The Rival's Heir

by Joss Wood

  After a pregnancy scare in his early twenties, he’d wanted a vasectomy, to take the issue off the table permanently. But the doctor refused, telling Judah he was too young, he might still change his mind. Furious, Judah had vowed to find another doctor, but then his career took off and he’d never found the time to go back.

  But he would. When he stopped being a monk, he’d find another doctor. He was thirty-five, he hadn’t changed his mind in ten years and he wouldn’t be refused again. As a child, he’d raised his baby brother and he didn’t want to raise another child.

  A scholarship to college had been his exit out of that life and he still felt guilty for leaving six-year-old Jake behind. Despite Judah’s attempts to keep tabs on his brother from afar, Jake was smoking weed by thirteen, fully addicted and boosting cars to feed his habit by sixteen. By eighteen, he was in juvie.

  Never again would Judah put himself in the position of having to choose between his future and his obligations. So, no kids. And after a few relationships that went nowhere and Car Crash Carla, no commitment.

  To anyone.

  Ever.

  Judah sucked in a calming breath. “I’m at the Sheraton, downtown Boston. Presidential suite. Get Rossi back here.”

  Carla pulled in a deep, ragged breath. “I tried to call him just before you called but his phone is off.”

  Judah gripped the bridge of his nose and cursed. “Make a plan, Carla.”

  Carla thought for a minute. “I’ll call an agency, hire a nanny. They can send someone.”

  God, she was going to ask a stranger to pick up Jac? Now that was exactly the type of dick move his father and stepmother would’ve pulled. Judah felt the burn of intense anger. “No, Carla. You will come and get her. Yourself. Personally.”

  “I can’t. It’s just not possible.” Carla spluttered her reply, making it sound like he’d asked her to become a nun.

  “Jacquetta is your daughter, so you come and get her. It’s not up for negotiation”

  Carla finally ran out of expletives. “I’ll come but I need some time.”

  “You’ve got a day. Be here in twenty-four hours or I’m going to be the one calling the tabloids, Carla.”

  “Judah, no! I am in Como, it will take more time than that.”

  “You should’ve thought about that when you played pass-the-parcel with your daughter,” Judah said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “Hurry up, Carla. The clock is ticking.”

  Judah disconnected the call and banged the face of his phone against his forehead. He released his own series of curses and looked down to see Jac sending him a wide-eyed look. “Your mom is something else, kid.”

  Jac blinked once, then again and then she smiled, revealing a gorgeous dimple and pink gums. Man, she was cute. And despite being passed from person to person, remarkably sanguine.

  “So, I guess it’s you and me for the next twenty-four hours.”

  Jac waved her pudgy arms in the air and kicked her legs.

  “Glad you are on board with that program. It’s been a while since I made bottles or changed diapers so if you can try not to be hungry or need a change in the next day or so, I’d be grateful.”

  Jac sent him what he was sure was a get-real look.

  Judah walked her back to where the stroller stood, dropped her bag into the storage compartment and strapped her in. It had been years and years since he’d been in charge of anyone under two feet tall but he still instinctively knew what he was doing.

  He could look after this child for a day. A day wasn’t so long. Not when he compared it to looking after his brother day in and day out for six or so years.

  This time around he was an adult and he had a voice. And he’d damn well use it.

  * * *

  After work the next afternoon, Darby sat down on the deep purple sofa in the showroom of Winston and Brogan and tucked a bright yellow cushion behind her back. While she loved color, and frequently approved of Jules’s interior design choices, she simply did not like the industry’s current obsession with eggplant. But Winston and Brogan were cutting-edge designers and they always reflected what was hot.

  DJ squeezed Darby’s shoulder before sitting down next to her, the diamond on the ring finger of her left hand so big Darby was sure she could see it from space. Jules’s emerald was just as large, as valuable, as impressive. Darby’s future brothers-in-law—one by law and both by love—were crazy about Jules and DJ respectively. Darby was happy they’d found their soul mates.

  Hers was probably stuck up a tree or had been run over by an out-of-control bus. Or maybe there wasn’t a man who would put up with a determined, driven, stubborn, type-A personality with fertility issues.

  Jules placed a cup of tea on the white coffee table between them before taking the seat to DJ’s left. DJ squeezed Darby’s hand. “Sorry you didn’t get the Grantham-Ford project, Darbs.”

  Darby forced a shrug. She hated to lose, even if it was to a Pritzker Prize winner. “It wasn’t a surprise that Huntley got it. They’d be fools to pass up his design. It was magnificent.”

  So was Huntley, for a cold, hard jerk bucket.

  Jules linked her hands around her knee. “And have they announced who will be his liaison between Huntley and Associates and the Grantham-Ford Foundation?”

  Every architect in the city wanted a shot to work with Huntley, to be at his beck and call. Everybody but Darby. She’d seen the measure of the man last night and she was less than impressed.

  “Don’t care. It’s an intern position and I’m not interested.” She took the stack of paper DJ handed her and smiled. Financials. A discussion, then her dividend check. Yay.

  DJ tapped the end of her pen against the stack of papers in her lap and cleared her throat. “Let’s go through the financials first. Let’s ignore page one and two and go straight to page three.”

  Darby flipped to the right page and saw the column detailing income and expenses. Compared to Jules’s interior design income for the past six months, the architectural side of the business—Darby’s side of the business—was trailing Jules’s contribution by half. Up until this year, they’d been equal contributors, with DJ running the finances. It had been the perfect triangle, but now it looked like Darby’s side was collapsing.

  She took the check DJ handed her and looked at the total. Then she looked at DJ, wondering if she’d left off a zero.

  “This is it?”

  “Yes.”

  Well, hell.

  DJ leaned forward, her eyes sober. “It wasn’t a great quarter, it’s tough out there. The interior design had a boost in income thanks to Noah employing Jules to do yacht interiors, and you had small jobs but nothing that brought in big money.”

  Darby stared at her check, her mind spinning. This check didn’t come close to what she needed to pay for IVF. She’d have to put her buildings up for sale immediately, take what she could get for them. She might not even clear her costs, but it would free up the money. Any way she looked at it, she was moving backward, not forward. Dammit.

  “There are other factors that contributed to a less than stellar year, Darby.”

  “Like?” Darby demanded.

  “The rent on this building went up significantly—”

  “We agreed we needed to be here, that this was the best place for us to be,” Darby countered. “And that was only a ten percent increase.” She skimmed the lines, looking for other anomalies. “The real reason we aren’t growing is because I didn’t bring in enough income.”

  The proof was there, in black and white. She hadn’t been an equal contributor. She’d failed.

  Darby didn’t like to fail.

  “I’ll make it up to you. This next quarter, you’ll see.” She felt the need to apologize again. “I’m so sorry. You guys have worked so hard and I didn’t pull my weight.”

  “Oh, for
God’s sake!” Jules muttered before sending her twin a hard look. “Can I hand you a hair shirt? Would that make you feel better?”

  “But—”

  “Who bankrolled this business, Darby?” Jules demanded, not giving Darby a chance to answer. “You did. You bought and fixed up that cottage and the profit you made paid our expenses for the first six months. Thanks to you, we didn’t have to borrow money from Mom or Levi or a bank.”

  “The cost of renting the warehouse, the additional staff we’ve had to take on because we’ve expanded have all contributed to the drop in profits,” DJ explained. “It’s normal, Darby.”

  Darby looked at the profit-loss line and winced. “It’s shocking.”

  DJ rolled her eyes. “You are such an overachiever, Darby. We can afford one less than stellar quarter. We still made a small profit.”

  But not enough, not nearly enough. From now on, Darby would be all over every project she could find. She’d work longer hours, take in as much work as she could. She had to make up the shortfall, and that meant doubling her income. She needed work, and lots of it.

  “Oh, God, she’s got that crazy look in her eye,” Jules said. “You just flicked her competitive switch.” She leaned forward, blue eyes pinning Darby to the seat. “We’re in this together, Darby, so stop thinking this is your problem to solve. This is not a competition.”

  It was a refrain she’d heard all her life: you’re too competitive, Darby. You can’t treat anything as fun, Darby. You don’t have to win at everything, Darby.

  What no one understood was that being competitive was the way she was made. She couldn’t remember a time when winning wasn’t her goal.

  One of her earliest memories was being on the playground, wanting to be the girl who could run the fastest, jump the longest, swing the highest. She excelled at all sports, was one of the most popular girls in school. She could remember dreading the results of tests, needing to achieve better grades than, well, everyone. Her report cards were all As and when she got her first C, in college, she’d been devastated.

  Yes, she was competitive. Yes, she was driven. But, dammit, being both got results. She just had to refocus, redefine her goals. Do better, be better. Determination, her old friend, flowed through her, energizing her.

  Darby Brynn Brogan had always produced the results and she would this time, too. Options, scenarios and plans buzzed through her brain.

  DJ leaned her shoulder into Darby’s. “Business is about troughs and highs, Darby, everything balances out in the end. I promise that Winston and Brogan is okay. The next cycle will be a lot better.”

  What if it wasn’t? What if the economy worsened? She didn’t deal in what-ifs, in maybes. She needed a plan to boost her side of the business. She needed work, a lucrative contract, and she knew one place where she could get one.

  Judah Huntley had found his Boston-based architect. He just needed to be notified of the decision.

  Four

  After twenty-four hours of looking after Jac, Judah was hanging on to the end of his rope with his teeth. He was exhausted. He needed a shower and to sleep for a week.

  Jac, he was certain, was as shattered as he was. She constantly needed to be reassured. She did this incredibly effectively, by crying incessantly. He’d changed her, fed her, held her, paced the room with her but the kid just cried.

  And then she cried some more.

  How had he done this as a child, a teenager? He must’ve had a guardian angel, some celestial being giving him guidance, because, God knew, the adults in the house hadn’t been interested.

  Judah pushed his hand into his hair and wondered, again, where Carla was. He hadn’t managed to reach her the past twelve hours. For the first ten of those hours, he hadn’t been worried. She was in the air. But her flight landed two hours ago and she should have rocked up an hour ago. Judah tensed and reminded himself that Carla had the attention span of a three-week-old puppy. She was easily distracted and being an hour late was nothing.

  She could be stuck in a traffic jam or held up at customs. There were lots of reasonable explanations for her tardiness. She would get here eventually. Late but begging him to forgive her, flashing that big smile and batting those enormous, expressive brown eyes.

  He would forgive her anything if she would just take Jac and let him get some sleep.

  Judah moved Jac up onto his shoulder, patted her little bottom and sighed when she let out another high-pitched wail. Why wasn’t she asleep yet?

  Hearing the buzz of the hotel room phone, Judah walked across the presidential suite and lunged for the phone before remembering he was holding a baby. Cursing, he tightened his hold on Jac, shook his head when her volume control went up and barked a greeting into the phone.

  “Mr. Huntley you have a visitor—”

  “Send her up,” Judah muttered, banging the receiver down. He rubbed Jac’s back. “Your mommy is here, Jac. Think she can save us both?”

  Jac’s wail was his answer and he nodded. “I understand your worry. But if I know your mom, she will have brought a nanny with her and you’ll be in safe hands.”

  Sleep was within his grasp. He looked across the room to the open door of the bedroom, sighing at the California king-size bed made up with fine Egyptian sheets and an expensive comforter. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen and he would be facedown in blessed quiet.

  He liked quiet. He liked calm. Most of all, he liked sleep.

  Judah went to stand by the front door. He would stay calm, he told himself. He would just hand Jac over, not engage with his volatile ex-lover—screaming and throwing stuff was Carla’s favorite way to negotiate an argument—and then he’d lock the door behind him and strip off as he headed to his bedroom. He smelled like regurgitated milk since Jac had shown her disgust for the situation by vomiting all over his shirt. He should shower but he probably wouldn’t; his need for sleep was too strong.

  At thirty-five, he was too old to go for days without sleep. He was too old for drama, full stop.

  Judah yanked open the door. All thoughts about keeping his cool disappeared. “I always thought you were unbelievably self-absorbed, but this behavior is beyond where I thought you would ever go. She’s a little girl, Carla, not a doll—Jesus.”

  Judah blinked once, then again before lifting his free hand to rub his bleary eyes. But when he opened his eyes again, the Duchess still stood in the doorway, her silver-gray eyes dominating her face.

  Hoping against hope, Judah pulled her to the side and stuck his head into the corridor. Nope, no feisty Italian opera singer in sight. He looked down at his watch. She was now an hour and a half late.

  Judah was, not to put too fine a point on it, starting to worry. He needed to start making some calls. Something about this entire situation felt wrong.

  “This isn’t a good time, Duchess.”

  The use of the nickname didn’t impress her, but Judah didn’t care. He was too tired to deal with an uptight blonde.

  She stepped into the hallway, carefully shut the door behind her and looked at the still-crying Jac. “How long has she been upset?”

  “Forever,” Judah replied wearily. “I don’t think she’s stopped crying.”

  “When did you last change her?” Darby demanded in that crisp, no-nonsense, answer-me-dammit voice. It turned him on. Why he had no idea. Maybe he was nuts or maybe it was the fact that she was wearing tight black trousers that showed off her long, lean body to perfection. The button-down shirt was a shade of blue that reminded him of the sea around Corfu and it nipped in at the waist, flashing a hint of a bra the same color. He’d bet his fortune—a considerable amount—that her panties matched her bra. The Duchess seemed the type.

  Which reminded him, he couldn’t keep calling her by that nickname. “Who are you?”

  “Darby Brogan, architect. I’m a partner at Winston and Brogan,” she replied. “Well,
when?”

  She was also waiting for a response and Judah used all his processing power to remember what she’d asked him. Right, changing a diaper. “A half hour ago.”

  Darby’s perfectly arched eyebrows flew up toward her hairline. “Her last bottle?”

  This was like the Spanish Inquisition. “Around the same time.”

  “Mmm.”

  What did that mean? Was that good or bad? Then he stopped caring because Darby, God bless her, reached for the baby. Relieved, Judah walked back into the living room, dropped his six-foot-three frame onto the closest sofa and stretched out.

  Yeah, this. He fought to keep his eyes open. Rolling his head, he watched Darby take a small blanket from Jac’s bag. He wasn’t too tired to appreciate her long-legged and sexy-as-hell stride as she walked toward him. Using one hand, she spread the blanket on the chair and the little blood left in his brain ran south at the vision of that perfect ass bending over in front of him. He could easily imagine her naked, her blond hair touching the floor as she bent at the waist. High heels, a naughty smile—she was the girl in the posters he had on his bedroom wall as a teenager.

  Okay, maybe he wasn’t that tired.

  Unaware that his mind was playing in the gutter, Darby placed Jac in the middle of the fabric square and quickly and efficiently bundled her up. Then she placed Jac against her chest and rhythmically patted the baby’s back. Within twenty seconds, Jac’s volume button was on low and then it was on mute.

  Darby turned her back to him so he could see Jac’s now peaceful face. “Is she asleep?”

  She was, thank God. Thank Darby. “If I wasn’t so damn grateful, I might be swearing at you right now. I’ve been trying to get her to go to sleep for, God, three hundred years.”