The Baby Contract

by Barbara Dunlop

Their oldest brother, Rand, was a decorated captain on a Navy cruiser somewhere in the Mediterranean. Franklin’s Green Beret missions for the Army were secretive. But he was probably hunkered down in a jungle on some mountainside, monitoring drug kingpins or rebels.

  Zoey continued, “And I knew you wouldn’t freak out.”

  “True enough,” Mila said as she worked her way through the oversize muffin. “I’ve got far too many other things pinging my worry meter.”

  Zoey’s clandestine love life would have to take a backseat to Troy’s reluctance and Kassidy’s security.

  “Things like Troy Keiser,” Zoey said, the glint returning to her eyes.

  Mila refused to take the bait. “If I don’t get him to hire me permanently, I’ll have to explain a professional failure to the family.”

  Zoey lifted her coffee cup. “If you fail, it’ll take the pressure off me.”

  “Or the other way around,” said Mila. “If they’re freaking out about Dustin Earl, nobody’s going to care that I’ve blown my dream job.”

  “You want to bet on that?”

  “No,” said Mila.

  Not that she’d ever wish her sister ill. But she doubted even the infamous Judge Earl would be enough to distract her family from any kind of career failure.

  If Troy turned her down, she’d have four drill sergeants all shouting at her to get up off the mat, to regroup and try again. If a job with Troy Keiser was the best credential for her future career, then that was exactly what Mila was expected to achieve. No hesitation, no excuses, no giving up.

  “I’m headed to Pinion Security right now,” she said, polishing off the last of her coffee.

  “Show him what you’ve got, little sister.”

  Mila had made up her mind to take it slow, take it steady and methodical in order to impress Troy. She wouldn’t try to knock it out of the park in the first five minutes.

  “There’s nothing for me to do but paperwork this morning,” she said. “And after that I have to find a nanny.”

  “A nanny?”

  “Kassidy can’t perform without someone to take care of Drake.”

  “And if she can’t perform, she can’t be in danger. And if she’s not in danger, you can’t save her.”

  Mila frowned, not liking the way that sounded. “My plan is to keep her out of danger. If there’s no danger, I’ve still done my job.”

  “Troy Keiser probably won’t be all that impressed if you keep her safe from nothing.”

  Much as she hated it, Mila knew Zoey’s words were the bald truth. If Kassidy’s fans were simply fans, it would be difficult for Mila to shine. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to wish any danger on Kassidy. And the most foolish move in the world would be for her to see things that weren’t there. She’d have to keep herself on an even keel, make sure she didn’t look too hard for threats.

  * * *

  This morning, Troy had found himself second-guessing his decision to hire Mila. Second guessing wasn’t like him. And he couldn’t afford to do it. He was in a business full of split-second decisions, most of which were final, some deadly final.

  “How did she convince you?” Vegas asked from across their shared office.

  It was a utilitarian room, with a couple of guest chairs, computers, monitors, an old-fashioned whiteboard and a large rectangular work table in the middle. Their desks both faced the windows, side by side, looking toward the river.

  “It was Drake who wore me down,” said Troy. “I don’t care who does it, but somebody’s hiring a nanny.”

  “Kassidy can hire her own nanny.”

  Troy had to admit it was true. Not that he had a whole lot of faith in Kassidy’s judgment. But she could use a reputable service. Last night’s nanny seemed perfectly fine. Her only problem was leaving too early.

  “Mila seems methodical,” Troy said to Vegas, using the reason he’d settled on for himself. “I appreciate methodical.”

  “Do you think Kassidy’s under any real threat?”

  “I think Mila will find out. If it’s nothing, terrific. Then once we have a nanny, Mila’s gone.”

  Troy would let her go without a second thought. Her persistence might have seemed admirable last night, but she was just another investigator. He’d decided that a woman was probably good for Kassidy under the current circumstances, but once the threat assessment was complete, that would be the end.

  “Have you set up the employment entry tests?” asked Vegas.

  “No.” Troy was surprised by the question. “This isn’t a regular hire.”

  Successful completion of four stringent performance tests was required of every Pinion Security agent—tradecraft theory, technical skills, weapons proficiency and physical fitness. There was an overall 80 percent failure rate, even among ex-military members. The obstacle course was particularly grueling. There was no way a woman could complete it.

  “So, you’re lowering the standards?” asked Vegas.

  Troy took in his partner’s critical expression. “Yes. I’m lowering the standards. For her. It’s a one-shot mission, she’s not—”

  “Don’t you dare lower the standards,” Mila’s voice interrupted from the doorway.

  Both men turned to the sound of her voice.

  “This is a private conversation,” Troy said, coming to his feet.

  “Then you should have closed the door.” Her green eyes were hard as emeralds. “I don’t need to start at the ladies’ tee.”

  “You’re a woman,” said Troy. “And you’re a temp. Testing you would be a waste of time.”

  “Then I’ll do the tests on my own time.” She paced briskly into the office. “It’ll be hard enough getting the other security agents’ respect without skipping the entry tests.”

  “You’re not going to get their respect,” said Troy. It was the truth, and there was no point pretending otherwise.

  “Not like this, I’m not.”

  “And you don’t need it. You’ll be working on your own with Kassidy.”

  His concern that hiring her had been a mistake was back in force. He should reverse the decision. He should do that right now.

  “Maybe.” She rested both her butt and the heels of her hands against the work table. “But it doesn’t matter. I’ll still be around them.”

  Not if he fired her, she wouldn’t.

  He sized up the determination in her eyes and was reminded of the admiration he’d felt last night. She definitely had tenacity going for her. Too bad it wouldn’t be enough. Even if she could shoot straight, she was too small and weak to make it through the fitness course. And there was no way to picture her in hand-to-hand knife combat. No way in the world.

  “Let her do it,” said Vegas.

  Troy turned to stare, astonished that Vegas had contradicted him. Vegas was normally reserved and more than circumspect.

  “She’ll fail,” Troy told him in an unyielding tone.

  “I won’t,” she said, straightening to square her shoulders and cross her arms over her chest.

  It was obvious she was trying to be tough, but she was too attractive to pull it off.

  “You’re going to carry a two-hundred-pound dummy?” said Troy, naming only one of more than twenty obstacles.

  “I know how to lift.”

  “A forty-foot rope climb? A twenty-kilometer road course?”

  “I can run. I can climb. I can swim. And I can shoot. Don’t make assumptions of what I can’t do, Troy.”

  He wasn’t assuming. If he let her skip the tests, the guys might not like it, but that was on him. If she took the tests and failed, then it was on her. She was either too dumb or too stubborn to understand the risks.

  She walked toward him, lips pursing.

  The closer she got, the more vivid h
is memory. He could see her in his apartment office, her cheeks flushed, her chest rising and falling, the awareness in her green eyes and that final moment when she’d realized he was going to kiss her.

  He wanted to kiss those pursed lips right here and now. He didn’t want her struggling through the obstacle course, stumbling with exhaustion, crawling through mud. He’d seen tough men reduced to tears over it. How would that help her gain the respect of her fellow security agents?

  “No,” he told her in a resolute tone.

  “Yes,” she said, stopping only inches from him, looking up into his eyes, hers glittering with icy determination.

  “Can’t you see I’m trying to help you?”

  “Can’t you see I don’t want your help?” She looked to Vegas, addressing her next question to him. “He’s your partner. How do I change his mind?”

  Vegas shrugged his broad shoulders. “Personally, I use thirty-year-old single malt.”

  “Done,” Mila said without hesitation.

  She made a crisp turn and left the office.

  Troy glared at Vegas. “Really? You advised her to bribe me?”

  Vegas gave an amused smile. “You should thank me. I was going to suggest she use sex.”

  “What?”

  “I can see the way you look at her.”

  “That is not where this is going.”

  Sure, Mila was attractive. And maybe he wanted to kiss her. Maybe he wanted to do more. But that was simple hormones.

  There was no denying she was sexy. But there wasn’t a chance in the world he’d take a bad situation and make it even worse.

  Besides, he assured himself, he liked his women soft and malleable, someone with a pretty hairdo, makeup and a silk dress. There were differences between men and women. As far as Troy was concerned, the more acute those differences, the better.

  Sleep with Mila—yeah, right.

  Sleep with an employee, not a chance.

  And the idea that she could vamp him into changing his mind was laughable.

  “We’ll see,” said Vegas.

  “No, we won’t see. I’ve made a decision.”

  “It’s the wrong decision.” Vegas looked completely serious. “You just parachute her in, without having her take the tests, and the guys will eat her for lunch.”

  “They’re going to eat her for lunch anyway. That’s why we don’t hire women.”

  “Maybe we should,” said Vegas. “If we’d hired one before now, this wouldn’t be such a problem.”

  Troy clamped his jaw. He didn’t have to say the words out loud.

  Vegas’s expression took on a shade of sympathy. “We’ve lost men before, too.”

  “But not through our own stupidity.”

  “We weren’t stupid to hire Gabriela.”

  “We were stupid to get her killed on day five.”

  “Ops go bad sometimes,” said Vegas.

  “She never should have been in that house.”

  “It wasn’t because she was a woman.”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  Vegas heaved a sigh. “It was a bad deal all around.”

  Troy dropped back down into his chair. “It was. And I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.”

  “Nobody’s asking you to do that.”

  Troy stared at Vegas, but all he saw were Gabriela’s big brown eyes. She’d been laughing as she left the office that day. She’d had a date coming up on the weekend, some guy she’d met at the gym. Troy remembered feeling sorry for him, knowing Gabriela was as tough as they came.

  “The obstacle course isn’t dangerous.” Vegas interrupted his thoughts.

  Troy switched his focus to the present. “Yes, it is.”

  “Okay, it is dangerous, but it’s not deadly. And you are hiring Mila to protect your sister.”

  “I’m hiring her to read social media and find a nanny.”

  “She’s not working in a bubble. And she’s trained. She’s got some experience. Give her a chance with the company tests. You know she’ll get more respect for trying and failing than she will for not stepping up at all.”

  Troy opened his mouth to rebut, but a new argument didn’t form. He realized that stopping Mila from taking the tests wasn’t his best move. His best move would have been not have hired her in the first place.

  He hated it when he screwed up.

  Four

  “Time,” Troy shouted, and the lights came up in Pinion’s basement shooting range.

  Mila set the completely reassembled AK-47 down on the table and stepped back, mentally crossing her fingers that she’d gotten it all right. Target shooting was one thing, and she’d aced that part of the exam. She was also confident her reflexes had been fast and her aim accurate in the tactical house.

  Troy approached the table and lifted the weapon.

  “You should have warned me,” she said.

  “I did warn you.”

  “I meant that I’d be disassembling an automatic weapon under combat conditions.”

  He gave a ghost of a smirk. “It was recorded gunfire and flashing lights.”

  “I wasn’t expecting combat field weapons. Who uses an AK-47 on the streets of DC?”

  “Hopefully, no one.”

  “Then why test me on it?”

  Had she known he was testing her as a combat mercenary, she’d have refreshed her memory on a whole bunch of topics.

  “You wanted the standard tests. Pinion has offices in Europe, South America and the Middle East.”

  She couldn’t help but move forward for a closer look. She wanted to ask him if she’d passed, but she also wanted to look confident by pretending not to be worried.

  “Will you send me to South America?” she asked instead.

  “You don’t want to sleep on the floor of the jungle.”

  “I’m not a princess.”

  He barked out a laugh. “You don’t have to be a princess to hate leeches and poisonous snakes.”

  “Do you hate them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you put up with them?”

  “Only when I have to.” After an initial inspection, he worked the action of the gun.

  She held her breath, but the click and clatter sounded normal. Thank goodness.

  She kept her voice even and unconcerned, pretending she wasn’t attuned to his every movement, expression and word. “What’s your main focus in South America?”

  Research had told her Pinion protected business executives and provided security to resource companies operating in areas with drug trade and guerrilla activity.

  He walked the few paces to the shooting range and pushed a magazine into the gun. “Lately, it’s been VIPs. Kidnappings are on the rise. Mine-site protection is pretty much standardized, and very effective. The drug lords don’t mess with gems and minerals, and the guerrilla groups want the notoriety of a high-profile hostage as much as they want the insurance payout.”

  “Kidnapping insurance has been a mixed blessing.”

  He snapped on a set of earmuffs and raised the weapon to his shoulder. She followed suit, covering her own ears.

  “You could put it that way,” he shouted.

  Then he pulled the trigger, and three shots rang out in rapid succession, hitting the center of a bull’s-eye target fifty yards away.

  “It’s better if they have insurance,” he stated in a raised voice, releasing the magazine and popping a cartridge out of the chamber.

  “If there was no insurance, on aggregate, fewer people would get kidnapped.” She pulled off the earmuffs.

  “I’m insured,” he said, placing the AK-47 back on the table and removing his own hearing protection. “And as a Pinion employee, you are, too.”
r />   “So you could send me to South America.”

  “Bushmasters grow up to ten feet long.”

  “Venomous?”

  “Yes.”

  She wasn’t even going to pretend she wanted to cope with a ten-foot snake. “Perhaps a nice city posting. Maybe Buenos Aires?”

  He’d come closer as they spoke. “Not a lot of guerrilla activity in Buenos Aires.”

  His eyes were deep blue, intelligent with a trace of humor.

  He was incredibly sexy. If he was anyone else, in any other circumstance, she’d be parting her lips, tipping her head with an invitation. Or maybe she’d just up and kiss him, forget waiting for him to make the first move.

  “You passed weapons proficiency,” he said softly.

  “I know.”

  The back of his hand brushed hers, sending a rush of warmth along her arm. He didn’t pull away, and neither did she.

  “Is that bravado?” he asked, carefully watching her expression.

  “I’m well trained.”

  She knew she should back away. She was sending signals she didn’t want to send, waiting for something to happen that couldn’t happen. Her brain was conjuring up his kiss in vivid detail. He had to be a fantastic kisser. A man didn’t look like that, didn’t smell like that, didn’t have that predatory expression if he wasn’t about to deliver an amazing kiss.

  He tripped the backs of his fingertips up her bare arm.

  Her stomach contracted. It fluttered. Her entire body stilled in anticipation.

  The buzz of the fluorescents grew louder while the white light flickered rapidly in her peripheral vision. Troy’s earthy scent blocked out the sharp tang of gunpowder. Her skin was heating, the moist air pressing against it like bathwater.

  He bent his head.

  She waited.

  His lips brushed hers, and heat rocked to her core.

  He groaned, leaning into her, his arms wrapping around her, his lips going firm against hers, parting, invading.

  She kissed him back, her hands balling into fists, pressing them to his hips. This was reckless and dangerous and downright stupid, but she gave in to the insistent pangs of arousal as they coursed through her. She touched her tongue to his, marveling at the flood of sensation.