Читать книгу Billionaire's Jet Set Babies & The Nanny Bombshell - Catherine Mann - Страница 12

Alexa plucked at her wet company shirt, conscious of the way it clung to her breasts. She didn’t need the heat in Seth’s eyes. She didn’t need the answering fire it stirred in her. They both had different goals for what remained of their twenty-four-hour deal. They were best served focusing on the children and work.

Turning away, she hitched Olivia up on her hip and snagged the other towel from where she’d dropped it on the sofa to chase the racing duo around the suite. “You’re back early from your dinner meeting.”

“You need some clothes.” The sound of his confident footsteps sounded softly behind her on plush carpet.

“Dry ones, for sure.” She glanced through to the bathroom. Towels were draped on the floor around the circular tub, soaking up all the splashes. “I let the babies use the Jacuzzi like a kiddie pool. A few plastic cups and they were happy to play. Supper should be arriving soon. I thought you were room service when I heard you at the door.”

“They’ll need cleaning up again after supper.” He tugged out two diapers and two T-shirts from the diaper bag.

“Then I’ll just order more towels.” She plucked the tiny pink T-shirt from his hand and busied herself with dressing Olivia to keep from noticing how at ease he was handling his squirming son.

“Fair enough.” He pressed the diaper tapes in place, his large masculine hands surprisingly nimble.

“Did your meeting go well?” She wrestled a tiny waving arm through the sleeve.

“We didn’t get through more than half a drink. He had to postpone until the morning.” A quick tug later, he had Owen’s powder-blue shirt in place. He hoisted his son in the air and buzzed his belly before setting him on his feet. “I’ll just call room service and add my order to the rest.”

He wasn’t going back to work? They would be spending the rest of the evening here. Together with the children, of course. And after the toddlers drifted off? He’d mentioned Pippa kept them up late. With luck the pint-size chaperones would burn the midnight oil.

“Too bad your dinner companion couldn’t have told you about the delay before you left Charleston. You would have had time to make other arrangements for the children.” And she would have been at home in her lonely apartment eating ice cream while thinking about encountering Seth on his plane. Because without question, he was a memorable man.

“I’m glad to have the time with them. I assume you can arrange to stay longer?”

“I’ll call my partner back as soon as the kids are asleep. She and I will make it work.”

“Excellent. Now we just need to arrange extra clothes and toiletries for you.” He reached for the room phone as Olivia and Owen chased each other in circles around their father. “When I order my supper I’ll also have the concierge pick up something for you to change int—”

“Really, no need.” She held up a hand, an unsettling tingle tripping up her spine at the thought of wearing things purchased by him. “I’ll wear the hotel robe tonight and we can have the hotel wash my clothes. The kids and I will kill time tomorrow browsing around downtown, shopping while you finish your meeting. You do have a double stroller, don’t you?”

“Already arranged. But you are going to need a change of clothing sooner than that.” The furrows in his brow warned her a second before he said, “My business prospect wants to have breakfast with the kids and there’s not a chance in hell I can carry that off on my own. It’s my fault you’re here without a change of clothes.”

A business breakfast? With two toddlers? Whose genius idea was that? But she held her silence and conceded to the need for something appropriate to wear.

She stifled a twinge of nerves at discussing her clothing size. She was past those days of stepping on the scales every morning for her mom to check—what a hell of a way to spend “mother-daughter” time. And thank God, she was past the days of starving herself into a size zero.

Size zero. There’d been an irony in that, as if she could somehow fade away…

Blinking the past back, she said, “Okay then, tell them to buy smalls or eights, and my shoes are size seven.”

His green eyes glimmered wickedly. “And underwear measurements?”

She poked him in the chest with one finger. “Not on your life am I answering that one.” God, his chest was solid. She stepped away. “Make sure to keep a tally of how much everything costs. I insist on reimbursing you.”

“Unnecessarily prideful, but as you wish.” He said it so arrogantly she wanted to thump him on the back of his head.

Not a wise business move, though, touching him again. One little tap had nearly seared her fingertip and her mind. “I pay my own way now.”

“At least let me loan you a T-shirt to sleep in tonight rather than that stifling hotel robe.”

His clothes against her naked flesh?

Whoa.

Shaking off the goose bumps, she followed the toddling twins into the master bedroom. The rumble of his voice followed her as Seth ordered his meal, her clothing and some other toiletries…

Olivia and Owen sprinted to check out the matching portable cribs that had been set up on the far side of the king-size bed, each neatly made. Everything had been provided to accommodate a family. A real family. Except she would crawl under her own covers all alone wearing a hot guy’s T-shirt.

Alexa wrapped her arms around her stomach, reminded of the life she’d been denied with the implosion of her marriage. A life she purposefully hadn’t thought about in a year since she’d craved a real family more than her next breath. Being thrust into this situation with Seth stirred longings she’d ignored for too long. Damn it, she’d taken this gamble for her company, her employees, her future.

But in doing so, she hadn’t realized how deeply playing at this family game could cut into her heart.

* * *

Playing pretend family was kicking his ass.

Seth forked up the last bite of his Chilean sea bass while Alexa started her warm peach bread pudding with lavender cream. They’d opted to feed the babies first and put them to bed so the adults could actually dine in peace out on the turret balcony. Their supper had been set up by the wrought-iron table for two, complete with a lone rose in the middle of the table. Historical sconces on either side of the open doors cast a candlelit glow over the table.

Classical music drifted softly from inside. Okay, so it was actually something called “The Mozart Effect—Music for Babies,” and he used it to help soothe Olivia and Owen to sleep. But it still qualified as mood-setting music for grown-ups.

And holy crap, did Alexa ever qualify as a smoking hot adult.

She’d changed into one of his T-shirts with the fluffy hotel robe over it. She looked as if she’d just rolled out of his bed. An ocean breeze lifted her whispery blond hair as late evening street noises echoed softly from the street below. Tonight had been the closest he’d come to experiencing family life with his children.

He hadn’t dated much since his divorce and when he had, he’d been careful to keep that world separate from his kids. Working side by side with Alexa had more than cut the tasks in half tonight. That made him angry all over again that he’d screwed up so badly in his own marriage. He and Pippa had known it was a long shot going in, but they’d both wanted to give it a chance, for the babies. Or at least that’s what he’d thought, until he’d discovered Pippa wasn’t even sure if he was the biological father.

His gut twisted.

Damn it all, Olivia and Owen were his children. His name was on their birth certificate. And he refused to let anyone take them from him. Pippa vowed she wasn’t going to challenge the custody agreement, but she’d lied to him before, and in such a major way, he had trouble trusting her.

He studied the woman across from him, wishing he could read her thoughts better, but she held herself in such tight control at all times. Sure, he knew he couldn’t judge all females by how things had shaken down between him and Pippa. But it definitely made him wary. Fool him once, shame on her. Fool him twice. Shame on him.

Alexa Randall was here for one reason only. To use him to jump-start her business. She wasn’t in St. Augustine to play house. She didn’t know, much less love, his kids. She was doing a job. Everybody in this world had an agenda. As long as he kept that knowledge forefront in his mind, they would be fine.

He reached for his seltzer water. “You’re good with kids.”

“Thanks,” she said tightly, stabbing at her pudding.

“Seriously. You’ll make a good mother someday.”

She shook her head and shoved away her half-eaten dessert. “I prefer to have a husband for that and my only attempt at marriage didn’t end well.”

The bitterness in her voice hung between them.

He tipped back his crystal glass, eyeing her over the rim. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”

Sighing, she dipped her finger in the water and traced the rim of her glass until the crystal sang. “I married a guy who seemed perfect. He didn’t even care about my family’s money. In fact, he sided with my dad about signing a prenup to prove it.” Faster and faster her finger moved, the pitch growing higher. “After always having to second-guess friendships while growing up, that felt so good—thinking he loved me for myself, unconditionally.”

“That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

“Supposed to. But then, I’m sure you understand what it’s like to have to question everyone’s motives.”

“Not always. I grew up in a regular farming family in North Dakota. Everyone around me had working class values. I spent my spare time camping, fishing or flying.”

“Most of my friends in private school wanted the perks of hanging out with me—shopping trips in New York. For my sixteenth, my mother flew me and my friends to the Bahamas.” She tapped the glass once with a short fingernail. “The ones with parents who could afford the same kind of perks were every bit as spoiled as I was. No wonder I didn’t have any true friends.”

Having to question people’s motives as an adult was tough enough. But worrying as a kid? That could mark a person long-term. He thought of his children asleep in the next room and wondered how he would keep their lives even-keeled.

“So your ex seems like a dream guy with the prenup…and…?”

“His only condition was that I not take any money from my family.” Her eyes took on a faraway, jaded look that bothered him more than it should have for someone he’d just met. “My money could go into trust for our kids someday, but we would live our lives on what we made. Sounded good, honorable.”

“What happened?” He lifted his glass.

“I was allergic to his sperm.”

He choked on his water. “Uh, could you run that by me again?”

“You heard me. Allergic to his swimmers. We can both have kids, just not with each other.” She folded her arms on the edge of the table, leaning closer. “I was sad when the doctor told me, but I figured, hey, this was our call to adopt. Apparently Travis—my ex—didn’t get the same message.”

“Let me get this straight.” Seth placed his glass on the table carefully to keep from snapping the stemware in two with his growing anger. “Your ex-husband left you because the two of you couldn’t have biological children together?”

“Bingo,” she said with a tight smile that didn’t come close to reaching her haunted blue eyes.

“He sounds like a shallow jerk.” A jerk Seth had an urge to punch for putting such deep shadows in this woman’s eyes. “I would be happy to kick his ass for you. I may be a desk jockey these days, but I’ve still got enough North Dakota farm boy in me to take him down.”

A smile played at her lips. “No worries. I kick butts on my own these days.”

“Good for you.” He admired her resilience, her spunk. She’d rebuilt her life after two nearly simultaneous blows from life that would have debilitated most people.

“I try not to beat myself up about it.” Sagging back in the wrought-iron patio chair, she clutched the robe closed with her fists. “I didn’t have much practice in making smart choices about the people I invited into my life. So it stands to reason I would screw that one up, too.”

“Well, I’m a damn good judge of character and it’s obvious to me that he screwed up.” Seth reached across the table and touched her elbow lightly where the sleeve fell back to reveal the vulnerable crook. “Not you.”

Her eyes opened wider with surprise, with awareness, but she didn’t pull away. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I know there had to be fault on both sides.”

“Still, that’s not always easy to see or say.” His hand fell away.

“What about your ex?” She straightened the extra fork she hadn’t needed for her dinner. In fact, she hadn’t eaten much of her fire-grilled sea scallops at all and only half of her bread pudding. Maybe the cuisine here didn’t suit her. “Does she make it a regular practice to run off and leave the kids?”

“Actually, no.” Pippa was usually diligent when it came to their care. In fact, she usually cried buckets anytime she left them.

Alexa tapped the top of his hand with a whisper-soft touch. “Come on now. I unloaded about my sucky marriage story. What’s yours?”

Normally he preferred not to talk about his failures. But the moonlight, good food—for him at least—and even better company made him want to extend the evening. If that meant spilling a few public knowledge facts about his personal life, then so be it.

“There’s no great drama to share—” And yeah, he was lying, but he preferred to keep it low-key. He was used to glossing over the truth in front of his kids, who were too young to understand paternity questions. “We had a fling that resulted in a surprise pregnancy—” Pippa had just failed to mention the other fling she’d had around the same time. “So we got married for the children, gave it an honest try and figured out it wasn’t going to work. We already had divorce papers in motion by the time the babies were due.”

“If you don’t mind my asking—” she paused until he waved her on “—why did you get married at all then?”

He’d asked himself the same question more than once, late at night when he was alone and missing the twins. “Old-fashioned, I guess. I wanted to be around my kids all the time. I wanted it to work.” Wanted the babies to be his. “It just…didn’t.”

“You’re so calm about it,” she said with more of those shadows chasing around in her eyes.

Calm? He was a holy mess inside, but letting that anger, the betrayal, fly wouldn’t accomplish anything. “I have the twins. Pippa and I are trying to be good parents. At least I thought we were.”

Her hand covered his completely, steadily. “By all appearances you’re doing a great job. They’re beautiful, sweet babies.”

The touch of her soft skin sent a bolt of lust straight through his veins, pumping pulsing blood south. He wrestled his thoughts back to the conversation, back to the care of his offspring. “They’re hell on wheels, but I would do anything for them. Anything.”

So there was no need for him to stress over the fact that Alexa turned him on so hard his teeth hurt. He’d been too long without sex, only a couple of encounters in the year since his divorce. That had to be the reason for his instantaneous, out of control reaction to this woman.

Gauging by the pure blue flame in her eyes, she was feeling it, too.

He was realizing they had a lot more than just a hefty dose of attraction in common. They were both reeling from crappy marriages and completely focused on their careers. Neither of them was looking for anything permanent that would involve more messy emotions.

So why not hook up? If he wanted to act on their attraction and she was cool with the fact that being together had no effect on his business decisions, this could be the best damn thing to happen to him in months. She could be the best thing to happen to him in months.

Yeah, this could work.

Simple, uncomplicated sex.

They had an empty second bedroom waiting for them. He always carried condoms these days. One surprise pregnancy was enough. They had moonlight, atmosphere. She was even already half-undressed. There was nothing stopping him from seeing if she was amenable.

Decision made, Seth pulled the rose from the vase and stroked it lightly down her nose. Her eyes blinked wide with surprise, but she didn’t say a word, didn’t so much as move. Hell, yeah.

Emboldened, he traced her lips with the bud before he leaned across the table and kissed her.