Peekaboo Baby

While she stood in the doorway, with the richly stained mahogany framing her, her gaze slid around the room until it landed on him. Only then did she take a step inside. Not a cautious and calculating step, either. She entered with the same determination that she’d had on her trek up the stairs.

He’d been right about the rain doing a real number on her. Her jacket and slim above-the-knee skirt were blotched. There wasn’t a dry spot on her hair, and not much left of her makeup. Nothing except a trace of peach-colored lipstick.

And she looked as if she’d been crying.

That sent a weird curl of emotion through him. It was such a foreign feeling, one he hadn’t had in a long time, that it took Ryan a moment to identify it. But those tear-reddened, jade-green eyes brought out more than a few protective instincts in his body.

Whoa.

That was a truly stupid reaction.

Because Delaney Nash certainly wasn’t feeling protective toward him.

“Did your father send you?” Ryan asked in an effort to change his train of thought.

She blinked, as if shocked by his question. And her shock surprised Ryan, because he’d been almost certain this visit was about Richard Nash.

“This has nothing to do with my father.”

She walked closer, her thin, delicate heels clicking like heartbeats on the hardwood floor, and stopped in front of his desk. She took a deep breath and released it slowly. So slowly that it caused her bottom lip to tremble. “I have a favor to ask.”

Yet another surprise, and one that had probably cost her an ample amount of Nash pride. She would no doubt rather eat razor blades than come to him for a favor. Or for anything.

“What do you want?” Ryan tried to sound nonchalant but figured he failed. He was anything but nonchalant. This rain-soaked woman, his enemy, had piqued his curiosity.

Among other things.

That trembling bottom lip and her teary eyes were touching places in his heart that he never wanted touched again. Realizing what was happening, Ryan did a detach. He took a mental step back, put on his best corporate sneer and gave her a callous go-ahead prompt with his hand.

She nodded, nodded again and swallowed hard. “I need to see a picture of your son.”

Well, that shot the hell out of his corporate sneer and mental step back. He couldn’t stay detached after that. Ryan leaned forward. “Excuse me?”

“I went to the library and looked through all the old newspapers.” A raindrop slipped from the ends of her hair and spattered on his desk. She immediately reached down to wipe it away. “But there wasn’t a picture of him.”

Because Ryan had refused to give one to the papers. He hadn’t wanted anyone, especially strangers, to see his infant son. It was a grief, a hurt so deep, that Ryan hadn’t wanted to share it.

He still didn’t.

“Why?” he asked, aware that the one word encompassed a lot. Not the least of which, he figured it would generate an explanation. Not necessarily a good explanation. Because after all, this was the daughter of a mentally unstable man who’d repeatedly threatened to kill him.

“You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“Try,” Ryan insisted.

Her fingers were white-knuckled in their grip on her purse. “Could I please just see his picture? I might be able to save us both a lot of time.”

Well, the woman certainly knew how to captivate him. And no, it didn’t have anything to do with her vulnerability.

All right, maybe it did.

A little.

But it was a problem that he’d soon remedy. Feelings and emotions carried high price tags, and he didn’t intend to go there again. Ever. And even if he decided to ease up on that rule a bit, he wouldn’t have been looking in Delaney Nash’s direction.

“Please,” she said, her voice and bottom lip trembling again.

Ryan stared at her while he debated it. And what a debate it was. Why did she want to see a picture of Adam? Why the vague save-us-some-time excuse?

And why the heck was he even considering her bizarre request?

He didn’t owe her a damn thing. She and her father had done everything humanly possible to drag his name through the mud. And all because he’d bested Richard Nash in a business deal.

So what.

He’d bested a lot of people, and they hadn’t made death threats or tried to sue him. The old analogy of “if you can’t stand the heat” came to mind. Richard Nash obviously couldn’t, but instead of getting his wimpy butt out of the kitchen, he’d spent the past year and a half trying to get revenge.

Ryan mentally rehashed the past, and while he was at it, he took a few moments to reflect on the woman standing in front of him. And somewhere amid all of that soul-searching, he felt his hand move in the direction of his top right desk drawer.

He didn’t look at the object he extracted. He couldn’t. It might be acceptable for her to show her vulnerable side, but Ryan didn’t intend to reciprocate.

His heart would break all over again if he looked at that picture of his son. And this time, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to survive it.

Keeping his attention fastened to her eyes, Ryan handed her the photo encased in the gold-gilded frame. She didn’t look at the image, either. She kept her attention on him, shifted her purse beneath her arm and took the picture, her fingers closing around it as if it were made of delicate crystal that might shatter in her hand.

She mumbled something. A prayer, maybe, then looked down at the photo.

Her eyes widened, her breath stopped, and she brought the picture closer. Studying it. Really studying it. Mere inches from her face.

“Oh, God. Oh. God. He’s so small,” she said, her voice a breathy whisper. Her bottom lip didn’t quiver. It began to shake.

She began to shake.

And she adjusted her purse again so that it was in front of her chest.

“Yes.” Ryan had to swallow hard before he could continue. Not just because of her extreme reaction, but because he didn’t need the image in front of him to visualize his son’s face. It was there. Always there. Burned into his memory and his heart. “Adam was born ten weeks premature.”

We almost lost him, Ryan nearly added.

It was an automatic addendum he’d used often in those first days after Adam’s birth and his stay in the neonatal unit. Those words had proved to be all too prophetic.

Because they had lost him.

“When the accident happened,” Ryan added. He cleared his throat, but it didn’t help. “My son had only been out of the hospital a few days.”

And Ryan was suddenly so sorry he’d opened all of this again. Hoping to undo his mistake, he reached out, snatched the picture from her, put it back where it belonged and slammed the drawer.

“All right. Observation time’s over. Start talking. Why are you here, Ms. Nash?”

She shook her head in an almost frantic gesture. “It’s hard to tell from the picture. You’d think it’d be easy, but it isn’t. It isn’t easy at all.”

Because she looked and sounded on the verge of losing it, and because he wasn’t stupid, he stood and grabbed her purse. She made a sound of surprise, part gasp, part outrage, but Ryan didn’t let that stop him. He rifled through the leather bag to see if she’d indeed brought a gun with her.

No gun.

Just the normal things that might be found in a woman’s purse. A wallet, keys, comb, pen and some toiletry items. Oh, and a blue pacifier in a clear plastic case.

Hardly the tools of a would be killer.

She grabbed her bag from him and put it back as a shield in front of her. But not before he saw the circular wet splotch around her left breast. Specifically, the blotch centered around the somewhat prominent outline of her nipple. Her focus followed his to see what had captured his attention, and she actually blushed.

“I nurse my son,” she said, obviously not comfortable with the topic. “And I’m late for his feeding.”

Ryan wasn’t exactly comfortable with it either, but there wasn’t anything comfortable about this visit. “Then, maybe you should go to your baby instead of being here?”

“The sitter gave him a bottle. I called her on the drive over.”

And that brought the conversation to a temporary grinding halt. It took a moment for Ryan to ask what he knew he had to ask. “Why did you react that way to my son’s picture?”

She shrugged in a sort of dismissal that didn’t change anything. Every muscle in her face was tight and doing battle with each other. “It doesn’t matter. Dr. Keyes can’t be right.”

Ryan took a moment to try to process her mumblings and that name, but there was nothing in his memory to process. “Who the hell is Dr. Keyes?”

“The fertility specialist I used. I can’t have a child on my own. I had to use a donor embryo to become pregnant with my son.”

“So?” Ryan said, since he had no idea what else to say. This little talk had taken a bad turn somewhere, and he didn’t think it would get back on track anytime soon. Still, he wasn’t about to send her on her way until he learned what this visit was all about.

“So, Dr. Keyes…” She paused, and what little color she had drained from her face. She stared at him. Well, in his direction anyway. Long moments. But Ryan wasn’t sure she was seeing him at all. She seemed to be involved in her own private, intense debate that occupied all of her mental energy.

“I have to go,” she said.

She whirled around and had made it halfway to the door before Ryan could catch up with her. He stepped in front of her to block her path so she couldn’t leave.

“Finish that thought about Dr. Keyes,” he insisted.

He saw more of that intense debate, and she must not have cared much for the conclusion she silently drew. “There’s no reason to finish it. I’m sorry I bothered you. I’m sorry for everything.”

Again, she started for the door. Tried to step around him. But Ryan did some maneuvering of his own until they were face-to-face. Since she was easily five-nine and was wearing heels, they were practically eye-to-eye, as well.

He caught her scent. Not just her rain-soaked clothes, either. Her scent. Something rich and female. Like her tears and her trembling lip, it awakened responses inside him that he’d long since buried.

And he intended for them to stay buried, too.

It was a man-woman thing, he assured himself. And it felt more intense than it actually was because he’d gone so long without sex. His thirty-two-year-old body was simply urging him in a direction he had no intention of going.

Ryan pushed her scent and his primal response aside and stared at her. “Talk,” he ordered.

“Trust me, you don’t want to hear this.”

And judging from her adamant tone, he believed her. But that didn’t stop him. “Tell me anyway.”

She gave a weary sigh, and her head dropped down. “Dr. Keyes thought maybe my donor embryo… Well, he thought it might have been cloned.”

“Say what?” Because Ryan had to know what was going on in her eyes, he cupped her chin and lifted it.

He didn’t like what he saw.

She was afraid. That fear didn’t do much to calm his own suddenly raw nerves.

Her lashes fluttered down, or rather tried to, but she fought it and maintained eye contact with him. “Dr. Keyes believes I might have given birth to a cloned embryo of your son.”

Chapter Three

The moment Delaney heard her own words, a cloned embryo of your son, she realized what a stupid mistake it’d been to come to Ryan McCall’s estate.

Mercy, what had she done?

She’d let the exhaustion, fear and her quest for the truth gnaw away at her, and it had obviously damaged her common sense.

Delaney pulled back her shoulders. She had to get out of there, and she wouldn’t wait for her host’s permission, either. She stepped around him and started walking.

Ryan McCall reached out, fast, and slammed the door in her face. Not only that, he squeezed himself into the meager space between the door and her, blocking her exit.

“Did you think I wouldn’t want an explanation after a bombshell like that?” he challenged.

“That’s the problem—I didn’t think. And I shouldn’t have come,” Delaney countered, hoping it would suffice.

It didn’t.

When she reached for the doorknob, he snagged her wrist. Alarmed at the physical restraint, she stared at the grip he had on her and then snapped her gaze to his face. She had seen that face a hundred times in the newspapers, and yet he didn’t look much like those images that were often plastered in the business section.

Oh, the confidence and the renowned aloofness were there, etched in those glacier-blue eyes. In that almost harshly angled olive-tinged face. Those attributes were even there in his slightly too long but fashionably cut sandy-blond hair. Brad Pitt meets The Terminator. But what the photos had failed to capture were the small things that made him human.

There were tiny lines at the corners of his eyes. Worry lines. And his mouth was tight. Almost rigid. As if it’d been a long time since he’d smiled.

Thinking of Ryan McCall as human, however, would be yet another mistake, and she’d already made enough of those.

Inside, she was feeling a lot of things. Foolishness for believing this visit would actually alleviate her fears. Anger, mostly directed at herself, for thinking he might have answers. And a sickening dread that all of this could turn even uglier than it already had.

“Explain Dr. Keyes,” he pressed. “A cloned embryo of my son. And finally, your ‘Dr. Keyes can’t be right’ comment.”

Delaney stared at him and considered the few options that she had. Clamming up until he backed down was one, but he didn’t look like the backing-down type. She studied his eyes.

No. Ryan McCall definitely wouldn’t let her walk away from this.

A second option was to sling off his grip and try to muscle her way out of there. She was fairly good in her kickboxing class, but in a physical battle with this man she’d probably lose big-time. Ryan McCall had a good four inches on her and outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. Judging from the fit of his azure-blue pullover shirt and black pants, that fifty pounds didn’t include much body fat, either.

Of course, her final option was to tell him the truth. There was just one problem with that. She didn’t know the truth. Still, he was right. She’d barged into his home. She’d demanded to see a photo of his son, and then she was trying to leave without so much as an explanation. If their situations had been reversed, she’d be blocking his exit exactly the way he was blocking hers.

Figuring she would need it, Delaney drew in a long breath. “Two days ago, a representative from a medical watchdog group called me. He said the New Hope clinic that I used to become pregnant might have done some illegal medical experiments. This group was compiling data so they could request that the Justice Department conduct an investigation.”

Judging from his silence, he was considering her words. “Did this representative have any proof of the allegations?”

“If he did, he didn’t share it with me. He asked about the procedure I’d had done, and when he mentioned that the clinic might have altered embryos, I talked to Dr. Keyes. Keyes wasn’t sure, but he claims a late embryologist might have done some experiments, and that I might have received… Well, you know.”

He pondered what she said. “Keyes could be lying.”

“He could be.” And Delaney would have welcomed the lie. It was far easier than the possible consequences of the truth. “But why would he? Why admit that he has some knowledge about a possible felony?”

His eyes met hers, as had happened several times during the conversation. But for some reason, his scrutinizing regard was even more unnerving than it had been before. It took her a moment to figure out why. They were so close they were practically touching.

Oh.

They were touching, she realized.

At least their clothes were. His pants leg was right against her skirt. He was warm. She wasn’t. And she felt his warmth all the way through her cool, damp clothes. Since that violated her personal space and then some, she took a huge step back.

The corner of his mouth lifted a fraction. Definitely not a smile. But maybe amusement that she would object to something so small when they had something so large to deal with.

“This Dr. Keyes could be after money,” he pointed out.

“You mean some sort of blackmail or extortion? Yes, I considered that, but he made no demands. In fact, he didn’t even want to talk to me.”

“That still doesn’t rule out money.”

And the brusque way he said it had Delaney looking beyond their present thread of conversation. “Are we discussing my father now?”

He lifted his right eyebrow just a fraction. “You tell me.”

He certainly had a way of riling her. And that particular ability sliced right through all the fear and dread. “Then, no, we’re not discussing him.”

His eyebrow went even higher. “It wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried to get money from me.”

Delaney really didn’t want to go there tonight, but it was obvious that Ryan McCall did. “Look, this isn’t about our past. And it’s not about my father.”

He leaned in. Another personal space violation. “It’s always about your father.”

That was something she couldn’t refute. She would forever associate the man standing in front of her with the hostile takeover of her father’s manufacturing company. And she’d always associate that with her father’s attempted suicide. That was a year and a half ago, and her father had been under psychiatric care ever since. He probably always would be.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

There would also be the anger and blame, which her father aimed not only at Ryan McCall but at her, as well. Simply put, her father detested her. He held her partly responsible for his lost business because he felt she hadn’t done more to stop it. And she could in turn put the blame for that squarely on Mr. McCall’s rather ample shoulders.

McCall stepped to the side, clearing her way to the door. “By the way, I don’t believe you.”

Good. And her reaction would have probably stayed that way while she made her exit.

If he hadn’t continued.

“Just how much money did your father ask you to extort from me?”

Delaney took a step, retraced it and glared at McCall over her shoulder. Part of her knew she should just let it go, but the man had successfully pushed another of her buttons. “Not a cent. And if you think my father would send me here to get anything from you, then you obviously know nothing about either of us.”

This time, she actually made it out the door and into the massive hall outside his office.

“Your reaction to my son’s picture was a nice touch,” he taunted. “The little fluttery breath. The oh, God. You must have figured if you could convince me that you had given birth to my son, then I’d hand over everything I own to get him back. The ultimate blackmail scheme. You father would get his revenge, and you’d both be filthy rich. Emphasis on the filthy.”

The accusation stung, because there was no way she’d use her son to get back at him. Or anyone. But the wrongful accusation wouldn’t stop her from leaving. Delaney hurried toward the stairs.

“Was I supposed to believe that you recognized something in my son’s photo?” he called out. “Or maybe a better question would be—what did you pretend to see?”

He was wrong.

That wasn’t the better question.

The better question was why had that tiny face seemed familiar? So familiar that it’d made her body respond in the most basic maternal way. She’d felt the slight contraction of her breasts and then the letdown of her milk. A preparation for nursing.

A normal response…as if she’d been looking at the face of her own son.

“HELL,” Ryan grumbled.

From the top of the stairs, he watched Delaney Nash race out the front door. Even in heels and a skirt, she was fast. Not exactly the behavior of a lying, scheming woman who had extortion or other unsavory acts on her mind. In fact, it seemed as if his accusations had genuinely upset her.

And that upset him.

Despite his cutthroat reputation and “iceman” moniker that his business cohorts had dubbed him with, he didn’t get off by hurting people.

Cursing himself and her visit, Ryan barreled down the stairs after her. He didn’t know whether to hope she’d already driven away, or that she was still there.

Fate settled it for him.

She was still there.

Delaney had made it back to her car, which was parked under the portico of the circular driveway. She was definitely trying to leave, but her car wasn’t cooperating. With each turn of the key, the engine made a clicking moan. A dead battery maybe.

She tried again. And again. Before she finally smacked her hand, hard, against the steering wheel. Her shoulders slumped, and her head dropped back onto the headrest of the seat. Then she glanced up at the ceiling as if begging for divine assistance.

Ryan walked down the flagstone steps. He knew his movement had drawn her attention because her eyes flew in his direction. For a split second he saw her sheer frustration before she replaced it with a scowl.

He deserved that scowl.

Ryan went to the driver’s side of her vehicle, and when she didn’t open the door, he reached for the handle. She in turn reached for the lock, but he was slightly quicker than she was. Before she could lock him out, he eased open the door and faced a seriously riled woman.

“You know, most people would have gotten mad and called me a name or two if I’d accused them of attempted extortion,” he commented.

Her scowl got worse. “Believe me, I considered a little name-calling.”

“It’s not too late.” He suppressed a wince when lightning zigzagged across the sky. The thunder followed, so loud that it vibrated the roof of the portico. “A lot of people go for jackass, but it’s a little overused. How about SOB? It’s short and to the point.”

She stared at him. “If you’re trying to be funny, or charming, you’re failing.”

“What I’m trying to do…” He had to stop because he had no idea what the heck he was trying to do. Yes, he did owe her a semiapology, but he was going beyond that. He was now somewhere in the uncomfortable realm of attempting to soothe her ruffled feathers.

But she was right.

He was failing.

Huffing, he looked at his household manager, Lena, who was standing in the gaping doorway of the estate. “Have a car brought to the front,” Ryan instructed. And because of the storm, he really hated this next part, but after what he’d just put his visitor through, it was something he felt he had to do. “I’ll drive Ms. Nash home.”

“No, thanks,” he heard Delaney say. “I’ll call a taxi.” Her statement wasn’t a suggestion.

Ryan reached across her and placed his hand over hers when she went for the phone nestled between the seats. Not the brightest move he’d ever made. The close confines of the car were, well, close.

Her breath met his.

And Ryan took in more of her than he’d intended. Nothing minty fresh but surprisingly appealing. There it was again. Attraction.

No, wait.

Lust.

He preferred that term. Good old basic lust. It kept things on a purely physical level.

“We’re over twenty miles from San Antonio,” he explained. “On a country road, no less. It’s dark and storming. It’ll take a taxi a half hour or more just to get here. I could have you home by then.”

He waited for her to debate that.

He also pulled back his hand, and the rest of his body, since being so close really didn’t seem like a good idea. Even if it sort of felt right.

Strange.

Why did he have this sudden need to comfort the woman? All she’d done was bring turmoil to his life.

As if he needed more.

Ryan didn’t believe her speculation about what had gone on at the fertility clinic. Not that he thought she’d made up the whole thing. No, she was experiencing too much distress for that. The person he doubted was this Dr. Keyes, and before the night was over, Ryan would find out any- and everything he could about the man.