A Baby for the Boss (8 page)

Jenny grabbed her purse out of her desk drawer, then lunged to her feet. “You know, I really think I should just go home early.”

“Are you worried?” Casey asked gently. “About how your boyfriend’s going to take the news? I was nervous before I told my husband.” She smiled to herself. “There was no reason to be. He was excited. Happy.”

Mike wouldn’t be. But Jenny couldn’t say that because no one in the office knew she and Mike were together. Oh, this just got more and more complex.

Still, she forced a smile she didn’t feel and lied to the nice woman still watching her. “I’m sure you’re right and he will be. But right now, I think I just need to lie down for a while.”

“That’s a good idea,” Casey said and stood up, too. “Take care of yourself and if you need anything—” She shrugged. “Call me, okay?”

“Sure. I will. Um, thanks, Casey.”

“No problem. Drive safe.”

Drive, Jenny told herself as she left the office and headed for the parking lot. Straight to a drugstore where she’d buy a few pregnancy tests and take them all. For the first time in her life, she was actually hoping she had the flu.

* * *

She didn’t.

An hour later, Jenny looked at the five test strips lined up on her bathroom counter. Every last one of them was positive. She hadn’t trusted one kind of test, either. She’d bought different ones, tried them all. And they all proved her suspicions right.

“I guess that’s it, then,” she murmured, lifting her gaze to her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. “I’m going to have a baby. Mike’s baby.”

Both hands covered her flat belly as if cradling the child within. She waited, meeting her own eyes in the mirror, trying to decipher the myriad emotions racing through her. Sure, panic was in there, but it wasn’t uppermost in her mind. First and most important, there was
excitement.

This wouldn’t be easy, she admitted silently, but nothing great ever was. There was a lot to think about, to plan for. First, of course, she had to tell Mike. She wouldn’t even try to keep this from him, even knowing how he was going to react.

Her heart hurt as she thought about the confrontation that would come soon. He’d never trusted her and this news was going to convince him that he had been right about her all along. She still had to tell him that she was carrying his child. Even if he wanted nothing to do with her afterward. Even if he walked out and never looked back.

She took a breath to steady herself, but the twinges of pain still squeezed her heart. Mike wasn’t going to be happy. But Jenny was. There had never been a future for her and the man she loved, but now when he walked away, she would have something of him, forever. A baby. Her own child. Her own family. Someone to love. Someone who would love her.

She hadn’t planned this, but now that the baby was here, she wouldn’t change it, either.

“I promise, I want you,” she whispered, voice soft with wonder as her palms stroked her belly. “You’ll be loved and you’ll never have to worry about me walking away. About being left alone. You’ll be safe, I swear it.”

She lifted her chin, stiffened her spine and resolved then and there that no matter what Mike said, what he tried to make her feel, she wouldn’t lose this excitement. This sense of pure joy that was already whipping through her like lightning strikes. She hadn’t expected this pregnancy, but she would never regret it.

She would give this child the life she had always wanted. It would grow up loved and secure and it would never, ever doubt its mother’s love.

Jenny took a steadying breath and tried to steer her celebratory thoughts back down into more immediate concerns. Like facing Mike—and the possibility that she would have to change jobs. Even if he didn’t fire her and who knew, he very well might, working at Celtic Knot over the next few months could be very uncomfortable.

But before she made any decisions, she had to tell Mike.

Jenny watched her reflection wince. That conversation wasn’t going to be pretty. He would never believe she hadn’t planned this pregnancy. And any semblance of warmth that had sprung up between them over the past few weeks was going to dissipate.

She hated knowing that. Hated understanding that her time with Mike was going to end. But not only did she love the man, she
knew
him. So she had to prepare herself for the fact that once he knew the truth, all of her fantasies would be over.

When her cell phone rang she went out to answer it. Seeing Mike’s name on the screen didn’t even surprise her. Of course he would call when she was thinking about him. Of course she wouldn’t have time to get used to this staggering news before having to tell him and weather the inevitable fallout. But maybe it was better this way. Worrying over the coming confrontation would only tie her up in knots anyway.

Steeling herself, she answered. “Hi, Mike.”

“Jenny, are you all right?” She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice. At the concern ringing in his tone. “Casey says you went home sick.”

Sick. Well, technically, her stomach was still feeling a little iffy, but it was so much more.

“I’m okay, but, Mike,” she said, mentally preparing herself for what was to come, “we have to talk.”

* * *

An hour later, Mike stood in her living room staring down at the five test sticks she’d laid out on the coffee table. Brain burning, heart pounding, Mike stared at the evidence in front of him and still couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. He took a few deep breaths, willing himself to calm down, to beat back the sense of betrayal and suspicion that slapped at him.

“Pregnant?” He shifted his gaze to the woman across the room from him. Her blond hair curled around her head. Her blue eyes were wide and shone with an innocence he couldn’t trust. She wore those silly flannel pants and a yellow tank top that bared her shoulders and hugged her generous breasts. His gaze dropped to her belly briefly as he tried to imagine a child—
his
child—nestled inside.

He couldn’t do it.

“How the hell did that happen?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Really?”

He pushed both hands through his hair and scrambled for patience. “I know
how
, so don’t get cute. But we used a condom. Every time.”

“I know,” Jenny said, wrapping her arms around her middle almost defensively, “but nothing’s a hundred percent.”

“Well, they damn well should be,” he argued. What the hell as the point of using a damn condom if they didn’t do their job? “Unless...” Mind clicking along, racing down dark, twisted, tangled roads, he said, “You had those condoms in your drawer.”

“So?”

He didn’t answer that question. Instead, he turned and stalked into her bedroom, tore open the drawer and grabbed one of the condoms still there. Had they been damaged somehow? Had she found a way to sabotage them so... He saw the date stamped on the bottom of the foil.

“What’re you doing?” Jenny asked as she came into the room behind him.

“I thought maybe you’d done something to these,” he muttered, turning to look at her, still holding the damn condom. “I don’t know, poked holes in them with a needle or something.”

She gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

He ignored that, just as he paid no attention to the look of astonishment on her face. She wasn’t an innocent and he should have remembered that before allowing himself to slide into an affair that could only end badly. “Turns out you didn’t have to. How the hell long have you had these things?”

She blinked in confusion, then said, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just answer the question.”

Frowning at him, she said, “They were party favors at a bachelorette party I went to five years ago.”

“Five years.” Nodding, he curled his fingers around the condom package and squeezed.

“Does that matter?”

A short, sharp laugh shot from his throat. “Yeah. It matters. Especially since they
expired
five years ago.” He couldn’t believe this.

“What do you mean?” She practically pried his fingers apart to snatch the packet from him. “Condoms can
expire
?”

“You thought they lasted forever?”

“No,” she said, “I never thought about it. Why would I? It’s not like they have to be refrigerated or anything. Who would expect they could go bad? They’re in their own little foil packs for heaven’s sake.”

“That’s just perfect,” he muttered and thought back to the first night with her here, at her house, and how damned grateful he’d been that she had condoms on hand. He’d never checked them out. Never thought to make sure they were good.

He scrubbed both hands across his face and told himself this was what he got for going against his own instincts. He’d wanted her. Had to have her. Even knowing that she was a liar. Now he was paying the price for following his own needs.

“It’s probably why your friend gave them away as party favors,” he muttered darkly. “Because they were no good, she got ’em cheap.

“But why would you hold on to them?”

“I didn’t think about it,” she said with a shake of her head. “I just tossed them into the drawer and never gave it another thought.”

“Perfect,” he muttered, scraping one hand across his face.

“You knew they were no good,” he said, voice deep, dark. Anger bubbled in his gut until it was a thick, hot brew that spilled through his veins. “You knew what would happen if we used them and you were good with that, weren’t you?”

“Are you serious?”

“Damn right, I’m serious.” He crowded in on her, forcing her to back up until her legs hit the mattress and she plopped down onto it. “This was all a setup, wasn’t it? Right from the beginning.”

“What
all
are you talking about?” she demanded, glaring up at him. “You mean, you coming to my house, willingly going to my bed? That
all
?”

“Us meeting in Phoenix. You coming to work at Celtic Knot. It’s all been building to this, right? Why the hell else would you come to work for me after what happened when we met?”

“You are seriously paranoid,” she snapped, tossing her hair out of her eyes so she could glare at him.

“Right. I’m paranoid, but you’re pregnant, so maybe I’m not crazy, huh?” He leaned over her until their faces were just a breath apart. The smell of her invaded his senses and threw gasoline on the fire inside him. Even furious, even staggered by her news, Mike could admit to wanting her. To needing her. And that fried him.

“All you needed to do was get me in here, to use the damn useless condoms so you could get pregnant.” He was so angry, the edges of his vision were blurred. His breath came fast and hard, his heartbeat thundered and desire tangled with fury until his whole body practically vibrated.

She shoved at him and he backed up just far enough for her to clamber off the bed and gain her feet again. “My God, do you really think you’re that great a prize? Do you know how many times you’ve insulted me by calling me a thief? And that’s supposed to endear you to me somehow?”

“Yet you slept with me anyway and here we are,” he reminded her, in spite of the sparks flashing in her eyes.

“You’re right,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her words. “How clever I must be. And psychic as well to
know
that the great Mike Ryan would one day deign to visit my little apartment. Would allow me to seduce him with my trickery and feminine wiles. How brilliant of me to have faulty condoms so I could fool him into impregnating me. My God, I’m
amazing
.”

It sounded ludicrous even to him, but Mike couldn’t let it go completely. His mind worked, with two opposing voices shouting, demanding to be heard. But the calm, cool, rational part of him was buried beneath the facts he couldn’t forget. She’d lied to him the first time he met her. She’d come to work at his company in spite of that. She’d wormed her way onto his hotel design team. She’d made herself
important
. But he’d kept her on. Hadn’t told Sean to fire her. Why? Because she had gotten into his blood whether he’d wanted her there or not.

Now she was pregnant.

He looked down at her and the flash in her blue eyes did nothing to ease the anger bubbling and frothing inside him. It didn’t help to know that even as furious as he was, he could still look at her and need her.

“No matter what you think,” she said tightly, “I didn’t trick you. I didn’t set up a
trap
to catch the mighty and elusive Mike Ryan.”

“Well, since you’re so honest,” he ground out, “I’ll just believe you, okay?”

“You should but you won’t,” she told him, shaking her head, sending those curls that drove him crazy into a wild dance about her head. She underlined each of her words with a determined tap of her index finger against his chest. “Do you really think I would trap a man who doesn’t want me? I’ve got more self-respect than that, thanks.”

Jenny stood there facing him, chin lifted, eyes narrowed and hot with banked fury. She looked beautiful and strong, and it took everything he had to fight the urge to grab her and pull her in close. Jenny Marshall got to him like no one else ever had and he hated admitting that, even to himself.

Shaking his head, he took a mental step backward and told her, “It’s not going to work. You’re not getting money out of me and I won’t marry you.”

Her head jerked back as if he’d slapped her, but she recovered fast, he had to give her that.

“I don’t want
anything
from you. As for marrying me? Who asked you to?” she demanded and whirled around. She left the bedroom, walked into the living room, and he followed because what the hell else was he going to do?

She stopped in front of the windows and with the last of the sun’s rays silhouetting her in gold, she looked at him and said, “I wouldn’t marry you on a bet, Mike. You think I’d actually trap a man who doesn’t want me into a marriage that would be a misery? No, thanks. I don’t need you to take care of me or my baby, Mike.”

Now it was his turn to feel insulted. Whatever he did or didn’t feel for Jenny, she was carrying
his
kid and she’d better get used to that from the jump. “You can’t keep my child from me, Jenny, so don’t even try.”