A Baby for the Boss (13 page)

Jenny knew he hadn’t come out here to talk about the stars. “Mike...”

He looked at her and in the shadowy moon and starlight, his blue eyes looked dark, mysterious. “I talked to Dave today,” he said, surprising her. “He says you quit your job as of this project’s completion.”

Jenny had hoped he wouldn’t find out so quickly. Turning in her resignation had cut at her. She loved her job and would miss everyone there, but she’d felt obligated to give Dave as much time as he might need to cover her absence. “I had to.”

“No, you didn’t,” he mused quietly, sliding his bare foot along her leg, giving her chills that had nothing to do with the cool night air. “Dave also said you recommended he hire Christa full-time.”

She shrugged. “He’ll need someone to fill in for me when I’m gone. Christa’s good. Talented, but willing to take direction.”

“If you think she’ll work out, that’s good enough for me.”

Pleased that he thought so highly of her suggestion, she smiled briefly. “Thanks for that.”

“You could have stayed with the company, you know.” He tossed a quick glance at the sky, then shifted his gaze to hers again. “Could have pulled the the-boss-is-my-baby’s-father card.”

She stared at him, shocked. “I would never do that.”

His gaze moved over her face as he slowly nodded. “Yeah, I’m getting that. I’m beginning to get a lot of things.”

“Mike,” she said, hoping to make the situation perfectly clear between them. “Quitting my job was the right thing to do. For both of us. Working together every day would just be too hard. Besides, I don’t need your money to take care of my baby. I don’t need the Ryan name to make sure my future’s secure—”

“What
do
you need, Jenny?”

Oh, wow, that question had too many answers. Too many pitfalls should she even try to tell him what was in her heart, her mind. So she smiled and said softly, “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me,” he said.

Tipping her head to one side, she looked at him and asked, “Since when, Mike?”

“Since I woke up and started paying closer attention.” He took her hand and smoothed his thumb across the back, sliding across her knuckles until she shivered at the contact. “I want you, Jenny. More than anything else in my life, I want you with me.”

Her breath caught in her chest and her heartbeat quickened until it fluttered like a deranged butterfly. To be wanted. It had been the driving force in her life since she was a child. But now, she knew it wasn’t enough.
Want
wasn’t
love.

“You do for now, Mike,” she said quietly. “But what about in five years? Ten?” Shaking her head, she continued, “Want, need, passion, they’re all good things. But without love to anchor them, they fade and drift away.”

“They don’t have to.” He gripped her hand even tighter. “Love is something I’ve avoided, Jenny. Too big a risk.”

She could see what it cost him to admit that, but with her heart hurting so badly, she couldn’t tell him that she was all right and that she understood. “It’s worth the risk, Mike. Because without love, there’s nothing.”

“Need is something. Want is something.”

“But not enough.” Sadly, she pulled her hand free of his, swung her legs out of the water and stood up. Looking down at him, she took a breath and braced herself to give him the hard truth she was only just accepting. “We have a child together, Mike. But that’s all we have.”

She walked back to the hotel and stopped in the doorway to look back at him. He was alone in the starlight, watching her, and it took everything Jenny had to keep walking.

* * *

Two days later, things were still tense between Mike and her. She had hoped that after their last conversation at the pool, he would give up and go home. He had to know that nothing was going to come of this. They each needed something from the other that they couldn’t have. Jenny needed Mike to love her. To trust her. Mike needed her to settle for less than she craved.

Her time here at the hotel was almost done. Most of the paintings were completed now and what was left, Christa and Lena could finish on their own. Jenny couldn’t stay much longer. Because Mike refused to leave her side, she had to be the one to leave. She had to get some distance from him before she did something stupid like rush into his arms and accept whatever crumbs he was willing to offer.

The cacophony of sound at the hotel was familiar now and Jenny half wondered if the silence of her apartment once she was home again would feel stifling. Between the men talking, the tools buzzing and crashing, and the roar of Jet Skis on the river, it was hard to hear yourself think. But in her case lately, maybe that was a blessing.

“Jenny! Jenny, where are you?”

Up on the second-story landing, Jenny was just adding a few finishing touches to the naked tree sprawled across the elevator doors when she heard that familiar voice booming out over the racket.

“Uncle Hank?” she asked aloud. Setting her paintbrush aside, she quickly went down the stairs and spotted her uncle, Betty right beside him, taking a good look around the front lobby.

“There she is,” Betty shouted over the construction noise and used her elbow to give Hank a nudge in the ribs for good measure.

The older man’s face brightened as he grinned and came toward her.

“Uncle Hank, what’re you doing here?”

To her surprise, the usually stoic man gave her one hard hug, then let her go and beamed at her. “Well, Betty and I wanted to see what you were doing out here. Take a look around and see what’s what.”

“Darn fool, we could have caught a plane,” Betty said, scraping her hands across her tangled hair. “But no, he insisted on driving so he could try out his new toy.”

“No point in having a new car if you’re not going to drive it,” Hank pointed out.

“New car?” Jenny looked out the front window and saw a shiny red convertible. She couldn’t have been more surprised. Though he was a wealthy man, Hank had been driving his classic Mercedes sedan for twenty years, insisting he didn’t need anything new when that one ran just fine. Shifting her gaze back to her uncle, she asked, “That’s yours?”

“It is,” he said proudly.

“Like to froze me to death, driving out here with the top down the whole way,” Betty muttered.

“No point in having a convertible if you keep the top up,” Hank argued.

Jenny just laughed. It was so good to see them; she was enjoying their usual banter. But she had to ask, “You didn’t drive all the way out here just to look at my paintings, did you?”

“Well,” Hank hedged, “that’s part of it, sure.” His eyes narrowed on something behind her and without even looking, Jenny knew who was coming up beside her. Her uncle’s features went cold and hard as Mike stopped alongside Jenny.

“Mr. Snyder,” Mike said with a nod.

“Ryan.” Hank gave him another narrow-eyed stare, then shifted his gaze to Jenny, ignoring the man beside her completely. “Jenny, I came to tell you I’ve sold Snyder Arts.”

“What?”
Stunned and in shock, Jenny stared at the man who’d raised her. First a convertible, now
this
?
His company had been Uncle Hank’s life. He lived and breathed the business, dedicating himself to building Snyder Arts into a well-respected, multimillion-dollar firm. She couldn’t imagine him without it. “Why would you do that? You loved that business.”

Still ignoring Mike, Hank moved in on her and dropped both hands on her shoulders. “I love
you
more,” he said and Jenny received her second shock of the day.

He’d never said those words to her before and until that moment, she hadn’t been aware of how much she’d wanted to hear them.

“Uncle Hank...”

“I see tears,” he blurted and warned, “don’t do that.”

She laughed and shook her head. “I’ll try. But tell me why.”

“Main reason?” he said, sliding an icy glance toward Mike. “So no one could accuse you of being a damn spy for me.”

“Damn it,” Mike muttered from beside her.

Jenny hardly heard him as she stared into her uncle’s sharp blue eyes. Oh, God. Guilt reared up and took a bite of her heart. He’d given up what he loved to prove something to Mike and it was all for her sake. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered.

“It was time,” Hank said, pausing long enough to glare at Mike.

“There’s more to it than that,” Betty interrupted, her clipped tone cutting through the sentiment that was suddenly thick in the air.

Stepping in front of Hank, Betty looked at Jenny and said simply, “It was long past time he sold that business. Haven’t I been trying to get him to live a little before he dies?”

“Who said anything about dying?” Hank wanted to know.

“Nobody lives forever,” Betty snapped, then focused on Jenny again. “With the company gone, we’ll both have time to help out when the baby comes. We can both be there for you, Jenny. And that’s the important thing. Family stands for family. You understand?”

“I do,” Jenny said and reached out to hug the woman who had always been a constant in her life. Heart full, she looked at the older couple and realized that she’d always had family—she’d just been too insecure to notice. Now, she couldn’t understand how she had ever doubted what these two amazing people felt for her.

“Now, you just show us around,” Hank said, letting his gaze slide around the lobby and briefly rest on her entry wall painting. “Let us see what all you’ve done here, then you can quit this job and come home with us where you belong.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but Mike cut her off.

Speaking directly to Hank, he said, “I know you’ve got no reason to trust me, but I need a minute with Jenny.”

“Mike—” She didn’t want more time alone with him. Didn’t think she could take much more.

“I think you’ve said plenty already,” Hank told him.

“I agree with Hank,” Betty said, lifting her chin imperiously.

“Please,” Mike said, looking at Jenny directly, catching her off guard with the quietly voiced plea.

In all the time she’d known him, Jenny had never heard him say
please
to anyone. And that one simple word decided it for her.

To her uncle, she said, “I’ll be back in a minute.” Then she turned, walked into the game room, which was currently unoccupied, and waited for Mike to join her.

With so much happening, Jenny’s heartbeat was fast, her mind spinning. She hardly knew what to think. Her uncle selling the company, her quitting her job, having a baby. And now Mike, wanting to talk again when they’d already said both too much and too little to each other.

She tried to calm the jumping nerves inside her by focusing on the view out the window. The desert landscape was softened by the trees swaying in a soft wind. Jenny focused her gaze on the purple smudge of mountains in the distance and tried to steady her breathing.

“Jenny?”

She turned to face him and her heart raced. He looked—unsure of himself. Something she’d never seen in Mike Ryan. That realization shook her. She wouldn’t be persuaded, in spite of her instinctive urge to go to him and hold on until she eased whatever was bothering him.

“I feel like an idiot,” he muttered, scraping one hand through his hair.

“Not what I expected to hear,” she admitted.

“Oh.” He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “There’s more.” He took a step closer, then stopped, as if not trusting himself to get within reach. “I can’t believe your uncle showed up out of nowhere,” he muttered.

“You’re upset about Uncle Hank coming to see me?”

“Not the act,” he said, “just the timing.”

Now she was really confused.

“You should know that I was wrong about you. Right from the beginning, I was wrong and I think somehow I knew that, I just couldn’t admit it,” he grumbled in irritation. “Just like I know I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you in that bar in Phoenix.”

Suddenly unsteady, Jenny reached down and grabbed the back of a chair for support.
He loved her.
She hadn’t thought to ever hear those words from him. Only yesterday, that confession would have had her glowing in happiness. Now, though, it was too late. “Mike—”

“Just hear me out,” he said, moving in close enough to touch her. To hold her. Hands at her waist, he spoke more quickly now, as if afraid she’d stop listening. “I’m asking you to marry me, Jenny. Not
telling
you,
asking
you. It’s not for the baby’s sake, or convenience or any other damn reason except that I love you. I want to go to bed with you every night and wake up beside you every morning.” His eyes locked with hers and she read the truth there and wished, so wished he had said all of this sooner.

“You’re it for me, Jenny,” he confessed. “Maybe that’s why I fought it so hard. Seeing your future spilling out in front of you can be...overwhelming. But the thing is, no matter how I looked at the future, you were there.” His hands tightened on her waist and the heat of his touch slipped inside her. “There is no future without you, Jenny. There is no
me
without you.”

Her mouth worked, but anything she might have said was choked off by the river of tears crowding her throat.

“I need you to believe me, Jenny,” he said urgently. “I love you. I trust you. Please marry me.”

Oh, God, it was everything she’d ever wanted. The man she loved was giving her the words she’d yearned to hear and it was too late. How could she ever believe in him when it had taken her uncle selling his company to make him believe in her? What kind of irony was it that she was given exactly what she longed for and couldn’t have it?

Disappointment rose up inside her and she couldn’t keep it from spilling out. “No, Mike, I won’t marry you. I can’t. You’re only saying this now because Uncle Hank gave you proof your suspicions about me were wrong.”

“No, that’s not true.”

She shook her head wildly. “I wish you had said all of this before Uncle Hank arrived. It would have meant everything to me.”

“This is what I meant about Hank’s timing. I was going to talk to you tonight.” He shook his head and laughed ruefully. “I had it planned. Moonlight, seduction, romance...”