Conflict of Interest

“You know all those times we talked on the phone?” His fingers slid down the curve of her jaw. “I didn’t picture you looking quite like this.”

She had to move now, before she did something really foolish and unprofessional—like make a pass at her client.

“I think I’ll read for a while before I turn in,” she said, scooting away from him. “I can’t wait to read your new book, by the way. I’m really looking forward to it.”

He studied her face for a moment, his gaze so intense that she wondered if he saw too much there, but then he asked, “How would you like to read it now?”

“I would love to.”

He seemed amused by the fervency of her assurance. “Go on back and put your feet up, and I’ll bring the manuscript to you.”

“In the bedroom, you mean?”

There was an undercurrent of laughter in his voice as his eyes met hers. “That sounds good to me.”

Dear Reader,

Your best bet for coping with April showers is to run—not walk—to your favorite retail outlet and check out this month’s lineup. We’d like to highlight popular author Laurie Paige and her new miniseries SEVEN DEVILS. Laurie writes, “On my way to a writers’ conference in Denver, I spotted the Seven Devils Mountains. This had to be checked out! Sure enough, the rugged, fascinating land proved to be ideal for a bunch of orphans who’d been demanding that their stories be told.” You won’t want to miss Showdown!, the second book in the series, which is about a barmaid and a sheriff destined for love!

Gina Wilkins dazzles us with Conflict of Interest, the second book in THE MCCLOUDS OF MISSISSIPPI series, which deals with the combustible chemistry between a beautiful literary agent and her ruggedly handsome and reclusive author. Can they have some fun without love taking over the relationship? Don’t miss Marilyn Pappano’s The Trouble with Josh, which features a breast cancer survivor who decides to take life by storm and make the most of everything—but she never counts on sexy cowboy Josh Rawlins coming into the mix.

In Peggy Webb’s The Mona Lucy, a meddling but well-meaning mother attempts to play Cupid to her son and a beautiful artist who is painting her portrait. Karen Rose Smith brings us Expecting the CEO’s Baby, an adorable tale about a mix-up at the fertility clinic and a marriage of convenience between two strangers. And in Lisette Belisle’s His Pretend Wife, an accident throws an ex-con and an ex-debutante together, making them discover that rather than enemies, they just might be soul mates!

As you can see, we have a variety of stories for our readers, which explore the essentials—life, love and family. Stay tuned next month for six more top picks from Special Edition!

Sincerely,

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Conflict of Interest

Gina Wilkins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For John, who is still my strongest supporter after all these years.

GINA WILKINS

is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than sixty-five books for Harlequin and Silhouette. She credits her successful career in romance to her long, happy marriage and her three “extraordinary” children.

A lifelong resident of central Arkansas, Ms. Wilkins sold her first book to Harlequin in 1987 and has been writing full-time ever since. She has appeared on the Waldenbooks, B. Dalton and USA TODAY bestseller lists. She is a three-time recipient of the Maggie Award for Excellence, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers, and has won several awards from the reviewers of Romantic Times.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Prologue

After the thirteenth unanswered ring, Adrienne Corley slammed her telephone into its cradle. She wasn’t the type to lose her temper very often, but Gideon McCloud could provoke a saint into a tantrum.

It was the fifth time in the past three days that she had attempted to reach him. His answering machine had broken several weeks ago and he hadn’t bothered to replace it, so she couldn’t leave a message. She’d sent e-mails, but apparently he hadn’t checked those in a while, either.

The worst part was that she suspected he was sitting right there beside the phone, listening to it ring and choosing not to answer.

“I do not need this aggravation,” she grumbled, glaring at the phone as if her scowl would carry through the lines to the man she had been trying to reach. “I could get an easier job, you know. Working in a bank. A library, maybe. Even digging ditches would have to be better than working with eccentric, temperamental authors.”

“Threatening to quit again?” Jacqueline Peeples, her administrative assistant, asked as she set a mountain of mail on Adrienne’s desk.

“Someday I’m going through with that threat.”

“Yeah, right. Tell that to your daddy.”

Adrienne transferred her glare from the telephone to her co-worker. “I’m not afraid of my father. If I choose to quit his literary agency, I’m certainly free to do so.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Jacqueline had heard that before, of course. She didn’t believe it any more than Adrienne did. “At least you’ve got your vacation coming up. If I’ve ever seen anyone who needs two weeks away from the office, it’s you. So don’t you let your father try to talk you out of it again.”

“I won’t,” Adrienne vowed. “I’ve earned this vacation—the first I’ve taken in three years—and I’m going to enjoy every day of it. I’m so tired of schedules and appointments that I haven’t even made any plans for the next two weeks. I’m going to act completely on impulse, take every minute as it comes.”

“That sounds like exactly what you need. But in the meantime, what are you going to do about Gideon McCloud?”

“I’m going to make him talk to me—even if I have to fly to Honesty, Mississippi, and break into his house.”

Jacqueline laughed, as Adrienne had intended. “Now that I would like to see.”

“Me, breaking into his house?”

“No. You in Mississippi.”

The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a brilliant solution. Just the sort of gutsy, tough-guy move her father would make. Gideon McCloud was curt, blunt and reclusive, but he was a talented writer with a great future ahead of him, and she intended to grab a percentage of that future.

“Book me a flight,” she said without giving herself a chance to think about it. “Early next week, preferably. That will give me time to get everything here cleared away.”

Jacqueline’s eyebrows rose. “You can’t be serious. You want to go to Mississippi to meet with an author during your vacation?”

The more she thought about it, the better the idea seemed—though, of course, she was overworked and overstressed. She nodded slowly, her resolve strengthening. “It’ll only take a day or two, and I’ve never been to Mississippi, so I can count that as a vacation trip. Two birds with one stone. Let’s just see if Gideon McCloud can ignore me when I’m staring directly into his eyes.”

Chapter One

Gideon McCloud’s telephone rang several times Monday, but he ignored it so effectively he hardly heard it. In a moment of weakness earlier that morning, he had answered a call. The unfortunate telemarketer’s ears were probably still ringing from the force with which Gideon had slammed the receiver back into its cradle. He had an almost pathological aversion to telemarketers; hence, his general reluctance to answer his telephone.

He really should replace his answering machine, he mused when he became aware that the phone was ringing yet again. Maybe he would get around to that sometime later in the week. Then he focused on his computer screen and tuned everything else out.

Perhaps another half hour passed before he was distracted from work by his doorbell. It chimed half a dozen times, followed by a pounding on the door, followed by someone leaning on the doorbell again.

Muttering beneath his breath, he shoved himself away from the keyboard and stalked through his immaculate house to the front door, which he jerked open impatiently. “What?”

A tall, slender woman in her early sixties stood on his doorstep, holding the hand of a blond cherub with shoulder-length curls and huge blue eyes. A large, wheeled, red suitcase rested on the porch between them, and the little girl carried a bulging purple backpack. Gideon frowned at the luggage for a moment before slowly lifting his gaze to his mother’s face. “What’s going on?”

“If you would pick up your telephone, you would already know the answer to that.” Without waiting for an invitation, Lenore McCloud stepped past him into his entryway, dragging the suitcase with one hand and holding the little girl’s hand in her other.

Gideon closed the door behind them, then turned to face his mother. He was still unnerved by the sight of that suitcase. “Well?”

“Your aunt Wanda fell during the night and broke her hip. It was several hours before anyone found her, and she’s in bad shape now. Her neighbor called me a couple of hours ago, and I need to go there immediately.”

Because his aunt was the only surviving member of his mother’s immediate family, Gideon wasn’t surprised she felt the need to rush to Wanda’s side. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope she’ll be okay.”

“Yes, so do I.” Lenore glanced down at the still-silent little girl. “Isabelle, sweetie, the den is right through that door. Why don’t you run in there and watch cartoons for a few minutes while I talk with Gideon?”

The child nodded obediently and disappeared into the den. A moment later Gideon heard the opening strains of “Scooby-dooby-doo…”

“Why is she watching cartoons in my den?” he asked his mother suspiciously.

“Isabelle’s going to stay with you until I can make other arrangements. I hope it will only be for a few days, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

Shaking his head, Gideon had both hands in the air before she even finished speaking. “No way, Mom. Forget it. You can’t leave her here.”

Lenore wore the stern, don’t-mess-with-me expression he remembered very well from his youth. “There really is no other choice. Nathan and Caitlin won’t be back from their honeymoon for nearly two weeks. Deborah went back to Florida yesterday. And I can hardly take a four-year-old with me to the hospital.”

“What about the housekeeper who watches Isabelle while Nathan’s working? Can’t she stay with her?”

“Mrs. Tuckerman left right after the wedding Saturday for a two-week cruise with her bridge club. It seemed like a good idea for her vacation to coincide with Nathan’s honeymoon, especially since I had volunteered to watch Isabelle. No one could have predicted Wanda’s accident, of course.”

Gideon could feel the cage bars closing around him, but he tried one last time to escape. “Surely there’s someone else. I have to work, and you know how I get when I’m past deadline. Leaving a four-year-old with me probably constitutes reckless endangerment of a minor or something.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re perfectly capable of watching Isabelle for a few days. She’s a very well-behaved child, no trouble at all. She’s in preschool from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon, so you can work in your usual solitude during those hours.”

“And after two? What am I supposed to do with her then?”

“You’re an intelligent young man. You’ll manage.”

“I don’t want to manage. You can’t leave her here.”

“Fine.” Lenore gave him a wounded look. “Since I have no other options, I’ll take Isabelle back to my house. I’ll call my poor sister and tell her I can’t come to her when she needs me because it isn’t convenient for my son.”

He groaned. “Mother—”

She held up a hand. “It’s all right. I understand. You’re an important writer, and your time is very valuable.”

The cage doors slammed shut. Gideon was trapped, and he knew it. He sighed. “Go to your sister. I’ll watch the kid.”

If Lenore had harbored any doubt that he would eventually capitulate, it didn’t show in her expression. She pulled a folded sheet of paper from the leather purse dangling from her arm. “This is the schedule Nathan and Caitlin left for me with Isabelle’s preschool and dance class times.”

“Dance class?”

Ignoring his groan, she continued, “You also have the phone numbers for her school and her pediatrician, and a number where Nathan can be reached in an emergency. I’ve written a couple of numbers for myself at the bottom of the page, and you have my cell number, of course.”

“How long do you expect to be gone?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll let you know as soon as I can. Isabelle had lunch at school today, of course, and I gave her a snack after I picked her up. She’ll probably be hungry for dinner around six, and she should be in bed by eight. Try to make sure she eats healthily. Don’t let her have too many snacks or junk foods. Now I really must be on my way, since I have a two-hour drive ahead of me. I’ll just step in to say goodbye to Isabelle.”

His footsteps dragging, Gideon followed Lenore into his den. Isabelle sat curled on one corner of his suede-leather sofa, the cartoon she had selected playing on the television across the room. She looked away from the screen when they entered, her expression uncertain. “I’m staying here?”

“For a few days,” Lenore agreed, giving the child a bracing smile. “You’ll be fine, sweetie. Your big brother will take very good care of you.”

Because he wasn’t used to thinking of himself as Isabelle’s big brother—after all, he’d met the child for the first time less than four months ago—it took him a beat to realize that his mother expected him to say something then. “You’re welcome to stay here, Isabelle.”

He didn’t blame her for looking less than enthusiastic. She was probably well aware that he was completely ill-equipped to care for a small child. Though he knew she was gregarious and talkative with other people—even total strangers—she had been rather reserved with him during the few occasions they’d been together. She had treated him with a somewhat wary shyness that had told him she didn’t quite know what to make of him, and since he’d never decided quite what he felt about her, he’d been content to leave things just that way between them. Distantly civil.

He’d certainly never expected to find himself babysitting her.

“I have to go, sweetie. Be good for Gideon, okay? And be patient with him,” Lenore said a bit wryly. “Sometimes he’s a slow learner. But he’ll be very nice to you,” she added, giving her son a meaningful look.

Isabelle wrapped her arms around Lenore’s neck. “Goodbye, Nanna. I hope your sister gets all better soon.”

Gideon still found it strange to hear his half sister refer to his mother by that grandmotherly nickname. It hadn’t been very long ago when Lenore hadn’t even wanted to acknowledge the child’s existence. Now here she was taking full responsibility for her ex-husband’s kid while her oldest son, the orphaned child’s legal guardian, was away on his honeymoon, and hugging her as affectionately as if she really were Isabelle’s grandmother.

It was no wonder, Gideon mused with a shake of his head, that most people in this town tended to think of Lenore, a tireless, generous community volunteer, as a near saint. They had no such illusions about him, however.

Ten minutes later he found himself alone with a four-year-old who gazed up at him expectantly, waiting for him to say or do something. He didn’t have a clue where to begin.

He glanced at his watch. It wasn’t even 4:00 p.m. yet. Too early for dinner. Four hours away from her bedtime. “So, uh, do you want a drink or something?” he asked awkwardly. “I have some soda, I think. And fruit juice.”

She shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“Oh. Well.” He looked around the room, which was decorated in Southwestern style with leather, distressed woods, pottery, western paintings and Remington bronzes. The walls were lined with shelves almost filled to over-flowing with hardcover and paperback books. It was a guy’s room, and there was nothing in it to entertain a child except the television she had been watching.

“I need to finish something in my office,” he said. “Will you be okay in here watching TV?”

She nodded gravely. “I’ll be okay.”

She looked awfully tiny sitting there on his big couch. “If you need anything, just let me know, okay?”

“Okay.”

He practically bolted out of the room. His office had always been a retreat for him, but it seemed even more a refuge now. Unfortunately, he knew he couldn’t stay locked in there until his mother returned to free him.

Gideon had been sitting in front of his computer for half an hour when a sound from the doorway pulled his concentration away from the computer screen. To his frustration he’d managed to type maybe two sentences since he’d sat down, so he was frowning when he looked up.

Annoyance turned to consternation when he spotted Isabelle standing just inside the doorway, a stuffed white owl cuddled against her chest and a pitiful quiver in her lower lip. She looked to be on the verge of tears, which was enough to make Gideon panic.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, pushing away from the computer. “Did you hurt yourself?”

She shook her head. “I heard a noise outside the window. It scared me.”

Exhaling slowly in relief, he shoved a hand through his already disheveled dark hair. A brisk, mid-March wind was blowing outside, and he suspected she’d heard a tree branch tapping against the house. “There’s nothing scary outside, Isabelle,” he assured her. “Just a couple of trees planted next to the den windows. It isn’t even dark out yet.”

A fat tear rolled slowly down her cheek. “It’s lonely in the den.”

He supposed it was natural for her to be upset. The child had been through a great deal of trauma in the past year. She’d lost her parents in an accident, had been uprooted from her home in California and resettled in her oldest half brother’s home here in Mississippi and was now with a half brother she hardly knew. A brother who had no idea how to comfort an upset child.

“Can I stay in here with you?” Isabelle asked. “I promise I’ll be quiet.”

He glanced toward the writing desk he used for paying bills. “You can sit at this desk. Do you like to draw pictures?”

She nodded, her expression brightening.

“I’ve got the only refrigerator in town with no artwork stuck on the front with magnets. Maybe you can draw something for my fridge.”

She seemed to like that idea.

He dug out a stack of printer paper, several pencils and a box of colored markers from his supply closet and piled them on the desk after moving a teetering tower of unopened mail out of the way. He had no toys in the house, but plenty of art provisions, since he was seriously addicted to office supply stores. Isabelle settled into the big chair behind the writing desk, and Gideon returned to his computer.

True to her word, Isabelle was very quiet as she contentedly scribbled and colored, but Gideon still found himself unable to concentrate on his writing. He wasn’t accustomed to having anyone else in his house when he worked, much less in the same room with him. After writing and deleting the same sentence for the fourth time, he muttered a curse beneath his breath and punched a key to close the file.

“What’s the matter, Gideon?”

She had a unique way of pronouncing his name, he mused. Nothing he could pinpoint, exactly, but it sounded different when she said it. “Nothing’s wrong,” he lied.

“Are you writing another book?”

“Trying to.”

“Nate said you write good books, but they’re not for kids.”

She always shortened Nathan’s name so casually, but then, Isabelle had known Nathan all her life. He had been the only one of the three elder McCloud siblings to maintain a relationship with their father after the bitter divorce from their mother a few months before Isabelle’s birth. “No, I don’t write children’s books.”

“What are your books about?”

“Most people call them thrillers. They have elements of science fiction and fantasy in them and what has been referred to as dark humor.”

She blinked a couple of times in response to his dry description, then said, “I like Dr. Seuss.”

Her matter-of-fact statement made Gideon grin. “So do I.”

His smile seemed to take her by surprise. She studied his face a moment, then smiled back at him before returning her attention to her artwork.

Okay, Gideon thought. Maybe this wouldn’t be so tough after all. How hard could it be to keep an eye on an exceptionally bright and well-behaved four-year-old?

It was cloudy and dark by 7:00 p.m. on that Monday evening, and a cold drizzle had begun to fall, blown in on a strong northern front. Not a very experienced driver in the first place, since she rarely needed a car in the city, Adrienne struggled a bit with the unfamiliar rental car on the bumpy Mississippi road. She’d gotten lost twice before she found the town of Honesty, then had some difficulty finding anyone to give her directions to Gideon’s address.

She should have known, she thought as she carefully negotiated a winding gravel road, that Gideon would live well outside of town. She was definitely forming a mental picture of a crusty hermit who was more comfortable with the characters in his head than the people in the real world.

She had never met him—had never even seen a photograph of him—but she’d talked to him several times on the telephone during the past two years since he had signed with her father’s literary agency. Mostly, their communication had been through letters and faxes. She loved his books, but she hadn’t been able to get to know him very well through their limited contact.

Based strictly on his behavior, she had formed a mental image of him that wasn’t particularly flattering. She guessed that he was in his late thirties or early forties. A bit geeky, most likely. Probably a real oddball. He wouldn’t be the first talented writer she had met who was downright strange.

He was the first she’d bothered to track down this way—something she couldn’t explain. She had decided her motives were a combination of wanting to impress her father with her professional cleverness and the fact that she absolutely loved Gideon McCloud’s books.

His house looked normal enough—a neat frame bungalow tucked into a woody hillside. The lot was naturally landscaped with mulch and ground cover, which would require a minimum of effort to keep it looking nice. And it did look nice, she had to admit. She’d bet it was really pretty later in the spring, when the trees and bushes would be in full bloom, and in the fall when the surrounding hillsides would be ablaze with color.

Okay, so she liked his home. And more than liked his writing. That certainly didn’t mean she would like him.

Parking at the end of the long gravel driveway, she climbed out of the rental car. As she hunched into her clothing against the chilly mist, she wished she’d brought a heavier coat. The wind seemed to slice right through the leather jacket she wore over a black pantsuit.