Millionaire's Instant Baby

“Are you hungry, Mr. Montgomery?”

“No, why?”

“You’re staring at my breakfast like you haven’t seen food in a month.” She didn’t look at him as she peeled back the foil cover of the juice.

“I haven’t seen a breakfast that looks like that in more than a month,” he muttered. “I’ll bring you back something more…appealing.”

She took a healthy swallow of the juice, then picked up a spoon which she plunged into the cereal. “I like hot cereal, Mr. Montgomery. Some people do, you know.” Her tone slowed like rich rolling drops of syrup. “Even rich folks, I’m told.”

He smiled, genuinely amused. “You think I’m a snob.”

Her hesitation was barely noticeable. “I can’t imagine what you mean.”

His amusement grew. “Neatly avoided and you didn’t have to lie.” Seeing the corners of her mouth twitch as if she was holding back a reluctant smile of her own, he decided it was a good time to retreat. On a high note, so to speak. “I’ll leave you to enjoy your oats and whey,” he said. “We’ll be talking again.”

“I don’t think so. Our paths are in different neighborhoods. I doubt they’ll cross again.”

He shrugged easily and headed toward the door. She didn’t know him yet, so she could have no idea how wrong she was. He stopped and turned. “Get some sleep after you eat,” he suggested. “It’ll be a busy afternoon taking your son home. What did you say his name was?”

She tilted her head. “I didn’t. Which you know very well.”

“He is a good-looking boy.”

Her eyes softened like rich melting chocolate. “Thank you. He is beautiful.”

“And his name? You’ve already given him one, I’m sure.” He smiled faintly. “I’ll bet you had his name picked out when you were only halfway through your pregnancy.” She seemed like the type of woman who’d have cherished every moment she carried her child. Very much the way his sister had.

“Four months along,” she admitted.

“And?”

She moistened her lips. Hesitated. “My son’s name is Chandler.”

Kyle absorbed that. “Well. Good name.”

“I named him after a very dear old friend from my hometown,” she said evenly. “A name I chose months ago, so wipe that smug look off your face.”

“Not smug at all, Emma. It’s just another indication that I’ve chosen the right woman for my wife.”

“Your pretend wife,” she corrected.

“That’s what I said.”

“Not exactly.”

“You like to have the last word, don’t you?”

“I’m a woman, Mr. Montgomery.”

“I did notice that, Miss Valentine.” He watched her cheeks blossom with pink. “And while I am but a humble man—” he ignored her soft snort “—I’m a determined one. Our paths will cross again, Emma. And again. Until I have your agreement that becoming my pretend wife benefits everyone.”

Her mouth moved, but no words emerged. He smiled and stepped out into the hall. “I’ll see you and Chandler later.”

The door swished closed, but he heard her honeyed voice in the moment just before it did. “Good gravy.”

He pushed his hands into his pockets and thought about the woman on the other side. She was perfect for his needs. He just needed to remember that his needs were strictly business. That her curvy body, from slender neck to trim ankles, was off-limits.

All he needed was a pretend wife. He’d keep his hands to himself. He’d keep his thoughts strictly on sewing up every last detail of acquiring Payton Cummings’s company.

So that when the day arrived that he dismantled every facet of that damned company, he’d have the personal satisfaction of knowing there wasn’t one thing Payton Cummings, Sr., could do about it.

Kyle let out a long breath and went in search of a flower shop.

Chapter Two

“Okay, Emma, this one is what we’ll use to file for Chandler’s birth certificate. Fill in the blanks, sign and leave it in the folder with the others. The state will send you the certificate once it’s recorded. You can leave the folder with the nurse when you’re released. Okay?”

Emma nodded and waited until the brisk I’m-from-Records-honey woman left. Then Emma looked down at the form and nibbled the inside of her lip. She’d been completing and signing forms for the past ten minutes. Financial forms, affirming that she didn’t have medical insurance and including a payment agreement that would take every cent of the pay she earned from her part-time teaching job for the next few years. Medical-information forms regarding the aftermath of childbirth. Even forms to purchase sets of newborn photos.

She’d ordered one eight-by-ten and six wallet-size ones simply because she hadn’t been able to resist the first photo of Chandler, his little fists pressed against his round cheeks and a snug blue cap covering his thatch of dark brown hair. But even the photos were an extravagance these days. Signing all those financial forms had brought home with a thump the responsibilities she had to shoulder. Alone.

Which brought her right back to the birth certificate information. She rolled the pen between her fingers, looking at the empty boxes. Mother’s maiden name. Location and date of mother’s birth. Father’s name.

The tip of her pen hovered over that last box. Father. It took much more than biology to make a father. It took love and commitment and dedication.

Yet all she had was betrayal and lies and a twelve-page legal document sitting in the closet of her apartment.

She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Then she deliberately slashed a line through the father box before completing the rest, and placed the form, along with the others, inside the folder.

She looked at her watch and hoped the nurse came by soon with her release. She didn’t believe for one minute that Kyle Montgomery would be returning as he’d said that morning. Why would he?

He had money. He had incredible looks. He could find a make-believe wife wherever he wanted, making it worthwhile for some other woman. Personally Emma had had enough of rich men who thought they could either buy her presence or buy her absence.

The only man she was interested in was the tiny one sleeping in his carrier right beside her.

She looked down at Chandler, feeling tears threaten. Tears of gratitude for his sweet perfection she could happily shed. But tears filled with worry and fear about the days ahead, of managing, getting by—those tears she refused to indulge.

She was twenty-six years old. When her mama was that age, she had five kids. All daughters. Another year and she had six. The year after that, Hattie Valentine had stopped having babies, because her husband went off one night and didn’t come back.

A soft knock on the door caught her attention, and she pushed to her feet, tugging the hem of her cotton maternity top over her hips. Nell Hastings smiled and pushed the door wide until it stayed open on its own. “I’ve got your ride here, Emma.” She patted the bright blue wheelchair, her eyes twinkling. “Is that all your stuff in that bag?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, but tucked the handles of the big plastic sack that held bottles of water, formula samples and diapers over the back of the wheelchair.

Emma handed the motherly nurse the folder of paperwork and sat in the chair, holding Chandler in his carrier on her lap as Nell pushed her to the sidewalk outside the small hospital. Emma could see her orange car in the parking lot. She swallowed, thinking it was stupid to feel nervous about leaving the hospital. She could do this. She looked down at her sleeping son. She would do this. She climbed out of the wheelchair. It wasn’t as if she had no friends to support her decisions. To laugh with. To cry with. She just didn’t have a husband. And she’d turned down the offers of a ride home from the hospital. She’d start out as she intended to continue. Depending on herself.

“Emma, you and Chandler are going to be just fine. But you get nervous about anything, you just call. Okay?”

“Thanks, Nell. When I’m back at work, I’ll treat you to pie and coffee.”

The nurse patted her ample hips. “I don’t need pie, but I’ll take you up on that.” She helped Emma with the plastic bag and overnight case before turning the wheelchair around and heading back inside.

“We can do this, right, Chandler?” With the plastic sack slung over one shoulder, the strap of her overnight bag over the other and Chandler’s carrier cradled between her arms, Emma slowly headed toward her car.

When she reached it, she had to set everything down on the ground, though, because her keys were buried somewhere in the overnight bag. Chandler was starting to stir, and she moved his carrier onto the hood of her car, humming to him while she dug blindly through her bag.

“Looks like you could use an extra hand.”

Emma gasped, automatically closing her arm over the carrier. She looked across the hood of her ancient car to the gleaming late-model sports car against which Kyle Montgomery leaned lazily. Her heart was thudding only because he’d startled her, she assured herself.

“My two hands are quite sufficient,” she said, flushing when the words came out sounding breathless. She swept her hand once more through the interior of her case searching, searching.

He tilted his head slightly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Emma swallowed and pulled the case in front of her, pushing aside the clothing she’d worn to the hospital in her search. She was certain she’d dumped the keys in the bottom of the case.

“You’re overflowing there.”

She frowned, looking up. Right there, large as life, was her white cotton bra, D cup and all, hanging drunkenly over the side of the case. She hastily shoved it back inside, finally encountered the sharp edge of a key with her fingertip and pulled the set out triumphantly. Without bothering to refasten the zipper of the case, she hurriedly unlocked the car and dumped the two bags inside, rolled the car window halfway down and reached for the baby carrier. From the corner of her eye, she could see Kyle still leaning against his car.

He’d added the tie that had been missing that morning. Looking just as spit-polished as she’d figured he’d look. She swallowed and tried blocking him from her sight as she bent over her baby.

Though she’d practiced fastening the baby carrier into the stationary base that was already in the car, she fumbled the job. Chandler started whimpering and Emma crooned soothingly to him as she tried again. But the latch wouldn’t connect.

Painfully aware of Kyle’s gaze, which she couldn’t seem to ignore no matter how hard she tried, she worked at the carrier again. And again. Chandler started crying in earnest. “Oh, pumpkin, don’t,” she murmured, trying to distract him with the pacifier the nurse had sent with them. But Chandler wasn’t interested in the pacifier, and his newborn wail rose.

The panic rose in her far too easily. Her knees felt wobbly and all she wanted to do was lie down. She took a deep breath and tried fitting the carrier into place once more. What was wrong with the thing?

“Let me give it a try.”

Emma looked over her shoulder at Kyle, who’d moved to stand behind her. His wide shoulders blocked the bright afternoon sun in a way that no man wearing a silk tie should be able to do. “I can do it.”

“I’m sure you can,” he said mildly. “But that’s the same model I bought my sister when she had her baby. Remember, the one I told you—”

“I remember.” Feeling cross, she pulled the carrier back out of the car and propped it between her hip and the open car door while she tried coaxing Chandler to take the pacifier. At last he did, his cries ceasing as his lips worked rhythmically.

“He’s hungry.”

“I’m aware of that.” And her breasts positively ached for relief. But she wasn’t going to tell this man that. Not that she needed to, she realized with a hot flush, because his eyes had definitely been eyeing her there. “Don’t you have planes to fly somewhere or something?”

His eyes crinkled and he gently, firmly, nudged her out of the way, easily replacing her hands on the carrier with his own. “I am a pilot,” he said as he leaned into the car. “But unfortunately the business end of things keeps me on the ground pretty much these days. There. All set.”

He straightened and Emma could see the carrier had been transformed into a secure car seat. Naturally. She felt like bawling. “I…Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He looked at her, not smiling, just being male and competent and calmly accepting the tears collecting in her eyes. This last made the urge to cry magically fade. “I’ll follow you home.”

His statement was oddly appealing. And as such, completely out of the question. She blinked, moved away from him and his hypnotic scent, and pushed the door closed. He either had to move or have his hip banged.

“What for? To see if I can release the carrier once I get there?” She knew she was being rude. He had helped her with the carrier, after all. But criminy, the man seemed incapable of taking no for an answer. “I don’t know how to get it through to you, Mr. Montgomery, but you cannot buy me into playing your pretend-marriage game.”

His eyebrows peaked. “Buy?”

“So please just go make your offer to some other woman.” Some other woman who can think straight when you look at her with those green eyes.

“Buy?” he repeated.

Emma propped a steadying hand on the car, her attention veering from Chandler to Kyle and back again. Chandler, for the moment, seemed satisfied with his pacifier.

“Yes. Buy.” Did she have a For Sale sign tattooed on her forehead that was visible only to men or something? “I’m no actress, Mr. Montgomery, and my mama always told me that anyone with eyesight could see in my face when I was telling a lie. Frankly I can’t imagine what you could pay that would make attempting such a pretense worth my while. I’d be lying not only for your business deal but also to my friends here. So please, take your…offer to someone else.”

She jingled her car keys. Decided she wasn’t finished. “Better yet, Mr. Montgomery, make your business deal with this other man without lying at all. Don’t you think a man who has such staunch values as you’ve described would prefer a man of integrity to a man who’d resort to a ruse to get his way? Just tell him how the whole misunderstanding began with his stepdaughter.”

Kyle shook his head. “My integrity is intact, thanks,” he said shortly. “And you are making too much of a simple thing, Emma. If the pretense bothers you so greatly, I guess I’m willing to make it a legal reality. An annulment after the merger is complete and our lives will continue on as if nothing had ever happened.”

“Oh, sugar, that’s even more ridiculous. I’m a complete stranger to you, but you’re willing to marry me to pull off some business deal. Yet you’re not willing to tell some man you don’t really have a wife, after all? Have you listened to yourself? Do you know how insane that sounds?” Frankly, she thought, a woman would have to be dead to continue on as if nothing had ever happened after meeting Kyle Montgomery. And she was as insane as he was to be debating the merits of such a ridiculous scheme with him.

“I know exactly what I’m proposing, Emma. I haven’t gotten to where I am in life by making foolish choices. Choosing you to be my wife, pretend or otherwise, may be a calculated risk, but it’s not remotely insane.”

Emma just shook her head and slowly walked around the car to the driver’s side, using the car as a support to lean on as she moved. She pulled open the door, then looked at him over the roof. “It’s a lovely summer afternoon, Mr. Montgomery. Take a walk in the park over there between the buildings. The flowers are beautiful this time of year. Or go across the street to the diner and tell Millie that you’d like a piece of her indescribably delicious blueberry pie. Tell her I sent you and that it’s on me, even. But please, please, give up this ridiculous plan of yours. I can’t be a part of it.”

“You refuse to be, you mean.”

“Is there any difference?” She squinted into the sunlight. “My integrity isn’t for sale.”

“If I thought it was, Emma, I wouldn’t have decided you were exactly the person I needed to help me.” He stepped closer to the car, pinning her with his intense gaze. “When I said I’d make it worth your while, I merely meant that I wouldn’t expect you to give up the next six weeks or so of your life without some recompense. I was thinking more on the order of covering your medical costs for the baby. Establishing a trust for Chandler’s future. Providing medical insurance for you and your son for the next several years, at least until you can obtain your music-education degree and become established in your career.”

Her lips parted. “How did you know—”

“I know a great deal.”

She closed her mouth. All a person had to do was go into the diner a few times and he could learn all the gossip he wanted about the waitresses and regular customers. Most everybody who went into the diner knew what her field of study was and how long she’d been inching toward her degree. She didn’t need to start conjuring up silly notions of investigations and dossiers. Just because that was what Jeremy’s family had—

She closed off the thought. She wanted to go home and get off her feet for a while, feed her son, hold him close and pretend that her body didn’t ache as if it had been twisted inside out.

“Goodbye, Mr. Montgomery. It’s been…interesting meeting you.” She slid into the car, catching her breath at the sharp “discomfort” of the sudden movement.

As she backed out of her parking spot and drove away, she could see Kyle in her rearview mirror. His hands were pushed in his pockets, his stance relaxed. The afternoon breeze ruffled his chestnut hair.

She pulled up at a stop sign, waiting for the traffic to clear, and looked over at her son. “That man is more trouble than anyone I’ve ever met.”

Chandler blinked his round eyes and sucked enthusiastically at his pacifier. Emma was certain he was agreeing with her.

Emma’s apartment was a simple studio over the detached garage behind a big old house owned by Penny Holloman. As soon as she pulled up beside the garage and climbed out of the car, she heard Penny call from the back porch. She watched as the older woman skipped down the porch steps and started across the expansive yard.

Emma smiled with real pleasure and waved at her landlady. She reached in and unstrapped Chandler from the carrier, deciding just to leave it where it was, and carefully lifted his warm little body out just as Penny reached her side.

“Oh, sweetie, he’s just a peach.” Penny brushed her hands down her colorful shirt before reaching out. “Let me take him. You must be exhausted. I swear, when I had Elliot, they kept me in the hospital for a week. Was I ever glad, let me tell you. The last thing I wanted to do was get back home and start cooking three meals a day when I was a nervous wreck about doing something wrong with a new baby.”

Emma’s arms felt empty when Penny took Chandler into her own. But the other woman was oohing and ahhing over him, obviously delighted to hold him. Emma collected the plastic bag and her case and drew in a breath as she faced the wooden steps leading up the side of the garage to her apartment.

“I just got home myself, and I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to meet you at the hospital,” Penny chattered on, taking Emma’s overnighter from her. “You shouldn’t be carrying that,” she chastised, heading up the stairs. “If I could have canceled my meeting, I would have. I feel terrible that you drove yourself home like this.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Emma followed her landlady more slowly. Once she got Chandler fed and settled, she was definitely going to take a few of those extra-strength pain relievers her doctor had advised. “Megan agreed to, but I said no. We were fine.” She made it to the landing and pushed open the door, stopping short. “Oh, my!”

Penny laughed and rested her cheek on Chandler’s head. “Isn’t it fabulous? Why didn’t you tell me you’d met a man? Because I know for certain that good-for-nothing Jeremy St. James would never have been so extravagant.”

Emma cautiously stepped into her apartment. Glorious displays of summer flowers decorated every single surface. An enormous bouquet of yellow and white balloons hovered above her small round dining table. “I haven’t met a man,” she murmured faintly. Cheerful daisies graced the small table just inside the door and she touched one of the blooms. “Well, nobody except…No. He wouldn’t have. He couldn’t—”

“Who? Kyle Montgomery perhaps? He is a handsome one. And quite determined, too.”

Emma felt light-headed. She dumped the plastic bag on the floor and cautiously lowered herself to the couch. “Kyle…was here?”

“Earlier today.” Penny nodded. She flipped open a changing pad on top of the table and gently settled Chandler on top of it. In seconds she’d changed his diaper and carried him back to Emma. “There you go, sweetie. You feed him and I’ll get some lunch started for you.”

Emma had a lot of questions, but her son’s hunger was the primary need. She opened her blouse and situated her son in her arms. He latched on greedily and she chuckled and winced both at once. “Good thing you know what you’re doing there, pumpkin, ’cause if it was up to me, I’d still be fumbling around.”

Penny must have heard her, because she laughed lightly. “When Elliot was born, bottle feeding was the preferred choice. Herman was horrified when I insisted on nursing our baby.” She came back into the room, carrying a tray with a sandwich, a cup of soup and a tall glass of lemonade, which she set on the metal footlocker Emma used as a coffee table. She nudged it within reach of Emma, then pushed the footrest she’d given Emma for Christmas the year before next to the couch.

Emma lifted her feet onto it and let out a long relieved breath. But Penny wasn’t finished. Not until she’d taken Emma’s two bed pillows from the top shelf in the closet where they were kept during the day and propped them behind Emma’s neck and under her knees.

“There. That’s better, isn’t it?” Penny patted her hand and continued moving around the small apartment, unpacking the few items from Emma’s overnighter and adding the baby items from the plastic bag to the secondhand chest of drawers Emma had found. “Too bad your mother can’t be here to help you,” Penny said.

Emma shook her head. That was the last thing she needed. “Mama’s helping my sisters back home with the grandkids she already has.” She shifted against the pillows and sighed sleepily. “She doesn’t understand why I’m a single mother, anyway, so her helping would have been accompanied by a lot of lectures I don’t want to hear. Once a week is plenty for me.”

“The only one needing a good lecture is that pimple on the face of society who left you to fend for yourself.”

Emma managed to smile at the caustic description of Jeremy St. James.

“Fortunately I’m able to wholeheartedly say that I approve of your new choice,” Penny went on.

“If you’re referring to Kyle Montgomery, he is not my new choice. He’s just…”

Penny waited expectantly, her eyes sparkling with expectation. “Just handsome enough to make even my old bones sit up and take notice?”

“You’re not old.”

Penny chuckled. “Old enough to know a perfect match when I see one. A grown man doesn’t track down a landlady at a church committee meeting to gain access to his young lady’s apartment where he proceeds to fill it with every flower known to humankind if he’s not totally smitten.”

Totally determined, totally insane and totally off-limits. “I don’t even know the man,” Emma insisted. “I met him just this morning.”

A fact that seemed to delight Penny even more. “Well, you certainly made an impression on him,” she said. “I’ll leave you to rest now, but I’ll come back this evening with some supper for you.”

“You don’t have to do that, Penny. I can manage.”

Penny stopped at the door and shook her head. “I know you can manage, sweetie. But sometimes you don’t have to do it all on your own, so let me help in the ways that I can.” She plucked a small white envelope out of the daisy arrangement and handed it to Emma. “Your admirer left this for you.” She winked and went out the door, shutting only the outer screen. Emma heard her footsteps on the stairway, then all was quiet again, except for the thumping of her pulse in her ears.