immediately as Lucas’s hasty scrawl.

      Problem in R and D.

      Have to postpone our meeting.

      —L.

      She stared at the brief message with Lucas’s extravagant looping L at the bottom. He’d taken the time to write her a note? Ordinarily he’d bark out a few words to whoever was nearby, leaving Allie to ask around to discover his whereabouts.

      She was even more surprised when he called twenty minutes later, launching into his explanation without even a hello. “The developers and marketing are at each other’s throat. This might take the rest of the day.”

      Even the sound of his voice set off a trembling inside her. Eyes shut, she held the phone to her ear and willed herself to be calm. “No rush,” she said, even though her father’s dilemma pressed in on her. “We can try again tomorrow.”

      He paused, piquing her curiosity further. “What about dinner? Are you free?”

      “Dinner? Tonight?” She had nothing planned, but dinner with Lucas seemed terribly…intimate. Part of her ached to say yes even as her mind warned that she would be treading into dangerous territory.

      “If you have a date…”

      “No,” Allie said quickly. “Dinner tonight would be fine. What time?”

      “Six? Gives me a deadline for this group.”

      A deadline. Of course. Dinner with her gave him an excuse to call an end to what would likely be an interminable meeting. There was nothing intimate about it.

      “Six is fine. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” She pulled his calendar toward her, determined to be businesslike. “What about your afternoon appointments?”

      “What have I got?”

      “Two meetings, another interview.” She read the details from the calendar.

      “Attend the meetings in my place. Get Randy Sato to do the interview.