Millionaire in Command / The Bride Hunter: Millionaire in Command / The Bride Hunter

скачать книгу бесплатно


An hour later, Phoebe stood in Nina’s new nursery, toying with the decorative silk slippers tacked to the wall. Control slipped away as fast as the tears down her cheeks.

What had she gotten herself into?

Swiping the back of her wrist under her eyes, she looked into Nina’s crib at the sweet baby she loved so much. Phoebe adjusted the light blanket, smoothed back a dark curl…saw Kyle’s one-sided smile as the infant grinned in her sleep.

Life was marching relentlessly on without her first husband. Her emotions had spiraled so far out of control she didn’t know how she would ever retrieve them. Now Kyle and all the myriad temptations he presented would be with her twenty-four/seven as she settled into a family life she’d never had and that Kyle clearly didn’t want.

She touched along her kissed-tender lips and searched back over their few conversations prior. What had she misunderstood to make her believe he was still in the air force, due to zip off into the wild blue yonder sometime soon? Maybe she’d just heard and believed what she’d wanted to where Kyle was concerned, desperate for a way to secure Nina’s future. She hadn’t looked beyond that to understand all the ways she could be hurting both their hearts to put them through this sham of a marriage.

Now it was too late to go back. She could only steel herself, forge ahead.

And try not to think about how much she wanted him to kiss her again.

Six

A week later, Kyle stood outside the nursery door, double-checking the monitor to make sure the thing was actually working. He pulled it away from his ear, looked at the buttons, clicked a couple back and forth. Yeah, he could hear the white-noise music playing low in the background.

Good God, the baby gear was more complicated than some of the intelligence equipment he’d worked with in the air force. In another week he would start with Landis International. For now, he was already unofficially working from home, but soon the traveling would start.

He hadn’t lied about being at Phoebe’s disposal. He just hadn’t mentioned there was a deadline to that since his new job would take him on the road even more than his old one. That didn’t leave him much time to win Phoebe over, into his bed.

Kyle started down the hall, eager to move forward with his next plan for persuading her they should enjoy all the benefits a wedding license brought. For the past week, he’d wined and dined Phoebe at the most romantic places he could think of, a challenge to do when considering the kid-friendly aspect. The opera had been a no go, but then he didn’t really like opera. He’d even persuaded Phoebe to fly upstate on the family jet for an outdoor history fair at Halloween. He’d thought Phoebe would enjoy the historical aspect, and Nina sure looked damn cute in her little princess costume. He had to admit the kid was easier to take along than he’d expected.

Of course, he didn’t really know what to expect from a child her age. He should probably get one of those parenting books or surf the Internet for kid-care articles because, his choice or not, he was a father now, which meant doing his best. He was also a husband, something he intended to focus his full attention on for the rest of the evening on their first adults-only date.