Bound By A Baby: Have Baby, Need Billionaire / The Boss's Baby Affair / The Pregnancy Contract

The scattered feeling was a familiar one. Despite what she had bragged to Simon about knowing where everything was, she usually experienced a moment of sheer panic when her editor called needing something. Because she knew that she would have to stall her while she located whatever was needed.

“It’s okay, Tula,” Tracy said as if knowing exactly what she was thinking. “I don’t need it this minute and I know it’ll take you some time to find it. If you just email the letter to me first thing in the morning, I’ll hand it in.”

“No, it’s okay,” Tula said suddenly as she realized that she had just spent hours filing things away neatly. “I actually know right where it is.”

“You’re kidding.”

Laughing, she reached out, opened the once-empty file cabinet and pulled out the blue folder. Blue for Bunny Letters, she thought with an inner smile. She even had a system now. Sure, she wasn’t certain how long it would last, but the fun of surprising her editor had been worth the extra work.

“Poor Tracy,” Tula said with sympathy. “You’ve been putting up with my disorganization for too long, haven’t you?”

“You’re organized,” Tracy defended her. “Just in your own way.”

She appreciated the support, but Tula knew very well that Tracy would have preferred just a touch more organizational effort on her writer’s part. “Well, I’m trying something new. I am holding in my hand an actual file folder!”

“Amazing,” Tracy said with a chuckle. “An organized writer. I didn’t know that was possible. Can you fax the letter to me?”

“I can. You’ll have it in a few minutes.”

“Well, I don’t know what inspired the new outlook, but thanks!”

Once she hung up, Tula faxed in the letter, then filed it again and slipped the folder back into the cabinet with a rush of pride. Wouldn’t Simon love to know that he’d been right? As for her, she’d managed to straighten up a mess without losing her identity.

Grinning down at the baby, she asked, “What do you think, Nathan? Can a person have chaos and control?”

She was still wondering about that when she carried the baby downstairs to the kitchen.

A few hours later, Tula said sharply, “You have to make sure he doesn’t slip.”

“Well,” Simon assured her, “I actually knew that much on my own.”

He was bent over the tub, one hand on Nathan’s narrow back while he used his free hand to move a soapy washcloth over the baby’s skin. “How is it you’re supposed to hold him and wash him at the same time?”

Tula grinned and Simon felt a hard punch to his chest. When she really smiled it was enough to make him want to toss her onto the nearest flat surface and bury himself inside her heat.

The kiss they’d shared only a couple of hours before was still burning through him.

He still had the taste of her in his mouth. Had the feel of her soft, sleek skin on his fingers.

Now, as she leaned over beside him to slide a wet washcloth over Nathan’s head, he inhaled and drew her light, floral scent into his lungs. He must have let a groan slip from his throat because she stopped, leaned back and looked up at him.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really,” he said tightly, focusing now on the baby who was slapping the water with both hands and chortling over the splashes he made.

“Simon—”

“Forget it, Tula. Let’s just concentrate on surviving bath time, okay?”

She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “Now who’s pretending it didn’t happen?”

He laughed—a short, sharp sound. “Trust me when I say that’s not what I’m doing.”

“Then why—”

Giving her a hard look, he said, “Unless you’re willing to finish what we started, drop it, Tula.”

She snapped her mouth closed and nodded. “Right. Then I’ll just go get Nathan’s jammies ready while you finish. Are you good on your own?”

Good question.

He always had been.

Before.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

“We’ll be fine. Just go.”

She scooted out of the bathroom a moment later and Nathan drew his first easy breath since bath time had started. He looked down into the baby’s eyes and said, “Remember this, Nathan. Women are nothing but trouble.”

The tiny boy laughed and slapped the water hard enough to send a small wave into his father’s face.

“Traitor,” Simon whispered.

Six (#u160c6387-0456-5bec-b899-43cfb3328bb3)

A few nights later, Simon had had enough of slipping through his own house like a damn ghost. Ever since the kiss he had shared with Tula, he’d kept his distance, staying away not only from her, but from the baby as well. He wondered where in the hell the paternity test results were and asked himself how he was supposed to keep his mind on anything else when memories of a too brief kiss kept intruding.

Hell, it wasn’t just the kiss. It was Tula herself and that was an irritation he hadn’t expected. She was in his mind all the time. Moving through his thoughts like a shadow, never really leaving, always haunting.

She walked into the room and he felt a hard slam of desire pulse through him. His body was hard and his hands itched to touch her. But she seemed blissfully unaware of what she was doing to him, so damned if he’d let her know.

“Maybe we should talk about how this is going to work,” he said when Tula walked into the living room.

Lamplight shone on her blond hair and glittered in her eyes so that it almost looked as if stars were in their depths, winking at him. She was nothing like the women he was usually drawn to. And she was everything he wanted. God, knowing that she was there, in his house, right down the hall from his own bedroom, was making for some long, sleepless nights.

Oblivious of his thoughts, she smiled at him, crossed the room and dropped into a wingback chair on his right. Curling her feet up beneath her, she said, “Yes, the baby went right to sleep as soon as I laid him down. Thanks for asking.”

He frowned to himself and silently admitted that, no, he hadn’t been thinking about the baby. Hardly his fault when she was so near. He dared any man to be able to keep his mind off Tula Barrons for long. “I assumed he was sleeping since he’s not with you and I can’t hear him crying.”

She studied him for a thoughtful moment. “Don’t you think you should start being a part of the whole putting-Nathan-to-bed routine?”

“When I get the results of the paternity test, I will.”

Until then, he was going to hang back. Taking part in bath time a few nights ago had taught him that he was too damn vulnerable where that baby was concerned. He had actually thought of himself as the boy’s father.

What if he found out Nathan wasn’t his?