Have Baby, Need Billionaire Read online

  Tula reached into the oversize black leather bag she had slung over her shoulder. She pulled out a large manila envelope and dropped it onto his desk. “That’s a copy of Sherry’s will. If you look, you’ll see that I’ve been named temporary guardian of Nathan. Until I’m sure that you’re ready to be the baby’s father.”

  Her voice, her words, were no more than a buzz of sound in his head. He read through the will quickly, scanning until he found the provisions for the child Sherry had named as his. Custody of minor, Nathan Taylor, goes to the child’s father, Simon Bradley.

  He sat back in his chair and kept rereading those words until he was fairly certain they’d been burned into his brain. Was this true? Was he a father?

  Lifting his gaze to hers, Simon found Tula Barrons studying him through those wide, brilliant blue eyes. She was waiting for him to say something.

  Damned if he knew what it should be.

  He’d been careful, always, in his relationships with women. He’d had no desire to be a father. And yet he had a vague memory of being with Sherry Taylor. The woman herself was hardly more than a smudge in his memories—but he did remember the night the condom had broken. A man didn’t forget things like that. But she’d never said anything about a baby, so he’d forgotten about the incident.

  It was possible.

  He might really have a son.

  Tula watched as Simon Bradley came to terms with a whole new reality.

  She gave him points. Sure, he’d been a little edgy, temperamental…all right, rude, at first. But she supposed that was to be expected. After all, it wasn’t every day you found out you were a father, for heaven’s sake.

  Her gaze moved over him while he was reading the will and Tula had to admit that he wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting. She and her cousin Sherry hadn’t been close, by any means, but Tula would have bet that she would at least know Sherry’s taste in men.

  And tall, dark, gorgeous and crabby wasn’t it. Normally, Sherry had gone for the quiet, sweet, geeky type. Simon was about as far from that description as a man could get. He practically radiated power, strength. Ever since she had walked into the room, Tula had felt a sizzle of attraction for him that she was still battling. She so didn’t need yet one more complication at the moment.

  “What exactly is it you want from me?”

  His voice shattered her thoughts and she met his gaze. “I should think that would be obvious.”

  He dropped the sheaf of papers to his desktop. “Well, you would be wrong.”

  “Okay, how about this? Why don’t you come out to my place in Crystal Bay? Meet your son. Then we can talk and figure out our next move together.”

  He scrubbed one hand across the back of his neck. She’d dumped a lot of information on him all at once, Tula told herself. Of course he was going to need a little time to acclimate.

  “Fine,” he said at last. “What’s your address?”

  She told him, then watched as he stood up behind his desk in a clear signal of dismissal. Well, that was all right with her. She had things to do anyway and what more was there to say at the moment? Tula stood up, too, and held her right hand out toward him.

  A moment’s pause, then his hand engulfed hers. Again, just as it had happened earlier, the instant their palms met a bolt of heat shot up her arm and ricocheted around her chest like a manic Ping-Pong ball. He must have felt the same thing because he dropped her hand and shoved his own into his pocket.

  She took a breath, blew it out and forced a smile that felt wobbly. “I’ll see you tonight then.”

  As she left, Tula felt his gaze on her and the heat engendered by his stare stayed with her on the long ride home.

  Two

  “How’d it go?”

  Tula smiled at the sound of her best friend’s voice. Anna Cameron Hale was the one human being on the face of the planet that Tula could count on being on her side. So, naturally, the moment she’d returned from San Francisco and facing down Simon Bradley, she dialed Anna’s number.

  “About as you’d expect.”

  “Ouch,” Anna said. “So he had no idea about the baby?”

  “Nope.” Tula turned to look at Nathan, sitting in his bouncy seat. The babysitter, Mrs. Klein, had said that the baby was “good as gold” the whole time she was gone. Now, as he bounced and pushed off with his toes, the springs squeaked into motion, jolting him up and down in the small kitchen.

  Tula’s heart gave a little Nathan-caused twinge that she was starting to get used to. How was it possible to love someone so much in the span of a couple of short weeks?

  “In his defense, it must have been a shock for him to be faced with this out of the blue,” Anna said.

  “True. I mean I knew about Nathan and it was still a stunner when Sherry died and suddenly I’m responsible for him.” Although, she thought, it hadn’t taken more than five minutes for her to adjust. “But when I told Simon, he looked like he’d been hit with a two-by-four.”

  “God, honey, I’m sorry it didn’t go well. So what do you do now?”

  “He’s coming here tonight to meet Nathan and then we’re going to talk.” Tula thought briefly about the little buzz of sensation she’d received when he shook her hand and then pushed that thought right out of her mind. There was already plenty going on at the moment. She so didn’t need anything else to think about.

  But her mind couldn’t quite keep from remembering him as he stood over her, all fierce and furious.

  “He’s going to your house?” Anna asked.

  Tula shook her head and paid attention. “Yeah, why?”

  “Nothing. But maybe I could come over and help you get ready.”

  She knew exactly what Anna was thinking and Tula couldn’t help laughing. “You are not coming over to clean my house. He’s not visiting royalty or something.”

  Anna laughed, too. “Fine. Just warn him when he walks in to watch where he steps.”

  Tula stepped away from the kitchen counter and shot a look into her tiny living room. Toys littered the floor, her laptop was sitting open on the coffee table and her latest manuscript was beside it. She was doing revisions for her editor and when she was working, other things—like picking up clutter—tended to go by the wayside.

  Shrugging, she silently admitted that though her house was clean, it did tend to get a little messy. Especially now that she had Nathan living with her. She hadn’t had any idea just how much stuff came along with a baby.

  “Why did I call you again?” Tula asked.

  “Because I’m your best friend and you know you need me.”

  “Right, that was it.” Tula smiled and reached out one hand to smooth the wispy hairs on the top of Nathan’s head as he scooted past, babbling happily. “It was weird, Anna. Simon was crabby and rude and dismissive and yet…”

  “Yet what?” Anna prompted.

  There was a buzz of interest, Tula thought but didn’t say. She hadn’t expected it, hadn’t wanted it, but hadn’t been able to ignore it, either. The suit-and-tie kind of guy was so not what she was interested in. And for heaven’s sake, the last thing she needed was to be attracted to Nathan’s father. This situation was hard enough. Yet she couldn’t deny the flash of heat that had flooded her system the moment her hand had met his.

  Didn’t mean she had to do anything about it though, she assured herself firmly.

  “Hello?” Anna said. “Finish what you were saying! What comes after the ‘yet’?”

  “Nothing,” Tula said with sudden determination. One thing she didn’t need was to indulge in an attraction for a man she had nothing in common with but a baby they were both responsible for. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “And you expect me to just accept that?”

  “As my friend, I’m asking you to, yeah.”

  Anna sighed dramatically. “Fine. I will. For now.”

  “Thanks.” She’d accept the reprieve, even though she knew that Anna wouldn’t let it go forever.

  “So what’
re you going to do tonight?”

  “Simon comes here and we talk about Nathan. Set something up so that he can get to know the baby and I can watch them together. I can handle Simon,” she said a moment later and wasn’t sure whether she was trying to convince Anna or herself. “I grew up around men like him, remember?”

  “Tula, not every man who wears a suit is like your dad.”

  “Not all,” she allowed, “but most.”

  She was in the position to know. Her entire family had practically been born wearing business suits. They lived stuffy, insular lives built around making and keeping money. Tula was half convinced that they didn’t even know a world existed beyond their own narrow portion of it.

  For example, she knew what Simon Bradley would think of her tiny, cluttered, bayside home because she knew exactly what her father would have thought of it—if he’d ever deigned to visit. He would have thought it too old, too small. He would have hated the bright blue walls and yellow trim in the living room. He’d have loathed the mural of the circus that decorated her bathroom wall. Mostly though, he would have seen her living there as a disgrace.

  She had the distinct impression that Simon wouldn’t be any different.

  “Look, the reality is it doesn’t matter what Nathan’s father thinks of me or my house. Our only connection is the baby.” As she spoke, she told her hormones to listen up. “So I’m not going to put on a show and change my life in any way to try to convince a man I don’t even know that I am who I’m not.”

  A long second passed, then Anna laughed gently. “What does it say about me that I completely under stood that?”

  “That we’ve been friends too long?”

  “Probably,” Anna agreed. “Which is how I know you’re making rosemary chicken tonight.”

  Tula smiled. Anna did know her too well. Rosemary chicken was her go-to meal when she was having company. And unless Simon was a vegetarian, every thing would go great. Oh, God—what if he was a vegetarian? No, she thought. Men like him did lunch at steak houses with clients. “You’ve got me there. And once we have dinner, I’ll talk to Simon about setting up a schedule for him to get to know Nathan.”

  “You?” Anna laughed. “A schedule?”

  “I can be organized,” she argued, though her words didn’t carry a lot of confidence. “I just choose to not be.”

  “Uh-huh. How’s the baby?”

  Everything in Tula softened. “He’s wonderful.” Her gaze followed the tiny boy as he continued on his path around the kitchen, laughing and making noises as he explored his world. “Honestly, he’s such a good baby. And he’s so smart. This morning I asked him where his nose was and he pointed right to it.”

  Well, he had been waving his stuffed bunny in the air and hit himself in the face with it, but close enough. “Harvard-bound already.”

  “I’ll sign him up on the waiting list tomorrow,” Tula agreed with a laugh. “Look, I gotta go. Get the chicken in the oven, give Nathan a bath and…ooh, maybe myself, too.”

  “Okay, but call me tomorrow. Let me know how it goes.”

  “I will.” She hung up, leaned against the kitchen counter and let her gaze slide over the bright yellow kitchen. It was small but cheerful, with white cabinets, a bright blue counter and copper-bottomed pans hanging from a rack over the stove.

  She loved her house. She loved her life.

  And she loved that baby.

  Simon Bradley was going to have to work very hard to convince her that he was worthy of being Nathan’s father.

  The scent of rosemary filled the little house by the bay a few hours later.

  Tula danced around the kitchen to the classic rock tunes pouring from the radio on the counter and every few steps, she stopped to steal a kiss from the baby in the high chair. Nathan giggled at her, a deep, full-belly laugh that tickled at the edges of Tula’s heart.

  “Funny guy,” she whispered, planting a kiss on top of his head and inhaling the sweet, clean scent of him. “Laughing at my dance moves isn’t usually the way to my heart, you know.”

  He gave her another grin and kicked his fat legs in excitement.

  Tula sighed and smoothed her hand across the baby’s wisps of dark hair. Two weeks he’d been a part of her life and already she couldn’t imagine her world without him in it. The moment she’d picked him up for the first time, Nathan had carved away a piece of her heart and she knew she’d never get it back.

  Now she was supposed to hand him over to a man who would no doubt raise Nathan in the strict, rarified world in which she’d been raised. How could she stand it? How could she sentence this sweet baby to a regimented lifestyle just like the one she’d escaped?

  And how could she avoid it?

  She couldn’t.

  Which meant she had only one option. If she couldn’t stop Simon from eventually having custody of Nathan—then she’d just have to find a way to loosen Simon up. She’d loosen Simon up, break him out of the world of “suits” so that he wouldn’t do to Nathan what her father had tried to do to her.

  Looking down into the baby’s smiling eyes, she made a promise. “I’ll make sure he knows how to have fun, Nathan. Don’t you worry. I won’t let him make you wear a toddler business suit to preschool.”

  The baby slapped one hand down onto a pile of dry breakfast cereal on the food tray, sending tiny O’s skittering across the kitchen.

  “Glad you agree,” she said as she bent down, scraped them up into her hand and tossed them into the sink. Then she washed her hands and came back to the baby. “Your daddy’s coming here soon, Nathan. He’ll probably be crabby and stuffy, so don’t let that bother you. It won’t last for long. We’re going to change him, little man. For his own good. Not to mention yours.”

  He grinned at her.

  “Attaboy,” she said and bent for another quick kiss just as the doorbell sounded. Her stomach gave a quick spin that had her taking a deep breath to try to steady it. “He’s here. You’re all strapped in, so you’re safe. Just be good for a second and I’ll go let him in.”

  She didn’t like leaving Nathan alone in the high chair, even though he was belted in tightly. So Tula hurried across the toy-cluttered floor of her small living room and wondered how it had gotten so messy again. She’d straightened it up earlier. Then she remembered she and the baby playing after she put the chicken in the oven and—too late to worry about it now. She threw open the door and nearly gulped.

  Simon was standing there, somehow taller than she remembered. He wasn’t wearing a suit, either, which gave her a jolt of surprise. She got another jolt when she realized just how good he looked when he pried himself out of the sleek lines of his business “uniform.” Casual in a charcoal-gray sweater, black jeans and cross trainers, he actually looked even more gorgeous, which was just disconcerting. He looked so…different. The only thing familiar about him was the scowl.

  When she caught herself just staring at him like a big dummy, she said quickly, “Hi. Come on in. Baby’s in the kitchen and I don’t want to leave him alone, so close the door, will you, it’s cold out there.”

  Simon opened his mouth to speak, but the damn woman was already gone. She’d left him standing on the porch and raced off before he could so much as say hello. Of course, he’d had the chance to speak, he simply hadn’t. He’d been caught up in looking at her. Just as he had earlier that day in his office.

  Those big blue eyes of hers were…mesmerizing somehow. Every time he looked into them, he forgot what he was thinking and lost himself for a moment or two. Not something he wanted to admit, even to himself, but there it was. Frowning, he reminded himself that he’d come to her house to set down some rules. To make sure Tula Barrons understood exactly how this bizarre situation was going to progress. Instead, he was standing on the front porch, thinking about just how good a woman could look in a pair of faded blue jeans.

  Swallowing the stab of irritation at himself, he followed after her. Tula wasn’t his main concern here, after all. He was
here because of the child. His son? He was having a hard time believing it was possible, but he couldn’t walk away from this until he knew for sure. Because if the baby was his, there was no way he would allow his child to be raised by someone else.

  He’d been thinking about little else but this woman and the child she said belonged to him since she’d left his office that morning. With his concentration so unfocused, he’d finally given up on getting any work done and had gone to see his lawyer.

  After that illuminating little visit, he’d spent the last couple of hours thinking back to the brief time he’d spent with Sherry Taylor. He still didn’t remember much about her, but he had to admit that there was at least the possibility that her child was his.

  Which was why he was here. He stepped inside and his foot came down on something that protested with a loud squeak. He glanced down at the rubber reindeer and shook his head as he closed the door. His gaze swept the interior of the small house and he shook his head. If more than two people were in the damn living room, they wouldn’t be able to breathe at the same time. The house was old and small and…bright, he thought, giving the nearly electric blue walls an astonished glance.

  The blue walls boasted dark yellow molding that ran around the circumference of the room at the ceiling. There was a short sofa and one chair drawn up in front of a hearth where a tiny blaze sputtered and spat from behind a wrought-iron screen. Toys were strewn across the floor as if a hurricane had swept through and there was a narrow staircase on the far wall leading to what he assumed was an even tinier second story.

  The whole place was a dollhouse. He almost felt like Gulliver. Still frowning, he heard Tula in the kitchen, talking in a singsong voice people invariably tended to use around babies. He told himself to go on in there, but he didn’t move. It was as if his feet were nailed to the wood floor. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the baby or anything, but Simon knew damn well that the moment he saw the child, his world as he knew it would cease to exist.