Loe raamatut: «A Baby For The Boss»

One

“I don’t trust her.” Mike Ryan drummed his fingertips on his desktop and glared at his younger brother.

“Yeah,” Sean said on a laugh. “You’ve made that clear for months. What isn’t clear is why. She’s a terrific artist, meets her deadlines, is easy to get along with and a hell of a baker—she’s always bringing goodies in for everyone. So how about you tell me what Jenny Marshall ever did that you’re so against her.”

Scowling, Mike gritted his teeth and shifted his gaze to the view out his office window. Even in Southern California, January gardens looked a little grim. The backyard of the Victorian mansion that served as Celtic Knot Gaming’s office boasted dry, brown grass, leafless trees and empty flower beds. The sky was studded with gray clouds and a cold wind swept in off the ocean to rattle those bare tree limbs.

Still, looking at that dismal view was better than drawing up a mental image of Jenny Marshall. As unwilling as he was, though, that picture of her flashed across his brain. She was a damn munchkin, only standing about five foot two, but that tiny body was really packed well. She had curves that made Mike’s mouth water every time he saw her—especially since he already knew just what those curves looked like naked. One more reason he tried to avoid running into her.

Her short blond hair was a mass of curls that ended at her jawline, stirring up a grown man’s idle daydreams into fantasies of hot, sweaty nights. Instantly, he forced his mind away from the images of naked Jenny and instead thought of her eyes. As blue as the sky, bright with lies—and once, glazed with passion—for him.

Okay, that’s enough of that, he told himself firmly.

“I’ve got my reasons,” he muttered, not bothering to look at his brother again.

Sean had no clue that Mike and Jenny had met long before she was hired at Celtic Knot and there was no reason for that to change.

“Fine.” Sean blew out a breath. “Always were a hardhead. Anyway, doesn’t matter what the reasons are. You, me and Brady already decided this.”

“Brady’s in Ireland.”

“Yep,” Sean said, then added, “ain’t technology great? You do remember the meeting we had over webcam? The one where we all decided who would do which hotel?”

“I remember.”

“Good. Because Jenny’s in her office right now, working on the designs for the River Haunt hotel.” Sean met his brother’s gaze. “She’s already coming up with some great stuff. If we switch designers at this stage, it’s going to slow down everything. Besides, Jenny’s good. She earned this.”

Mike scowled and bit back any further argument because it just wouldn’t do any good. Sean was right: the plans had been made. He couldn’t change them now. All of the artists for the company had already been assigned their work schedules. Most of them were finishing up the graphics for the next game to be released in the coming summer. So Jenny was the only logical choice.

Didn’t mean he had to like it.

But there were deadlines to meet and no one knew that better than Mike. He, his brother and their friend Brady Finn had begun this gaming company when they were still in college. Their first game had been short on art and long on mystery and action. It had taken off faster than any of them had hoped and by the time they graduated from college, they were all millionaires.

They’d plowed their money back into the company they called Celtic Knot and within six months had released a bigger, more sophisticated game. They built a reputation for action games based on ancient Irish legends and superstitions, and their fan base swelled.

They’d bought this old Victorian in Long Beach, California, as their home base and hired the very best computer programmers, and digital and graphic artists.

They’d won awards and had legions of fans waiting for the release of their next game. And now, they were growing in another direction.

They were buying three hotels and revamping them into perfect role-playing venues for guests. Each hotel would be modeled after one of their top-selling games. The first, Fate Castle, was in Ireland. The modifications had just recently been completed and the hotel would be open and welcoming guests in March. The second, River Haunt, was in Nevada on the Colorado River and was just waiting for Mike to step up and get the renovations moving forward.

But how the hell could he do that while working one-on-one with Jenny Marshall? Answer: he couldn’t. But he wasn’t prepared to go into all of the reasons why with Sean. Instead, he’d simply go to Jenny. Convince her to back off this project. She was probably in no more hurry to work with him than he was with her. If she went to Sean herself and asked to be replaced, there wouldn’t be a problem. Mike would offer her a raise. Or a bonus. A woman like her would jump at a chance for that—and he’d be able to get on with the hotel transformation.

“Meantime,” Sean said, loudly enough to snap Mike’s attention back to the moment, “I’m still talking to the toy company about the line of collectibles they’re proposing based on our gaming characters.”

“What do the lawyers say?” Mike asked.

“Plenty,” Sean admitted. “And most of it I can’t understand. I swear they teach these people to speak in tongues when they’re in law school.”

“Agreed. How much did you get out of it?”

Sean crossed his legs, ankle on knee. “Enough to know that if they up their offer on the licensing fee, this could be a really good thing for us.”

“I don’t know… Toys?”

“Not toys. Collectibles,” Sean corrected. “I called Brady this morning and he’s on board. So think about this, Mike. At the next gaming convention we not only have the games to push, but the collectibles. We can spin that off to board games even, for people not interested in video games.”

Mike laughed shortly and leaned back in his chair. “There aren’t many people uninterested in games.”

“Okay, true. But we’re pushing into the hotel industry, giving people a chance to live their favorite games. We could take that another step,” Sean said, slapping one hand down on Mike’s desk. “We can sponsor our own conventions.”

“What?” Surprised, Mike just stared at him.

Sean grinned. “Think about it. Hell, Comic-Con started out small and look at them now. We could hold Celtic Knot Con—an entire convention centered around our games and products. We can host tournaments, offer prizes. Costume contests. Hell, we could run a contest offering a contract to whoever comes up with the best new beast to use in one of our games.”

“Did you go surfing this morning?”

Sean stopped. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“That water’s cold, probably froze a few brain cells.”

“Funny.”

“Don’t you think we’ve got enough going on right now? The latest game came out in December, and the sequel to ‘Fate Castle’ hits this summer, not to mention the hotel business.”

“Okay, we’re busy,” Sean allowed. “We want to stay busy, we have to keep thinking, expanding. Our business is based on the fans. On the way they feel connected to the scenarios we create. If we give them more, offer them other ways to connect, to feel a part of the world they love, that can only benefit us.”

Mike thought about it for a minute. He could see the enthusiasm on his brother’s face and knew that Sean was at least partly right. Continuing to build their brand would only solidify their position in the marketplace. The castle hotel in Ireland already had a waiting list six months long and they hadn’t even opened yet. That told Mike there was a huge market for just what Sean was describing. And little brother was right about something else, too.

“We’ll talk to Brady about your convention idea—that may be a good way to go.”

“Whoa.” Sean grinned. “This is a moment. Maybe I should hunt up a photographer.”

Mike laughed. “Okay, fine. I think you’re onto something. On the collectibles, I’m on board. Tell the lawyers to work up the company’s licensing offer and then we’ll sign.”

“Already did,” Sean said.

“Sure of yourself, weren’t you?”

“Damn right.”

Amused, Mike said, “Okay, well, you’re right about the other stuff, too. The role-playing, the contests. Ireland’s too hard for a lot of people to get to. The grounds on the hotel in Nevada aren’t big enough for us to hold tournaments on any kind of real scale. So the hotel in Wyoming will have to be the base for that kind of growth.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Sean said. “It’s on a hundred and fifty acres, with lakes and forests. It’s perfect for the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

“Then it’s handy you’re in charge of that one, isn’t it?”

“Also what I was thinking,” Sean said with a quick, smug smile.

It was the smug part that had Mike suggesting, “You should go to Wyoming. Check it out in person.”

Sean snorted. “Sure. That’ll happen. It’s January, Mike. It’s snowing there. Like crazy cold snowing.” He shivered. “No, thank you. Look, we bought the property in Ireland by checking it out online and that worked great.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I’ve talked to the Realtor, had her make videos of everything. The inn itself needs a lot of work, but the property is perfect and that’s more important, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“You take care of yours and I’ll take care of mine. No worries, I’ll go look around in a few months, before we start the design stage.” Sean stood up and looked down at Mike. “Right now, though, I’m dealing with the big Game Con in Chicago next month. And I’ve got the art on ‘Banshee Screams’ to oversee. I’ll get to Wyoming,” he said. “But it can wait until summer…” Shaking his head, he laughed and headed for the door. “A surfer. In the snow. Yeah. That’ll work.”

Mike frowned after him. Brady was happy as hell, working and living in Ireland with his wife and new baby son. Sean was busy making plans to be a happy, surfing megalomaniac. So, it was only Mike staring at nothing but trouble. It would take at least six months to refit the Nevada hotel. And since he couldn’t find a way to get her off the project, that meant a hell of a lot of time spent with Jenny Marshall.

A woman who had already lied to him once.

Yeah. This was gonna be great.

Jenny Marshall poured herself a glass of white wine and sat down in an overstuffed chair, ordering herself to relax. But she didn’t take orders well, not even from herself. Curling her feet up under her, Jenny looked out the window at the neighbor kids playing basketball in the driveway across the street.

The duplex she rented was old and small. Built in the 1940s, it sat on a narrow street a few blocks from the beach. The rent was too high, but the place itself was cozy, close to work and less generic than some cramped apartment. Here, she could garden and go to block parties and buy Girl Scout cookies and football pizzas from the kids who lived on the street. Here, Jenny felt that she was…connected. A part of things. And for a woman alone, that feeling was priceless.

She took a sip of her wine and shifted her gaze to the front yard, where bare trees clattered in the wind. Twilight fell over the neighborhood in a soft lavender glow and lamplight began blooming in her neighbors’ windows. Relaxation still eluded her, but with everything she had on her mind that really wasn’t a surprise.

Between her work on the upcoming game from Celtic Knot and the designs she was working on for the River Haunt hotel, there was plenty to think about. She did love her job and was grateful for it. Especially since one of her bosses would like nothing better than to fire her—or to see her drop into a black hole and simply disappear.

She frowned into her glass and tried to ignore the pain of regret that clutched at her heart. It hadn’t been easy, working with Mike Ryan for the past several months. Every time they were in the same room together, she felt hostility coming off him in waves so thick it nearly choked her. The man was hard-hearted, stubborn, unreasonable and…still the one man who made her insides quiver.

She lifted her glass of wine in a toast to her own stupidity.

Seriously, hadn’t she learned her lesson more than a year ago? When they met that night in Phoenix, it had been magic, pure and simple. And, like any good fairy tale, the magic had lasted exactly one night. Then Prince Charming had turned into an ogre and Jenny’s proverbial glass slippers were flip-flops again.

It had all started out so well, too. The night before a big gaming convention in Phoenix, Jenny had met a tall, gorgeous man with a wicked smile and eyes as blue as a summer sky. They had a drink together in the bar, then had dinner, then took a walk and finally had ended up in her room at the convention hotel. She’d never done that before—gone to bed with a man she barely knew. But that night, everything had been…different. From the moment she met Mike, she’d felt as if she had somehow only been waiting for him to walk into her life. Which, she could admit now, was absolutely ridiculous. But that night… Jenny had allowed her heart to rule her head. She’d given in to the rush of attraction, that zing of something special that she’d only ever felt for him. And by morning, Jenny knew she’d made a huge mistake.

Sighing, she laid her head against the back of the chair, closed her eyes and drifted back to the moment when the floor had opened up beneath her feet. The morning after the best night of her life.

Mike pulled her close and Jenny laid her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. Her body was loose and languid from a long night of loving. Dawn streaked the morning sky with pale rose and gold and she was nowhere near wanting to get out of bed.

This was so unlike her, she thought, smiling to herself. She didn’t do one-night stands and never with a veritable stranger. But she couldn’t regret any of it. From the moment she’d met Mike, she’d felt as if she’d known him forever. She didn’t even know his last name, yet she felt closer to him at that moment than she had to anyone else.

“Really hate to move from this spot,” Mike said, “but I’ve got to get down to the convention floor early.”

“I know. Me, too.” Jenny cuddled in closer. “My uncle needs me to set up his booth. He can’t get here until tomorrow, so…”

Mike ran one hand up and down her back and his fingertips felt like tiny sparks of heat against her skin.

“Yeah?” Mike asked, his voice low and slow and lazy. “Who’s your uncle?”

“Hmm?” She was nearly hypnotized by the slide of his fingers and the deep rumble of his voice. “Oh. Hank Snyder,” she whispered. “He owns Snyder Arts.”

Mike suddenly went still. His hand dropped from her back and she felt a hard shift in the lovely little glow they’d been sharing. Then there was a physical shift as Mike pushed to a sitting position and rolled Jenny right off his chest.

She plopped onto the bed and stared up at him. “What?”

“Hank Snyder?” Mike jumped out of bed and stood staring down at her with a wild, dark gleam in his eyes, sharp as a knife blade. With the morning light streaming in through the window behind him, he looked like a naked avenging angel.

The haze in her mind was clearing and a cold, sinking sensation opened in the pit of her stomach. Slowly, she sat up and tugged the blankets over her breasts. Pushing one hand through her hair, she shoved blond curls out of her eyes and met his hard gaze with a look of confusion. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Do you know my uncle?”

He snorted. “Wow. That’s really good. The little hint of innocence in your voice? Nice touch.”

Completely confused now, she shook her head. People should not be expected to be coherent in the morning before several cups of coffee. “Innocence? What?”

“Oh, drop it,” Mike snapped and stalked across the room to snatch up his clothes. He dragged them on as he talked, flicking her quick, icy glances. “Gotta say, you were good.”

“What are you talking about?” The sheet where he’d been lying only a moment ago was rapidly cooling and she shivered in response. “Good at what? You’re not making sense.”

“Sure. You’re confused.” Mike nodded. “You know, I bought the whole act last night, but trying to keep it up now, when I know who you are, is only pissing me off.”

She didn’t have the first clue what he was so angry about, but her own temper was beginning to boil in self-defense. How could they have gone from lovemaking, to snuggling, to spitting ice at each other all in the blink of an eye?

“Will you just tell me what’s going on?”

“What I don’t get is how you knew I’d be in the bar last night.” He pulled his long-sleeved white shirt on and buttoned it with an almost eerie calm that belied the fury in his voice and eyes.

“I didn’t know—heck, I didn’t even know I was going to be in the bar last night until just before I went in.”

“Sure. Your uncle,” Mike said, nodding. “He had to have planned all this for you anyway.”

“What does Uncle Hank have to do with us?”

He laughed but there was no charm or humor in it. “Everything, sweetheart, and we both know it. Snyder Arts has been trying to get us to incorporate their programs into our games for the past year and a half.” His gaze dropped to her chest, then lifted to her eyes again. “Looks like Ol’ Hank finally decided to pull out the big guns.”

Every word Mike said echoed weirdly in her mind until at last, Jenny understood what he meant. What he was accusing her of. Anger leaped into a full boil in the pit of her stomach. Her heart pounded crazily and she felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath. Her mind racing, Jenny practically leaped out of bed, preferring to meet her accuser on her feet. She held the blanket up in front of her like a shield that could somehow protect her from the ice in his eyes.

“You think my uncle sent me here to have sex with you?” God, she could barely force the words past her tight throat. “So I could convince you to use his arts program?”

“That about sums it up,” Mike said flatly.

Jenny’s brain burned. She was torn between insult, fury and complete humiliation. Instantly, images of the night before streamed through her mind like a movie on fast-forward. She saw him, over her, staring into her eyes as his body claimed hers. She saw herself, straddling him, taking him deep inside her. And she felt in that flash of heat the pleasure, the sense of completion his every touch caused. Then the mind movie ended abruptly, and she was here, in this sunlit room, staring at a stranger who now knew her body intimately, but her heart and soul not at all.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she asked, voice trembling.

“Mike Ryan.”

She staggered at the name. Mike Ryan. One of the owners of Celtic Knot. Jenny knew their work, knew the art and graphic design that went into every one of their games. She’d admired them for years, had hoped to one day work for them—which wouldn’t happen now. Not only did he clearly think she was a spy—and oh yes, a whore—but she couldn’t imagine herself working for a man who made snap decisions with zero thought behind them.

“Uh-huh,” he said, nodding as if he’d just had every one of his suspicions verified. “So you do know me.”

“Now,” she said. “I didn’t last night. Not when I met you. Not when we…” She pushed one hand through her hair and kept clutching the blanket with the other. Best not to think about everything they’d done because she’d do something completely stupid like blush, for heaven’s sake. With her fair skin, the moment she was embarrassed, her cheeks lit up like a red light at an intersection.

“And I’m supposed to take your word for that,” he said.

Her gaze sharpened and narrowed on him. “It seems you don’t need anything but your own suspicions to make up your mind. You’ve already decided who and what I am, why should I argue with you over it?”

“You know, playing the outraged innocent isn’t nearly as convincing as the seductress I met last night.”

She sucked in a gulp of air and fed the flames burning in her belly. “You arrogant, conceited, smug bastard.”

One dark eyebrow winged up and a look of pure male amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Doing better now. The outrage almost looks real.”

Her heart pounded so hard in her chest it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it. She half expected her heart to crash right through her rib cage. “This isn’t an act, you jackass. Think about it. I didn’t seduce you. You approached me in the bar. And nobody forced you into my bed. As I remember it you came willingly enough.”

“Several times,” he said, playing on her words just to irritate her further.

It worked.

“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.”