Allison Leigh - Millionaire's Instant Baby

Emma gasped, automatically closing her arm over the carrier. She looked across the hood of her ancient car to the gleaming late-model sports car against which Kyle Montgomery leaned lazily. Her heart was thudding only because he’d startled her, she assured herself.

“My two hands are quite sufficient,” she said, flushing when the words came out sounding breathless. She swept her hand once more through the interior of her case searching, searching.

He tilted his head slightly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Emma swallowed and pulled the case in front of her, pushing aside the clothing she’d worn to the hospital in her search. She was certain she’d dumped the keys in the bottom of the case.

“You’re overflowing there.”

She frowned, looking up. Right there, large as life, was her white cotton bra, D cup and all, hanging drunkenly over the side of the case. She hastily shoved it back inside, finally encountered the sharp edge of a key with her fingertip and pulled the set out triumphantly. Without bothering to refasten the zipper of the case, she hurriedly unlocked the car and dumped the two bags inside, rolled the car window halfway down and reached for the baby carrier. From the corner of her eye, she could see Kyle still leaning against his car.

He’d added the tie that had been missing that morning. Looking just as spit-polished as she’d figured he’d look. She swallowed and tried blocking him from her sight as she bent over her baby.

Though she’d practiced fastening the baby carrier into the stationary base that was already in the car, she fumbled the job. Chandler started whimpering and Emma crooned soothingly to him as she tried again. But the latch wouldn’t connect.

Painfully aware of Kyle’s gaze, which she couldn’t seem to ignore no matter how hard she tried, she worked at the carrier again. And again. Chandler started crying in earnest. “Oh, pumpkin, don’t,” she murmured, trying to distract him with the pacifier the nurse had sent with them. But Chandler wasn’t interested in the pacifier, and his newborn wail rose.

The panic rose in her far too easily. Her knees felt wobbly and all she wanted to do was lie down. She took a deep breath and tried fitting the carrier into place once more. What was wrong with the thing?

“Let me give it a try.”

Emma looked over her shoulder at Kyle, who’d moved to stand behind her. His wide shoulders blocked the bright afternoon sun in a way that no man wearing a silk tie should be able to do. “I can do it.”

“I’m sure you can,” he said mildly. “But that’s the same model I bought my sister when she had her baby. Remember, the one I told you—”

“I remember.” Feeling cross, she pulled the carrier back out of the car and propped it between her hip and the open car door while she tried coaxing Chandler to take the pacifier. At last he did, his cries ceasing as his lips worked rhythmically.

“He’s hungry.”

“I’m aware of that.” And her breasts positively ached for relief. But she wasn’t going to tell this man that. Not that she needed to, she realized with a hot flush, because his eyes had definitely been eyeing her there. “Don’t you have planes to fly somewhere or something?”

His eyes crinkled and he gently, firmly, nudged her out of the way, easily replacing her hands on the carrier with his own. “I am a pilot,” he said as he leaned into the car. “But unfortunately the business end of things keeps me on the ground pretty much these days. There. All set.”

He straightened and Emma could see the carrier had been transformed into a secure car seat. Naturally. She felt like bawling. “I…Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He looked at her, not smiling, just being male and competent and calmly accepting the tears collecting in her eyes. This last made the urge to cry magically fade. “I’ll follow you home.”

His statement was oddly appealing. And as such, completely out of the question. She blinked, moved away from him and his hypnotic scent, and pushed the door closed. He either had to move or have his hip banged.

“What for? To see if I can release the carrier once I get there?” She knew she was being rude. He had helped her with the carrier, after all. But criminy, the man seemed incapable of taking no for an answer. “I don’t know how to get it through to you, Mr. Montgomery, but you cannot buy me into playing your pretend-marriage game.”

His eyebrows peaked. “Buy?”

“So please just go make your offer to some other woman.” Some other woman who can think straight when you look at her with those green eyes.

“Buy?” he repeated.

Emma propped a steadying hand on the car, her attention veering from Chandler to Kyle and back again. Chandler, for the moment, seemed satisfied with his pacifier.

“Yes. Buy.” Did she have a For Sale sign tattooed on her forehead that was visible only to men or something? “I’m no actress, Mr. Montgomery, and my mama always told me that anyone with eyesight could see in my face when I was telling a lie. Frankly I can’t imagine what you could pay that would make attempting such a pretense worth my while. I’d be lying not only for your business deal but also to my friends here. So please, take your…offer to someone else.”

She jingled her car keys. Decided she wasn’t finished. “Better yet, Mr. Montgomery, make your business deal with this other man without lying at all. Don’t you think a man who has such staunch values as you’ve described would prefer a man of integrity to a man who’d resort to a ruse to get his way? Just tell him how the whole misunderstanding began with his stepdaughter.”

Kyle shook his head. “My integrity is intact, thanks,” he said shortly. “And you are making too much of a simple thing, Emma. If the pretense bothers you so greatly, I guess I’m willing to make it a legal reality. An annulment after the merger is complete and our lives will continue on as if nothing had ever happened.”

“Oh, sugar, that’s even more ridiculous. I’m a complete stranger to you, but you’re willing to marry me to pull off some business deal. Yet you’re not willing to tell some man you don’t really have a wife, after all? Have you listened to yourself? Do you know how insane that sounds?” Frankly, she thought, a woman would have to be dead to continue on as if nothing had ever happened after meeting Kyle Montgomery. And she was as insane as he was to be debating the merits of such a ridiculous scheme with him.

“I know exactly what I’m proposing, Emma. I haven’t gotten to where I am in life by making foolish choices. Choosing you to be my wife, pretend or otherwise, may be a calculated risk, but it’s not remotely insane.”

Emma just shook her head and slowly walked around the car to the driver’s side, using the car as a support to lean on as she moved. She pulled open the door, then looked at him over the roof. “It’s a lovely summer afternoon, Mr. Montgomery. Take a walk in the park over there between the buildings. The flowers are beautiful this time of year. Or go across the street to the diner and tell Millie that you’d like a piece of her indescribably delicious blueberry pie. Tell her I sent you and that it’s on me, even. But please, please, give up this ridiculous plan of yours. I can’t be a part of it.”

“You refuse to be, you mean.”

“Is there any difference?” She squinted into the sunlight. “My integrity isn’t for sale.”

“If I thought it was, Emma, I wouldn’t have decided you were exactly the person I needed to help me.” He stepped closer to the car, pinning her with his intense gaze. “When I said I’d make it worth your while, I merely meant that I wouldn’t expect you to give up the next six weeks or so of your life without some recompense. I was thinking more on the order of covering your medical costs for the baby. Establishing a trust for Chandler’s future. Providing medical insurance for you and your son for the next several years, at least until you can obtain your music-education degree and become established in your career.”

Her lips parted. “How did you know—”

“I know a great deal.”

She closed her mouth. All a person had to do was go into the diner a few times and he could learn all the gossip he wanted about the waitresses and regular customers. Most everybody who went into the diner knew what her field of study was and how long she’d been inching toward her degree. She didn’t need to start conjuring up silly notions of investigations and dossiers. Just because that was what Jeremy’s family had—

She closed off the thought. She wanted to go home and get off her feet for a while, feed her son, hold him close and pretend that her body didn’t ache as if it had been twisted inside out.

“Goodbye, Mr. Montgomery. It’s been…interesting meeting you.” She slid into the car, catching her breath at the sharp “discomfort” of the sudden movement.

As she backed out of her parking spot and drove away, she could see Kyle in her rearview mirror. His hands were pushed in his pockets, his stance relaxed. The afternoon breeze ruffled his chestnut hair.

She pulled up at a stop sign, waiting for the traffic to clear, and looked over at her son. “That man is more trouble than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Chandler blinked his round eyes and sucked enthusiastically at his pacifier. Emma was certain he was agreeing with her.

Emma’s apartment was a simple studio over the detached garage behind a big old house owned by Penny Holloman. As soon as she pulled up beside the garage and climbed out of the car, she heard Penny call from the back porch. She watched as the older woman skipped down the porch steps and started across the expansive yard.

Emma smiled with real pleasure and waved at her landlady. She reached in and unstrapped Chandler from the carrier, deciding just to leave it where it was, and carefully lifted his warm little body out just as Penny reached her side.

“Oh, sweetie, he’s just a peach.” Penny brushed her hands down her colorful shirt before reaching out. “Let me take him. You must be exhausted. I swear, when I had Elliot, they kept me in the hospital for a week. Was I ever glad, let me tell you. The last thing I wanted to do was get back home and start cooking three meals a day when I was a nervous wreck about doing something wrong with a new baby.”

Emma’s arms felt empty when Penny took Chandler into her own. But the other woman was oohing and ahhing over him, obviously delighted to hold him. Emma collected the plastic bag and her case and drew in a breath as she faced the wooden steps leading up the side of the garage to her apartment.

“I just got home myself, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to meet you at the hospital,” Penny chattered on, taking Emma’s overnighter from her. “You shouldn’t be carrying that,” she chastised, heading up the stairs. “If I could have canceled my meeting, I would have. I feel terrible that you drove yourself home like this.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Emma followed her landlady more slowly. Once she got Chandler fed and settled, she was definitely going to take a few of those extra-strength pain relievers her doctor had advised. “Megan agreed to, but I said no. We were fine.” She made it to the landing and pushed open the door, stopping short. “Oh, my!”

Penny laughed and rested her cheek on Chandler’s head. “Isn’t it fabulous? Why didn’t you tell me you’d met a man? Because I know for certain that good-for-nothing Jeremy St. James would never have been so extravagant.”

Emma cautiously stepped into her apartment. Glorious displays of summer flowers decorated every single surface. An enormous bouquet of yellow and white balloons hovered above her small round dining table. “I haven’t met a man,” she murmured faintly. Cheerful daisies graced the small table just inside the door and she touched one of the blooms. “Well, nobody except…No. He wouldn’t have. He couldn’t—”