Vegas Pregnancy Surprise (5 page)

Alex arched a dark brow. “Hamilton Towers? Mighty fine digs for a temporary home.”

“Linc is covering the costs as part of my salary.” Molly felt her face heat. “I mean, Mr. Curtis.”

“Linc?” Alex grinned. “First-name basis with the boss already?”

Goodness, the pregnancy must be making her forgetful. She hadn’t told anyone about the man she’d met that night in the bar, and she wasn’t ready to tell Alex now. “I…I met him before. A long time ago. And when he mentioned needing someone to head up this new educational software development program, I leaped at the chance to try something new.”

A reasonable approximation of the truth. She wanted to tell Alex about the pregnancy, but just couldn’t bring herself to explain it. Not yet. Not until she had completely come to terms with it herself.

And to do that, she had to come to terms with one other thing—

Lincoln Curtis.

“Y
OU’RE
crazy,” Conner said to Linc the next morning. “But it’s the kind of crazy I like.”

Linc looked up from the stack of paperwork on his desk, a pile that seemed to have done nothing but grow since he’d arrived in the office a little after seven this morning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I heard about the new project.” Conner dropped into one of the two visitors’ chairs, his lanky frame dwarfing the antique mahogany seat. “So you’re going forward with it after all?”

Linc nodded. “Call it an executive decision. I’m overriding the advice of all the other suits.”

Conner chuckled. “It’s about damned time.”

Linc arched a brow. “What?”

“About damned time you did something that wasn’t written into your schedule, something nobody expected you to do. My God, Linc, you’ve been living in a box way too long.” Conner grinned. “I saw the gorgeous woman you hired to be in charge of the program, too. Don’t try to tell me you don’t have any ulterior motives involved here.”

“I have—” Linc cut off the sentence. He refused to delve into his personal life with Conner. No matter how he tried to explain his and Molly’s relationship, it was bound to come out wrong. There was just no way to start with “one-night stand” and end with “not interested in her” and come off believable. “I hired her to take the project off my hands. Nothing more.”

A decision he’d cemented in his mind last night, after dropping Molly at Hamilton Towers, then asking Saul to make a circle of Vegas before returning to bring Linc back to the same building. He’d been too tempted to follow her into the building and to pick up where they’d left off two months ago. To invite her up to his penthouse apartment and see if the amazing chemistry they’d enjoyed before was still there.

It was the way she smiled at him, the way her green eyes seemed to dance with amusement, how those long, tempting locks of her dark brown hair curled gently around her face and shoulders. Everything about her seemed to beckon to him to take her back in his arms, to taste that sweet, silky skin again, to make love to her just one more time.

He’d left the restaurant wanting her more than he had when he’d first met her. They’d sat so close together in the town car—inches away from touching—and he’d been aware, so aware, of the floral notes of her perfume, the heat emanating from her body, the nearness of her silky skin. When she’d gotten out of the car, it had taken all his willpower to remain behind, giving her some excuse about needing to run an errand.

He’d had Saul drive until the urge passed—or at least had been conquered by his better sense—and then he took the express elevator straight to his apartment, ignoring the whisper of temptation to stop at the apartment he’d given her on the tenth floor.

“You
are
insane,” Conner said. “If I was you and that woman was a few floors away, I’d—”

“You know how busy I am,” Linc said, interrupting Conner before he gave voice to the very thoughts that had been plaguing Linc for hours. “For God’s sake, we’re right in the middle of designing the East Coast offices, we’ve got the product launch for next year’s security suite coming up in the fall, and—”

“And if I let you, you’ll find ten more reasons why you can’t find time to go on a simple date. Did you pay any attention at all when that woman came by to talk to you yesterday? You would have to be dead, Linc, not to be attracted to her. What would it hurt to ask her out?” Conner leaned forward and put a hand on the papers on Linc’s desk. “I’m not the boss, and I don’t pretend to be, nor do I presume to know what’s on your shoulders, Linc. But I do know that beautiful women don’t come walking through the doors of this company every day, looking for a job that entails working side by side with
you
.”

True. And for a second the thought of seeing Molly Hunter every day, of being beside her again, inhaling the intoxicating notes of her perfume, or hearing the lilting sound of her laugh, tempted him all over again. “I’ve already asked Roy to handle the project. He’s got the expertise, the background—”

“But not the passion. Linc, this thing is your baby. You’ve been talking about it for years.”

“I’ll communicate with Roy,” Linc said. “Aren’t you the same person who told me my schedule didn’t have enough room in it for one more thing?”

“That was before I saw you with Molly.” Conner grinned. “You can talk all you want about not being interested in her, but I saw it in your face. You are.”

Linc gave Conner a pointed look. “I have to get back to work.”

Conner stepped back and put his hands up. “Suit yourself. But I think you’re passing up a prime opportunity to have what everyone else has.”

Linc’s gaze had already dropped to the profit and loss statement before him. The numbers, however, were a blur. “And what’s that?”

“A life.” Then Conner walked out.

Linc let out a sigh and dove into the numbers and charts, telling himself that finding solace here would be the best decision all around. All he needed to do was take one look at the empty office next door if he needed a reminder of why he should stay behind this desk, instead of running off like some infatuated teenager. With the very woman who had made him forget his life for one very unforgettable night.

Work. Don’t think about Molly. Be smart. Concentrate.

Linc lasted until ten.

Then he gave up the pretense of working—his concentration had been shot to hell pretty much from the minute his assistant had told him Molly had arrived—and headed down to the sixth floor.

He’d just check on the project. Nothing more. Then he could go back to work and focus.

When he reached the Research and Development room, he paused outside the open door. Molly was half-seated on one of the desks, looking over the shoulder of Roy, one of the company’s graphic designers. Jerome, another graphic designer, sat at a companion computer, also working on the program. The two of them were typing away on the keyboard, inputting computer code at record speed.

Molly laughed at something Roy said, the sound as light and cheery as spring sunshine. Linc found himself smiling, and wanting to know what joke had coaxed such a nice sound from Molly.

At the same time an odd surge of something Linc refused to call jealousy rushed through him. He hadn’t been the one to make her laugh, or to bring that smile to her lips.

“How’s it going?”

Molly pivoted at the sound of his voice. “Linc.”

His pulse kicked up as the single syllable of his name rolled off her tongue, with that soft lilt of surprise. This was trouble—bad trouble. He’d come down here merely to check on their progress. Stop in, ask a couple questions and leave.

And already he found his gaze searching the room for another chair. A free space beside Molly.

Roy turned toward Linc. “Going great, Mr. Curtis,” he said. “We’re making good progress. Since you already had the preliminary design worked out, Molly is helping us come up with different modules within the software. I should have a working model within a few days. Nothing finished, mind you, but a rough idea for you to see.”

Linc nodded. Roy turned back to the computer, and to Molly. Linc knew that was his cue—he was free to go. He’d gotten what he came for, a status report.

Molly waved him over. “Do you want to come see?”

That was all it took. The steps he’d been about to take out the door became steps across the room to her side. He gestured toward the notebook beside her. “I take it you were able to understand my notes?”

Molly laughed. “I can read kindergarten writing, which is…creative, to say the least, when they’re learning to make letters. I can read yours.”

He grinned at her. “You’re comparing me to a kindergartener?”

She returned his smile and something he thought he’d been able to bury in the two months since he’d met her was resurrected. “If the handwriting fits.”

Roy cleared his throat. “Hey, Jerome. I think it’s about time for a coffee break, don’t you?”

Jerome grunted, and kept on working. Roy leaned over and smacked him on the shoulder. “Jerome, dude. Coffee.”

Jerome looked up. Looked at Roy, then his eyes widened, and he looked at Linc, then Molly. “Oh. Coffee. Yeah. I could really use a cup.”

The two men couldn’t have been more obvious if they’d hung up a billboard. They hurried out of the room, leaving Linc and Molly alone.

Molly had her attention buried in Linc’s notes, so she barely noticed the departure of the other men. She was still sitting on the edge of the desk, which made her floral print A-line skirt hike up just above her knees. She wore low heels and a short-sleeved pink shirt with a scooped neck. Conservative, but to Linc, who knew that underneath the elementary school teacher lurked a wild side, the outfit had the added edge of seeming to tease and tempt.

He shook his head. Thinking of that night wouldn’t do him any good. At all. “So,” he said, forcing himself to focus on the computer screen, “what direction were you thinking of going in?”

She put the notebook aside. “Well, I know my students really like exploration activities. Things that make them search for something, then learn about it. So we were thinking of having a find-the-animals game, sort of like the classic memory game, here.” She pointed at the screen, where some rudimentary icons had been placed on the home page. “And then, when they unearth, say, the koala bears in the trees, they get to move on to the next level, which is an interactive learn-about-koalas game.”

Linc nodded. “Great idea. A reward for winning the first game, one that encourages even more learning.”

“Yep. Sort of like getting ice cream for finding the cookie jar. Which is definitely my idea of a reward.”

He laughed. “I like that. We should use it in the marketing materials.” He slid into the chair beside her, and as he did he caught the scent of her perfume, sending his mind spiraling back to the memory of kissing her neck, tasting her skin.

Not doing such a good job of focusing there, Linc.

She shifted toward him, and the minuscule closing of the gap only increased his awareness of Molly. “Tell me more about what you envisioned with this program,” she said.

He tried to come up with an answer to her question, and had trouble envisioning anything that didn’t involve her and the bed at the Bellagio.

“Linc?”

Focus on business. Numbers.

“Uh, software that will capture a significant portion of the four-to-seven-year-old market share,” he said, “as well as the elementary school market. Something that will combine children’s natural curiosity tendencies with—”

“I meant something personal.”

He paused. “Personal?”

She nodded, then leaned in closer to him. Inquisitive. Probing. “Tell me more about your camping experiences. About why this is so special to you. Those are the kinds of things I really want to be sure to include.”

Get involved, she was saying. Put aside everything else and be a part of this. With her. In other words, stop spending so much time in the tightly scheduled world he had known for so long, among the comfort of his task lists and memos.

That was exactly the area he was trying to avoid. A place he hadn’t gone in such a long time. Not since his relationship with Barbara. Then, he’d thought opening his heart, getting close to someone, would be a good choice.

Only to find out that he was wrong. If anyone wasn’t cut out for traditional, it was him.

If Molly had asked him a question about marketing projections, profit potential, advertising expenditures, the answer would have been no problem. But delving into the personal meant dancing around the edge of a relationship.

“This doesn’t have to be about camping, Molly. It can be about anything outdoorsy. Bugs, trees, rocks.” Linc waved a hand. “Whatever interests that age group. The goal with the software, as you know from our first conversation, is to encourage the kids to take what they learn and apply it in the real world. To get them off the couch and outside. That’s what you’re here for, to find out what will do that. You’re my expert in that arena. And you have my notes—that should be enough.”

“But this is
your
project, Linc. To make it work, I…” She stopped, started again. “The team needs your input.” She picked up the notebook and flipped a few pages. “For example, in here you were talking about a game you and your brother used to play. I thought it sounded really fun, and something we could convert to the software. What was it called?” She ran her finger down the page. “Something with an animal name—”

“Water Snakes.” The memory slammed into him, hard and fast. Marcus and him in the backyard, one of them holding a hose, while the other tried to outrun the spray. Sometimes they’d get a bunch of the neighborhood boys involved, and before the day was done the game had turned into a slippery, laughing mess on the lawn.

The last time he’d played that game he’d been in Marcus’s backyard. With his brother, and his brother’s two children. He could still hear Anna’s and Daniel’s laughs, still see the surprise on their faces when the water splashed their legs.

A week later, there had been nothing for the children to laugh over.

Because of Linc.

“Yes, that’s it,” Molly said. “I think we could use something like that in the software. Make it a techno-dodgeball kind of thing. I wanted to learn more about how the rules worked, so I could—”

“I don’t have time for this right now,” Linc said. “I have work to do.”

“I don’t need you to spend hours here, Linc.” She smiled. “I just want to pick your brain for a little while.”

The room suddenly felt close, hot. He pushed back the chair and rose. “I should probably leave you to this. Really, you know this age group better than I do. I have a meeting to get to.”

A meeting Connor could handle as easily as he could. A meeting he could miss with a simple phone call. A meeting he wanted to miss—just to see Molly smile at him again.

But she kept pushing the very buttons he had marked Off-Limits.

And for good reason.