Expecting the Boss’s Baby Read online

  “Why?”

  “Because you are no longer my boss.”

  “That means I’ll negotiate instead of giving orders.”

  “Okay. I need you to do something that has nothing to do with stocks and trust funds.”

  “Name it,” he said with such strength and assurance that her heart flipped over.

  “I want you to discuss our wedding arrangements with my mother. But I still don’t want you to tell her I’m pregnant.”

  “When?”

  “Later,” she said, her stomach dipping at the thought. “One thing at a time. Will you talk with my parents?”

  “Done,” he said. “Your parents seemed like very nice, reasonable people. I negotiate with cannibals all the time. This should be cake.”

  That night, Michael pulled into Kate’s driveway beside an unfamiliar car, a vintage Corvette at that. Curious, he climbed the steps of her porch and rang the doorbell. She answered the door wearing an uneasy expression. “Trent Cavoli is here,” she whispered.

  Michael immediately recognized the name of the man who’d tried, unsuccessfully, to seduce much of CG Enterprises’ talent to Cavoli’s company. “What is he doing here?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He stops by every couple of months to offer me a job or ask me out for dinner.”

  “Did you go?”

  She gave him a dark glare. “I’m sure he wants CG secrets. I can’t imagine him being truly interested in me. He’s just as hung up on business as you are.”

  He felt the slightest sting from her words as she turned away from him. She might be partly right in her assessment, but Michael knew Trent had a reputation with the ladies. If he’d known Trent was sniffing around Kate, he would have…. Michael told himself his territorial feelings were related to the company. Stepping inside, he glanced at Trent’s smoothly polished appearance and wondered if the man appealed to Kate at all.

  Trent’s eyes widened when he caught sight of Michael. “Michael Hawkins, I never expected to see you here.” Trent extended his hand. “You look a little hassled. How’s business?”

  “Great,” Michael said, barely touching the man’s hand. “Kate tells me you’ve visited her more than once.”

  Trent smiled. “You can’t blame me. She’s a smart, beautiful woman. I’d be glad to have her as an employee or a dinner companion. Word is she’s no longer working for you, so I thought I’d take my chances.”

  Michael felt the surprising, yet overwhelming urge to knock a few bleached teeth from Trent’s smile. He moved next to Kate. “You’re out of luck again. Kate’s not available. She’s not my assistant anymore because she’s going to be my wife.”

  Trent’s eyebrows flew upward. “Damn. I was sure she was your most underrated natural resource. Congratulations and best wishes,” he said and gave a little salute.

  “Thank you,” Kate said politely, as if she sensed Michael’s hostility.

  Trent walked toward the door and glanced back at Kate. “If anything changes, give me a call.”

  Kate closed the door behind him and Michael scowled. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me he was making offers?”

  Kate shrugged. “It was more a minor nuisance than anything else.”

  “If he ever comes around you again—”

  She waved her hand in a dismissing gesture. “He won’t. Think about it. A baby would really cramp his style.” She gave him a long glance that almost made him feel as if she could see his entire hellish day written on his brain. “Rough day?”

  With her big blue eyes and pink cheeks and lips, she looked so innocent. But Michael knew the truth. Kate had sent him into the lion’s den. “I talked to your parents.”

  Her eyes rounded. “Oh. How’d it go?” she asked in a tone entirely too casual.

  He followed her around the couch. “How do you think it went?”

  She bit the inside of her lip. “I can only imagine.”

  He put his hands on either side of her, trapping her and forcing her to meet his gaze. “I want her on my negotiations team for my next merger.”

  Kate laughed breathlessly. “Piece of cake?”

  “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “You seemed so confident. So when’s the wedding? Next year?”

  “Two weeks,” he corrected and watched her eyes widen in surprise. He lifted his hand to touch her jaw. “She wanted six months. You weren’t using this as a ploy to procrastinate about marrying me, were you?”

  Kate wiggled slightly beneath his hands and glanced away. “Not really,” she said.

  “Good,” he said, nuzzling her cheek. “My feelings would be terribly hurt,” he told her in a mocking voice.

  She shot him a look of disbelief. “Yeah, right,” she said. “As if feelings would affect you at all once you’ve decided to do something.”

  “I’m glad you understand that about me,” he said. “Because you could put ten of your mother in a room with me by myself and it still wouldn’t stop me from marrying you.” He brushed his lips over hers in a lingering kiss. Damn if he didn’t feel like he’d earned it. “So if this wasn’t a procrastination ploy, what was it? A test?”

  Kate seemed to have trouble removing her gaze from his mouth. “Uh, no.” She forced her gaze to his chin. “It wasn’t really a test.”

  “Then what was it? Really?”

  “I just thought you should know part of what you’re getting into,” she said, her eyelashes forming a sexy shield over her eyes and reminding Michael of all the times he’d wanted to lay her down and take her.

  “Did you honestly think she would scare me off?” he growled.

  “No.” She looked up at him. “I know there isn’t much that scares you.”

  The almost hidden come-hither look in her eyes grabbed at his gut, combining with his frustration over the negotiations with her mother and running into a competitor he detested. Drinking in her scent, he slid his fingers through her silky hair and took her mouth with his. She tasted sweet and forbidden, and kissing her only made him want more of her. Sucking at her bottom lip, he consumed her mouth the way he planned to consume her body.

  He skimmed his hands down her sides and pulled the hem of her skirt up her legs. Cupping her bottom, he rolled his hips against her.

  “What are we doing?” she asked against his mouth.

  “Making love,” he told her. “Every time I think about how good it was between us that night…” He slid his hands beneath her silk panties and swallowed her gasp with his mouth.

  Kate pulled her mouth away, turning her cheek to him. “I—uh—” Her cheeks blooming with color, she seemed to struggle for breath. “This feels kind of fast to me.”

  “This isn’t the first time.”

  “I know, but—” She broke off and raked a hand through her hair. “That was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before I knew about your anti-love policy.” She sighed. “You won’t understand this.”

  “Try me.”

  She stepped to the side, putting a little distance between them. “Too many hairpin turns. First, I’m your assistant, then we’re lovers for a night, then I’m your assistant again, then I’m pregnant, and I’m not your assistant, then you want to marry me.” She met his gaze. “I need to catch my breath. It all feels a little unreal to me.”

  Michael looked at her and saw the conflicting emotions spilling from her. She was a complex creature. Knowing her as a woman, he thought, would be far different than having her as his assistant. She was a seductive mystery to him. The urge to possess her raged through him, but he reined it in. “Okay,” he said, and told himself things would be different in two weeks. She would be his wife.

  The following morning, Kate greeted the day with a trip to the bathroom for her regular bout of morning sickness. Her hands trembled as she turned on the water faucet to splash her face and drink water. She would be so glad when she got through this stage of pregnancy. Patting her hand ove
r her flat tummy, she could almost think the baby was her imagination if not for her telltale nausea.

  The night she’d shared with Michael could have been a dream. Her wedding, however, was coming at her with the speed of an oncoming train. Her mother had already called to chat about plans. Kate scowled into the mirror. Perhaps that had contributed to her nausea.

  She opened the bathroom door to Michael. Surprised, she muffled a squeak. “When did you come in?”

  “Long enough ago to know you’re sick,” he said, concern darkening his eyes. “I’ll take you to the doctor.”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s just morning sickness.”

  “Can’t the doctor give you something?”

  She shook her head more emphatically. “A lot of medicines aren’t good for the baby. I don’t want to risk it.”

  “How often does this happen?”

  “This is how Cupcake wakes me up every morning,” she said with a weak chuckle and headed for the kitchen.

  His frown deepened. “How long will it last?”

  “The doctor didn’t offer any guarantees.” She lifted crossed fingers. “But it could be gone in four weeks.”

  “Four weeks,” he said appalled. “Are you sure you shouldn’t see the doctor? I don’t like the way you look.”

  She fought a wave of self-consciousness. “I could take offense at that, but since you helped get me into this state, you are partly responsible.” She opened her cabinet and pulled out a half-empty box of soda crackers. “Besides, you could have called first or knocked. How did you get in anyway?”

  “I picked your lock,” he said. When she stared at him in inquiry, he added, “When you didn’t answer, I thought I should check on you in case anything was wrong.”

  She felt him watch her set crackers, a glass of club soda, and a prenatal vitamin on the counter. “What is this?”

  “Breakfast,” she said and sat down on a bar stool to nibble at a cracker.

  “This is no breakfast for a woman who’s pregnant. You should be eating fruit or cereal, pancakes, eggs.”

  Kate blanched. “My objective is to eat something that will stay down,” she said, then switched focus. “What brings you here so early?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said as if she’d reminded him. “I got something for you yesterday and forgot to give it to you last night.”

  Wary, she looked at him. “This isn’t another financial recap or trust fund or—” She gulped when he placed a jeweler’s box on the counter in front of her.

  “No,” he said. “You may need to get it sized, but the jeweler assured me he’d be happy to do it while you wait.”

  She stared at the box and struggled with a myriad of emotions. If she opened it, then her engagement to Michael would be more real, even though in her heart it still felt like a farce.

  “Open it,” he said.

  Kate felt a lump rise in her throat.

  “Kate, it won’t bite. Okay, I’ll open it,” he said, flipping the box open.

  Kate gasped at the size. “Omigod. It’s so—” she blinked “—big.” She looked up at him. “Why did you get such a big one?”

  “I’m told that no matter what women say, size matters,” he said, his gaze falling over her intimately. “With diamonds and other things.”

  Kate felt her cheeks heat. She would never forget that Michael had been an incredible lover. He had left her with the sensation of being thoroughly taken, yet incredibly satisfied. She resisted the urge to fan her cheeks and cleared her throat. “I was talking about the diamond in the ring.”

  “Do you think it’s pretty?”

  She moved her head in a circle. “In a big way.”

  “There are larger diamonds,” Michael assured her.

  “Yes, I saw the Hope Diamond at an exhibit once. I didn’t think it looked that much bigger than this one.”

  “Kate, I can afford this. It’s about the same as buying a forty-foot cabin cruiser. Let’s put it on your finger and see if it fits.”

  Kate pulled her hands to her chest. “No.”

  “Why?” he asked, impatience edging into his tone.

  “It’s too big,” she said. As if remembering her upbringing, she quickly added, “I mean I appreciate the thought and it’s lovely, but I can’t imagine wearing it.”

  He spun her stool around so she was nose to nose with him. “Why not?” he demanded.

  She bit her lip and appeared so nervous he almost felt sorry for her. “I’m sorry, Michael, but I just can’t imagine wearing a cabin cruiser on my finger.”

  He counted to ten. He couldn’t explain why it was so important for Kate to wear his ring. He just knew it was. “If you don’t like this, then what would you like?”

  She slid her gaze to the ring, then back at him and lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. Something that doesn’t scream rich guy’s wife. Something more like me,” she said in an unsteady voice. Her eyes turned sad. “Something that doesn’t make me feel like a fraud.”

  That night Michael didn’t visit Kate. Instead he called and they shared a muted, brief conversation. After such an inauspicious beginning to his day, he buried himself in his work and fell asleep when his head hit the pillow. The phone awakened him.

  Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he reached blindly for the receiver. “Yes,” he murmured.

  “Michael?”

  The unsteady voice bore a vague resemblance to Kate’s. “Kate?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late,” she said. “I would have called Donna, but she just went out of town on a business trip.”

  Michael’s gut gave an uneasy twist. She sounded as if she were holding back tears. “Stop apologizing and tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Well, I need a ride,” she said. “I—uh—don’t have my car.”

  He sat upright in bed. “Where are you?”

  “The duplex beside me had a little gas problem.”

  Michael felt the cord of tension inside him knot. “Where are you?” he asked again, rising from bed and grabbing his jeans.

  “There was a fire and there was a lot of smoke—”

  “Kate, where are you?”

  “At St. Albans General Hospital.” Her voice cracked, and he felt something inside him crack too. “Could you come and get me?”

  Four

  Michael jerked on his clothes and defied the speed limit. He’d barely cut the engine before he stepped out of his car and raced into the emergency room. He approached the receptionist’s desk, and Kate walked straight into his arms.

  Unprepared for an action that demonstrated such pure trust, he stood still, stunned. It was a totally new sensation. She smelled of smoke. Instinct kicked in and he tightened his arms around her, wanting to make sure she was okay. “What happened?”

  “There was a fire,” she said, her face pressed into his shirt as if she wanted to absorb him. “Some of us suffered from smoke inhalation.”

  Alarm clanged through him like a discordant bell, and he urged her head from his chest. “Us?”

  “They gave me oxygen,” she said. She looked as if she were struggling to remain composed. “I was worried about the baby,” she whispered, her face crumpling, the expression grabbing at something deep inside him.

  Michael held his breath. “What did the doctor say?”

  “The baby and I are fine.”

  Michael breathed a sigh of relief at the same time as he battled frustration. “Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded.

  “Everything happened so fast when the ambulance arrived, and then I had to wait. I was so scared,” she said, her voice quivering. “I wasn’t that worried about me. I just didn’t want anything to happen to the baby. I tried to call Donna, but she was gone. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  Michael tightened his arms around her again. “You should have called me. For Pete’s sake, I’m going to be your husband,” he scolded, thinking he could have prevented this if he’d been with her. He should have prevented this.

 
She pushed her hair from her face. “I know, but we don’t really have a normal engagement.”

  “You’re going to have to get used to calling me,” he told her. “I may not know much about what husbands do, but I damn well know you call them in an emergency.”

  Staring at him as if some of his words were sinking in, she slowly nodded.

  “I don’t think they want me to go back to my house yet.”

  “Damn straight you’re not going back to your house. You’re coming to my apartment,” he said emphatically.

  “But I don’t know where Parkay is and—”

  “Parkay?” Michael struggled to follow her, wondering if, perhaps, the lack of oxygen had affected her brain.

  “My cat. Parkay. She’s not much of an outside cat, so I need to go look for her.”

  Michael shook his head. “It’s the middle of the night. You can’t go looking for a cat in your condition.” His mind clicked through possibilities. “I’ll take you home, then go look for her,” he said, although how in hell he would find a cat at night was beyond him.

  He took her home and settled her into his apartment. “Take my bed,” he ordered, and when she started to protest, he cut her off. “You need the sleep. I’ll take the couch after I get your cat.”

  So, at three o’clock in the morning, armed with an open can of tuna, Michael conducted a search-and-retrieval mission for Kate’s cat. By three-thirty, he had seven feline friends trailing after him, mewing. But none was a calico. He sneaked past the yellow caution tape and in through the back door. Using his flashlight, he searched through two rooms until he caught sight of green eyes under Kate’s bed. Parkay clawed him until he gave her a bite of the tuna.

  After he returned home, he allowed the cat to finish the tuna while he washed his scratches. Unable to sleep after the events of the night, he quietly pushed open the bedroom door and looked at Kate.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, he watched her for several moments. She could have been hurt much worse tonight, he thought, and the prospect disturbed the hell out of him. At the office, Kate had always been capable and strong. He knew she still was, but he had never seen her more vulnerable than tonight. Sure, she had a strong stubborn chin, a young, fit and wholly sensual body and an intelligent mind. But she also had a tender heart and at times she pushed herself too far and too hard. She believed the best of people, sometimes when she shouldn’t. She’d believed the best of him.