The Baby Inheritance (Billionaires and Babies)

by Maureen Child

  All the kids in the house had known they would find sympathy, understanding and honesty in Connie’s kitchen. Reed had benefited more than once from the woman’s no-nonsense view of the world. He couldn’t imagine his childhood without her. Smiling, he said, “Yeah, those bars were magic.”

  “Can’t wait to try them.” Lilah tipped her head to one side and watched him. “There’s more than cookies to your memories, though, isn’t there?”

  Frowning, he realized she was reading him and he didn’t like it. “She’s a good person. That’s all.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Look,” he said, trying to counter the patient expression on her face, “I’m not looking to learn and share and grow here. There is nothing to this beyond Connie being the most logical solution to our current problem.”

  “There it is again,” Lilah said softly. “Rose isn’t a problem to solve.”

  He stiffened a bit under the criticism. “Her care is.”

  “So now that Connie’s here, you’re off the hook in the care department?” Lilah cocked her head and stared up at him through eyes that seemed to have a laser focus. “Is that how it works?”

  How the hell had he gone from a hero—bringing Connie here—to the bad guy, for the same damn reason? Beginning to be seriously irritated now, Reed countered, “If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

  She shook her head. “Where to begin?”

  “Just start,” he said, voice clipped. Folding his arms across his chest, he stood in the center of his brand-new living room and waited.

  “Fine.” She took a deep breath, looked him square in the eye and said, “In the week Rosie and I have been here, you’ve hardly spent any time at all with her.”

  He snorted. “In case you haven’t noticed, I do have work.”

  “Oh, hard not to notice,” Lilah said. “You’re always gone. And on the rare moments you are around, you keep a very real distance between you and Rosie.”

  Truth hit home, but he didn’t feel the need to defend himself against it, either. “There is no distance, for God’s sake. I’m her uncle. She’s my sister’s daughter. I just bought her a house. I think it’s safe to say that I’m inserting her into my life.”

  “Why does she have to be inserted?” Lilah asked.

  “Because she’s never been here before?” Reed countered, his voice lowering to a growl.

  “That’s not what I meant. You can’t just shove her into your old life. You and she need to build a new life together.” Waving her hands a little as if to encompass the living room, she said, “Buying a house is great. But if that’s all it is, it’s not enough.”

  Irritation spiked into a sizzle of resentment that caught and burned at the base of his throat. Since this woman and the baby had walked into his life a week ago, everything he knew had been turned inside out. But apparently, that wasn’t enough for Lilah Strong.

  Reed gave her the cold-eyed glare he usually reserved for hostile witnesses or clients who tried to lie to him. “She’s eight months old. What more does she need? A car? A boat?”

  “A home.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The tight rein on his temper was strained. He knew that Connie, the baby and the last of the deliverymen were just upstairs. Damned if he’d have an argument the whole world could listen in on.

  “It means, buying a house doesn’t make it a home.”

  “Unbelievable.” He shook his head. “You’re wasting your time making fancy soaps. You should be writing poems for a greeting card company.”

  “This isn’t funny.” Her voice was as cool and flat as his own.

  “You got that right.” He expected her to back down, to smooth over and try for cool reason. He was wrong.

  She moved in on him and he could see actual sparks flashing in her eyes. “Your life isn’t the only one that has been ‘disrupted.’ Rosie has lost her mother. I have lost my friend. I’m a few hundred miles from home and doing my best to keep Rosie safe and happy.”

  “I get that,” he interrupted.

  “Not finished,” she continued, taking another step closer. “You’ve avoided me and Rosie all week.”

  His back teeth ground together. Yeah, he had, but he hadn’t expected her to notice. After all, he was a busy man and God knew she’d had plenty to do. “Not avoiding—”

  “Ignoring then,” she said quickly. “Comes to the same thing. The point is, a house won’t be enough. Connie, as great as she is, won’t be enough.”

  Sunlight slanted over her hair, picking up the gold in the red and making it shine. Today she smelled like orange blossoms, and that scent was clogging his throat and fogging his mind. That was the only explanation for him standing there taking a lecture as he hadn’t had since he was eighteen and had displeased his father.

  “She needs love. Affection. A sense of belonging.”

  Shaking his head, he felt the first tiny thread of worry begin to snake along his spine. “She’ll have everything she needs.”

  “How can she when you haven’t so much as looked at her since that first night?”

  “I don’t need you to teach me how to take care of a child.” And even if he did need the help, damned if he’d ask for it.

  She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. He could almost hear her thinking, Yelling at him is no way to get through to him. She’d be right about that.

  “All I’m trying to say is,” she said, voice patient enough to spike his irritation meter, “I’m staying until I know Rosie is safe and loved and happy. That’s not going to happen until you start interacting with her.”

  “She’s a baby,” he said tightly. “She’s happy if she’s fed and dry.”

  “She needs more than that—she needs family, a sense of belonging. I don’t see that coming from you.”

  Reed wasn’t used to being questioned. Doubted. His clients all believed in him. His family turned to him for every crisis imaginable, trusting him to take care of things. Hell, he’d lived his life accepting responsibility and doing everything he could to make sure the world rolled on in an organized way.

  Did she really believe an eight-month-old baby would defeat him? His tone was patient and he gave himself points for that, since inside, he was seething. “Rose will get everything she needs.”

  “From Connie?” she asked.

  “Yeah, from Connie. I brought in the one woman I know will do right by her. How is that a bad thing?” He took a deep breath and instantly regretted it since that orange scent clinging to her seemed to be invading him.

  “It’s bad if you depend solely on her to care for Rose.”

  “I didn’t say I would.”

  “Actions speak louder than words,” she pointed out. “And what you’re doing is ignoring me and Rose.”

  “I’m not ignoring the baby. I’m ignoring you.”

  “Why?” she demanded, tossing both hands high.

  Could she really not see what it cost him to avoid her company? Was she clueless about the attraction sizzling between them? Well, if so, Reed thought, it was time to let her know exactly what was going on here.

  Her scent reached for him, surrounded him and he threw caution out the damn window. “Because of this.”

  He grabbed her, pulled her in close and kissed her as he’d wanted to for days.

  * * *

  Lilah hadn’t expected this.

  He’d moved so fast, pulled her in so close, held her so tight.

  And, oh, my God, his mouth.

  Reed kissed her with a hunger she’d never experienced before. And for one split second, she was too stunned, too shocked, to do anything more than stand there. But when that second passed, she was kissing him back.

  Her body jumped into life, as if she’d somehow been electrocuted. There was a hot jolt of…everything blasting through her. Lilah’s arms linked around his neck, she leaned into him and parted her lips beneath his. The sweep of his tongue took her breath and sent even more jagged slices of lig
htning through her body.

  A hot ball of need settled in the pit of her stomach and even lower a throbbing ache awoke, and breathless, she knew she wanted, needed, more.

  His big hands swept up and down her back, pulling her closer, until she felt as if she wanted to simply melt into his body. He cupped her behind and held her tightly to him until she felt the hardness of his body pressing into hers. The need jangling within jumped into high gear, sending her heartbeat into a thundering gallop. Tingling head to toe, Lilah could have stayed exactly where she was for, oh…eternity.

  But even as she thought it, other sounds intruded through the buzzing in her ears. Voices, getting louder. Footsteps, coming closer.

  And in a rush, her brain suddenly shrieked a warning, reminding her that the house was filled with moving men, not to mention Connie and Rose.

  It took every ounce of control she had for Lilah to break away and take a long step back from temptation. Struggling to catch her breath, she knew what she must look like—eyes wide, hair tangled from his busy fingers running through it, mouth swollen from a kiss like no other. There was nothing she could do about that, though, so she instead fought to slow her heart rate and get her body back under control. Not easy since it felt as if every single cell in her body was wide awake and sending up skyrockets in anticipation.

  It had been way too long since she’d been with a man. That had to be the reason she’d…overreacted like that. Running her own business didn’t give her much time to look for and develop a love life. At least that was the excuse she usually gave herself. But the truth was, she simply hadn’t found a man she was interested in enough to make a try at a relationship.

  Not that Reed was the one for her. She already knew that was going nowhere, although, after that kiss, she had to admit that maybe he felt something for her whether he wanted to or not. But even if he did, he was rich and lived in California, while she lived in a tiny mountain town and was substantially less than wealthy. They were from completely different worlds and one kiss—no matter how amazing—wasn’t enough to bridge the gap. Best to remember that.

  “All finished,” a deep voice announced as three moving men walked into the main room.

  “Just in time,” Lilah muttered. She glanced briefly at Reed, saw the flash of banked lust in his eyes then told herself not to look at him again. At least not until the fire inside her had died down. Shouldn’t take more than a week or two.

  Oh, God.

  Things had just gotten so much more complicated. Maybe it would have been better for him to go right on ignoring her. But it was probably too late to go back now. They were going to have to talk about this, Lilah told herself. Come to an agreement that there would be no more kissing, and wasn’t that a sad thought? But Rose had to be the priority. For both of them.

  “Right, I’ll just go and check everything,” she said, taking the excuse the movers had handed her and running with it.

  Connie was just walking into the room, a happy, babbling Rosie on her hip. The baby held out her arms to Lilah and in response, she scooped her up and kept walking. The warm, solid weight of the baby in her arms was the perfect antidote to the still-pulsing need she felt inside. Rose was the reason she was here. The only reason. Her happiness was paramount.

  In the newly setup nursery, Lilah did a quick inspection, made sure the furniture had all been put together and set where she’d told Connie she wanted them. If she took a couple of extra minutes to cool down, who was to know? Finally, though, she headed back to the main room.

  There, she found two of the movers had already gone out to their truck. Since Reed had no idea what furniture she’d purchased, Lilah was the one who signed the delivery and setup sheet the remaining mover held out to her. When she was finished, she closed the door behind him and took a slow, steadying breath before heading into the great room to join Reed and Connie.

  “Everything all right in here?” the woman asked, her gaze darting from Reed to Lilah and back again.

  “Yeah, fine,” Reed said, scraping one hand along his jaw.

  “Dandy,” Lilah agreed, keeping her gaze locked on the baby in her arms.

  “Uh-huh,” Connie said with a shake of her head. “You two are terrible liars.”

  She walked over, plucked Rosie from Lilah’s grasp and headed for the kitchen. “I’m just going to give this sweet baby a snack. While we’re busy, the two of you can talk about whatever it is that’s not happening.”

  Alone with him in the great room, Lilah listened to the silence for a couple of long minutes before finally giving a sigh and muttering, “That’s just great.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  She looked at Reed. “Really? You kiss me brainless and then your housekeeper takes one look at me and knows what’s been going on and you wonder what the problem is?”

  He shrugged. “It was just a kiss.”

  “Yeah. And Godiva is just chocolate.” She pushed both hands through her hair then faced him. She didn’t mean to stare at his mouth, it just…happened. God. They really did need to talk. And it looked as though it was going to have to be her opening the conversation.

  She lifted her gaze to his and asked, “Why?”

  He waved the question off. “Why not?”

  Well, didn’t she feel special? Then something occurred to her and Lilah inhaled sharply, narrowed her eyes on him. “Did you kiss me just to shut me up?”

  Now his green eyes flashed and a muscle in his jaw ticked. “What?”

  “We were arguing,” she reminded him and warmed to her idea as she kept talking. “You were losing, so you wanted me quiet.”

  Reed laughed shortly and shook his head. “Again, I’ll remind you I’m an attorney. I argue for a living. I wasn’t losing.”

  “Oh, please,” she said, giving him a satisfied smile. Connie was right. Reed really was a terrible liar. Which meant she was, too, but that wasn’t the point right now. “We both know I was right. You’ve been ignoring Rosie, avoiding me. I called you on it and you didn’t like it. So to end the argument, you kissed me.”

  He took a step closer and Lilah just managed to not take an equal step back. She wasn’t afraid of him or anything. She just didn’t know if being too close to him right that moment was the best possible idea. Yet backing up would make him think she didn’t trust herself around him. Which she didn’t—but why let him know that?

  “I don’t have to kiss a woman to win an argument. I make a lot of money by winning arguments.” His gaze moved over her features before meeting her eyes again. “You want the truth? I kissed you because I wanted to. And like I told you once before, when I want something, I go get it.”

  Well, that was both insulting and flattering. For a week now, she’d been fighting her attraction to Reed, knowing it couldn’t go anywhere. Knowing it would just complicate an already out-of-control situation. And boy had she been right.

  In her own imagination, a kiss between them would have been hot, leaving them both uncomfortable. In reality, the kiss was well beyond hot and had left them both…wary. Plus, now she couldn’t help wondering what sex with him would be like. But as soon as that thought jumped merrily into her mind, she pushed it back out again. As hard as it would be, she was going to forget all about this kiss and the way he’d made her feel for a few shining moments. It was the only way to survive being around him.

  “I’m not a prize you can grab off a shelf, Reed. And if I don’t want you to kiss me again, you won’t, believe me.”

  “Not much of a threat.” His voice was a dark rumble that seemed to settle along her spine and vibrate. “Since you already want me to kiss you again.”

  Lilah took a deep breath and let it slide from her lungs on a long sigh. She could lie, but what would be the point? He’d felt her reaction to his kiss. He could probably look into her eyes right now and still see the smoldering embers of the inferno he’d started inside her.

  “Fine. Okay, maybe I do want you to kiss me.” He moved in on her and
this time she did skip backward out of reach. If she let him touch her right now, he’d set off a chain reaction within her that would quickly flare up out of control. If she was going to draw a line in the sand, then it had to be here and now. “But unlike you, I don’t go after something just because I want it.”

  A barely there smile touched one corner of his mouth. “Is that right?”

  She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and told herself she was doing the right thing. “Absolutely. We don’t always want what’s good for us.”

  He laughed shortly, tucked his hands into his pockets and nodded. “Truer words,” he mused.

  Lilah’s eyebrows arched. She was pretty sure she’d just been insulted. “Thanks very much.”

  As if he could read the tension spiraling through her, he took a step back, then another. “Look, I’ve told you my father doesn’t want the baby and Spring’s mother says she simply can’t do it because she would miss Spring too much, though she also pointed out she’s not interested in being a grandma. So I’m keeping Rose. Raising her.”

  “Loving her?” Lilah had to ask. Had to make him see that money and a roof over her head would not be enough to give Rose the whole, complete life she deserved.

  He frowned at her. “What is this obsession you have with love?”

  “Obsession?” she repeated. “What is your fierce opposition to it?”

  “I’ve seen too many people crushed because love was taken away. Or denied. Or tossed aside. Love,” he said, voice dark, deep, “is the root of every misery in the world.”

  “That’s a sad attitude.”

  “And I earned it,” he told her, shaking his head, walking across the room to look out the window at the neatly tended front yard.

  He didn’t speak again, but Lilah was intrigued enough by his silence to follow him. To try to find the first chink in the wall he surrounded himself with. “How? How did you earn the right to say that love is worthless?”