Baby Benefits (11 page)

Resentment spiked through her. How dare he look so unaffected by their kiss? How dare he apparently feel not even a glimmer of guilt?

To avoid looking at Derek if nothing else, Raina turned toward Kitty, who’d stopped maybe ten feet away from Derek and the SUV. She wore a thin black skirt and blazer. Her feet were clad in the kind of spiky pumps that cost more than a semester of Cassidy’s college. Kitty’s sable hair fell sleekly to her shoulders.

On Raina the outfit would have looked ridiculously mannish. Kitty, however, looked like a modern Lauren Bacall, curvy and outrageously sensual. Compared to Kitty, Raina felt like a twelve-year-old girl.

A cheating, shameful twelve-year-old girl. Perfect.

“You’re early.” Derek was the first to break the silence.

“I caught an earlier flight.” Kitty wrinkled her perfectly straight nose. “No sense waiting around at the airport, is there?”

She lifted her hand to her sunglasses and slowly raised them onto the top of her head. The better to survey her domain. Her gaze flickered dismissively from Derek to Raina before settling on the house, which sprawled over the meticulously landscaped grounds. “Well. It’s certainly large, isn’t it?” Somehow she made that, too, sound like an insult. Finally, her gaze moved back to Raina. Again her nose wrinkled as she looked Raina up and down, taking in the shorts and tank top, so practical in the heat, but so pedestrian compared to Kitty’s ensemble. “And you are…the dog walker? The nanny?”

Raina clenched her hands into fists. “Derek’s assistant.”

Kitty’s gaze darted to Derek’s. “Really? You’ve hired a teenager as your personal assistant?”

Finally Derek straightened—apparently no longer struck dumb by the sheer joy of unexpectedly seeing his lovely fiancée…“Raina is my administrative assistant at work. She’s just helping out with Isabella this week.”

“Ah.” Kitty eyed her. “So, Louraina, you’ve been demoted to nanny?” Kitty smirked. “And the child? Where is she?”

“Isabella is asleep. Finally.” Derek crossed to Kitty’s side and—to Raina’s horror—brushed a kiss across her lips. “I’m thrilled you’re here. But you really should have called to let me know you’d made that earlier flight. I’d planned to pick you up at the airport myself.” He gestured behind him to the discarded cardboard box the car seat had come in. “I was just putting the car seat in so that I could bring Isabella with me.”

Kitty waved a dismissive hand. “I hired a limo at the airport. It was much more convenient than having you pick me up.” The disdainful look she shot the car seat box implied it was actually more convenient than traveling with Isabella.

Then she shot an equally scornful look at Raina. “The limo driver should be bringing up my bags. Tip him, will you?”

Then Kitty threaded her arm through Derek’s and strolled up the winding walkway toward the house, concisely dismissing Raina. Relegating her to nothing more than the hired help.

And Derek let her lead him away.

Raina’s stomach rolled over in disgust. Okay, so technically, it wasn’t “into the sunset” since it was only about two in the afternoon, but metaphorically, the credits had already started to roll.

“Good riddance,” she muttered. And she even almost meant it.

“Excuse me, miss, where do you want the bags?”

Raina spun around to find the limo driver rolling a shoulder-high stack of luggage up the drive. Not one but two hanging bags were hung over his shoulder. The guy looked all of nineteen and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds. Raina figured the luggage probably had a good forty pounds on the kid, because he’d had to wedge his shoulder against it to push it up the hill.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” she said, as she watched the driver wheeze his way toward her.

“The bags…” he puffed. “Where do…you want…them?”

“I suppose the bottom of White Rock Lake is out of the question.”

He looked at her blankly. Probably because he didn’t get the joke, but possibly because he was about to pass out.

She took pity on him. “On the doorstep is fine.” Then she realized he’d have to hand carry each of the six—or was it seven?—bags up the flagstone walkway to get to the porch. “No, never mind. Here is fine. Her fiancé can bring them the rest of the way.”

The word “fiancé” curdled on her tongue. And to think, mere minutes ago her tongue had been involved in such pleasurable activities.

Warmth flooded her as she relived the feel of his lips on hers. His kiss had been everything she’d ever dreamed. It had been a kiss designed to dominate. To sweep aside objections and banish doubts. In that moment, nothing had mattered but their desire. In that moment, she’d have willingly sold her soul for more of his touch. Fool that she was.

Well, it served her right. What had she been thinking, kissing another woman’s fiancé? That had bad idea written all over it. Had her common sense taken a sabbatical? Had her morals abandoned her completely?

For nine years she’d known Derek when he hadn’t been engaged and she waited until now to kiss him? What an idiot.

Though in her defense, he’d kissed her first. He’d started it. And he was the one who was so gaga over the lovely Ms. Biedermann. What was up with that?

“You sure this is okay, miss? ’Cause I can take ’em the rest of the way up.”

Only then did she realize she was scowling at the poor limo driver. He’d hefted two of the bags off already, and held the third poised in the air, awaiting her command. She sighed and forced a friendly smile. “It’s great. Just perfect.”

A few minutes later, as she fished a twenty out of her own wallet to tip him, she couldn’t help wondering, was Kitty Biedermann really as bad as she seemed? Or did Raina just feel guilty for kissing her fiancé?

Either option was unpleasant.

She’d never been that kind of woman. She didn’t poach. It just wasn’t her style.

And she vowed it would never happen again. The past few days she’d fallen into an oddly informal routine with Derek. Circumstances alone had led to this disaster. Well, circumstances combined with years of repressed desire. But that was all over with. Just because she’d cast aside her professional clothes for the two-week stint helping out with Isabella, that did not mean she’d cast aside her morals.

Derek was off-limits. Permanently. And if her libido didn’t like it, it could just go throw itself in White Rock Lake.

Eight

Clearly, kissing Raina had been a bad idea. Even if he hadn’t almost been caught by Kitty, it would have been disastrous. How exactly was he supposed to go about the business of pretending to be enthusiastic about Kitty’s visit when what he wanted most was another woman? However, if he did a piss-poor job of pretending to be happy to see her, Kitty seemed not to notice. Nice thing about dating an heiress, he supposed. Kitty was generally so busy making sure people heard what she said, she rarely listened to anyone else.

As soon as they’d entered the house, she’d left his side. As he watched her move about his home, he tried to muster some enthusiasm for her. She was, as he told himself over and over again, the very embodiment of everything he’d ever wanted in a spouse. She had a poised elegance that surpassed mere beauty—though she certainly was beautiful. However, her looks hadn’t been what drew him to her. It was more than that—the way her presence commanded attention. And yet, the very thing that he’d always admired about her was oddly unappealing today.

Now, she strolled from room to room as if she owned the place—and indeed, someday she would—her gaze appraising and cold.

“I suppose it isn’t bad. After all, you can’t be expected to have the kind of elegance you’d find on the Upper West Side, now can you? I’m sure your decorator was very competent. For Dallas.”

Derek gritted his teeth against a response. He’d hired the best decorator in the state. She’d worked on the house, personally, for nearly a year. When she’d finished it had been featured in not one, but three respected magazines. The house had a cool elegance he’d never been comfortable in, but it wasn’t about comfort. It—and its address—were physical evidence that he’d made it. No one would dream of dismissing a man who owned a seven-million-dollar home in Highland Park.

But if he had to spend another million dollars to have it decorated to his fiancée’s taste, then so be it.

When she glanced his way, he forced himself to concede. After all, it was just furniture. He didn’t give a damn what she did with it. “Of course you’ll feel free to hire the decorator of your choice.”

She smiled with benign indulgence. Then she crossed back to his side and patted him on the cheek dismissively. “We’ll see.”

An unpleasant implication hung in the air between them, but before he could figure out what she meant, the front door swung open and Raina swept into the entry hall. She held in her hand a carry-on tote, which she dropped unceremoniously by the front door.

“I had the driver leave the bags by the walkway to save him the trip. Someone should go get them.” Raina’s smile was overly bright.

Kitty didn’t even turn around to acknowledge Raina’s presence.

With a sigh, he left Kitty’s side and headed out for the bags. When he passed close to Raina and might have spoken to her, she beat him to the punch.

“You owe me the twenty I tipped the driver.”

Her tone was cold and unapproachable. He couldn’t blame her. By kissing her today, he’d royally screwed up in a way he hadn’t in years.

Not only had he jeopardized his relationship with Kitty, but he’d also ruined any chance he had of convincing Raina to stay on as his assistant. Even if he could lure her into staying, doing so would be a disaster. Now that he’d held her in his arms, he’d never forget the feel of her lips under his. He’d never stop wanting her. Which meant he had to let her go completely.

He’d picked Kitty. If he was having second thoughts now, that was his own damn fault. He certainly didn’t need to drag Raina into things.

Yet somehow the only thing worse than the idea of marrying Kitty was the idea of never kissing Raina again.

Raina stood awkwardly in the doorway leading from the entryway to the living room, watching Kitty. She’d never in her life felt more out of place. More outclassed.

As a rule, she wasn’t given to fits of insecurity. The way she saw it, she was what she was. A girl from a lower-middle-class family who worked hard for a living. When she’d first taken the job at Messina Diamonds, she’d thrust herself professionally—if not socially—into a stratosphere of wealth and privilege she’d never before imagined. She’d had to work to blend in to that world, not because it was what she desired, but because it was her job. Though very few people she associated with through work would guess her humble beginnings, she’d never been ashamed of who she was or where she came from.

Next to Kitty Biedermann’s glamour, she felt plain, drab and working-class. Like Mary Ann outshone by Ginger, the movie star. Her initial impulse—to slink quietly away—sat unpleasantly in her belly until she squashed it altogether.

Kitty may be Derek’s fiancée, but this wasn’t her turf yet. Raina still had the home-field advantage. At least for another week or so until Derek fired her. Until then, she wasn’t going to give an inch to this obnoxious, pretentious drama queen.

By the time Kitty finished observing her future domain, Derek had returned from carting her luggage upstairs.

Without so much as a glance at Raina, he told Kitty, “I’ve put your luggage in the guest room at the top of the stairs. You can’t miss it.”

Kitty opened her mouth as if to protest, but with an unhappy glance in Raina’s direction, she snapped it closed again. Her lips settled into a pout, but she nodded.

The message had been clear. He wasn’t yet sleeping with Kitty.

Was that supposed to make Raina feel better?

Because it didn’t. Guilt chased jealousy as it burned its way through her belly. Derek wasn’t hers to kiss.

Of course, she’d known that from her first conversation with Kitty. But knowing about Kitty and being faced with the reality of Kitty were two completely different things.

Raina hated the idea of being chased away. But not as much as she hated the idea of watching them together.

“You know what,” Raina said. “I’m just going to skadoodle out of here. Get out of your wa—”

“No.” Derek’s response was firm and instantaneous.

The look of surprised annoyance that Kitty sent him had to equal her own, not that Raina took any reassurance in that.

“Really, Derek dear,” Kitty cooed as she draped herself around him. “Wouldn’t you rather be alone?”

Every cell in Raina’s body recoiled from the sight of Kitty’s curves plastered against Derek. It was wrong. Repulsive even. Like the embalmed two-headed snake her science teacher had shown them in the ninth grade.

Raina didn’t give Derek a chance to answer. If he wanted to be alone with Kitty, Raina certainly didn’t want to know about it.

Besides which, if she had to watch them together for much longer, she may well do something she regretted. Like puke all over Kitty’s designer pumps. “Obviously, now that Kitty is here, my presence is unnecessary.”

“I disagree.” Though he stood beside Kitty, one arm carelessly about her tiny waist, Raina felt the full force of his attention. “Unless you want to break our agreement, you’ve still got more than a week of helping me with Isabella.”