The Boss's Baby Bargain
“Lucas, I’ve had a change of heart. I can’t marry you after all.”
“The facts haven’t changed, Allie. I still need a wife so that I can adopt a child, and you still need money.”
“I intend to explore other avenues for the loan.” What those would be she had no idea. “I’m sorry I can’t help you with your…situation, but marriage is out of the question.”
Resting his arms on his desk, he leaned toward her. “Why?”
Why? she asked herself. Why couldn’t she marry him? Last night at two a.m., her bedsheets tangled around her legs from her restlessness, she’d had the answers. Now it seemed none of them would hold up to his scrutiny.
“Because we hardly know one another.” She groped for the words. “Because marriage…” Because marriage is far too intimate a relationship. Because it would force a false closeness on us neither one wants.
Because you kissed me.
This one’s for the Barbaras: Barbara McMahon, my mentor and good friend; Barbara Stier, my stepmom and biggest fan; and Barbara Williams, my mom, who no doubt keeps them hopping up in heaven.
And special thanks to Jo Cain-Stiles for helping me understand Lucas.
KAREN SANDLER
first caught the writing bug at age nine when, as a horse-crazy fourth grader, she wrote a poem about a pony named Tony. Many years of hard work later, she sold her first book (and she got that pony—although his name is Ben). She enjoys writing novels, short stories and screenplays and recently produced her first short film. She lives in Northern California with her husband of twenty years and two teenage boys who are busy eating her out of house and home.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Allie Dickenson paused at Lucas Taylor’s office door, gulping in a breath and smoothing her hair with nervous hands.
She knocked twice, waiting for his impatient, “Come in!” before slipping inside and shutting the door. He sat behind his desk, his dark head bent to his work, his complete focus on the papers in his hands. Breath held, spine straight, she moved to stand before him, her stomach a mass of knots.
“Lucas, I need to talk to you.”
He took another moment to finish scribbling a note, then looked up at her, his gray eyes narrowing. Behind him, the morning sun streaming through the window backlit his large frame, casting his face into shadow. “Talk to me? About what?”
She slid her hands into the side pockets of her full skirt, her fingers clenching into fists. “Something…somewhat…personal.”
He just stared, still as a tiger stalking prey. She wished he’d look away…back to the papers cluttering his desk, out the floor-to-ceiling window that formed the back wall of his office. But of course he didn’t, and Allie had no choice but to meet his hard gaze.
“Personal?” He raised one brow. “As in unrelated to your job?”
“Yes…” The word came out as a near whisper. She swallowed, took another long breath. “…and no.”
As he fixed his gaze on her, the deep well of wishful thinking inside her imagined something in his eyes, something that set her heart to beating faster. Then his mouth tightened with annoyance. “I’m busy, Allie. Can you get to the point?”
The knots in Allie’s stomach froze into a sickening weight. She forced herself to loosen her fingers, ordered her shoulders to relax. Forming the words in her mind, she imagined them marching off her tongue. I need to borrow twenty thousand dollars. But they wouldn’t quite come. “This is hard for me to say.”
He waited for her to continue, fingers drumming. Then he picked up a pen, stroked its length with his fingertips. Forbidden thoughts arose in her mind as she followed his unconscious gesture. The brief panoply of images that emerged before she could banish them reminded her of all the reasons asking Lucas for a loan was a bad idea, no matter how desperate she was.