A Billionaire and a Baby

by Marie Ferrarella

  Maybe it was the love he felt, the love that was so evident between the mother and the child she held in her arms.

  Sherry sensed his presence before she looked toward the doorway.

  “Hi,” she said softly. Even in the dim light of the moon, she looked radiant to him. “I’m sorry, did we wake you?”

  We. As if whatever her son did was an action that she gladly shared, gladly took responsibility for. He felt envious of the baby, envious of the life that was yet to unfold before him. John Campbell was never going to lack for love, never feel that he was alone in the world.

  Sin-Jin half shrugged, feeling suddenly as if he was intruding. “I heard crying.”

  “He was hungry.” She smiled down at the little soul in her arms. “Actually, I’m surprised he didn’t wake up sooner. He was giving me a break. I guess he knew tonight was special.” She raised her eyes to Sin-Jin’s face. “We don’t usually have overnight guests.”

  He knew what she was saying without her stating it outright. That she didn’t do this casually. That she didn’t just top off the evening by taking someone to her bed.

  She didn’t have to tell him. He knew. God only knew how he knew, but he knew.

  What the hell was he doing here standing half-dressed, barefoot in a child’s nursery, watching a scene out of a Norman Rockwell calendar? This wasn’t the place for him. He shifted uncomfortably. “I should be going.”

  She wanted to ask him not to, but that would be needy, and she wasn’t about to let him think that she was the clingy sort. She knew it was wrong to hope, yet everything within her wanted him to stay, just a little while longer. To let her pretend, just a few more minutes.

  “I know.” When, to her surprise, Sin-Jin made no move to leave, she stopped rocking. “Would you like to feed him for a while?”

  Sin-Jin unconsciously pressed his lips together. Go, damn it. Get out of here. This isn’t for you.

  “I—”

  The very fact that he didn’t say no, that he hesitated, gave Sherry her answer. She rose to her feet, the folds of her robe barely slipping closed.

  “It’s easy. Here, just hold him against you in the crook of your arm.” Before he could protest that he really needed to be going, she made the transfer. “And sit down in the rocker. If you hold the bottle anywhere near his mouth, Johnny’ll do the rest.”

  Sin-Jin did as she instructed, and the infant continued sucking on his bottle. He couldn’t explain the warm feeling that originated at the point of contact between himself and the child, nor why it spread outward so quickly. Couldn’t explain it and didn’t want to try. It was too early in the morning to contemplate complex matters.

  He just rocked and enjoyed the moment.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hints of twilight found their way through the wide bay windows of the twentieth floor of Adair Industries. This reminded Sin-Jin that it was getting late.

  Within the room were sixteen of his finest people, all seated around the perimeter of the highly polished teak oval conference table he’d picked up in the Philippines on his last business junket there.

  To his left was Mrs. Farley, dutifully taking down every word being uttered. On his right, appropriately enough, was Carver Jackson, his right-hand man for the past five years. Carver had come to him straight out of Harvard Business School, clutching his MBA and eager to set the world on fire. He’d never found the younger man wanting in any way.

  But right now he found himself wanting. Wanting to be somewhere else other than here. It was the tail end of an excellent week that had seen significant corporate gains for Adair Industries. For once he was satisfied. It was a new experience for him.

  Of late he’d found himself experiencing a great many new sensations.

  There was a pregnant pause as Althea Mayfair had just finished her report. He’d hardly kept his mind on the words, but knew that her work was miles beyond competent, as was Althea.

  Splaying his hands on either side, he leaned forward and looked at the faces of each and every one of them. “Go home, people.”

  Carver’s thin brows furrowed over his hawklike nose. Startled, he glanced at his watch and then exchanged looks with Edna Farley. They’d hardly begun to dig in.

  “But it’s not even a school night, boss.” The cryptic smile on Carver’s lips gave way to a sobered look. “What gives?”

  Under the watchful eyes of everyone present, Sin-Jin began returning various folders and disks to his titanium briefcase. “I thought for once everyone would like to get home before eight.”

  It was only five o’clock. Carver looked a little unnerved. Was this a joke? “If this is your idea of a production of A Christmas Carol, you’re several months early.”

  Rather than begin dispersing, everyone around the table appeared to be sealed to their seats, their eyes trained on Sin-Jin.

  A whimsical smile found its way to his lips. “This is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test, it’s a genuine order. Go home.”

  No one moved except Carver, who rose to his feet to peer more closely at Sin-Jin’s face. “Are you feeling all right, sir?”

  If he felt any better, Sin-Jin realized, it might actually be illegal. “I’m feeling fine, why?”

  Carver shook his head, glancing around at the others at the table. To a one, they seemed stunned. “This isn’t like you.”

  No, it wasn’t, and maybe that was the shame of it, Sin-Jin thought. “I’ve decided that maybe there’re more important things in the world than the next corporate takeover.”

  Shaken, Carver looked to Sin-Jin’s secretary for guidance, but the woman appeared to be unaffected by what was going on. She was even smiling. “Now I know you’re not feeling well.”

  Rather than answer, Sin-Jin looked to the woman he’d always felt was the only one who truly understood him. It was through her that he directed his money to the various charities that he supported. He could trust Mrs. Farley to safely keep his largess a secret. She was the only one left alive, aside from his estranged parents, who knew him when.

  “Mrs. Farley, help me out here.”

  Rising to her feet, the prim woman looked at Carver, waved her hand in a classic motion of dismissal and said, “Shoo.”

  Nervous laughter echoed in the room.

  Carver attempted to make light of the situation, wondering if a call to 911 was necessary. “Well, I guess that settles it. Science has finally managed to clone an adult. How do we get ahold of the company?”

  Sin-Jin snapped his briefcase shut. “You can put that on the agenda for Monday, no, Tuesday,” he corrected himself.

  Wanting in on what he assumed had to be some kind of a joke, Carver asked, “What happened to Monday?”

  “It was swallowed up in a three-day weekend, Carver.” Sin-Jin told him matter-of-factly. “Look at your calendar.”

  Carver frowned. This was becoming stranger and stranger. Several people slowly began getting their things together, all still watching Sin-Jin for any indication that this was some kind of strange prank. “We’ve never taken a three-day weekend.”

  They were a good crew, loyal to a fault. And he’d robbed them of half their lives. It was time they began having lives outside of the corporation.

  “We are now.” He looked at the group, sixteen of the hardest workers he had the pleasure of knowing. “Go home,” he repeated for a third time.

  This time the order seemed to take. Papers rustled as they were packed away in briefcases that were already crammed full of files. Cases snapped, chairs moved silently along the rug as they were pushed back.

  “See you Monday, boss,” Althea called out.

  “Tuesday,” Sin-Jin reminded her as he walked quickly out the door.

  With Sin-Jin gone, the conference room emptied out in a matter of minutes. Carver remained the only holdout. He turned toward Sin-Jin’s secretary as she neatly gathered her things together. Something was definitely up, and she was the only one who would know what it was.

  “M
rs. Farley, just what’s happened to our fearless leader?”

  She smiled. “I believe Love Finds Andy Hardy.”

  The response seemed to confuse Carver. “Isn’t that an old Mickey Rooney movie?”

  A smile entered her eyes as she nodded. “Among other things.”

  “Who, what, where, when, how?”

  “All good things a reporter would ask.” She looked at him. “But you’re not a reporter.”

  Carver stood in the room, alone now, thinking. And then it seemed to hit him.

  “But she is,” he called out.

  Hearing him, Mrs. Farley continued walking down the hallway, neither confirming or denying. Had Carver been able to see her, however, he would have seen the smile on her face and had his answer.

  She’d spent part of her day on the computer and part of it on the telephone. Spurred on by personal curiosity rather than her original assignment, she’d discovered that trying to track down Sin-Jin’s origins only brought her to a blank wall over and over again. He seemed to have no history until he came on the scene to spearhead a takeover of what was to become Adair Industries. Frustrated, she’d done a search on John Fletcher, thinking that if she could locate the man, maybe he would provide, however inadvertently, a few answers for her. Or at least a clue.

  The cabin at Wrightwood was indeed in John Fletcher’s name. The only trouble was, the address given as a permanent residence turned out to belong to a plot in Los Angeles that had long since been abandoned.

  The rest of her search was equally as frustrating. The country, it turned out, had a host of John Fletchers and she was patiently trying to weed her way through them. She kept at it until four o’clock.

  Temporarily giving up the quest, she turned her attention to the night that lay ahead. It was time to get ready.

  Sin-Jin took the turn a little faster than he should have and cautioned himself to go slower. Five minutes weren’t going to make a difference. It wasn’t as if she was going to disappear if he wasn’t on her doorstep at exactly the appointed time.

  Carver was right, he was behaving strangely.

  He didn’t want to think about it, or even acknowledge what was happening, but anyone who knew him would have said that he was undergoing a transformation. He could see the amusement in Mrs. Farley’s eyes when he caught her looking at him. She knew, he thought. But then, she had always been intuitive.

  For the first time he was allowing his feelings to govern his actions. Why else would he have placed his private life above his corporate one? The meeting he’d abruptly brought to a close had been set to continue into the wee hours of the morning. They’d been brainstorming another corporate takeover. This time it was a failing movie studio that had overextended itself in the last few years. He had ideas, a whole spectrum of ideas on how to improve operations, trim away the fat, get the hundred-year-old enterprise back on its feet again and begin earning a profit by the end of the next fiscal year.

  It wasn’t for lack of ideas that he’d terminated the meeting.

  But amid all these ideas that were percolating in his brain, images of Sherry kept finding their way into his mind. Sherry, the way she’d been the last time they’d made love. The way she would be the next time he held her in his arms. It made it hard for a man to think about anything but the woman who was consuming him.

  He was falling into a trap and he knew it.

  But knowing didn’t help. He was still standing willingly within the circle of iron teeth set to spring.

  Like an alcoholic in denial, Sin-Jin told himself that he could walk away anytime, close the door on what he was feeling at any given moment. Denial allowed him to believe that lingering here like this was all right.

  What was the harm in enjoying himself? he argued as he drove down what had become a familiar street to him.

  Sherry made him laugh, she made him feel good, and he was careful not to say things to her that he would regret the next day. Things that had to do with emotions, that had to do with his past.

  As long as he remembered the rules, everything could go on the way it was a little while longer.

  Stopping at home for a quick change of clothing, he pulled his Mercedes up into her driveway a shade before seven. He was dressed in semiformal evening wear. Mrs. Farley had made the reservations at the exclusive restaurant for eight. It gave them enough time to get there even in the height of traffic.

  As he walked to Sherry’s front door, it occurred to him that he didn’t see her mother’s car in the vicinity. She was supposed to baby-sit.

  Had the Campbells come by and taken the baby with them instead? He’d been looking forward to seeing the little boy.

  A warning signal went off in his head. He was displaying all the signs of a man who was getting attached to not only a woman but to her child. He was going to have to watch that.

  When he rang the doorbell, she opened it almost instantly. Barefoot, she was wearing a tank top that casually flirted with the waistband of her jeans, showing off a stomach that had become flat in an incredibly short amount of time. There was what appeared to be a dab of some kind of tomato sauce on the kitchen towel she had slung over her shoulder.

  She was usually very punctual. Was something wrong? “You’re not dressed.”

  Sherry spread her hands and looked down at herself. “I’m not naked.”

  He’d be lying if he denied that part of him wished she was. “No, I mean for the restaurant. Did I get the night wrong?” The question was merely to be polite. He never got any date wrong.

  Taking his arm, Sherry drew him into the house. “No, but I decided that instead of going out, I’d treat you to a home-cooked meal.”

  He glanced over his shoulder as the door closed. “I didn’t see your mother’s car outside.”

  “My home, my meal,” she emphasized. “I can cook, you know.”

  It wasn’t her cooking that interested him about her. “Why bother?”

  “Because it’s more intimate.”

  He followed her into the kitchen. There were pots simmering on the stove and all sorts of things going on on the counters. He was beginning to realize that she did nothing halfheartedly. “I didn’t think we could get more intimate.”

  “Maybe not our bodies,” she agreed, stirring the pot of sauce. “But our souls, well, that could stand a little more work.”

  He didn’t quite follow the transition. “And that’ll be accomplished by you cooking for me?”

  He didn’t understand, she thought. She wanted to do these things for him. It seemed somehow more real than walking into a restaurant to eat food someone else had prepared, leave dishes that someone else had to wash. “Now who’s questioning everything? Open that bottle of wine for me.”

  “Must be the company I keep.” He picked up the corkscrew she pointed to and worked it into the cork, pulling it out.

  She paused to kiss him. “Must be.”

  Sin-Jin ran his tongue over his lips. “Mmm, what is that?”

  She was already turning back to the stove. “Me, I hope.”

  Running his tongue over his lips again, he tried to place the taste. “Not unless your lips have suddenly gotten spicy.”

  “I was sampling my tomato sauce.” Some of the sauce must have remained on her lips. “I think something’s missing.”

  In reply, he turned her around and swept her into his arms. Sin-Jin kissed her again, longer this time, then pretended to taste his lips again. “Not a damn thing that I can think of.”

  She laughed. “You’re supposed to eat the sauce off a plate, not my lips.”

  Pouring a glass of red wine for her, he placed it on the counter next to her, then poured one for himself. “To each his own.” He leaned over and went to kiss her again.

  She stopped him with a hand to his chest. “Later,” she said, staving him off. “That’s after dessert.”

  The look in his eyes was sensuously wicked. “That is dessert.”

  “You know,” she said, her voice softening,
“sometimes you can be awfully nice.”

  He paused to take a drink of his wine, then removed his jacket. It was hot in the kitchen. “Not too many people would agree with you.”

  She sniffed. “Then not too many people know the real you.”

  He came up behind her, unable to resist. Threading his arms around her waist, Sin-Jin nuzzled her neck. “Do you?”

  Her eyes threatened to flutter shut. It took effort to concentrate on the meal she was making. “I’m working on it.”

  Kissing her neck, he released her and backed up. The least he could do, when she was going through all this effort, was not to get in her way.

  He took another sip of wine, then leaned a hip against the counter and watched her work. “I let everyone go home early today.”

  Breaking up spaghetti and dropping it into the boiling pot, she smiled to herself, thinking of how that must have come across. “I bet that was a shock to them.”

  He laughed, remembering the looks on everyone’s faces. “I practically had to shove them out the door.”

  “You’ve trained them well.” Stirring the spaghetti to keep it from clumping together, she glanced in his direction. “I imagine they’re all very loyal to you.”

  Was that the woman he’d made love with asking, or the reporter? “Is that off the record?”

  She could almost read his thoughts. “I’m not a reporter tonight, Sin-Jin, and you’re not the great corporate raider. We’re just two people about to enjoy a home-cooked meal, a store-bought dessert—” her eyes glinted with humor “—and lots of red-hot loving after it’s over.” She cocked her head, looking at his expression. He wasn’t the easiest man to read. Was she saying too much? Or not enough? “Or should I call it sex?”

  The one was too hot, the other too cold. “Why label it at all?”

  She found herself wanting answers and knowing that she shouldn’t. If she squeezed too hard, what she held in her hand would slip away. “I thought you were the one who liked to have everything neatly labeled and placed in a niche.”