The Playboy’s Unexpected Bride

Sighing, Linc grabbed the trousers he’d worn last night. The baby’s howls had reached earsplitting proportions. Nanny Crispin would have to endure the sight of his bare chest—and what the hell was she doing, anyway, letting the kid scream?

He marched down the hall and went down the steel and oiled teak spiral staircase.

The door to the nursery stood open. All the lights were on, illuminating the crib where the baby was screeching like a wind-up toy gone berserk. Nanny Crispin, wrapped like a mummy in a flannel robe the same color as her hair, sat in a straight-backed chair beside the crib, arms folded over her flat chest.

Linc cleared his throat. Pointless. Nobody could have heard the roar of a jet engine over the wails of the baby.

“Nanny Crispin?”

As always, he felt like an idiot addressing a woman twice his age that way but she’d made it clear that she expected his housekeeper, his driver and him to call her by her title.

He walked to the crib and waited for her to notice him. When she didn’t, he tapped her on the shoulder. She reacted as if she’d been scalded, leaping to her feet, spinning to face him, her mouth forming a perfect O.

“I didn’t meant to startle you.”

Nanny Crispin stared at his chest.

“I said, I didn’t mean to—” Hell. He took a breath, fought back the urge to grab something to cover his naked chest and decided to get to the point. “What’s wrong with the baby?”

“Do you not own a robe, Mr. Aldridge?”

“Do I not…?” Linc flushed. Suddenly, he was six years old. “Well, sure, but I heard the baby and—”

“Your attire is inappropriate. I am a single woman and you are a man.”

“Yes, but—”

But one of them was crazy. He was indeed a man. She was about as sexually appealing as a stick, never mind the age difference or the fact that she was his employee. If she’d looked like the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe, that last fact would have been enough to keep him at arm’s length.

Linc jerked his chin toward the crib. “I’m not worried about decorum right now, Nanny Crispin. I want to know why the baby is screaming.”

“She is screaming because she is undisciplined.”

“Undisciplined. Well, then, of course she…”

His voice faded away. Undisciplined? He frowned. True, he knew nothing about babies, but did four-month-old infants cry because they were undisciplined?

“Are you sure?”

“I have been taking care of babies for forty years, Mr. Aldridge. I know an undisciplined child when I see one.”

Linc looked at the baby. Her face was purple. Her arms and legs were pumping. His frown deepened.

“Maybe she’s hungry.”

“I gave her eight ounces of formula four hours ago. Eight ounces is the proper amount.”

“What about her diaper? Does it need changing?”

“No.”

“Well, is she too warm? Too cold? Could something be hurting her?”

Nanny Crispin’s thin mouth narrowed until it all but disappeared. “She is simply in need of discipline, as I said.”

“And that means?”

“It means I shall outlast her temper tantrum. Goodnight, sir.”

Linc nodded. “Okay. Sure. Goodnight.”

He turned, walked away, got halfway up the stairs and paused. The baby was still crying but her screams had become sobs. Somehow, that was even worse.

Would Kath have let her daughter weep? Would she have called this a temper tantrum?

He swung around, went back to the nursery, ignored the scowl of disapproval and the pursed lips.

“How about picking her up?” Nanny Crispin looked at him as if he’d spoken in Urdu. “You know, take her out of the crib. Hold her, walk around with her.”

“One does not reward poor behavior.”

“No. Of course not. I mean…”

What in hell did he mean? Suddenly, Linc plunged back in time. He remembered coming home from football practice, finding Kath sobbing her heart out in the corner of the kitchen that had been her bedroom. He’d been maybe seventeen, so she’d have been seven. She’d been crying because some kid had made fun of her, the way she’d looked in the too-big winter coat he’d gotten her at the Salvation Army, and she hadn’t stopped weeping until he’d scooped her up, rocked her, told her everything would be all right.

Linc walked slowly to the crib. Looked in. Hesitated. Then he reached down and picked up the baby. It was the first time he’d held her since the day a social worker had placed her in his arms.

This is your sister’s daughter, she’d said.

Those simple words, the unfamiliar feel of the kid in his arms, and he’d finally had to accept that Kath was gone.

Now, he stared at the red, unhappy face of Kath’s child. His niece. Funny how he never thought of her that way. Awkwardly, he cupped her head with one hand, her bottom with the other, and rocked her back and forth.

A little bubble of spit appeared in the corner of her mouth.

The kid was cute, he thought grudgingly. He hadn’t really noticed before, but she was.

“Mr. Aldridge, I must protest. You are undermining my authority in front of the child.”

He looked at the baby, then at Nanny Crispin. The look on her face said he was committing a capitol offense.

“She has a name,” he heard himself say.

“What has that to do with anything?”

“She has a name. Jennifer. I’ve never heard you use it.”

“Her name is irrelevant.”

It wasn’t irrelevant, nor was the fact that he never used the baby’s name, either. He knew that, deep where it counted.

“Mr. Aldridge. The child needs to be taught a lesson. Either you put her back in her crib or I’m afraid I will have to tender my resignation.”

Linc looked down at his niece. Her sobs had stopped. She was staring up at him, her expression solemn.

“Did you hear me, sir? I said—”

“I heard you. Consider your resignation accepted.”

Nanny Crispin gasped. Linc almost did, too. What in hell had he done?

“Wait a minute,” he started to say, but his cell phone, still in his trouser pocket, beeped. He shifted the baby to the crook of one arm and dug out the phone.

It was his attorney. At—what was it now?—at six in the damned a.m.?

“I couldn’t reach you last night, Lincoln.”

“Well, you’ve reached me now, Charles. This better be good.”

Kath’s mother-in-law had filed for custody. Linc wondered whether he felt relief or maybe something else.

“Yeah, well, we kind of figured—”

“What we didn’t figure,” his lawyer said briskly, “was that the lady basically abandoned her own son—Kathryn’s husband—when he was three. Now she’s claiming to have been a devoted mother who had problems.”

“Do you buy her story?”

“What I buy is that she just found out about the trust fund you set up for your sister, and that the money in it now transfers to the baby.”

Linc’s mouth thinned. “Great.”

“Indeed.”

They made an appointment to meet later in the day. Oh, the lawyer added, the social worker wanted a meeting, too. This afternoon, with him and Linc and the baby.

“She wants to see how the child is doing.”

“Sir?”

Linc turned and saw Nanny Crispin, dressed and with her suitcase in her hand.

“I’ll see you later, Charles,” he said, and ended the call.

“I phoned for a taxi, Mr. Aldridge. Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind?”

Two meetings this morning. Two meetings this afternoon. Linc had always been a logical man. There was still time for a logical man to say he’d changed his mind.

“I will reconsider my departure if you are prepared to acknowledge my authority.”

Linc’s jaw tightened. “Send me the bill for the cab.”

He waited as Nanny Crispin stalked from the room. Then he looked down at his niece.

“Well, kid, it looks like it’s just you and me.”

Jennifer gave a huge yawn. Her eyelids drooped. A second later, she was asleep.

An excellent idea, Linc thought, but there wasn’t much point in going back to bed, not anymore.

Okay, then. Time for a plan. When his housekeeper showed up, he’d ask her to do him a favor and watch the baby for the day. He’d go to his office, hold his meetings, contact the nanny agency—again. This time tomorrow he’d have nanny number six and life could return to whatever level of normalcy was possible.

Carefully, he lowered the sleeping baby into the crib.

“Waaaah!”

Linc hoisted her up. She screamed. He rocked her. She roared. Finally, gingerly, he brought her against his chest. Hot drool fell against his naked flesh. The baby gave a shuddering sigh and promptly fell asleep.

Linc waited. Then, very slowly, he sank into the straight-backed chair Nanny Crispin had vacated.

The baby slept on.

Half an hour later, he heard his housekeeper in the kitchen. He rose stiffly from a chair that had surely been designed by a sadist, lowered the baby inch by slow inch into her crib, hobbled to the shower and stepped gratefully under a blast of hot water.

* * *

Mrs. Hollowell couldn’t babysit.

Her daughter was in the city for the day and she was taking the afternoon off to spend with her. Had Mr. Aldridge forgotten?

Mr. Aldridge had. He’d come close to forgetting his own name. Three hours of sleep could do that to a man.

He told her not to worry.

At eight, he strode into his office. His PA’s eyes widened at the sight of Jennifer in his arms.

“I fired the nanny,” he said brusquely. “Phone the agency, please. And take care of the kid for the next hour.”

Another nod, but when he tried to hand the baby over those tiny lungs contracted and the baby began to scream. Linc rolled his eyes and reached for her. His PA started to grin but one glance put an end to that.

Frowning, Linc plunked Jennifer against his shoulder again and vanished into his office.

He took his eight-thirty meeting with Jennifer still plastered against him. His people pretended not to notice.

By nine-thirty, she’d drifted off to sleep. After a quick survey of the Italian leather, smoked glass and cherrywood furnishings of his office, Linc sent his PA on another shopping expedition. In short order a thing that looked kind of like a tilted basket stood on the conference table along with diapers, baby bottles and formula.

The basket thing was pink and padded. Linc put the baby into it and breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t object.

His PA had phoned his European clients at the Waldorf. They were not in their rooms but, at Linc’s direction, she’d left a message changing the location of their meeting to Peacock Alley, the hotel’s posh dining venue.

The trouble with messages was they didn’t always get where they were meant to go.

Midmorning, just as Linc was getting ready to leave for the Waldorf, his clients walked in. So sorry, they said, they knew they were early, but…

The baby chose that moment to wake up.

Her face turned pink. Her rosebud mouth pursed. Linc snatched her from her sleeping place before she could shriek.

She smiled, drooled, and—there was a God after all—his clients melted. The meeting went on, the baby gurgled and smiled. Finally, mercifully, his clients left.

Linc started to put the baby in the crib. She began to whimper.

“She’s hungry,” his PA said helpfully.

Linc looked at her. Looked at the baby. Then he handed the kid over.

“Feed her,” he commanded.

His PA started to say something, thought better of it, turned away, opened the door…

Someone brushed by her and walked in. Strode in, was more like it.

A blonde. Tall. Slender. Wearing a black suit, black spiked heels and with a sleek black leather attaché case hanging from a strap across her shoulder. The look on her face meant trouble as she marched toward him, stopped a foot from his desk and slapped her hands on her hips.

Linc’s green eyes narrowed. His temper was hot, his patience shredded, his exhaustion a black cloud waiting to burst loose with thunder and lightning…

Holy hell!

The blonde was Ana Maria Marques.

Linc scraped back his chair and jumped to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

“You made my father a promise, Senhor Aldridge. I do not think he will be pleased when he hears that you intend to renege on it.”

The baby let out a cry. Linc let out a groan. And assumed, as any intelligent man would, that he had somehow fallen through a wormhole in space and emerged in a nightmare.

CHAPTER THREE

AS A boy, Lincoln had taught himself Tai Chi.

Well, maybe not Tai Chi, precisely. The classes had been held after school; they’d cost money and no way would his mother have been able to afford them. Hell, there was no way she’d have paid for something he’d wanted even if she’d been able to afford it.

But he’d spied on the class by cracking open the locker-room door, and he’d learned. Not the finer points, perhaps, but enough to find Tai Chi useful.

The ancient Chinese martial art was as much about self-control as it was about physical strength.

Eventually, he’d figured out that was something you could apply to life in general. He’d used that realization over the years and he thought of it now as he fought the growing tension inside him.

Too bad you didn’t think about Tai Chi when you first met this babe, a smug voice inside him said.

Linc ignored it. He’d made a fool of himself with her once. It wouldn’t happen again. Besides, Ana Maria Marques looked as furious as he felt.

She also looked spectacular, every man’s dream of a dressed-for-success female, the black suit elegant and proper, yet somehow hinting at the rounded contours of her body, the black pumps discreet until you took a look at the height of those heels and what they did for her long, lean legs.

His PA had stepped back into the room, the baby pressed to her shoulder, a bewildered look on her face.

“Sir? My apologies. I don’t know why Reception let this woman—”

“It’s all right, Sarah.”

“If the lady has an appointment, I don’t have anything in my calendar about it.”

“If you think you are going to throw me out because I don’t have an appointment,” Ana said hotly, “I assure you, Senhor Aldridge, you are not!”

A muscle flexed in Linc’s jaw but his tone was calm.

“Thank you, Sarah. Shut the door, please. I’ll ring if I need you.”

The door swung shut. Ana didn’t blink. She simply glared at him.

Linc folded his arms. “Explain yourself.”

“You have it wrong, senhor.You are the one who must do the explaining. To me. Or, if you prefer, to my father.”

What in hell was she talking about? Better still, what was she doing here? The last he’d seen, she’d been pretending to be a dutiful daughter while her old man worked up the courage to offer her as a bride. In fact, Marques had been so caught up in the offer that he’d gone on talking even as Linc ran out the door that night.

His gut knotted. Had he missed something? Agreed to something? Was that night about to bite him in the tail?

“Because if you think I will not tell him how you have treated me—”

“Sit down, Miss Marques.”

He spoke sharply, his words slicing across hers. It worked. Not that she sat down. He hadn’t really expected that. But at least she shut up.

Linc took the chair behind his desk, folded his hands on its glass surface and looked at her. How many Ana Marias were there? Three, so far. The sexy night-stalker. The demure innocent.And now this gorgeous sophisticate.

Which was the real woman?

“When you’re done mentally undressing me,” she said coldly, “perhaps we can get down to business.”

Linc raised one dark eyebrow.

“Trust me, Miss Marques. If I wanted to undress you, I wouldn’t be satisfied with doing it mentally.” He paused. “And neither would you.”

A flush rose in her cheeks. “Would you force yourself on me again, senhor? As you did the night we met?”

“Is that why you returned my kiss? Because I ‘forced’ myself on you?”

“I did not return it. And I am not about to be drawn away from the topic at hand.”

“What were you doing in that garden?”

“I just said—”

“Among other things, you blew past my best security system.”

She smiled the way a cat might when confronted with a delectable mouse. “Indeed, I did.”

Time to change direction. “Do you make it a habit to sneak around at night?”

“Do you make it a habit to force yourself on women?”

Back to the beginning. Linc sighed. “Let’s move on, Miss Marques. What are you doing here?”

“I am here because of the promise you made my father Have you conveniently forgotten? Or did you hope I would not wish to follow through on it? Is that the game?”

Calmer now, Linc decided this couldn’t concern a marriage proposal. Her father would be with her if it were. Still, he had no idea what she was talking about but only a fool would have admitted it. Instead, he sat back and flashed a cool smile.

“Why don’t you tell me, Miss Marques? You seem to have all the answers.”

He was afraid it sounded like a desperate ploy but it worked. A moment’s hesitation and then she marched to one of the chairs in front of his desk, sat down, crossed her legs and propped the attaché case in her lap. The pencil-slim skirt of her black suit rode up her golden thighs.

“My father asked a favor of you.”

Linc dragged his gaze to her face.

“Funny. I don’t remember him asking anything—but then,” he said, his tone hardening, “you seem to have forgotten that I left your home in a rush that night.”

Another splash of color swept across her high cheek-bones. “About that.” She cleared her throat. “I should have offered you my sympathy on the loss of your sister.”

“Thank you.”

Ana narrowed her eyes. The words were polite but she knew what this arrogant bastardo really meant was, Go away. Anyone viewing the scene would have thought she’d materialized out of the air instead of taking the elevator from Human Resources, two floors below.

Was he playing dumb? Could he really not know why she was so angry? He knew. He had to. He also knew damned well that he’d lied. That he’d said yes to her father only to placate him and had never, not in a million years, expected her to show up in New York.

If only Papa had never asked him.

She’d considered telling him not to, once she’d realized the man who’d forced his kisses on her that night was the man he was going to entrust her to, but how could she?

She’d worked a minor miracle, convinced Papa to let her take a stab at a career in New York, the city where all things were possible. She could have gone off without his approval, yes, but she knew her desire for independence pained him. She wanted to do it without hurting him, and she had.

After months of talk, Papa had finally agreed to let her go, but only if he hand-picked her employer.

“A good man,” he had said. “An honorable one with a successful business.”

Papa knew lots of good, honorable men who were successful. They were also middle-aged, overweight and balding. That was the kind of man she’d expected.

Instead, Papa’s selection had turned out to be Lincoln Aldridge. Tall. Dark. Not middle-aged, not overweight, not balding.

Lincoln Aldridge was a magnificent male specimen.

He was also a sexist pig who’d overpowered her, forced her into his arms, forced his kisses on her, forced her to melt against him and yearn, plead, burn for him to do more, more, more…

Nonsense.

It hadn’t been like that. She had been offended by his behavior and she would have told Papa the ugly truth about the good, honorable Senhor Aldridge, but Aldridge had gotten that terrible phone call about his sister.

After that, Ana had assumed Papa’s plan was done with. Then, last week, he’d showed her the letter he’d written and Aldridge’s response…

“Miss Marques?”

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