Baby Maker - A Secret Baby Sports Star Romance

by Rayner, Holly

  “Probably none of it,” I admitted.

  Finn moved closer to me, and I felt my heart beating faster in my chest. He leaned down, his fingers brushing against mine as he placed the handle of the mug in my hands.

  He glanced outside and chuckled. “It’s snowing again,” he observed.

  I glanced out the window and sure enough, I could see the snow falling, the same way it had been the night we’d met.

  “It seems like a shame to waste a night like this,” he said, his voice low. “Besides, I’d hate it if you drove home with the snow falling down so hard. Maybe you’d better spend the night.”

  “You’re in such a hurry to spend the night with me again?” I could hear the breathless sound of my own voice, but I couldn’t make myself sound more confident. “I think the heating in your apartment is a lot better than the motel.”

  “It is,” Finn said. “But I don’t think that’s why we’re both so warm.”

  He leaned in just a couple of inches more, and I gasped slightly as his lips brushed against mine.

  Finn put the mugs down on the coffee table and kissed me more deeply, his strong arms wrapping around me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed the feeling of his body pressed against me until he lifted me up out of the chair and held me against him, kissing me hungrily.

  We broke away from each other after a few moments, and Finn looked down into my eyes. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he said softly.

  “What about the things I do want to do?”

  Finn smiled slowly. “We have hours before either of us has to be anywhere,” he told me. “I think we can manage to get through at least a few of them.”

  He kissed me again, and I realized that he was leading me towards the stairs, that we were moving towards his bedroom. I gave myself up to the moment, forgetting about the assignment, about the recorder, and about Kent; about everything but how good it felt to be in Finn’s arms, to feel his lips against mine, and his hands on my body.

  EIGHT

  Amy

  When I woke up the next morning, curled up next to Finn in his bed, a quick look through the window told me that, once again, the snow had stopped overnight. Whether I’d actually be able to drive home was a separate issue. For a few moments, I didn’t want to even acknowledge to myself that I was awake, much less let Finn know that I was.

  I sat up and realized that Finn must have been awake for a while.

  “Good morning,” he said, pulling me down against him, under the covers, for a quick kiss.

  “Were you really just lying there waiting for me to wake up?”

  Finn shrugged lazily and grinned up at me, his hands slowly trailing over my back. “Mostly, I just didn’t want to get out of bed,” he told me. “It’s too warm and comfy, with this beautiful girl right next to me—who would want to leave that?”

  “I have to go into the office today, if I can,” I said. “I should at least pretend like I have an article in the works.”

  Finn chuckled and tightened his arms around me; I loved the feeling of his skin pressed against mine more than I’d even thought possible.

  “You don’t have to go in right away, right?” He kissed my right temple and I felt something inside of me melt.

  “Not right away, no,” I admitted. “But soon.”

  “You should at least have something to eat first,” Finn suggested.

  We got out of bed and Finn handed me a thick, heavy robe with a cheery red plaid pattern on it. He pulled on a green plaid robe and tied it loosely at the waist, and I thought that while it probably didn’t do too much to keep the heat in, I definitely appreciated the sight of his bare chest.

  “I ordered something up,” he told me, leading me into the kitchen. He opened the fridge to reveal a pitcher of eggnog, and lifted a cloche off of a tray to reveal a selection of different kinds of Christmas cookies. “Merry Christmas, Amy.”

  “But it’s not Christmas yet,” I protested. “That’s—oh wow, it’s tomorrow, isn’t it?” I shook my head, shocked; somehow, in all the time I’d been chasing down the story on Finn, I hadn’t realized just how close it was getting to Christmas.

  Finn poured us each a glass of alcohol-free eggnog and I followed him into the living room with the cookies. It made me sad to realize—belatedly—that he didn’t have a tree up, or really any decorations at all. But then again, I thought, he didn’t really have a family to celebrate with. Why bother with all the trouble of decorating, just for himself?

  Unlike the night before, I felt perfectly comfortable sitting on the couch with Finn, watching the fire crackle and flicker, eating cookies and drinking eggnog. I leaned against him, and he put his arm around me, and for a little while it was a piece of heaven. It was exactly what I’d always wanted on Christmas: not just family or friends, but someone to be sweet to me, to hold me.

  You are going to have hell to pay when you go in to see Kent, I thought glumly. But I pushed the reminder of my assignment out of my mind, for the moment, at least. I wasn’t going to ruin a pleasant morning by thinking about it.

  But before too long, we’d eaten all the cookies and drank all the eggnog, and it was obvious that the snow had been cleared from the roads; I wouldn’t have the excuse for not going into work.

  “I should go in,” I said, when I couldn’t make myself put it off any longer. “Kent will be expecting to hear something from me today.”

  “You could just call and tell him your car’s frozen,” Finn suggested. “And we could stay in all day.”

  I smiled to myself, thinking of how nice that would be.

  “Nah,” I said finally, shaking my head. “What I have to report to him isn’t going to suddenly become better if I put it off. I might as well get it done before Christmas.”

  Finn watched me stand up, and I felt his gaze on me as I collected my clothes from the day before and started pulling them back on.

  “We should meet up again soon,” Finn suggested.

  “Should we?” I stopped short and looked at him, almost surprised.

  “I think so,” he said, smiling slightly. “I really enjoyed spending time with you, Amy.”

  I smiled back at him, and before I knew it, I was walking towards him on the couch, drawn to him.

  He reached out for me and pulled me in close, and I brushed my lips against his. I could taste the spices on his lips as we began to kiss, playful at first, and then more and more passionately.

  I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pressing my body against his. If it weren’t for the mounting anxiety I felt at meeting with Kent, I might have given into the idea of staying in.

  I pulled back. It was almost painful—like my body didn’t want me to, but my brain was another matter.

  “We’ll get together after Christmas, how about that?”

  Finn brushed his lips against mine once more before letting me go. “Sounds good,” he said, grinning. “I can’t wait.”

  I grabbed my recorder and my bag, and left the apartment, feeling hollower than I should have.

  NINE

  Amy

  Every step down the hall, the elevator, and then through the lobby of Finn’s building left me feeling less enthusiastic about meeting with Kent. I knew I had to do it, and I had to come up with something the Inquisitor would print. But I had no idea what I would say to him, no idea what I could say about the situation that had developed between Finn and me.

  I got into my car and carefully navigated the streets of the city away from Finn’s apartment and towards the offices of the Inquisitor, running a few different scenarios through my head. Nothing could make my failure okay. But maybe Kent would give me some extra time to figure something out. Maybe I could salvage something from the mess I’d made if I could just get the time to do it.

  By the time I reached the offices, my heart was pounding crazily in my chest. I thought about Finn, back in his apartment, and how much I wished I hadn’t left, how much I rather would have lied, cla
iming to be snowed in, and stayed with him. But I’d see him again soon—that much I was certain of. If Finn had just wanted a one-night stand with me, he could have had that the night we’d met.

  Almost no one was in work; that, at least, was a comfort to me as I headed up from the ground floor to Kent’s office at the top of the building. I knew he would be working, and I knew he was expecting a report from me—there was an issue going out the next day, even if it was Christmas, and he’d want to know where I stood on the project. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could push him back until New Year’s. That would buy me some time, and surely Kent would know how hard it was to find any kind of dirt at all on Finn McClane.

  I hurried out of the elevator and towards his office, feeling the clamminess of my palms, hearing the roar of the blood in my ears. I had never, ever, failed to turn in a piece on time before.

  I pressed the intercom button for Kent’s office and heard the buzzer on the other side of the door.

  “Who is it?”

  Kent sounded particularly grumpy already, and my sense of dread deepened.

  “Amy Michaels,” I said into the intercom.

  The door buzzed again, and I heard the lock click open. I took a deep breath, pushed my shoulders back, and stepped into Kent’s office. He was seated in almost exactly the same way that I’d seen him at his desk when he’d given me the assignment almost two weeks before, only his expression was sterner.

  “What have you got for me, Michaels? Something to ring in the holidays with good cheer? I saw you at the game last night—you must have gotten pretty close to the golden boy.”

  “I did,” I admitted. There was no point in denying it.

  “So?” Kent crossed his arms over his chest. “What have you got on McClane?”

  “I need more time,” I said quickly. “You, of all people, should know how hard it is to get something on a golden boy like Finn.”

  “Finn, eh?” Kent raised an eyebrow. “And how hard did you try to find something the paper can actually use?”

  I pressed my lips together—even though I knew it was my assignment, and I had no real reason to be overly faithful to Finn about what had passed between us, I couldn’t bring myself to quite explain to Kent how close I’d gotten.

  “I’ve talked to him extensively,” I said instead. “I have over an hour of interview material with him. I’ve done as much research as any human being could in the last couple of weeks, and I just can’t dig anything up that’s worth printing.”

  “You’ve got an hour of interview material, you’ve done your research, and you have nothing?” Kent started to stand up, and then sank back down in his chair, shaking his head. “What’s wrong with you, Michaels? I give you a softball assignment to sink your teeth into, and all you come back with is that he’s the golden boy everyone already assumes him to be?”

  “If there is anything to find, he’s doing a good job covering it up,” I said. “I’ve—I’ve seen his apartment, I’ve talked to him; there’s nothing to sell.”

  “Been in his apartment, have you?” Kent rose to his feet, then, and I felt my knees go rubbery. “He’s seduced you, hasn’t he? Like all the rest. The pitiful little rascal who made it good.”

  “Why are you so obsessed with ruining him?” The question came out of me before I could stop myself. “I mean—why were you at the game last night if you hate him so much?”

  “My feelings towards Finn McClane are none of your business,” Kent told me, his voice rising to a near-shout. “Your business was to give me the article that would do it. And you failed.”

  Kent stared me down for a long time, and I tried to find the strength to stare right back, to hold my ground.

  “It seems to me that you’ve made me part of a personal vendetta,” I said. “I don’t know what exactly is going on here, but I didn’t come here to tell you I’ve failed; I just need more time.”

  “You’re not getting any more time,” Kent spat. “Your job is to write the damn articles you’re assigned. If I tell you to write a hit piece on the President of the United States, your job is to do it without asking me why.”

  “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It doesn’t have to make sense,” Kent told me. “I want Finn McClane ruined, and your job was to give me the means to that end. If you couldn’t do it, you should have come to me sooner.”

  “I tried everything that I could!” I cried. “Unless you wanted me to just make something up, there’s no article to be written.”

  “We’ll talk about this again after the holiday,” Kent said, turning his back on me. “Go home, Michaels.”

  I hesitated for a moment, wanting to say something—anything—to defend myself. But I knew that there was no point in it.

  I turned around and walked out of Kent’s office, feeling torn between dismay at the fact that I’d failed for the first time in my journalistic career, and pride at the fact that I’d managed to hold off the reputation-destroying article that Kent wanted to put out. I’d always prided myself on getting my assignments done, on getting the story submitted on time; the fact that I’d only failed because Kent had asked something unethical of me almost didn’t matter.

  You should have found the courage to reject the assignment in the first place. You knew it was poison as soon as he gave it to you, I chided myself. But at the time, I’d really believed that I couldn’t afford to turn the story down. And I hadn’t in a million years imagined that I’d end up falling for the target of my piece. I grinned wryly to myself at the realization of that fact, as the elevator doors opened and I stepped through them.

  “It isn’t fair,” I murmured to myself. And then I remembered my adopted father’s favorite saying: “Life isn’t fair, but you have to get through it all the same. Why waste time complaining about it?”

  I went down to the garage to get into my car and tried to think ahead to more pleasant things: I had dinner with my parents that night, and the next day, I would find some time to be with Finn. If Kent fired me for failing to come up with the scandal piece, I would find some way to make it work to my advantage. There had to be a way that I could make myself look good coming out of something like that; there were still editors who cared about ethics out there, weren’t there?

  Maybe Kent won’t fire you, I thought as I climbed into the driver’s seat. Maybe he’ll just keep you on filler columns until you’re driven mad and leave of your own accord.

  That was a bleak prospect, but I thought it might just be the best possible outcome after the confrontation I’d just been through.

  TEN

  Finn

  I woke up in bed alone on Christmas morning, and for a minute or two, I regretted the fact that I hadn’t convinced Amy to stay.

  You barely know her—don’t get too attached. But it was impossible not to think about her; about how she’d looked the night we’d met, a week before the game. I’d spotted her in the club, even before she’d pretended to be my driver, and if it weren’t for the fact that I needed to be seen to be paying attention to Lana, I might have been tempted to talk to her then.

  Whether or not you get attached, you have to admit she’s gorgeous.

  I grinned to myself, remembering Amy’s dark hair, down around her shoulders, a frame for her pretty face and bright, gleaming eyes. When we’d spent that first night together, holed up in the motel room, it had been all I could do not to try and make a move.

  Before she woke up next to me on the couch, I’d spent maybe ten minutes just looking at her face, thinking about how crazy it was that I could be so deeply attracted to someone so quickly—especially a reporter for one of the biggest scandal rags in the country. She’d looked so peaceful in her sleep, her face relaxed and sweet. I’d been on the edge of asking her out when she woke up, but I’d held back, inviting her to the game instead.

  I got up and went into the kitchen to throw together some breakfast; ever since I’d left Maclaren, I’d spent Christmas morning more or less like any oth
er day of the year. I’d started a tradition as soon as I’d gotten my first big NHL check, though: every Christmas, I went to Maclaren and distributed presents. I hadn’t mentioned it to Amy because I honestly hadn’t wanted to come across as trying too hard to be a saint.

  I drank some coffee and ate my eggs, veggie hash, and turkey in front of the fire, thinking about the looks on the kids’ faces when they saw the haul I’d brought with me. I’d gone all out this time—bought sports gear and all kinds of toys and clothes for the kids, because I could remember too well how often the hand-me-down stuff tended not to be warm enough, or smelled funny. I’d gotten each of the kids a pack of good quality socks, and a scarf. It wasn’t a big deal; I didn’t really have anyone else to buy for, and I knew it would make them happy.