Expecting His Baby

“Make my day.”

“Looks like someone ought to, and it might as well be me.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

But as she tried to push the door shut, he neatly inserted his foot in the gap and pried it further open. She seethed, “Judd, I’ll holler blue murder if you don’t go away.”

He gave her a charming smile, although his eyes, she noticed, were cool and watchful. “I’ve got a favor to ask you,” he said. “It concerns Emmy, not me, and it’s important. Won’t you at least hear me out?”

“Do you always use other people to gain your own ends?”

In a voice like steel, he said, “I happen to be telling the truth. Or is that a commodity you don’t recognize?”

“In you, no.”

“If we’re going to have a no-holds-barred, drag-’em-out fight, let’s at least do it in the privacy of your apartment,” he said, and pushed past her to stand in the hallway.

He was six inches taller than she, and probably seventy pounds heavier. Not to mention his muscles. Lise slammed the door shut and leaned back against it. “So what’s the favor and make it fast.”

He stepped closer. “You’ve been crying.”

Between gritted teeth she said, “The favor, Judd.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything. I can’t go back to work for a whole week, my right arm’s useless and I’m going nuts. Do you know what I did all day yesterday? Watched reruns of Star Wars—for the third time. And what else would you like to know? What are you doing here anyway—slumming?”

“I told you—I have a favor to ask you.”

“I’ve read about you. In Fortune and Time magazine. About all your fancy houses, your cars and planes, your women. The international airlines you own. All of which are euphemisms for power. Power and money. And you expect me to believe that I can be of use to you? Don’t make me laugh.”

In sudden amusement Judd said, “You don’t have red hair for nothing, do you? I didn’t have time for coffee this morning—how about I put on a pot and we sit down like two civilized human beings and have a reasonable conversation.”

“I don’t feel even remotely reasonable when I’m anywhere in your vicinity,” Lise snapped, then instantly wished the words unsaid.

“Don’t you? Now that’s interesting,” Judd said silkily.

She couldn’t back away from him: her shoulder blades were pressed into the door as it was. “Judd, let’s get something straight. I don’t like you. I don’t like what you did to Angeline. So there’s no room for small talk between you and me. Tell me what the favor is, I’ll decide if I want to do it and then you can leave.”

“I’ll leave when I’m ready.”

She tossed her head. “Macho stuff. I get a dose of that at work, I don’t need it at home.”

“Are you ever at a loss for words?”

“I can’t afford to be—I work with men,” she retorted. As, unexpectedly, he began to laugh, his sheer vitality seemed to shrink the hallway; she caught her breath between her teeth, wishing she’d gone out for coffee this morning and was anywhere but here. But Judd would have tracked her down sooner or later: that much she knew. Realizing she was conceding defeat, swearing it would be only temporary, she said grudgingly, “Caffeinated or decaf?”

“Doesn’t matter. Where’s the kitchen?”

She winced. “The living room’s through there. I’ll only be a minute.”

“Got a man hidden behind the stove, Lise?”

The gleam of humor in his slate-gray eyes was irresistible, and suddenly she heard herself laughing. Laughing as if she liked him, she thought in panic. “Behind my stove is not a place any self-respecting man would want to go,” she said, adding, “Watch where you step,” as she led the way into the narrow galley kitchen.

Judd stopped in the doorway. “Well,” he said, looking around. “If Dave cleaned up your apartment the other day, he’s a better firefighter than a Molly Maid.”

“Dave doesn’t live here!”

“Is he your lover?”

“What gives you the right to ask a personal question like that?”

He hesitated perceptibly. “I’m not sure. Are you and Dave lovers?”

Not for anything was she going to expose the relationship between her and Dave to Judd Harwood’s knife-blade gaze. “No comment,” she said stonily.

“I see…in that case, I take my coffee black,” Judd said. “With honey if you have any. Did you throw the rice at the wall?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was trying to put away the groceries, banged my shoulder on the cupboard and dropped the rice. The bag burst. As you see.”

“Rice is a symbol of fertility,” Judd said lightly. “Isn’t that why they throw it at weddings?”

“Did they throw it at yours?”

His lashes flickered. “No. Angeline was into gold-leaf confetti. Nothing as ordinary as rice.” Angeline had never wanted to have a baby; her figure had been more important to her than her husband’s longing for children. Emmy’s conception had been an accident, plain and simple.

For a moment Lise would have sworn there’d been genuine pain underlying Judd’s voice. But the next moment his eyes were guarded, impenetrable as pewter. She’d imagined it. Of course she had. Judd Harwood hurt because of something she’d said? What a joke.

He said casually, “Where do you keep your vacuum cleaner? I’d better get rid of this mess before you slip on it and break your neck.”

He owned the largest and most luxurious airlines in the world; she couldn’t pick up a daily paper and not know that. And he was about to vacuum her kitchen floor? Something so ordinary—to use his own word—had never figured among her romantic fantasies all those years ago. As a teenager, she’d been more apt to picture him maddened by desire, carrying her in his strong arms away from Marthe, from the ugly brick house in Outremont, and the boredom of homework and appointments with the orthodontist.

“The vacuum’s in the hall cupboard,” Lise said edgily. “I’ll wipe all the rice that’s on the counters onto the floor.”

“You do that.”

As he left the room, she stared after him. Her whole nervous system was on high alert; any remnants of self-pity had fled the minute Judd had pushed his way into her apartment. But she could handle him. She wasn’t an impressionable and innocent teenager anymore; she’d been around the block a few times and learned a thing or two. No, she was more than a match for Judd Harwood. Scowling, Lise fished a cloth from among the dishes piled in the sink and started pushing the rice grains onto the floor. Which could do with a darn good scrubbing.

When Judd came back in, he’d shed his leather bomber jacket and was rolling up the sleeves of a blue cotton shirt. His jeans were faded with wear, fitting his hips snugly. Her gaze skewed away. She said rapidly, “I still can’t use my right arm—I feel such a klutz.”

“No permanent damage, though?” he asked; she would have sworn his concern was real.

“Nope. Just a Technicolor shoulder,” she said, and watched his gaze drop.

She was wearing a T-shirt that had shrunk in the drier; it was turquoise with orange hummingbirds flitting across her breasts. The bruise on her jaw was a putrid shade of yellow. How to impress the man of your dreams, Lise thought dryly, and said, “I’ll get out of the way while you vacuum. This kitchen’s never been big enough for two.”

Reaching for the plug, Judd remarked, “Perhaps that’s why you haven’t married?”