The Tycoon's Temporary Baby(31)

“Helen has three boys of her own that she’s done a crappy job raising,” Wendy pointed out. “If she hadn’t shipped those boys off to boarding school the second they were old enough to go, maybe I’d see things differently.”

“Just be prepared. Helen’s like a bulldog with a bone when money’s involved.”

“That may be true,” Jonathon said. “But Helen isn’t here now. And we have all weekend to convince Mema that we’ll be the best parents for Peyton.”

Her mother harrumphed. “Don’t think Helen hasn’t figured that out as well. Mark my words, girly, you might be glad we came to visit you here instead of waiting for you to come to us. This might be your only chance alone with Mema to convince her that you and Jonathon are the happy, loving couple you want us all to believe.”



There were few things that terrified Jonathon. He thought of himself as a reasonable and logical man. Irrational fears were for small children. Not adults.

At nineteen, he’d spent a solid hour in the dorm room of a buddy, holding the guy’s pet tarantula in his hand to get himself over his fear of spiders. At twenty-three, about the time he’d made his first million, he’d spent three weeks in Australia learning how to scuba dive. That trip had served the joint purpose of getting him over his irrational fear of sharks and his equally irrational fear that FMJ would go under if he wasn’t available 24/7.

He now took annual diving vacations. After the first, he’d stayed closer to home.

He was a man who faced his fears and conquered them.

Which didn’t entirely explain why at nearly midnight on Saturday, he was still sitting in the kitchen sipping twenty-year-old scotch with Wendy’s father and uncle. He’d been there for hours, listening to them tell stories about Texas politics and—as her father colorfully called it—“life in the oil patch.”

Her family was entertaining, to say the least. And that was the sole reason he hadn’t headed to bed much earlier. This had nothing to do with the fact that Wendy was now sleeping in his bed.

He’d been dreading sleeping in the same bed, but that was unavoidable now. As if that wasn’t bad enough, now he couldn’t get her mother’s words out of his head.

After reminding Wendy over and over again that his own motives were selfish, why did it bother him to think that hers might not be so pure? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he hated the idea that their marriage was just one more rebellion in a long line of self-destructive behaviors. Worse still was the idea that she’d quickly lose interest in him once the tactic failed to shock her parents.

If she offered herself to him, he wouldn’t be able to resist. Even knowing what he did now, the temptation would be too sweet.

To his chagrin, he actually felt a spike of panic when her uncle stood, tossed back the last of his drink and said, “Jonathon, I appreciate the hospitality—and the scotch—but I know I’ll regret it tomorrow if I drink any more.”

Wendy’s dad stood as well. “Marian is gonna have my hide tomorrow as it is.”

Jonathon held up the decanter toward Wendy’s father. “Are you sure I can’t offer you another?”

“Well…”

But Hank slapped his brother on the arm in a jovial way. “We’re keeping him from his bride.”

“Don’t remind me,” her father grumbled.

“No man should have to entertain a couple of old blowhards when he has a lovely new wife to warm his bed.”

Jonathon nearly smiled at that, despite himself. He liked Wendy’s family far more than he wanted to admit. He knew she found them overbearing and pretentious, but there was something about their combination of good-ol’-boy charm and keen intelligence that appealed to him.

Besides, the longer he kept them here, shooting bull until all hours of the night, the greater the chance that Wendy would be fast asleep by the time he got up to the bedroom.

However, before he could even offer them yet another drink, Wendy’s father and uncle were stumbling arm in arm up the stairs to the guest bedrooms where they were staying. He winced as they banged into the antique sideboard his decorator had foolishly put outside his office. And then cringed as her father cursed loudly at the thing. Maybe he should consider himself lucky that all of their fumbling didn’t wake Mema.

He waited until they vanished down the upstairs hall before he followed, turning off lights as he went. That afternoon, he and Wendy’s father had moved Peyton’s crib from the nursery to the master bedroom. Ironic, since it had only just arrived in the past week. They’d moved the spare mattress up from the garage and now the guest-bedroom-turned-nursery was once again a guest bedroom. Throughout the process, Wendy kept insisting that her family should just book rooms at one of the many hotels in town. Mema had looked scandalized. Marian had looked offended. And Wendy had eventually caved.