Bound By A Baby: Have Baby, Need Billionaire / The Boss's Baby Affair / The Pregnancy Contract

“Tula, not every man who wears a suit is like your dad.”

“Not all,” she allowed, “but most.”

She was in the position to know. Her entire family had practically been born wearing business suits. They lived stuffy, insular lives built around making and keeping money. Tula was half convinced that they didn’t even know a world existed beyond their own narrow portion of it.

For example, she knew what Simon Bradley would think of her tiny, cluttered, bayside home because she knew exactly what her father would have thought of it—if he’d ever deigned to visit. He would have thought it too old, too small. He would have hated the bright blue walls and yellow trim in the living room. He’d have loathed the mural of the circus that decorated her bathroom wall. Mostly though, he would have seen her living there as a disgrace.

She had the distinct impression that Simon wouldn’t be any different.

“Look, the reality is it doesn’t matter what Nathan’s father thinks of me or my house. Our only connection is the baby.” As she spoke, she told her hormones to listen up. “So I’m not going to put on a show and change my life in any way to try to convince a man I don’t even know that I am who I’m not.”

A long second passed, then Anna laughed gently. “What does it say about me that I completely under stood that?”

“That we’ve been friends too long?”

“Probably,” Anna agreed. “Which is how I know you’re making rosemary chicken tonight.”

Tula smiled. Anna did know her too well. Rosemary chicken was her go-to meal when she was having company. And unless Simon was a vegetarian, every thing would go great. Oh, God—what if he was a vegetarian? No, she thought. Men like him did lunch at steak houses with clients. “You’ve got me there. And once we have dinner, I’ll talk to Simon about setting up a schedule for him to get to know Nathan.”

“You?” Anna laughed. “A schedule?”

“I can be organized,” she argued, though her words didn’t carry a lot of confidence. “I just choose to not be.”

“Uh-huh. How’s the baby?”

Everything in Tula softened. “He’s wonderful.” Her gaze followed the tiny boy as he continued on his path around the kitchen, laughing and making noises as he explored his world. “Honestly, he’s such a good baby. And he’s so smart. This morning I asked him where his nose was and he pointed right to it.”

Well, he had been waving his stuffed bunny in the air and hit himself in the face with it, but close enough. “Harvard-bound already.”

“I’ll sign him up on the waiting list tomorrow,” Tula agreed with a laugh. “Look, I gotta go. Get the chicken in the oven, give Nathan a bath and…ooh, maybe myself, too.”

“Okay, but call me tomorrow. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will.” She hung up, leaned against the kitchen counter and let her gaze slide over the bright yellow kitchen. It was small but cheerful, with white cabinets, a bright blue counter and copper-bottomed pans hanging from a rack over the stove.

She loved her house. She loved her life.

And she loved that baby.

Simon Bradley was going to have to work very hard to convince her that he was worthy of being Nathan’s father.

The scent of rosemary filled the little house by the bay a few hours later.

Tula danced around the kitchen to the classic rock tunes pouring from the radio on the counter and every few steps, she stopped to steal a kiss from the baby in the high chair. Nathan giggled at her, a deep, full-belly laugh that tickled at the edges of Tula’s heart.

“Funny guy,” she whispered, planting a kiss on top of his head and inhaling the sweet, clean scent of him. “Laughing at my dance moves isn’t usually the way to my heart, you know.”

He gave her another grin and kicked his fat legs in excitement.

Tula sighed and smoothed her hand across the baby’s wisps of dark hair. Two weeks he’d been a part of her life and already she couldn’t imagine her world without him in it. The moment she’d picked him up for the first time, Nathan had carved away a piece of her heart and she knew she’d never get it back.

Now she was supposed to hand him over to a man who would no doubt raise Nathan in the strict, rarified world in which she’d been raised. How could she stand it? How could she sentence this sweet baby to a regimented lifestyle just like the one she’d escaped?

And how could she avoid it?

She couldn’t.

Which meant she had only one option. If she couldn’t stop Simon from eventually having custody of Nathan—then she’d just have to find a way to loosen Simon up. She’d loosen Simon up, break him out of the world of “suits” so that he wouldn’t do to Nathan what her father had tried to do to her.

Looking down into the baby’s smiling eyes, she made a promise. “I’ll make sure he knows how to have fun, Nathan. Don’t you worry. I won’t let him make you wear a toddler business suit to preschool.”

The baby slapped one hand down onto a pile of dry breakfast cereal on the food tray, sending tiny O’s skittering across the kitchen.

“Glad you agree,” she said as she bent down, scraped them up into her hand and tossed them into the sink. Then she washed her hands and came back to the baby. “Your daddy’s coming here soon, Nathan. He’ll probably be crabby and stuffy, so don’t let that bother you. It won’t last for long. We’re going to change him, little man. For his own good. Not to mention yours.”

He grinned at her.

“Attaboy,” she said and bent for another quick kiss just as the doorbell sounded. Her stomach gave a quick spin that had her taking a deep breath to try to steady it. “He’s here. You’re all strapped in, so you’re safe. Just be good for a second and I’ll go let him in.”

She didn’t like leaving Nathan alone in the high chair, even though he was belted in tightly. So Tula hurried across the toy-cluttered floor of her small living room and wondered how it had gotten so messy again. She’d straightened it up earlier. Then she remembered she and the baby playing after she put the chicken in the oven and—too late to worry about it now. She threw open the door and nearly gulped.

Simon was standing there, somehow taller than she remembered. He wasn’t wearing a suit, either, which gave her a jolt of surprise. She got another jolt when she realized just how good he looked when he pried himself out of the sleek lines of his business “uniform.” Casual in a charcoal-gray sweater, black jeans and cross trainers, he actually looked even more gorgeous, which was just disconcerting. He looked so…different. The only thing familiar about him was the scowl.

When she caught herself just staring at him like a big dummy, she said quickly, “Hi. Come on in. Baby’s in the kitchen and I don’t want to leave him alone, so close the door, will you, it’s cold out there.”

Simon opened his mouth to speak, but the damn woman was already gone. She’d left him standing on the porch and raced off before he could so much as say hello. Of course, he’d had the chance to speak, he simply hadn’t. He’d been caught up in looking at her. Just as he had earlier that day in his office.

Those big blue eyes of hers were…mesmerizing somehow. Every time he looked into them, he forgot what he was thinking and lost himself for a moment or two. Not something he wanted to admit, even to himself, but there it was. Frowning, he reminded himself that he’d come to her house to set down some rules. To make sure Tula Barrons understood exactly how this bizarre situation was going to progress. Instead, he was standing on the front porch, thinking about just how good a woman could look in a pair of faded blue jeans.

Swallowing the stab of irritation at himself, he followed after her. Tula wasn’t his main concern here, after all. He was here because of the child. His son? He was having a hard time believing it was possible, but he couldn’t walk away from this until he knew for sure. Because if the baby was his, there was no way he would allow his child to be raised by someone else.

He’d been thinking about little else but this woman and the child she said belonged to him since she’d left his office that morning. With his concentration so unfocused, he’d finally given up on getting any work done and had gone to see his lawyer.

After that illuminating little visit, he’d spent the last couple of hours thinking back to the brief time he’d spent with Sherry Taylor. He still didn’t remember much about her, but he had to admit that there was at least the possibility that her child was his.

Which was why he was here. He stepped inside and his foot came down on something that protested with a loud squeak. He glanced down at the rubber reindeer and shook his head as he closed the door. His gaze swept the interior of the small house and he shook his head. If more than two people were in the damn living room, they wouldn’t be able to breathe at the same time. The house was old and small and…bright, he thought, giving the nearly electric blue walls an astonished glance.

The blue walls boasted dark yellow molding that ran around the circumference of the room at the ceiling. There was a short sofa and one chair drawn up in front of a hearth where a tiny blaze sputtered and spat from behind a wrought-iron screen. Toys were strewn across the floor as if a hurricane had swept through and there was a narrow staircase on the far wall leading to what he assumed was an even tinier second story.

The whole place was a dollhouse. He almost felt like Gulliver. Still frowning, he heard Tula in the kitchen, talking in a singsong voice people invariably tended to use around babies. He told himself to go on in there, but he didn’t move. It was as if his feet were nailed to the wood floor. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the baby or anything, but Simon knew damn well that the moment he saw the child, his world as he knew it would cease to exist.

If this baby were his son, nothing would ever be the same again.

A child’s bubble of laughter erupted in the other room and Simon took a breath and held it. Something inside him tightened and he told himself to move on. To get this first meeting over so that plans could be made, strategies devised.

But he didn’t move. Instead, he noticed the framed drawings and paintings on the walls, most of which were of a lop-eared bunny in different poses. Why the woman would choose to display such childish paintings was beyond him, but Tula Barrons, he was discovering, was different from any other woman he’d ever known.

The child laughed again.

Simon nodded to himself and followed the sound and the amazing scents in the air to the kitchen.

It didn’t take him long.

Three long strides had him leaving the living room and entering a bright yellow room that was about the size of his walk-in closet at home. Again, he felt as out of place as a beer at a wine tasting. This whole house seemed to have been built for tiny people and a man his size was bound to feel as if he had to hunch his shoulders to keep from rapping his head on the ceiling.

He noted that the kitchen was clean but as cluttered as the living room. Canisters lined up on the counter beside a small microwave and an even smaller TV. Cupboard doors were made of glass, displaying ancient china stacked neatly. A basket with clean baby clothes waiting to be folded was standing on the table for two and the smells pouring from the oven had his mouth watering and his stomach rumbling in response.

Then his gaze dropped on Tula Barrons as she straightened up, holding the baby she’d just taken from a high chair in her arms. She settled the chubby baby on her right hip, gave Simon a brilliant smile and said, “Here he is. Your son.”

Simon’s gaze locked on the boy who was staring at him out of a pair of eyes too much like his own to deny. His lawyer had advised him to do nothing until a paternity test had been arranged. But Harry had always been too cautious, which was why he made such a great lawyer. Simon tended to go with his gut on big decisions and that instinct had never let him down yet.

So he’d come here mainly to see the baby for himself before arranging for the paternity test his lawyer wanted. Because Simon had half convinced himself that there was no way this baby was his.

But one look at the boy changed all that. He was stubborn, Simon admitted silently, but he wasn’t blind. The baby looked enough like him that no paternity test should be required—though he’d get one anyway. He’d been a businessman too long to do anything but follow the rules and do things in a logical, reasonable manner.

“Nathan,” Tula said, glancing from the baby on her hip to Simon, “this is your daddy. Simon, meet your son.”

She started toward him and Simon quickly held up one hand to keep her where she was. Tula stopped dead, gave him a quizzical look and tipped her head to one side to watch him. “What’s wrong?”

What wasn’t? His heart was racing, his stomach was churning. How the hell had this happened? he wondered. How had he made a child and been unaware of the boy’s existence? Why had the baby’s mother kept him a secret? Damn it, he had had the right to know. To be there for his son’s birth. To see him draw his first breath. To watch him as he woke up to the world.

And it had all been stolen from him.

“Just…give me a minute, all right?” Simon stared at the tiny boy, trying to ignore the less-than-pleased expression on Tula Barrons’s face. Didn’t matter what she thought of him, did it? The important thing here was that Simon’s entire world had just taken a sharp right turn.

A father.

He was a father.

Pride and something not unlike sheer panic roared through him at a matching pace. His gaze locked on the boy, he noticed the dark brown hair, the brown eyes—exact same shade as Simon’s own—and, finally, he noticed the baby’s lower lip beginning to pout.

“You’re making him cry.” Tula jiggled the baby while patting him on the back gently.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You look angry and babies are very sensitive to moods around them,” she said and soothed the boy by swaying in place and whispering softly. Keeping her voice quiet and singsongy, she snapped, “Honestly, is that scowl a permanent fixture on your face?”

“I’m not—”

“Would it physically kill you to smile at him?”

Frustrated and just a little pissed because he had to admit that she was at least partially right, Simon assumed what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

He kept his voice low, but didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “You might want to back off now.”

“I don’t see why I should,” she countered, her voice pleasant despite her words. “Sherry left me as guardian for Nathan and I don’t like how you’re treating him.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Exactly,” she said with a sharp nod. “You won’t even let him get near you. Honestly, haven’t you ever seen a child before?”

“Of course I have, I’m just—”

“Shocked? Confused? Worried?” she asked, then continued on before he could speak. “Well, imagine how Nathan must feel. His mother’s gone. His home is gone. He’s in a strange place with strangers taking care of him and now there’s a big mean bully glaring at him.”

He stiffened. “Now just a damn min—”

“Don’t swear in front of the baby.”

Simon inhaled sharply and shot her a glare he usually reserved for employees he wanted to terrify into improving their work skills, fully expecting her to have the sense to back off. Naturally, she paid no attention to him.

“If you can’t be nice and at least pretend to smile, you’ll just have to go away,” she said. Then she spoke to the baby. “Don’t you worry, sweetie, Tula won’t let the mean man get you.”

“I’m not a mean—oh, for God’s sake.” Simon had had enough of this. He wasn’t going to be chastised by anybody, least of all the short, curvy woman giving him a disgusted look.

He stalked across the small kitchen, plucked the baby from her grasp and held Nathan up to eye level. The baby’s pout disappeared as if it had never been and the two of them simply stared at each other.

The baby was a solid, warm weight in his hands. Little legs pumped, arms waved and a thin line of drool dripped from his mouth when he gave his father a toothless grin. His chest tight, Simon felt the baby’s heartbeat racing beneath his hands and there was a…connection that he’d never felt before. It was basic. Complete. Staggering.

In that instant—that heart-stopping, mind-numbing second—Simon was lost.

He knew it even as he stood there, beneath Tula Barrons’s less than approving stare, that this was his son and he would do whatever he had to to keep him.

If this woman stood in his way, he’d roll right over her without a moment’s pause. Something in his gaze must have given away his thoughts because the small blonde lifted her chin, met his eyes in a bold stare and told him silently that she wouldn’t give an inch.

Fine.

She’d learn soon enough that when Simon Bradley entered a contest—he never lost.

Three

“You’re holding him like he’s a hand grenade about to explode,” the woman said, ending their silent battle.

Despite that swift, sure connection he felt to the child in his arms, Simon wasn’t certain at all that the baby wouldn’t explode. Or cry. Or expel some gross fluid. “I’m being careful.”

“Okay,” she said and pulled out a chair to sit down.

He glanced at her, then looked back to the baby. Carefully, Simon eased down onto the other chair pulled up to the postage-stamp-sized table. It looked so narrow and fragile, he almost expected it to shatter under his weight, but it held. He felt clumsy and oversize. As if he were the only grown-up at a little girl’s tea party. He had to wonder if the woman had arranged for him to feel out of place. If she was subtly trying to sabotage this first meeting.

Gently, he balanced the baby on his knee and kept one hand on the small boy’s back to hold him in place. Only then did he look up at the woman sitting opposite him.

Her big eyes were fixed on him and a half smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, causing that one dimple to flash at him. She’d gone from looking at him as if he were the devil himself to an expression of amused benevolence that he didn’t like any better.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked tightly.

“Actually,” she admitted, “I am.”

“So happy to entertain you.”

“Oh, you’re really not happy,” she said, her smile quickening briefly again. “But that’s okay. You had me worried, I can tell you.”

“Worried about what?”

“Well, how you were going to be with Nathan,” she told him, leaning against the ladder back of the chair. She crossed her arms over her chest, unconsciously lifting her nicely rounded breasts. “When you first saw him, you looked…”

“Yes?” Simon glanced down when Nathan slapped both chubby fists onto the tabletop.

“…terrified,” she finished.

Well, that was humiliating. And untrue, he assured himself. “I wasn’t scared.”

“Sure you were.” She shrugged and apparently was dialing back her mistrust. “And who could blame you? You should have seen me the first time I picked him up. I was so worried about dropping him I had him in a stranglehold.”

Nothing in Simon’s life had terrified him like that first moment holding a son he didn’t know he had. But he wasn’t about to admit to that. Not to Tula Barrons at any rate.

He shifted around uncomfortably on the narrow chair. How did an adult sit on one of these things?

“Plus,” she added, “you don’t look like you want to bite through a brick or something anymore.”

Simon sighed. “Are you always so brutally honest?”

“Usually,” she said. “Saves a lot of time later, don’t you think? Besides, if you lie, then you have to remember what lie you told to who and that just sounds exhausting.”

Intriguing woman, he thought while his body was noticing other things about her. Like the way her dark green sweater clung to her breasts. Or how tight her faded jeans were. And the fact that she was barefoot, her toenails were a deep, sexy red and she was wearing a silver toe ring that was somehow incredibly sexy. She was nothing like the kind of woman Simon was used to. The kind Simon preferred, he told himself sternly. Yet, there was something magnetic about her. Something—

“Are you just going to stare at me all night or were you going to speak?”

—Irritating.

“Yes, I’m going to speak,” he said, annoyed to have been caught watching her so intently. “As a matter of fact, I have a lot to say.”

“Good, me too!” She stood up, took the baby from him before he could even begin to protest—not that he would have—and set the small boy back in his high chair. Once she had the safety straps fastened, she shot Simon a quick smile.

“I thought we could talk while we have dinner. I made chicken and I’m a good cook.”

“Another truth?”

“Try it for yourself and see.”

“All right. Thank you.”

“See, we’re getting along great already.” She moved around the kitchen with an economy of motions. Not surprising, Simon thought, since there wasn’t much floor space to maneuver around.

“Tell me about yourself, Simon,” she said and reached over to place some sliced bananas on the baby’s food tray. Instantly, Nathan chortled, grabbed one of the pieces of fruit and squished it in his fist.

“He’s not eating that,” Simon pointed out while she walked over to take the roast chicken out of the oven.

“He likes playing with it.”

Simon took a whiff of the tantalizing, scented steam wafting from the oven and had to force himself to say, “He shouldn’t play with his food though.”

She swiveled her head to look at him. “He’s a baby.”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, all of my cloth napkins are in the laundry and they don’t make tuxedos in size six-to-nine months.”

He frowned at her. She’d deliberately misinterpreted what he was saying.

“Relax, Simon. He’s fine. I promise you he won’t smoosh his bananas when he’s in college.”

She was right, of course, which he didn’t really enjoy admitting. But he wasn’t used to people arguing with him, either. He was more accustomed to people rushing to please him. To anticipate his every need. He was not used to being corrected and he didn’t much like it.

As that thought raced through his head, he winced. God, he sounded like an arrogant prig even in his own mind.

“So, you were saying…”

“Hmm?” he asked. “What?”

“You were telling me about yourself,” she prodded as she got down plates, wineglasses and then delved into a drawer for silverware. She had the table set before he gathered his thoughts again.

“What is it you want to know?”

“Well, for instance, how did you meet Nathan’s mother? I mean, Sherry was my cousin and I’ve got to say, you’re not her usual type.”

“Really?” He turned on the spindly seat and looked at her. “Just what type am I then?”

“Geez, touchy,” she said, her smile flashing briefly. “I only meant that you don’t look like an accountant or a computer genius.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are attractive accountants and computer wizards, but Sherry never found any.” She carried a platter to the counter and began to slice the roast chicken, laying thick wedges of still-steaming meat on the flowered china. “So how did you meet?”

Simon bristled and distracted himself by pulling bits of banana out of the baby’s hair. “Does it matter?”

“No,” she said. “I was just curious.”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” He’d made a mistake that hadn’t been repeated and it wasn’t something he felt like sharing. Especially with this woman. No doubt she’d laugh or give him that sad, sympathy-filled smile again and he wasn’t in the mood.

“Okay,” she said, drawing that one word out into three or four syllables. “Then how long were the two of you together?”

Irritation was still fresh enough to make his tone sharper than he’d planned. “Are you writing a book?”