Twin Ties, Twin Joys: The Boss's Double Trouble Twins / Twins for a Christmas Bride / Baby Twins: Parents Needed. Raye Morgan
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But he was still holding her hand and as long as he was doing that, her mind wasn’t going to work very well. She gave a tug, but he wasn’t letting go.
“I think I understand why you don’t think we should be working together,” he was saying earnestly. “But that’s just it—I agree. You don’t have anything to worry about. I swear, I’ll make sure everything stays on a businesslike level. We’ll work as colleagues and that will be it.”
“Good,” she said thickly. “Now can I have my hand back?”
He looked down and actually seemed startled to realize he was still holding it. “Oh. Sure. Sorry.”
He let go and she took a step back to get a bit of distance from him and settle her emotions. If just having her hand in his was going to send her into a tailspin, she was in big trouble. She had to get control of herself.
Taking a deep breath, she stared at his tie and tried to get it together. Now was the time. They had the privacy she needed. There was a pause in the conversation. It was the perfect opportunity. She ought to launch into a speech that would prepare him for the revelation. She tried to make herself do it. Looking up into his face, she searched for the words.
If not now, when? she prodded herself silently. Come on. Get it out there.
CHAPTER THREE
DARCY opened her mouth. Her lips actually formed a word. But as she gazed up into his clear blue eyes, she just couldn’t go through with it. The right words weren’t there yet. They weren’t coming to her.
“So what do you think?” Mitch asked, looking at her in the deep, probing way he had, that way that gave her the false feeling he saw only her, cared about only her, and would treasure her forever. “Can you work with me?”
“I … I don’t know,” she said, her voice sounding scratchy from the effort to speak at all. It was that intimate look that made her so crazy. She realized that now. She had to avoid his gaze at all costs. “That all depends. There’s something …”
“We’ll give it a try,” he said when she faltered. “I’m sure we can do it. And it’s only for one year.”
One year! In one year, the twins would be talking. Talking? They would be writing novels! They would be learning to catch a ball. They would be giving wet baby kisses to the ones who loved them. Would that include Mitch?
“One year?” she repeated numbly.
He nodded. “That’s all I’ve committed to. One year. And then I’m going back overseas.”
“I see.”
Well, wasn’t that just typical? Full commitment wasn’t his thing, was it? Resentment rose in her again.
“I… I guess I’m just surprised to see you working back here at all,” she noted distractedly. “The last I heard you were smuggling arms into Nepal or something.”
Amusement flashed across his handsome face. “Who told you that?”
“Someone at Jimmy’s funeral, I think.”
He shrugged, his gaze suddenly hooded. “He didn’t get it quite right. It wasn’t Nepal, and it wasn’t arms.”
“What was it?”
He paused just long enough to make her think whatever he said was going to be something he probably made up.
“It was rock concert T-shirts, into a country which shall remain nameless,” he said at last. “I do still have my Fifth Amendment rights.”
She barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. “That you do, but you’re the only person I’ve ever known who actually feels he needs to use them,” she said a bit caustically.
“Actually we were just importing the shirts.” He paused, and then added softly, “And then ‘exporting’ a few political refugees.”
“I see.” She knew he was involved in dangerous things overseas. He’d told her a few hair-raising tales that night in Paris. And she was pretty sure the story behind that new ugly scar across his chest was going to fit right into one of those scenarios. “I guess you were just born to be a businessman, weren’t you?” she added wryly.
He laughed softly. “Of a sort.”
She bit her lip. Now that was something to keep in mind: Don’t make the man laugh. He looks too good doing it.
“So is that why you’re back?” she asked quickly. “Are you on the lam?” Where had that phrase come from? She didn’t know, but she kind of liked it. It fit. “Is Interpol after you? I guess you got tired of being shot at and decided to come home for a rest, huh?”
He groaned, sagging down into a leather chair and stretching his long legs out before him. “You watch too much television.”
“Then why did you come back?”
He looked up at her and smiled sweetly. “My mother asked me to.”
She stared at him. Because his mother asked him to? That didn’t fit in with the always-a-rebel, devil-may-care, to-hell-with-convention image she had of him. And now here he sat in a suit and tie—looking like he was ready to take the business world by storm. It seemed his mother had a bigger influence on him than she’d thought.
Mitch’s parents had been another dilemma for her. Her impulse had been to tell them about the twins soon after she’d known she was pregnant. The fact that Mitch was so adamant about wanting nothing to do with them was what had made her hesitate in the beginning.
And the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she really wanted them getting involved in how she raised her children. Without knowing how things really stood with their son, did she dare let that happen? If there had been a different attitude, she might have told them.
But at first, she kept thinking Mitch would show up in one way or another. Or at least, that she would find a contact point. And that once she’d settled things with him, he should be the one to tell his parents.
She actually tried to talk to his mother at the company memorial service held for Jimmy. The woman had been gracious in a distant way, but when Darcy had tried to ask where Mitch was, she turned frosty fast.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t talked to my oldest son for a long time,” she said. “You’ll have to find some other way to get in touch with him.”
After that, she realized that if she went directly to the Carvers and told them about her pregnancy, they would immediately assume she was after money. She had to admit, a little financial aid would have come in very handy at that time. But once she’d thought things through, she knew it was just too dangerous. Money bought influence and got lawyers involved. It was much safer to take care of things herself.
That meant, sadly, that the Carvers were deprived of their grandchildren, and the twins were cheated out of grandparents, but she couldn’t see a way around that at the time.
“So there’s actually something you respect,” she said slowly. “Your mother. That’s sort of touching.”
She’d meant it as a barb, but once the words were out of her mouth, she realized it was true.
“You’re damn right I respect my mother. Have you met her?”
“Yes. She’s a lovely woman.”
“That she is.”
She frowned, thinking back on the things he had told her almost two years before. “It was really your father you had the quarrel with, wasn’t it?”
His face hardened. “That’s something I’m not going to discuss.”
Yes, she remembered now. All the bad feeling in the family revolved around some sort of feud with his father. And it obviously still burned deeply in him.
“You