Regarding The Tycoon's Toddler...

What little air she had in her lungs rushed out on impact, and for a breathless second she was surrounded by heat and confusion and muttered oaths. Her purse and the envelope went flying out of her hands, and she was losing her balance, flailing for support. She gulped air at the same time that two hands grabbed her by her shoulders. In the next second she was on her feet, breathing and steady. Then she looked up at a man, into a face that seemed to be all plains and angles. Gray-blue eyes made her breath catch again with their intensity.

Thankfully, he let her go right then, and he became a blur as he dropped to his haunches in front of her. She looked at him, at strong, ring-free hands picking up an expensive-looking briefcase laying by her well-worn purse and envelope.

She quickly stooped to get her purse. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there, until it was too late. I was so lost in thought, I wasn’t watching.” She got her purse, but when she reached for the envelope, he had it, and her hand tangled with his.

She felt heat, then the contact was gone, and she drew back. “I’ve got this appointment, and I was hurrying and I didn’t look where I was going. This place is getting so screwed up, isn’t it,” she said as she stood and swiped at the only businesslike clothes she’d been able to find—tailored navy slacks and a plain white silk shirt.

“What’s so screwed up?” he asked, the sound of his voice making her look up at him. This time she saw the whole man.

He was tall, four or five inches taller than she, wearing a perfectly cut dove-gray suit, a vest, a shirt in a lighter shade of gray, and a muted burgundy-colored tie. It all defined a whipcord leanness in the man. She looked higher. She saw a wide mouth with a disturbingly sensuous full bottom lip. Then she looked again into those eyes—eyes that were narrowed in a clean-shaven face touched by a suggestion of a tan. Gray or blue eyes, she couldn’t tell exactly.

What she did know was that there was an intensity in the man, making him seem as if he was in motion even while standing still. That there was a subtle edge to him that she couldn’t quite define—nor could she figure out why it made her so self-conscious.

His gaze flicked over her briefly before he looked her right in the eyes again.

Nerves. That was it. She was all nerves today. From lack of sleep and frustration and broken elevators and running up stairs and thinking of facing Zane Holden. No wonder an attractive man who seemed able to look right through her was upsetting her equilibrium.

He was speaking again, and she had to focus to understand that deep voice. “What were you saying about it being screwed up?”

“Screwed up?” she asked blankly, then remembered. “Oh, I meant the company, LynTech. I’m sorry. The elevators aren’t working. They said it was for service, but from what I’ve heard, they were probably told to shut them down every day for a while to save money. Anything to cut costs.”

She looked down at the envelope still in his hand. “That’s mine. I dropped it.”

He held it out to her, and she took it back. “Thanks.”

“Cutting costs is bad?” he asked.

“No, of course not. But the word is, he’s cutting and cutting. God knows where it’ll stop.”

“Him?” he asked, apparently as fond of single-word questions as she was of rambling. It was as unsettling as it was oddly attractive.

“Zane Holden and his cohorts.”

“Cohorts?” he asked, a flash of what must have been a smile touching his mouth. It was a shockingly endearing expression that lasted for less than a heartbeat before it was gone.

“Okay, associates, or whatever you want to call the lot of them. They bought the corporation from Mr. Lewis, a nice old man. Everyone loved him. Then he retired.” She frowned, focusing past this man in front of her and thinking about Mr. Lewis and his unconditional support for the day care program. “Now Holden and his…associates are in charge and making cuts everywhere they can, I guess. I’ve just talked to a few employees, and I know that there’ve been layoffs. When Mr. Lewis owned the company, there were never any layoffs. But now, well, things are changing, or at least being altered drastically.”

“Everything changes in time,” he murmured.

Time! She glanced at her watch. She was out of time, wasting what little she had talking to this man. And she had no idea who he was, even. She’d said more than enough. “Oh, shoot,” she muttered.

“What?”

“I had an appointment and I’m late. I need to get going.” She wondered something that came out of nowhere. What would he look like if he smiled—a complete expression that lingered? The man was distracting her from what she had to do, and that bothered her a lot. She didn’t allow distractions in her life, especially not from someone with eyes that she could get lost in…if she let herself. And she wouldn’t, she decided firmly.

But that resolution lasted only until those blue eyes flicked over her again. Their impact was not diminished.

“And you’re who?” he asked in a low voice.

“I’m late,” she said, snatching at reason and logic, and making herself move past him. “Sorry,” she called back as she hurried away and up the stairs.

She heard a soft, “No problem,” and as she rounded the next corner, she glanced back for just a moment. He was still there watching, and it jolted her. She gripped the handrail, looked away from him and climbed faster, fighting the oddest feeling that she was running away, instead of hurrying toward her appointment.

Chapter Three

But by the time she got to the twentieth floor, the man was forgotten. She stepped out into a lavishly appointed area. Paintings on the wall, carpet underfoot and wood accents everywhere—they were a far cry from tile floors and a Big Bad Wolf with chipped paint.

She stopped to catch her breath, to center herself and focus. And since there was no blue-eyed man anywhere around, she gathered her composure quickly. Then she headed down the corridor to a massive door with a discreet plate on it: Z. Holden.

Bracing herself, she stepped into an even more lavish area and crossed to a marble desk facing the door in the reception room.

“Lindsey Atherton to see Mr. Holden,” she said to a woman as plain as the space around her was lavish. A navy dress, no makeup and very short gray hair were untouched by jewelry or frills. When she spoke, it was the cold voice Lindsey remembered from the phone conversations.

“I’m sorry. Mr. Holden had to cancel.”

Lindsey closed her eyes for a brief moment to get whatever control she could find. All of this hurrying for nothing. Running into that man. And Zane Holden wasn’t here, anyway. “But I had an appointment.”

“He got called away. He said to reschedule.”

She grabbed at anything. “I’ll wait.”

“No, he won’t be back for quite a while.”

The woman opened a leather-bound book in front of her, and Lindsey could see it was an appointment ledger. Names and notes in every hour frame were highlighted with different colors—red, blue, green and yellow. The hour blocks were all filled up to five in the afternoon.

“Let’s see,” the woman was saying as she ran her finger over the pages. “If you wish to reschedule, he could work you in…hmm, uh, let’s see.” She flipped some pages. “How about two weeks from yesterday at eight-thirty in the morning.” She looked at Lindsey. “Should I pencil you in?”

She knew her jaw was clenching, but she nodded. “Yes, please, pencil me in.”

She watched the woman write. “Atherton” in a space, then highlight it with yellow. She didn’t think she wanted to know what a “yellow” appointment meant. Instead, she handed the envelope to the woman. “Could you please see that Mr. Holden gets this?”

The woman’s expression stayed neutral as she took the envelope, laid it on the desk by a stack of letters, then date and time stamp it. She looked back at Lindsey. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, I guess not,” she said, then turned and left before she did or said something totally irrational.

She hurried out into the hallway and back to the stairwell. Inside, with the door closed, she fought every urge in her to scream at the top of her lungs. Weeks to wait. Two full weeks. Until the day before Thanksgiving. She inhaled deeply, exhaled, willed herself to calm down, then headed back downstairs.

She went slowly, taking the time to get a grip on herself and the mixture of frustration and anger churning inside her. All a group of two- to five-year-olds needed was a furiously frustrated caregiver. When she got to the landing where she’d collided with the stranger, she paused; something laying in the corner of the top step caught her eye. She stopped, crouched down and saw a gold pen. A very expensive gold pen.

She picked it up, fingered the smooth coolness and read the brand. Her heart sank. It had to be his, and it must have cost at least two hundred dollars. He’d had on a suit that must have cost a lot more than the pen. And he’d been coming down from the upper levels of the building…. Her heart sank.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it,” she muttered as she pushed the pen into her purse and sank down on the top step.

He didn’t just work here. He had to be an executive. An executive who had to know Zane Holden. “I’m dead,” she breathed. All the things she’d said about Holden to him. She couldn’t even remember now what she’d said. It was all a blur. But it hadn’t been good. She knew that for sure.

Twenty-seven years old, and she still hadn’t learned not to talk to strangers. Especially strangers coming down from the executive level. A flashing memory of those gray-blue eyes came to her, the intensity there, the way he asked her about Holden, the way she’d said something about a screw-up.

She didn’t think she’d told him her name or why she was here, or where she was going or that her appointment was with Holden. She was sure she hadn’t told him anything like that. At least, she hoped she didn’t.