The CEO's Baby Surprise. Helen Lacey
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for two days. The three other suits in the conference room were grating on his nerves. Some days he wanted nothing more than to throw off the shackles of his name, his legacy and everything else and live a simple, quiet life.
Like today.
Because it was his birthday. He was turning thirty-four years old. He had money and power and a successful business at his command. He had apartments in San Francisco, another in London and then there was the family-owned hilltop chateau in France that he hadn’t been near for over four years. He also had any number of women willing to warm his bed with minimal notice and who understood he didn’t want commitment or anything resembling a serious relationship. He traveled the world but rarely saw anything other than the walls of boardrooms and offices at the resorts he’d helped build into some of the most successful around the globe. Nothing and no one touched him.
Well...except for Mary-Jayne Preston.
She was a thorn in his side. A stone in his shoe. A pain in his neck.
Months after that one crazy night in Port Douglas and he was still thinking about her. She was incredibly beautiful. Her green eyes were luminous; her lips were full and endlessly kissable. But it was her hair that had first captured his attention that day in the store window. She had masses of dark curls that hung down past her shoulders. And of course there were her lovely curves, which she possessed in all the right places.
He’d checked out her history and discovered she came from a middle-class family in Crystal Point, had studied at a local technical college and had an online business selling her handcrafted jewelry. She rented her home, owned a dog, volunteered at a number of animal shelters, had strong opinions about the environment and politics and liked to dress in colorful skirts or jeans with holes in the knees. She had piercings in her ears and navel and a butterfly tattoo on one shoulder.
She wasn’t his type. Not by a long shot.
Which didn’t make one ounce of difference to the relentless effect she had on him whenever she was within a twenty-foot radius. And the night of his grandmother’s birthday party he’d almost tripped over his own feet when he’d caught a glimpse of her across the room. She’d looked incredible in a dress that highlighted every dip and curve of her body. And with her dark hair cascading down her back in a wave he just about had to cleave his tongue from the roof of his mouth. She looked hot. Gorgeous. Desirable.
And he knew then he wanted to get her in his bed.
It took half an hour to get her alone. Then he’d kissed her. And she’d kissed him back.
And before either of them had a chance to come up for air they were in his villa suite, tearing off clothes with little finesse and more eagerness than he’d felt in years. It had been a hot, wild night, compounded by months of abstinence and the fact he’d had Mary-Jayne Preston very much on his mind since the first time he’d seen her.
“Are you listening?”
Daniel shook off his thoughts and glanced to his left. Blake was staring at him, one brow cocked. “Always.”
Blake didn’t look convinced and quickly turned his attention to the other suits in the room. After a few more minutes, he dismissed the two other men, and once they were alone his brother moved to the bar and grabbed two imported beers from the fridge.
Daniel frowned. “A little early, don’t you think?”
Blake flicked the tops off the bottles and shrugged. “It’s after three. And you look as if you need it.”
He didn’t disagree, and stretched back in his leather chair. “Maybe I do.”
Blake passed him a beer and grabbed a seat. “Happy birthday,” his brother said, and clinked the bottle necks.
“Thanks,” he said but didn’t take a drink. The last thing he wanted to do was add alcohol to the remainders of a blinding headache.
His brother, who was probably the most intuitive person he’d ever known, looked at him as if he knew exactly what he was thinking. “You know, you should go home.”
“I live here, remember?”
Blake shook his head. “I meant home...not here. Port Douglas.”
Except Port Douglas didn’t feel any more like home than San Francisco, Phuket or Amalfi.
Nowhere did. Not since Simone had died. The bayside condo they’d bought still sat empty, and he lived in a villa at the San Francisco resort when he wasn’t at any of the other four locations. He’d been born in Australia and moved to California when he was two years old. The San Francisco resort was the first, which made it home, even though he’d spent most of his adult life shifting between the two countries.
He scowled. “I can’t do that right now.”
“Why not?” Blake shot back. “Caleb’s got the Phuket renovation under control. Things are sweet here in San Francisco.” His brother grinned. “You’re not really needed. CEOs are kind of superfluous to the running of a company anyhow. We all knew that when Gramps was at the helm.”
“Superfluous?”
Blake’s grin widened. “Yeah...like the foam on the top of an espresso to go... You know, there but not really necessary.”
“You’re an ass.”
His brother’s grin turned into a chuckle. “All I’m saying is that you haven’t taken a real break from this gig for years. Not even when...”
Not even when Simone died.
Four years, four months and three weeks ago. Give or take a day. She’d been driving back from a doctor’s appointment and had stopped at the mall for some shopping. The brakes on a car traveling in the opposite direction had failed. Simone had suffered terrible injuries and died an hour later in hospital. So had the baby she carried. He’d lost his wife and unborn daughter because of a broken brake line. “I’m fine,” he said, and tasted the lie on his tongue.
“I’m pretty sure you’re not,” Blake said, more serious. “And something’s been bugging you the past few months.”
Something. Someone. Green eyes... Black curling hair... Red lips...
Daniel drank some beer. “You’re imagining things. And stop fretting. You’re turning into your mother.”
His brother laughed loudly. They both knew that Blake was more like their father, Miles, than any of them. Daniel’s mother had died of a massive brain hemorrhage barely hours after his birth, and their father had married Bernadette two years later. Within six months the twins, Blake and Caleb, were born. Bernie was a nice woman and had always treated him like her own, and wasn’t as vague and hopeless as their father. Business acumen and ambition had skipped a generation, and now Miles spent his time painting and sculpting and living on their small hobby farm an hour west of Port Douglas.
Daniel finished the beer and placed the bottle on the table. “I don’t need a vacation.”
“Sure you do,” Blake replied. “If you don’t want to go to Australia, take a break somewhere else. Maybe Fiji? Or what about using that damned mausoleum that sits on that hill just outside Paris? Take some time off, relax, get laid,” his brother said, and grinned again. “Recharge like us regular folk have to do every now and then.”
“You’re as tied to this business as I am.”
“Yeah,” his brother agreed. “But I know when to quit. I’ve got my cabin in the woods, remember?”
Blake’s cabin was a sprawling Western red cedar house nestled on forty hectares he’d bought in small town Colorado a few years back. Daniel had visited once, hated the cold and being snowbound for days on end and decided that a warm climate was more his thing.
“I don’t need a—”
“Then, how about you think about what the rest of us need?” Blake said