From Boss to Bridegroom (5 page)

“Here they are,” Sadie was saying as she led the way into the warm kitchen, redolent with the scent of roasting chicken. “My two darlings. Lucy and Max. I don't suppose you've met Max yet, have you, Rand?”

There wasn't time to make a run for it. There wasn't even time to think of a face-saving excuse or some glib quip. Instead Lucy looked up from the salad she was dressing to find her handsome boss taking in the whole domestic scene, his expression confused as his gaze went to Max while Sadie made the introduction.

And what was even worse, Max seemed to fall in love at first sight with the big man. The little boy's blue eyes sparkled and his smile showed pure delight.

“I'm coloring a Tyrannosaurus. He ate other dinosaurs.”

“Did he? I didn't know that,” Rand answered amiably enough. But then he turned a much more cloudy expression to Lucy as he added, “But then there are a lot of things I don't know.”

Sadie seemed to pick up on the tension between Lucy and Rand but she kept up a good front. “I've
opened a bottle of wine. Will you have a glass?” she asked Rand then. “Dinner is just about ready.”

“I think a glass of wine might be a good idea. Maybe it'll have a calming effect,” he said pointedly, still letting his gaze bore into Lucy with the heat of ten lasers.

She drew herself up, pulling back her shoulders, straightening her spine, holding her head high. Just as Rand had his own life that was none of her business, her life was none of his. And she was
not
going to cower or sulk or try to deny the fact that yes, she did have a son. A son she loved to death. A son she was proud of.

“Go wash your hands for dinner, Max,” Lucy told the little boy gently, meeting Rand's stormy eyes with a defiant gaze of her own to let him know he could take this turn of events or leave them, that she couldn't care less.

Sadie poured Rand a glass of wine, making small talk that he responded to while still staring daggers at Lucy.

Then Max returned from the bathroom, slipped his hand into Rand's as if it were something he'd done a million times before, and said, “Come on. I'll show you where to sit. You can be by me.”

“Thank you,” Rand said to both Max and Sadie at once as he accepted the wineglass with his free hand before letting the child take him into the dining room.

He earned points with Lucy for not rejecting the
handholding or the invitation to sit with her son, no matter how mad he might be at her.

The moment Max and Rand were out of earshot Sadie sidled up next to Lucy and whispered, “He didn't know about Max?”

“It was an underlying condition of the job that I not be a single mother. He said he was sick of dealing with them and all the complications that came with them. He said having kids interfered with work. He assumed I didn't have any and I didn't inform him otherwise.”

“Oh, dear.”

“It's okay. As long as he's nice to Max tonight, he can do what he wants about me tomorrow,” Lucy assured her aunt, casting a glance in the direction of the dining room where she could hear her son regaling her boss with his career plans.

Rand was nice to Max, though. All evening. More than nice, he was actually good with the little boy who had been stricken by a sudden case of hero worship and seemed to have made it his goal to charm the object of it.

For her part, Lucy let her son have free rein. Ordinarily she would have attempted to keep him in check so he didn't monopolize an adult evening, but tonight she didn't. Tonight she wanted Rand to see that she doted on Max, that she wasn't ashamed of him in any way.

As a result, Max was the entertainment of the evening. He told his dinosaur stories and demonstrated
dinosaurs stalking other dinosaurs. He did his full repertoire of knock-knock jokes and then he sang “Blue Suede Shoes”—complete with hip-wiggling gyrations, air guitar, and a curled lip at the end.

For his part, Rand didn't seem to mind. In fact he held up his own side of the conversation with Max, posing questions as if the little boy were the resident expert—which he actually was.

Rand told a few of his own knock-knock jokes, surprising both Lucy and Sadie that he knew them, and laughed and clapped as heartily as Lucy and Sadie at the end of “Blue Suede Shoes.”

It was all a relief to Lucy because no matter how angry Rand was at her—and it was still clear she was in trouble with him—at least he didn't take it out on her son.

By eight o'clock Max was getting overtired and slap-happy so Lucy announced that it was time to go home.

After a few protests, Max went to stand directly in front of Rand and held out his right hand for Rand to shake.

“It was nice to meet you,” the little boy said like a seasoned businessman.

Rand accepted Max's hand with the same decorum. “It was nice to meet you, too.”

Max beamed as if he'd been granted the best compliment in the world and then ran to where his mother waited for him at the front door.

But Lucy couldn't go without posing the first
question she'd aimed directly at Rand all evening. “Should I come to work tomorrow?” she asked with a high note of challenge in her tone.

“The car will be here at seven-thirty,” he answered, but dourly enough to leave Lucy wondering if he just wanted to berate her in his office before he fired her.

“Seven-thirty,” she repeated.

Then she thanked Sadie for dinner, urged Max to do the same and left.

But if she thought her stress for the evening was over when she stepped out into the cold night air to cross the few feet of sidewalk to her own town house next door, she was mistaken.

Because an hour later, just as she was coming down the stairs from reading Max to sleep and tucking him in, there was a sharp knock on her front door that she somehow knew didn't bode well.

She took a deep breath and decided if Rand had changed his mind and decided to fire her tonight instead of tomorrow she'd just as soon get it over with.

So, with her shoulders once again squared, she crossed the small entryway at the foot of the stairs and opened the door.

Sure enough, Rand was outside, leaning one shoulder against the jamb as if she'd kept him waiting, his arms crossed over his expansive chest.

She hadn't taken notice of what he had on before, but she did now. Tan slacks, navy blue blazer, navy
blue V-neck sweater over a cream-colored shirt with the collar button left open. As good as he looked in his expensive suits, he looked even better in the more casual attire.

Except that his handsome face was still a thunder-cloud.

“Change of plans?” she asked, not bothering with a greeting.

“Just thought I'd stop by before I went home and find out why you lied to me,” he answered, his voice even deeper than usual and so low there was no chance of it waking Max. So low it was even more ominous than had he been shouting.

But even though he wasn't likely to wake the neighborhood, she still didn't want to do this on the front stoop so she stepped aside and formally invited him in.

When he was inside she closed the door and led the way into the living room to the left of the foyer. It was the one portion of the house that had no boxes left to be unpacked and the furniture positioned where it would stay.

Lucy went to the bean-pot lamp on the antique oak end table beside her overstuffed plaid sofa and turned it on.

“Would you like to sit?” she asked.

But when she turned to see where Rand had landed she found him the same way he'd been outside—leaning a shoulder against the archway between the entry and the living room, his arms once again
over his chest, his weight slung on one hip and his expression an expectant, direly solemn mask as he waited for an answer to his question.

So Lucy cut to the chase.

“I didn't lie to you,” she said, taking her own stand behind the overstuffed chair that matched the sofa. “I just didn't tell you about Max. As long as my being his mother doesn't interfere with the job you're paying me to do, he's none of your business. And since I haven't heard any complaints, I assume my having a child hasn't caused a problem, has it?”

Rand ignored the challenge in her tone. In fact, he seemed to ignore what she'd said. “I don't like being lied to.”

“No one does. But you left it up to me, and I just opted to leave out the fact that I'm a parent.”

“Omission is still a lie in my book.”

“Well, in
my
book it's an omission. And had you not come to dinner tonight, you would never have known there'd been one because I don't let Max interfere with my work. As you've seen for yourself.”

“I need you later than five in the evening and you won't stay so you can get home to him. What do you call that?”

“I call it a nine-hour workday if it starts at seven-thirty and I only take half an hour for lunch. I think that's sufficient.”

“Not if I need you longer.”

Why had that sounded more personal than professional? Maybe she was just imagining it.

“I'm not your permanent secretary, remember? I'm just the fill-in. You can stipulate whatever you like when you hire someone else, but with me this is the way things are. If you want me to continue working for you until you find someone else, fine. If not, I'm sure you know the number for the temp agency. They can send you someone else first thing tomorrow.”

Their eyes were locked together.

Lucy could tell he was tempted to say that calling the temp agency was just what he would do, that he no longer needed her services. And she was surprised by how much she didn't want that to be the case. By how bad it made her feel to think he might walk out in the next few minutes and she'd never see him again.

But regardless of how she felt, she stood her ground. She wouldn't sacrifice time with Max to please Rand, to go on working with him, to go on seeing him.

Rand pushed off the archway then, finally coming into the room. He sat on the Bentley rocker that faced the overstuffed chair Lucy's fingertips were digging into the back of.

“You know damn well you're too good for me to give up before I have to,” he conceded. Then he glanced around the room. “Are you hiding anything else I should know about?”

“You didn't need to know about this.”

“I thought maybe you were rushing home to a boyfriend.”

She wondered if that possibility had bothered him the way she'd been bothered by the evidence of the women in his life, but the only thing she gave him in response was a raised eyebrow.

It made him smile. Just slightly. A secret, satisfied sort of smile that left her thinking he enjoyed the fact that she was still keeping him guessing.

But he didn't pursue it. Instead he let the subject slide and said, “Now that I do know about Max—even if I don't know anything else about your life,” he added facetiously, “what if when I need you to work later than five we do it here?”

“Here?” she repeated dimly.

“It wouldn't be every night. But tonight, for instance, after being away from the office all day, I could have used you. As it is, we'll have to spend tomorrow morning doing the finish-up work for today, which will give us a late start on tomorrow's work. But I don't live far from here. I'd be willing to continue things out of the office just to get them done.”

Again she heard some sort of double entendre in his words but she once more decided it was only in her mind.

“I like my evenings with Max,” she said, trying to push away the sense that more was going on here than business.

“You'd be with Max. And so would I, for that matter. Unless I'm mistaken he liked me well enough.
Between the two of us we could make sure he's not neglected but still get some work done.”

Lucy had no doubt her son would like that arrangement. Max hadn't talked about anything but Rand the whole time she'd been getting him ready for bed.

“There would have to be an understanding that when we're on my turf, Max comes first. You'd have to be patient with interruptions.”

“Fair enough.”

Lucy was amazed at the change in his mood. Gone, suddenly, was the anger she'd been bathed in all evening, replaced by a coolheaded negotiator. No wonder the man was good at his job. He could be an intimidator one minute and an arbitrator the next.

“So do we have a deal?” he asked amiably.

“I guess so. But there's one other thing you'd better know. I did not appreciate being sent to run your errands today. I'm not your personal maid, valet or social secretary. Find someone else to pick up your dry cleaning, do your banking and send flowers to your girlfriends.”

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow at her. “Sadie always took care of everything.”

“I'm not Sadie.”

He sized her up again, clearly debating whether to push this issue.

But once more Lucy stood her ground, not wavering beneath his scrutiny.

Then he took a deep breath, sighed it out and said, “All right. You drive a hard bargain.”

“I'm worth it.”

That made him laugh again, as if he were genuinely enjoying this.

“So if everything is settled, do you want to do some work now, while you're here?” she offered.

He shook his head as if that were the last thing on his mind. “I didn't bring anything with me or I'd say yes. But we may need to work tomorrow night to make up.”

Making up was what it seemed like they were doing now. From a lover's quarrel.

But of course that was crazy.

Rand glanced around again. “You're renting this place from Sadie?” he said then, making yet another quick change into interested guest.

“We have an arrangement, yes.”

“And she owns the other two in this section of row houses, unless I'm mistaken, doesn't she?”

“Yes.”

“Good investment.”

“Yes,” Lucy answered yet again, trying to regroup and not being as fast at it as he was.