Having the Billionaire's Baby(19)

"Extended, divided families. It promises to be so much fun." Callie   paused. "Is she still worried about me and Jason?" She stretched her   lips and carefully applied plum-colored lipstick.



"No."

She turned away from the mirror and met his gaze directly, tried to read his thoughts. "Are you?"

His gaze lingered for a moment on her lips. "It was never about what I thought. And the third thing?"

He hadn't answered her question, but Callie let it pass. She wasn't sure   she wanted to know his answer. "The third thing," she tried to  remember  what it had been as she packed her cosmetics back into her bag  and  closed it. "You own half of my business. Something to do with  control  and leverage, if I remember correctly." He had the power to do  her a lot  of damage.

The light in Nick's eyes changed. "I'd forgotten."

It was reassuring that he had. He wasn't already looking at this as a battle and assessing potential weapons.

Callie opened the bathroom door wider and stepped past him, doing her   best to ignore the gaze that swept her from head to toe. She reached   into the closet for her shoes-too high, but gorgeous black patent   leather evening sandals. She was about to slip them onto her feet when   she remembered her toenails. She glanced at the bedside clock. There was   still time.

Sitting on her bed, she shook a bottle of nail polish and watched as   Nick paced the room. He picked up a menu for the hotel restaurant,   glanced over it before dropping it back down and turning to her. "You   claimed at the awards dinner that a rumor of pregnancy would be bad for   your business. How will the reality affect it?"

She shook the small bottle more vigorously. "I'll manage it."

"How?"

"I don't know yet." The questions put her on the spot. He was doing it   again, getting way ahead of her and what she was ready to deal with.   "Whatever it is, I'll manage. It's what I do."

"I'll help."

That she was so ready to believe him should probably worry her. It was   his business too, she reminded herself. He was only protecting his   investment. But she didn't doubt that, for some things at least, he   would be in her corner. The even more worrying thought was that he would   be a good man to have there. "Thanks," she said, and meant it.

Silence settled over them. Callie loosened the lid of the bottle and   looked at her toes. Nick's dark shoes appeared in her line of sight. "If   you really want to help, you could do this for me." She held up the   nail polish.

Showing neither surprise nor reluctance, Nick took the bottle from her   and sat on the opposite bed. "Give me your foot." She should have known   better than to hope that her request might scare him off.

Callie was suddenly the reluctant one. "Do you know what you're doing?"

He smiled. "It's been a while, but Mel used to get me to help her when   she was younger." He shrugged. "I have steady hands." Callie watched   those steady hands unscrew the lid. "How will your family take the   news?" he asked, holding out a hand for her foot.

She placed her heel into the cradle of his palm and watched, fascinated,   as, holding the delicate brush in large fingers, he brushed on an even   stroke of glistening plum polish.

"You do have family?" He glanced up before applying another stroke.

She nodded. "A mother."



"That's all?" He moved to her next toe.                       
       
           



       

"Obviously I have or had a father, but I've never met him." She'd had a   good childhood, but knew she didn't want that same vague sense of   something missing, of abandonment, for her child.

It seemed a long time before he spoke again. "You've told your mother?"

"Not yet."

"It might be easier to break it to her along with the news of our engagement."

She met his gaze. "Or not."

He nodded, but somehow it didn't seem to mean agreement.

"How will she take it?"

"She has no grounds for criticism, if that's what you mean." In fact,   Callie, who'd tried so hard to be different from her free-spirited   mother, had instead followed right along in her careless footsteps in   accidentally getting pregnant.

Nick finished another toe and looked up again. Concern softened his gaze. "I meant, will you get support from her?"

"Yes. If I ask." And it was the asking that would be the hard part.   Asking, that Callie saw as a sign of not being able to cope on her own. A   sign that she'd failed. Stupid really, because Gypsy would only want  to  help, would delight in a grandchild-one she could lavish her  affection  on when she breezed into the country. "What about your  family?"

He shrugged as though he hadn't given it any thought. And yet he'd   wondered about her family's reaction. "So long as they're allowed to   feel the child is part of the family, they'll be happy."



He made it sound so simple.

Callie withdrew her finished foot from his clasp and paused before she   lifted her other one, settled it into the hand that rested, waiting, on   his thigh. He met her gaze over her leg, his green eyes soft. For a few   moments it was as though everything would be all right, that between   them they could make it so.

"And you?" That gaze assessed her closely. "Are you okay with being a single mother?"

Callie took a deep breath. "I think life is trying to tell me that I   can't plan it all out. I wanted to do things the right way-stable   relationship, love, marriage, then kids."

For long seconds neither of them spoke. Nick of the steady hands painted   her toenails. "Love, marriage and kids. That's what you thought you   were getting with Jason?" He finished a toe and looked up, intent.

"Yes. I'd thought, hoped, that was where we were going. But I guess I   was projecting my fantasy ideals onto him. And he was comfortable with   the situation-till a better offer came along."

Nick's fingers stilled. "Are you suggesting he married Melody for-"

"I'm not suggesting anything. Jason loves her in a way he never loved   me." He'd kindly told her that himself. "I just didn't realize how much   more was possible than what we had." She paused, felt the hollowness   inside. "I won't settle for less a second time."

Nick replaced the cap on the bottle and his hand came to rest on the top   of her foot, warm and strong, fingers curving around it. "And marrying   me would be settling for less?"

"You know it would. I want the real thing, and I don't want to deny either of us the chance of finding it."



He lifted her foot, blew gently on the nails before lowering it back to his leg. "What if there is no real thing?"

The warm breath, the gesture, disconcerted her, she scrambled for thought. "There is." There had to be.

"You may never find it."

Callie pulled her foot from his hand, placed it firmly on the floor. "I   know that's a possibility." And at almost thirty the possibility seemed   very real. "But it's better than the certainty that if we tie each  other  up in a marriage we'll never find it. Or it'll be really messy if  one  of us does. Besides, you're not in the market for any kind of   commitment."

"I can commit."

She held his gaze. "Professionally and financially, sure. But not   personally or emotionally. I did some research. You've been romantically   linked to numerous beautiful women. Nothing has stuck. And you're   forgetting I know about Angelina, I remember you celebrating the end of a   relationship that was looking like too much commitment."

Nick was silent for a long time. He was looking at her, but not really seeing her.

"That was different."

With that nonargument, a weight settled in the air. Callie glanced at   her toes, wiggled them a little. "Good job on the nail polish. I could   probably get you some regular clients."

"Don't you dare tell a soul," he growled, but he was smiling and she   remembered how and why she'd been so attracted to him that first night.   His smile did something wonderful to his face. "I hope our baby gets   your smile." The words slipped out.                       
       
           



       

His gaze sharpened on her, then softened and lingered. "And your eyes."



He liked her eyes? Startled by the warmth that simple statement   generated, Callie stood. She needed to remain neutral toward him, needed   to retain her independence from him. "I should get going." She slid  her  feet carefully into her open-toe sandals.