Have Baby, Need Billionaire(19)

He folded his arms over his chest. "Was there an insult in there?"

"Quite possibly, but I wasn't finished."

"Finish then. I knew there was more coming."

"You haven't proved to me yet that you're anywhere near ready to take   care of a baby. Heck, until you were absolutely sure he was your son,   you hardly went near him."

"And that's bad?"

"It is when you're too busy protecting yourself to give a child a chance."

"That's not what I was doing."

They stared at each other, gazes simmering with passions that had nothing to do with sex.

"This was clearly a mistake," Tula said a moment later, when she thought   she could speak without shrieking. "But thankfully it's one that   doesn't have to be repeated."

"Right. Probably best." Simon shoved one hand through his hair and said, "I still want you."

Tula looked at him for a long moment before admitting, "Yeah. Me, too. Good night, Simon."

She left the room and he didn't stop her. But she couldn't help turning   back for one last look as she walked out. He looked powerful. Sexy.  Very  alone.

And even after everything that had just happened, something inside her   urged Tula to go back to him. Wrap her arms around him and hold on.

She had to remind herself that he had chosen solitude.





Eight




"I handled it badly, I know that."

"Yeah," Mick agreed cheerfully the following day. "That about covers it. Were you trying to piss her off?"

"No," Simon said, shaking his head as he thought about the night before.   Hell, he couldn't remember much besides the urgent need he had felt to   get her under him. Although the fight afterward was etched clearly   enough in his mind. He still wasn't sure how it had happened. He hadn't   meant to alert her to the fact that he was aware of the power she held   in the situation. Hadn't meant to throw down a gauntlet just so that  she  could hit him over the head with it.                       
       
           



       

All he had really wanted to do was let her know that he wasn't going to   be led around by his groin. That he was more than his passions. That  sex  with her, no matter how astounding, wasn't going to change him.

Simon made the rules.

Always.

But somehow, when he was around Tula, rational thought went out the   window. Today, here in his office, away from the woman who was making   him crazed, he was able to think more clearly. Now what he needed to   know was what exactly Mick had found out about Tula Barrons Hawthorne.

"Never fight with a woman after sex," Mick was telling him. "They're   feeling all warm and cozy and whatever. Men want to sleep. So hell, even   talking after sex can be dangerous-if you ever want sex again."

Oh, he did, Simon thought. He wanted her the moment she left his room.   He had wanted her all night and had awakened that morning aching for   her. Want wasn't the issue.

"Just skip the advice and tell me what information you turned up."

Mick frowned at him and Simon thought that this was the downside of   having your best friend work for you. He was less likely to take orders   well and more likely to deliver his opinion whether Simon wanted it or   not. "What did you find out? I know she's related to Jacob Hawthorne,   but how? Niece?"

"A lot closer than that, as it turns out. She's his daughter."

"His what?" Simon went on alert. "His daughter?"

His mind raced as he listened to Mick give him more details.

"Hawthorne and his ex split when Tula was a kid. Mom moved with her to   Crystal Bay. Tula visited her father often, but several years ago, she   appears to have cut all ties with people here completely-including her   father. My source didn't know much about it, just that Tula's a sore   spot with the old man."

He had already known about her moving to that little town with her   mother, Simon thought. But why would she cut all ties with everyone   here, including her father? And why had he never heard about a daughter   before? Was the old bastard protecting his child? Simon wouldn't have   thought Jacob Hawthorne capable of familial loyalty.

"And," Mick added, "seems that when she started publishing children's   books, she began using her middle name, Barrons. It's a family name,   after her maternal grandmother. That grandmother left a will that   provided a trust for Tula so that she-"

He straightened up in his desk chair and leaned both forearms on the neatly stacked files on his desk. "How big a trust?"

Mick thumbed through the papers he held. "To you, fairly small. To most   of the world, very nice. It at least allowed her to buy her house and   support herself while writing."

"Her books don't earn much?"

Mick shook his head. "She has a small, but growing readership for her   Lonely Bunny series. The money will probably improve, but between her   writing and the trust, she gets along and lives well within her limited   means."

"Interesting." Her father was rich and she lived in a tiny house nearly   an hour away from the city. What was the story behind that? he  wondered.

"She hasn't seen her father in a few years that I can find," Mick   continued. "But then, the old man almost never leaves the city, either."

Hell, Simon thought, Jacob hardly left the Hawthorne building. He had a   penthouse suite at the top of the structure that was his company's   headquarters. He ruled his world from the top of his tower and rarely   interacted with the "little people."

But as he thought that, Simon had to wince. Until the other day when he   had deliberately gone through the store chatting with his employees,   people could have said the same thing about him. There were some very   uncomfortable similarities between Simon and his enemy.

"Is there anything else?" he asked, mainly to get his mind off that realization.

"No," Mick said, laying the sheaf of papers on his lap. "I can probably get more if you want me to dig deeper."

He thought about that for a moment. If he turned Mick loose and told him   to dig, he'd have every piece of information available on Tula Barrons   within a couple of days. But did he need more? He now knew who she  was.  He knew that she was the daughter of his enemy.

That was plenty.

While Mick talked, offering advice that he wasn't listening to, Simon   tried to consider the situation objectively. He was attracted to Tula,   obviously. The passions she stirred in him were like nothing he'd ever   known. But now he knew who she was and damned if he could bring himself   to trust a Hawthorne. So where did that leave him?                       
       
           



       

"What're you planning?"

He glanced at Mick. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Right. I've seen that look before," his friend said, settling into the   chair in front of Simon's desk. "Usually just before you're plotting   some major takeover of an unsuspecting CEO."

Simon laughed and missed his point deliberately. "No CEO is ever unsuspecting."

"Damn it, Simon, what're you up to?"

"The less you know, the better off you are," he said, knowing that his   friend would try to argue him out of the plan quickly forming in his   mind.

"You mean the less you have to listen to my objections."

"That, too."

Mick slapped one hand down hard on the arm of his chair. "You're crazy,   you know that? So what if she's a Hawthorne? Her father's a miserable   old goat. She's got nothing to do with him."

"Doesn't matter."

"Damn it, Simon," Mick continued. "She split with him years ago. Doesn't even use her real name for God's sake."

"She's still his daughter," Simon insisted. "Don't you get it? The   daughter of the man who tried to destroy my family is now in charge of   when I get custody of my own son. How the hell am I supposed to take   that, Mick? What if she just decides to never approve my custody of   Nathan?"

"You really think she'd do that?"

"She's a Hawthorne." As far as he was concerned, that explained   everything. God, he was an idiot. He had actually begun to trust Tula.   He'd felt for her. More than he had anyone else in his life. Now he   finds out this? For all he knew, Jacob had manufactured Nathan's   mother's will. Maybe he and his daughter were in this together.   Conspiring to dangle his son in front of him only to snatch him back.