A Baby for the Boss (6 page)

“I don’t have to be,” Jenny told him and took a breath, hoping to ease the gnawing inside her. “I just know what happens when the two of us are alone together.”

Seconds ticked past and the silence was heavy with a kind of tension that nearly vibrated in the air. Jenny held on to the ragged edges of the control that was rapidly slipping out of her grasp. If he pushed back, if he kissed her, then she’d be lost and she knew it.

“Damn it,” he finally said in a gruff whisper. “You’re not wrong.” His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips and back again. “I saw you with the carpenter and... Never mind. Like you said, none of my business.”

Jenny nodded and said, “Let’s just forget today, okay? We’ll get the job finished tomorrow, then go home and things will get back to normal.”

His blue eyes flashed with emotions that came and went so quickly, she couldn’t identify them all, and maybe that was for the best.

“Normal.” He nodded sharply. “Fine. We can finish up at the new hotel by noon, probably. Then we’ll head home and forget the whole damn trip.”

Her heart gave a tug that unsettled her, but Jenny only forced a smile, keeping that small sliver of pain to herself. He wanted to forget the whole trip. Forget being with her, even that way-too-short moment they’d shared on the dock, where they’d talked like friends—or maybe more.

Forgetting wouldn’t be easy, Jenny told herself, but it was the one sure path to sanity. Holding on to what she felt for Mike—feelings she didn’t want to examine too closely—was only going to add to the misery later on. She had to find a way to let go of what-might-have-beens and focus instead on the cold, hard facts.

The man she wanted didn’t want her beyond the nearest bed.

And that just wasn’t good enough.

“So,” Mike said, interrupting her thoughts, “I’ll see you in the morning, then. Nine o’clock. Be ready to go to work.”

“I will be.” Once he was gone, Jenny dropped to the edge of the bed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

This would be so much easier if only she didn’t care.

* * *

Mike spent the evening working in his suite. He figured if he kept his mind busy with figures, budgets, plans for the future of their company, he’d have no time to think about Jenny. Or how she’d looked when he heard her describing the painting she wanted to do. He wouldn’t hear the magic in her voice or see the interest in that carpenter’s eyes when he watched her.

And he wouldn’t keep seeing the look on her face when he had acted like some kind of demented comic-strip moron by accusing her of flirting with the guy. Hell, even if she had been, like she said, it was none of his damn business. But it sure as hell felt like it was. He’d hated watching that other man so focused, laser-like, on Jenny’s face. Hated that he’d blamed
her
for whatever
he
was feeling.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he muttered darkly, “but I don’t like it.” He’d always been in control. Of his feelings, his emotions—until Jenny. And what that meant, he didn’t have a clue.

Mike scrubbed one hand across his face, pushed out of the desk chair and walked to the terrace. When his cell phone rang, he dragged it out of his pocket as he opened the sliding door and stepped into the teeth of a cold desert wind.

He glanced at the screen, then answered. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi. How’s Vegas?”

“Laughlin.”

“Same diff,” she said and he could almost see her shrugging. “Sean told me you’re out there inspecting the new hotel. What’s it like?”

He dropped one hand on the iron railing, squinted into the wind and looked down to watch the river below froth beneath the hulls of flat-bottom boats taking tourists on a short ride. Neon fought against the stars for supremacy and won. On the Riverwalk, golden lamplight sifted onto the people strolling in and out of the shadows beside the river.

“It’s run-down and sad right now, but I think it’ll come together.”

“Of course it will,” his mother assured him. “My sons always do what they set out to do.”

Mike smiled to himself.

“Sean says Jenny Marshall has some great ideas for the artwork, too.” She paused for a moment. “He says you and Jenny are there. Together.”

“Does he?” Shaking his head, Mike ignored the blip of interest in Peggy Ryan’s voice. He had to wonder if all mothers were as determined as his own to see her children married, with kids.

“Yes, he told me that you and Jenny would be working together for months on this new hotel...”

“Don’t start,” he warned her, amusement softening his words.

“Well, why shouldn’t I?” she demanded with a huff. “You’re not getting any younger, you know. And I’ve met Jenny. She’s a nice girl. Talented. Pretty, too.”

All true
, he thought. She was also smart, opinionated, desirable and oh, yeah...untrustworthy. He scowled and remembered how cozy she’d looked with the damn carpenter today.

“Mom...”

“You can’t fault a mother for hoping,” she said, cutting him off before he could tell her to dial it back.

“Not interested in getting married, Mom,” he said flatly. And she should know why, but he’d learned over the years that Peggy Ryan wanted nothing more than to forget the day that had changed everything for Mike.

There was a sigh in her voice when she said, “Fine. You are so hardheaded. Just like your father.”

His frown deepened, but he didn’t say anything. His mom didn’t notice, or chose not to notice, because she rushed right on.

“I wanted to remind you, your dad’s birthday is next week, and I want you and Sean both to show up, okay?”

Mike took a breath and blew it out. No way to avoid it and he knew it. But he never really looked forward to spending time with his father. It was...awkward. Uncomfortable.

Not that it had always been. Up until the year Mike turned thirteen, he’d thought of his father as his hero. Big, strong, with a wide smile and a kind nature, Jack Ryan was the kind of father most kids dream about. Jack had taught both of his sons to surf. A Little League coach, he’d spent hours at batting cages with them.

But the year he was thirteen, Mike had discovered that the father he idolized was also a liar. And that discovery had colored his image of his father ever since. He hadn’t been able to forget or forgive. Jack had tried to close the distance between them many times, but Mike couldn’t do it.

Memory was sometimes a hard thing and the images from the day when his father tumbled off that pedestal were as clear now as they had ever been.

“Oh, Mike,” his mother said on a sigh, “I’m so sorry. You can’t possibly know how sorry I am.”

Mike stiffened. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Mom.”

“Yes,” she argued. “I did. And I truly wish I could take it all back. Change that day.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t do that.” Mike’s hand tightened around his phone. “So let’s just leave it in the past, okay?”

“I really wish you would, sweetie,” Peggy said, then sighed again. “But fine. For now, I’ll move on.”

“It’s appreciated.”

“But I want you at your father’s birthday dinner, Mike. No excuses. Sean’s already promised to be here.”

Of course he had. Sean didn’t know what Mike did. He’d never told his younger brother about their father’s fall from grace. Protecting Sean? Maybe. And maybe it was just that the thought of even more people knowing was too hard to take. Either way, though, Sean remained in the dark and that’s how it would stay.

“Fine. I’ll be there,” he said, knowing his mother wouldn’t stop until she’d gotten him to agree.

“Thanks, sweetie. We’ll see you then.” She paused. “Oh, and say hi to Jenny for me.”

He hung up on her laughter. Shaking his head, he leaned his forearms on the terrace railing and watched the people below. Then he saw her. Jenny. Everything in him fisted as he watched her walk, alone, through the night, moonlight and neon playing in her hair.

Six

N
ormal
was relative.

Jenny reminded herself several times during the following week that she and Mike were supposed to be back to “normal.” And she supposed they were. For them.

The first day back, they stayed out of each other’s way. But soon enough, work made that ploy impossible. While Jenny continued to work on the sketches of the Wise Woman for “The Wild Hunt” game, she was also going over her plans for the paintings at the new hotel. She’d taken so many pictures of the place, it was easy enough to figure out what she wanted where—it was simply time-consuming.

Then Mike got bogged down with calls from the contractor and plumber and electrician and the work on the game wasn’t getting done, so Jenny volunteered to help. With her handling the Nevada hotel, it gave Mike time he needed to work with Sean and the marketing department on the cover design and the publicity campaign designed to push the game during release week.

Naturally, Jenny spent a lot of time in Mike’s office fielding phone calls that she then had to tell him about, so they ended up spending hours together every workday. Yet what should have made them closer was instead highlighting the tension building between them.

Like now, Jenny thought as she sat down in front of Mike’s desk. He was on the phone with one of the bloggers who posted about Celtic Knot, so Jenny had a minute to indulge herself in watching him.

His features were stony—his businessman face, she thought. Cool. No-nonsense. Unforgiving. His voice was clipped as he told the man what he wanted and expected, and Jenny had no doubt the blogger would do whatever Mike said. He had a knack for getting his way.

And for just a second, she wished
she
was his way.

Then he hung up and she forced her mind out of the lovely little daydreams it preferred and back to the business at hand.

“So, what’ve you got?” he asked, idly flipping a pen over and over between his fingers.

“Jacob says the painters can start next week,” she said, checking her tablet and scrolling down to tick off information she had to give him. Jenny had spoken to the lead contractor so many times that week, she was beginning to think of the older man as family. “He also says the hotel employees you have living on-site have been helping the construction crew—lifting and toting mostly, but Jacob says they’re really doing a lot to keep the work on schedule.”

“Interesting,” Mike admitted. “That wasn’t part of our deal.”

“Apparently, they got bored with just waiting for the new hotel to open.” She shrugged and suggested, “They don’t need to go out and find a new job, so maybe they’re willing to help out, get the hotel open that much quicker. According to Jacob, they’re doing a lot of the scut work, freeing up the crew to do the rehab.”

Nodding, Mike said, “Make a note of the names of the guys who are doing the helping. We’ll make sure they’re paid for the extra work.”

“Already done,” she said.

He smiled and tossed the pen to the desk. “I like self-starters, people who are willing to step in and do what needs doing without being asked. Keep their names handy. We’ll look at promotions when the hotel’s up and running.”

“I’ve got the list for you and the departments they worked in at the old hotel. I figured you’d want to do something like that.”

“Impressive,” he said with a nod of approval. “Are you sure you’re an artist, not an admin?”

Surprised at the compliment, Jenny laughed. “Oh, artist, for sure. I don’t mind helping you with this stuff, but if I had to keep track of everyone in the free world every day, it would drive me crazy.”

“It does,” Mike admitted. “I’ve been riding herd all week on bloggers, beta testers, the marketing guys and the design team working on the game cover. Sean hates the cover, I’m okay with it, but since neither of us is
happy
with it, they’ve got to go back to square one.”

“What’re they putting on the cover?”

“The forest, hints of a warrior stepping out from the trees, full moon...”

“Sounds a lot like the cover for ‘Forest Run.’”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I said.” He shook his head, jumped up from his chair and paced to the window overlooking the yard and the blue, cloud-studded sky. “We need it different enough that people won’t think they’ve already got it and similar enough that they know they’ll be getting the same kind of fantasy they’ve become accustomed to.”

“Hmm...” Jenny’s gaze tracked him as he shifted impatiently from foot to foot at the tall window. If her gaze also dropped briefly to enjoy the view of his very nice behind, who could blame her? “What if we did something with the Wise Woman and the warrior together on the cover?”

He looked at her over his shoulder. “Go on.”

“Maybe lightning flashing in the sky.” Jenny closed her eyes briefly and could almost see it. “Magic shooting from her fingertips, wind lifting her hair, light gleaming off the warrior’s sword...”

“I like it,” he said, voice softer that it had been.

Jenny opened her eyes and looked into his and for a second or two convinced herself that she saw something...special. Then the moment was gone again because really, she shouldn’t torture herself like that anyway.

“I’ll give your ideas to the design team.”

“Thanks,” she said, pleasure making a warm knot in her chest.

“Hey, it’s nice to talk to someone who doesn’t need constant monitoring. Sometimes all I want to do is skeet shoot my cell phone.”

“Understood. Completely.” Didn’t need to be monitored? Did that mean he was actually starting to trust her?
No,
she told herself,
don’t get crazy.

Going back to her tablet, Jenny continued. “We might as well finish this up. The engineers are on-site, working on the mechanisms for the river ghosts and ghouls. They say it’ll take a couple months to get everything to be perfect, but again, according to Jacob, the engineers are excited.”

“Okay, what else?”

“After all the positive stuff, there’s a downside.”

“Naturally,” Mike said on a sigh. Easing one hip down onto the corner of his desk, he waved a hand. “Let’s hear it.”

“Jacob—wow, I’ve talked to him a lot this week—says there’s a problem with the pipes.”

“Great. What kind of problem?”

“The kind that means laying down new pipe. Mainly, the problem is the kitchen and the pool area. He says they’ll probably last another five years, but after that, you’ll need to redo the whole thing.”

He laughed shortly, a scrape of sound with no trace of humor behind it. “Brady redid an entire fifteenth-century castle and those pipes were fine. I’m in charge of a hotel built in the 1950s and it’s crap. What’s up with that?”

Jenny shrugged. “Apparently castle pipes are made to last?”

“Apparently. Okay, what else does Jacob say?”

She winced a little. “He says to remind you that if you wait to do it, you’ll have to pull out all the new tiles in the pool surround and take out a wall in the kitchen to get to everything. He suggests you do it all now.”

“Of course he does,” Mike said on a laugh. Then he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “How the hell did we not find out about this problem during the inspection?” he muttered.

“Jacob says it’s impossible to find stuff like this until you start getting beneath the surface.” Jenny took a breath. This was going pretty well. They were in the same room and not sniping at each other. All she had to do was keep the focus on work and they’d be okay.

Of course, looking at him, it was hard to keep
thinking
about work. What she wanted to do was reach up and smooth his hair off his forehead. Step closer and feel his arms come around her. Lay her head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat.

And oh, dear God, she was sliding into a pool of something warm and tempting and way too dangerous. With that thought firmly in mind, she lifted her chin and stuck to business. “He says they didn’t find the problems until they ripped out the kitchen floor to lay down a new subfloor before the tiles.”

Mike nodded thoughtfully but didn’t speak so she kept going.

“It’s like all those rehab shows on HGTV. Couples buy this great house and they’re redoing it and they find hideous things under the floor and behind the walls.” She shuddered. “Makes you want to build new and avoid any old houses like the plague.”

One dark eyebrow lifted and his mouth quirked. “Your apartment is an old one,” he reminded her.

“Don’t think I don’t worry about that every time I see the people on TV finding mice and who knows what behind the walls.” She shook her head hard and shivered again. “I try not to think about it.”

“Don’t blame you.” Briefly, his eyes were warm, nearly friendly. Then it was as if a shutter dropped down and suddenly, those blue eyes were cool and dispassionate again.

Jenny smothered a sigh.

“Jacob’s right,” Mike said finally. “We do the work now, make sure it’s right. I want this hotel to be top-of-the-line all the way. No holding back. I’ll call him, take care of it.”

“Okay, good.”

“Anything else?” He reached behind him for a bottle of water. Uncapping it, he took a long drink.

Jenny swallowed, too. Ridiculous that watching a man taking a drink could make her palms sweaty. Clearing her throat, she checked the tablet again. “Oh. Yeah. I talked to the interior designer you hired to furnish the hotel. She’s not sure if you want contemporary furniture or something more—and I quote here—‘antiquey’ for the bedrooms.”

“Antiquey?”

She shrugged. “Her word. I told her I thought you’d want something that feels old, almost otherworldly if she can manage it, but that I’d talk to you to make sure.”

“You’re right,” he said and pushed off the desk. “I’ll talk to her, but yeah, that’s just what I want. Nothing fancy or fussy, but solid, heavy pieces that could be from the past or from the fantasy world we’re re-creating.”

“I think that’s perfect.”

Again, his mouth curved slightly and Jenny’s heart did a slow tumble in her chest. It was ridiculous just how susceptible she was to this man.

“Good to know you agree,” he said. “Because I need you to go with me to look at some furnishings. The designer’s going to do most of it. She’ll text me pictures of what she finds for approval, but Brady told me about a few places near here that had some great stuff he actually bought and had shipped to Ireland for the castle.”

“He had stuff shipped? All the way to Ireland?”

“Well,” he said, smiling a little, “not really. He had the movers stack it on the company jet and we flew it over ourselves. Still, would’ve been easier to buy it all there, but he found some nice stuff. Told me to check it out.”

“Okay, when do you want to do that?”

“Next week’s fine. We’ve still got plenty to arrange before then and...” he paused. “Aren’t your new drawings of the Wise Woman due in tomorrow?”

“Yeah, they’re nearly ready,” she said, feeling a slight twinge of guilt. Usually, she turned her work in early, but she’d been so busy with everything else...

“If you need an extra day or two, don’t worry about it.” He walked closer. “I know you’ve been busy, picking up the slack on the hotel work.”

“I don’t mind helping.”

He looked down at her. “And I appreciate it.”

Her mouth was dry; her heart was pounding. She stared into his blue eyes and felt heat slide through her in a thick rush. Just being close to Mike was enough to weaken her knees—and her resolve. This was so not a good idea.

A quick knock sounded on the door and Sean walked in, already talking. “Hey, Mike? You’re not going to believe what—” He stopped, looked from one to the other of them and asked, “Am I interrupting something?”

Mike took a single long step back, shook his head and said, “No. We were finished. Weren’t we?”

Jenny shifted her gaze from Sean back to Mike and saw in his eyes that whatever had been looming between them was gone now. Probably a good thing, she acknowledged silently, but oh, she really wished Sean hadn’t shown up.

“Yes,” she said, when she found her voice, “we’re finished.”

And as she left the brothers alone, she thought those words had an eerie finality to them.

* * *

“Interesting,” Sean mused as soon as Jenny had slipped off down the hall. He turned to look at his brother. “Something you want to share with the class?”

“No,” Mike said shortly, hoping that Sean would let it go. But of course he didn’t.

“I knew there was something going on between you two.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” Mike insisted and walked around his desk to sit down.

“Oh, please. Am I blind?” Sean laughed and dropped into the chair opposite his brother. “That was an almost-kiss moment.”

“Butt out, Sean.”

Ignoring his brother, Sean continued. “Things were tense as hell between you guys before you went to Laughlin. When you came back it was tenser.” He paused. “More tense? Whichever. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do, and I wish to hell you’d get what I mean when I tell you to back off.”

“Oh, I get it,” Sean assured him. “I’m just not listening. So tell me. What’s with you and the oh-so-delicious Jenny Marshall?”

Mike’s gaze snapped to his brother’s. “Watch it.”

“Oooh,” Sean mused, grinning now. “Territorial. A good sign.”

Well, walked right into that, didn’t you?
Mike’s brain whispered.

“Damn it, Sean, stop.” Mike tapped a few keys on his laptop, hoping to look too busy to sit and talk to his brother. “What did you come in here for in the first place?”

Still grinning, his brother eased off. “I wanted to tell you about the Wyoming property.”

Mike frowned. “A problem?”

“Not with the place itself,” Sean told him. “The sale went through, it’s all ours. My problem is with the contractor.”

“I’m having some issues there myself,” Mike said, thinking about all the problems involved in getting a hotel up and running.

“Yeah, but your contractor’s a guy. You can talk to a guy.”

“Who’s yours?”

“Supposedly the best one in the area. A woman. Kate Wells.” Sean shook his head, jumped from the chair and paced the short distance to the window. “It’s the middle of the damn winter and she wants to get started on the inside of the hotel. Says why waste time? Says she can’t have the crew out working in the snow, but her schedule’s clear now, so she wants to take her guys inside and start the renovation early.”