A Baby For The Boss. Maureen Child

Basically, they’d taken a long time-out. She smiled to herself at the thought.

      Turning her head on the pillow, she studied Mike, using the moment to really look at him while he was completely unaware. He didn’t look young and innocent in his sleep, she thought. He looked sexy. Dangerous. Like the hard man he was. And yet... She curled her fingers into her palm to keep from reaching out, stroking his beard-shadowed jaw.

      Jenny’s heart took a slow tumble. Pitiful, she told herself with a heavy, inward sigh. How could she feel so much for a man who thought of her as a thief and worse? And why did she care what he thought about her?

      “You’re thinking too loud.” He opened his eyes and stared at her.

      “A lot to think about,” she said just as quietly.

      “I suppose,” he agreed, one corner of his mouth lifting into a seductive smile. “But we don’t have to think about it right this minute, do we?”

      Under the blanket, Mike reached for her and slid one hand along her curves. Jenny held her breath as his hand glided up from her hip, along her ribs to cup her breast. She sighed when his thumb brushed across her nipple. No, they didn’t have to think. Didn’t have to let this night end just yet. The sun was coming up and soon enough, they’d have to face the real world again. The world where the two of them stood on opposite sides of a wall Jenny had believed would never be breached.

      But for now...

      “No,” she said, moving into him, “there’s no rush to start thinking.”

      He kissed her and as she fell into the swirl of sensations, Jenny put everything else out of her mind.

      * * *

      An hour later, though, she knew it was over. Even with his weight pressing her into the mattress, even with his body deep inside hers, she felt Mike pulling away from her. As physically close as they were at that moment, there was a distance between them that lovemaking couldn’t bridge. All this time with him had actually managed to do was enforce the lines separating them. To make things worse, now it would be even harder to work with him over the coming months.

      He rolled to the side and went up on one elbow. Shooting a quick glance at the window and the rays of sunlight peeking through, he shifted his gaze back to her and said, “I should go.”

      “Yeah.” Jenny looked at him and sketched this view of him into her memory. Hair mussed, a shadow of whiskers and that amazing mouth of his quirked into a rueful smile. If she’d had any sense at all, instead of trying to build a memory, she would have been attempting to put this time with Mike out of her mind completely.

      She wasn’t sure where they would be going from here, but she knew that whatever connection they’d found, however briefly, was gone. Over.

      “Look,” he said, gently pushing her hair back from her face, “last night was—”

      “A mistake, I know,” she finished for him, since it was easier to say it than to hear it.

      He frowned, rolled off the bed and grabbed his clothes, pulling them on while he talked. “Can’t really call it a mistake since it was something we both wanted.”

      How did he do that? she wondered. He was right there, within reach, and yet he’d pulled so far away that he might as well have been in a different city. A cold ball of regret dropped into the pit of her stomach.

      “Last night didn’t change anything, Jenny.”

      She nearly sighed because she knew exactly where this conversation was headed. “I know, you don’t trust me.”

      “You lied to me the first night I met you.”

      “I didn’t lie,” she argued tiredly. God, she hated having to defend herself over and over to a man who refused to see past his own suspicions. How could he sleep with her, make love with her and not have the slightest clue who she really was? “Since I’ve worked for Celtic Knot, haven’t I done a good job? Have I ever let anyone down? Doesn’t that count for something?”

      “Yeah, it does,” he said shortly. “You know it does. But it can’t change the past.” His features tightened and his mouth thinned into one grim line as he held up one hand for peace before she could respond.

      “Let’s not,” he said. “You have done good work for us, Jenny. That’s why we’ve got a problem now. You’re the logical choice to do the work on the River Haunt hotel, but if we have to stay on the project together it’s going to be more difficult than it has to be.”

      Shaking her head, she only stared at him. Difficult? Like going into the office every day and feeling him watching her warily? Like knowing that he was waiting for her to screw up? To prove that she was exactly the liar and cheat he took her for?

      She pushed off the bed and quickly snatched her robe off the end of the bed. They weren’t going to argue about the past, fine. But she was more than ready to fight for the present and her own future. And damned if she’d do it naked. Slipping the robe on, she belted it tightly, then shook her hair back and turned to face the man who continued to haunt her. “It’s not a problem for me, Mike. I’m going to do a hell of a good job on that hotel. And it doesn’t have to be difficult if you’ll just trust me to do what I’m best at.”

      For a second she thought he might argue that point, but instead, he blew out a breath and shoved one hand through his hair. “All right. We do the hotel. We do the job. Then we’re done.”

      Eager, wasn’t he, to push her aside and keep her there? But even he had to realize that he’d said pretty much the same thing about being done with her more than a year before. And yet, here they were, facing each other across yet another rumpled bed.

      Still, it’s what she wanted, Jenny reminded herself. A chance to prove herself on the hotel project without being at war with Mike, because it really would make things harder. So why, she wondered, did she suddenly feel so terrible now that he was offering her just that? She scrubbed her hands up and down her arms as if to chase away the bone-deep chill crawling through her, but it didn’t help.

      “We keep...this,” he said, waving one hand at the disheveled quilt and the still-warm sheets, “between us and do what we have to do.”

      Another secret, then, Jenny thought. But probably better that the people at work didn’t know what was going on between them. Since even she wasn’t sure what exactly it was they shared, beyond the burn and desire.

      Nodding, she asked, “Do we shake hands on it?”

      For the first time that morning his lips curved in a half smile. “I think we can do better than that.”

      He walked up to her, cupped her face between his palms and bent his head for a kiss. His mouth was firm, soft and left hers all too quickly. She really was an idiot, Jenny thought as her insides jumped and her heart galloped. The kiss meant nothing. She meant nothing to him and oh, boy, was that a hard thing to acknowledge. But she knew it was only hunger that burned between them, nothing more. Yet she looked into his eyes and found herself wishing things were different. Wishing for—

      “I’ll see you at the office?”

      “Yeah,” she said abruptly, cutting off her own thoughts before they could lead her down completely ridiculous paths. “I’ll be there.”

      “All right, then.” He turned away to grab his jacket off the floor. Shrugging it on, he looked back at her and said, “In honor of this new cooperation between us, I’d like you to go to Laughlin with me in a week or so. Check out the new hotel. I want to walk the property, get a feel for it before we start the renovations.”

      “Good.” She forced a smile that she hoped looked more convincing than it felt. “It would be good for me to get an on-site idea for the placement of the murals.”

      “Okay.” He tugged the jacket into place. “We’ll go out a week from Monday. Figure to stay at least overnight. I’ll have Linda make reservations at the River Lodge.”