The Baby Deal

“They talked about him all the time. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention, I guess. When they talked about a breakthrough on the liquid oxygen alternative, that’s when I tuned in. It’s weird to think about Donna as a mother instead of an engineer. The failed prototype was Donna’s. She designed it from the ground up. Worked on it for three years.”

That explained a lot. “Sometime today, call Mikey’s pediatrician. I’ll give you a list of things to ask.”

“Uh, okay.”

Juliana sighed. “Call Donna’s admin and get the name and number from her. Then start taking notes. If you want to be a father, then you have to know these things. What would you have done if Mikey developed a fever?”

“Called Linda. My admin,” he clarified before she could ask. “I must not have been clear back at your house. I need help. Not judgment.”

She unclenched her teeth. “I’m sorry.”

Shay needed her on his side. Knowing how to care for a child wasn’t innate, not even for females. Her own mother wouldn’t have won any awards; in fact, she’d thoroughly failed at instilling a sense of security in her daughter, the most important aspect of childrearing.

Most women—women who were interested—used all nine months to learn everything they could, breathing baby books until their water broke. Shay would have to do it in eight weeks and without benefit of a highly motivating nesting instinct.

He was trying. She should be trying, too, not jumping down his throat because he was still outrageously sexy and she’d just received the very nasty wake-up call that she wasn’t immune to it. She had to find an inoculation quickly because she wasn’t leaving this job without solid notes for her book and she wasn’t falling back into Shay’s crazy.

“We’re here.”

Shay hit a button on the visor and the wrought-iron gate connecting a stone wall swung open. He drove onto the property, and she got her first glimpse of a billionaire’s life.

“What are all those cranes for around the lake?” she asked and noted they were connected to a wire line circling the water.

“It’s a wakeboard cable system. You should try it while you’re here. I’ve already called my architect to come enclose the lake and the outdoor pool with something a kid can’t get through. Made his year with the dollar signs I waved under his nose.”

See, she assured herself, Shay wasn’t completely clueless. That meant her job wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d envisioned.

The house—a term which could only be applied in the loosest sense to the enormous glass-and-steel structure—straddled the center of the estate, unfolding in both directions with multiple floors, balconies and sharp rooflines. “All this for one person?”

“Eight people,” he corrected immediately. “Me, Mikey and the staff.”

Not a house. A home. He and Mikey would be a family. A sharp spike behind her rib cage reminded her she’d left Shay to find a stable man who could give her a stable life, complete with children, and now she’d be creating exactly that with Shay after all.

Only she’d have to walk away in a few short weeks, leaving a gap wide open for someone else to slide into.

“You said outdoor pool. There’s an indoor pool, too? Never mind. I have plenty of time to acquaint myself with all the goodies.” Private jets, indoor pools and an extreme athlete’s body she’d been very careful not to notice. She almost offered him an aspirin for the sore arm he must have from beating off the women with a stick. “I’m not here to act as your glorified babysitter while you jet off to Paris with this week’s playmate, am I?”

She’d assumed when they’d split that he’d find a girl better suited to being flung off a cliff—emotional and actual—but his love life after her had always been a nebulous, murky idea. Now it was real and she swallowed against the sudden burn in her throat.

He shot her a sideways scowl and threw the car into Park. “Yeah, I’ve got dates lined up out the door. A different woman every night while Mikey cries himself to sleep. My social life is nonexistent. Thanks for the reminder.”

He barreled out of the car. When he opened her door, she stepped out onto the stained concrete circular drive and grabbed his hand before he could turn away. Something needed to change but she wasn’t sure what. She hated being unsure.

“Should I scrawl ‘I’m sorry’ across my forehead with a Sharpie? I’m bound to get laryngitis as many times as I’ve had to say it.”

He chuckled and it spread through her abdomen with a tingle.

“How about a truce instead?” He flipped her hand and shook it. “We used to get along pretty well. Let’s see if we can find a way back to that.”

The weight of his fingers against hers took on a whole new meaning. “That sounds suspiciously like the opposite of professional.”

“Hmm, you think so?” His hand tightened and a thumb brushed over her knuckle in a long stroke. The sparks submerged her senses with the kind of quick heat she’d done her best to forget, but it came rushing back in a torrent of memory.

“Uh-huh. The opposite.”

“You said that already.”

He was watching her with intense, impossible-to-look-away-from focus, leaning into her, a slight tilt away from something irreversible. Crazy. Dangerous and frightening.

“We should go inside,” she rasped and cleared her throat, breaking the connection and sweeping her hair off her shoulders in a poor attempt to reorient, which surely didn’t fool Shay. “Will you show me to my room?”

“Sure. I’ll send someone out for your bags.”

No catch in his voice, because she’d never affected him the way he did her, as if her legs would collapse at any moment. Firm, solid ground, that’s what she needed.

He mounted the patterned steps lined with twenty-foot palm trees and exotic flowers that shouldn’t grow in the desert but did because they belonged to Shay. He created magic from nothing, an alchemy she’d never been able to analyze until it made sense.

She reminded herself that she didn’t need to understand him. She only needed to do her job, get research notes for her book and get out.

Forty-seven hallways later, her head spun from trying to take in the luxurious room Shay had ushered her into. The four-poster bed presided over the room from a raised dais, leading to an inviting seating area to the left that shared a flat-screen TV mounted on a swivel arm between them.

One whole wall was clear acrylic, enclosing a tank full of colorful, darting fish, coral and glowing anemones. The remaining walls were painted a purple so dark, it should have closed in the space, but actually worked well to unite the separate areas. Raw silk in lighter purples, off-white and black covered the bed and was repeated in the fabrics of the seating area and window treatments.

It was difficult to reconcile all this wealth and opulence with the rough-around-the-edges man she’d known in college. “Your home is beautiful.”

“My mom.” He twisted his mouth into a self-deprecating grin. “She and the decorator were texting each other within two days. I figured why ruin her fun? So I let her have free rein.”

Juliana recalled Mrs. Shaylen being a very proper, nervous woman who taught English at a private high school in Dallas. They’d never gotten along well, though Juliana couldn’t fathom why not. They shared a strong desire to see Shay live until his next birthday and he’d ignored both of them equally well.

“I’ll unpack later. We should start right away with Mikey. What does he usually do in the afternoons?”

“Different stuff. I temporarily reassigned one of the maids to Mikey. Maria. She raised five kids but has no interest in long-term child care. He’s with her now. She watches him if I have to go into the office or do a conference call from home.”

“Maybe that’s where we should start. What are the next two months going to look like? What are you hoping to accomplish? Total immersion means there won’t be a lot of going into the office. We should organize a list of goals and then assign blocks of time to—”

“Whoa, Schedule Police. Is all that necessary?”

“Yes, extremely. We have a limited amount of time and a lot to cover. We need a plan of attack. Additionally, it’s important to note children thrive on schedules. They like to know what’s coming next. It’s comforting. Schedules are now a part of your life.”

In the time she’d taken to explain the most fundamental concept Shay needed to learn, he’d edged into her space. The fine lines he’d grown around his eyes were deeper than she’d realized, aging him. He wasn’t twenty-two anymore, either, and it fit him nicely.

If only the inside had aged as well as the outside.

“Hey, Ju?” His gaze flitted over her and the atmosphere tangibly shifted, growing dense and tight. “Danged if I don’t like this new you. That high-brow tone you get when you’re being all consulty-like, it’s really sexy.”

She narrowed an eye at him. “Say what?”

“Yeah. I like it. Give me some more.” His cheekbones drew upward as he smiled wolfishly.