Have Baby, Need Billionaire(10)

Spooning the green slop into Nathan's mouth, he was completely unprepared when the baby spat it back at him. "What?"

Tula's delighted laughter spilled out around him as Simon wiped green   beans from his face. Then she leaned in, kissed him on the cheek and   said, "Welcome to fatherhood."

An instant later, her smile died as he looked at her through dark eyes   blazing with heat. Her mouth went dry and a sizzle of something dark and   dangerous went off inside her.

They stared at each other for what felt like forever until finally Simon   said, "That wasn't much of a kiss. We'll have to do better next time."

Next time?





Five




Tula remembered sitting in her own kitchen thinking that this was not a good idea. Now she was convinced.

Yet here she was, living in a Victorian mansion in the city with a man she wasn't sure she liked-but she really did want.

Last night at dinner, Simon had looked so darn cute with green beans on   his face that she hadn't been able to stop herself from giving in to  the  impulse to kiss him. Sure, it was just a quick peck on his cheek.  But  when he'd turned those dark brown eyes on her and she'd read the  barely  banked passion there, it had shaken her.

Not like she was some shy, retiring virgin or anything. She wasn't.   She'd had a boyfriend in college and another one just a year or so ago.   But Simon was nothing like them. In retrospect, they had been boys and   Simon was all man.

"Oh God, stop it," she told herself. It wouldn't do any good of course.   She'd been indulging in not so idle daydreams centered on Simon Bradley   for days now. When she was sleeping, her brain picked up on the   subconscious thread and really went to town.

But a woman couldn't be blamed for what she dreamed of when she slept, right?

"It's ridiculous," she said, tugging at her desk to move it into   position beneath one of the many mullioned windows. A stray beam of rare   January sunlight speared through the clouds and lay across her  desktop.  She didn't take the time to admire it though, instead, she  went back to  getting the rest of her temporary office the way she  wanted it.

She didn't need much, really. Just her laptop, a drawing table where she   could work on the illustrations for her books and a comfy chair where   she could sit and think.

"Hmm. If you don't need much stuff, Tula, why is there so much junk in   here?" A question for the ages, she thought. She didn't try to collect   things. It just sort of … happened. And being here in the Victorian where   everything had a tidy spot to belong to made her feel like a pack rat.

There were boxes and books and empty shelves waiting to be filled. There   were loose manuscript pages and pens and paints and, oh, way too many   things to try to organize.

"Settling in?"

She jumped about a foot and spun around, holding one hand to her chest   as if trying to keep her heart where it belonged. He stood in the open   doorway, a half smile on his handsome face as if he knew darn well that   he'd scared about ten years off her life.                       
       
           



       

Giving Simon a pained glare, she snapped, "Wear a bell or something, okay? I about had a heart attack."

"I do live here," Simon reminded her.

"Yeah, I know." As if she could forget. She'd lain awake in her bed half   the night, imagining Simon in his bed just down the hall from her. She   never should have kissed him. Never should have breached the tense,   polite wall they'd erected between them at their first meeting.

Only that morning, they'd had breakfast together. The three of them   sitting cozily in a kitchen three times the size of her own. She had   watched Simon feeding a squirming baby oatmeal while dodging the   occasional splat of rejected offerings and darned if he hadn't   looked … cute doing it.

She groaned inwardly and warned herself again to get a grip. This wasn't about playing house with Simon.

He strolled into her office with a look of stunned amazement on his face. "How do you work in this confusion?"

She'd just been thinking basically the same thing, but she wasn't about   to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. "An organized mind is a   boring mind."

One dark eyebrow lifted and she noticed he did that a lot when they were talking. Sardonic? Or just irritated?

"You paint, too?" he asked, nodding at the drawing table set up beneath one of the tall windows.

"Draw, really. Just sketches," she said. "I do the illustrations for my books."

"Impressive," he said, moving closer for a better look.

Tula steeled herself against what he might say once he'd had a chance to   really study her drawings. Her father had never given her a  compliment,  she thought. But in the end that hadn't mattered, since she  drew her  pictures for the children who loved her books. Tula knew she  had talent,  but she had never fooled herself into believing that she  was a great  artist.

He thumbed through the sketch papers on the table and she knew what he   was seeing. The sketches of Lonely Bunny and the animals who shared his   world.

His gaze moving to hers, he said softly, "You're very good. You get a lot of emotion into these drawings."

"Thank you." Surprised but pleased, she smiled at him and felt warmth spill through her when he returned that smile.

"Nathan has a stuffed rabbit. But he needs a new one. The one he has looks a little worse for wear."

She shook her head sadly, because clearly he didn't know how much a   worn, beloved toy could mean to a child. "You never read The Velveteen   Rabbit?" she asked. "Being loved is what makes a toy real. And when   you're real, you're a little haggard looking."

"I guess you're right." He laughed quietly and nodded as he looked back   at her sketches. "How did you come up with this? The Lonely Bunny, I   mean."

Veering away from the personal and back into safe conversation, she   thought, oddly disappointed that the brief moment of closeness was   already over.

Still, she grinned as she said, "People always ask writers where they   get their ideas. I usually say I find my ideas on the bottom shelf of   the housewares department in the local market."

One corner of his mouth quirked up. "Clever. But not really an answer, either."

"No," she admitted, wrapping her arms around her middle. "It's not."

He turned around to face her and his warm brown eyes went soft and curious. "Will you tell me?"

She met his gaze and felt the conversation drifting back into the   intimate again. But she saw something in his eyes that told her he was   actually interested. And until that moment, no one but Anna had ever   really cared.

Walking toward him, she picked up one of the sketches off the drawing   table and studied her own handiwork. The Lonely Bunny looked back at her   with his wide, limpid eyes and sadly hopeful expression. Tula smiled   down at the bunny who had come along at just the right time in her life.

"I used to draw him when I was a little girl," she said more to herself   than to him. She ran one finger across the pale gray color of his fur   and the crooked bend of his ear. "When Mom and I moved to Crystal Bay,   there were some wild rabbits living in the park behind our house."

Beside her, she felt him step closer. Felt him watching her. But she was   lost in her own memories now and staring back into her past.

"One of the rabbits was different. He had one droopy ear, and he was   always by himself," she said, smiling to herself at the image of a young   Tula trying to tempt a wild rabbit closer by holding out a carrot. "It   looked to me like he didn't have any friends. The other rabbits stayed   away from him and I sort of felt that we were two of a kind. I was new   in town and didn't have any friends, so I made it my mission to make   that bunny like me. But no matter how I tried, I couldn't get him to   play with me.                       
       
           



       

"And believe me, I tried. Every day for a month. Then one day I went to   the park and the other rabbits were there, but Lonely Bunny wasn't."  She  stroked her fingertip across her sketch of that long-ago bunny. "I   looked all over for him, but couldn't find him."

She stopped and looked up into eyes filled with understanding and   compassion and she felt her own eyes burn with the sting of unexpected   tears. The only person she had ever told about that bunny was Anna.   She'd always felt just a little silly for caring so much. For missing   that rabbit so badly when she couldn't find him.