The CEO's Baby Surprise

* * *

Daniel hadn’t meant to sound like such a cold, unfeeling bastard. But he wasn’t about to be taken for a ride. He knew the score. A few months back his brother Caleb had been put through the ringer in a paternity suit that had eventually proved the kid he’d believed was his wasn’t. And Daniel wasn’t about to get pulled into that same kind of circus.

Mary-Jayne Preston’s baby couldn’t possibly be his...could it? He’d never played roulette with birth control. Besides, now that he could well and truly see her baby bump she looked further along than four months. Simone hadn’t started showing so obviously until she was five months’ pregnant.

“I’d like you to leave.”

Daniel didn’t move. “Won’t that defeat the purpose of your revelation?”

She scowled, and he couldn’t help thinking how she still looked beautiful even with an infuriated expression. “You know about the baby, so whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you.”

“Until I get served with child-support demands, you mean?”

She placed her hands on her hips and Daniel’s gaze was immediately drawn to her belly. She was rounder than he remembered, kind of voluptuous, and a swift niggle of attraction wound its way through his blood and across his skin. Her curves had appealed to him from the moment they’d first met, and watching her now only amplified that desire.

Which was damned inconvenient, since she was obviously trying to scam him.

“I don’t want your money,” she said stiffly. “And I certainly don’t want a wedding ring. When I get married it will be to someone I actually like. I intend to raise this baby alone. Believe me, or don’t believe me. Frankly, I don’t care either way.”

There was such blatant contempt in her voice that he was tempted to smile. One thing about the woman in front of him—she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. And even though he knew it was crazy thinking, it was an interesting change from the usual lengths some women went to in order to get his attention. How sincere she was, he couldn’t tell.

“We spent the night together a little over four months ago,” he reminded her. “You look more than four months pregnant.”

Her glare intensified. “So it’s clearly a big baby. All I know is that the only possible way I got pregnant was from that night I spent with you. I hadn’t been with anyone for a long time before that night. Despite what you think of me, I’m not easy. And I don’t lie. I have no reason to want this child to be yours. I don’t like you. I’m not interested in you or your money or anything else. But I am telling you the truth.”

He still wasn’t convinced. “So the ex-boyfriend?”

“A figment of my imagination,” she replied. “Like I said, Solana was asking questions and I needed a little camouflage for a while.”

He kept his head. “Even if there is no boyfriend and you are indeed carrying a supersize baby...we used contraception. So it doesn’t add up.”

“And since condoms are only ninety-eight percent effective, we obviously managed to slip into the two percent bracket.”

Ninety-eight percent effective?

Since when?

Daniel struggled with the unease clawing up his spine. “You cannot expect me to simply accept this news at face value.”

She shrugged, as if she couldn’t care either way. “Do, or don’t. If you want a paternity test to confirm it, then fine, that’s what we’ll do.”

He relaxed a little. Finally, some good sense. “Thank you.”

“But it won’t be done until the baby is born,” she said evenly and took a long breath. “There are risks associated with tests after the fifteen-week mark, and I won’t put my baby in jeopardy. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

There was such unequivocal resolve in her voice, and it surprised him. She was a flake. Unreliable. Unpredictable. Nothing like Simone. “Of course,” he said, and did his best to ignore the stabbing pain in his temple. His shoulders ached, and he could feel the effects of no sleep and hours flying across the globe begin to creep into his limbs. “I wouldn’t expect you to put your child at risk.”

Her child.

Her baby.

This wasn’t what he’d expected to face when he’d decided to come home. But if she was telling the truth? What then? To share a child with a woman he barely knew. It was a train wreck waiting to happen.

And he hated waiting. In business. In his personal life.

He’d waited at the hospital when Simone was brought in with critical injuries. He waited while the doctors had tried to save her and their unborn daughter. He’d waited, and then received the worst possible news. And afterward he’d experienced a heartbreaking despair. After that night he became hollow inside. He’d loved his wife and daughter. Losing them had been unbearable. And he’d never wanted to feel that kind of soul-destroying anguish again.

But if Mary-Jayne was carrying his child, how could he turn his back?

He couldn’t. He’d be trapped.

Held ransom by the very feelings he’d sworn he never wanted to feel again.

“So what do you want from me until then?”

“Want? Nothing,” she replied quietly. “I’ll call you when the baby is born and the paternity test is done. Goodbye.”

He sighed. “Is this how you usually handle problems? By ignoring them?”

Her cheeks quickly heated. “I don’t consider this baby a problem,” she shot back. “And the only thing I plan to ignore is you.”

* * *

He stared at her for a moment, and then when he laughed Mary-Jayne realized she liked the sound way too much. She didn’t want to like anything about him. Not ever. He had become enemy number one. For the next five months all she wanted to do was concentrate on growing a healthy baby. Wasting time thinking about Daniel and his sexy laugh and gray eyes was off her agenda.

“You don’t really think that’s going to happen, do you?” he asked, watching her with such hot intensity she couldn’t look away. “You’ve dropped this bombshell, and you know enough about me to realize I won’t simply fade away for the next five months.”

“I can live in hope.”

“I think you live in a fantasyland, Mary-Jayne.”

The way he said her name caused her skin to prickle. No one called her that except her parents and her older brother, Noah. Even her sisters and closest friends mostly called her M.J. To the rest of the world she was M. J. Preston—the youngest and much loved sibling in a close-knit middle-class family. But Daniel had always used her full name.

Mary-Jayne took a deep breath. “A fantasyland?” She repeated his words as a question.

“What else would you call it?” he shot back as he looked her over. “You’re what, twenty-seven? Never married or engaged. No real career to speak of. And a barely solvent online business. You’ve rented the same house for nearly ten years. You drive a car that’s good for little else but scrap metal. You have less than a thousand dollars in the bank at any given time and a not-so-stellar credit rating thanks to a certain dubious ex-boyfriend who ran up a debt on your behalf over five years ago. It looks very much like you do—”

“How do you know that?” she demanded hotly, hands on hips. “How do you know all that about me? I’ve not told Solana any of...” She trailed off as realization hit. And then she seethed. “You had me investigated?”

“Of course,” he replied, unmoving and clearly unapologetic.

“You had no right to do that,” she spat. “No right at all. You invaded my privacy.”

He shrugged his magnificent shoulders. “You are working at this resort and have befriended my grandmother—it was prudent to make sure you weren’t a fortune hunter.”

“Fortune hunter?” Mary-Jayne’s eyes bulged wide and she said a rude word.

He tilted his head a fraction. “Well, the jury’s still out on that one.”