A Baby for the Boss(38)

“Are you serious?”

“Damn right, I’m serious.” He crowded in on her, forcing her to back up until her legs hit the mattress and she plopped down onto it. “This was all a setup, wasn’t it? Right from the beginning.”

“What all are you talking about?” she demanded, glaring up at him. “You mean, you coming to my house, willingly going to my bed? That all?”

“Us meeting in Phoenix. You coming to work at Celtic Knot. It’s all been building to this, right? Why the hell else would you come to work for me after what happened when we met?”

“You are seriously paranoid,” she snapped, tossing her hair out of her eyes so she could glare at him.

“Right. I’m paranoid, but you’re pregnant, so maybe I’m not crazy, huh?” He leaned over her until their faces were just a breath apart. The smell of her invaded his senses and threw gasoline on the fire inside him. Even furious, even staggered by her news, Mike could admit to wanting her. To needing her. And that fried him.

“All you needed to do was get me in here, to use the damn useless condoms so you could get pregnant.” He was so angry, the edges of his vision were blurred. His breath came fast and hard, his heartbeat thundered and desire tangled with fury until his whole body practically vibrated.

She shoved at him and he backed up just far enough for her to clamber off the bed and gain her feet again. “My God, do you really think you’re that great a prize? Do you know how many times you’ve insulted me by calling me a thief? And that’s supposed to endear you to me somehow?”

“Yet you slept with me anyway and here we are,” he reminded her, in spite of the sparks flashing in her eyes.

“You’re right,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her words. “How clever I must be. And psychic as well to know that the great Mike Ryan would one day deign to visit my little apartment. Would allow me to seduce him with my trickery and feminine wiles. How brilliant of me to have faulty condoms so I could fool him into impregnating me. My God, I’m amazing.”

It sounded ludicrous even to him, but Mike couldn’t let it go completely. His mind worked, with two opposing voices shouting, demanding to be heard. But the calm, cool, rational part of him was buried beneath the facts he couldn’t forget. She’d lied to him the first time he met her. She’d come to work at his company in spite of that. She’d wormed her way onto his hotel design team. She’d made herself important. But he’d kept her on. Hadn’t told Sean to fire her. Why? Because she had gotten into his blood whether he’d wanted her there or not.

Now she was pregnant.

He looked down at her and the flash in her blue eyes did nothing to ease the anger bubbling and frothing inside him. It didn’t help to know that even as furious as he was, he could still look at her and need her.

“No matter what you think,” she said tightly, “I didn’t trick you. I didn’t set up a trap to catch the mighty and elusive Mike Ryan.”

“Well, since you’re so honest,” he ground out, “I’ll just believe you, okay?”

“You should but you won’t,” she told him, shaking her head, sending those curls that drove him crazy into a wild dance about her head. She underlined each of her words with a determined tap of her index finger against his chest. “Do you really think I would trap a man who doesn’t want me? I’ve got more self-respect than that, thanks.”

Jenny stood there facing him, chin lifted, eyes narrowed and hot with banked fury. She looked beautiful and strong, and it took everything he had to fight the urge to grab her and pull her in close. Jenny Marshall got to him like no one else ever had and he hated admitting that, even to himself.

Shaking his head, he took a mental step backward and told her, “It’s not going to work. You’re not getting money out of me and I won’t marry you.”

Her head jerked back as if he’d slapped her, but she recovered fast, he had to give her that.

“I don’t want anything from you. As for marrying me? Who asked you to?” she demanded and whirled around. She left the bedroom, walked into the living room, and he followed because what the hell else was he going to do?

She stopped in front of the windows and with the last of the sun’s rays silhouetting her in gold, she looked at him and said, “I wouldn’t marry you on a bet, Mike. You think I’d actually trap a man who doesn’t want me into a marriage that would be a misery? No, thanks. I don’t need you to take care of me or my baby, Mike.”

Now it was his turn to feel insulted. Whatever he did or didn’t feel for Jenny, she was carrying his kid and she’d better get used to that from the jump. “You can’t keep my child from me, Jenny, so don’t even try.”