Billionaire Baby Dilemma

“Hey!”

“You get a veto? Then so do I.”

Devin compressed her lips.

“You want to split the pile?” he asked. Maybe they could narrow it down a little by swapping their acceptable choices.

“Can we do it tomorrow?”

Lucas glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty. “What’s wrong with now?” He didn’t believe in procrastination. When a job needed to get done, you did it.

“I’m a little tired.”

He couldn’t help a reflexive eye-roll. “From swimming in the pool and lounging in the sun?”

She retrieved the laptop case from the chair beside her and slid open the zipper. “Those iced-tea glasses were awfully heavy.”

Her joke caught him off guard. He’d expected a snappy, if not angry retort to his jab.

“I’d like to get this over with,” he explained.

“Look.” She sighed. “It may seem early to you, but I’ve had approximately six hours sleep a night, in two or three separate segments, for the past three months. I’m tired.” She gestured to the laptop. “I have a deadline. I’d like to take a quick run, have a quick bath and try my best to rejuvenate my brain cells before Amelia wakes up again.”

Devin stuffed the laptop inside the case, zipped it up and came to her feet. He stood with her. The light from the chandelier caught her face, and for the first time he noticed dark circles under her eyes.

Up until now, he’d been distracted by the sapphire-blue of her irises. They glowed when she smiled at Amelia, flared when she was angry and turned crystal clear when her brain was working on a problem or coming up with a clever retort to something he’d said.

Right now, they seemed faded, like a misty sky on a southern summer day.

“You okay?” he automatically asked.

She tipped her head, gazing up at him. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

“You sure you want to run?” He thought about offering to accompany her again. But he’d been a bit of a cad last time. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was trying to prove. The fact that he had longer, more muscular legs perhaps?

“I’m sure,” she answered.

“You know,” he couldn’t help but point out, “the sooner we find a nanny, the sooner you can get some more sleep.”

She closed her eyes for a split second, her shoulders seeming to droop. He had to check the urge to reach out and steady her.

“I was wrong when I said you were controlling,” she told him.

Progress? He felt hope rise.

“You’re not controlling. You are excruciatingly goal-oriented.”

She made it sound like a flaw.

“It only comes across as controlling,” she continued, “because you try to drag the rest of the world along with you.”

“Sometimes the world needs a little dragging.”

Take Devin. She could get an extra hour of sleep tonight, or she could agree with him on a nanny and get extra sleep from here on in. It was a no-brainer to Lucas.

“Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses,” she told him.

“They don’t bloom until July,” he pointed out.

Devin cracked a small smile at that, even as she shook her head. Then she reached for her laptop case, and Lucas automatically reached out to lift it for her, brushing her shoulder with his forearm as he leaned around her.

The touch was electric, and he reflexively jerked away. The action brought the front of his thigh against the side of hers, and sexual energy jump-started his body.

What was the matter with him?

Sure, she was a gorgeous woman. But he’d been careful to keep that in perspective. He had no call, no business, no right to think of her as anything other than an obstruction. He wanted Amelia, and Devin was in his way. Wanting Devin was nowhere in the plan.

He sucked in a breath, lifting her laptop, drawing away. Wanting Devin? No way. Not going there. Not ever.

Devin followed on Lucas’s heels as he carried her laptop along the wide hallway on the main floor of the mansion. Her shoulder and thigh still buzzed from their contact. Was that really the first time he’d touched her? Ever?

She searched her brain, but she couldn’t remember another occasion. And apparently, the experience would have been seared into her spinal column.

“You can use this one as an office,” he was saying as they neared the front foyer. He opened a door off the hall, revealing a small library.

He hit the light switch, and a desk lamp came on, bathing the room in a soft glow.

The library’s walls were lined with ornate wooden shelves and what looked like an eclectic selection of books. There was a rosewood desk, a patterned area rug and two cream-colored wingback chairs with ottomans that complemented a compact leather chair positioned behind the desk. The room was surprisingly feminine, with touches of pattern china and figurines placed beside the books, and the occasional watercolor seascape recessed into the shelves.

“My mother used to like this room,” said Lucas.

“Are you sure you want me to use it?” She’d been complaining about her deadline to make a point, and to have an excuse to go to bed. She hadn’t intended for Lucas to try to solve her problem.

“Yes. Of course.” He set her laptop on the desk and turned to face her where she stood a few steps into the room. “You need somewhere quiet to concentrate.”

“Once Amelia is asleep-”

He leaned back against the desk, bracing his hands on either side. “You said you had a deadline.”

“I do.”

“Then you’ll let the nanny monitor Amelia, and you will-”

“Are you trying to keep me away from Amelia?”

His brows went up in obvious shock. “No,” he answered simply.

She was inclined to believe him, and she felt her guard go down a notch.

“Then, what are you doing?” she asked. Why did he care about her deadline?

“I’m offering you a place to work.”

She studied his expression, the tight mouth, cool slate eyes, dark imposing brow. “You’re being nice to me,” she accused. “So?”

“So, it’s out of character. So, I’m trying to figure out what you’re up to.”

“I’m not a monster, Devin.”

The sound of her name made her chest go tight. “But you are rather cold-blooded.”

Silence followed her words.

Then he straightened away from the desk. He took a step toward her, then another, and another. A glow of awareness crept into his eyes. “Devin,” he whispered. “At the moment, I am not feeling even remotely cold- blooded.”

She tipped her chin to look at him. For the life of her, she couldn’t come up with a retort.

He smelled fresh as a sea breeze. His skin was shaved close, his hair neatly trimmed and his gray eyes flecked with silver. His softened lips captured her undivided attention.

“What are you doing?” she managed to rasp. She ordered her legs to move, to leave, to flee, but they didn’t obey.

“I wish I knew.”