Have Baby, Need Billionaire(4)

He gave her another grin and kicked his fat legs in excitement.

Tula sighed and smoothed her hand across the baby's wisps of dark hair.   Two weeks he'd been a part of her life and already she couldn't imagine   her world without him in it. The moment she'd picked him up for the   first time, Nathan had carved away a piece of her heart and she knew   she'd never get it back.

Now she was supposed to hand him over to a man who would no doubt raise   Nathan in the strict, rarified world in which she'd been raised. How   could she stand it? How could she sentence this sweet baby to a   regimented lifestyle just like the one she'd escaped?

And how could she avoid it?

She couldn't.

Which meant she had only one option. If she couldn't stop Simon from   eventually having custody of Nathan-then she'd just have to find a way   to loosen Simon up. She'd loosen Simon up, break him out of the world of   "suits" so that he wouldn't do to Nathan what her father had tried to   do to her.

Looking down into the baby's smiling eyes, she made a promise. "I'll   make sure he knows how to have fun, Nathan. Don't you worry. I won't let   him make you wear a toddler business suit to preschool."

The baby slapped one hand down onto a pile of dry breakfast cereal on   the food tray, sending tiny O's skittering across the kitchen.

"Glad you agree," she said as she bent down, scraped them up into her   hand and tossed them into the sink. Then she washed her hands and came   back to the baby. "Your daddy's coming here soon, Nathan. He'll probably   be crabby and stuffy, so don't let that bother you. It won't last for   long. We're going to change him, little man. For his own good. Not to   mention yours."

He grinned at her.

"Attaboy," she said and bent for another quick kiss just as the doorbell   sounded. Her stomach gave a quick spin that had her taking a deep   breath to try to steady it. "He's here. You're all strapped in, so   you're safe. Just be good for a second and I'll go let him in."

She didn't like leaving Nathan alone in the high chair, even though he   was belted in tightly. So Tula hurried across the toy-cluttered floor of   her small living room and wondered how it had gotten so messy again.   She'd straightened it up earlier. Then she remembered she and the baby   playing after she put the chicken in the oven and-too late to worry   about it now. She threw open the door and nearly gulped.

Simon was standing there, somehow taller than she remembered. He wasn't   wearing a suit, either, which gave her a jolt of surprise. She got   another jolt when she realized just how good he looked when he pried   himself out of the sleek lines of his business "uniform." Casual in a   charcoal-gray sweater, black jeans and cross trainers, he actually   looked even more gorgeous, which was just disconcerting. He looked   so … different. The only thing familiar about him was the scowl.                       
       
           



       

When she caught herself just staring at him like a big dummy, she said   quickly, "Hi. Come on in. Baby's in the kitchen and I don't want to   leave him alone, so close the door, will you, it's cold out there."

Simon opened his mouth to speak, but the damn woman was already gone.   She'd left him standing on the porch and raced off before he could so   much as say hello. Of course, he'd had the chance to speak, he simply   hadn't. He'd been caught up in looking at her. Just as he had earlier   that day in his office.

Those big blue eyes of hers were … mesmerizing somehow. Every time he   looked into them, he forgot what he was thinking and lost himself for a   moment or two. Not something he wanted to admit, even to himself, but   there it was. Frowning, he reminded himself that he'd come to her house   to set down some rules. To make sure Tula Barrons understood exactly  how  this bizarre situation was going to progress. Instead, he was  standing  on the front porch, thinking about just how good a woman could  look in a  pair of faded blue jeans.

Swallowing the stab of irritation at himself, he followed after her.   Tula wasn't his main concern here, after all. He was here because of the   child. His son? He was having a hard time believing it was possible,   but he couldn't walk away from this until he knew for sure. Because if   the baby was his, there was no way he would allow his child to be raised   by someone else.

He'd been thinking about little else but this woman and the child she   said belonged to him since she'd left his office that morning. With his   concentration so unfocused, he'd finally given up on getting any work   done and had gone to see his lawyer.

After that illuminating little visit, he'd spent the last couple of   hours thinking back to the brief time he'd spent with Sherry Taylor. He   still didn't remember much about her, but he had to admit that there  was  at least the possibility that her child was his.

Which was why he was here. He stepped inside and his foot came down on   something that protested with a loud squeak. He glanced down at the   rubber reindeer and shook his head as he closed the door. His gaze swept   the interior of the small house and he shook his head. If more than  two  people were in the damn living room, they wouldn't be able to  breathe  at the same time. The house was old and small and … bright, he  thought,  giving the nearly electric blue walls an astonished glance.

The blue walls boasted dark yellow molding that ran around the   circumference of the room at the ceiling. There was a short sofa and one   chair drawn up in front of a hearth where a tiny blaze sputtered and   spat from behind a wrought-iron screen. Toys were strewn across the   floor as if a hurricane had swept through and there was a narrow   staircase on the far wall leading to what he assumed was an even tinier   second story.

The whole place was a dollhouse. He almost felt like Gulliver. Still   frowning, he heard Tula in the kitchen, talking in a singsong voice   people invariably tended to use around babies. He told himself to go on   in there, but he didn't move. It was as if his feet were nailed to the   wood floor. It wasn't that he was afraid of the baby or anything, but   Simon knew damn well that the moment he saw the child, his world as he   knew it would cease to exist.

If this baby were his son, nothing would ever be the same again.

A child's bubble of laughter erupted in the other room and Simon took a   breath and held it. Something inside him tightened and he told himself   to move on. To get this first meeting over so that plans could be made,   strategies devised.

But he didn't move. Instead, he noticed the framed drawings and   paintings on the walls, most of which were of a lop-eared bunny in   different poses. Why the woman would choose to display such childish   paintings was beyond him, but Tula Barrons, he was discovering, was   different from any other woman he'd ever known.

The child laughed again.

Simon nodded to himself and followed the sound and the amazing scents in the air to the kitchen.

It didn't take him long.

Three long strides had him leaving the living room and entering a bright   yellow room that was about the size of his walk-in closet at home.   Again, he felt as out of place as a beer at a wine tasting. This whole   house seemed to have been built for tiny people and a man his size was   bound to feel as if he had to hunch his shoulders to keep from rapping   his head on the ceiling.

He noted that the kitchen was clean but as cluttered as the living room.   Canisters lined up on the counter beside a small microwave and an even   smaller TV. Cupboard doors were made of glass, displaying ancient  china  stacked neatly. A basket with clean baby clothes waiting to be  folded  was standing on the table for two and the smells pouring from  the oven  had his mouth watering and his stomach rumbling in response.                       
       
           



       

Then his gaze dropped on Tula Barrons as she straightened up, holding   the baby she'd just taken from a high chair in her arms. She settled the   chubby baby on her right hip, gave Simon a brilliant smile and said,   "Here he is. Your son."

Simon's gaze locked on the boy who was staring at him out of a pair of   eyes too much like his own to deny. His lawyer had advised him to do   nothing until a paternity test had been arranged. But Harry had always   been too cautious, which was why he made such a great lawyer. Simon   tended to go with his gut on big decisions and that instinct had never   let him down yet.