The Baby Deal
Looked like today wasn’t the day he’d learn his lesson because he definitely could have thought of a better way to phrase that. He hadn’t meant that kind of on call. But now he was thinking about it. A beautiful, single woman would be in his house, eating, sleeping—did she still sleep naked?
Her expression blanked. “I’d prefer to do it via video conferencing. Virtual consulting is as good as in person.”
“Not to me. I want total immersion. Mikey responds to you. I barely know how to change diapers and I have no idea what else I don’t know. I want to be a dad who puts Band-Aids on his knee and throws a ball in the backyard. That doesn’t happen automatically.”
Not even when the dad shared DNA with his son. Shay’s own father had never done Band-Aids or ball-throwing. The first time Shay had picked up Mikey after being awarded custody, he knew instantly he would be a different kind of dad, the kind he’d always wanted. The best replacement dad he could be. He had every intention of living up to the confidence Grant had in him.
Softness stole across her mouth. “No. It doesn’t. It takes commitment and sacrifice and it starts in the cradle. Some parents don’t understand that. It says a lot that you do.”
“Thanks.” He shrugged, unsure why the compliment meant so much. “Will you do it?”
“What’s the time frame? The breadth of fatherhood is a lot to cover in a week.”
“Then stay for six months. A year. I’ll double the money.”
She shook her head and frowned. “I can’t leave my practice that long. Some of these kids are really damaged. They need me.”
“They can get another therapist. I can’t get another you.”
Their gazes crashed and she held him captive, drawing out a connection that pulled him in like a magnet. She felt it, too—he could see the sway of her shoulders. Was she remembering how good it had been? The idea fed his own memory, and he couldn’t shut off the video in his head.
He’d moved on because he’d had no choice. Didn’t mean he’d forgotten the curves now hiding under her prim suit or the way she kept a good hold on him as she blasted him into outer space. The way she’d been the only one he’d wanted waiting for him when he came back to Earth.
“Perhaps we should discuss the nature of the arrangement you’re offering.” Her dry tone left no doubt she’d been right there with him on the trip down memory lane. “It’s strictly professional or no deal.”
He’d also never forgotten what had happened after he’d broken his leg snowboarding. She’d said sayonara and left his heart in pieces that never fit back together quite the same way. There was no worse pain than being told you weren’t okay exactly the way you were. Her love was conditional, available only if he became someone else, someone safe and acceptable.
He could hire a nanny tomorrow. Ask his mom for advice. But he wanted the best and he’d pay the emotional price for it.
“Of course. I’m interested in you for your expertise,” he said, but it was only half the truth.
He was also, suddenly, perversely, interested in proving to Juliana she’d made a big mistake by walking out on him. In proving he could get under the skin of this buttoned-up Juliana who was clearly willing to ignore the humming vibe between them. By the time he was through, she wouldn’t be ignoring anything. And she’d admit she wanted him. As is.
“I’ll help you,” she said, leaving him rabidly curious about why she’d agreed. Because of Mikey, the book or that trip down memory lane? He’d never been able to read her and the mystery intrigued him. “For a couple of months. I have to make arrangements for my clients and it’ll take a week or so. I’d like to see each of them personally to explain my absence.”
It was done. Relief flooded that empty place hollowed out by the explosion. The most qualified consultant money could buy would help him become the father Mikey deserved. If he was smart, he’d leave it at that.
He’d rather rattle Dr. Cane than play it safe.
Two
Two months. She should have her head examined.
The baby had won her over and Juliana wasn’t ashamed to admit Shay had played her like a maestro. How had he known Mikey’s sweet face would be the clincher? Lucky guess? Calculated offensive?
Either way, here she was in West Texas, descending a set of metal stairs locked to the hatch of a GGS Aerospace jet, a mere five days after Shay had showed up on her doorstep. Fate and a great assistant had seen to fitting all fifteen of her clients into a two-day block, and then she’d had no more excuses.
What was it about Shay’s proposal that set her on edge like the screech of an out-of-tune string?
The book deal would make this experience well worth her while. The yearning to nurture flowed through her veins, sometimes so fast and thick she feared they would burst, and she couldn’t let all that love for babies go to waste. She wanted to share everything she’d learned.
The money would be welcome, too. Half a year’s salary for two months’ work was highway robbery but Shay hadn’t fluttered an eyelid at the figure. In vitro procedures and student loans for a PhD certainly did not come cheaply, and she’d appreciate a faster decline in her debt.
So why did it feel like the bottom would drop out from under her at any moment?
A low-slung maroon Acura sat on the tarmac a healthy distance from the plane. Shay leaned against the rear end, his hip resting against the car casually, arms crossed. Today he’d opted for the trademark ball cap. Backward, as always.
So he did still wear caps. The sight threw her back in time for a moment, reminding her of when she’d mostly seen him without it. In bed.
She shuddered and willed away the punch to her abdomen.
He was one big chunk of vibrant, testosterone-filled man. So not her type. A younger and stupider Juliana had thrown caution to the wind, ignoring how incompatible they were, reveling in the wild buzz of his no-holds-barred approach to everything. She’d never do that again.
“You have Tony Stark’s car?” she asked by way of greeting. “And they let you drive it onto the runway?”
“Comes with owning the runway.” He grinned that whole-face grin she’d never been able to take her eyes off of. “I bought my NSX before The Avengers came out, by the way. How do you know what kind of car Tony Stark drives?”
“Three of my clients are teenagers. Girls with movie-star crushes.” Gritty wind blew across the open space of GGS Aerospace, stinging her skin with its sandy teeth. “So is this where all the magic happens?”
“Some. There’s a hangar around back for the jet and the office is about a half mile away.” He nodded to the sleek glass-and-marble building at the edge of the tarmac. “This will eventually be the commercial hub once we get the space tourism division up and running. Once I get it running.”
Stylish sunglasses hid his eyes but the catch in his voice said he still hadn’t fully internalized the loss of his partners. Or, likely, what he’d gained. Some people would feel incredibly blessed to be given a child. Did he? Or was it a responsibility he’d accepted, but would never see as more than that?
“GGS is largely a military aircraft supplier,” he continued after a minute of heavy silence. “The manufacturing division is outside of Fort Worth and we have a high-rise in downtown for operations. I go back and forth by helicopter. Land’s cheaper out here and you need a lot of it to run a space tourist business.”
“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t here to learn the ins and outs of a company that designed and built the most dangerous flying machines known to man. She and Shay weren’t old friends catching up over a casual conversation. He was a client, and she had a job to do. “I assume your house is close by?”
“A couple of miles. Ready?” Shay grabbed two of the three suitcases the crew had deposited on the concrete and tilted his head to the remaining one. With his arms uncrossed, she could read his shirt—My Parents Were Abducted by Aliens and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt.
As if she needed additional clues that he was still mentally fourteen. Shay’s Peter Pan syndrome had been part of his charm, part of the reason she hadn’t brushed him off when he’d called out to her at the library that fateful day in September when they’d first met. She’d feared then that he’d never grow up and hated discovering she’d been right.
Success and newly acquired wealth had clearly afforded him a bigger playground for his dangerous toys instead of instilling a good dose of reality. People depended on him, more so now than ever. What would they do if he got seriously hurt? If he died?
The less she dwelled on that, the better. She had only one responsibility here, and Shay wasn’t it.
She hefted the suitcase into the car and sank into the leather passenger seat. The dash sported a variety of gizmos and dials well suited for a driver who liked to know every last statistic of an engine’s performance.
Shay stomped the accelerator and hit Mach 1 in about a minute. She resisted the urge to grab something and bit back the “slow down” fighting to be voiced.
“Tell me more about Mikey,” she said instead over the wail of strings piping from the speakers.
Classical music and Shay seemed incongruous—until she remembered how he’d come to her performances, front row center for every one. How he’d told her so many times what a thrill it was to watch her play the violin. He’d endured it for her—or so she’d assumed. In hindsight, it seemed he’d just liked the music.
“He’s a baby. What else is there?”
The flat, ugly landscape flew by, barely allowing her to register the dotting of cacti. Shay’s hands were solid on the wheel, in full command of the machine under them.
“A lot. How old is he? Start there and we’ll get to all of it eventually.”
Watching his curled hands set off a hot flush in her long-forgotten places. Mortified, she jerked her head toward the window and focused on the mountains. She wasn’t twenty-two anymore and over the years sex had become a utilitarian mechanism necessary for pregnancy. Now it was unnecessary entirely.
“Almost six months. I think. Maybe five.”
“I need to know exactly. Babies start on solid food at six months. He should already be on rice cereal.”
“My conversations with Donna started and ended with engines.”
Not a surprise. Juliana remembered Donna as someone more likely to recite a complicated equation than the date her son had first rolled over. Motherhood might have changed Mikey’s mother, but Juliana doubted it. After all, what kind of mother got into an experimental spaceship without any regard to the potential consequences? Like leaving her baby to the adrenaline junkie behind the wheel of a car suited for a superhero.
“She never talked about her child? What about Grant?”
“They talked about him all the time. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention, I guess. When they talked about a breakthrough on the liquid oxygen alternative, that’s when I tuned in. It’s weird to think about Donna as a mother instead of an engineer. The failed prototype was Donna’s. She designed it from the ground up. Worked on it for three years.”
That explained a lot. “Sometime today, call Mikey’s pediatrician. I’ll give you a list of things to ask.”
“Uh, okay.”
Juliana sighed. “Call Donna’s admin and get the name and number from her. Then start taking notes. If you want to be a father, then you have to know these things. What would you have done if Mikey developed a fever?”
“Called Linda. My admin,” he clarified before she could ask. “I must not have been clear back at your house. I need help. Not judgment.”
She unclenched her teeth. “I’m sorry.”
Shay needed her on his side. Knowing how to care for a child wasn’t innate, not even for females. Her own mother wouldn’t have won any awards; in fact, she’d thoroughly failed at instilling a sense of security in her daughter, the most important aspect of childrearing.
Most women—women who were interested—used all nine months to learn everything they could, breathing baby books until their water broke. Shay would have to do it in eight weeks and without benefit of a highly motivating nesting instinct.
He was trying. She should be trying, too, not jumping down his throat because he was still outrageously sexy and she’d just received the very nasty wake-up call that she wasn’t immune to it. She had to find an inoculation quickly because she wasn’t leaving this job without solid notes for her book and she wasn’t falling back into Shay’s crazy.
“We’re here.”
Shay hit a button on the visor and the wrought-iron gate connecting a stone wall swung open. He drove onto the property, and she got her first glimpse of a billionaire’s life.
“What are all those cranes for around the lake?” she asked and noted they were connected to a wire line circling the water.
“It’s a wakeboard cable system. You should try it while you’re here. I’ve already called my architect to come enclose the lake and the outdoor pool with something a kid can’t get through. Made his year with the dollar signs I waved under his nose.”
See, she assured herself, Shay wasn’t completely clueless. That meant her job wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d envisioned.
The house—a term which could only be applied in the loosest sense to the enormous glass-and-steel structure—straddled the center of the estate, unfolding in both directions with multiple floors, balconies and sharp rooflines. “All this for one person?”
“Eight people,” he corrected immediately. “Me, Mikey and the staff.”
Not a house. A home. He and Mikey would be a family. A sharp spike behind her rib cage reminded her she’d left Shay to find a stable man who could give her a stable life, complete with children, and now she’d be creating exactly that with Shay after all.
Only she’d have to walk away in a few short weeks, leaving a gap wide open for someone else to slide into.
“You said outdoor pool. There’s an indoor pool, too? Never mind. I have plenty of time to acquaint myself with all the goodies.” Private jets, indoor pools and an extreme athlete’s body she’d been very careful not to notice. She almost offered him an aspirin for the sore arm he must have from beating off the women with a stick. “I’m not here to act as your glorified babysitter while you jet off to Paris with this week’s playmate, am I?”
She’d assumed when they’d split that he’d find a girl better suited to being flung off a cliff—emotional and actual—but his love life after her had always been a nebulous, murky idea. Now it was real and she swallowed against the sudden burn in her throat.
He shot her a sideways scowl and threw the car into Park. “Yeah, I’ve got dates lined up out the door. A different woman every night while Mikey cries himself to sleep. My social life is nonexistent. Thanks for the reminder.”
He barreled out of the car. When he opened her door, she stepped out onto the stained concrete circular drive and grabbed his hand before he could turn away. Something needed to change but she wasn’t sure what. She hated being unsure.
“Should I scrawl ‘I’m sorry’ across my forehead with a Sharpie? I’m bound to get laryngitis as many times as I’ve had to say it.”
He chuckled and it spread through her abdomen with a tingle.
“How about a truce instead?” He flipped her hand and shook it. “We used to get along pretty well. Let’s see if we can find a way back to that.”
The weight of his fingers against hers took on a whole new meaning. “That sounds suspiciously like the opposite of professional.”
“Hmm, you think so?” His hand tightened and a thumb brushed over her knuckle in a long stroke. The sparks submerged her senses with the kind of quick heat she’d done her best to forget, but it came rushing back in a torrent of memory.
“Uh-huh. The opposite.”
“You said that already.”
He was watching her with intense, impossible-to-look-away-from focus, leaning into her, a slight tilt away from something irreversible. Crazy. Dangerous and frightening.
“We should go inside,” she rasped and cleared her throat, breaking the connection and sweeping her hair off her shoulders in a poor attempt to reorient, which surely didn’t fool Shay. “Will you show me to my room?”
“Sure. I’ll send someone out for your bags.”
No catch in his voice, because she’d never affected him the way he did her, as if her legs would collapse at any moment. Firm, solid ground, that’s what she needed.
He mounted the patterned steps lined with twenty-foot palm trees and exotic flowers that shouldn’t grow in the desert but did because they belonged to Shay. He created magic from nothing, an alchemy she’d never been able to analyze until it made sense.
She reminded herself that she didn’t need to understand him. She only needed to do her job, get research notes for her book and get out.
Forty-seven hallways later, her head spun from trying to take in the luxurious room Shay had ushered her into. The four-poster bed presided over the room from a raised dais, leading to an inviting seating area to the left that shared a flat-screen TV mounted on a swivel arm between them.
One whole wall was clear acrylic, enclosing a tank full of colorful, darting fish, coral and glowing anemones. The remaining walls were painted a purple so dark, it should have closed in the space, but actually worked well to unite the separate areas. Raw silk in lighter purples, off-white and black covered the bed and was repeated in the fabrics of the seating area and window treatments.
It was difficult to reconcile all this wealth and opulence with the rough-around-the-edges man she’d known in college. “Your home is beautiful.”
“My mom.” He twisted his mouth into a self-deprecating grin. “She and the decorator were texting each other within two days. I figured why ruin her fun? So I let her have free rein.”
Juliana recalled Mrs. Shaylen being a very proper, nervous woman who taught English at a private high school in Dallas. They’d never gotten along well, though Juliana couldn’t fathom why not. They shared a strong desire to see Shay live until his next birthday and he’d ignored both of them equally well.
“I’ll unpack later. We should start right away with Mikey. What does he usually do in the afternoons?”
“Different stuff. I temporarily reassigned one of the maids to Mikey. Maria. She raised five kids but has no interest in long-term child care. He’s with her now. She watches him if I have to go into the office or do a conference call from home.”
“Maybe that’s where we should start. What are the next two months going to look like? What are you hoping to accomplish? Total immersion means there won’t be a lot of going into the office. We should organize a list of goals and then assign blocks of time to—”
“Whoa, Schedule Police. Is all that necessary?”
“Yes, extremely. We have a limited amount of time and a lot to cover. We need a plan of attack. Additionally, it’s important to note children thrive on schedules. They like to know what’s coming next. It’s comforting. Schedules are now a part of your life.”
In the time she’d taken to explain the most fundamental concept Shay needed to learn, he’d edged into her space. The fine lines he’d grown around his eyes were deeper than she’d realized, aging him. He wasn’t twenty-two anymore, either, and it fit him nicely.
If only the inside had aged as well as the outside.
“Hey, Ju?” His gaze flitted over her and the atmosphere tangibly shifted, growing dense and tight. “Danged if I don’t like this new you. That high-brow tone you get when you’re being all consulty-like, it’s really sexy.”
She narrowed an eye at him. “Say what?”
“Yeah. I like it. Give me some more.” His cheekbones drew upward as he smiled wolfishly.
“Um.” Now she had a really keen awareness of exactly how close Shay was and exactly how far away the door was. The clean freshness of his soap frayed her senses. It wasn’t what he used to smell like. “That was all I had to say.”
“Too bad. What should we do now?”
“Unpack.” Hadn’t she just said she could do that later? She took a step backward, hoping the movement would jar her brain into functioning again. “Then we can go over some basics.”
“Or,” he said, wrapping his tongue around the r in a thoroughly suggestive way, “I could put some Shay in your sway, baby.”
Her eyes shut for a brief, insane second. The first time he’d laid that line on her, she’d laughed and let him take her to dinner. After an appropriate period of dating, he’d sweet-talked her clothes off and she’d spent forty-eight hours in his bed losing all sense of time and place. His full-on masculine quicksand had sucked her under and kept her there. Pulling free had been the hardest thing she’d ever done.
“My sway is A-Okay, thanks.” Dr. Seuss instead of Dr. Cane. Shay yanked her out of academia, yanked her out of reasonableness. He had to stop. “We agreed it was best to have a professional association only.”
When he reached out and fingered a lock of hair, she almost jerked out of her skin. With a perplexed once-over, he dropped his hand, allowing her to breathe again.
“No. I said I was hiring you for your expertise. I did not agree to the distance between us. Feels wrong. That line worked once to get your attention. Figured I’d try it again.”
Distance. She wished she didn’t know precisely what he meant. In college, they’d talked about everything, joked and flirted without censor. There was a strange edge now that cut in ways she hadn’t anticipated. “Well, I’m not falling for it again.”
“Maybe I’ll find a different line, then.” When she cocked a brow, he shrugged and said, “It’s weird to be dancing around our past, trying to avoid land mines.”
“So you figured you’d step on one deliberately?”
“Hey, it’s easier to deal with an explosion you know is coming than one you don’t.”
Shay’s straightforward approach was a far cry from textbook psychology and he seldom followed conventions anyway. Her doctorate wouldn’t get much traction here and they did have to spend time together. “Let’s ditch the explosives and try something else, like really putting the past behind us. We’re different people now. Maybe this time around, we can be friends.”
His grin could have melted butter. “Can we have a sleepover and watch scary movies? I haven’t had a good midnight pillow fight in ages.”
She laughed. “Sorry, sport. Your future includes diapers and bottles. But I’ll gladly stay up late with you for that.”
The pages of Shay’s life were turning so fast, he barely had time to read the words, let alone absorb them. If everything slowed down, he might catch up.
He should be asleep. Instead, he was watching the digital clock. Mikey woke up between one-fifteen and one-twenty pretty much every night, like the kid’s stomach had an alarm. Shay usually woke in cold panic right before the witching hour, terrified he’d missed the opening wail, effectively forcing a helpless baby to lie there crying while Shay slept.
The video monitor on Shay’s nightstand showed an immobile lump in the middle of the crib. On cue, the lump stirred and let out a yowl. Shay hit the carpet and threw on a shirt before trudging to the connecting door between his bedroom and Mikey’s. He wanted to bond with Mikey and this was part of it, but some nights he wished they could bond through the mutual act of sleep.
“Shh. I’m here.” He scooped up the baby and gathered him against a shoulder. He carried the mewling bundle to the kitchenette he’d paid double to have installed in the corner of the nursery within twenty-four hours of the reading of the will. Murmuring nonsense words, he went through the rote motions of heating water and mixing formula for the hungry bottomless pit snuffling against his shirt.
A whiff of female filtered in underneath the strong sour of formula.
“Hey,” Juliana whispered behind him.
Every nerve lit up as if he’d crested a mountain in his Cessna and an endless valley fell away under the wings. It’d be nice to blame his reaction on lack of sex. Or sleep. But he’d gone without both many times and it had never caused spontaneous bursts of poetry and awareness.