Miranda Lee - The Boss's Baby

“Tell me one good reason. why you and I can’t continue to be lovers.” “Tell me one good reason. why you and I can’t continue to be lovers.” Fury ignited along her veins. Sex! Was that all he ever wanted from her? Was that all he ever wanted from any woman whom he didn’t rate as a perfect ten? “Very well,” she bit out. “I’ll give you one very good reason. Soon, you won’t want me as your lover. Soon, that wonderful chemistry you spoke of will fail to spark, because I’ll be too big and fat to inspire much in you except revulsion. Yes, Lewis, I see the penny’s beginning to drop. Yes, that’s right. I’m going to have a baby!” She’s sexy, successful... and PREGNANT! She’s sexy, successful... and PREGNANT! Relax and enjoy our fabulous series about spirited women and gorgeous men, whose passion results in pregnancies...sometimes unexpected! Of course, the birth of a baby is always a joyful event, and we can guarantee that our characters will become besotted moms and dads—but what happened in those nine months before? Share the surprises, emotions, dramas and suspense as our parents-to-be come to terms with the prospect of bringing a new little life into the world.... All will discover that the business of making babies brings with it the most special love of all... Look out next month for our final arrival— a Christmas baby—in The Yuletide Child (#2070) by Charlotte Lamb Title Page The Boss’s Baby Miranda Lee www.millsandboon.co.uk 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 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Copyright

“Tell me one good reason. why you and I can’t continue to be lovers.”

Fury ignited along her veins. Sex! Was that all he ever wanted from her? Was that all he ever wanted from any woman whom he didn’t rate as a perfect ten?

“Very well,” she bit out. “I’ll give you one very good reason. Soon, you won’t want me as your lover. Soon, that wonderful chemistry you spoke of will fail to spark, because I’ll be too big and fat to inspire much in you except revulsion. Yes, Lewis, I see the penny’s beginning to drop. Yes, that’s right. I’m going to have a baby!”

She’s sexy, successful... and PREGNANT!

Relax and enjoy our fabulous series about

spirited women and gorgeous men, whose

passion results in pregnancies...sometimes

unexpected! Of course, the birth of a baby is

always a joyful event, and we can guarantee that

our characters will become besotted moms and

dads—but what happened in those nine

months before?

Share the surprises, emotions, dramas and

suspense as our parents-to-be come to terms

with the prospect of bringing a new little life into

the world.... All will discover that the business of

making babies brings with it the most special

love of all...

Look out next month for our final arrival—

a Christmas baby—in

The Yuletide Child (#2070)

by Charlotte Lamb

The Boss’s Baby

Miranda Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘IS THERE anything wrong, Olivia?’

Olivia glanced up to find her boss frowning down at her from his considerable height. With great difficulty, she pushed aside her whirling thoughts and smiled one of those small plastic smiles she used round the office.

‘Not at all,’ she said, but the smile felt like cement. ‘Everything’s fine. I’m fine.’ Dropping her eyes from his probing gaze, Olivia busied herself, mindlessly tidying her desk top. She wasn’t about to confide her personal problems to her boss. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.

When she’d been hired eighteen months before, Lewis had warned her that his wife had not been happy with his previous secretary’s far too familiar manner, and far too glamorous mode of dressing.

Olivia had been only too happy to present the reserved and conservative image which found favour with the boss’s wife. She was a reserved type of girl anyway, and had always been a conservative dresser. Years before she’d settled on always wearing basic black to work, with the odd white or cream blouse thrown in. That way, the only accessories she needed were black.

Her wardrobe was very economical, as was the simple hairstyle which saw her long straight dark auburn hair swept back from her face and secured in a big loop at the nape of her neck, the anchoring band always covered by a plain black clip or bow. Economical too was the minimal amount of make-up and jewellery which adorned the rest of her.

On her rare visits to the office, the boss’s wife had never had any reason to be suspicious or jealous of her husband’s new private secretary. Olivia made sure she never crossed the line where Lewis was concerned. She had no reason to. Tall, dark and handsome her boss might be, but she was very much in love with the man she was going to marry.

Ironically, Lewis and his wife had still broken up six months back, an event which had propelled the boss into a permanently morose and introverted mood. His noticing Olivia’s own wretched and distracted state of mind was unusual to say the least, and quite irritating. Why couldn’t he have stayed buried in his laboratory all morning, as had become his habit lately? Why did he have to come out and pry into her own private misery?

‘You don’t look fine,’ he persisted.

‘Oh?’ Her hands automatically lifted to check her hair.

‘I’m not talking about how you look,’ Lewis snapped, ‘but how you’re acting. Ever since you got in this morning you’ve been just sitting there, staring into space.’

Space. Now that was a word Olivia wasn’t too thrilled with this morning. Space! Nicholas, her fiancé, had told her last night that he needed more space. It was one of his excuses for opting out of their relationship. That and about a million others!

‘You haven’t even turned on your computer,’ Lewis added, as though that were the crime of the century.

A glance up at the wall clock showed Olivia it was almost nine-thirty. She’d been sitting at her desk doing nothing for over an hour. Wearily, she reached forward to snap on the screen, muttering, ‘Sorry,’ as she did so.

Lewis’s sigh was full of male frustration. ‘For pity’s sake, Olivia, you don’t have to apologise! I don’t give a damn whether you work or not. I’m concerned about you; can’t you see that?’

‘Concerned?’ she repeated disbelievingly as her eyes lifted back to his.

It had been a long time since anyone had expressed concern about her, possibly because she always portrayed such a coolly efficient image. Her parents always thought she had it all together, as did her two younger sisters. It was she who usually handed out the advice, happily lecturing her family on matters of budgeting and goal-setting.

She’d had her life totally mapped out ... till last night, when Nicholas had packed his bags and stormed out of their flat, leaving her alone with the person he’d nastily described at length during the previous sixty minutes, that controlling, stingy, boring bitch who’d been ruining his life for the past two years, ruling his every waking moment, smothering his personality and turning him into a spineless, mindless wimp.

He was tired of saving money, tired of eating in and very tired of only having sex in a bed!

He was younger than she was, he’d reminded her scathingly. He wanted some fun before he settled down. Some fun and some space. He didn’t want to get married just yet. He didn’t want the responsibility of a mortgage and kids. He certainly didn’t want to buy a family car. He wanted to drive a Porsche. He wanted to travel. He wanted other women, women who knew that oral was not just a brand of toothbrush!

His dumping on their sex life really stung, because she’d never imagined their love life had been inadequate, or that Nicholas was so discontent in that area. For one thing, he’d always told her he fully understood her distaste for certain forms of foreplay. In fact, he’d claimed to share her feelings on the matter.

‘There’s not a spontaneous sexual bone in your body, Olivia,’ he’d flung at her in parting. ‘You have no idea how to make a man happy. No bloody idea!’

At the time she’d thought he was mad. Now, suddenly, crushingly, she believed him.

‘Olivia? What is it?’ her boss demanded to know.

Valiantly, she fought back the tears.

‘Is it Nicholas?’

All she could do was nod, her eyes dropping lest she lose the battle.

‘Is he ill?’

She shook her head from side to side.

‘Don’t tell me you two have split up!’

Olivia winced at the note of disbelief in his voice. ‘Twenty-four hours ago she would have been just as sceptical over such a thing happening. She’d been so sure they were right for each other; that they’d wanted the same things. Marriage next year. A house the year after that, then their first baby before she turned thirty.

Now, the only thing Olivia could see for herself by thirty was loneliness. It had taken her years of looking to find Nicholas. She was already twenty-seven...

‘Please, Lewis,’ she said, stiffening her shoulders and her quavering bottom lip while she brought up the correspondence file on the computer. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

She felt his eyes hard upon her, but simply refused to meet them. She stared straight ahead at the screen and began tapping on the keyboard.

‘Don’t worry too much, Olivia,’ Lewis said. ‘Give him a day or two and he’ll come to his senses. I’ll bet he comes crawling back before the week is out.’

Olivia’s head jerked up, hope flooding her heart.

‘Do you think so?’

‘No sane man would leave a girl like you, Olivia,’ her boss pronounced firmly. ‘Trust me.’

Nicholas did come back the following weekend, but he wasn’t crawling, and he didn’t stay. He merely collected a few personal things he’d left behind—some toiletries and his CD collection. As he strode out the door with hurtful nonchalance, he sarcastically told Olivia she could keep the wonderful furniture they’d been sharing.

From her front window, she watched him drive off in a brand-new black Porsche on which he must have wasted his entire savings, money which was to have been half of the deposit on the perfectly planned home they’d been going to build together, and in which they’d been going to rear their two perfectly planned children.

Olivia was left to weep over the thrift-shop bargains which she’d bought for a song then painstakingly stripped back and painted, thinking she was saving money for their future together. She wept on and off for another week, her depression increased by the closeness of Christmas. People were supposed to be happy at Christmas!

Olivia functioned at work on automatic pilot but wasn’t able to force herself to do much at home, even eat. Lunchtimes were spent wandering aimlessly through Parramatta Mall. She told Lewis she had Christmas shopping to do, but in fact just wanted to get away from his gently probing eyes. Her boss in sympathetic mode was not one she was used to, or comfortable with.

It was testimony to Olivia’s distracted state that her last day at work for the year was suddenly upon her and she hadn’t even bought Lewis a Christmas card, let alone a gift. Guilt consumed her as she picked up the lovely gold-embossed card Lewis had given her, not to mention the huge box of chocolates, which she’d slipped into her bottom drawer for low blood sugar emergencies.