She's Having My Baby! (Silhouette Romance) Page 6

  The problem was, the argument that had turned him around wouldn’t work on Maggie. Whenever he wavered, Jill’s words echoed in his mind.

  Without a marriage license, you have no control at all.

  He knew enough from his experience in business to know that his sister-in-law was absolutely right. Without a seat on the board, you had no say in the destiny of the company. Without a marriage license, he would have no say in the destiny of his child.

  Case closed. One marriage license to go, please.

  “Maggie,” he said quietly, watching her reaction. “We’re parents. Everything will work out much better if we become partners as well.”

  She risked a quick look into his eyes, then looked away again. “We’re already partners,” she said stubbornly. “Why do we need a piece of paper from the government to ratify it?”

  “Because we have a baby coming.”

  She closed her eyes, letting her head fall back, then roused herself and rose from the chair, going to pick up a file from atop his desk and carry it over to his handsome oak file cabinet. Pulling open the drawer, she found the place where the file belonged and shoved it into the slot, then pushed the drawer closed again.

  Turning, she looked around for something else to tidy up. The darn place was too neat. As a last resort, she finally looked down at Kane, still sitting in his desk chair, watching her every move.

  “Can’t we just go on as we have?” she said, clutching one hand with the other and talking a little too fast. “I’m so happy working for you. We really get along well in this office. We’re…we’re already like a team of sorts. I feel right and sure of what I’m doing here.” She leaned closer, beseeching him with her beautiful eyes. “Can’t we just keep doing that?”

  When she looked at him like that, her clear and sparkling gaze so full of emotion, her lower lip just a bit swollen, holding herself so unselfconsciously, he wanted to give her anything she wanted. But this was one case where he couldn’t do what came naturally. He wasn’t looking forward to what he would see in her eyes when he told her that. Steeling himself, he did what he had to.

  “We can’t, Maggie. It’s impossible. You’re having a baby. Everything has changed.”

  She spun away from him and began to pace the floor of his office, feeling the way a caged cat must feel. The walls were closing in. He was slowly trapping her and she knew it. But she wasn’t ready to admit defeat. Not yet.

  “We can fit him in,” she said hopefully. “I can work right up to my due date, and afterwards, I could bring him to the office with me. The day-care center should be up to speed by then, and…”

  “The day-care center.” He sighed heavily, turning away as though annoyed by the thought. “You can’t count on the day-care center.”

  She frowned at him. “Why not? I thought…”

  He waved the topic away, rising and coming toward her. “Anyway, that’s a completely naive scenario and you know it. Things can’t go on the way they have been. The child changes everything.”

  Yes, of course. He was right. The child changed everything. Why hadn’t she seen this coming?

  But she had seen it, and she’d just pushed the knowledge aside. She’d wanted a baby and she wouldn’t let good sense shake her out of it. She’d wanted what she wanted, with a longing so intense, she’d gone a little nuts.

  How could she explain that to Kane? How could she make him see that her baby was so important to her—so important that she couldn’t let control slip away? She couldn’t very well tell him that she didn’t want to marry him because she wanted her baby all to herself. It was too late for that.

  “Naive” he’d called her. And he was right. She kept making impulsive decisions and ignoring the consequences that were so obvious to anyone else. Was she doing that again by turning him down?

  “Things can’t go on as they have,” he reminded her. “Things will change. They have to.”

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “And so, what is it that you want?” he asked her. “What do you see as the way we should handle this?”

  He was standing very close and she was in danger of losing perspective. He’d always made her dizzy when she’d been near enough to catch the fragrance of his aftershave, but that casual hint of vertigo was morphing into a high that threatened disaster if she didn’t move away. She gazed up at him, knowing she must look like a space cadet.

  “I think I need time to figure that out,” she said as firmly as she was able.

  “Time is the one thing we don’t have a lot of,” he said, and suddenly she was in his strong arms. “Let’s get married.”

  “We can’t,” she said breathlessly, her hands flattened against his hard chest. The sense of strength and maleness was so potent, her head was swimming, but she had to keep her wits about her and stick to the subject. She desperately cast about for a good reason to give him, something he might listen to. “Kane, look…we don’t love each other.”

  The embrace that had begun turning her bones to mush evaporated, and he stepped back, away from her. “No, we don’t love each other,” he agreed, his voice colder now. “I never said we did.”

  She searched his dark gaze. She’d wanted to stop his seduction, but she hadn’t meant to wound him. Why did she get the impression he’d been hurt by what she’d said? It was only the truth. Surely he didn’t think…?

  “We don’t love each other,” he said again, and now his voice was calm and quite casual. Maybe she’d imagined what she’d thought she heard. “But we like each other pretty well,” he went on. “Don’t we?”

  “I think so.”

  “And we both have the same goals. We want this child and we want what’s best for him.”

  “Yes.”

  He dropped onto the surface of the desk, hooking his leg over the corner and folding his arms across his chest. “Look, Maggie. I married for love the first time. Or what I thought was love. And it didn’t work out well at all.”

  She nodded. She certainly understood how that could happen. “I’m sorry.”

  “The woman I thought would make my life a heaven on earth turned my existence into a living hell.” He stopped himself, making a face. “It wasn’t actually quite as dramatic as that sounds. But love disappeared as soon as we got to know each other better and our egos began to clash. So don’t tell me how important it is to love. Love is like icing on the cake. You can get along fine without it if the cake itself is full of enough goodies.”

  Despite everything, she had to laugh at that one. “And you think we’ve got enough goodies to throw into the mix?” she asked him.

  His lopsided grin was her answer. And then there was something more in his eyes and that electric thing flashed between them again and she quickly looked away.

  “How about you?” he asked as she went back to pacing before him. “Did you marry for love?”

  She spun and braved another full look into his face. “Of course.”

  “And did it turn out the way you’d thought it would?”

  She turned her head and bit her lip. “That’s not the point.”

  “It’s exactly the point. Maggie, love is a volatile emotion. It goes up like a flame and dies just as suddenly.”

  She frowned. She didn’t like what he’d just said, didn’t want to believe it, despite her own experience. It was just too cynical. If you couldn’t hope for the redeeming magic of love, what could you hope for?

  But he was going on.

  “We’ve worked together for two years. We know we get along fine.”

  He rose from the desk and took hold of her shoulders, forcing her to look into his eyes. “Hey, nothing can stop us. We can do this.” He smiled at her. “All we need is the will.”

  No, she needed a lot more than that. She needed guarantees.

  And she needed not to feel all quivery inside whenever he touched her like this.

  The telephone rang and she jumped at this reminder that they were in a business office in the middle of t
he business day. Kane reached out and answered it and she took the opportunity to start back toward her own desk. But he put the call on hold and called out to her.

  “Maggie, wait a minute. We’ve got to establish our plans. How long do you need?”

  She stared at him for a moment, not sure she knew what he meant. “Why do we have to…?” she began.

  “Because people are going to begin noticing your condition,” he said a bit impatiently. “Whatever we decide to do, don’t you think it would be best to do it before they begin to talk?”

  He was right, of course. By the end of the week, she would have to have a plan.

  “Friday,” she told him quickly. “I’ll decide by Friday.”

  He nodded, his dark eyes hooded. “Okay. ’Til Friday.”

  Maggie had a doctor’s appointment on Thursday. She’d toyed with letting Kane come along to meet her doctor, but at the last minute she’d decided against it.

  “Don’t you think I should be involved in these things?” he’d said when she told him.

  She gave him a long-suffering look. “Involved in what? Having your blood pressure checked? Testing for diabetes? Consulting on your diet? Finding out how to avoid swollen ankles?”

  He looked pained. “Well…”

  She put a hand on his arm. “Of course you should come and meet the doctor,” she told him. “When we get things settled and know where we’re going, you’ll want to come and hear how things are progressing directly from him. But not yet.”

  She’d noted the rebellious light in his eyes, but she didn’t relent. She had a few more questions she wanted to ask, a few things to go over with the obstetrician, before she brought Kane along.

  The funny thing was, now that she was tidying up her desk and getting ready to leave, he seemed almost anxious to get rid of her.

  “Isn’t it getting late for your appointment?” he asked, leaning against his doorway and making a show of glancing at his watch. “You don’t want to get stuck in traffic and miss it.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s only a few miles away.” She rose from her desk. “I’ve got Hannah and Kate covering the phones for you,” she told him. The two secretaries were in the adjoining office, near enough to call for help when they were needed, but partitioned off so that they weren’t in the way at any other time.

  She gathered her things, put on her coat, then looked back to find him still waiting for her to leave.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked him. He looked so enticingly tall and lean, propped against the door-jamb the way he was, and yet something about the manner in which he was looking at her made her want to laugh. He reminded her of a little boy hiding something behind his back.

  “The matter?” He was all innocence. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” He smiled at her. “Get going. Give me a call if you have any problems.”

  “I will.” She gazed at him suspiciously for another moment, then shook her head and turned to leave. Once alone in the elevator, she closed her eyes and laughed softly.

  “Oh, Kane,” she whispered. “What are you up to?”

  It was amazing, really, how much their relationship had blossomed in so short a time. Maggie had always thought that she loved working for Kane—loved the atmosphere of the office, loved the hustle and bustle and the responsibility. The rapport between the two of them had made it all special. They had such a good relationship, close enough to feel attached, reserved enough to feel independent. There was dignity in that. Pride. A sense of mutual respect. For a long time, she’d thought things were about as good as they could get.

  But she knew now that she’d been wrong. Things had become a little crazier. But they were better. Despite the fact that she was often on tenterhooks, wondering what she should do, there was also a new affection between them that filled her with a warmth she’d never known before. And the thought of having him around to support her was such a relief.

  As she walked through the parking structure to where her car was parked, she admitted to herself what she’d come more and more to realize—that she’d had no business trying to do this on her own. The nuclear family was the basic building block of civilization for a very good reason—it worked. A mother and a daddy and a child—there were those who managed it without all those essential ingredients, but it would be very tough. And why had she been so determined to make this harder than it had to be? She had such a good man wanting to help—a man who was going to be around anyway, no matter what she did.

  The one fear that still shook her was a deep and private one. Things seemed promising now, but—would he change the way Tom had changed? The more she thought about it the more she knew there had been signs of how Tom would transform himself from a loving, attentive boyfriend to a cold, manipulative husband—signs she’d ignored. She didn’t see any of those signs with Kane. But maybe there were others. Was she just ignoring warning signals again? Did she purposely blind herself to things she just didn’t want to see? She didn’t have the greatest track record. How could she know for sure?

  Kane waited about five minutes, drumming his fingers on the surface of his desk and watching the clock. When he’d finally decided she’d had enough time to be in her car and on her way, he sprang into action. The first thing he did was call CeCe in the mailroom.

  “Okay,” he said. “She’s gone. You can bring the stuff up now.”

  Clicking off, he looked around the office suite with a smile. He’d never paid the slightest bit of attention to Valentine’s Day before. Chances were he probably wouldn’t ever pay much attention to the holiday again, unless forced to. But for some reason, he’d gone all out today.

  Reaching into the area under his desk, he pulled out a large stuffed penguin, very plush, with a large red, embroidered Be Mine heart on its chest. He plopped it down in Maggie’s desk chair and gazed at it, satisfied. It looked as though a rather short, good-natured man sporting a tuxedo was filling in for her.

  “Very cute,” he muttered to himself. “Women love cute.”

  The penguin seemed to nod in agreement, and Kane moved on to the elevator, arriving just in time to meet CeCe and her part-time assistant Brandon Levy as the doors slid open. The short, dark woman was pushing a cart filled to the brim with items chosen to change the area into a hearts-and-flowers wonderland, and the young man was along for the ride but looking suspicious about the whole affair. Kane took one look at the two of them and went into military mode. This was a rather large operation and it would take strategy and leadership to get everything into place in time.

  “Okay, CeCe,” he said briskly. “Just wheel it on in here. The flowers go on this table. We’ll divide them up between these four vases. The balloons we’ll attach to her desk by the strings with this tape dispenser. The candy goes in these little glass dishes shaped like hearts. Brandon, you can get going on those. The banner goes over the entryway. And the paper and Mylar hearts go every damn place you can find to stick them.”

  CeCe pushed the cart into the area he’d indicated and began unpacking all the items he’d secretly hidden in her mailroom over the last few days.

  “Aye aye, Boss,” she said pertly, doing just as she’d been told, but giving him a few sideways glances when she thought he wasn’t looking. Her curiosity was obvious. She finished unpacking her cart and began arranging the flowers in vases as she watched him put up the banner and then begin work on the balloons. Finally, she couldn’t hold back a question.

  “Is there…some sort of an official reason for this little celebration?”

  His gaze was cool and not the least bit welcoming. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said as he taped another batch of balloons to the cardboard blotter on Maggie’s desk. “It’s Valentine’s Day, isn’t it? Isn’t everyone doing something like this?”

  “Like this, no,” she murmured, barely concealing her grin. She set one of the flower arrangements on the file cabinet beside Maggie’s desk, leaned back to check it out, then turned to talk to Kane again, her
head to the side. “I take it this is a whole new phase in your life.”

  “CeCe,” he said impatiently, accidentally popping one of the white balloons and swearing under his breath. “You’re not making any sense.”

  She grinned at him openly now. “Falling in love with love they call it, don’t they?” She pretended to give him an elbow to the ribs. “What happened to old Mr. Cynical?”

  “He’s still here,” Kane retorted grumpily, taking a step back out of range of her elbow. “This is just for Maggie. She deserves a little something special.” He glared at her. “And you don’t have to make any more out of it than that.”

  “Who, me?” CeCe’s eyes were big as saucers. “My lips are sealed.”

  “And so will your fate be if you don’t keep this under your hat,” he warned.

  “Wow, threats!” she teased. “This must be serious.”

  He turned and looked at her, his mouth twisted. “Ever been to Siberia?” he asked. “I can get you assigned to a nice little mailroom there. I’ve got connections.”

  CeCe rolled her eyes. “You belong on a slow boat to China if you think you can keep this story under wraps,” she told him. “I’ll bet it’s already all over the building.”

  “How could it be? We haven’t even finished decorating yet.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. These things take on a life of their own.”

  He gazed at her with suspicion, but she smiled blithely and prepared to take her assistant and her cart back down to the mailroom. He went back to taping hearts up and soon he was alone with a beautifully decorated office, if he did say so himself.

  He turned slowly, taking it all in and feeling a sense of accomplishment such as he hadn’t felt in years. He’d never done anything like this before, and he thought it had turned out pretty well.

  Now it was time for the pièce de résistance. Going back to his desk, he took out a card and slipped it from its envelope. It hadn’t been easy finding one that held enough sentiment and yet didn’t talk about love. He’d finally settled on a beautiful flower on the outside and the simple words, “Valentine’s Day is for loving hearts” on the inside. Under the printed message he wrote,