Kitabı oxu: «Baby for the Tycoon»

For Tracy and Shellee, two great friends and phenomenal writers. Ladies, thanks for making this so much fun. And to Ivy Adams, ’cause… well, you know.

One

Jonathon Bagdon just wanted his assistant to come home, damn it.

Wendy Leland had left seven days ago to attend a family funeral. In the time she’d been gone, his whole company had started falling apart. A major deal she’d been finessing had fallen through. He’d missed an important deadline because the first temp had erased his online calendar. The second temp had accidentally sent R&D’s latest prototype to Beijing instead of Bangalore. The head of HR had threatened to quit twice. And no fewer than five women had run out of his office in tears.

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, the fourth temp had deep-fried the coffee maker. So he hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee in three days. All in all, this was not his best moment.

Was it really too much to ask that at this particular time—when both of his business partners were out of town and when he was putting the finishing touches on the proposal for a crucial contract—that his assistant just come home?

Jonathon stared into his mug of instant coffee, contemplating whether he could ask Jeanell—the head of HR—to go out and buy a coffee maker, or if that would send her over the edge. Not that Jeanell was at the office yet. Most of the staff wandered in sometime around nine. It was barely seven.

Yes, he could have just gone out to buy himself a cup o’ joe—or better yet, a new coffee maker—but with one deadline after another piling up, he just didn’t have time for this crap. If Wendy had been here, a new coffee maker would have magically appeared. The same way the deal with Olson Inc. would have gone through without a hitch. When Wendy was here, things just worked. How was it that in the short five years she’d been the executive assistant here she’d become as crucial to the running of the company as he himself was?

Hell, if this past week was any indication, she was actually more important than he was. A sobering thought for a man who’d helped to build an empire out of nothing.

He knew only one thing, when Wendy did get back, he was going to do his damnedest to make sure she never left again.

Wendy Leland crept into the executive office of FMJ headquarters a little after seven. The motion sensor brought the lights up as she entered and she reached down to extend the canopy on the infant car seat she carried. Peyton, the tiny baby inside, frowned but remained asleep. She made a soft gurgling sound as Wendy lowered the car seat to a darkened corner behind her desk.

She rocked the seat gently until Peyton stilled, then Wendy dropped into her own swivel chair. Swallowing past the knot of dread in her throat, Wendy studied the office.

For five years, this had been the seat from which she’d surveyed her domain. She’d served as executive assistant for the three men who ran FMJ: Ford Langley, Matt Ballard and Jonathon Bagdon.

Her five years of Ivy League education made her perhaps a tad over-educated for the job. Or maybe not, since she hadn’t procured an actual degree in any of her seven majors. Her family still thought she was wasting her talents. But the work was challenging and varied. She’d loved every minute of it. Nothing could have convinced her to leave FMJ.

Nothing, except the little bundle of joy asleep in the car seat.

When she’d left Palo Alto for Texas to attend her cousin Bitsy’s funeral, she’d had no idea what awaited her. From the moment her mother called her to tell her that Bitsy had died in a motorcycle crash, the week had been one shock after another. She hadn’t even known that Bitsy had a child. No one in the family had. Yet, now here Wendy was, guardian to an orphaned four-month-old baby. And gearing up for a custody battle of epic proportions. Peyton Morgan might as well have been dipped in gold the way the family was fighting over her. If Wendy wanted any chance of winning, she’d have to do the one thing she’d sworn she’d never do: move back to Texas. And that meant resigning from FMJ.

Only Bitsy could create this many problems from the grave.

Wendy gave a snort of laughter at the thought. Grief welled up in the wake of the humor. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed the heels of her hands against her eye sockets. Exhaustion had made her punchy, and if she gave in to her sorrow now, she might not stop crying for a month.

There would be time to grieve later. Right now, she had other things to take care of.

Wendy flicked on the desktop computer. Last night, she’d drafted the letter of resignation and then emailed it to herself. Of course, she could have sent it straight to Ford, Matt and Jonathon. She’d even spoken to Ford last night on the phone when he called to offer his condolences. Physically handing in the letter was a formality, but she wanted the closure that would come with printing it out, signing it and hand delivering it to Jonathon.

She owed him—or rather FMJ—that much at least. Before her life became chaotic, she wanted to take this one moment to say goodbye to the Wendy she had been and to the life she’d lived in Palo Alto.

Beside her, the computer hummed to life with a familiarity that soothed her nerves. A few clicks later, she’d opened the letter and routed it to the printer. The buzz of the printer seemed to echo through the otherwise quiet office. No one else was here this early. No one but Jonathon, who worked a grueling schedule.

After signing the letter, she left it on her desk and crossed to the closed door that separated her office from theirs. A wave of regret washed over her. She pressed her palm flat to the door, and then with a sigh, dropped her forehead onto the wood just above her hand. The door was solid beneath her head. Sturdy. Dependable. And she felt herself leaning against it, needing all the strength she could borrow.

“You can hardly blame Wendy,” Matt Ballard pointed out, a note of censure in his voice. At the moment, Matt was in the Caribbean, on his honeymoon. It was why they’d scheduled this conference call for so early. Matt’s new wife, Claire, allowed him exactly one business call a day. “It’s the first time in five years she’s taken personal leave.”

“I didn’t say I blamed her—” Jonathon said into the phone, now sorry he’d called Matt at all. He’d had a legitimate reason for calling, but now it sounded as though he was just whining.

“When is she supposed to be back?” Matt asked.

“She was supposed to be back four days ago.” She’d said she’d be in Texas two to three days, tops. After the funeral, she’d called from Texas to say she’d have to stay “a little longer.” The lack of specificity made him nervous.

“Stop worrying,” Matt told him. “We’ll have plenty of time after Ford and I get back.” As if it wasn’t bad enough that Matt was on his honeymoon during this crisis, Ford and his family were also away, at their second home in New York City. “The proposal isn’t due for nearly a month.”

Yes. That was what bothered him. “Nearly a month” and “plenty of time” were about as imprecise as “a little longer.” Jonathon was a man who liked precise numbers. If he was putting together an offer for a company worth millions, it mattered if the company was worth ten million or a hundred million. And even if he had nearly a month to work on the proposal, he wanted to know how long a little longer was.

Rather than take out his frustrations on his partner, Jonathon ended the phone call. This government contract was driving him crazy. Worse still was the fact that no one else seemed to be worried about it. For the past several years, research and development at FMJ had been perfecting smart grid meters, devices that could monitor and regulate a building’s energy use. FMJ’s system was more efficient and better designed than anything else on the market. Since they’d been using them at headquarters, they’d cut their electricity bills by thirty percent. This government contract would put FMJ’s smart grid meters in every federal building in the country. The private sector would follow. Plus the meters would boost sales of other FMJ products. How could he not be excited about something that was going to cut energy consumption and make FMJ so much money?

Everything he’d been working for and planning for the past decade hinged on this one deal. It was the stepping-stone to FMJ’s future. But first they had to actually get the contract.

Once he snapped his laptop closed, he heard a faint thump at the door. He wasn’t optimistic enough to imagine the temp might come in this early. But did he even dare hope that Wendy had finally returned?

He pushed back his chair and strode across the oversize office he normally shared with Matt and Ford. When he opened the door, Wendy fell right into his arms.

Though unexpectedly falling through an open door seemed an apt metaphor for her life at the moment, nevertheless Wendy was surprised to find herself actually falling through the doorway. Jonathon’s arms instantly wrapped around her, cradling her safely against his strong chest. One shoulder was pressed against him and her free hand automatically came up to the lapel of his suit jacket.

Suddenly she was aware of several things. The sharply crisp scent of his soap. The sheer breadth of his chest. And the clean, just-shaven line of his jaw, which was the first thing she saw when she looked up.

Normally, she did a decent job of ignoring it, but Jonathon Bagdon was the stuff of pure, girlish fantasies. He always looked on the verge of frowning, which lent his expression an air of thoughtful intensity. Though he rarely smiled, when he did, deep dimples creased his cheeks.

At just shy of six feet, he wasn’t too tall, but his physique more than made up for what he lacked in height. He had a build more suited to barroom brawls than boardroom negotiations. He was strong and muscular. She’d never seen his naked chest, but he had a habit of shucking his suit jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt when he worked. Obviously she spent too much time looking at him. But until this moment, she’d never noticed he had a single mole on the underside of his perfectly square jaw.

Staring up into his green-brown eyes, she felt something unexpected pass between them. An awareness maybe. Some tension she’d never felt before. Or perhaps something she was too smart to let herself feel.

He swallowed. Fascinated, she watched the muscles of his throat shift mere inches from her face. She flattened her palm and pushed herself out of his arms.

She was all too aware of Jonathon’s gaze following her every move. And even more aware that her outfit was inappropriate for work. He’d never seen her in jeans before. Certainly not topped with her favorite T-shirt, a retro Replacements concert T-shirt she’d bought online as her twenty-first birthday present to herself. It was old and ratty and she’d cut the neck out of it years ago. But somehow the shirt was all comfort. And today, she needed comfort more than she needed professionalism.

But, dang it, she wished he would stop looking at her with that hungry look.

It wasn’t the first time in the five years they’d worked together that she’d seen him look at her like that. As if she was a temptation he had to resist. But it was the first time she’d allowed herself to feel even the faintest bit of need in return. Jonathon may be the stuff of feminine fantasies, but he was hell on women. She’d watched up close and personal as he’d trampled countless female hearts. She’d promised herself long ago that she’d never join the legions of women crushed by Jonathon Bagdon.

She could only hope that this new awareness she felt for him was the result of her exhaustion. Or perhaps her emotional vulnerability. Or maybe some bizarre hormone malfunction. At any rate, she wouldn’t be around long enough for it to matter.

Jonathon wanted to pull her back into his arms. He didn’t, of course. But he wanted to.

Instead, he held open the office door with one hand and shoved the other deep into his pants pocket, hoping to hide the effect her nearness had had on his body. As ridiculous as it was, in the few seconds he’d held his tempting little assistant against his chest, his body had responded. Only her shoulder and her palm had touched him and he’d still gone rock hard.

Of course, he’d felt that punch of desire for Wendy before. But normally he was better at schooling his response to her. Then again, she was usually dressed in blandly professional, business casual clothes. Not today. Her faded jeans were skintight and her T-shirt hung loose on her, its wide neck baring a tempting swath of collarbones, part of one shoulder and a hot pink bra strap.

He swallowed again, forcing his gaze back up to her face, searching for something to say. Something other than “Lose the shirt.”

“I trust your trip went well,” he finally ventured.

She frowned and took another step back.

Then he remembered she’d been to a funeral. Hardly the kind of trip that would go well. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he added. Her frown deepened. Were those tears in her eyes? “However, I am very glad to have you back.”

He sounded like an idiot. Which was not wholly unexpected. He didn’t deal well with emotional women.

“I—” she started.

Then she broke off again. She turned away from him and pressed her hands to her face. If the tension in her shoulders was any indication, she was about two seconds away from bursting into tears.

In five years, Wendy had been nothing but completely professional. If she was going to break into tears, why couldn’t she have done it when Ford was here to deal with her? Ford had three sisters, a mother, a stepmother, a wife and a daughter. Surely all of those women in his life had better prepared him for dealing with this sort of thing.

Jonathon followed her into the front office and placed a hand on her back. He meant it to be comforting, but he was instantly aware that he’d placed it on the shoulder bared by her shirt. She twisted to look at him, her eyes wide and surprised, damp with unshed tears, but lit with something else as well. Beneath his hand her skin was hot, the strap of her bra silky and tempting.

She bit her lip again before pulling free of his touch.

And then he heard it. The unmistakable sound of crying. But not a woman crying. And it wasn’t coming from Wendy.

Confused, he walked in and scanned the room for the source of the sound. It wasn’t all-out screaming. More of a soft, mewling noise. Like a puppy might make. The room appeared empty. He moved toward the sound as Wendy rushed up behind him and practically threw herself in his path.

“I can explain!” She held up her hands in front of her as if warding off an attack.

“Explain what?” He dodged around her to look behind the desk. Her chair had been shifted to the side and where Wendy normally sat was an infant’s car seat. And in that was a pale pink bundle.

He turned back to Wendy. “What is that?”

“That’s a baby.”

Jonathon’s shock was palpable.

If she didn’t know better, Wendy would have thought he’d never even seen a baby before. Though she imagined they were rare in his life, surely he had encountered at least one. After all, Ford had one himself. Jonathon must have been in the same room as his best friend’s child at some point.

She dashed around him and squatted beside the car seat. She gave the back of it a gentle nudge but Peyton continued to fuss. Peyton’s sleepy eyes flickered open, blinked and then focused on Wendy.

Something inside of Wendy tightened into a knot. A gut-level reaction to those bright blue eyes. Perhaps the only thing she’d ever felt that was actually stronger than that burst of attraction she’d felt for Jonathon just now.

Of course, she couldn’t have Jonathon. She wasn’t stupid enough to try. But for now, she did have Peyton. And she’d do anything in her power to keep her.

She unfastened the buckle strapping Peyton in and picked up the pink cotton bundle. Snuggling the baby close to her chest, she pressed her lips near Peyton’s ear and made shushing noises. Then she drew in a breath scented like tear-free shampoo and pure love.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious, she looked up to find Jonathon watching her, a frown on his face.

She tried to smile but felt it wavering under the weight of her shifting emotions. “Jonathon, meet Peyton.”

“Right,” he said bracingly and he looked from her to the baby and then all around the room as if searching for the spaceship that must have dropped off this strange creature. “What is it doing in our office?”

“She’s here because I brought her here.” Which maybe hadn’t been the smartest move, but she and Peyton had only gotten in the previous evening, after driving from Boulder, Colorado. With less than seventy-two hours of parenting experience under her belt, Wendy hadn’t known what else to do with Peyton. “I didn’t have anyone to watch her. And I don’t think she’s ready to be left with a stranger yet anyway. I mean, I’m strange enough, right? And—”

Jonathon cut her off. “Wendy, why do you have a baby?” His gaze dropped to her belly, suspicion lighting his gaze. “She’s not… yours, is she?”

She was glad he’d cut her off, because she’d been babbling, but at the same time dreading the conversation to come, because he was not going to like what she had to say. Still, when she glanced down at the sixteen-pound baby, she had to laugh.

“No, I didn’t go away for seven days and miraculously get pregnant, gestate and deliver a four-month-old. She’s—” Her throat closed over the words, but she forced herself to say them. “She was my cousin’s. Bitsy named me guardian. So she is mine now.”

There was a long moment of silence during which Jonathon’s expression was so blank, so unchanging she thought he might have suffered a stroke.

“I—” he began. Then he looked down at Peyton, his frown deepening. “Well—” He looked back at her and cocked his head to the side. “It turns out Jeanell was right. On-site childcare was a good idea. I’m sure she’ll be just fine there.”

Dread settled in Wendy’s belly. As well as something else. Sorrow. Nostalgia maybe. She didn’t want to leave FMJ. Even though she was just an assistant here, she’d never felt more at home anywhere else. Professionally or personally. Working at FMJ had given her purpose and direction. Something her family had never understood.

“I’m not going to bring Peyton to work,” she began. And then decided there was no point in pussyfooting around this. “I’m not coming to work anymore. I came in today to resign.”

Two

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jonathon barked, too shocked to temper the edge of his words. “Nobody quits a job because they have a baby, much less because they inherited one.”

Wendy rolled her eyes in exasperation. “That’s not—” she started, but he held up a hand to cut her off.

“I know how stupid that sounded.” This was why he needed Wendy. Why she was irreplaceable. Most of the time, he was too outspoken. Too blunt. Too brash. He had a long history of pissing off people who were easily offended. But not Wendy. Somehow, she managed to see past his mistakes and overlook his blunders.

The thought of trying to function without her here as his buffer made him panic. He wasn’t about to lose her over a baby.

“FMJ has one of the highest-rated on-site child-care facilities in the area. There’s no reason why you can’t continue to work here.”

“I can’t work here because I have to move back to Texas.”

As she spoke, she crossed to the supply closet in the corner. She moved a few things around inside and pulled out an empty cardboard box.

“Why on earth would you want to move to Texas?”

She shot him another one of those looks. “You know I’m from Texas, right?”

“Which is why I don’t know why you’d want to move back there. I’ve never once heard you say anything nice about living there.”

She bobbed her head as if in concession of the point. Then she shrugged. Rounding to the far side of the desk, she sank into the chair and opened her drawer. “It’s complicated.”

“I think I can keep up.”

“There’s a chance members of my family won’t want me to raise Peyton. Unless I can convince them I’m the best mother for her, there’ll be a custody battle.”

“So? You don’t think you can win the battle from here?”

“I don’t think I can afford to fight it.” Sifting through things in the drawer, she answered without looking up. She pulled out a handful of personal belongings and dropped them into the open box.

He watched her for a moment, barely comprehending her words and not understanding her actions at all. “What are you doing?”

She paused, glancing up. “Packing,” she said as if stating the obvious. Then she looked back into the drawer and riffled through a few more things. “Ford called yesterday to offer his condolences. When I explained, he said not to worry about giving two-weeks’ notice. That if I needed to just pack up and go, I should.”

Forget twenty-two years of friendship. He was going to kill Ford.

The baby squirmed. Wendy jostled her knee to calm the little girl, all the while still digging in the drawer. “I swear I had another tube of lip gloss in here.”

“Lip gloss?” She’d just pulled the rug out from under him.

If he’d had two weeks, maybe he could talk some sense into her. But no. His idiot of a partner had ripped that away too. And she was worried about lip gloss?

She must have heard the outrage in his voice, because her head snapped up. “It was my favorite color and they don’t even make it anymore. And—” She slammed the drawer shut and yanked open another. “Oh, forget it.”

“You can’t quit.”

She stood up, abandoning her task. “You think I want this? You think I want to move? Back to Texas? You think I want to leave a job I love? So that I can move home? I don’t! But it’s my only option.”

“How will being unemployed in Texas solve anything?” he demanded.

“I…” Peyton squirmed again in her arms and let out a howl of protest. Wendy sighed, sank back into the chair and set it rocking with a pump of her leg. “I may not have mentioned it before, but my family has money.”

She hadn’t mentioned it. She’d never needed to.

People who grew up with money had an air about them. It wasn’t snobbery. Not precisely. It was more a sense of confidence that came from always having the best of everything. It was the kind of thing you only noticed if you’d never had money and had spent your life trying to replicate that air of entitlement.

Besides, there was an innate elegance to Wendy that was in direct contrast to her elfin appearance and plucky verve. Yet somehow she pulled it off.

“From money?” he said dryly. “I never would have guessed.”

Wendy seemed too distracted to notice his sarcasm. “My grandfather set up a trust for me. For all the grandkids, actually. I never claimed mine. The requirements seemed too ridiculous.”

“And the requirements are?”

“I have to work for the family company and live within fifteen miles of my parents.” She narrowed her eyes as if glaring at some unseen relative. Peyton let out another shriek of frustration and Wendy snapped back to the present. “So if I move home now—”

“You can claim the trust,” he summed up. “You’d have enough money to hire a lawyer if it does come down to a custody battle.”

“I’m hoping it won’t come to that. My grandmother still controls the purse strings. The rest of the family will follow her wishes. Once she sees what a great mother I’m going to be, she’ll back off and just let me raise Peyton.” Wendy’s jaw jutted forward in determination. “But if it does come to a custody battle, I want to be sure I have enough money to put up a good fight.”

“I don’t get it. You’re doing all this for a cousin you barely knew? Someone you hadn’t seen in years?”

Wendy’s eyes misted over and for a second he thought that—dear God—she might actually start crying. She squeezed the baby close to her chest and planted a kiss on top of her head. Then she pinned him with a steady gaze brimming with resolution. “If something happened to Ford and Kitty, and they wanted you to take Ilsa, wouldn’t you do whatever it took to honor their wishes?”

All he could do in response was shove his hands deep into his pockets and swallow a curse. Damn it, she was right.

He stared at the adorable tot on Wendy’s lap, summing up his competition. He wasn’t about to lose the best assistant he’d ever had. He didn’t care how cute and helpless that baby was.

Peyton undoubtedly needed Wendy. But he needed her too.

Fighting the feeling of complete and utter doom—which, frankly, was a fight she’d been losing ever since the nanny had first handed her Peyton—Wendy glanced from the baby, to the open desk drawer and then to Jonathon.

She had so much to do, her mind couldn’t focus on a single task. Or maybe it was lack of sleep. Or maybe just an attack of nerves brought on by the way Jonathon kept pacing from one side of the room to the other, pausing occasionally to glower in her direction.

When she’d first started work at FMJ, Jonathon had made her distinctly nervous. There was something about his combination of magnetic good looks, keen intelligence and ruthless ambition that made her overly aware of every molecule of her body. And every molecule of his body for that matter. She’d spent the first six months on edge, jumping every time he came in the room, nearly trembling under his gaze. It wasn’t nerves precisely. More a kind of tingling anticipation. As if she were a gazelle who wanted to be eaten by the lion.

She’d forced herself to get over it.

And she’d thought she’d been successful. Only now that feeling was back. Either she could chalk it up to exhaustion and emotional vulnerability. Or she could be completely honest with herself. It wasn’t nerves. It was sexual awareness. And now that she was about to walk out of his life forever, she wished she’d acted on it when she’d had the chance.

Forcing her mind away from that thought, she stared at the open desk drawer. The lip gloss was gone forever, just like any opportunity she might have had to explore a different kind of relationship with Jonathon. The best she could hope for now was to gather her few remaining possessions and make a run for it.

She had a Voldemort for President coffee mug in the bottom drawer, her Bose iPod dock, a tub of Just Fruit strawberries and in the very back, a bag of Ghirardelli chocolate caramels. Precious few possessions to be walking away with after five years, and the cardboard box dwarfed them. On the bright side, at least she’d only have to make one trip out to the car.

Balancing Peyton on her hip, she wedged the box under her arm only to find Jonathon blocking her route to the door.

“You can’t go.”

“Right. The car seat. I can’t believe I forgot that.” She turned back around, only to notice the diaper bag as well.

She blew out a breath. Okay. More than one trip after all.

“No,” Jonathon said. “I’m not letting you quit.”

Turning back around, she stared at him. “Not letting me? How can you not let me? If I quit, I quit.”

“You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had. I’m not going to lose you over something this…” He seemed to be searching for the least offensive word. “Frivolous.”

She raised an eyebrow. “She’s a child, not a frivolity. It’s not like I’m running off to join the circus.”

There was something unsettling about the quiet, assessing way he studied her. Then he said, “If keeping this baby is really so important to you, we’ll hire a lawyer. We’ll find the best lawyer in the country. We’ll take care of it.”

She felt her throat tighten, but refused to let the tears out of the floodgate. Oh, how tempting it was to accept his help. But the poor man had no idea what he was getting into.

“You should know, my family is extremely wealthy. If they fight this, they’ll put considerable financial and political weight behind it.”

“So?”

She blew out a long breath. The moment of reckoning. She always dreaded this. “Leland is my mother’s maiden name. I legally took her name when I left college.”

Jonathon didn’t look impatient, the way some people did when she explained. That was one of the things she liked best about Jonathon. He reached conclusions quickly, but never judgments.

“My father’s name—” Then she corrected herself. “My real last name is Morgan.”

Most people, it took a couple of minutes for them to put together the name Morgan with wealth and political connections. She figured as smart as he was, it would take Jonathon about twenty seconds. It took him three.

“As far as I know, none of the banking Morgans live in Texas. That means you must be one of the Texas oil Morgans.”

He didn’t phrase it as a question. His tone had gone flat, his gaze distant.

“I am.” She bit her lip, not bothering to hide her cringe. “I should have told you.”

“No. Why would you have?” His expression was so blank, so unsurprised, so completely disinterested, that it was obvious, at least to her, that he cared deeply that she’d kept her true identity to herself. His calm, direct gaze met hers. “Then Senator Henry Morgan is…”

“My uncle.” In the interest of full disclosure, she nodded to the baby gurgling happily on her hip. “Peyton’s grandfather.”

“Okay then.” He stood with his hands propped on his hips, the jacket of his suit pushed back behind his hands. He often stood in that way and it always made her heart kick up a beat. The posture somehow emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist all at the same time.

Despite his obvious disappointment, he immediately went into problem-solving mode. He stared at her blankly, then left the room abruptly. A moment later he returned with a copy of the Wall Street Journal. He flipped the paper open, folded it in half and held it out to her. “So, Elizabeth Morgan is your cousin. The baby’s mother.”

It was an article about her death. The first Wendy had seen. She didn’t need to read it to know what it would say. It would be carefully crafted. Devoid of scandal. Bitsy may have been an embarrassment but Uncle Hank would have called in favors to make sure the article met with his approval. That was the way her uncle did business, whether he was running the country or running his family.

Jonathon frowned as he scanned the article. His eyes crinkled at the edges as his face settled into what she thought of as his problem-solving expression. But if he could figure a way out of this one, then he was smarter than even she thought he was.

“It says here she is survived by a brother and sister-in-law. Why don’t they take the baby?”

“Exactly,” she said grimly. “Why not? It’s what every conservative in the country will be thinking. Those conservative voters made up a huge portion of Uncle Hank’s constituents.” And they weren’t the only ones who had that question. It was no secret that their grandmother, Mema, didn’t approve of modern families. In her mind, a family comprised a mother and a father. And possibly a dog. Mema would want Hank Jr. to take Peyton. And what Mema wanted was generally what the family did.

She may have been in her late eighties, but she was a wily old dame. More importantly, she still controlled the money.

“It’s so frustrating,” she admitted. “This wouldn’t even be an issue if I had a husband I could trot out to appease my grandmother and Uncle Hank’s constituents.”

“You really think that’s all you need?”

“For my family to see me as the perfect mother?” She gave a fake, trilling laugh. “Oh, yes, a husband is the must-have accessory of the season. The richer, the better. Optional add-ons are the enormous gas-guzzling SUV, the Junior League membership and the golden Lab.”

“And it’s really that simple?”

“Oh, sure. That simple. I’ll just head over to the laboratory and whip up a successful husband out of spare computer parts. You run out to the morgue and steal a dead body I can reanimate and we’ll be good.”

His lips quirked in a smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners, just a hint of cockiness. The expression gave her pause, because he wasn’t laughing at her joke. No, she knew this look too. It was his I’ve-solved-the-problem look. “I think we can do a little better than that.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said it yourself. All you need is a rich, successful husband.”

For a moment she just stared blankly at him, unable to follow the abrupt twist the conversation had taken. “Right. A rich, successful husband. Which I don’t have.”

“But you could.” He smiled fully now. Full smiles were rare for him. Usually they made her feel a little breathless. This one just made her nervous. “All you have to do is marry me. I’ll even buy you a dog.”

Three

Having never before asked a woman to marry him, Jonathon wasn’t quite sure what reaction he expected, but it wasn’t Wendy’s blank-faced confusion. Or maybe that was a perfectly normal reaction under the circumstances. After all, it wasn’t every day a man proposed to his assistant for such transparently selfish reasons.

For a long moment, she merely stared at him, her blue-violet eyes wide, her perfect bow mouth gaping open in surprise.

She wasn’t just surprised. She was disconcerted. His proposal had shocked her. Maybe even offended her. On some deeply intimate level, the thought of marriage to him horrified her.

Not that he could really blame her. Despite his wealth, he was no prize.

She was going to say no, and he couldn’t let her do it. He needed her. Quite desperately, if the past seven days had been any indication.

“I’m not proposing a romantic relationship,” he reassured her, hoping to make his proposal seem as benign as possible.

“Obviously,” she muttered. Still holding the baby in her arms, she sank to the edge of the desk. She dipped her head, nuzzling the tuft of dark hair on Peyton’s head.

“This would be strictly a business arrangement.” He argued more vehemently as he felt her slipping away. “We’ll stay married as long as it takes to convince your family that we’re suitable parents. We won’t even have to live together. I’ll grant you an annulment as soon as we’ve convinced them.”

“No,” she said softly.

He felt a pang in his chest at her response. Then he saw it. Her letter of resignation. Signed, dated and ready to be handed over. As official as an order for his execution.

This past week had been a premonition of his future without her. He could envision an endless parade of incompetent temps. Countless hours of interviewing assistants, all of whom would fail to live up to the precedent set by Wendy. This government contract would slip through his fingers, just as the Olson deal had. FMJ had lost millions on that one. Which was nothing compared to what they’d miss if they didn’t secure this contract. He could feel the stepping-stone slipping out from under him, the future he’d planned out for the company dissolving before his very eyes.

Panic mounting, he kept talking. “If you’re worried about sex, don’t be. I certainly wouldn’t expect to sleep with you.”

Her gaze darted to his as she bolted to her feet. “No.” Then she squeezed her eyes closed for an instant. “What I meant was…” She drew in a deep breath. “… a fast annulment wouldn’t work.”

Just as quickly, her eyes shifted away from his. In that moment, a powerful, unspoken message passed between them.

Not once in all the years they’d worked together had they talked about sex. They had shared countless other intimacies. Eaten meals late at night. Sat beside each other on long plane flights. He’d had her fall asleep with her head on his shoulder somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. They had slept in hotel rooms with walls so thin he’d heard the sound of her rolling over in her bed. And yet despite all that, neither of them had ever broached the subject of sex.

But now that the word had been said aloud, it was there between them. The image of her, sprawled naked on a bed before him, was permanently lodged in his brain.

He found himself oddly pleased by the faint blush that crept into her cheeks as she couldn’t quite meet his gaze.

“If we’re going to do this—” she shot him a look from under her lashes as if she were trying to assess his commitment “—then we have to go all in.”

He raised his eyebrows, speculatively. She wasn’t saying no. She was making a counteroffer. He felt a grin split his face. Just when he thought he knew her, she always managed to surprise him.

“We can’t get an annulment in three or even six months,” she said. “My family will see right through that. In a year, maybe two, we’ll have to get divorced. Simply pretend the marriage didn’t work out.”

“I see.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think you do. I’m committed to fighting for Peyton. I’ll do whatever I have to. But I can’t ask you to do the same.”

“You’re not asking,” he pointed out. “I’m offering. And just so we’re clear, I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart.” The last thing he needed right now was her developing some starry-eyed notion about his motives. “I’m doing this to keep you working for FMJ. You’re the best damn assistant I’ve ever had.”

She threw up her hand to interrupt him. “This is ridiculous. Just hire another assistant. I’ll even help you find one. There are plenty of other competent people in the city.”

“But none of them are you. I need you,” he argued. “None of them know the company the way you do. None of them would care about what FMJ does the way you do.”

She seemed to be considering for a moment, then admitted,

“Well, that’s true.”

“Besides. I don’t have the time or energy to train someone new. My motives are very selfish.”

“Trust me, I wasn’t about to swoon from the romanticism of the moment.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into. If my family suspects what we’re up to—”

“Then we’ll convince them that our marriage has nothing to do with Peyton.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Convince them we’re in love?”

“Exactly.”

Wendy gave a snort of laughter. Baby Peyton squirmed in response. She turned her head and gave Jonathon a look of annoyance. If a baby could be annoyed. Obviously she wasn’t going back to sleep. Pressing her tiny palms to Wendy’s chest, she pushed away as if she wanted to be set free.

Wendy crossed to a diaper bag sitting on her desk. He hadn’t even noticed it before, but when Wendy tried to unzip it with one hand, he moved to help her. He brushed her fingers aside and unzipped the bag. “What do you need?”

“The blanket. That pink one there. Spread it out on the floor.”

Once the blanket was out, she situated the baby on her belly in the center of it.

The sight of a baby in the middle of FMJ’s executive offices was so incongruous he could barely remember what they’d been talking about. Oh, right. She’d been snorting with laughter over the idea of them being in love. Nice to know he’d amused her.

“So you don’t think we can convince your family we’re romantically involved?”

Wendy was back at the diaper bag now, pulling out an array of brightly colored toys. “No offense, Jonathon, but in the five years I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you romantically involved.”

“That’s ridiculous. I—”

She held up her hands to ward off his protests. “With anyone. Oh, I know you’ve dated plenty of women.” She stressed “plenty” as if it was an insult. “But romance is not your strong suit.”

Dropping to her knees, she strategically placed the toys in an arc in front of the baby. By now, Peyton had wedged herself up on her elbows.

“You think I can’t be romantic?” he asked.

“I think you approach your love life with all the warmth and spontaneity of a long-term strategic planning committee.”

“You’re saying… what? That I’m a cold fish?” His voice came out tight and strained.

There was something very matter-of-fact about her tone. As if she were stating the obvious. As if it hadn’t even occurred to her that this might insult him.

“Not really.” She tilted her head to the side, her attention focused on Peyton. She nudged a stuffed elephant closer to the baby. He didn’t know if the topic made her uncomfortable or if infant toys were really just that fascinating. “More that you keep your emotions tightly under control.” Apparently satisfied with the arrangement of toys, she stood, dusting her hands off. “You’re a dispassionate man. There’s nothing wrong with—”

Okay, he’d had enough. He strode toward her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

He didn’t know what pushed him over the edge. Whether it was her unending lecture about how dispassionate he was. Or the fact that ever since he’d said the word “sex” aloud a few minutes ago he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head. Or maybe it was that tempting bit of shoulder her shirt kept exposing. Or hell, maybe it was even the hot-pink strap.

Whatever it was, his restraint snapped and he had to kiss her. And then, he couldn’t stop.

Wendy had not seen it coming. One minute, she was trying to calm Peyton down, keep her distracted enough so she could keep talking to Jonathon. Because frankly, Wendy was having enough trouble concentrating on the logistics of the conversation without Peyton breaking out into all-out fussiness.

And then, a second later, her body was pressed against Jonathon’s and his mouth was moving over hers in a kiss heaven made to knock her socks off.

One hand cradled her jaw, his fingertips rough against the sensitive skin of her cheek. The other was wrapped firmly around her waist, his hand strong against her back, pressing her so close to him she could feel the buttons of his shirt through the thin cotton of her T-shirt.

His kiss was completely unexpected. When he had crossed the room to her, the lines of his face taut, his expression so full of intent, it had never occurred to her that he was going kiss her.

Sure, in the past, she’d imagined what it might be like to kiss him. After all, they’d worked side by side for years. Just because she had a modicum of restraint didn’t mean she was dead. Despite the pure perfection of his exterior, she’d always imagined that in the bedroom Jonathon was very much how he was in the boardroom. Analytical. Logical. In control. Dispassionate.

Holy guacamole, had she been wrong.

His lips didn’t just kiss hers. They devoured her.

She felt his tongue in her mouth, stroking hers, coaxing a response, all but demanding she participate, until she found herself rising up onto her toes and wrapping her arms around his neck, brushing her palm against the bristle of soft hair on the back of his head.

The kiss was hot and endless. He tasted faintly of coffee and fresh minty toothpaste and deeply buried longing. He stirred feelings within her that she’d never even imagined. And she could just not get close enough to him.

He backed her up a step. And then another. She felt the edge of her desk bump against the back of her legs. And still he pressed into her, bending her so her back arched.

An image flashed through her mind of him sweeping the desk clear, pressing her down onto her desk and taking her right there. The idea came to her so completely, it was as though it had been right there in the back of her mind for years. Just waiting for his kiss to pull it out of her.

There was no one else in the building. Why shouldn’t they give in to this thing between them? She couldn’t think of a single reason not to.

She still hadn’t thought of one a moment later when he pulled his mouth from hers and stepped away. He cleared his throat, then tugged down the hem of his jacket to straighten it.

He left her aching for him. Missing the warmth of his body, even though he was only a foot away. Wishing she had some idea of why he’d kissed her. Why he’d stopped…

Peyton.

Oh, crap. Peyton!

Wendy looked past Jonathon to where Peyton still lay on her belly on the floor.

Holy guacamole, indeed! She’d been a mother for less than four days and she’d already abandoned her daughter on the floor to make out with her boss. Maybe her family was right. Maybe she really was unfit to be Peyton’s mother.

Her gaze sought Jonathon. He’d crossed to the other side of the room so that Peyton lay between them like a landmine.

He ran a hand across his jaw, then shoved his hand deep in his pocket. She’d never seen him look quite so disconcerted. Though he still looked less shaken than she felt.

“Well,” he began, then swallowed visibly. “I think we can both agree that if I need to I can convince your family that I am more than your boss.”

“Yeah. I think so.” Then she paused for a beat while his words sank in. “That’s what this was about?” For a second, confusion swirled through her, muddling her thoughts even further. “You kissed me merely to make a point?”

“I—” He shrugged, apparently at a loss for words.

Indignation pushed past her embarrassment. “I was seconds away from dropping my panties to the floor and you were making a point?”

For an instant, his gaze fell to her feet as if imagining her panties lying there. He swallowed again as he dragged his gaze back to hers, then ran a hand down his face.

Well, at least she wasn’t the only one whose world had been rocked.

“It seemed a prudent move,” he said stiffly.

She nearly snorted her derision. Prudent? The kiss that had curled her toes all the way up to her kneecaps had seemed prudent to him?

“Oh, that is wrong in so many ways, I don’t even know where to start.”

He tried to interrupt her. “Actually—”

But she cut him off with a wag of her finger. “No, wait a second. I do know where to start. If you think offering to marry me for Peyton’s sake gives you an all-access pass to this—” she waved her hand in front of her body “—then you have another think coming.” He looked as if he might say something in protest, but she didn’t give him a chance. “And secondly, you have no business kissing me merely to make a point.”

And then—because she realized that was practically an invitation to kiss her for other reasons—she added, “In fact you have no business kissing me at all. If we’re going to do this pretend-marriage thing, we need to set some boundaries. And thirdly… well, I have no idea what thirdly is yet, but I’m sure it will come to me eventually.”

For a long moment, Jonathon merely stared at her, one eyebrow slightly arched, his lips curved to just hint at his amusement. “Are you done?”

She clamped her lips together, painfully aware of how cool and collected he seemed when she’d just been rambling like an idiot. A surefire sign that her emotional state was neither cool nor calm.

Maybe she was wrong about the kiss affecting him as much as it did her. And wouldn’t that just suck. Didn’t she have enough on her plate just now? This was so not the time for her to be nursing a crush on her boss. Or her husband.

When had her life gotten so complicated?

On the floor between them, Peyton wedged her tiny hands under her to push up onto her forearms. She let out an excited squeal of pride.

Right. This was when her life had gotten complicated. Approximately five days ago in her grandfather’s study when the lawyer dropped Bitsy’s will on her like a bomb.

Wendy let loose a sigh of frustration. “I’m sorry,” she said. “None of this is your fault. I shouldn’t take it out on you. I just—”

“I agree we need boundaries,” he said abruptly, cutting her off before she could bumble further into the apology. His tone was stiff, as if he was searching for the most diplomatic way to broach the subject. “Keeping sex out of this is a good idea. However, kissing you now seemed prudent because we will have to kiss again at some point.”

“We will?” she asked weakly, her gaze dropping to his mouth.

“Naturally.”

She felt a curious heat stirring deep inside at the idea. He was going to kiss her again. Soon? She hoped so. Even if it was a very bad idea, she hoped so.

“If we’re going to convince people we’re in love and getting married, people will expect certain displays of affection.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought…” Obviously, there was a lot she hadn’t considered about this idea. She didn’t know whether or not to be thankful that Jonathon’s brain worked so much faster than her own. Was it a good thing he was around to consider things she hadn’t? Or was it merely annoying to always be one step behind?

“The people who know us best will be hardest to convince. Luckily Ford and Matt will both be out of town for another few weeks. We’ll have to get used to the idea ourselves before see them.”

“Ford and Matt? Surely we don’t need to lie to them?” Jonathon had been best friends with Ford and Matt since they were kids.

He leveled a steady gaze at her. There was no hesitation. No doubt. “Yes, we do. If your family decides to fight us on this, it could mean a court battle. I can’t ask either of them to lie for us.”

“Oh.” Feeling suddenly weak, she sank back to the edge of the desk.

Of course they couldn’t ask Ford and Matt to lie for them. In the five years she’d worked with FMJ, she’d served as executive assistant for all three men equally.

They worked so closely together they’d decided long ago it was easier to share one assistant among the three of them. Undoubtedly that was why they’d gone through so many assistants before she’d come along. Managing the schedules and needs of three such disparate men was no easy task. In short, she was a miracle worker.

If the thought of lying to them was this difficult for her, then how must Jonathon feel about the matter?

She propelled herself away from the desk and crossed to stand in front of him. Gazing up into his mossy-green eyes, she studied him. “This is a crazy and ridiculous plan. Are you sure you want to do this?”

His lips curved into a slight smile. His eyes lit with a reckless gleam as they crinkled at the corners, giving her the distinct impression that he was enjoying this. “Yeah. I’m sure. If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to make the strategic risk pay off.”

The resolve in his gaze was as clear as the doubt probably was in her own. Then she looked down at where Peyton lay on the floor. She scooped up the precious little girl and held her close. This moment felt profound. As though she and Jonathon were striking a bargain that was going to change all of their lives. It seemed only right that Peyton be a part of it as well. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

Jonathon’s face broke into a full grin. He gave a brisk nod then spun on his heel, moving toward his office as he started barking orders, back into full boss mode.

“First off, email Ford and Matt and schedule another teleconference for later in the day. Then call Judge Eckhart and see if he has time in his schedule to perform the ceremony next Friday. Clear my schedule and yours for the following two weeks.”

Wendy was used to having Jonathon rattle off a to-do list like this. Even trying to juggle Peyton, she kept up pretty well. Until he got to the last item on the list.

“Wait a second. Clear our schedules? What are we going to be doing? And what about the government contract?”

“We’ll work on that this week. And we’ll have another couple of weeks after we get back. It’ll be tight, but I have no doubt we’ll get it done.”

“Get back? Get back from where?”

He paused by his desk and looked up at her, that cocky smile still on his face. “From our honeymoon.”

“Our honeymoon?” Surprise pitched her voice high.

“Don’t get too excited. We’re just going to Texas. If we’re going to win this battle with your family, we need to go on the offensive. That means taking the fight to them.”

Four

When Jonathon called her into the conference room the next morning, she was surprised to see Randy Zwack there. Randy had gone to college with Jonathon, Matt and Ford before going on to law school. He’d occasionally done work for FMJ, before they’d hired an intellectual property legal department, but that had been long before her time. She was more confused than surprised when she walked into the conference room and saw him there—looking more harried than usual.

Jonathon stood at the far end of the room, back to the door, staring out at the view of Palo Alto sprawling below. Randy sat dead in the center of the table, stacks of paper spread out before him. The lawyer looked up when she entered. He half stood and offered her a strained smile.

“Oh, good. You’re here,” he said as if he’d been waiting for her. “We can get started.”

“Hi, Randy.” She looked past him to Jonathon. When he turned around, she raised her eyebrows in question.

“What’s up?”

He frowned and with unusual hesitancy said, “I asked Randy here to draw up a prenuptial agreement for us.” He held out a hand to ward off some protest he imagined she might make. “Don’t worry. I trust his discretion.”

“I’m not worried.” In fact, delighted was more like it. “Calm down. I think a prenup is a fantastic idea.”

“You do?” Randy looked surprised.

“Why wouldn’t I?” She sat down in the chair opposite Randy. “I assume Jonathon told you why he’s helping me?”

Randy gave a little nod, still looking suspicious.

“This is a marriage custom-made for a prenup.”

“In the interest of full disclosure…” Randy ran a hand over his hair, which today looked disheveled, though it was normally meticulously styled to hide his growing bald spot. “This is not my area of expertise. I told Jonathon he should hire a good family lawyer, but—” Randy winced.

“But Jonathon can be very pig-headed.”

“I was going to say determined.”

No wonder the poor guy looked so disconcerted. Jonathon had obviously browbeat him into drawing up the prenup. And doing it on a very tight schedule, since Jonathon had proposed less than twenty-four hours ago.

“Don’t worry.” Wendy reached across the table and patted Randy’s hand. “I’m sure you did great. It’s all pretty cut-and-dry.”

Jonathon took a few steps closer to loom over them from the end of the table. He’d shoved his hands into his pockets in that way she found so distracting.

This was the man who was going to be her husband. In less than a week. Her stomach tightened at the thought.

“Okay, let’s see this puppy. It’s just your standard prenup, right?”

Reaching for the stack of papers in front of Randy, she clapped her hands in a way that was overly cheerful, as if this was a big fake check from Publishers Clearinghouse. But neither man noticed. Randy was too busy sending Jonathon a pointed glance and Jonathon was too busy glaring Randy into intimidated silence. She looked from one man to the other.

“This is a standard prenup? Right?”

Jonathon cleared his throat and loomed some more.

“You have nothing to worry about. Any assets you bring to the marriage or inherit while married revert to you upon the absolution of the union.” Randy flushed bright as he spoke. Just in case she’d seen through his obfuscation.

Ignoring Jonathon, she looked pointedly at Randy, waiting for him to cave. “That’s not what I asked, now, is it?”

He cleared his throat. “You… urn… have nothing to worry about.”

“Yes, you said that already. What about him?” She nodded in Jonathon’s direction.

“The prenup was written to my specification,” Jonathon said tightly. “I’m satisfied.”

Which was not the same thing at all.

Randy blushed all the way to his receding hairline, but refused to look at her. Jonathon, on the other hand, met her gaze without even flinching, which actually made her more nervous.

“Give me a minute.” Neither man budged. “Alone. With the prenup.” Still no movement from the united front. “Either you give me time to read it or you—” she pointed at Randy “—tell me what it is he doesn’t want me to see.”

Randy looked to Jonathon, who glowered at her for a second before granting a tight nod. Randy pulled her copy closer and flipped to a page midway through.

She scanned the paragraph, then read it aloud to give voice to her exasperation. “In the event of separation, annulment or divorce, the following premarital assets belonging to Jonathon Bagdon shall transfer to Gwendolyn Leland—the monetary value of twenty percent of all real property, tangible property, securities and cash owed by—”

She broke off in frustration, too stunned to continue. She glared at them both. “Whose idea was this ridiculous clause?”

Randy held up his hands. “Not mine.” He sounded as offended as she was.

“But you let him include this? Are you insane?” She clenched and unclenched her fingers around the pen Randy had handed her as he gave a what-could-I-do shrug. She smiled tightly at him and said through clenched teeth, “Will you please give me a minute alone with my future husband?”

Randy skittered away like a death-row inmate given a pardon. She didn’t blame him. Someone was going down. She wouldn’t want to get caught in the crossfire either.

The second they were alone she asked, “Twenty percent? Twenty? Are you crazy?”

Jonathon at least had the good sense to try to sound placating. “Now, Wendy…”

“You know I’m not taking twenty percent!”

“After two years being married to me, you may think you’ve earned it.”

She blew out a breath of exasperation. “I’m not taking. A penny. Of your money.”

“Don’t forget, California is a community property state. If you don’t sign the prenup, you’re entitled to half of anything I earn while we’re together. For all you know that could be more than this twenty percent.”

“What? Because you haven’t been meeting your full potential before now?” He just scowled at her. “You know that has nothing to do with why I’m marrying you.”

“I also know exactly how much money you make and that you’ll have trouble supporting yourself and a child on that income.”

“Lots of single-parent families get by on what I make,” she pointed out.

“Maybe they do,” he countered. “But you don’t have to.”

“So what? You’re just going to give me all of that money? Did you somehow miss the conversation yesterday where I mentioned that I’m a Morgan? Trust me when I tell you, Jonathon, I will be fine.”

His lips curved into the barest hint of a smile. “No. I didn’t miss that, but I also know how damn stubborn you are. And I know that you’re not going to ask your family for money. If you were the kind of person who would do that, you wouldn’t be in this position to begin with.”

Hmm. Good point. “But,” she countered, “you thought you’d talk me into taking twenty percent of your assets?”

“No. I rather hoped you’d sign the prenup without noticing that part.”

Well, that she could believe. He was just arrogant enough to think he could get away with a stunt like that.

“Even if I had signed the papers, I still wouldn’t have taken the money. That’s almost—” She struggled to do the math. Jonathon, no doubt, knew exactly how much that was, to the dime, at any given moment. “That’s… tens of millions of dollars.” Certainly more than the trust she’d never bothered to claim, which was a measly eight million. “I’m not taking that kind of money from you.”

He shrugged dismissively. “It’s a drop in the bucket.”

“It’s a fifth of the bucket. That’s a lot of drops.” She forced out a long. slow breath. Why was she angry? Why exactly?

She put voice to her thoughts as they came to her, not willing to give herself time to soften them. “Look, you’ve always been arrogant and controlling.”

He raised his eyebrows. Probably in surprise that she’d say it aloud to him. He certainly couldn’t be shocked by the idea.

“At work, it’s fine,” she continued. “You’re my boss. But if we’re going to get married, then the second we walk out that door each day—” she jabbed a finger toward the door “—you have to stop trying to control everything. Even if this isn’t a real marriage.”

“Wendy, I’m not—”

“But you are,” she said, cutting him off. “Don’t you get it? If I wanted to sit back and be taken care of for the rest of my life, I never would have left Texas. I like having to work for a living. I’ve been rich. I know that money alone won’t make me happy. And I also know that being with someone who’s always trying to control me will make me miserable. So either you back off, or we walk away from this now.”

He stared at her a long time, his gaze hard-edged and steely. She didn’t back down. She couldn’t. Her gut told her that if she lost her foothold now, she wouldn’t recover. Besides, she was far too used to intimidating glares from her father or uncle to do that. Eventually, she even smiled. “See. Your Jedi mind tricks don’t work on me.”

His lips twitched at her comment and finally, he gave a terse, reluctant nod, as if agreeing to keep his own money was an affront to his personal honor.

“There’s something else you should know.”

“Okay, hit me.”

“In the event of my death, you and Peyton get it all.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he raised a hand to cut her off. “I’m not budging on that one.”

“What about your family?” As familiar as she was with his schedule, she knew he didn’t see them often, but they did exist. “Surely you want them to have your fortune.”

His eyes were dark and shuttered. His face nearly expressionless. “There are certain charitable organizations that I’ve already provided for. If I die while we’re married, I want you to have the rest.”

She studied him for a moment. Since this was the most she’d ever heard him say about his family—precisely nothing—she had to assume he was serious. Boy, and she thought her relationship with her family was screwed up. “Okay,” she said softly. “Then we’ll just have to take very good care of you for the next two years. Make sure you take your vitamins.” She smiled at her own joke, but he didn’t return the smile. “Now that that’s settled, I’ll go tell Randy he can do his job and protect his client.”

She’d almost made it out the door when Jonathon’s words stopped her.

“I don’t want you to fall in love with me.”

Hand already on the doorknob, she turned to face him, eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”

His expression was so strained as to be nearly comical. “If we’re going to be together a year or maybe two, I don’t want you imagining that you’ve fallen in love with me.”

Fighting back a chuckle, she searched his face, but saw no signs that he was joking. In fact, he looked so serious, it made her heart catch in her chest. She had to force a teasing smile. “Why? Because you’re so charming and charismatic that I won’t be able to be constantly in your company without falling in love?” He didn’t smile at her, so she asked, “Is this a separate issue from the money or are the millions of dollars supposed to ease my heartache if I did fall in love with you?”

His lips twitched again, but she wasn’t sure if it was with suppressed humor or irritation. “Separate issue. But I’m serious.”

She could certainly see that. It made her uneasy, but she couldn’t say why. It wasn’t arrogance—his fear that she might fall in love with him. No, despite his natural confidence, she didn’t see that in his gaze now. Instead, she saw only concern. For her.

“Let me guess. You’re not the type of man who believes in love.” She could imagine that all too easily. Jonathon may feel physical passion—he’d proven that clearly enough when he’d kissed her yesterday—but love was something else entirely.

But to her surprise, he shook his head. “Oh, I believe in love. I know exactly how crippling it can be. That’s why I don’t want you to imagine you’ve fallen in love with me.”

“Okay,” she said, torn between wanting to reassure him, without telling him outright that she had absolutely no intention of risking her heart. Finally, she made the only counteroffer she could think of. “Then don’t fall in love with me either.”

He studied her for a moment, slowly smiling. Her chin bumped up a notch. “What? You think you’re above falling in love with me? I’ll have you know I’m very loveable.” Arching an eyebrow, she said, “I’m cute. And plucky. Greater men than you have fallen in love with me.” “I’m sure they have.”

“You think I’m joking?” she demanded, all fake belligerence.

“Not for a minute,” Jonathon conceded. And the really pathetic things was, he was being honest. In this moment, watching her trying to cajole him into laughing, it was all too easy to imagine falling in love with her. Smart, funny, never taking herself too seriously. Wendy was the whole package. Men who wanted things like a wife and family were probably waiting in line for a woman like her. Too bad he wasn’t one of them.

“Just don’t forget why I’m doing this. This isn’t a favor to you. This isn’t because I’m a nice guy. Don’t romanticize me. Don’t forget, not even for a minute, why I’m here. Why I’m doing this.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her expression suddenly serious but a little bemused, as if she had no idea where he was going with this. “Remind me then. Why are you doing this?”

He was struck—not for the first time—that she wasn’t merely cute, but truly beautiful. With her swoopy little button nose and her pixie dimples, her face had more than its share of cuteness. But she was also lovely, with her dark—almost violet—blue eyes and her luminous skin. Her beauty had an ephemeral quality to it. Like a woman in a Maxfield Parrish painting.

He was so struck by her beauty that for a second, he forgot her question. Forgot that he was trying to direct this conversation. To remind her that he wasn’t some hero.

“I’m doing this for the same reason I’ve done everything else since I was eleven. I’m doing this because it serves my own goals. It serves FMJ.”

She gave him an odd look, as something almost like pity flickered across her expression. “If you didn’t want me to romanticize you, then maybe you shouldn’t have tried to give me a big nasty chunk of your fortune. So I’m going to reserve the right to think you’re not the heartless bastard you pretend to be.”

“You have to believe me when I tell you that everything I’ve done for you was for my own benefit. Keeping you in California was the best thing for FMJ. Marrying you is the best thing for FMJ. That’s the only reason I’m doing it.”

Finally she nodded. “Okay. If you want to keep insisting you’re so coldhearted, then I’ll try to remind myself as often as possible. We’ll start with the prenup, okay? We’ll ask Randy to rewrite it so I have to pay you twenty percent of my money. How does that sound?” She smiled as she asked, but it looked strained.

“Wendy—” he started.

“At the very least, we’ll put Randy out of his misery. We’ll go with the bare-bones prenup. Everyone walks away with what they had when they came into the marriage.”

He sighed. It wasn’t what he wanted. Not by a long shot. But he was starting to realize that when it came to Wendy, he wasn’t ever going to get what he wanted.

She paused at the door and looked over her shoulder, her forehead furrowed in thought. “The thing is, Jonathon, if you really were a heartless bastard, you wouldn’t have warned me off.”

Five

The next few days passed in a blur of planning and activity. Wendy often felt as if her life was moving at double time while she was stuck at half speed. She’d felt like that ever since she’d gotten that fateful call about Bitsy, less than two weeks before. Her shock and grief were finally beginning to recede into the background. Though she no longer faced the daunting challenge of moving back to Texas, agreeing to marry Jonathon had created even more turmoil in her life.

True to his word, Jonathon managed to cram in considerable work on the proposal for the government contract, delegating things he normally would have handled himself. Ford and Kitty flew home immediately with their daughter, Ilsa. Matt and Claire arrived a few days later, having cut short their honeymoon, something Wendy still felt bad about. Claire insisted that seventeen days in a tropical paradise was enough for anyone and that she wouldn’t miss the wedding for anything. Her reassurances didn’t make Wendy feel any less guilty.

The Sunday before the wedding, she was still half-asleep watching a rerun of Dharma & Greg wishing Peyton seemed half as drowsy. Jonathon had eventually convinced her that she should move into his house. Since they were planning on being married for a year or more, he pointed out that people were unlikely to believe they were truly in love if they weren’t living together. The night before she’d pulled out her trusty suitcase and hoped to pack the bare essentials once Peyton fell asleep. If she could stay awake herself. She’d leave her other belongings for some later date.

She hadn’t slept well since… well, since taking Peyton, and her exhaustion was creeping up on her. Frankly, it had been all she could do to drag herself out of bed this morning. The middle-of-the-night feedings were just not her thing. She was sitting on the sofa, blearily rocking back and forth, wondering if she could get Babies “R” Us to deliver a rocking chair by the end of the day, when the doorbell rang.

It was a bad sign that it took her so long to identify the noise.

She set the bottle down on the side table, stumbled to her feet and pried the door open, praying that no one on the other side would expect coherent conversation.

She frowned at the sight of Kitty and Claire. She’d only known Claire for seven months, but the concern lining the other woman’s face was obvious in the crinkle between her brows. As if to distract from her frown, she thrust forward a pink bakery box with the Cutie Pies logo stamped on the top.

“We brought food!” Claire announced, her tone overly chipper. “We just flew in from Palo Verde this morning. I made this batch just before I left.”

Claire owned a diner in the small town of Palo Verde, a couple of hours away. Jonathon, Ford and Matt had grown up in Palo Verde. If Claire had baked whatever was in the box, she couldn’t wait to dive in. And if fate was kind at all, the box would be filled with the spicy, dark chocolate doughnuts that the diner was known for.

Kitty gave Wendy a once-over, then announced, “Since you’re obviously too tired to invite us in, why not just step aside.” She held out her hands. “Here, hand me the baby. You take the doughnuts. Please, eat some before I fight you for them.”

Mutely, Wendy handed the fussy Peyton over to Kitty.

Kitty Langley was the kind of woman who looked as if she didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. The jewelry-store-heiress-turned-jewelry-designer had lived in New York until falling in love with and marrying Ford the previous year. How that woman could look glamorous while cradling a baby in her arms, Wendy didn’t know. But she did envy the skill, since she was pretty sure she herself looked as if she was recovering from the flu.

Wendy happily traded baby for doughnuts.

Though her arms ached from the hours of holding Peyton, the bone-deep weariness melted a bit as she sank her teeth into the dense buttermilk doughnut.

“I’m not sure why you came,” she muttered past a mouthful of heaven. “But, frankly, I no longer care. You can hold me at gunpoint. Rob me. Even take the baby. Just leave the doughnuts and I’ll be happy.”

Kitty stifled a smile as she pressed her bright red lips to the crown of Peyton’s head. “You’re in that too-exhausted-to-be-tired stage, aren’t you?”

After a few minutes of being held by Kitty, Peyton stopped fussing long enough to put her head down on Kitty’s shoulder. And then there was silence. Peyton’s eyes drifted closed and she exhaled a slow, shaky breath. Then her back settled into the gentle rhythm of sleep.

Tension seeped out of every pore in Wendy’s body.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she muttered.

Claire smiled wryly. “Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

“A couple of hours here and there,” she admitted. “This caring for a baby gig is way harder than I expected.”

“Oh, honey, you said a mouthful there.” Kitty gave a low whistle, no doubt remembering her own new-to-mothering days. Walking with an exaggerated sway, Kitty crossed to the bassinet, so she could lay the baby down. “And at least I had seven months to get used to the idea.”

The room fell silent as Kitty eased the sleeping Peyton down. Claire trotted off to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a steaming cup of coffee. “With cream and sugar,” she said as she handed it over. “I assume all sane people take it that way.”

Wendy took a grateful sip as Kitty asked, “Can we get you anything else? Something to eat maybe? I can’t cook worth a damn, but Claire could McGyver a feast out of the barest cupboard.”

Wendy didn’t doubt it. “I think I’ll save room for another doughnut.”

“You sure?” Claire asked, in hushed tones so as not to wake the baby. “I could whip up an omelet. Or something else? I saw some nice Gouda in the fridge when I was foraging for cream.” With a smile she added, “I could make you a grilled cheese sandwich so good you’ll cry.”

“No, thank you.”

“You should try the grilled cheese,” Kitty urged. “It’s amazing.”

“No, really. I’m okay.” Wendy looked from Kitty to Claire, suddenly suspicious. “Why do I get the feeling I’m being plied with food for nefarious reasons?”

Kitty and Claire exchanged a look.

Wendy raised an eyebrow. “Come on, spill. What’s up?”

Claire’s cheeks reddened with what Wendy could only assume was guilt. Kitty played her cards closer to her chest. Her expression revealed nothing.

“Okay, obviously you have some bad news for me. Either that or you’re going to try to get me to join a cult. Which is it?”

Claire bit down on her lip, her chin jutting out at a rebellious angle.

Kitty gave a little eye roll and sighed with obvious exasperation. “Fine,” Kitty said, managing to flounce a bit while sitting almost perfectly still. “We’re worried about Jonathon.”

Wendy gave a little grunt of surprise and sat back against the sofa. “Worried? About Jonathon?”

“Whatever is going on between you and Jonathon,” Claire began, “obviously has something to do with Peyton.”

Wendy opened her mouth to protest, but Kitty didn’t give her a chance.

“Jonathon wouldn’t talk about it, so I assume you won’t either. That’s fine. But we’re not idiots. Don’t forget, you told Ford why you were resigning just twenty-four hours before you and Jonathon announced you were getting married. If I had to guess, I’d say you’re pretending to be some happily married couple so your family will let you keep Peyton.”

Well, so much for hiding the truth from their friends.

“As convoluted and bizarre as that seems,” Kitty continued. “We’re not going to try to stop you.”

“We’ll even play along,” Claire added in. “Anything you need from us, you’ve got.”

“But when you’re off playing house together, just be very careful.”

For a long moment, Wendy had no idea what to say. She turned away from their careful scrutiny and walked over to the bassinet where Peyton lay sleeping.

She thought about the conversation she’d had with Jonathon before they’d signed the prenup. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who thought she was in danger of falling in love with him. And here she’d thought she’d hid her attraction to him so well over the years. Was she really so transparent?

Glancing back at Kitty and Claire, she forced a perky smile. “Look, I admit Jonathon is a great guy. I’ve always thought so. But I know his dating history probably better than either one of you. I know he doesn’t open up easily. I’m not going to make the mistake of falling in love with him.”

Claire and Kitty exchanged nervous glances, seeming to have an entire conversation with just their eyebrows.

“What?” Wendy demanded after a second, crossing back to the sofa to get a better view of their unspoken exchange.

Claire kept her mouth shut.

But it was Kitty who admitted, “Actually, it’s him we’re worried about.”

Wendy sank back to the sofa. “You’re worried about Jonathon? Falling in love with me?”

Claire nodded.

“Not me falling in love with him, but him. Falling in love.

With me.”

Kitty gave an elegant wave of her hand. “Obviously we don’t want to see you left brokenhearted either. But you’re a smart woman. Very practical. We just assumed you can look out for yourself.”

“But you’re worried that Jonathon, the brilliant, analytical CFO is going to get his feelings hurt?” Wendy fought back a giggle.

“Well,” Claire hedged. “Yes.”

Wendy looked from one woman to the other, her amusement fading. “You’re serious?” They nodded.

“I know that Jonathon seems…” Claire trailed off, searching for the right word.

“Detached,” Kitty provided. “Ruthless.” Claire glared her into silence. “You’re not helping.” “Like a heartless bastard,” Wendy offered quietly. “Yes!” Kitty agreed.

“But he really isn’t,” Claire said quickly. “Don’t forget, I’ve known him longer than you have.”

Which was technically true. Claire had grown up in the same small town as Matt, Ford and Jonathon. “But you’re younger than he is. You didn’t even go to school together.”

“We overlapped some,” Claire argued. “And I’ve seen him in love. Senior year, he was…” she trailed off, apparently struggling to convey the full force of his emotion. “He was just head over heels in love. Crazy in love with this girl. He would have done anything for her.”

“Who was she?” Wendy found herself asking.

Claire hesitated. “Just a girl at school. Kristi hadn’t grown up in Palo Verde. Her parents were divorced and she moved there to live with her dad her sophomore year.”

“And they dated?”

“A little.” Then Claire shrugged. “I think mostly he just chased her. She flirted a lot. He was completely determined to win her over. Any grand gesture you can imagine an eighteen-year-old guy making, he made it. Flowers, jewelry. The whole nine yards.”

Flowers and jewelry? She knew he didn’t have a lot of money growing up. He’d once told her he’d started saving money for college when he was twelve. She couldn’t even imagine the man she knew taking money out of his precious college fund to buy gifts. For a girlfriend.