Must Like Kids

“This is Alec McAvoy. He’s a...business associate. Alec, this is Karen Croswell. She’s—”

“Logan’s mom,” he finished for her.

Karen glanced down at her well-endowed chest. Her son’s name began to jiggle with her accompanying laughter. When her gaze returned to Alec’s it held as much feminine interest as it did humor.

“So, you and Julia know one another through work, hmm?”

“That’s right.”

Julia cleared her throat. “Alec is a client. I invited him along so he could get a feel for what parents go through.”

The explanation filled in some blanks while also being cryptic enough to raise more questions.

“Oh? Are you and your wife expecting a child?”

He decided it was easier just to play along with her fishing expedition. “No kids, no wife.”

Although it was true, he didn’t appreciate the way Julia added, “Alec is married to his career.”

If she’d been trying to warn off Karen, it backfired. “So you’re just a client of Julia’s.”

“Right.”

“Yep. That’s all,” Julia agreed.

Karen’s eyes lit up like twin Christmas trees. “Like Julia, here, I’m a single mom. That’s why the two of us stick together at T-ball games. We help each other out with things like raising canopies. The other moms have husbands to give them a hand.”

He glanced at Julia. Her expression was inscrutable. “Julia looks like she manages just fine. She’s—”

“Fit,” Julia finished for him. “Or so I’ve been told.”

“I meant it as a compliment.”

“And I took it as one.”

Alec wondered.

Karen, who’d been watching their exchange, was frowning. Confused no doubt. He couldn’t say he blamed her.

She said, “Julia is a lot more resourceful than I am. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“You’d be fine, Karen,” Julia replied with a patient smile. Then added, “Are Logan’s allergies flaring up again? He looks like he could use a tissue before the game starts.”

Karen withdrew, but not before shaking Alec’s hand again. “It was really nice to meet you. Maybe I’ll see you again. I’d be happy to help you research what parents go through.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Karen comes on a little...strong, but she has a good heart,” Julia remarked when they were alone again.

“She seemed...nice.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“She’s not your type, I gather.”

“No.” He said it slowly, mentally glancing around for land mines.

“Kids can be a turnoff.”

Uh-oh. “My interest or lack thereof in this case has nothing to do with her being a single mother.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’ll date women with children, as long as nannies are involved.”

Forget land mines. It was his temper that was threatening to blow now. Alec counted to ten. Even then his tone was sharp. “That’s not fair.”

She shrugged, unbothered by either his tone or his assertion. “That’s how you come across to the baby-product-buying public.”

Only the baby-product-buying public? he wondered. But he said, “As I already told you, I didn’t have anything against Laurel’s children, and they certainly weren’t the reason things between us ended.” At

Julia’s raised brows, he added, “The relationship simply ran its course.”

Julia nodded. But did she believe him? And why did he care if she did?

“Are you seeing anyone now?” she surprised him by asking.

“That’s a little personal, don’t you think?”

“Personal, but relevant. So, are you?”

“No. I’m between relationships.” He waited a beat, then asked, “What about you?”

“That’s both personal and irrelevant.”

Alec ground his molars together. God, the woman was exasperating. And he had to work with her for who knew how long. It was just his luck.

“Let’s get back to your friend Karen. As I said, she seems nice enough, but I’m not interested. Attraction is hard to quantify.” His instantaneous attraction to the prickly woman seated beside him being a case in point. “I date women I find engaging, exciting.”

“And deep, no doubt.”

Julia’s lips twitched, leaving him with the impression she was laughing at him.

“You think I’m shallow?”

She sobered at that and glanced away. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I’m not being paid to pass judgments.”

Her answer was hardly reassuring. She pointed in the direction her friend had gone.

“For the record, Karen’s ex is a total deadbeat.

Gordie hasn’t seen Logan or their girls in more than a year, nor has he paid child support. If not for Karen’s parents, Logan wouldn’t have a roof over his head, much less be playing T-ball. So, she tends to come on a little strong when she realizes a man is both unmarried and gainfully employed.”

Bitterness welled in Alec’s throat as he recalled his own childhood. Even parents who stayed married could be deadbeats, he thought.

“You’ll have to work on that,” Julia remarked. Her tone was clipped.

“What?”

“That look of supreme distaste. She’s not a gold digger. She’s just looking for companionship and a father figure for her kids.”

He didn’t bother trying to correct Julia’s assumption that he’d been thinking about Karen. The last thing he wanted to talk about was his parents. Instead, he decided to shift the focus of their conversation. “What about you? You’re a single mom, too. Are you looking for those things?”

She shook her head. Despite the heat, her tone was pure frost when she replied, “My kids and I are fine on our own.”

THREE

The game ended. The crowd dispersed. Alec helped Julia take down the canopy and carry it back to her car.

“I’ll be in touch,” she said.

He nodded. “Nice meeting you,” he said to her kids, adding, “Good game,” for Colin’s benefit.

“We got creamed.”

Alec frowned. “I thought you said no one keeps score.”

“The coaches don’t, but Noah Wilson’s dad does. He said it was a massacre, and we need to work on our catching.”

“Oh.”

“There’s one of those dads on every team,” Julia muttered.

“Do you know much about baseball?” Colin asked. “Maybe we could play catch some time.”

“Um...” Alec’s gaze cut to her.

Julia knew panic when she saw it. “Mr. McAvoy is a busy man, Colin.”

Colin nodded at the explanation. “Oh. Okay.” To Alec he said, “That’s too bad. Everybody should have enough time to play catch once in awhile.”

They went their separate ways after that, but Alec remained on Julia’s mind for the rest of the evening.

She considered herself a good judge of character. As such, she’d thought she’d had Alec pegged after their meeting in her office, her opinion reinforced by the fact that he’d arrived late and had come across as both obstinate and arrogant.

Then, at the baseball diamond, he’d showed up in his snazzy two-seater, wearing a tailored suit and silk tie, and looking as out of place as a car salesman at a cyclist convention. Her initial opinion had seemed on target, especially after their conversation about his dating habits. She’d probed a bit more than usual—all of it work-related, she assured herself.

But then, once the game got under way, he’d surprised her.

Julia wouldn’t say he’d ever managed to look comfortable sitting with her in the manufactured shade of the canopy. Or that he’d understood the point of a ball game in which no one kept score and even the parents on the opposing team clapped for all the little sluggers as they took their turn at the tee to bat. But he’d appeared so intrigued by it.

“Didn’t you play baseball when you were a kid?” she’d asked him at one point.

His tone had been an odd combination of wistfulness and resignation when he’d replied, “Not really. Not like this.”

Julia was the one intrigued then.

So, that night, after her kids went to bed, she stayed up not only to pour over her plans for his public reincarnation, but also to read his biography, both what his company had provided and what she could glean on her own from the internet.

By all accounts, Alec McAvoy had grown up in privilege—attending a couple of East Coast boarding schools before moving on to an Ivy League education with a stint abroad between his undergraduate degree in finance and his MBA in business. His paternal grandparents were old money and owned a summer home on Nantucket. From the photographs, it was far grander than the cozy beach house Julia and Scott had once dreamed about buying on Lake Michigan.

Alec’s parents, meanwhile, were fixtures at parties thrown by Hollywood A-listers, socialites and European high rollers. At one point, rumors had swirled about Peter and Brooke McAvoy’s finances running low, but it hadn’t seemed to slow them down. On the internet, Julia ran across a picture of them snapped just six months earlier in which they were sunbathing on the deck of a yacht anchored off Corfu. The yacht belonged to a Greek shipping magnate. She also ran across photograph after photograph of the elder

McAvoys among the glitterati. The pictures stretched back well over a decade. If they were broke, they were doing a poor imitation of it.

Alec, of course, was wealthy in his own right. As the CEO of Best For Baby, he earned seven figures, and then there was the not so small matter of the fortune he’d inherited from his grandfather after the man’s death half a decade earlier. The silver spoon he’d been born with had never had a chance to tarnish, much less be removed.

She stared at his photo on her computer screen. Alec McAvoy had it all: wealth, good looks, lofty connections and power. He also had a PR problem the size of the Titanic. And that was why the Best For Baby board had hired her, Julia reminded herself as she switched off the computer just after midnight and stumbled off to bed, taking with her a printout of the damning article that had started the current controversy. She practically knew it by heart, but she wanted to be sure she hadn’t missed any subtext that could be used in the rebuttal articles she planned to plant in various media outlets starting Monday.

She nodded off one paragraph in and then dreamed about him...in a not-so-professional way.

They were in her office, the door closed, the blinds at the window behind her desk pulled—not to cut the glare of the sun, but for privacy. Her hair was loose, her lips slick with red gloss. She wore a strapless, snug-fitting dress and dangerously high heels—neither of which was inappropriate for the workplace. It wasn’t only the clothing that Julia didn’t recognize. Who was this hypersexualized version of herself?

As for Alec, he was smiling—that smug, amused expression that managed to be both annoying and sexy at the same time.

“Come here,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

Even though Julia wasn’t one to take orders, she stepped closer at his command, stopping an arm’s length away. His tie was askew, his shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his arms. Her gaze wandered to his belt buckle and the revealing fit of his trousers. She wasn’t quite successful at biting back a moan.

When she glanced up, his green eyes had turned molten with interest. It had been a long time since a man had looked at her that way. A long time since she’d wanted a man to look at her that way.

“Closer. Come closer, Julia.”

This time his words were more dare than order. A shiver of excitement ran through her, followed by anticipation, as she closed the distance.

He lifted his hand, reaching for her.

“Julia,” he said softly.

She jolted awake at his touch, scattering the papers that had been in her slack grip. After scrubbing a hand over her face, she gathered the printouts together and put them on her bedside table. Then she got up for a drink of water. Her throat was dry and her body was on fire. She felt foolish, juvenile. Most damning of all, she was turned on.

It was a reasonable reaction, she assured herself. An understandable response. She might be a professional consultant under contract to polish Alec’s tarnished public image, but she also was a woman—a healthy, adult woman—with needs that had gone unfulfilled for a very, very long time. Alec was handsome and on her mind thanks to work. So, she’d dreamed about him. Big deal. It wasn’t as if anything had happened while she was awake and, as such, fully responsible for her actions.

Even so, she turned on the faucet again. Instead of refilling her glass, this time she cupped her hands under the cold water and splashed it on her face.

On the way back from the bathroom, she checked on her children, stopping first in one doorway and then the one next to it. The bedrooms were identical in size and layout, with the twin beds located directly across from the door. Danielle was curled up on her side, one slim arm wrapped around her pillow. Next door, Colin was stretched out on his bed with his arms flung wide, as if he were attempting to embrace not only the room, but also the world beyond. Like his sister, he looked so relaxed, so...angelic.

Julia smiled, relieved to find her footing again. First and foremost, she was a mother. Her kids were her life. They were all she needed, she assured herself. But after she slipped back into bed, it was hard to ignore how empty the other side of it suddenly seemed.

* * *

“Alec, please. They’re this season’s Kellen Montgomery sunglasses,” his mother whined on the other end of the line. “You’re not being fair. I can’t be expected to go on my trip without sunglasses.”

Brooke probably had six dozen pairs of designer shades, each one pricier than the last. He didn’t bother to point this out. He knew from past experience that using reason with his spendaholic mother would be futile.

It was not quite ten o’clock on Saturday morning, he was in his office, and already his left temple was starting to throb with what promised to be one doozy of a headache. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since Brooke’s last call seeking funds. He’d given in then. This time, he held firm.

“No.”

“You’re being unreasonable,” she accused.

He nearly laughed at that. Instead, he said, “No, what I’m being is responsible.”

Brooke continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “It’s our money.”

“Which Granddad has left me in charge of managing,” he pointed out for the umpteenth time.

“And you’re turning out to be even more of a tightfisted killjoy than that old man was!”

Alec rubbed his temple. He could feel the blood pounding under the pads of his fingers. “Fine. I’m a tightfisted killjoy.” He’d been called worse, especially lately. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I need to get back to work, since apparently earning a living and then living within one’s means are concepts that skipped a generation.”

That barb generated a grunt of disapproval. Still, his mother’s tone switched from irate to what passed for maternal concern when she said, “Seriously, Alec, I worry about you. Here it is, a Saturday morning—the weekend—and you’re talking about work.” There was a slight pause. He pictured Brooke shaking her head. “I don’t know where your father and I went wrong. It’s not natural, working on the weekend. Weekends are for fun. What happened between you and Laurel? She was such a nice young woman. And she knew how to have a good time. I liked her.”

No wonder, he thought. Birds of a feather. His mother and Laurel had met on only one occasion and had hit it off immediately, comparing notes on their favorite designers.

“She wasn’t my type.” As soon as he said it, Julia sprang to mind, which was odd. She wasn’t his type, either.

“That’s because Laurel had a social life,” Brooke remarked sulkily.

“I guess that was the reason,” he agreed, hoping to shorten the conversation.

It came as an unwelcome realization that there was some truth to his mother’s barb. Laurel did know how to have fun and, just like his mother, her social life came at the expense of her children.

“They’ll just be bored and in the way,” Laurel had said the one time he’d asked if she wanted to bring them out to dinner.

It had been her choice to exclude them whenever they went out for an evening or away for a weekend. He’d told Julia as much. So, why did it bother him now that he’d been only too happy with her decision? Or that he couldn’t help thinking that Julia Stillwell would never view her kids as being “in the way”?

* * *

Julia had strict rules against going to the office on weekends, but that didn’t prevent her from doing a little work at home, as long as it didn’t interfere with her children. She’d meant it when she’d told Alec that her career didn’t define her, but she took her job seriously—she couldn’t afford not to. It was how she’d earned her reputation, and why a company as large as Best For Baby had sought out her expertise. Sometimes that meant bending herself into the shape of a pretzel or forgoing a good night’s sleep to get everything done that needed to get done. She’d long ago accepted that and made fast friends with caffeine.

So midmorning, while her kids were seated at the kitchen table, busy working on homework, she sipped freshly brewed Colombian Supreme from a mug and dialed Alec’s office. She planned to leave a message on his voice mail. She had his cell number, but hadn’t wanted to bother him off hours. She should have known better. He answered on the third ring, sounding distracted and slightly disgruntled at the interruption.

“McAvoy here.”

Caught off guard—and with a mouthful of coffee—she sputtered after swallowing, “A-Alec. Hi. It’s Julia Stillwell.” She blushed, recalling the dream, and was thankful that he couldn’t see her and question her on her reaction.

“Julia.” There was a brief pause during which she pictured him leaning back in his chair. Was he smiling? Then he said, “I was just thinking about you.”

The heat suffusing her face spread to other parts of her body at that. She didn’t care for the tug of excitement his words elicited. Still, she asked, “You were?”

“Yeah. I ordered a bagel and coffee from the deli up the block more than an hour ago and the deliveryman just showed up ten minutes ago, despite the promise I’d have my order in less than thirty minutes. Clearly, he could benefit from a lecture on the importance of punctuality.”

She gritted her teeth at the amusement in Alec’s tone since it came her expense. But his response was just what she needed to banish that dream. “I hope you didn’t tip him well.”

“Actually, I did. He said his bike had a flat tire and he was apologetic.”

“Well, if he was apologetic...” She left it at that, figuring she’d made her point.

“Sorry goes a long way, doesn’t it?” Alec replied amiably.

“Only when it’s offered immediately and is sincere.”

Deep laughter rumbled. “And if I told you I had a flat tire on the way to our first meeting and that was why I was late, would you still hold it against me?”

“Did you?”

“No.”

In spite of herself, she chuckled at his candid response. “You were late because you didn’t want to be there, Alec. And the apology you offered was offhanded at best.”

“I didn’t want to be there,” he agreed. “But that’s not why I was late.”

“Then what’s your excuse?”

Several beats of silence followed. “I had to take a call from my mother.”

Julia snorted. “Right.”

“So cynical.” He made a tsking noise. “So, what are you doing working on a Saturday? I recall someone telling me something about how work wasn’t her main priority. ‘It’s what I do, not who I am,’ or some such rebuke. But maybe I misunderstood.”

She ignored the barb. “I came across a few articles that I thought you might find enlightening.”

They were about child-rearing and what new parents could expect. She figured Alec could use the insight, both into what made children act the way they did and what parents went through as a result. Of course, no one really understood parenthood until they were in the trenches, living it day to day. At that point, all of the diatribes from a childless person were relegated to the trash heap.

“Are you at your office?” he asked as if she hadn’t spoken.

“On a Saturday? No way.” Then she couldn’t resist needling him. “I may decide to slip in a little work here and there on a weekend, but, unlike you, I do it from home. While I’ve been surfing the internet for information, my kids have been occupied finishing up their homework.”

“Homework! On a Saturday? That’s worse than making a high-paid corporate executive stay late for a meeting,” he told her, alluding to the remark she’d made about Alec scheduling after-hours meetings with his staff. “And you called me unpopular.”

Through the beveled glass door of the closet-sized room that served as her home office, Julia could see into the kitchen. At the table, Colin was copying down his spelling words and Danielle was working on math problems. Their sour expressions made it clear that neither one of them was happy with her at the moment.

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