She's Having the Boss's Baby (5 page)

He just wished she would say something one way or the other. It wasn’t like her to equivocate so much.

Finally she looked up and squinted at him. “What did you just say?”

He smiled. “I’m offering you an associate partnership in our corporation.”

*

Ellie was pretty sure most of the blood in her head had flowed right out, leaving her brain empty and her ears ringing. She felt dizzy and faint and was still not sure she’d understood him. “Say that again, please.”

“Partnership, Ellie,” he said. “You heard me. I know you want it.”

Of course she wanted it. She had brought up the subject of partnership during her review last December, asking the brothers if they had considered adding a partnership track to incentivize their top senior-level employees. Aidan and Logan had admitted they hadn’t yet decided, unsure whether they wanted to include anyone else in their tightly knit two-man operation.

“You—you’re offering me a partnership position.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you deserve it. And because I’m determined to do whatever it takes to keep you here working with us.”

She would’ve stayed without the partnership offer, but now she was overwhelmed. First he’d offered his own sperm—and everything that went with it, so to speak. Now he was offering her a partnership deal? Had she won the lottery? What was going on?

“Well, what do you think?” he asked.

“I’m stunned,” she admitted. “And a little suspicious of the timing of your offer.”

He nodded. “I understand how you might feel that way, but the truth is, Logan and I had already planned to make you the offer once he was back from his honeymoon. I’m just speeding up the process.” Standing, he walked over and sat down in the chair next to her. He took hold of her hand, warming her all the way through to her heart. “I know you want to have a baby and I want to help you if you’ll let me. It’s your choice, absolutely, and no matter what you decide, you’ll still be a partner and a friend. I brought up the idea with the best of intentions, no matter how idiotic it sounded to you.”

“Oh, Aidan.”

“Wait.” He held up his hand. “I feel honor bound to add that it wouldn’t make me uncomfortable at all to see you naked. In fact, it’s pretty much all I’ve thought about lately.”

Her throat went dry. Unless she was delusional, it sounded like Aidan was still interested in helping her conceive naturally. And the more she thought about it, the more she was all for it. Especially with him sitting so close and holding her hand and unconsciously rubbing his thumb along the pulse point at her wrist. Tiny zings of excitement charged through her body with every move of his thumb, driving her crazy in all the best ways.

She knew that accepting his offer could be dangerous to her well-being. But it didn’t have to be. She was a strong woman and this was essentially a business proposition, after all. It would be the best possible thing for her baby and a fabulous opportunity for her. She could accept without fear of turning into her mother.

Aidan continued, “The partnership deal is my way of letting you know that no matter what you decide on the baby front, we want you to continue working for Sutherland once you’ve started your family.”

“So it’s not some sort of bribe to help me forget your good old-fashioned offer?”

“That depends,” he said carefully. “Is it working?”

She laughed. “Yes, it’s working. I’m weak. But, Aidan, you don’t have to bribe me to stay. I already told you I have every intention of staying on after the baby’s born.”

“I’m glad. But the partnership is not a bribe. It’s for real.” He outlined the particulars of the deal, adding that the lawyers would draft an agreement that would take effect immediately upon signing. It was an associate partnership, the first level of the Sutherland partnership track. She had the opportunity to advance each year until she reached the top level of full capital partnership.

“I’ll warn you,” Aidan said. “Reaching full partnership could take anywhere from five to ten years. But I want to see you go for it.”

Go for it,
she repeated silently. But could she say yes to the whole deal? she wondered. It might be smart to back away from having a baby with him. After all, if she did agree, it would mean entering into a deeply personal relationship with Aidan that she wasn’t sure she would ever recover from.

Still, part of her wanted to shout,
Yes! Yes!
But she was pretty sure those were her hormones talking. She needed to step back and think this through very carefully. Without Aidan around to tempt her.

She mentally collected herself and said, “I need a few days to think about everything you’ve offered me.”

“Everything?” he repeated.

She bit her lip and nodded. “Yes, everything.”

He nodded. “All right. I’m leaving for California tomorrow. Why don’t you let me know your decision when I get back on Monday.”

She gazed at him solemnly. “I’ll have an answer for you then.”

Three

“W
e’re cleared for takeoff, Mr. Sutherland.”

“Thanks, Leslie,” Aidan said, and buckled his seat belt.

The flight attendant walked toward the front of the plane to take her own seat behind the partition that separated the passenger compartment from the crew’s quarters. Checking his wristwatch, Aidan realized he had six long hours to kill before they would land in California. He made himself comfortable in the sleek leather chair and stretched his long legs out.

As the powerful Gulfstream engines began to roar and the jet took its place in the middle of the runway, it occurred to Aidan that he should’ve asked Ellie to come along on the trip. At least he’d have someone to talk to during the long flight. It didn’t hurt that she was beautiful to look at, too.

She was also smart. And funny. They always laughed a lot when they traveled together. And if she were here, Aidan wouldn’t have to wait four days to make love with her.

But since he was forced to wait, he had nothing but time to consider all the potential problems involved with walking into fatherhood. There were plenty. He had never planned on taking this path, but the bottom line was, this was for Ellie and the child who would know both of his parents.

And it meant he could finally have Ellie naked in his bed.

Since she wasn’t there, he opened his briefcase and got to work on several of the projects he’d neglected lately. By the time they were flying over California hours later, he was almost caught up on everything.

He looked up as the flight attendant walked into the passenger area. “Guess it’s time to buckle up. I can feel the plane starting to descend.”

“Yes,” Leslie said. “We should be landing in about fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks.”

*

Ellie always spent a few hours each weekend in her office, catching up on business journals and studying the stock market. She enjoyed learning new things. Reading articles about business trends and developments helped expand her mind and broaden her horizons and made her better at her job.

Her girlfriends thought she was crazy. Serena urged her not to read the whole weekend away and told her that if she changed her mind, a few of them were meeting in the bar for cocktails and dinner tonight. Ellie wasn’t sure she wanted to go out. She had too much to think about.

But that was the problem. With Aidan’s proposition still fresh in her mind, she couldn’t concentrate on anything else, especially business. Her brain kept bouncing from one idea to the next to…Aidan.

She finally gave up, pushed the books aside and left the office. As she strolled through the lush coco palm grove to the cozy cottage she called home, located on the edge of the resort grounds, she decided the only way she was going to be able to truly relax was to go swimming.

She slipped on her bathing suit, threw on a short cover-up, grabbed a towel and walked down to the beach. The numerous pools scattered around the resort were beautiful, but they were much too lively for relaxation. Ellie preferred to swim in the calm waters of the bay.

The sun was nearing the horizon, but the air was still warm. She touched the clear water with her toe and found it was the perfect temperature, refreshing without giving her a chill. Dropping the towel on the sand, she walked straight into the bay until the water reached her shoulders. Then she plunged her entire body under the water and swam underwater for as long as her breath lasted. Surfacing, she began to swim with slow, easy strokes that stretched her muscles in all the right places.

Ellie had always loved the water. Once upon a time, she had been an excellent swimmer and had even daydreamed of swimming in the Olympic Games. But then her mother died and swimming became a luxury she couldn’t afford.

Ellie and Brenna were the only people besides the mortuary director who had attended their mother’s funeral. That was when it hit the two girls that they were completely on their own. Their father had no interest in taking custody of them and their mother had no other living relatives. Ellie was thirteen and scared to death to go into foster care, so sixteen-year-old Brenna decided she would do whatever it took to keep them living together in their mother’s small house in the same working-class neighborhood where they’d always lived.

Brenna had an after-school job that brought in a few hundred dollars every month. Their eccentric mother had always kept a large stash of money—almost seven thousand dollars—in a safe place in her closet. They lived frugally, only spending money for food and the barest essentials, and managed to stay under the radar for almost four years, until Ellie’s junior year in high school. That’s when a school counselor grew suspicious of her living situation and contacted the authorities.

Terrified of what might happen next, the girls packed their mother’s car with whatever they could grab and in the middle of the night and drove out of town. They headed south and stopped when they reached the outskirts of Atlanta.

For the next eight months, they lived off the grid, sleeping in their car when they couldn’t find an available shelter. Brenna took day jobs cleaning houses and Ellie spent hours in the local library studying for her GED.

They’d survived, Ellie thought as she swam through the balmy water. More than that, they’d thrived, depending on each other and building a bond stronger than most sisters could claim.

A few hundred yards from shore, she stopped, treaded water and stared up at the vivid streaks of orange, pink and purple that filled the sky as the sun sank into the sea.

Looking back at the resort, she still couldn’t quite believe that this was her life. She’d come a long way from those days of living in a car. Life hadn’t exactly been easy-breezy back then, but she and her sister had stayed together and they had endured.

Soon after Ellie obtained her GED, she turned eighteen and they didn’t have to worry about the authorities anymore. They’d rented a small apartment, Ellie had enrolled at the local college and Brenna had started her own housecleaning service.

As she turned and paddled back to shore, Ellie continued to dwell on the strange path her life had taken. She had missed out on so much during those years. Childhood friendships, boys, shopping, cute clothes, the prom, sporting events—all the fun things that normal teenage girls did. But it couldn’t be helped. She and Brenna had realized early on that they couldn’t afford to stand out, couldn’t afford to have anyone examine their lives too closely.

So there would be no boyfriends, no close girlfriends, no activities that might draw attention. Instead, Ellie had escaped into books, newspapers, magazines, blotting out the hard times while soaking up every morsel of information she could get. And once she got into college, it was as if she was making up for all the time she’d lost in her last year of high school. She’d made some nice girlfriends and even dated once in a while. But more than anything else, she studied constantly, couldn’t learn fast enough. Her so-called photographic memory, along with a near fanatical need to succeed, helped her graduate in three years. She had been so captivated by the inner workings of corporations that she had already obtained her MBA when most of her peers were wondering what to wear to the homecoming game.

Now she was happily employed by the Sutherland Corporation, where she was considered brilliant, independent and overachieving—in a good way. She had great friends and she’d dated a few men. She had the means and opportunity to have a child and give that child everything she hadn’t had while growing up.

She reached the beach, grabbed her towel and patted it against her wet skin. The sand was still warm on her feet although the sun had set long minutes ago.

“That’s enough reminiscing,” she muttered aloud as she brushed the water off her arms and legs.

Why had she dredged up all those ancient memories? She rarely thought of the old days anymore. Did they have something to do with Brenna’s ultrasound picture? Or were they somehow connected to Aidan’s proposition? Were the memories a reminder of how tired she was of always missing out on all the fun?

Because it suddenly dawned on her that if she said yes to Aidan, she wouldn’t only be doing it to get herself pregnant. No, she would also be doing it because sex with Aidan would be exciting and
fun
.

And after all these years, Ellie deserved to have some fun. Didn’t she?

And speaking of fun, she thought as she grabbed her towel off the sand, her girlfriends would be in the bar at seven o’clock. With a determination she hadn’t felt in a while, she wrapped the towel around her waist and walked briskly toward home. If she took a speedy shower and dressed quickly, she could meet the girls in time to buy the first round of drinks.

*

Aidan never saw the sneak attack coming. In retrospect, he figured that’s why they called it a
sneak
attack.

It was two days into his California visit and his cousin Cameron Duke was throwing a pool party in the backyard of his home overlooking Dunsmuir Bay. Aidan lazed on a comfy raft in Cameron’s pool, a cold beer perched in the handy bottle holder. The cacophony of kids screaming joyfully, a dog barking, Sally taking orders for sangria, all faded into the background as Aidan tried to remember how long it had been since he’d been able to relax like this. Six months? Longer? Hell, the corporation had been in high gear and he’d been working nonstop for the last year at least.

The sun was warm, the water cool, and as the noise level began to die down, Aidan wished again that he’d brought Ellie with him to California. She would’ve enjoyed herself and fit right in with this lively crowd. But more than that, he wanted her with him right now, here in the pool, her body wet and slick against his….

Suddenly without warning, the air was filled with screeching banshees as a giant gush of water exploded all around him. Seconds later, more water engulfed him as kids and grownups cannonballed into the pool from every angle.

“Hey!” He scrambled off the raft, grabbing the beer bottle as pool water surged from one end to the other, splashing the deck and creating a mini-tsunami.

“Good save,” Brandon shouted above the uproar of the skirmish. “Never waste a perfectly good beer.”

Aidan laughed. “My philosophy exactly.”

Brandon was the biggest of the three Duke brothers, a former star quarterback in the NFL. Sitting on his broad shoulders was Samantha, his brother Cameron’s adorable, curly-haired three-year-old. She laughed and splashed and occasionally smacked the top of Brandon’s head like a conga drum.

Abruptly, little hands latched on to Aidan’s shoulders. He turned and found Jake, Cameron’s five-year-old son, grinning maniacally at him.

“Piggyback ride!” the little boy cried.

“Uh.” Aidan looked around to see if there was a parent nearby. The pool was filled with them, but they were all busy with the other kids. Damn. Aidan was on his own.

“Okay, kiddo,” Aidan said. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

Jake didn’t seem to mind. “Go! Go!”

“Okay, okay,” Aidan muttered. “Hold on tight,” he warned as the boy climbed onto his back. Then Aidan glanced around for somewhere to put the beer bottle he’d saved only moments before, setting it down safely on the flat tile surface that surrounded the pool.

He took off slowly and jogged around the pool, being careful to keep Jake’s head above the water line. Looking around, though, he wasn’t sure it mattered. All these Duke kids swam like fish, even the youngest ones.

After a few minutes, Aidan glanced back. “Had enough?”

“Nope,” Jake said, slapping Aidan’s back. “More.”

A half hour later, Aidan came to a stop on the shallow-end steps. “I’m worn out, kiddo.”

“Okay, you better rest,” Jake said. The little boy wrapped his arms around Aidan’s neck and hugged him, pressing his cheek to Aidan’s. “Thanks, Uncle Aidan.” Then he hopped off and swam away.

Aidan swam to the side of the pool and grabbed his beer, refusing to admit how much he had enjoyed the squirmy little kid hanging around his neck.

*

Three hours later, after Aidan had eaten his body weight in grilled burgers, the best potato salad he’d ever had and Sally’s cherry cobbler, he glanced around the spacious patio. The grownups were still gathered at the table talking while the little kids fought mightily to stay awake, but failed miserably.

Five-year-old Jake, the oldest of the kids, had decided to take a trip down the jungle gym slide and had promptly tossed his cookies. Without batting an eye, Cameron rushed him into the house to clean him up.

For some reason, all the efficient family activity reminded Aidan of Ellie and her ability to keep things running smoothly under any circumstance. Of course, everything lately reminded him of the woman waiting for him back home on Alleria. He couldn’t wait to go home and get her naked. There wasn’t a question in his mind but that she would want the same thing.

A few minutes later, Jake came running outside in fresh pajamas and shocked the hell out of Aidan by climbing onto his lap. Now the little guy was sound asleep in his arms. Talk about a sneak attack. Aidan couldn’t quite fathom how all these protective feelings for this scrawny little guy had cropped up.

Was this the kind of emotional stuff that dads went through? he wondered. Was this what he’d signed on for with Ellie? No, he realized quickly. If Ellie said yes to his offer tomorrow, Aidan would one day become a dad in name only. He would be there for financial support and the occasional family gathering. He rubbed his chest absently, relieved that he wouldn’t have to deal with these overwhelming feelings of fear and concern and love and—

“Here you go.” Cameron handed him a heavy crystal glass of single malt scotch. “Don’t worry about waking up Jake. I swear that kid can sleep through earthquakes and enemy fire.”

Cameron sat and both men sipped their drinks in companionable silence, watching the activity around them.

“Time for jammies,” Brandon’s wife Kelly announced, and scooped tiny Robbie up off the lawn, where he’d been speed crawling, trying to make his escape. The kid put up a halfhearted fuss but after a moment, he laid his head on Kelly’s shoulder and closed his eyes.