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Baby Before Business
SUSAN MEIER








Ty caught her upper arm, hauled her up, spun her around and pressed his mouth to hers.


Madelyn knew if she were ever going to faint in her life, this would be the minute. His mouth rubbed solidly against her lips to disarm her, then parted her lips and absolutely annihilated her.

As quickly as he grabbed her, though, Ty let her loose and he stepped back. Madelyn gazed up at him, too startled by the power of his kiss to breathe, let alone speak.

But Ty didn’t seem to have the same problem. “Watch yourself, Miss Maddy,” he warned. “I’m a man who sees what he wants and takes it. If you’re going to work for me, you either have to stop flirting with me or accept the consequences.”

Baby Before Business

Prince Baby

Snowbound Baby


Dear Reader,

It’s two days before Christmas, and while the streets of New York City are teeming with all the sights and sounds of the holiday, here at Silhouette Romance we’re putting the finishing touches on our July schedule. In case you’re not familiar with publishing, we need that much lead time to produce the romances you enjoy.

And, of course, I can’t help boasting already about the great lineup we’ve planned for you. Popular author Susan Meier heads the month with Baby Before Business (SR #1774), in which an all-work Scrooge gets his priorities in order when he discovers love with his PR executive-turned-nanny. The romance kicks off the author’s new baby-themed trilogy, BRYANT BABY BONANZA. Carol Grace continues FAIRY-TALE BRIDES with Cinderellie! (SR #1775), in which a millionaire goes in search of the beautiful caterer who’s left her slipper behind in his mansion. A Bride for a Blue-Ribbon Cowboy (SR #1776) introduces Silhouette Special Edition author Judy Duarte to the line. Part of the new BLOSSOM COUNTY FAIR miniseries, this romance involves a tomboy’s transformation to win the cowboy of her dreams. Finally, Holly Jacobs continues her PERRY SQUARE miniseries with Once Upon a Prince (SR #1777), featuring the town’s beloved redheaded rebel and a royal determined to woo and win her!

And don’t miss next month’s selection led by reader favorites Judy Christenberry and Patricia Thayer.

Happy reading!

Ann Leslie Tuttle

Associate Senior Editor




Baby Before Business

Bryant Baby Bonanza

Susan Meier





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Books by Susan Meier


Silhouette Romance

Stand-in Mom #1022

Temporarily Hers #1109

Wife in Training #1184

Merry Christmas, Daddy #1192

* (#litres_trial_promo)In Care of the Sheriff #1283

* (#litres_trial_promo)Guess What? We’re Married! #1338

Husband from 9 to 5 #1354

* (#litres_trial_promo)The Rancher and the Heiress #1374

† (#litres_trial_promo)The Baby Bequest #1420

† (#litres_trial_promo)Bringing up Babies #1427

† (#litres_trial_promo)Oh, Babies! #1433

His Expectant Neighbor #1468

Hunter’s Vow #1487

Cinderella and the CEO #1498

Marrying Money #1519

The Boss’s Urgent Proposal #1566

Married Right Away #1579

Married in the Morning #1601

** (#litres_trial_promo)Baby on Board #1639

** (#litres_trial_promo)The Tycoon’s Double Trouble #1650

** (#litres_trial_promo)The Nanny Solution #1662

Love, Your Secret Admirer #1684

Twice a Princess #1758

†† (#litres_trial_promo)Baby Before Business #1774

Silhouette Desire

Take the Risk #567




SUSAN MEIER


is one of eleven children, and though she has yet to write a book about a big family, many of her books explore the dynamics of “unusual” family situations, such as large work “families,” bosses who behave like overprotective fathers, or “sister” bonds created between friends. Because she has more than twenty nieces and nephews, children also are always popping up in her stories. Many of the funny scenes in her books are based on experiences raising her own children or interacting with her nieces and nephews.

She was born and raised in western Pennsylvania and continues to live in Pennsylvania.




THE SWAP


His Turn: Ty’s Rules for Madelyn



1 Keep the baby clean and happy.

2 Hire a nanny so you can return to your job as my PR executive.

3 Keep your parents out of my house.

4 Don’t think you can change me, even if we’ve shared a kiss or two!


Her Turn: Madelyn’s Rules for Ty



1 Leave work early so you can spend some time with the baby.

2 Donate playground equipment.

3 Start saying hello to your employees!


Note to self: Now that you’ve seen him outside the office, try to ignore the fact that this all-work Scrooge is sexy…and truly good at heart!




Contents


Chapter One (#udfaa848d-cddb-5d83-883c-2c154062947b)

Chapter Two (#u5a4c63ea-6b53-5cf5-bac5-48e8bb14a310)

Chapter Three (#ud68249ee-95ae-5460-9073-44155539d2b3)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)




Chapter One


“You sent for me?”

Madelyn Gentry entered Ty Bryant’s executive office, and when he looked up from the paper he was reading she just barely suppressed a gasp. He was gorgeous. Thick black hair perfectly matched his onyx eyes and accented his character-filled, strong-boned face. His impeccable black suit, white shirt and silver tie spoke of elegance and sophistication—the kind of elegance and sophistication she didn’t expect to find in a scrooge or ogre, as his employees referred to him.

“Are you the PR woman my brother hired?”

“Yes, I’m Madelyn Gentry,” she said, ignoring the slight in the way he said “woman” as she extended her hand to shake his, but Ty Bryant acted as if he didn’t see the gesture and tossed the paper he’d been reviewing across his desk.

“What’s this?”

Madelyn picked up the sheet and glanced at it. “It’s the details of your PR event,” she said, smiling as she sat on one of his two guest chairs.

But Ty’s livid expression caused her smile to fade. He might be one of the most attractive men on the planet, but he could be pretty darned scary-looking. If nothing else, he was intimidating.

Still, that didn’t surprise her. His employees had complained about him all three days he had been away from the office for his cousin’s funeral. Plus, Ty’s brother Seth had filled Madelyn in on Ty’s background. She knew the Bryant brothers had lost their parents when Ty was twenty and Ty had taken responsibility for his fifteen-and eighteen-year-old siblings. He had struggled to support them with the family’s ailing construction company and, against the odds, had transformed the local contractor into a supersuccessful development business.

It was a no-brainer to realize Ty’s difficult life had made him somewhat harsh. But, justifiably grouchy or not, the guy had to clean up his act. That was why his much nicer brother Seth had hired her.

“You need to get out into the community—”

“Cancel it.”

Madelyn took a silent breath, remembering how Ty’s employees had called him Tyrant Ty, the boss from hell. As far as Madelyn was concerned, if his employees couldn’t even be kind to him while he was away for a funeral, there was no telling what they would say to the Wall Street Journal reporter scheduled to arrive in three weeks. Madelyn couldn’t let a member of the media anywhere near the unhappy residents of Porter, Arkansas, until Ty’s employees at least stopped name-calling.

“I can’t. It’s all arranged. Besides, you—”

“I said cancel it. I will give the Wall Street Journal an interview because Seth thinks it’s necessary to get our company name in a newspaper with national circulation so we’re recognized when we begin bidding on federal projects. But I won’t participate in a sap fest.”

Madelyn gasped. “This isn’t a sap fest! You’re presenting playground equipment to a day care! You need this event to soften your reputation in the community.”

That made him laugh. “Ms. Gentry, I spent fifteen years getting this reputation, there’s no way in hell I want it softened.”

So, he was an ogre by choice. Great. There was no way she could repair his image. The best she could hope for was that his employees would feel better about him after he gave the gym sets to the day care, and pray the afterglow from his donation lingered at least until the reporter came to Porter.

“I understand that, but…”

“And I’m not giving away thirty thousand dollars.”

“You’re not giving away thirty thousand dollars. You’re donating equipment to the day care that babysits most of your employees’ children. Think of it as thirty thousand dollars of goodwill.”

“Baloney. Swings and gym sets and volleyballs—”

“Will win over parents,” she interrupted, finding the perfect opening to get her point across, but Ty didn’t let her finish.

“And that’s another thing,” he said, rising and tossing a second piece of paper at her. “Who wrote this speech? It’s the most disgusting piece of drivel I’ve ever read. Giving some kid a swing does not turn him into a leader.”

“It’s not the swing. It’s the sense of community…”

“Elitist liberal crap,” Ty said, walking to the wall of window behind his desk and looking out at the rural Arkansas town that housed his company. Tall and broad-shouldered, he stood ramrod straight. His dark hair gleamed in the late-afternoon sun. Madelyn couldn’t help noticing again that the man was hot, but it was too bad all those good looks were wasted on a grouch.

“The last thing kids need is to be mollycoddled. What they really should learn is to earn what they get and to pull their own weight. If you think otherwise, you’re certainly not the person to be doing Bryant Development’s public relations. You’re fired.”

Madelyn blinked, stunned. “What?”

He faced her. His dark eyes were cold and serious. “You…are…fired,” he said, enunciating each word as if he were speaking to a slow-witted child. “Pack your things and go.”

Madelyn’s mouth fell open in complete shock. Suddenly grouch, ogre, scrooge and troll seemed too kind to describe Ty Bryant. Even tyrannical dictator didn’t hit the mark. He was the coldest man she had ever met. He was, quite simply, a public relations nightmare and she realized nobody was going to clean up this guy’s image—not even somebody who desperately needed to.

She was at the end of the money she’d saved while working for a high-powered PR firm in Atlanta. Her father had recovered from the heart attack that had brought her home the year before, but she still didn’t feel right about leaving. She and her sister and their two brothers had all moved to other parts of the country to find work, and her parents were alone. Arlene sold medical supplies in the northwest and couldn’t live in Arkansas. Jeff and Marty both worked for big corporations that didn’t have offices anywhere near Porter. Madelyn was the logical choice to return to their hometown.

She’d tried drumming up consulting jobs, but in little Porter she didn’t get much work. She wrote a few press releases for local politicians and helped some people enhance their résumés, but that had been about it.

Seth Bryant had dangled two enticing possibilities when he offered her this assignment. First, working for Bryant Development would give her exposure enough to get new clients—maybe not in Porter but close enough that she could still live in Porter. And second, Seth planned to talk Ty into creating a permanent PR department. If she succeeded in cleaning up Ty’s image, she would be the logical choice to head it.

But after meeting Ty Bryant she had to be realistic. He wasn’t the kind of guy positive PR could change overnight—or even in the three weeks she had before the reporter arrived—and there was a bigger chance she would fail than succeed. Then there would be no job at Bryant Development. Plus, if word leaked that she’d failed, she wouldn’t attract new individual assignments. She might even lose the résumé business she had. Either way, she would be returning to Atlanta.

“Excuse me?” Joni O’Brien, Ty’s secretary, poked her head into Ty’s office doorway, and Madelyn and Ty’s attention turned to the petite brunette.

Clearly annoyed, Ty said, “Joni, I’m meeting with someone. You know better than to disturb me.”

“Well, okay. Then I won’t tell you that I’m leaving to take my kids to the dentist or that the attorney for your cousin Scotty’s estate is here to see you.”

“Why is Scotty’s attorney here?” Ty asked, obviously surprised by the visit.

“I think I’d better let him answer that.” Joni turned toward the reception area and said, “Mr. Hauser, why don’t you go ahead in?”

“Joni! I can’t see him…” Ty began, going from annoyed to furious in under five seconds, but when Pete Hauser, one of only two attorneys who had offices in Porter, stepped into the doorway, Ty stopped talking.

Madelyn’s face scrunched in confusion. Pete held two diaper bags and a car seat. His secretary, Renee Brown, stood beside him, holding a little girl Madelyn guessed was about six months old. Wearing a pretty pink dress, white ruffle tights and black buckle shoes, the baby was adorable.

“Sorry about this,” Pete said as he and Renee entered Ty’s office. “But as you can see, we’re really not in a position to wait.”

Ty Bryant cast a quick glance at Madelyn Gentry. Medium height and thin, with no-nonsense straight red hair that fell to her shoulders, she didn’t look like the perky Pollyanna his brother had described. Though she was only twenty-five, in her green skirt and simple beige top she looked professional and businesslike. But that didn’t change the fact that her job was fluff. Unnecessary fluff. More akin to Gossip Grid and Night Life magazines than actual work. Though Ty really didn’t know why Pete and his assistant Renee had brought Scotty’s daughter to his office, he didn’t want anything personal witnessed by a recently fired woman with contacts at all the newspapers on the eastern half of the United States.

After nodding an acknowledgment to Pete, Ty faced Madelyn. “Ms. Gentry, I think our discussion is over, but you look like you want to argue. You’re not going to change my mind, but if you still wish to duke it out, you can wait in my secretary’s office until I’m finished with Mr. Hauser.”

Ty watched Madelyn glance from the baby to Pete and then back to him again. Her bright green eyes displayed confusion. She licked her full, perfect lips as she assessed the situation, but she didn’t say a word. She simply rose and left the room.

Ty walked to his office door and closed it. “What’s up?” he asked, striding back to his desk.

Pete dropped the two heavy-looking diaper bags onto a convenient chair. “We found Scotty’s will today, Ty, and he names you as Sabrina’s guardian.”

Ty shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t do it.”

“I don’t think you heard me,” Pete said. “Scotty’s will names you as guardian. It’s my responsibility to give you the baby, that’s it.”

“Oh, come on, Pete, you can’t just barge into my office and drop off a child!”

“Yes, I can. As administrator of an estate I do what the will says and the will says you get the baby.”

Ty gaped at him. “You’re kidding!”

“No.” Pete paused, then added, “I assumed Scotty and Misty had spoken with you about this.”

“They hadn’t.” Ty glanced at the little girl in Renee’s arms. With her curly blond hair, pink dress and tiny black shoes, Sabrina looked like an angel, but Ty knew better. Kids were work, but Sabrina was a baby. There were years of trouble in this kid’s future. He wouldn’t start with high school as he had with Seth or even college as he had with Cooper. He would start with bottles and diapers and sandboxes and preschool, and build up to cars and proms.

No way he was doing this.

“Here, take her,” Renee suggested with a smile, offering the baby to Ty.

Eyes wide with horror, Ty stepped back.

“Oh, come on,” Renee cajoled. “She’s a sweetie. You’ll be fine,” she insisted, forcing Sabrina into Ty’s arms.

He had no choice but to catch the baby as Renee let go. He awkwardly juggled Sabrina into the crook of his elbow, then peered down at her as she raised her gaze to meet his. For ten seconds, she looked at him as he studied her. Then, without a sniff of warning, her lips puckered, her eyes filled with tears and she issued a blistering wail that would have singed off his hair if she had been closer.

“What about Misty’s parents?” Ty asked, shifting her over his shoulder and patting her back in a clumsy attempt to quiet her while he stalled Pete long enough to find a way out of this.

“Scotty and Misty’s wills both give you custody, but even if they didn’t Misty’s dad is in remission from cancer,” Pete shouted because Ty’s back-patting wasn’t calming Sabrina down. If anything, her crying seemed to get louder. “Given the state of his health, Misty’s parents didn’t think they were capable of dealing with a baby. They were relieved this afternoon when we read the wills and saw you got custody.”

That information poured over Ty like cement, freezing him in place and numbing his brain. Because Scotty’s parents had been killed in the same accident that took Ty’s parents, and both Misty and Scotty were only children, Misty’s parents were Ty’s only hope. There wasn’t going to be a way out of this. Sabrina screamed all the louder.

Pete pointed to the first of two diaper bags he had deposited on the chair in front of Ty’s desk and yelled, “Bottles are in there.”

Ty cast a baffled look at the brightly printed container and shouted, “Bottles?”

Renee removed the diaper bag hanging on her shoulder and set it beside the other two. “And this one is full of disposable diapers,” she said, also loud enough to be heard over Sabrina’s crying.

“Shhh, shhh, shhh,” Ty crooned, panic churning in his stomach. He could not raise a baby! Hell, he couldn’t even get her to stop crying! “This isn’t going to work, Pete!”

Pete grimaced and raised his voice another notch because Sabrina had somehow gotten louder. “Ty, I’m sorry, but that’s not my problem. You’re named guardian. I gave you the baby. That’s the end of my responsibility. What you do now is between you and her grandparents or you and child services.”

Child services!

Before Ty had a chance to take that thought any further, his office door burst open and Madelyn Gentry stormed in. She sighed heavily and marched over to Ty. “Really, you guys. What’s going on?” she asked as she took the baby fromTy’s arms. Without waiting for an answer, she strode to the diaper bags and began rummaging around. “Even through the closed door I could hear this poor child screaming. Were you beating her in here?”

Not at all happy to have a PR guru in the room to witness this disaster, Ty watched Madelyn retrieve a bottle. He knew very well that once she told the story of a lawyer bringing Ty a baby, everyone would assume Sabrina was his illegitimate child. He normally didn’t care about rumors, but he also wasn’t so stupid as to let one start three weeks before a reporter from the Wall Street Journal arrived. Particularly since he could so easily stop it.

“My cousin and his wife died. I got custody of their baby.”

“Just like this?” As Sabrina continued screaming, Madelyn arranged her across her arm to feed her and faced Pete. “Without a word of warning, you’re dumping this poor baby in his lap?”

“I’m perfectly capable of hiring a nanny,” Ty shouted, doing the further damage control of nipping any potential tale of his incompetence in the bud, but his voice echoed around him because Sabrina had stopped crying. Madelyn was leaning against his desk, feeding a bottle to the little girl, who gulped greedily as if she were starving.

Pete laughed and turned to Ty. “You’ll be fine,” he said, shaking Ty’s hand as if to finalize the deal. “Nice seeing you!” he said, as he and Renee hurried out of Ty’s office.

Ty glanced at the fired public relations gal. Even though he didn’t want to be wowed by her ability to get the baby to quiet down, he had to admit he was. But he was more impressed that she’d come in to help after he’d fired her. Of course, she could have been looking for leverage to get her job back. Ty almost slapped his forehead at his stupidity. Of course, she only came in to get her job back.

He took the suckling baby from Madelyn’s arms, careful not to knock the bottle from the infant’s mouth. “I believe I just fired you.”

Madelyn glanced at the baby and then back at him. Her pretty green eyes were full of confusion, but also concern. “You’re going to care for this child by yourself?”

“Like I said. I’m perfectly capable of hiring a nanny.”

Madelyn studied him for a few seconds and the curiosity left her expression. Her demeanor became professional and she pushed away from his desk. “Yes, you are. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Of course I’ll be fine!” Ty snapped. The fact that she felt entitled to an opinion really rubbed Ty the wrong way. This was why he kept his private life private. He didn’t like answering to anybody.

Before Ty could say anything further, Madelyn Gentry began striding to the door. Almost simultaneously, Sabrina peered up at him and stiffened in his arms. Ty felt the storm brewing even before the baby spit the bottle out of her mouth and screamed.

He panicked. He might be able to hire a nanny eventually, but he didn’t have one now and the only help within a hundred yards was walking out the door.

“Wait!”

Madelyn laughed. “No. You don’t want me here. Call a relative or a girlfriend.”

“Shhh-shhh-shhh,” Ty whispered, patting Sabrina’s back as he inexpertly cuddled her to him. Apparently unimpressed that he let her slobber on his thousand-dollar suit, Sabrina cried all the louder. “With Scotty gone, my brothers are the only blood relatives I have aside from this baby.” Sadness rippled through him at the realization that his only cousin was now gone, but he didn’t let that show on his face or in his voice as he continued. “And you heard my secretary say she was leaving for the day. She’s not even going home. She’s taking her kids to the dentist. I couldn’t find her if I wanted to.”

Madelyn stopped walking and faced him. “No girlfriend?”

He wanted to tell her that was none of her business, but with Sabrina screaming on his shoulder, he only shook his head.

Madelyn sighed, then strode over to Ty. “I should have known no woman would have you.” She took the sobbing baby and bottle from Ty.

“I’m single by choice.”

“Whatever.”

Madelyn arranged Sabrina across her arm, slid the bottle into her mouth again, and resumed her position of leaning against Ty’s desk. “Poor baby,” she murmured, soothing the child, but irritating the hell out of Ty.

“Poor baby? This kid will have her own personal nanny, whose full-time job will be to cater to her every wish and whim.”

“Maybe. But you don’t have a nanny now and Sabrina is stuck with you tonight.”

Ty scowled. Damn it! She was right. A competent nanny couldn’t be brought in on a moment’s notice, not without investigating his or her background. Which meant he was going to be alone with this baby tonight. And he didn’t have a clue of how to keep Sabrina from crying, let alone how to care for her.

But Madelyn Gentry really seemed to know what she was doing.

“So what makes you such an expert about kids?”

“I have three brothers and sisters and eight nieces and nephews,” Madelyn said, aware that her ex-boss was up to something because his voice had shifted from rude to curious. “I’ve fed a bottle or two in my day.”

“Yeah, well, I raised two brothers, but Cooper was eighteen and Seth was fifteen when I took over. Until just now, I’d never even held a baby.” He paused and glanced at Madelyn. Sounding uncharacteristically vulnerable, he said, “I don’t think they like me.”

Madelyn couldn’t argue that. She knew firsthand that most adults didn’t like him. Why should a baby be any different? Still, she didn’t trust the sudden spurt of honesty. His vulnerable act could very well be a trick to get her sympathy. She cautiously said, “I take it you haven’t had much contact with this child before.”

“No. And even if Seth wasn’t out of town for the weekend, he wouldn’t be any better with her than I am. He’s only cooed at her when Scotty brought her to visit.”

“Great.”

Ty drew a quick breath. “Do you think it’s going to be hard to find a nanny?”

Oh, so that was it. He was making himself look vulnerable because he needed assistance finding a nanny. Well, sorry. He was out of luck.

“I don’t know. I lived in Atlanta for two of the past three years. Any contacts I made there are too far away.” Madelyn snuggled the baby closer and Sabrina’s sucking slowed, an indication that she was drifting off to sleep. “So I’m afraid I’m not much help.”

“Actually, you look like lots of help.”

Their eyes met and Madelyn read Ty Bryant’s intentions as clearly as if he had spoken the words. He didn’t want assistance finding a nanny. He wanted her to be the nanny!

Though careful not to jar the baby, she bounced away from his desk. “Oh, no. No. No. No. I am not a nanny.”

“You might not be a nanny, but you’re certainly better with a baby than I am. And Seth’s already investigated you. Nobody gets the kind of authorization you got to interview staff and look at our five-year plan unless Seth has human resources run background checks. So you’re cleared.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking you to take the job permanently,” Ty angrily retorted as if she were the one being unreasonable. “I only need you for a few days, maybe a week. Just until I have time to properly interview and investigate a few candidates.”

“It will take more than a week to interview and investigate candidates!” Madelyn gaped at him. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t!” Madelyn emphatically disagreed as she leaned against the desk again to finish feeding Sabrina. “Babies get up in the middle of the night! I’d have to stay at your house!”

“I’d pay you well….”

“It’s not a question of money!”

“Okay, then. How about this? I won’t simply rehire you to do the PR job, I’ll do absolutely everything you want me to do to prepare for the Wall Street Journal interview.”

That stopped her. And she knew he’d done it on purpose. A sharp negotiator, he’d let her get out all of her objections before he went in for the kill and offered the only things she wanted. The job and his cooperation. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. Do this favor for me and I will do whatever you feel needs doing to make myself look nicer to the reporter,” he said, back to sounding like the in-control executive who had fired her, and Madelyn’s business instincts shot to red alert. Sure, he made it appear that they were on even terms, but this was the kind of guy who always kept the upper hand. There was a catch here somewhere.

So handsome he could have posed for GQ, Ty Bryant strolled closer and didn’t stop until he was mere inches in front of Madelyn and Sabrina. “Can I take her?”

Madelyn nodded and eased the nearly sleeping baby into his arms. He nestled the little girl against his chest as she sleepily suckled her bottle, but he didn’t move away from Madelyn.

Holding her gaze with his hypnotic brown eyes, he said, “I have something you want. A job. You have something I want. The ability to care for a baby. I’m offering you a simple deal. Take it or leave it.”

Feeling mesmerized by his magnetic gaze, Madelyn blinked, but it didn’t help. His nearness had caused her heart rate to triple. Her breathing had become feathery and light. She desperately wanted to swallow, but couldn’t because she knew he would see and take it as a sign of weakness.

Forcing herself to think his proposition through, she tried to come up with a downside and knew there wasn’t one. He might believe he could bully her out of his agreement once he had her commitment, but that wasn’t true. His inability to care for Sabrina gave Madelyn a weapon that she wouldn’t hesitate to use. Until he hired a nanny, any time he refused to do anything she asked, she would simply leave him alone with the child that he clearly couldn’t care for. Then he would either adhere to the terms of their deal, or be miserable. Of course, once he hired a nanny that leverage would be gone, but by then her advance work for the Wall Street Journal reporter would be done.

She still didn’t trust him.

“Even give away thirty thousand dollars worth of playground equipment and deliver a sappy speech?”

He grimaced but said, “If you honest to God think I need to do that, I will do it.”

For all practical intents and purposes, she had a deal. But she couldn’t force her mouth to form the words of acceptance. She’d seen his real temperament and demeanor when he fired her. She also remembered all the complaints his employees had made about him. There was a lot of damage to be repaired here. Though confident in her own abilities, she recognized that unless she could figure out a very solid way to get Ty Bryant to look, sound and behave like a totally different guy before the Wall Street Journal reporter arrived, she was going to fail. Because, the truth was, he could do every darned thing she said and still come across as an ogre.

Or, more realistically, Madelyn thought, he would come across as a powerful, distanced executive so wealthy and clueless about the real world he was heartless.

And if an employee got that opinion into the Wall Street Journal article, it would be all over.

The bottle slipped out of Sabrina’s mouth, a sign that she was asleep and Ty set it on the desk, passing within a millimeter of Madelyn’s shoulder as he did so.

Madelyn suppressed a shiver, as the room grew unbearably hot. What the hell was happening to her?

“Excuse me, Mr. Bryant?”

At the sound of Neil Ringler’s voice, Madelyn and Ty looked at the mailroom employee, who was at Ty’s door.

“What is it, Neil?” he asked quietly, obviously not wanting to awaken the sleeping baby.

“I’m sorry, but Joni’s not here.” Neil very cautiously stepped in the room, virtually shaking in his shoes. “And you got this package from a special courier. I…I was just about to leave when it arrived. But I stayed…” He gulped. “You know, so you’d get it. But I can’t sign for it. I’m not on that level yet.”

“Let Ms. Gentry sign for it.”

Again, Ty’s voice was quiet and the previously shaking mailroom employee not only gave Ty a baffled look, he also relaxed a bit.

“Here,” Neil said, handing the fat envelope to Madelyn along with the delivery log to be signed. As Madelyn put her signature on the appropriate line, Neil faced Ty. “Whose baby?” he whispered.

Ty said, “Shhh!” indicating Neil should lower his voice even more, then very quietly added, “Mine. Sabrina was the daughter of my cousin who was killed. I got custody today and I don’t want her to wake up, so grab that log and leave.”

Even though Ty’s command was straightforward, with his voice softened, it didn’t come across harshly, and Neil grinned.

“Okay,” he stage-whispered, then snatched the clipboard and left the room.

Madelyn stared at Ty.

“Did you see what you just did?”

Ty faced her. “Don’t lecture me on yelling at my employees.”

“You didn’t yell. You…” She stopped her explanation because if she came right out and told Ty that the soft voice he used while holding the baby made his demand more palatable, he would tell her that was liberal elitist crap. But his quiet tone had changed the entire dynamic of his exchange with Neil.

She took a quick breath as an idea began to form. She couldn’t have Ty hold a baby until all his employees saw what Neil saw. But as Ty cared for Sabrina over the next few weeks while he looked for a nanny, she probably could teach him to speak more softly. She might even be able to get him to laugh once or twice. Time alone with him and a baby had endless possibilities for inching him toward lightening up.

And any changes Ty made wouldn’t be questioned. Neil would quickly spread the news that Ty had taken in his deceased cousin’s baby, and before long every employee in the building would ascribe kindness to their scrooge boss, which they hadn’t before. More than that, though, they would ultimately believe that the baby was responsible for any change in Ty’s behavior, not the upcoming article.

It was perfect.

“I’ll do it.”

Ty glanced over and whispered, “What?”

“I’ll help you with the baby on the condition that you really do every darned thing I say both with her and for your PR.”

Ty smiled victoriously, but Madelyn sternly said, “I mean it. You have to really promise to do what I say. The first time you tell me no, I leave. And you’ll be alone with this baby.”

“Deal,” Ty said, then extended his free hand to shake hers.

Madelyn grasped it and a lightning bolt shot through her and warning bells went off in her head. She had just agreed to spend at least a week or more living with a guy she not only admitted to herself was gorgeous, but with whom she was having all kinds of weird physical reactions.

She stopped that thought because it was ridiculous. The man was a mean-spirited dictator and she was a smart professional woman. Smart women didn’t get involved with grouchy self-absorbed men.

“Deal,” she said, shaking once as she caught his gaze.

Big mistake. When she met his sexy dark eyes, the zing of attraction exploded through her again. Desperate to distract herself, she glanced at the baby he held, but when she did, she realized what was happening and she almost laughed.

All along she’d noticed Ty was gorgeous, but she hadn’t felt an attraction to him until he picked up the baby. The same thing that would ultimately make him attractive to his employees was making him attractive to her now: the baby.

Reaching to pull Sabrina from his arms, she said, “Let me take her.”

“No, I’m fine with her,” Ty argued.

But Madelyn shook her head. “Until we both adjust to this situation, I’m holding the baby when we’re alone.”




Chapter Two


Madelyn carried Sabrina, and Ty lugged her car seat and diaper bags to his black SUV, which was parked beside the private entrance to the Bryant Building—the entrance that prevented him from having to go through the lobby and interact with a boatload of employees on his way to his office in the morning.

After storing the diaper bags in the rear compartment, he tried to install the car seat. But when he couldn’t immediately get all the buckles and snaps aligned, he stepped out of the way, took the baby from Madelyn and let her connect it.

He wasn’t going to be an idiot about this. Raising Sabrina might be a high priority, but doing menial tasks involved in her upbringing weren’t. That was why he had hired the woman beside him.

With the seat installed and the baby contentedly cooing as she pounded on the padded seat guard in front of her, Ty drove Madelyn to her parents’ home to retrieve the clothes and accessories she would need for the weekend.

He stole a peek at the woman he’d coerced into helping him. Her straight red hair glistened in the late-afternoon sun. Her smooth pink skin gave her the look of a fresh-faced, all-American girl. For the first time, something very important struck Ty. Madelyn was young. He’d already guessed her age at around twenty-five. At most she had three years of experience in her chosen field. Yet, he’d agreed to let her splash his name all through the papers and get him out in the community for a love fest with people who should already be kissing his behind for providing them with jobs. That side of the agreement wasn’t exactly a good deal for him.

The other end of the bargain wasn’ t a total prize either. He might be getting care for Sabrina, but a stranger—no, an employee, someone who could take bits of his personal life into the office—would be living in his home.

Man, he hadn’t really thought this through.

They parked on the street in front of the huge Victorian-style house where Madelyn’s parents lived. White vinyl siding and modern green shutters had replaced the original exterior treatment of the dwelling that he suspected was built in the 1940s. But the actual shape of the structure hadn’t been altered so it managed to retain all of its charm. Flower gardens encircled the front porch. The manicured lawn spoke of a great deal of tender loving care.

If nothing else, Madelyn and her family were neat. Point one in her favor.

Madelyn opened the SUV door and jumped out. “I’ll be right back.”

Ty had assumed he would wait in the car with Sabrina while Madelyn got her things. But when a series of short bursts erupted from the baby as if she couldn’t decide whether or not to cry because Madelyn was gone, Ty punched open his door and leaped out of the SUV. With a potential storm in Sabrina’s whimpers of discontent, he didn’t have to debate his next move. He quickly pulled the baby out of the little plaid car seat, then scurried to catch Madelyn on the sidewalk.

She stopped and gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret. “Why don’t you and the baby wait for me in the car?”

“No way. You’re not leaving me with two feet of person that cries when it wants something and can’t control its bladder.”

Madelyn rolled her eyes and turned away from him, heading to the porch again. “You’re going to make a terrific dad.”

“Actually, I did make a pretty good dad for my brothers. I think that’s why Scotty chose me as the one to be guardian—”

Ty quit talking when he realized he was on the verge of telling a woman he hardly knew some incredibly personal information about himself. But before Madelyn could demand he continue, a sixtysomething man rounded the corner of the house. His crew cut was gray. So was the five o’clock shadow on his chin and jaw. He was also short. But beneath his T-shirt were broad shoulders and a flat stomach.

“W…ho’s that?”

“My dad.”

Dad?

Oh great! Ty had been on his own for so long he forgot other people had parents. And this guy was a piece of work. He looked like a marine who hadn’t yet gotten the message that he was retired. Someone who, if provoked, didn’t yell or scream or argue, he punched.

Ty realized another bad thing about his arrangement with his PR gal. Porter’s most successful businessman, avowed bachelor and reputed scrooge, had coerced this G.I. dad’s obviously young, probably innocent—if only in her father’s eyes—daughter into living with him. For money.

Great.

“Hey, little Miss Maddy! Who have you got there?”

Ty stole a peek at the reddening face of his temporary nanny. Not only was her dad not going to like their arrangement, but also Ty was just about certain little Miss Maddy probably already knew that. “Little Miss Maddy?”

“Just shut up.” Madelyn mumbled to Ty before she faced her dad. “Ty, this is my dad, Ron Gentry. Dad, this is Ty Bryant.”

“I know who Mr. Bryant is. Everybody in town knows Mr. Bryant.” He walked over and extended his hand. “The question is, why is he here?”

Oh, just here to get some things for your daughter so she can live with me for a while.

Silencing the voice in his head as he balanced Sabrina on one arm, Ty shook hands with Ron Gentry. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.” Miss Maddy’s dad eyed Ty speculatively. “You here for dinner? Because Maddy’s mom had some big church thing this afternoon. Supper’s not going to be for a while.”

Before Ty could answer, Madelyn did. “That’s okay, Dad. We’re not here for dinner. Ty just got custody of this baby—”

“Cute little thing,” her dad interrupted, glancing at Sabrina, but his gaze quickly jumped back to Ty because he was definitely more interested in Ty than the baby.

Once again Madelyn came to the rescue. “Yes, she is cute. Her name’s Sabrina. But Ty doesn’t have a nanny, so I’m going to help him care for the baby this weekend.”

Score another point for Miss Maddy. She wasn’t one to let anybody intimidate her. Not even her dad.

Liking her direct approach, Ty met Ron’s gaze, as Ron said, “All weekend?”

“Maybe longer,” Madelyn said, while Ty continued to hold Ron’s gaze, taking his cue from Madelyn to face this head-on. “I’ve helped with Arlene and Jeff’s kids. I can certainly care for one baby.”

Good one! Ty broke his stare-down with Ron to bestow a look of respect on the big guy’s daughter. She had deliberately misinterpreted her dad’s concern to steer him off track. Point three. And confirmation that Ty hadn’t misjudged her. She could handle this. She could probably handle his PR, too. Even though just thinking about having to go out in public and make nice with a bunch of people who hated him made Ty want to sigh with disgust, at least he knew Madelyn could do the job.

Ron sounded like he was growling when he said, “I wasn’t talking about the baby. I was—”

Worried about his daughter sleeping with the town tyrant, Ty thought, just barely holding back a grimace. But Madelyn didn’t let her dad go there.

“You know what, Dad? We’ll discuss this later. Right now, I’ve got to get some things from my room.”

With that she turned and jogged up the steps to the porch. Ty took one look at her dad and decided he wasn’t hanging around. Explaining this situation was Madelyn’s job. And he did mean job. He had hired her to work for him, not…not…

An odd feeling tightened his chest when he tried to think of Madelyn and himself together, and he couldn’t form the words or the images in his mind. Madelyn was younger than he was. Way too young for him to even entertain a casual fling. She was as safe with him as Sabrina was.

Madelyn didn’t feel a qualm of conscience about leaving Ty with her dad. Though she’d staved off her father’s questions long enough that she would have time to gather her things, Ty should have been the one doing the talking. After all, this was his plan. Let him justify it to her dad.

But when she turned to grab a few T-shirts from a drawer, Ty Bryant was right behind her. She gasped and clutched her chest. “What!”

“Your dad thinks we’re going to sleep together tonight.”

She sighed. “Don’t worry. If I tell him we won’t, he’ll believe me.”

“You’re not my type,” Ty continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Too young.” She saw him look around at the wedding ring quilt on her bed, her white Priscilla tie-back curtains. “And too nice.”

“What? You only date nasty women?”

“Sophisticates,” Ty corrected.

Madelyn tossed two pair of shorts in her duffel bag. Right. She knew that. Just as she knew it was wrong to be attracted to him because holding a baby did not change a man’s personality, she also knew that the CEO of Bryant Development would have absolutely no interest in her. But that was okay. She didn’t want him to be interested in her.

So why the hell did having him in her bedroom make her pulse jump?

Three reasons immediately popped into Madelyn’s head. First, with his shiny black hair and obsidian eyes, the man was absolutely delicious-looking. Second, holding the baby softened the hard edge of his personality. And, third, he was two feet away from her underwear drawer. All he had to do was look down to see her collection of lacy panties. Any one of those accounted for why her pulse was jumping. But the third was the best bet.

“Do you want to wait for me in the car?”

“No. I’m fine,” Ty assured her as if his comfort were the only thing to be considered.

“I’m not. I have to get a toothbrush, underwear and girlie things most guys don’t want to see.” She drew a long-suffering breath. “Could you just leave?”

For a second it appeared that he would tell her it didn’t bother him to see her undies. Not because he wanted a peek at her panties, but because he was trying to prove that sophistication of his. Luckily, he thought the better of it.

He glanced at Sabrina who was happily occupied with a rattle toy, and apparently decided it was safe to be alone with her for a few minutes. “I’ll see you in the car.”

“Wonderful,” Madelyn said, not meaning one syllable of the word.

She packed quickly, and scurried down the steps, but when she rounded the corner to rush to the front door she ran into her mom. A flour-covered apron covered Penney Gentry’s cropped jeans and T-shirt. A streak of flour decorated her graying brown hair.

Yet another great. Her dad thought she was moving in with the man who controlled the town and he wasn’t happy. But he wasn’t a match with Madelyn in a battle of wits because there were certain things he wouldn’t talk about in mixed company. Sex being the big one. Which meant he had called her mom home from baking pies for the upcoming church social to talk some sense into his daughter.

Another magic moment in the scrapbook of her life.

“You’re spending the weekend with a man?”

“In Atlanta, I could have spent hundreds of weekends with men and you wouldn’t have had a clue. But you knew I didn’t because you trusted me. Don’t spaz on me now, Mom.”

“I trusted you because we taught you better.”

“So, if you trusted me not to lie to you about Atlanta, that’s got to mean I’m not lying now. I really am spending the weekend with Ty Bryant to help him with his baby.”

Her mother smiled, making her green eyes twinkle. “You’re bad.”

“No, I’m good. And if it makes you feel any better, Mr. Bryant assured me he’s not interested. I’m too nice for him.”

Preoccupied with brushing the flour out of her hair, Penney absently said, “He only dates nasty women?”

“I asked him the very same question.” She kissed her mom’s cheek. “Go back to church and finish the pies. I’ll be home Monday or Tuesday night. I promised I would stay until he found a nanny, but I figured out in the car on the way over that he can probably hire someone from a reputable agency temporarily. We may not be able to get someone over a weekend, but Monday or Tuesday isn’t unrealistic. As soon as we get to his house I’ll have him call a service.”

“Okay,” her mom said with a smile. “I’ll handle your dad.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

When Madelyn came running down the walk, duffel bag over her shoulder, overnight case bobbing at her side and her face bright with the emotion of her parental confrontations, a weird sensation enveloped Ty. The way the scene was set, they could have been eloping.

He kicked that thought right out of his mind. But it ran back in and wouldn’t budge. And he knew why. Madelyn Gentry was a very sexy, very attractive woman, and though he might be discriminating he wasn’t dead. He found her as attractive as any man would find her. And now that he’d seen three rows of neatly folded pink, red and black panties, he could form those pictures and images that wouldn’t initially appear in his brain and she wasn’t as safe with him as he’d thought.

So he reminded himself that he wasn’t interested. First, she was too darned young for him. But, second, most women who pursued him only wanted his money. Madelyn, with dreams of establishing her own business, would be no exception. In fact, now that he thought about it, her financial situation was a lot like his former fiancée Anita’s had been when he met her. Wrestling with a failing business, Anita had impressed him as being tough and determined, so he’d happily lent her money….

He groaned, his hands forming fists on the steering wheel. That situation had ended abysmally. Anita hadn’t merely made him a laughingstock by taking him to the cleaners financially. She’d cheated on him the whole time they dated. Worse, she’d also cost Ty a brother. When Cooper discovered Anita was cheating, he’d warned Ty, but Ty had accused Cooper of using the information to manipulate him. By the time the truth came out that Anita was the one manipulating him and Cooper had been right about her cheating, Cooper was long gone. He’d packed his bags and moved to parts unknown and they hadn’t seen him since.

Ty ran his hand down his face. That was a point in his life that he didn’t care to revisit, though he was glad he had. The fact that Madelyn was more than ten years his junior might not cool his libido, but her being totally broke like his former fiancée certainly did. And that knowledge would keep him the hell away from her.

Madelyn opened the passenger side door of the SUV. “All set.”

He didn’t say anything. Not a word. He and Madelyn had only gotten chummy out of necessity. He’d had to talk to her to form this alliance and figure out the nuances of the deal. But now that he had accepted the fact he had a baby, and had a solid idea of Madelyn’s personality from her dealings with her dad, he knew how to handle both the baby and the new nanny.

So the conversation ended here. He had work to do when they got home tonight. Then there were telephone calls to occupy him tomorrow and file folders that would keep him amused on Sunday.

And Madelyn had a baby to care for. As far as Ty was concerned, they really were “all set.”

Ty Bryant hadn’t said a word to her during the drive to his house, but when they arrived at his understated Cape Cod and found the entire porch littered with boxes, he was suddenly talkative again.

“I don’t suppose you know how to assemble a crib?”

Madelyn gaped at him. “Even if I could, am I supposed to balance Sabrina on my hip while I screw in the bolts?”

“I’m sure women in primitive cultures do it.”

“And I’m sure men in primitive cultures build their own cribs. They don’t order them from a department store.”

“I didn’t order this stuff from a department store. I have a friend whose wife has connections at…”

“Whatever! Just put the crib together while I go look for something to make for dinner.”

She left him standing amid the baby things and, with Sabrina on her hip, went in search of supper. Unfortunately, she didn’t even find a box of macaroni in his cupboards. Though she had to admit his house was interesting. Not what she’d expected. The cherrywood cabinets in the kitchen gleamed. The sitting room she stumbled upon as she tried to find her way back to the foyer had a neat yellow contemporary sofa and chair with heavy-wood end tables and a wall-sized entertainment unit that probably cost a bundle. The dining room housed a light oak table and hutch filled with sparkly stemware that looked like it was never used.

When she returned to the foyer, Ty was nowhere in sight, but she saw he had hauled everything in from the porch. The boxes and bags were scattered atop the sand-colored ceramic tile. But she was more interested in the foyer’s newly painted white walls that were decorated with what appeared to be antique mirrors. She couldn’t deny that Ty Bryant owned a nice house, but it wasn’t as grand as she expected for a guy who ran a multimillion dollar business.

Because Ty was gone and so was the crib box, she assumed he was in the room he intended to use as a nursery, assembling the baby’s bed. She climbed the stairs and walked toward the only open door. From the hall she could see the room already had a single bed and maple dresser. Thick gray carpeting covered the floor. It made sense to assume he was making a nursery from one of his guest rooms, which was good, but that didn’t put food in the cupboards and she was hungry.

She entered talking. “Are you on some kind of starvation diet?”

Seeing him sitting on the floor, with his black jacket and tie removed and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to reveal muscular forearms, Madelyn stopped dead in her tracks. His very neat hair had become tousled and he looked so darned sexily rumpled that she lost her breath.

“No. If you didn’t find any food to cook, it’s because I usually eat out.”

Juggling Sabrina on her hip, Madelyn considered it very lucky that he didn’t glance up as he spoke because she wasn’t sure she could take her eyes off him. He was just plain yummy-looking.

When several seconds lapsed without her reply, he peered up at her. “What? No smart remark about my always eating out?”

She swallowed and quickly looked away, as if inspecting what he had done with the crib. “I’m ordering pizza.”

He pretended to shudder. “Oh, that was scathing.”

“I mean it.”

He shrugged and went back to work, fitting the metal springs into the wooden sides of the crib.

“And you’re paying.”

“Fine,” he said, as if he were doing her a huge favor.

Madelyn stared at him, not understanding how he could think he was doing her a favor, when this entire job was nothing but a favor from her to him. But she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of letting him see he annoyed her. Rather than storm out as she might have done, she very casually walked out. Downstairs, she grabbed the wall phone in the kitchen and dialed the number for pizza delivery from memory, ordered what she wanted—to hell with his choice—and then rummaged through Sabrina’s diaper bag so she could feed the baby first.

If he wanted to aggravate her day and night for the next three days, he had better be ready for the consequences. She had enough experience with her dad that she could take on any chauvinist, and in a perverse way she might even enjoy it. God knew, Ty’s attitude helped her to forget how good-looking he was.

When the pizza arrived, Madelyn was bathing Sabrina for bed so she let Ty answer the front door. She took her time washing, drying and dressing the baby. Then, because Ty had assembled the crib, she set Sabrina in a safety seat while she snapped new sheets on the mattress, wondering how Ty knew what to get his friend’s wife to order for the baby. But she stopped that thought. She’d bet her bottom dollar he called his friend and simply told him to tell his wife to order everything needed for a baby.

It must be nice.

By the time she had Sabrina tucked into bed, Madelyn had herself worked into a sufficient low-level anger from the day’s events. She was sure her mood would keep her on her toes with her sarcastic boss so she would stop noticing he was too damned sexy for a grouch. But when she entered the kitchen and found him eating pizza at the round wooden table while he skimmed the newspaper, the whole scene felt so “normal” and so “right” that she was bombarded by images of them as a happy couple.

Sitting, she cursed her thoughts. Really. Because they came out of nowhere and they weren’t welcome. She wasn’t a teenager, envisioning herself with the town hunk. She was living with her boss to help him. And if the constant reminder that she was this man’s employee didn’t stop her fantasies, the man himself should. He had no place in a domestic daydream because he wasn’t domesticated. Plus, men who liked sophisticated women really only wanted no-strings-attached sex. He was not her type. He wasn’t anybody’s type.

“Are you going to eat that pizza, or are you just going to sit there with your mouth open, staring at me?”

Great! Now he was noticing her staring at him. Somehow she had to get accustomed to him so she could keep herself in line. No, that wasn’t it. What she had to do was get herself accustomed to the fact that she was living with a man who could be described as one of the sexiest guys on the face of the earth. Then she would be able to keep herself in line.

She tried to think of other sexy men she had spent time with and four names came to mind. Unfortunately, she’d dated one of them, only worked occasionally with the other two and nursed an awful crush on the fourth. But it had been okay to like those guys because none of them were arrogant. She couldn’t deal with Ty the same way that she’d dealt with the others because Ty Bryant wasn’t like anybody she knew.

Actually, that was both the truth and the real dilemma. Ty Bryant really was unlike anybody she’d ever met. He was handsome. He was smart. He was clearly clever to have built an empire singlehandedly. And he’d taken in a child. No matter how much Madelyn tried to downplay his caring for Sabrina by reminding herself that he was more or less forced to take the baby, she also knew he could have sent Sabrina to foster care. Of course, that really would make him an ogre—and he wasn’t.

That was it!

That was the problem! Ty Bryant really wasn’t an ogre as his employees thought. No matter how much he tormented her or made her mad, brief revelations of his nice side kept causing her to forget his bad side. So all she had to do was remember his bad side and she would be okay.

Just when she drew the conclusion that she could stop her pounding heart, daydreaming and inappropriate staring simply by reminding herself of all the impolite, self-centered, arrogant things she’d seen and heard Ty Bryant do in the past few hours, he rose from his seat.

From the way he swiped a napkin across his mouth, it appeared that he was done eating and leaving the kitchen. But when he stopped by her chair, Madelyn got her first tremor of unease. He caught her arm, hauled her up, spun her around and pressed his mouth to hers.

Madelyn knew that if she were ever going to faint in her life, this would be the minute. His mouth attacked hers, completely disarming her. She couldn’t stop her arms from reaching up to encircle his shoulders. The sexual chemistry between them was so strong it led her, guided her, pulled her to do things without her conscious thought. But she didn’t care. The kiss was so darned good she was more than happy to let it take her anywhere it wanted to go.

As quickly as he grabbed her, Ty let her loose and stepped back. Madelyn gazed up at him, too startled by the kiss to breathe, let alone speak.

But Ty didn’t seem to have the same problem. “Watch yourself, Miss Maddy,” he warned. “I’m a man who sees what he wants and takes it. If you’re going to work for me, you either have to be able to accept the consequences of your subtle flirting, or you have to stop flirting.”

“Flirting,” Madelyn sputtered, confused, aroused, angry and unable to separate her emotions long enough to know which one she should trust.

“Yeah. Flirting. I kissed you so you would respond and wouldn’t be able to deny you’re attracted to me, so we could get this darned thing out in the open. Deal with it. If you want to play sex games, I’ll be more than happy to oblige. But I met your dad and I don’t think he’d be too happy with that. I also met your mom, and I realized you’re a lot like her. She’s got a home, a family and a very steady man for a husband. Those are probably the things you want, too. And that means I’m not the guy you should be messing with.”

With that he left the room, and Madelyn fell to her chair again, so embarrassed her face burned.




Chapter Three


The next morning, Madelyn wanted to punch something. Awake most of the night with a confused baby who sobbed nonstop because she missed her parents and didn’t understand what was happening to her, Ty’s temporary nanny wasn’t in the mood to have to dress Sabrina and leave the house for bread, milk, eggs and coffee to make breakfast. She also needed to buy formula because Sabrina had only one bottle left of the batch Pete Hauser had provided. But Madelyn had to consult her mother before she made the formula purchase. Still her “boss” wasn’t answering any of her knocks on his bedroom door and, as she had discovered the night before, his kitchen was bare.

Knowing her only recourse was to go in and physically wake him, she put her hand on the knob and almost twisted, but she suddenly realized it was very possible that he was as bare as his cupboards, sprawled across his bed like a naked Greek god.

Her chest tightened at the thought, and memories of the way he had kissed her the night before caused heat to flood through her. But so did her acute humiliation afterward. His kiss might have been so seductive it made her forget her own name, but he hadn’t kissed her because he was attracted to her. He’d kissed her to make a point.

There was no way in hell she was going into his room to wake him. If he as much as insinuated she’d approached him for anything other than his help with the baby, she knew she couldn’t be responsible for her actions. She’d absolutely deck him.

Sabrina squealed.

“Yeah, honey, we have to go out,” she told the little girl who should have been as tired as Madelyn, but seemed to have the stamina of a navy SEAL. The baby gurgled a response and Madelyn turned away from Ty’s bedroom door, determined she would never again let her attraction for that man show.

He was soooo safe with her, Madelyn thought, dressing the baby for the trip outside. After his arrogance the night before, she doubted she was even attracted to him anymore. She didn’t like arrogant men. No smart woman did. She would happily stay so far away from him he wouldn’t even have to worry about talking to her.

Madelyn found a spare set of keys for the SUV hanging on a bulletin board in the mudroom and twenty-three dollars casually strewn on a coffee table, probably money he’d taken from his pocket the night before. She didn’t feel she was stealing. She was stocking his damned cupboards. She certainly wasn’t using her own money. In fact, if she ever did have to spend her own money on things for the house or the baby, she was expensing it!

After buckling Sabrina in the car seat, Madelyn drove to a nearby convenience store. She purchased the items she needed, holding Sabrina on her hip because if there was a stroller in the stack of baby items that still littered the foyer, Ty hadn’t yet put it together. She juggled the milk, eggs, bread, coffee and baby on the way to the checkout counter and had only a little more success carrying everything after the clerk put her purchases into bags. Maneuvering the baby and the bags on her left hand and arm, she opened the SUV door, then dumped the groceries on the passenger-side seat and fastened Sabrina in again.

By the time she returned to Ty Bryant’s kitchen, she was exhausted, frazzled and not a woman to be trifled with. So, when she found Ty sitting at the kitchen table as if life were good and easy, and he said, “There you are,” as if she’d stolen his SUV, it took every ounce of her control not to throttle him.




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