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“You’ve got a baby boy coming in two months, and I know you want to make sure he gets here in good shape.”
Gayle stared at him, frowning. He was practically a stranger. And yet he knew all about her situation, even the sex of the baby she was carrying. No one but the clinic doctors should know about what had happened. So how had Jack Marin known about her case?
Gayle wet her lips with her tongue and took a deep breath. “Mr. Marin…”
“Call me Jack.”
“Jack…” She studied him, trying to get some answers from reading his face. But that wasn’t easy. He merely cocked one dark eyebrow in amusement.
She blinked at him, totally at sea. “Jack, who, exactly, are you?”
His ebony-eyed gaze held hers. “Why, Gayle, I thought you knew. I’m the father of your baby.”
Dear Reader,
As senior editor for the Silhouette Romance line, I’m lucky enough to get first peek at the stories we offer you each month. Each editor searches for stories with an emotional impact, that make us laugh or cry or feel tenderness and hope for a loving future. And we do this with you, the reader, in mind. We hope you continue to enjoy the variety each month as we take you from first love to forever….
Susan Meier’s wonderful story of a hardworking single mom and the man who sweeps her off her feet is Cinderella and the CEO. In The Boss’s Baby Mistake, Raye Morgan tells of a heroine who accidentally gets inseminated with her new boss’s child! The fantasy stays alive with Carol Grace’s Fit for a Sheik as a wedding planner’s new client is more than she bargained for….
Valerie Parv always creates a strong alpha hero. In Booties and the Beast, Sam’s the strong yet tender man. Julianna Morris’s lighthearted yet emotional story Meeting Megan Again reunites two people who only seem mismatched. And finally Carolyn Greene’s An Eligible Bachelor has a very special secondary character—along with a delightful hero and heroine!
Next month, look for our newest ROYALLY WED series with Stella Bagwell’s The Expectant Princess. Marie Ferrarella astounds readers with Rough Around the Edges—her 100th title for Silhouette Books! And, of course, there will be more stories throughout the year chosen just for you.
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
The Boss’s Baby Mistake
Raye Morgan
To Marie Ferrarella.
Look under “friend” in the dictionary. I’m having your name inserted as the first definition.
RAYE MORGAN
has spent almost two decades, while writing over 50 novels, searching for the answer to that elusive question: just what is that special magic that happens when a man and a woman fall in love? Every time she thinks she has the answer, a new wrinkle pops up, necessitating another book! Meanwhile, after living in Holland, Guam, Japan and Washington, D.C., she currently makes her home in Southern California with her husband and two of her four boys.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Chapter One
The voices were swirling around Gayle Smith, and at first they didn’t make any sense. She frowned, trying to get this straight. The baby she was carrying wasn’t her late husband’s? How could this be?
“We are so sorry, Mrs. Smith. Nothing like this has ever happened here at Jollaire Medical Labs before.”
She shook her head, as though she could shake some sense into it. They had to be wrong. This was impossible. But the faces that stared down at her all had such worried looks on them.
“The lab assistant involved has been fired….”
“If you would please sign this release form and…”
She winced and pulled back. The doctors were crowding her. She’d dealt with most of them over the long weeks of attempting to get pregnant, and she’d liked them all. They’d seemed caring and friendly. They’d been especially compassionate when her husband had died suddenly and left her alone to follow through on the childbearing plans they’d laid together. But now these people looked like strangers.
And she was alone. Without her husband here beside her to help make sense of this, without anyone in her corner, she felt badgered and isolated. A deep, lonesome feeling filled her soul, the same feeling she remembered from her childhood when she’d often been left alone in the isolated Alaskan cabin where she’d been raised. She winced and put her hands protectively over the rounded belly that held her child, fighting back that familiar feeling of desolation.
“We’re here to help you in any way we can….”
She took a deep breath, steadying herself. This was no time to panic. She raised her hand automatically to smooth back her auburn curls, and the short, very round man in front of her flinched, as though he expected to be hit.
She stared at him. They had done something terrible. And now, what did they want from her?
“Please sign this form, right here by the X.”
The voices were becoming more insistent, but this was no time to sign forms and make decisions. She could hardly think clearly. She had to get away from them all so she could think this through.
She rose from her chair, headed for the door and stumbled from the room, resisting their efforts to stop her.
A mistake. The words echoed in her head. A mistake. A mistake.
It didn’t make sense. Things like this just didn’t happen. No matter how they tried to explain it to her, she couldn’t quite get her mind around it. This had to be—ha!—a mistake.
She almost released a slightly hysterical laugh, but she didn’t get a chance to, because there was a great big man with very wide shoulders standing in her way. She looked up at him, blinking as she tried to make him out, because at first his face was obscured by the light spiking in from the bank of windows behind him, creating a halo effect.
“Mrs. Smith?” the man was saying, looking down at her.
His face came into focus. She looked at him blankly, uncomprehending. He wasn’t wearing a white coat and she didn’t remember having seen him here before, so she didn’t think he was one of the doctors. Was he going to apologize for the mistake, too?
Maybe not. He didn’t look as scared as the others did. In fact, he was gazing at her with dark eyes that gleamed with a certain calm confidence, a sense of assurance she only wished she had at the moment.
He took her hand in both of his, as though to comfort and protect her. His touch was solid, strong, and it filled her with a sense of warmth.
“Mrs. Smith, I’d like to help you. My name is Jack Marin.”
Jack Marin. The name was not familiar, but his eyes were kind as they met hers. That was good enough for her right now. Besides that, she thought with a small, guilty thrill, he was awfully good-looking. That never hurt.
“Mr. Marin!” One of the men in the white coats was yelling at him, his face turning red from the effort, his voice getting louder and louder. “This is highly irregular! You shouldn’t have any contact with this woman!”
“Mr. Marin,” said another of the doctors sternly. He had a large walrus mustache, which added immensely to his authority. “I must ask you to leave at once. I will have to call security if you do not vacate these premises immediately.”
Jack Marin dropped her hand as he faced them, standing his ground. “You can call anyone you like,” he told them calmly, his dark eyes becoming cold as they turned toward the doctors. “You’re the ones who are responsible for this disaster. This lady is the victim of your mismanagement. I don’t think you want that getting out, now do you?”
“Mr. Marin, you have no right—”
He held up a hand to stop the protests. “Doctors, if you want to discuss this further, we’ll see you in court.”
The doctors looked stunned, and Gayle almost felt sorry for them. Her new friend was turning out to be very handy to have around, and he seemed to know how to push all the right buttons. She took a step closer to him. At least there was one person here on her side.
He must be a lawyer, she thought with a certain sense of irony. He must have heard about this mistake, and came to give me legal counsel.
“Mrs. Smith needs time to assimilate what you’ve disclosed to her,” Jack Marin told them, taking her arm as though she’d already hired him on. “She needs to sit down somewhere and think over whether or not she’s going to sue the pants off you bunch of frauds.”
He looked down into Gayle’s face and smiled reassuringly. She soaked up his strength from his smile and held her head high.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he said as he began to lead her toward the elevator. “We’ll be in touch.”
The doctors were milling about in frustration and murmuring among themselves, obviously at a loss as to what they would do next, but Gayle hardly noticed. In a daze, she let Jack escort her onto the elevator. In mere seconds, the doors closed and she couldn’t see the doctors any longer. She blinked, wishing she could believe this was all a bad dream.
“I know the perfect place to get some privacy,” her rescuer told her smoothly. “La Paix, a little French restaurant, is right across the street. Great food, quiet atmosphere. Just what you need.”
She knew the place to be one of the better restaurants in Rio de Oro, a medium-sized town on the central California Coast. She gave him a shaky smile, glad he was there. She knew she was going to have to make decisions regarding this debacle on her own, but it was a comfort to have someone help her through the early stages. She’d always been fairly solitary, but she’d never been so completely alone in the world before. She’d always lived with her father, and then, once he’d died, she had married and lived with her husband. It had only been a few months since she’d lost him in turn, and she wasn’t totally used to standing alone yet.
She had been doing pretty well up to now. In fact, she’d been surprised at how easily she’d made the transition from wife to widow, despite a lot of obstacles that had been thrown her way, even before this latest bombshell. In fact, she’d been pretty proud of herself and the way she was weathering the storm. But that was before she’d been hit with the news that her baby’s father was a stranger.
Her new friend didn’t say any more as they descended and made their way out of the building. She was glad of that. She didn’t feel like making small talk. She glanced over at him, met his jet-black gaze and felt a quick frisson of electricity shoot through her system.
She looked away immediately, blushing. That was very odd, she thought. She didn’t react that way to men. Never. Never ever. It had to be because of the strange circumstances…and the heightened emotions of the situation…and the fact that he had the most intense dark eyes she’d ever gazed into.
She tried to dismiss it from her mind and pretty much succeeded for a time. He took her arm again as they crossed the street, and she didn’t let it throw her. He seemed very large and very protective. She liked that. It would be such a luxury to be able to relax and let him take some of the worry off her shoulders. She knew she couldn’t do that—but the thought was certainly tempting.
“Do you always give your clients this sort of first-class service?” she murmured as they reached the curb.
“My clients?” he said absently, steering her toward the double doors. He threw a quizzical look her way, as though doing a quick scan to make sure she wasn’t going woozy on him. “You need to sit down and take it easy,” he told her, opening the door to let her in. “Then we’ll talk.”
The little French restaurant had frilly white curtains and dimly lit, individual booths. The waiters wore black suits and the maître d’ wore a tuxedo. The music was classical and very soft, the ambience peaceful and serene. Gayle loved the place immediately.
The maître d’ led them through the restaurant to a private section toward the back. Gayle slid into her side of the booth and sat back against the velveteen upholstery. The air was cool, the music sweet, the light filtered. She began to relax and, at the same time, felt her strength begin to return. She even felt strong enough to risk another look into her rescuer’s eyes. Looking across the table, she prepared herself, then smiled at him and was chagrinned to feel that tingle again. What was the matter with her, anyway?
She had to admit he was one of the most attractive men she’d ever met. She wondered fleetingly if she’d ever met him before, but she couldn’t place him. And it didn’t matter. He knew what had happened, it seemed, and he was ready to help her.
The waiter set a tall, frosted glass of something lime-green in front of her that Mr. Marin must have ordered when she wasn’t paying attention, and she took a sip, savoring its light, sherbety taste. She was definitely calming down. But the situation still seemed surreal.
“Feeling better?” Jack asked her.
She folded her hands before her on the white linen tablecloth and studied him for a long moment before answering. He was a classically handsome man and his dark eyes seemed warm and kind. He wore a crisp white shirt, open at the neck, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. She could see that he was a strong man. His chest looked muscular, and so did his forearms.
He was the sort of man a woman could easily fall for, she decided. The sort of man a girl might fantasize making love to. She found her gaze dropping to explore the tanned chest exposed by his open shirt, and felt a hint of that electricity again.
Quickly, she looked away. But his image stayed in her mind. There was something about him, something with a hint of the wild and rugged, that didn’t fit with his being a lawyer. She could see him more as some sort of outdoorsman, scaling mountains rather than dominating courtrooms.
“I am feeling better,” she told him. “It was a shock to find out….” Her voice trailed off as she puther hands on her rounded belly. She couldn’t say it aloud yet. She was carrying a baby who was suddenly a bit of a stranger to her. Everything she had believed to be true about her child’s conception had been shattered. It was going to take some getting used to. “The question is, what do I do now?”
He shrugged his wide shoulders and narrowed his eyes, assessing her. “Sue them. You’ll make millions.”
She groaned. “Right. And the case will drag through the courts for years for the hope of a settlement that may never come to pass.”
He raised one dark eyebrow. “It sounds like you’ve already had that experience,” he noted.
She lifted her shoulders casually. She didn’t want to remember the people who had sued her after her father’s death, claiming he had swindled them. She’d been too young to deal with it all, and Hank, her father’s business partner, had stepped in and guided her through the legal maze at the time. She’d married him, partly in gratitude, and he’d taken care of everything… But she didn’t like to let her mind dwell on those days.
“Something close,” she said. “And I’ll never go through that again.” She paused as the waiter set a plate of cheese and crackers on the table, then she gave Jack a wavering smile. “I’m sorry Mr…. Marin, was it? You’ve been very kind, but I won’t be suing.”
She expected him to look disappointed, but instead, his gaze sharpened. “I don’t think you should make a firm decision about that until you’ve had some time to let this sink in.” He hesitated, his gaze dropping to what he could see of her belly. “Everything is going all right, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes. I’m fine. It’s been a relatively easy pregnancy, or so they tell me.” She said a quick, silent prayer of thanks for that. “I’m almost at seven months. It won’t be long now.”
His dark eyes were inscrutable. “Good. You’ve got a healthy little boy coming and I know you want to do everything you can to make sure he gets here in good shape.”
She stared at him, frowning. The man was a complete stranger. And yet he knew all about her situation, even the sex of the baby she was carrying.
It finally dawned on her that no one else but the doctors should know about what had happened. She’d been assuming he was a lawyer, but how had he known about her case? And why had he shown up out of the blue just when she was there? Now that she was thinking more clearly, she began to see that this wasn’t really making a lot of sense.
She wet her lips with her tongue and took a deep breath. “Mr. Marin…”
His dark eyes met hers. “Call me Jack.”
“Jack…I told you I’m not interested in suing.” She awaited his response, trying to get some answers from reading his face.
But that wasn’t easy. Instead of trying to talk her into reconsidering, he merely nodded. “I’m glad. I hate that kind of thing, too.”
She shook her head, perplexed. “But…aren’t you a lawyer?”
One dark eyebrow cocked in amusement. “A lawyer? No, whatever gave you that idea?”
She blinked at him, now totally at sea. “Who are you?”
His clear-eyed gaze held hers. “Why, Gayle, I thought you knew. I’m the father of your baby.”
Chapter Two
Gayle’s chest felt as though it would explode. Her hands clenched the edge of the table and she stared at Jack, aghast.
“What?” she said breathlessly, her eyes round as saucers. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I thought you understood, or I would have explained sooner.”
Her heart skipped a beat and then began to pound like a drum, shooting adrenaline through her system. She needed to escape—again. The phrase “Out of the frying pan, into the fire” came to mind. She reached for her purse and slid out of the booth. “Stay away from me,” she warned, glaring at the man. “Keep your distance.”
He was shaking his head as he gazed at her, and the look of sympathetic understanding was quickly replaced by an expression of cool exasperation. “I’m sorry, Gayle,” he said, just as calm and sure with her as he’d been with the doctors. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. You’re carrying something that belongs to me.”
She stood at the edge of the table, staring down at him. “What?” she said, outraged. “I…you have no right…”
“Oh yes, I do.” He gestured with a nod of his head. “Sit back down. We need to deal with this in a rational manner.”
Rational? What was rational about this impossible situation? She shook her head. “I’m going home,” she announced firmly, though she still hadn’t started away from the table. Something about the man was holding her here, even though he wasn’t touching her. “If you have anything to tell me, you can write me a letter.”
He sighed, his dark eyes clouding. “Calm down,” he told her. “You’re not going anywhere. I definitely can’t let you drive yourself home when you’re so upset.”
She blinked, clutching her purse to her chest. “Let me? What possible business is it of yours?”
“It is very much my business. You’re carrying my child. I don’t want that baby hurt.” He made a gesture of forbearance and gave her a hard look. “If you insist on passing up the great food this place has to offer, I’m going to have to do the same, and drive you home myself.”
She stared at him as he unfolded his long, muscular frame and stood before her. Gayle was tall for a woman, but she only came up to his shoulder. He started to reach out to take her arm, but she jerked away, and the look in her eyes seemed to stop him from trying again. He looked down at her with a half smile, more bemused than angry.
“Gayle, we are going to talk this through. We can either do it at your house or we can do it here. Since you hardly know me, I would think you would prefer it in a public place.” He shrugged. “But the location is up to you. You choose.”
Something visceral told her to believe everything he said. She wasn’t used to dealing with this sort of man. Her father had been a lovable teddy bear who would shower his daughter with presents—even if it often was to make up for having left her alone so much. Her husband had been hesitant and diffident, willing to let her take the lead in most choices and judgments.
But this man, this Jack Marin, was a different breed entirely. She could see that he was tough, that he was used to making decisions swiftly and following through on threats. She searched his ebony eyes and couldn’t find any hint of uncertainty. If she didn’t let him drive her, he would follow her home. She knew that as well as if he’d told her so. He wanted to discuss this issue between them, and it was going to be discussed. Simple as that.
Slowly, she sank back down into her seat at the table. She wasn’t about to give in to anything he wanted. But for now, she was going to play along and see just exactly what his demands were going to be.
“All right,” she said evenly, lifting her chin. “Let’s talk.”
Jack slid back into his own seat and looked across the table at her, doing a quick reassessment of his situation. He knew what he wanted. He wanted his son. That was as important to him as anything had ever been. Ordinarily, he was used to making things happen the way he wanted them to. But in this instance, he didn’t have the control he would have liked. What he yearned for was inside the body of another human being. That made it tricky.
He watched her, studied her, glad that she was easy on the eyes. Then he looked away quickly when he realized what he was doing. He wondered if she’d noticed. But he couldn’t help it. This was the mother of his son. He wanted to become familiar with every detail.
He liked her lustrous auburn hair. And her wide blue eyes. And the dimple that had disappeared now that she wasn’t smiling any longer. He wanted to ask her about her family background, about illnesses, talents, foibles. What was her father like? Any insanity in her family? Curly hair? Twins? Musical ability? All the questions inside him he would have to hold back for now. If he pushed too hard, she would only retreat again. He had to play this just right.
It seemed it was going to take skill and tenacity to end up with what he wanted. This elegantly tall and graceful woman sitting across from him was no pushover. There was spirit in those azure eyes and evidence of a certain fire in the set of her lush, beautiful mouth. But he’d dealt with women before. He could handle her, too.
The advantage he figured he had was that he knew from experience women were not to be trusted. As far as he was concerned, it went right back to Adam and Eve, and it was the same story over and over again. The woman held out temptation, the gullible man reached for it and she casually cut him off at the knees. It was a pattern that had been repeated often in his own family. His mother had put his father through hell, then left him. Not having learned from example, Jack himself had married the girl of his dreams, he’d thought, only to be plummeted by the reality—a woman who promised everything and left him with less than nothing. He’d finally wised up, when it was too late. But that wouldn’t ever happen to him again. He would make sure of that.