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“Too late. Your uncle fired me today. Didn’t you know?”
She’d expected him to react with surprise. Maybe even shock. After all, he’d just admitted she was one of the best employees he had. When he realized what had happened surely he would do something to straighten things out. Surely he would tell her he’d reprimand whomever it was that put her on the list for layoffs. Maybe he would invite her to come back and even give her a nice fat raise to make up for…
Her head jerked as she came out of her dream and heard how he actually responded to her announcement of her firing.
“Yes, I know.”
“You know?” she echoed stupidly.
He knew. He’d probably put her on the list on purpose. Hey, fire the blond chick—she’s good but she gets on my nerves. Smart is one thing, smart aleck is another. Get rid of her.
Suddenly she was furious—as angry as she’d been when she’d first heard she was a goner. Pulling away from his grip on her arm, she turned on him fiercely.
“But you think you know everything, don’t you? Did you also know I just lost my second job, the one I use to help get out of a mountain of debt that’s about to eat me alive? Did you also know that I’m about to be evicted from my apartment because I can’t pay the rent? Do you ever think about things like that when you casually toss people overboard? Or are we just like chess pieces in a big, careless game that doesn’t mean a thing to you?”
His handsome face could have been cut from stone. “Are you finished?”
“No! There are others just like me. Everyone in the research department, in fact. We were all living by the skin of our teeth, paycheck to paycheck…because you don’t exactly pay a lot to your lower-level employees, do you? And now every one of us is out on her ear, wondering where the next meal is coming from….”
“Okay, enough,” he demanded, stopping the words in her throat. “Can the outrage, Norma Rae. We don’t encourage peasant rebellions around here.” He’d pulled out another handkerchief and was wiping at the blood on his face and dabbing at the mess it had made on the front of his shirt.
“Imagine the damage you could have done with a pitchfork,” he muttered.
A sharp retort sprang to her lips, but before she could get the words out, she noticed that the bleeding was worse than she’d thought. She had to bite her lip to hold back a small cry. Every instinct in her wanted to leap forward and do something about the wound. Heal him. Maybe even comfort him. After all, it was pretty much her fault, no matter what she said to him.
The funny thing was he’d never looked more attractive to her. His dark hair was mussed, some of it falling down over his forehead. And there was a sort of vulnerability to him because of the cut and the blood and all. He usually looked so invincible. It was a refreshing change in a way.
And then he ruined it all by looking up with his mouth twisted in the usual sardonic style.
“Come along, my little attempted murderess,” he said, turning toward the corridor. “You’re going to have to fix what you’ve broken.”
She followed willingly enough as he led the way to his office. Guilt was making her pliable for the moment.
She hadn’t been in his office very often. She knew women who looked for any excuse to make a visit here, but she wasn’t one of them. As the best-looking unattached male—and the CEO’s nephew—he was considered quite a catch.
She’d never found him all that attractive herself. Too much arrogance there. That take-charge attitude did nothing but put her off. It reminded her too much of her short but miserable marriage. Not that Grant was anything like Ralph, really. At least Grant’s arrogance was based on a certain level of competence. Ralph’s had been mostly bluster.
Still, she’d vowed she would never again let a man rule her life the way her husband had tried to rule hers all those years and she tended to stay clear of men like Grant.
His office was a lot like him—handsome and well-maintained. Plush carpeting muffled sound; leather, wood and black glass provided a rich atmosphere. One framed photograph, set high at the back of the office, immediately drew the eye. The beautiful dark-haired woman holding an even more beautiful dark-eyed toddler had to be the wife and child she knew had died in a horrible car accident a few years ago.
The tragedy of losing a child—she could hardly bear to think of it. They said he’d changed after the accident. That he became a completely different person. She had no way of knowing what he’d been like before, but she found it hard to believe he’d been full of joy and laughter and the milk of human kindness in his earlier incarnation. The man she knew was totally focused on business and success and not much else.
So…just as she was a widow, he was a widower. She’d never put those two identities together like that before. Just the thought made her jump back mentally, as though she’d put her hand on a hot stove. No, she didn’t want to go there.
“So, where is your first-aid kit?” she asked. She put the pieces of her orchid pot on the desk and turned, noting there was a door leading to a private bathroom.
“I’ll take care of the cut,” he said, beginning to shrug out of his shirt. “You take care of the bloodstains on this.”
He held out the shirt to her but she had a hard time noticing. Her attention was caught and held by the incredible sight of his beautiful torso.
Men his age weren’t supposed to look this good. He had to be in his thirties. By then, most males she knew had started to let lust for potato chips and beer overcome the desire to work out at the gym. Somebody had forgotten to clue Grant in to the routine. He was as gorgeous as a Greek statue.
And just as cold, she reminded herself quickly, working hard to keep her breathing steady.
She felt numb as she took the shirt and started toward the sink in the bathroom. Had she stared too long? Had he noticed? Oh please, don’t let him have noticed! She turned the faucet up high and began scrubbing at the shirt with all her might.
“I don’t know,” he was saying, and there he was right behind her again, looking into the mirror over her head and dabbing at the wound. “What do you think? Iodine? Mercurochrome?”
She turned to look at his cut, but he was standing much too close and all she could look at was the golden skin, the stunning muscles. Could she actually feel the heat from his body? He smelled so good, like soap and fresh-cut grass. For just a moment, she was overwhelmed by the need to touch him. It swept over her in a choking wave and she felt herself yearning toward him. Every part of her wanted to feel that beautiful flesh.
It had been far too long since a man had held her in his arms.
“Oh!” she cried, turning back. “Go out,” she ordered, staring down at the white shirt still in the sink and pointing toward the door.
“What’s the matter?”
“You’re like…naked!”
“I’m not naked. I just don’t have a shirt on.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re naked. Either you go out or I will.”
He was about to say something. She could feel him revving up for it. He was either going to blast her for being ridiculous or tease her for being a ninny. She gritted her teeth, getting ready for it.
But to her relief, he resisted the temptation and quietly left the room. She sighed, knowing she’d given the game away. But there had been nothing else she could have done, except maybe to run screaming from the room herself.
It wasn’t really him, she told herself a bit hysterically. It was just…well, she was a woman, after all. And he was the most gorgeous man she’d been this close to in a long, long time. Still, she wished she hadn’t revealed herself that way.
She finished washing his shirt and when she came out into the office, she found him pulling on a T-shirt he’d found somewhere. It hugged his bulges and emphasized his assets, but it was better than his being naked.
“I hung your shirt on a hook in the bathroom to dry,” she told him without meeting his gaze.
He turned to look at her, reminded immediately of what he liked about her. She was efficient and to the point. Her smile didn’t drip with saccharin and she didn’t bat her eyes. He’d been surprised at the way she’d reacted a few minutes before. Usually she was almost as careful and controlled as he was.
And that was why he’d thought she might be interested in a business proposition he’d put to her a few months before. She’d responded as though he’d asked her to sign over her soul to him and he thought she’d overreacted. Still, he hadn’t been able to get the possibility out of his mind ever since.
“Am I allowed this close to you?” he teased.
“As long as you’re dressed,” she said calmly, flashing a sharp look his way. “Naked men make me nervous.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Naked women, on the other hand…”
“Should obviously be kept out of your reach.”
He laughed. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m just a tame family man.” Reality flashed into his mind and his smile faded. He had no family anymore.
“Or at least I used to be,” he murmured softly, staring into space.
Funny. It had been almost two years since Jan had died. There were now times when he could go a few days without the wave of nausea, the sharp pain in his heart and the cramping of his stomach muscles at the thought of her and what he’d lost. And then it would come again, slapping him in the face when he least expected it. Like now.
She was the only woman he’d ever loved or ever could love. And because of that, he almost welcomed the pain. Anything that would bring her closer for a moment. He would never get over it. He didn’t want to get over it. Jan was still his wife, now and forever.
On the other hand, he ached for a child. His little Lisa had been as beloved as a baby could be and he missed her almost as much as he missed Jan. But over the last year or so, the need for another child had been growing in him. He wanted a son. A baby to fill up the hole in his heart. A child to give him a future.
“Are you thinking this way because of Granddad?” his sister, Gena, had asked him just the other day when he’d hinted at his longing. “I know he’s on all the time about wanting you to marry again so you can have a son to carry on the name.”
“‘Grant Carver, the name of Texas heroes’,” he quoted his grandfather in a voice very like his, and they both laughed. “No, this has nothing to do with getting married.”
“Children usually come with mothers attached,” she’d warned him.
She meant a wife, of course. She thought he ought to look for someone to marry.
“I’ll find a way around that,” he’d told his sister artlessly.
“You can’t have a baby without getting married,” she’d insisted.
“Oh, yeah? Watch me.”
But he wasn’t as confident as he pretended. He’d looked into the various options open to him and had found it wasn’t as easy as you might think. You couldn’t just order up a new kid the way he’d bought his new Lamborghini. Not if you wanted the child to actually carry your genes.
And that was what he wanted—deeply, passionately, with all his heart. He just wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to make it happen.
“Do you have any family around you?” he asked Callie curiously. He knew she was a widow, but he didn’t know much else about her circumstances. “Any parents or aunts and uncles?”
She had the look of someone who was thinking of edging toward the door.
“Family?” she repeated. “Uh…no, not really. I’m pretty much alone.”
Leaning against his desk, he dabbed at the blood on his lip again. “Everybody needs some sort of family,” he advised her. “I just spent the last few days at a friend’s family reunion in San Antonio. Watching all those people enjoy each other and care about each other and depend on each other really brought it home to me. We all need other people in our lives.”
And I need a son.
He didn’t say it aloud, but somehow he almost felt she heard his thoughts. Watching her eyes change, he knew she was thinking of the same thing he was—of that rainy fall day about six months before when he’d nipped into his cousin’s medical clinic and found Callie Stevens sitting in the waiting room.
Babies—that was his cousin’s business. Ted ran an infertility clinic that specialized in in vitro fertilization. Tortured by his longing for a child to love, Grant had stopped in to see if he could get some information from his cousin about surrogate mothering—without actually planning to come clean on why he was asking about it.
And there was Callie, flipping nervously through a food magazine. He’d nodded in recognition. She’d turned beet-red and nodded back, then pretended fascination in tofu recipes. And he’d left without the information he’d come for, but with a new curiosity in just what a woman like Callie had been doing in his cousin’s waiting room.
As a widow, could it be that she, like him, longed for a baby but didn’t want the complications of another relationship? The thought was tantalizing and he’d spun a whole scenario around it, getting more and more enthusiastic. His cousin’s office wasn’t the first place he’d gone to find out about surrogates. He’d gone as far as to interview candidates at two other clinics. And he hadn’t been impressed. But if he could interest a woman like Callie Stevens…
He knew instinctively she would never have a baby for mere money. So what could he do to provide an incentive? He’d mulled it over for days and thought he’d come up with a plan that would be mutually advantageous. She obviously wanted a baby. He could provide the support for her if she had a child for him—and then stayed on to basically be the child’s nanny. That way they both could get what they wanted.
It sounded good to him.
The next day he called her into his office and ran it past her. She’d acted like he was setting up a baby smuggling ring and wanted her to provide the baby. She couldn’t get out of his office fast enough. He was actually afraid she might quit her job or file some kind of harassment suit.
She hadn’t done that, but she had acted very wary around him for a while. He hadn’t brought it up again. But the possibilities were provocative, and he’d done his share of wondering—what if?
CHAPTER TWO
“YOU’RE bleeding again,” Callie said, jerking Grant’s attention back to the present situation. “We really need to do something about it. You need a doctor.”
“Oh, no,” he said, dabbing at the wound. “I can do this myself.”
“No, you can’t.” She shook her head in exasperation. “I know you’re a control freak, but you can’t control everything yourself. There’s a time to admit when you need help.”
His blue eyes rose and held her gaze. There was nothing warm there, no teasing, no humor.
“What makes you think you know me, Ms. Callie Stevens?”
“I don’t really know you, Mr. Grant Carver, but I know your type.” She was on a roll. Things seemed to work much better when she took the initiative. He was scary in his way, but he could be tamed. At least, she hoped so.
“My type? Please, enlighten me. What is my type?”
She tried to glare at him but it didn’t come off. He looked strangely vulnerable in the T-shirt with his mouth still bleeding. Like a fighter after a fight. All his hard edges were blurring a bit.
“Go on,” he pressed. “I want to know what you think ‘my type’ is.”
“Okay.” She raised her chin. “Type A for arrogant. Type C for controlling. Type T for tyrant. Should I go on?”
“I get the picture. You don’t like me very much, do you?”
She blinked at him and words stuck in her throat. Like him? What did that have to do with it? She didn’t really know him, just as he’d said. What right did she have to be name-calling? Suddenly she regretted that she’d let herself tumble down this blind alley.
His handkerchief was soaked with blood and he was fishing in his desk for another one. The cut seemed to be getting worse the more he fooled with it.
She frowned. “I think you should sit down while we figure out what to do about your face,” she said.
He looked up at her with a spark of humor in his eyes. “You don’t like my face, either?” he said, managing to make it sound pathetic in a way guaranteed to touch her heartstrings.
She bit her lip to keep from smiling at him.
“Sit down,” she said.
“I don’t need to sit down, I…”
Reaching out, she flattened her hand against his chest and gave him a shove into the large leather desk chair behind him. He let her do it and didn’t resist, sinking down into the leather and watching her curiously, as though he was interested in what she thought she was going to do with him next.
“Now pick up the phone and call a doctor,” she ordered.
He gave her a skeptical look. “Be serious.”
“I’m serious as a heart attack. You need help. I’m not leaving you here to bleed to death in the night. Pick up that phone.”
“At the rate my blood is flowing, it’ll take a week to bleed to death,” he scoffed. But he did glance at the soaked handkerchief. Still, he hesitated. “Listen, my sister’s a general practitioner. She can take care of it—if I decide that’s necessary.”
She motioned toward the telephone. “Call her.”
