A Baby For The Boss

“That’s it. I don’t have to listen to any more of your paranoid ramblings. Get out of my room.” She swung one hand toward the door and stabbed the air with her index finger.

He grabbed his black jacket off a nearby chair and shrugged it on. “Oh, I’m going. No worries there. I wouldn’t stay if you begged me to.”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

He snorted again, a particularly annoying, insulting sound. Striding across the room to the door, he stopped before he opened it and looked back over his shoulder at her. “Tell your uncle I said nice try, but no cigar. Celtic Knot won’t be doing a deal with him no matter how many attractive nieces he tosses into my bed.”

Jenny picked up a wineglass from the room service tray they’d shared the night before and hurled it at him. He was through the door and out before the glass shattered against the wood to lie in splinters on the floor.

* * *

Jenny sighed and took another sip of her wine. She hadn’t thought to even see Mike Ryan again, but then six months later, his brother, Sean, had offered her a job that was simply too good to pass up. The chance to work on the kind of art she loved was worth the risk of being around Mike every day. And frankly, by being on-site every day, she was silently telling Mike Ryan that what he’d done hadn’t hurt her. Hadn’t crushed her. Of course that was a big, fat lie, but he didn’t have to know that. Working at Celtic Knot was a dream that only occasionally became a nightmare when she was forced to deal with Mike.

Of course now, the nightmare would be a 24/7 thing for the next few months. Yes, she was excited about being the artist to design the murals for the River Haunt hotel. But having to work one-on-one with Mike was going to make it all so much more grueling than it should have been. Still, she wouldn’t back off. Oh, Jenny knew that Mike wanted her off the project, but this was too big an opportunity for her to turn tail and run. Especially, she reminded herself, since she’d done nothing wrong.

He was the one who had plenty to apologize for. He was the one who’d insulted her, humiliated her and then stomped off without so much as listening to her side of the story.

So why should she be the one to pay a price?

The knock on her door interrupted her thoughts and she told herself, if it was a salesman, she’d buy whatever he was selling out of simple gratitude.

She opened the door and stared up into Mike Ryan’s blazing blue eyes. Without waiting to be invited in, he pushed his way past her and marched into her apartment with all the determination of Grant taking Richmond.

With little else to do but accept the inevitable, Jenny closed the door. “Well, do come in,” she said, every word dripping with sarcasm. “Make yourself at home.”

Features grim, eyes the color of a lake frozen over, he said, “We need to talk.”

Two (#ulink_69305903-5c8d-5948-8e2e-f646e7167d4a)

Mike stopped in the middle of the room, turned and just looked at her. She wore a pale green T-shirt and faded, curve-hugging jeans with a hole at the knee. Her small, narrow feet were bare but for the pale pink nail polish. Her hair was a rumpled mass of tumbling blond curls and her wide blue eyes were fixed on him warily. She looked good. Too damned good, and that was part of the problem.

Stuffing both hands into his pockets, just to keep from reaching for her, Mike deliberately looked away from Jenny and glanced around the small living room. His gaze picked out the details even as his brain reminded him not to let her distract him. Great body, beautiful eyes and kissable lips notwithstanding, he had come here for a reason and he had to keep his focus.

The duplex was old, probably one of the original beach cottages built in the late 1930s. Jenny’s home was well kept, casual and welcoming. There were overstuffed chairs covered in a flowery fabric and a love seat boasting yellow and blue stripes. Several small tables and standing brass lamps were scattered about the room, shining puddles of golden light onto the scarred but polished wood floors and the few rugs that broke up the space. The walls were painted a soft green that reminded him of spring. There were framed paintings and photographs clustered together in no discernible pattern and on one wall, there was a mural.

His gaze caught it and held. Obviously, Jenny had painted it herself and Mike had to admit that whatever else she was, the woman was also immensely talented. The mural was a scene straight out of a fairy tale—or an Irish legend. A forest, just waking up to daylight. Fog drifted across the landscape in thin gray wisps, sunlight speared through the trees to lie in a dappled pattern on the leaf-strewn ground. There was a hint of a flower-laden meadow in the distance and in the towering trees were fairies, delicate wings looking as if they would flutter any minute.

Damn it. He hated that she was this good.

“Why are you here, Mike?” Her voice was soft, but the glint in her eye was anything but.

Good question. Mike knew he probably shouldn’t have come here—they hadn’t been alone together since that night in Phoenix—but he had run out of options. He couldn’t tell Sean why working with Jenny was a mistake—because damned if he’d let his little brother know that he’d once been taken for a ride. In more ways than one.

But Jenny knew why this wouldn’t work. All he had to do was get her to tell Sean she didn’t want the job of designing the art for the new hotel. And if Jenny herself requested that she be let out of the project, Sean wouldn’t object.

Time to get to the point so Mike could get the hell out of this too-small house where her scent seemed to hover in the air for the express purpose of tormenting him. “I want you to back out of the hotel job.”

She didn’t even blink. “Interesting. Well, I want to be three inches taller and have smaller boobs. Looks like we’re both doomed to disappointment.”

Why the hell she would want smaller breasts was beyond him, but not the point. “We both know that working together for months is a bad idea.”

“Agreed.” She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts higher. “Maybe you’re the one who should quit. Switch hotels with Sean. I like Sean.”

“Leave Sean alone,” Mike ground out.

Her oh-so-casual pose evaporated and she threw her hands high in frustration. “Please. Now you’re afraid I’m going to be paid to seduce Sean?”

“I didn’t say that.” Thought it, maybe. Said it, no. All right, he admitted silently, he hadn’t even thought it. Not really.

“What exactly are you saying, Mike?” She plopped both hands on her hips and the movement tightened the fabric of her shirt against the aforementioned breasts. Distractions, Mike told himself. Pay no attention.

“I’m saying leave Sean out of this,” he said. “It’s between you and me.”

“Fine. Then you tell Sean he should take over the River Haunt and you do the Wyoming place.”

“No.” He wasn’t ready to admit defeat yet. He could still find a way to convince Jenny that this was an impossible situation and that it was up to her to back off.

She shrugged again, and walked past him slowly enough that the scent of her vanilla perfume flavored the breath he took and held as she made for the chair by the wide window.

“So, since neither one of us is willing to drop out of this project, I guess we’re done here,” she said, plopping into the chair and lifting her wineglass for a sip.

“We are far from done.” Through the window behind her, he saw the street was dark, with the dim glow of lamplight shining through a neighbor’s drapes.

January nights at the beach could be cold, but here in this tiny duplex, Mike felt only the heat of being near her again. Her hair shone, her eyes glittered and her mouth curved up at one corner when she spoke. She was enjoying this, he thought, and a part of him liked that about her.

Jenny Marshall didn’t back down for anyone. He’d seen her go head-to-head with older, more experienced artists, defending her designs and techniques. She held her own in meetings and wasn’t afraid to fight for her vision of things. But as much as he admired those traits, he wished she wasn’t currently turning her admirable qualities on him.

“Mike, you don’t want to work with me and I don’t want to work with you. But we’re stuck with each other.” She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “We’ll have to make the best of it.”

“Unacceptable.” Shaking his head, he looked away from her because the damn lamplight made her hair shine like burnished gold. He never should have come here. It had been a bad idea and if he were smart, he’d leave right now since their argument was getting them exactly nowhere.

As he sifted through dozens of pretty much useless thoughts, his gaze fixed on the magical forest mural. It was dark, mysterious, but with the fairies in the limbs of the trees, there was a sense of playfulness amid the darkness and the longer he looked at it, the more fairies he spotted. Hiding behind leaves, beside rocks, in the water of a fast-moving stream. It was hypnotic, mystical.

He shifted to look at her. “Damn good work,” he blurted, before he could stop himself.

“Thanks.” Surprise flitted across her face, then vanished. “But if you’re wondering, I didn’t steal that scene from any of Celtic Knot’s games.”

He fired a look at her that had been known to make stone-hearted business rivals quake. Jenny wasn’t fazed. “I didn’t say you stole it.”

“Not yet,” she told him, pausing for another sip of wine. “I’m sure you’ll get to it. I know very well what you think of me.”

“Do you blame me?” he countered. Mike pushed one hand through his hair, then scrubbed that hand across the back of his neck. Ever since he met her, this woman had had the ability to tangle him up into knots. Even knowing she was a damn liar hadn’t taken away the rush he’d felt every time he thought of her.

At work, he kept his distance, knowing it was best for everyone. Coming here, into her place, being alone with her in the lamp-lit dark was dangerous. He knew it, and still he didn’t leave. Instead, he took a single step toward her and stopped because her scent clouded his mind and he couldn’t afford to addle his brain any more than it already was.

“That’s not a fair question,” she answered. “You made up your mind about me in an instant and never once listened to any side but your own.”

“What other side was there?” he countered. “Hell, your uncle is still running Snyder Arts.”