He could hear Chandler’s pitiful wails. Hiccuping, brokenhearted.
Suddenly the door opened right beneath his hand, and Emma stood there, Chandler pressed to her shoulder. She gasped, backing up a step. “Kyle.”
Her eyes were dark and worried. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I think he’s sick,” she said miserably. “He feels hot and he…he won’t nurse, and I know he must be hungry.”
Kyle reached out and cupped his hand around Chandler’s head. His neck was warm, but then, weren’t most babies’ squirmy little bodies warm? He held out his other hand and took the baby from her. “Are you sure he’s hungry? Maybe he just doesn’t like the unfamiliar surroundings.”
He looked at Emma, who nibbled her lip and glanced away from him. She waved her hand vaguely. “I just know.”
Kyle lifted a brow. “This is one of those mother-child nonverbal things?”
She flushed. Pressed her fingertips to the hollow in her throat. “My milk,” she whispered. “I…”
Kyle couldn’t help it. He was a slug, but he was a male slug. He looked at her breasts, pushing against the oversize tomato-red nightshirt that hung off one slender shoulder and fell past her knees. He turned away, striding to the telephone. Chandler did feel warm.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling the concierge. He can round up a doctor to come and check on Chandler.”
She followed him, her arms folded protectively across her chest. To ease her need to nurse or to hide from his eyes? He almost told her not to bother. She could wear stinking wet burlap and he’d still feel compelled to look.
“They can really do that?” She looked relieved and surprised all at once and Kyle nodded, impulsively putting his hand behind her neck. The kiss he pressed to her forehead was for him as much as for her, he realized. “Thank you. I’m sure it’s probably nothing, but…”
“You’ll feel better knowing for sure.”
She brushed her hair away from her face. “Yes.”
Kyle’s gut tightened. Her eyes darkened. The moment lengthened.
Then she deliberately moved away, putting the width of a couch between them. “I guess you’re mighty used to figuring a woman’s mind.” Her drawl was smooth.
“Just yours, honey.”
She rolled her eyes and turned toward the piano, and he let it pass. What good would it do to let her know how easily she’d gotten under his skin? How her feelings were transmitted so easily to him?
Chandler seized that moment to tangle his little fingers in the hair on Kyle’s chest, and Kyle gingerly removed the baby’s grip. At least he’d stopped crying so hard, only shuddering now and then with a sad little sob. “I get the message,” he murmured. “Protecting your mama again.”
He picked up the phone and dialed. Within minutes he was assured that a physician was on his way. He hung up and turned to see Emma sitting sideways on the piano bench. She’d drawn up her knees and pulled the stretchy shirt over her knees until all he could see were the pink tips of her toes. “Play if it’ll make you feel better,” he suggested.
She looked at the instrument beside her. “I’d be afraid of disturbing one of the other guests,” she murmured. “It’s awfully late.” Her gaze followed him as he slowly walked Chandler around the suite. “Kyle?” She hesitated for a moment, then decided to ask. “Why haven’t you ever married? Had kids of your own?” She suddenly frowned. “Or have you been? I mean, I just assumed—”
“Never had time.” He cut off her flustered words.
“You’re a natural with kids. Look at Chandler. He’s practically asleep again, and it’s because of you.” Her face went pink. “I know it’s none of my business.”
Sure enough. The baby’s eyes were closed, the picture of innocence. “When I was younger,” he found himself admitting, “I always said that marriage and kids could come later. That I wanted to get the business fully established before I concentrated on my personal life.”
“Sugar, I don’t know how you define established, but it looks to me like ChandlerAIR’s pretty well grown-up.”
He smiled faintly. “Yeah. I guess the real reason I kept putting off having a family of my own was that I didn’t want to be the miserable failure at it that my father was. My birth father,” he elaborated. And admitting it seemed ridiculously simple.
Because she was a good listener? Because she had her own share of demons to struggle with? Or just because she had a voice like warm honey and melting brown eyes a man could get lost in?
“Jake had a twin,” he found himself telling her. “Janice. She drowned in our swimming pool when she was two. I think my…father blamed my mother.”
“Oh, Kyle. How terrible for your family. Your mother must have been devastated.”
“If she was, she kept it buried under pills and booze.” He wished he’d kept the bitter words unsaid when Emma’s eyes suddenly glistened. “She held it together for a while,” he allowed. “Eventually, though, the old man decided the family he had left wasn’t worth his time, and he took off a few years after the accident. She pretty well fell apart after that.”
“My daddy left, too,” she murmured. Then smiled sadly. “Stinks, doesn’t it?”
Amusement, faint though it was, where there had only been bitterness whenever he thought of his father, rolled through him. “Yeah,” he agreed. “It stinks.”
“You wouldn’t do that to your family.”
“How do you know?”
She gazed at him. “I just do. Look at the way you found your sister and brothers when you were separated after your mama died. And the way you talk about Sabrina and your adoptive family now.” She pushed her feet out from under the nightshirt and stood. “But don’t worry, Kyle. I won’t tell anyone that under that power suit and tie of yours resides a closet family man. Your secret is safe.”
The knock on the door precluded his having to respond. Which was just as well, because if she knew the thoughts swirling in his head whenever he looked at her, she wouldn’t be worrying about the safety of his secrets. She’d be worrying about how to fend off a man whose good intentions had been eroded under the onslaught of the desire she aroused in him.
Emma hurried to the door and flung it open, reminding Kyle forcibly that she was entirely too trusting. But it was the doctor, and after handing over her business card, the woman quickly examined Chandler. Being wakened, however, pleased the baby not at all and within minutes, he let everyone within earshot know it.
Emma sat on the couch beside the doctor, trying to comfort Chandler. She recounted the past few days, trying to explain his fussiness, but felt helpless to come up with a real reason. The doctor listened, nodding. “I imagine this is a reaction to the inoculation you mentioned. Babies sometimes experience discomfort after receiving vaccines.”
“Discomfort,” Emma muttered. “There’s that word again. I didn’t even think of that.”
The doctor smiled sympathetically as she wrote on a pad. Then she tore off the scrawled instructions and handed them, along with a small bottle of infant acetaminophen, to Emma. “If he’s not feeling his usual self by tomorrow, give your regular pediatrician a call. But truly, I think your son will be fine very soon. And if he doesn’t want to take the breast, express as you need to so that you’re not uncomfortable and keep it in the fridge. He’ll probably make up for his lack of hunger with a vengeance later.”
Emma gathered Chandler against her shoulder, feeling her cheeks heat because Kyle was standing right there and had heard every word. It was juvenile, she knew. And if he were anybody else, she wouldn’t feel so conscious of the very natural functions of her body.
She just couldn’t help it. The thoughts she had of Kyle were not remotely maternal. With each passing minute in his presence she only became more aware of her femininity. So acting blasé about breast feeding with him so close by, his white shirt hanging, unbuttoned and sexily rumpled to expose a chest that was most definitely male, most definitely mature and mo
st definitely the finest chest she’d ever seen, was simply beyond her ability.
She realized the doctor was at the door, and Emma flushed even more as she rose to thank the woman for coming at such an hour.
Then she turned to face Kyle. Kyle who didn’t have on his regulation tie, whose sharply carved jaw was blurred with a sexy shadow of whiskers, and whose rigid abdomen drew her traitorous attention like a magnet. Kyle, whose words about exploring the small mole on her shoulder blade had been tormenting her since he’d delivered them.
She snatched up the bottle of pain reliever the doctor had left. “Thank you for getting the doctor. I appreciate it.”
“I wanted to make sure he was fine, too.”
“I believe you.” As far as she could tell, he hadn’t been dishonest about a single thing.
Except pretending that they were wed.
She stifled a sigh and held up the little bottle. “Well, I guess we’ll go back to bed. I’m sorry we woke you.”
“You didn’t.” He shoved one hand through his hair and sat on the couch, picking up the drink that was still sitting there. He propped one boot on the edge of the cocktail table and leaned back, resting the squat glass on his hard bare stomach. He dropped his head against the couch and closed his eyes. “Go to bed, Emma.”
She curled her bare toes into the plush carpet, wanting to say something more, but not knowing what.
Stifling a sigh, she carried Chandler into the bedroom. Then she coaxed a few drops of sticky red liquid into his mouth and settled him in the portable crib the hotel had provided where he miraculously closed his eyes with a little sigh and went to sleep.
Emma wearily climbed back into the enormous lonely bed and tucked a pillow under her cheek. But sleep didn’t come to her the way it had to Chandler.
She turned onto her other side, looking at the faint line of light at the bottom edge of the closed bedroom door. She didn’t know how long she lay there, waiting for that light to go out. For the sound of another door closing. Anything to indicate that Kyle had gone to bed.
Nothing. The light remained.
She pressed an arm over her eyes, but she couldn’t blot out the vision of him, sprawled on the couch, a tumbler of amber liquid propped on his stomach.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, staring at the door. Beside the bed, she could hear the soft cadence of Chandler’s breath. In her head, she could hear the thump of her own heartbeat.
She blew out a long breath. Pushed back the blankets and climbed out of bed. Kyle looked up from his position on the couch when she opened the door.
“Chandler?”
Emma shook her head, quietly closing the door behind her before walking toward the couch. “He’s sleeping, thank goodness.” Her nerve took her as far as the arm of the couch and she lowered her hip onto it, self-consciously smoothing the nightshirt over her knees.
“So why aren’t you sleeping, too?”
She lifted one shoulder. “You aren’t.”
He smiled, but it was grim. Either he’d refilled the tumbler he still held or he hadn’t had so much as a sip.
“Why aren’t you?” She slipped from the arm to the couch, curling her legs up on the cushion beside her. “Sleeping, that is.”
He looked at her and heat swirled through her chest just that quickly. That easily.
That frighteningly.
He sighed, took a grimacing sip of his drink before setting it down and stole her breath when he wrapped one warm hand around her ankle. “Talk to me, Emma.” His voice was low. Husky. Made her skin tingle. Or maybe that was because of the thumb he was rubbing back and forth over the sensitive spot behind her ankle.
“About what?” she asked.
He shook his head slightly. “Doesn’t matter. Anything.” A slice of sharp green looked her way, then he closed his eyes and dropped his head against the cushion. “Talk to me, honey, or we’re gonna get into trouble here, no matter what kind of intentions we’ve got.”
Emma swallowed, unable to find words. But Kyle’s warm hand slid up her calf, nudged beneath the baggy hem of her nightshirt and cupped her knee. Her lips parted. The only word she could form was his name, which emerged like a squeak. She moistened her lips, agonizingly aware of Kyle’s fingers slowly caressing her knee. “Is Jake usually a wedding photographer?” she asked desperately.
“No. He was a photojournalist.”
“Was?”
“Before his wife died. Were you a virgin when you met the jerk?”
Emma blinked. The nightshirt crept up to her knee as Kyle’s fingertips brushed the outer curve of her thigh. “I…yes.” Her eyes closed for a moment and she let out a long shaky breath. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she felt compelled to add.
“First time I slept with a girl I was fourteen. She was nineteen. She rented a room in one of the foster homes I’d been stuck with. I didn’t get to stay there long, needless to say.”
“Were there a lot of foster homes?”
He smiled faintly. “That’s all you have to ask? Nothing more about my sexual precociousness?”
She pressed her hand over his. Separated only by the material of her shirt, but keeping his long fingers from creeping any higher. He was halfway up her thigh. Much farther and she was going to go out of her mind. “Were there?”
“Five.”
“What about Jake and…Trace, right? And little Annie. Where did they go? Wasn’t there any attempt to keep you all together?”
“I was one step from being a juvenile delinquent,” he said evenly. “We were deliberately separated so that I couldn’t continue being a bad influence on them. Annie was younger. She was adopted almost immediately, but the family moved around a lot. Trace lucked out a bit, too. He ended up in a group home in Wyoming on some children’s ranch. He’s still there. Helps run the place now. Jake…well, you’ve met him.”
“I can’t see you as a juvenile delinquent.”
His lips twisted. “Doesn’t fit with the suit?”
“Doesn’t fit with your…oh, code, I guess. You’re too ethical.”
“Considering how you feel about our make-believe marriage, I’m surprised you credit me with ethics at all. But ethics didn’t buy food for my sister and brothers. And the car radios I got busted for stealing did.”
“My mother never had money, either.”
“Sally had money,” Kyle said. “She just blew it on other things.”
From the bits and pieces Kyle had imparted, Emma could just imagine what those other things had been, and her heart broke for that long-ago family that had borne more than its share of tragedy. It surprised her not at all that Kyle had turned to whatever means he’d felt he needed to in order to provide for his brothers and sister. “Why wasn’t some attempt made by the authorities to find your father when your mama died?”
“There was.” With the ease of long practice, Kyle kept the dark anger inside him from rearing its head. “He didn’t want us before Sally died. He didn’t want us after.”
Emma shifted on the couch beside him, leaning toward him. Soft and warm. Strong and healthy. “But then you and the Montgomerys found one another. You moved on. And look at you now. Successful. Respected. You’ve put the bad stuff behind you.”
Her earnestness moved him more than he wanted to acknowledge. “I’ll bet your personal motto is that one about life giving you lemons, so you make lemonade.”
“What if it is? It’s yours too, even if you haven’t realized it.”
He nearly laughed. “Honey, trust me. That isn’t my motto.”
“A rose is a rose,” she insisted, pushing one hand through her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “Your home life with your first family was less than ideal, but you didn’t cut yourself off from them. You reconnected with them when you had an opportunity to. And now you employ hundreds of people at ChandlerAIR, employees whose loyalty you have because of your progressive employee relations. Gracious, you’ve won business awards and all sorts of things, even
.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve been reading up on you,” she said, then blushed. “I mean on ChandlerAIR, of course.”
“I liked the first version better.”
She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Anyway, I…”
He waited. “You…?”
“Forgot what I was going to say,” she whispered.
He felt her gaze on his lips, and the simmering heat inside him instantly shot to full boil. “Emma.”
She sucked in her lower lip for a moment, leaving it with a glisten that cranked up the flame inside him even more. He slipped his hands easily around her waist and pulled her right across his lap, anchoring her hips shockingly against his. “Talking isn’t working anymore,” he said, and swallowed her gasp with his lips.
Don’t ever stop.
The plea ran silently through Emma’s whirling mind. Kyle’s hands burned through her nightshirt, and she curled her fingers against his shoulders.
His kiss devoured. Teased. Seduced. And his hands, oh, his hands shaped her back. Drifted along her spine, making her shiver, arch against him. Wish frantically that there wasn’t so much fabric separating them.
Don’t ever stop.
An involuntary moan rose in her throat when he lifted his mouth from hers. There was no hesitation in his heavy-lidded gaze. He curled his fingers in the bunched hem of her nightshirt. Yet Emma knew she could halt this heavenly madness now.
She caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth and raised herself ever so slightly onto her knees. The nightshirt slid upward. Cool air. Then heat when his hands followed the upward ascent of the material. Her breath shuddered through her. Her pulse deafened her.
She slowly lifted her arms. Up. Off.
His long fingers captured her wrists, gently anchoring them at her sides, and his eyes burned over her, making her flesh tighten. She wished with the one brain cell that was still functioning that she was wearing more seductive panties than her plain white cotton. “Kyle.”
“Shh.” His warm palms slid over her hips, running along the hem of her unimaginative panties with such thoroughness that she forgot what was wrong with them in the first place. She forgot everything except him when his palms glided along her back, cradling her weight as he slowly lowered his head to one aching peak. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, then touched his tongue to her.
Millionaire's Instant Baby Page 15
