A Baby for the Boss(12)

But for now...

“No,” she said, moving into him, “there’s no rush to start thinking.”

He kissed her and as she fell into the swirl of sensations, Jenny put everything else out of her mind.



An hour later, though, she knew it was over. Even with his weight pressing her into the mattress, even with his body deep inside hers, she felt Mike pulling away from her. As physically close as they were at that moment, there was a distance between them that lovemaking couldn’t bridge. All this time with him had actually managed to do was enforce the lines separating them. To make things worse, now it would be even harder to work with him over the coming months.

He rolled to the side and went up on one elbow. Shooting a quick glance at the window and the rays of sunlight peeking through, he shifted his gaze back to her and said, “I should go.”

“Yeah.” Jenny looked at him and sketched this view of him into her memory. Hair mussed, a shadow of whiskers and that amazing mouth of his quirked into a rueful smile. If she’d had any sense at all, instead of trying to build a memory, she would have been attempting to put this time with Mike out of her mind completely.

She wasn’t sure where they would be going from here, but she knew that whatever connection they’d found, however briefly, was gone. Over.

“Look,” he said, gently pushing her hair back from her face, “last night was—”

“A mistake, I know,” she finished for him, since it was easier to say it than to hear it.

He frowned, rolled off the bed and grabbed his clothes, pulling them on while he talked. “Can’t really call it a mistake since it was something we both wanted.”

How did he do that? she wondered. He was right there, within reach, and yet he’d pulled so far away that he might as well have been in a different city. A cold ball of regret dropped into the pit of her stomach.

“Last night didn’t change anything, Jenny.”

She nearly sighed because she knew exactly where this conversation was headed. “I know, you don’t trust me.”

“You lied to me the first night I met you.”

“I didn’t lie,” she argued tiredly. God, she hated having to defend herself over and over to a man who refused to see past his own suspicions. How could he sleep with her, make love with her and not have the slightest clue who she really was? “Since I’ve worked for Celtic Knot, haven’t I done a good job? Have I ever let anyone down? Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Yeah, it does,” he said shortly. “You know it does. But it can’t change the past.” His features tightened and his mouth thinned into one grim line as he held up one hand for peace before she could respond.

“Let’s not,” he said. “You have done good work for us, Jenny. That’s why we’ve got a problem now. You’re the logical choice to do the work on the River Haunt hotel, but if we have to stay on the project together it’s going to be more difficult than it has to be.”

Shaking her head, she only stared at him. Difficult? Like going into the office every day and feeling him watching her warily? Like knowing that he was waiting for her to screw up? To prove that she was exactly the liar and cheat he took her for?

She pushed off the bed and quickly snatched her robe off the end of the bed. They weren’t going to argue about the past, fine. But she was more than ready to fight for the present and her own future. And damned if she’d do it naked. Slipping the robe on, she belted it tightly, then shook her hair back and turned to face the man who continued to haunt her. “It’s not a problem for me, Mike. I’m going to do a hell of a good job on that hotel. And it doesn’t have to be difficult if you’ll just trust me to do what I’m best at.”

For a second she thought he might argue that point, but instead, he blew out a breath and shoved one hand through his hair. “All right. We do the hotel. We do the job. Then we’re done.”

Eager, wasn’t he, to push her aside and keep her there? But even he had to realize that he’d said pretty much the same thing about being done with her more than a year before. And yet, here they were, facing each other across yet another rumpled bed.

Still, it’s what she wanted, Jenny reminded herself. A chance to prove herself on the hotel project without being at war with Mike, because it really would make things harder. So why, she wondered, did she suddenly feel so terrible now that he was offering her just that? She scrubbed her hands up and down her arms as if to chase away the bone-deep chill crawling through her, but it didn’t help.

“We keep...this,” he said, waving one hand at the disheveled quilt and the still-warm sheets, “between us and do what we have to do.”