A Baby For The Billionaire

Five

Dina jumped, slapped one hand to her chest and spun around all at the same time. Heart in her throat, she watched Connor stalk across the yard toward her.

“You scared me to death,” she said, her voice a harsh whisper.

“Welcome to my world,” he snapped. “I’ve been sitting on your front porch for the last three hours, not knowing where the hell you were.”

“What? Why?” She looked past him to the porch as if she could see evidence of his vigil.

“I came to see the kids, but you weren’t here.” He scrubbed both hands across his face, then glared at her. “I didn’t know where you’d gone. For all I knew, you were out and trapped somewhere, or maybe one of the kids was sick. I called your cell and you didn’t answer. Went straight to voice mail.”

One small niggle of guilt wormed its way through her, but Dina dismissed it fast. How was she supposed to know that he would show up? Just because he’d been dropping by on and off for days was no reason to assume he’d keep doing it. Besides, he was overreacting and that she could hardly believe. He sounded like a worried husband, for heaven’s sake.

“I always turn my phone off when I’m working,” she said, though that wasn’t true. She’d kept the phone on in case her grandmother needed to reach her. She simply hadn’t answered the phone when she saw it was Connor calling. “And now I’m going to put the triplets to bed. They’re sound asleep in their car seats and if you wake them...”

Her threat lay open-ended between them, but it did the trick. He took a breath, made an obvious effort to calm himself and said, “Fine. I’ll help. Go unlock the front door.”

She did it, but only because that’s what she was going to do before he’d ordered her to do it anyway. Muttering under her breath, Dina crossed the yard with hurried strides. It was cold and damp and the moon and stars were blotted out behind a layer of clouds. She opened the door, then turned and headed back to the car, where Con was already unhooking Sam from his car seat. Her heart twisted a bit as the little boy draped himself across Con’s shoulder, arms and legs limp in sleep. Connor kept one hand on the boy’s back and walked to the house without another word to her.

Good, Dina thought. She was in no mood for his attitude. She was tired, her feet hurt and all she wanted was to sit down, have a glass of wine and then crawl into bed for the few hours’ sleep she’d get before the babies woke up.

She freed Sadie from her car seat and soothed the baby girl as she snuffled, whimpered and settled down again.

“I’ll take her,” Connor whispered when he came up behind her.

“You get Sage,” she said, already walking.

In what used to be the bungalow’s master bedroom, three cribs were crowded together in the small space. It wouldn’t be long before Dina would have to find somewhere else to live. The babies were going to outgrow this house within the next year or so. But that was a worry for another day.

“Why the hell didn’t you answer the phone?” Connor’s strained whisper sounded overly loud in the quiet.

“I was working,” she reminded him. “Then when I wasn’t, I turned the phone off to keep from waking up the babies on the way home.”

“Okay, then,” he ground out, “what kind of job are you working that you’ve got three babies out until after midnight?”

She frowned at him as she leaned over the crib and patted Sam’s back until he settled into deep sleep again. “I was catering an anniversary party, and the babies are fine.”

“They should have been home,” he said, that strained whisper somehow even more strained now.

Dina swallowed her impatience. “Not that it’s any of your business, but my babysitter got sick at the last minute, so my grandmother watched them for me.”

While Connor soothed a snuffling, writhing Sadie, he glared at Dina. “Why the hell didn’t you call me? I could have been here to watch them. Hell, I was here. On the damn porch, imagining you and the babies dead in a ditch somewhere.”

He was serious. She didn’t know whether to be touched, amused or angry. Amusement won.

She snorted a laugh and was pleased to see his expression darken even further. “Who’re you, my mother?”

“No,” he reminded her. “I’m their father, and you should have answered my calls.”

Looking into his eyes, she saw beyond his anger to the worry that had been dogging him for hours. If the situation had been turned around and he had been off with the triplets and she hadn’t been able to reach him, she would have been furious, too. And worried. And scared. And her imagination would have tortured her with images of car accidents, kidnappings—heck, even space invaders!

Maybe she should have answered his calls, but the truth was, she only left her phone turned on while working in case there was an emergency with the babies. Otherwise, she was focused on the task at hand. And frankly, every time her phone rang and she saw Connor’s number, she’d enjoyed shifting him to voice mail. He was so...dominant male that being able to thwart him even a little had made her feel better. Now, though, she was rethinking that decision.

“Okay, I’m sorry.” Oh, that was bitter. “I should have let you know the kids were all right.”

“It wasn’t only them I was worried about,” he said, voice deeper, lower, more intimate.

She looked at him and in the soft glow of the night-light, his blue eyes seemed fathomless, fixed on her. She felt drawn to him. So much so that she deliberately looked away and took a step back.

The babies were settled and the baby monitor turned on, so to continue the conversation, Dina led Connor out of the bedroom. She needed some breathing room. Flipping on light switches as she went, to dispel the dark and the accompanying intimacy, she walked straight to the living room with him following close behind. She entered the room, turned to face him and saw that he’d stopped in the open doorway. Taking a breath, she steadied herself. “I’m tired, Connor. Can we do the rest of this another time?”

Rather than answer, he asked a question of his own. “Why didn’t you ask me to watch the kids?”

“The simplest answer? It never occurred to me.”

A rush of pure frustration swamped Connor as he met her eyes and read the truth there. He read the fatigue in her eyes and noted the defensive posture she always adopted when they began to butt heads, and that was almost enough to defuse the anger churning inside him. The last few hours, he’d felt more helpless than he ever had, and he hadn’t enjoyed it. He was used to being in charge, to knowing what was going on at all times. To be in the dark about his own children had been torture.

By the time she had pulled into the driveway, Connor had been tense enough to snap in two. It was only the presence of the sleeping babies that had kept his temper from boiling over. But his frustration continued to bubble and froth in the pit of his stomach.

She hadn’t called him because she hadn’t given him a thought. She’d needed help and she’d gone to her grandmother instead of him. Because he wasn’t a part of her or the kids’ lives. He was still on the periphery, and he was the only one who could change that.

“That’s got to stop,” he said flatly, silently congratulating himself on his rigid control.

“Look, I’m sorry you were worried,” she said. “But I’m too tired to do this right now.”

He nodded solemnly. “Fine. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“Okay, good.” She waved a hand at the hall and the front door behind him. “Now I’m going to bed and you should go home.”

“Oh,” Connor said, leaning against the doorjamb with a casual ease he wasn’t feeling, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“What?”

Her chocolate eyes went wide and outraged and Connor smiled. He liked the way she went from cool to hot in a split second and he really wanted to see how hot she’d burn in his bed. For a second or two, that image scalded his brain and made speech impossible. When he came back to the moment, she was in the middle of a whispered rant, trying to keep her anger from waking the babies in the other room.

“You think you can just stay uninvited in my house? What gives you the right? Nothing, that’s what.” She answered her own question before he could say a word. She glanced at the baby monitor she held in her hands as the sounds of restless squirming cut into the room. In another moment or two, they might be awake and crying and this conversation—such as it was—would come to an end.

So he ended it first.

Connor didn’t think about it, he simply went on instinct, following the urges that had been clawing at him since the first time he’d seen her. Pushing away from the wall, he grabbed her, pulled her close and kissed her.

The instant his mouth met hers, heat exploded between them. Sensations unlike anything he’d ever known before enveloped him and Connor could only hold onto her, tightening his arms around her until he held her captive, pinned to his body. She went from startled to swept away in a heartbeat. As if she, too, were being consumed by the flames licking at his insides, she hooked her arms around his neck and held on. Mouths taking, giving, tongues twining together in a frantic dance of need. Their breath came in short, hard gasps. The bright living room lights shining around them did nothing to dispel the closeness wrapping itself around them.

His brain racing, heart thundering in his chest and his groin so heavy and hard he ached with it, Connor relished the feel of her mouth under his. The longer he kissed her, the more he felt, those flames burning brighter, hotter, scorching his soul. She sighed and leaned into him, and that soft sound was enough to penetrate his brain, bring him back to himself and the realization that he was only a blink away from pulling Dina down to the damn floor.

No. When this happened, he told himself, they would have a bed. And privacy. And all the time they needed to explore whatever it was burning between them. When that thought registered, he broke the kiss, stepped back and with satisfaction, watched her stagger before finding her balance. Breath ragged in his lungs, his heart hammering against his ribs, Con ground out, “I’m staying here tonight.”

She shook her head instantly. “We’re not going to—”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Her gaze met his and she must have seen that he wasn’t going to be sent on his way. With tension blistering the air in the room, she only nodded, accepting the inevitable.

“This isn’t over,” he said.

“It is for tonight,” she answered and walked past him, down the short hall to her room. She disappeared inside and closed the door behind her.

Alone, Connor shoved one hand through his hair and barely resisted giving it a hard tug to relieve some of the frustration still holding him in its clutches. Instead, he walked to the too-short couch and eyed it grimly.

It was going to be a miserable night.

* * *

During the long, incredibly sleepless night, Connor had had time to do some thinking. And some snooping. Sure, maybe he had crossed a line, when he’d poked around in Dina’s laptop, which really should be password protected. But he’d told himself that the triplets gave him all the reason he needed to invade her privacy a little.

Just as his lawyers had informed him, her business was in trouble. She was already in a downward spiral of debt and picking up speed every day. He’d flipped through enough of her records to know that she was using her small savings account to supplement her income and that wasn’t going to last for much longer.

Bottom line? Dina Cortez was in no shape to provide for three growing kids. And he could use that information.

He already had the babies changed and dressed when she walked into the nursery bright and early the next morning. One look was all it took to tell him that she’d gotten as little sleep during the night as he had.

“You’re awake?”

He shrugged and finished pulling Sam’s shirt into place. “Never really went to sleep.” He shot her a sly glance. “Too much on my mind.”

She inhaled sharply and Connor guessed that she’d been thinking about that kiss and what should have come next. Hell, thoughts like that had been tormenting him all night. Knowing that she was just down the hall from him. Knowing that she would welcome his touch. It had taken everything he had to keep from going to her.

But the bottom line was that he wasn’t here because of this attraction and desire he felt for Dina. He was here for his children, and they had to come first. If he made a play for Dina, it would complicate everything. Better to settle the situation here before moving on what he wanted from her.

He took a long breath himself before quipping, “Plus, that couch qualifies as torture equipment.”

“Well it isn’t built to sleep on,” she admitted, “especially for someone as tall as you.”

“That’s for sure.” He lifted Sam off the table, gave the baby boy a kiss, then set him on the floor with his brother and sister. “So. Kids are changed, dressed and ready for the day. How about we feed them and then we have that talk?”

“I need coffee.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, scooping up two of the babies and leaving Sam for Dina to get. Then he walked past her, heading for the kitchen.

The room was bright with sunshine and ringing with the happy chatter of three babies. Despite being tired, Connor and Dina worked together to prepare milk, oatmeal and bananas. While they fed the triplets, Connor glanced at her and said, “Last night brought home to me that things have got to change.”

“What things?”

He would have heard the wariness in her tone even if he hadn’t spotted it on her features. “Everything about this whole situation. You. Me. The triplets. As it stands now, none of it is working for me.”

She sighed and shook her head. “It’s been, like, four days. You could be more patient.”

“Not in my nature.”

“I’m getting that,” she murmured.

“Anyway, it’s been long enough to make some decisions,” he countered and scooped more oatmeal onto a spoon before offering it to Sadie, who opened her mouth eagerly, like a baby bird. “For instance. Your catering business—why catering?”

“What? Oh. Uh. I used to have a food truck and it did really well.” She smiled, remembering. “So well, in fact, that I sold the truck to my cousin Raul. I went into catering thinking I could use that as a stepping-stone to my real goal—opening my own restaurant.”

“A good goal, but hard to meet when your catering business is sinking.”

“Excuse me?” She stopped moving with a spoonful of cereal halfway to Sage’s mouth. The little boy howled and slapped both hands impatiently on his tray table. “Sorry, sorry, baby,” she murmured and fed him before turning back to Connor. “How would you know anything about my business?”

He couldn’t blame her for being mad, but he wouldn’t apologize for doing what he had to do to look out for his kids. If that made the relationship between him and Dina tougher for a while, he could deal with that. Connor had the taste of her inside him now and he wouldn’t stop pushing until he got more. Eventually he knew he’d have his kids and Dina, too.

But for now he said only, “First, my lawyers have a private investigator on retainer—”

“You had me investigated?”

He nodded, ignoring the shocked expression on her face because it was just going to get worse in another minute or so. “And for another, I looked through your bills last night.”

“You did what?” Her voice dropped to a new level of cold that sliced at him like shards of ice. She shot a glance at her laptop, lying innocently on the counter, then looked back at him. “You went through my records?”

“I did, and if you’re waiting for an apology, don’t hold your breath.” His gaze speared hers and he didn’t flinch away from the pure rage spitting back at him. Those dark brown eyes of hers flashed with heat in spite of the cold in her voice. “You’re taking care of my kids and I needed to be sure you can do that properly. As it turns out, you can’t.”

“Is that right? Well, I’ve been managing all right so far. The babies are fine and you know it. They’re fed, they’re happy, they’re loved.” She stiffened, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “The four of us are getting along great. You want to pay child support, I’m happy to take it for them. But I don’t need your help to run my business or our lives.”

Connor could admire her pride even as he dismissed it. Being proud was one thing. Being too stubborn to see the truth was another. “Of course you do, and you know it. That’s why you contacted me in the first place. It’s not just the money and you know it, Dina. You’re running yourself into the ground trying to do everything by yourself. You’re behind on your bills, and you haven’t had a good paying job since before the triplets arrived.”

She flushed and again, it wasn’t embarrassment but anger that flooded her cheeks with color. “I admit, my business suffered some when the babies first came to me. I had to back out of jobs and spend most of my time with them. They were traumatized—not that you’d know anything about that since you weren’t here—because they’d lost their parents and their home. It took weeks to get them settled into a routine. Make them feel safe.”

She glared at him and those eyes of hers were damned captivating.

“I was the one who held things together. And they were my priority. I’m so very sorry if you think my business isn’t doing too well.” She took a breath. “Now that the kids are settled in, I’m bidding on jobs again and—”

“Birthday and anniversary parties,” he finished for her. “Not exactly big-paying jobs.”

Dropping her gaze, she scooped up more oatmeal and spooned it into Sage’s waiting mouth. “No job too small,” she said tightly. “Besides, one job leads to another. Catering is a lot about word of mouth and—”

“Admit it, Dina. You’re in the water, holding onto a lead ball and trying to kick your way to the surface.”

“Could you please stop interrupting me?”

“Admit it,” he urged again. “At this rate, you will never reach your goal of opening a restaurant. Hell, you’ll be lucky if you can keep the catering going through the rest of the year. And once it fails completely? Then what? What’s your backup plan? Or do you even have one?”

Con watched her and saw in her eyes that she couldn’t argue with him, but that she was going to give it a try anyway.

“These children will never suffer.” She swore it, meeting his eyes, willing him to believe her. “It doesn’t matter what I have to do, they will never go without.”

“I know they won’t,” he said quietly and set small plastic bowls of sliced bananas onto the triplets’ food trays. Connor waited until she turned to face him. When he had her complete attention, he said, “I’ll give you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to sign over custody of the kids to me. Right now. Today.”

He saw confusion obliterated by fury in her dark eyes an instant before she exploded in a wild burst of rage. “You would dare to offer me money? You think you can buy me? That I would sell my family?”

She stood up slowly, as if every bone ached. The babies watched her with curiosity. They didn’t cry, because even in her anger, Dina kept her voice a hushed whisper that somehow made her temper sound even more volatile than if she’d been shouting.

“Do it and open that restaurant you want so badly. Build your dreams. I’m offering you a way out of the financial hole you’re sliding into.”

“Build my dreams by selling the babies? Do you really think so little of me?”

“Not at all,” he countered smoothly, refusing to match her temper. “I think you’re smart, clever and wise enough to recognize a real opportunity when it presents itself.”

She choked out a laugh. “You think I want your money?”

He shrugged. “You’re the one who sued me for child support.”

“For them,” she snapped. “Not for me. My God, you’re incredible. Because I asked for child support you believe that means I’d be willing to be bought off?”

He shrugged, not letting her see that he was pleased at her reaction, if surprised. Not many people would have turned down a quarter of a million dollars without at least thinking about it first.

“You rich guys are all alike. The world runs on money. Well, maybe in your universe, but not here in reality. I want nothing from you. I make my own way and I always have. My business is exactly that—my business.”

“Your business,” he argued as he slowly pushed himself to his feet to face her across the kitchen table, “became mine when you became the guardian of my children.”

He’d let her rant and rage, but she was going to understand this if he had to repeat himself ten times a day. “Those kids are what concern me. My children. Not yours.”

She snorted. “You were the sperm donor. You’re not a father.”

Everything in him went still. Her words, practically spat at him, hung in the air between them like an ugly smear. “You don’t get to say that to me,” he said, his voice low and hard. “You know what Jackie and your sister did to me. You know the truth.”

She gritted her teeth, pulling in a breath with a soft hiss. “Fine. You’re right. About that. I shouldn’t have said it. But you’re not right about everything else. I don’t want anything from you, Connor.”

“Then you’re the first woman I’ve ever met who didn’t have an agenda. What’re the odds on that?”

“What are you talking about?” Anger shifted to confusion.

“Every woman I’ve ever known has tried to use me—my name, my money, my family.” His ego took a slight beating at the admission, but he was going to let her know from the jump just who was in charge here. “You think you’ve got issues with rich guys? Well, how would you like it if everyone you’ve ever known approached you with their hand out at one point or another? Jackie,” he continued, “was the only woman who didn’t try to use me in some way.” A hard lump settled in his throat as he admitted tightly, “And in the end, she—and your sister—used me, too.”

He hadn’t meant to go that deeply into his own life. This was about Dina, the failing business she depended on and the welfare of the triplets.

It was a second or two before she spoke again. “Well, I’m not them.”

“Yeah, you turned down the money. That’s something. But,” he added, tipping his head to one side as he studied her, “maybe you’re just holding out for more.” He didn’t really believe that, but he felt a small slice of satisfaction when her eyes narrowed.

“I think you should go.”

“Not gonna happen,” Con told her. He glanced at the babies, who were now staring at the two of them with tiny worried frowns creasing each of their faces. Deliberately, Connor dialed back on the anger churning inside him. He wasn’t going to traumatize his kids. “I’ll tell you what is going to happen, though. You and the triplets are moving to my house. Starting today.”