The Baby Project / Second Chance Baby: The Baby Project

THE BABY PROJECT

SECOND CHANCE BABY

SUSAN MEIER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SUSAN MEIER spent most of her twenties thinking she was a job-hopper—until she began to write and realised everything that had come before was only research! One of eleven children, with twenty-four nieces and nephews and three kids of her own, Susan has had plenty of real-life experience watching romance blossom in unexpected ways. She lives in Western Pennsylvania with her wonderful husband, Mike, three children, and two over-fed, well-cuddled cats, Sophie and Fluffy. You can visit Susan’s website at www.susanmeier.com.

THE BABY PROJECT

SUSAN MEIER

Dear Reader,

Every once in a while in a writer’s career a really great story idea comes along. For me The Baby Project was one of those ideas.

With the loss of both her husband and baby daughter, Whitney ROSS has suffered the kind of tragedy most of us will never experience. But Darius hasn’t had an easy life either. Imagine not merely being ignored by your super-rich father, but also discovering that you have three half-brothers. One of them a baby!

When Darius and Whitney are named Gino’s guardians, neither expects to be overwhelmingly attracted. Still, both are positive they’re strong enough to handle it—and each other.

But raising a baby and falling in love are equally surprising. Sometimes funny. Sometimes poignant. Darius and Whitney discover that when everything seems to be rolling out of control the best idea is to simply hang on.

Join me for laughter and tears when Darius and Whitney try to raise spunky little Gino, form a family with Darius’s two cantankerous adult half-brothers, and unexpectedly fall desperately, breathlessly in love.

Susan Meier

CHAPTER ONE

“THE ANDREAS BROTHERS HAVE ARRIVED.”

As the secretary’s announcement came through the speaker phone, attorney Whitney Ross turned from the window in her father’s law office. The gathering January storm clouds above the New York City skyscrapers concerned her, but the Andreas brothers’ visit would be every bit as tumultuous.

Gerard Ross pressed a button on his phone. “Tell them I need five minutes.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Not enjoying exactly.” He grimaced, leaning his round body back in his office chair. He rhythmically tapped the blotter on his cherrywood desk. “How about if we say Stephone used his will to accomplish a few important things?”

Though Whitney had never met Stephone Andreas’s sons, the man had been a close friend of her father’s. He’d come to dinner at least once a month from the time she was six, and had talked about “his boys” incessantly. So she suspected she knew what was going on. The senior Andreas had always believed his three sons needed a kick in the pants and it seemed he’d finally found a way to give them one.

“You persuaded Stephone to use his will to force them to grow up.”

“This is about more than growing up. All three are smart. All three are good businessmen. Any one of them could take over the family holdings. But not one of them has a sense of loyalty or family.”

“And this is where the will comes in?”

“Yes. Stephone made his oldest son, Darius, chairman and CEO and left him the Montauk estate. Whether that divides them for good or forces them to unite all depends on whether Darius takes the reins like a true leader.”

He rose and headed for the black leather sofa in the comfortable meeting area in the corner of his big law office. After he sat, he patted the spot beside him, indicating that it was where Whitney should sit for their upcoming meeting.

“But before I bring the brothers in, there’s something you need to know. Missy had something put in her will for you that Stephone agreed would also go into his.”

Whitney took the seat he’d offered. “Missy put something in her will for me?” She wasn’t surprised. Missy Harrington had been her roommate from the time they were freshman at university the whole way through law school. With an alcoholic mom and a dad who’d left when Missy was young, Missy had adopted Whitney’s family as her own, and they in turn had taken her under their wing. For seven years she’d shared every holiday and most of her vacations with the Rosses. Whitney had hardly seen Missy since she had introduced her friend to Stephone Andreas, but they had still shared a strong bond.

“She didn’t exactly leave you something. In accordance with Stephone’s and Missy’s wills, you and Darius got shared custody of their son.”

Whitney’s stomach squeezed. “What?”

“Okay. Look. It’s been three years since the accident that took Burn and Layla. And though I had never dreamed that Missy and Stephone would die so soon when I let them put this provision in their wills, it’s still time you came back to the land of the living.” Her dad pulled a small envelope from one of the files in the stack on the coffee table. “She left this note for you.”

Whitney wrapped her hand around the envelope, and she paled.

“In the unlikely event of their deaths, Stephone wanted Darius to raise their son, but Missy was adamant about you having joint custody. The Andreas brothers are rich and spoiled. And they don’t even know their father had another son. It’s anybody’s guess how they’ll react when they find out. I believe that Missy made you co-guardian to ensure that Gino was also in the hands of someone she knew could take the reins and care for her baby.”

“But I don’t know Gino! When Missy and Stephone moved to Greece, we practically lost touch. I’ve never even met Gino. I’ll be no better for this baby than his brother.”

He caught her hand. “You might not know Gino, but Missy knew you. She knew you had a sense of family. A sense of right and wrong. You’ve also been a mom. You’ll get to know Gino and, as young as he is, Gino will grow accustomed to you, too.” He squeezed her fingers. “Besides, you need this.”

She tried to bounce off the sofa, but her dad held fast to her hand. When she faced him her eyes were blazing. “No! I don’t need this! I’m fine!”

“You’re not fine. Otherwise, getting custody of Gino wouldn’t make you angry.”

He pressed a button on the phone on the coffee table that sat in the center of the circle made by the sofa and three black leather chairs. “Cynthia, bring in Gino, please.”

Whitney’s heart stopped. Her stomach rolled. Her head spun. For the past three years she’d avoided even being near a baby. The scent of baby powder, the feel of snuggly blankets, the sight of someone so tiny, so helpless and so beautiful would have been her undoing. And now her father wanted her to take a baby into her home?

The side door opened and Cynthia Smith walked in carrying six-month-old Gino Andreas in a baby carrier, along with a diaper bag and a duffel.

Her father squeezed her hand again. “Your mother and I have been keeping Gino during the Andreas funerals, but it’s time you took him.” He rose and accepted the baby carrier from Cynthia. “Thank you, Cyn.”

She nodded and her blond hair bobbed. “You’re welcome, sir.”

As Cynthia left the room, Whitney’s father set the carrier on the sofa, pulled Gino out and presented the dark-haired, dark-eyed baby boy to her. “He’s yours, Whitney.”

Knowing there was no arguing with her father, Whitney slid the envelope into her jacket pocket and took the six-month-old with shaking hands. He immediately began to cry.

“Don’t cry, sweetie,” she crooned, automatically pressing his head to her shoulder to comfort him. “It’s okay.”

Her instinctive response to his crying amazed her, but she wasn’t surprised by the pain that sliced through her—the memories that flashed through her brain. Her daughter had been a tiny blonde with huge blue eyes. She’d rarely cried, except when she missed her mother. She’d loved bananas and puppies. To Whitney, she’d seemed the smartest baby on the face of the earth.

Tears filled her eyes. Her stomach tightened.

She couldn’t do this.

Maybe she needed more time with her therapist, Dr. Miller?

But before she could say anything to her dad, the office door opened. Wearing jeans, cowboy boots and a cable-knit sweater, Cade Andreas entered first. Behind him was Nick, the dark-haired, dark-eyed brother who most resembled the senior Andreas. And finally Darius. Taller than their father, but with eyes and hair as dark as his, striking in his expensive business suit, Darius was very clearly the leader of the group.

Their expressions were solemn, yet strong. Almost arrogant. The head of the Andreas family was dead. They now controlled one of the largest shipping conglomerates in the world.

Or so they thought.

She glanced at the baby in her arms. For the first time in three years she felt a swell of protectiveness only a mother could feel, and she understood why Missy had given her custody along with Darius. The Andreas men were strong. Maybe too strong. And babies needed love.

The question was did she have any left to give?

“Are you kidding me?”

Darius Andreas gaped at Gerard Ross, his deceased father’s attorney, then at Gerard’s daughter Whitney Ross, a tall, cool blonde with gray-blue eyes who looked nothing like her short, round father. The pair sat on the black leather sofa. The Andreas brothers sat across from them on three black leather chairs. Beside Whitney was a baby carrier and inside the carrier was a baby boy who looked to be only a few months old. His black hair and dark eyes marked him as an Andreas as clearly as Gerard Ross’s pronouncement did.

“I assure you, there’s no joke.” Gerard leaned back, getting more comfortable. “This little boy is your father’s final son. There are four of you now.”

He picked up the will and began reading again. “It is my wish that the remaining two-thirds share of Andreas Holdings be divided equally among my four sons—Darius, Cade, Nick and Gino.”

Gino.

A baby.

His final half-sibling was a baby!

Darius sucked in a breath, forcing that to sink in, but it wouldn’t. His brain had frozen. He was stunned, speechless and working not to lose his temper over something he couldn’t change. Nick and Cade appeared to be equally shell shocked.

Finally, the business sense Darius had trusted his entire life came to his rescue. “I want a DNA test.”

The smooth leather sofa sighed when Gerard sat forward. He looked down at his entwined fingers, then caught Darius’s gaze. “Your father might not have married Missy Harrington, but he’s named on the birth certificate as Gino’s father. Had Missy not died with your father, you might be fighting her for the company right now.”

“I still want DNA.”

“I understand you’re surprised—”

“Surprised? How about shocked? First our father calls us to the hospital after the accident to tell us that he gave one-third interest in the company to someone else. So we’ll never fully own our own damned company. Then he tells us we have no sense of family and unless we pull together we’re going to lose everything he built. Then he dies. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Now you’re telling us there’s a fourth brother?”

“Mr. Andreas, the very fact that you didn’t know your father had another child is proof that your sense of family leaves a bit to be desired.”

Darius nearly cursed. Who was his womanizing father to tell him that he had no sense of family? His father had abandoned his mother. Hell, Stephone had abandoned him until he was in his teens. And then he’d appeared in Darius’s life only because he had wanted to ensure that Darius went to a good university so he could be groomed to work for Andreas Holdings.

“For decades our father preached that we shouldn’t take family troubles to outsiders.” He rose. “Yet it looks like that’s exactly what he’s done.” He reached for the baby carrier. Now that the shock was receding, things were beginning to sink in and make sense. He didn’t really need DNA to tell him this was his brother. His father had been living with a thirty-year-old woman. It was no shock she’d gotten pregnant. Gino had all the physical markings of an Andreas. With his father’s name on the birth certificate and Gino’s name in the will, this little boy was family. And his father wanted him to care for him. So he would. Unlike his two brothers, Darius had always done what their father had asked.

“We’ll take our brother and go now.”

Whitney held back the carrier. “Dad?”

Gerard said, “There’s more.”

Darius just barely controlled his rising fury. “More? “

“You, Darius, get custody of Gino, but you share it with Whitney.”

He turned his heated gaze on her.

Her yellow hair was probably pretty, but she had it rolled in a tight, no-nonsense bun at the back of her head. Her gray suit hid any hint of the body beneath it. He caught the gaze of her blue-gray eyes. In spite of the fact that she dressed to downplay her appearance, Darius felt a click of attraction. And it was mutual. He saw the flicker in her pretty blue orbs.

“It’s up to you how you divide Gino’s time. If you want to have him three days a week and Whitney four, or if you want to have him for two weeks a month and Whitney two, whatever you choose is up to you two. But she will vote his share at your board of directors meetings.”

This time Darius did curse. But he quickly pulled in a breath, struggling to rein in his temper, and glanced again at Whitney. The click of attraction he’d felt when he’d first looked into her eyes turned into a current of electricity that zapped between them. They were definitely attracted.

If this were any other day, any other time, any other circumstance, he would have pursued her. Peel off a few layers of clothes, take down her hair—he was just about certain he’d find paradise.

But those eyes, those pretty Persian-cat eyes, told him to forget it. It didn’t matter if they were attracted to each other. They had a job to do. Raise Gino. Together.

Whitney stayed perfectly still under Darius Andreas’s scrutiny, though warm, sweet attraction hummed through her. She ignored it. He was a gorgeous man with his dark, brooding good looks, his tailored suit made to accentuate his broad shoulders and trim hips, and his commanding personality. Any woman would react to him. Simply from the way his other brothers hadn’t even spoken since introductions were made, it was clear that Darius was the brother in charge. And that was very sexy.

With his piercing onyx eyes boring into hers, she suppressed a shiver. But she wasn’t worried about falling victim to the attraction. Attractions frequently grew into relationships and relationships made people vulnerable. The pain that had followed the loss of her husband had been indescribable. She’d never put herself through that again. She’d never even let herself get close. She couldn’t be attracted to Darius Andreas. She refused.

Darius squeezed his eyes shut in disgust and popped them open again. “All right. Fine.” He motioned for Whitney to follow him. “Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“If this baby’s on the board, he’s working for a living.”

Whitney’s dad laughed. “Very funny, Darius.”

“I’m not laughing. My father left the company in a sad state. There’s work to do. And nobody’s excused. Since your daughter has his vote, she’ll pull his share of the duty.”

“That’s preposterous—”

“Dad.” Whitney interrupted her father. “It’s okay. I’ve never been one to shirk my responsibilities.” She straightened her shoulders and looked Darius in the eye, accepting his challenge. If he thought he’d intimidate her on day one, he was sadly mistaken. She could handle a little work. “If everybody’s working, then I will, too.”

“All right,” her dad agreed, “but before anybody leaves there’s one more thing.”

Darius turned. His dark eyes were ablaze now.

Whitney’s dad looked from Darius to Cade to Nick and back at Darius again. “With someone else in possession of a one-third share of Andreas Holdings, and four brothers sharing the other two-thirds, you don’t have to be a math scholar to know that individually none of you has controlling interest in the whole company.” He glanced from Darius to Cade to Nick again. “Your father has instructed me to allow the holder of the one-third interest to remain anonymous until she decides how to handle her position. She’s in her seventies, so she may simply want to sit back and enjoy the profits. But if she decides she wants to be active in the company, you had better be united or Andreas Holdings will end up being run by somebody other than an Andreas.”

“We’ll need a few minutes.” Past being shocked by the conditions and warnings coming out of his dad’s lawyer’s mouth, Darius spoke quietly, with the authority of command. “We’d appreciate the use of your office to discuss this.”

Gerard Ross rose. “Whitney and I will take Gino to her office. Have Cynthia call us when you’re ready.”

Gerard and Whitney left the room through a side door and Darius faced his brothers. “This wasn’t exactly how we expected the reading of the will to turn out.”

Nick snorted a laugh, but Cade rose. “Frankly, with the exception of Gino, nothing that happened this morning surprised me. You got most of the goodies, Darius. The Montauk estate and the chairmanship, but I think it all evens out with you also getting the baby.” He saluted and headed for the door. “Good luck with that.”

Right. Cade. The rebel. He should have guessed he wouldn’t hang around to lend a helping hand and probably neither would Nick. There was no love, loyalty or unity among the Andreas brothers. They’d gone their separate ways, managed their trust funds individually, made their own fortunes. And each of them had his own life. But after Attorney Ross’s warning about the mystery shareholder, Darius was beginning to understand some of the things their father had babbled about on his deathbed. If they weren’t unified when that shareholder came out of the woodwork they could end up dockworkers in their own shipyards.

“Come on. You can’t just walk away.” He motioned for Cade to return to his seat, but instead, Nick rose.

“Sure we can. You’re the chairman and CEO. You’re the one who has to run things. You might have bullied Ms. Ross into working for you, but we’re not buying in. We’ll be back for board of directors meetings and for our share of the profits.”

“So you really are just going to leave? Even after Dad told us he wanted us to unite? Even after hearing there’s another shareholder?”

“You’ll handle it.”

“This company belongs to all of us. I thought you’d both want a part of things.”

“Yeah, and I thought Dad would be around when I was a kid. But he wasn’t.” Nick caught Darius’s gaze. “You were the golden boy. The company, the baby, the troubles are all yours.”

He left the room with Cade right behind him.

Darius fell to the sofa. Over the years he’d cursed his dad for being a philanderer who had created three very different sons … four now. Today he looked up at the ceiling, finally understanding what had troubled his father for the last ten years of his life. The Andreas brothers truly weren’t family. Having three different moms and hailing from three different parts of the United States, they were as divided as they were different. They might share dark hair, dark eyes and a shrewd business sense, but there was no love lost between them.

The silence of the lawyer’s office rattled around him. Both of his parents were dead now. He had no cousins or aunts and uncles. He had two adult half-brothers, but they wanted nothing to do with him.

He thought back a few weeks to Christmas. He’d gone to parties galore, but on Christmas morning he’d been alone. His footsteps had echoed in his cold, empty apartment. Unless he did a better job of raising Gino than his father had done with him, Nick and Cade, this would be the sound of his life. Silence.

In a weird way, he was glad he’d gotten custody of Gino. Gino was his family now.

Well, his and Whitney Ross’s.

A sliver of excitement slithered through him when he remembered the feeling of attraction that had arced between him and Whitney. Oh, she was tempting. A challenge. A buttoned-down present, begging to be unwrapped. But that would be nothing but trouble. He had to raise a child with her.

He understood why Missy Harrington had recognized that Gino would need a mother figure. Anybody who spent two minutes in the company of any of the Andreas brothers knew they weren’t the settling-down kind. So if Missy wanted a mother for Gino, she’d probably known she’d have to pick her. But he didn’t have a clue how “shared custody” would work in the real world. Would sharing a child be like being married? Or maybe being divorced? Would they have to draw up a custody agreement that set forth who got the baby and when? Or would they pass the poor kid back and forth like a tennis ball or Frisbee?

He ran his hands down his face. He had absolutely no idea how this would go. Worse, he had no idea how to care for a baby. Hell, he just plain had no idea how to be a dad, since his own father hadn’t come around until he was nearly an adult.

Which gave Whitney a second, maybe more important, role in this child-custody venture. Because Darius didn’t know how a father was supposed to behave, Whitney was going to have to teach him.

CHAPTER TWO

AS WHITNEY AND HER DAD left his office, Cyn caught his arm. “They need you in the conference room right now.”

“But I’m still working with the Andreas brothers—”

“The exact words Roger said were, ‘The Mahoney case is going to hell in a ham sandwich. The very second Gerry is out of his meeting we need him in here.’”

Whitney’s dad faced her. “Will you be okay?”

She forced a smile. “Yes. You go on. When the Andreas brothers are through with their little powwow, I’ll have you paged if we need you.”

“Thanks.” He kissed her cheek, slid the duffel and diaper bag onto her shoulder, turned and raced away from her.

Walking to her office, Whitney looked down at Gino. Sucking a green-and-brown camouflage-print pacifier, he peered up at her. Luminous dark eyes met hers. Her heart stumbled in her chest. Layla’s pale-blue eyes had been a combination of her father’s sky blue eyes and Whitney’s gray blue. Her hair had been yellow. Baby-fine. Wispy. Whitney had never been able to get a clip to hold and she’d become one of those moms who used multicolored cloth hair bands to decorate her baby’s head.

Her chest tightened. She’d give everything she had, everything she owned, every day of the rest of her life, for even one more chance to touch that wispy hair.

Gino spat out his pacifier and began to cry. Whitney set the baby carrier on the small floral-print sofa in the right-hand corner of her office.

“Don’t cry, sweetie,” she said automatically and her throat closed. Her chest tightened. Caring for a baby was something like riding a bike. Unfortunately, all the remembered skills also brought back memories of the baby she’d lost—

The nights she’d walked the floor when Layla was colicky. Her first birthday party when the abundance of guests had scared her. Bathing her, cuddling her, loving her.

Being her mom.

Don’t cry, sweetie.