At the Billionaire's Beck and Call? / High-Society Secret Baby

She raised a slim shoulder dismissively. “Nothing I couldn’t deal with.”

Ryder allowed a ghost of a smile. Perfect answer. He had to admit, he already liked her more than any woman he’d dated. Since he’d decided to marry her three weeks ago—immediately after the reading of his father’s will—he’d done a thorough background check and found that she seemed a good match for him. They both had high-profile, complicated families, and they both steered away from those families and the publicity surrounding them as much as possible.

But the bottom line was, this marriage needed to go ahead so he could buy her father’s company, including its stock in his own family’s company. If they had a connection, a spark, that was icing. Since—as he’d discovered at the recent reading of his father’s will—his father had split his majority share of stock in Bramson Holdings between his legitimate and illegitimate families, the stakes were high. His father had begun in food, then diversified into hotels when he’d realized he would need unrelated career paths for his sons. Ryder had always expected that his half brothers would inherit Bramson Hotels, and he would inherit Bramson Food Holdings, which he’s spent his entire working life strengthening.

Or that, as the legitimate son, he would get it all.

But what had happened after his father’s unexpected death was a mess. Neither he nor his half brothers owned enough stock in the parent company to hold outright control by themselves, turning the boardroom into a battle ground. Damn shortsighted of his father, but the upshot was, Ryder needed to fix this, fast.

His mother had stoically suffered the scandals and his father’s emotional neglect through her marriage and in return she’d been publicly humiliated after her husband’s death. One thing Ryder could guarantee—he would acquire enough stock to claim a majority in his own right and gain control of the board. Set everything to right again.

Macy’s father’s company was a key in that plan. Ian Ashley’s company owned a chunk of stock in Bramson Holdings. A chunk that Ryder himself would own, as soon as he could buy Ashley International. And then he’d be within sight of that clear majority of stock.

Time to place his proposition on the table. And to do that, he needed to see her one-on-one.

He knew her father hadn’t told her about the secret condition of sale, that he wanted the new owner to marry one of his daughters. Seemed he was an old-school businessman and wanted to pass the company to a male heir. Since he only had daughters, he wanted to sell to a son-in-law who would, in turn, produce a grandson to inherit. Initially Ryder had resisted the marriage demand that accompanied the contract of sale on principle, but his father’s will had changed everything. Now owning the stock that Ashley International held was nonnegotiable.

So, given that Macy was in the dark about her father’s plans, Ryder had decided it’d be best to ease into things—to ensure his offer didn’t come completely out of the blue. Of course it would still seem sudden to her—he couldn’t help that. But if he was right about her, she was practical enough to appreciate the offer on its merits—he’d be a faithful husband, he was financially stable even without the inheritance, and he’d be a good father. And, to ensure her assent, he was prepared to offer her whatever she wanted, be that a house on the French Riviera, a company of her own, or whatever else she desired.

He strode across the office to shut the door, then returned to the desk, leaning a hip on the edge. Macy didn’t bat an eyelash at the closed door, showing again that she was perfect for his lifestyle—unflappable.

“Macy, I’d like to see you somewhere away from the office.” She opened her mouth, but he spoke first. “Have a drink with me tonight.”

The pulse at the base of her throat fluttered and she didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m not sure tonight is good.”

Undeterred, he inclined his head toward the window’s city view. “Where’s the best place to have a drink in this city?”

She blinked. “Probably The Jazz Room. But I have no interest in mixing business with my personal life, Mr. Bramson.”

“Ryder.”

She drew herself up even straighter. “Ryder. If you’d like to discuss work matters, I’d be happy to—”

“I don’t want to discuss work matters,” he interrupted. “I’m asking you out on a date.”

Her lips compressed into a flat line. “I’d prefer you didn’t do that.”

He’d expected resistance, and it didn’t worry him. In fact, he’d rather confront any issues between them early.

He angled his head to the reports stacked on his desk. “Because I’m your boss?”

She held his gaze, unflinching. “Among other reasons.”

“Well, let’s deal with that one first. I’m not asking you out as your boss. I’m asking as a man who’s seen a beautiful woman and wants to have a drink with her, even though it’s slightly inappropriate.” Make that incredibly inappropriate in the modern workplace for him to ask out an employee. But this was hardly an everyday situation. “I want you to know I’ve never done this before, but I’m compelled to make an exception here.”

Her hazel eyes focused on his mouth for a fleeting moment, and every nerve ending in his lips leaped to life.

“It’s impossible for me to forget you’re my boss. You’re holding a potential promotion in your hands and I’d rather not complicate that issue.”

He smiled. Integrity. Such an attractive quality. “What if I gave you that promotion now? If I said you’ll definitely be the CEO of Chocolate Diva’s Australian operation?”

Her eyes flared and her lips parted before she brought herself back under control. “Then I’d say we’ve already complicated things. I want that promotion but I don’t want a single question in anyone’s mind about how I got it.”

He pushed off the desk, bringing him to stand in front of her … within touching distance. “We don’t have to tell anyone.”

She flicked her long hair over her shoulder. “That’s hardly the point. I’ll know.”

He hadn’t expected she’d accept the unearned promotion—if she’d wanted the easy route she’d still be at home with daddy’s money like her sister. But he was still relieved she’d turned him down. He’d prefer his wife to have principles, even if it did make this stage of the negotiations more challenging.

He reached for her hand and held it lightly between his. No pressure, just holding. And yet her skin touching his set off a sizzling heat that traveled through his veins all the way to his toes. For one extraordinary moment, he forgot the pressure to marry, forgot the company buyout, forgot the inheritance, and just wanted.

Wanted her.

As he watched, a blush stole up her décolletage, along her throat and bloomed on her cheeks.She felt it, too. The pull to kiss her delectable lips, to taste her, was almost overwhelming. His skin tightened and his lungs labored, but he couldn’t get carried away. Couldn’t count his chickens before they hatched.

He needed to marry her, not entice her into his bed.

Hauling himself back, he cleared his throat. “What if I promise our date won’t affect your promotion, that no one else will know, and that it will just be one drink?”

Her skin was so soft he couldn’t help but run a thumb across the back of the hand he still held, then over her palm. He watched as her pupils dilated. She was wavering.

“One drink, Macy. No torture involved.” He gave her a half smile. Damn, she was beautiful.

Then she withdrew her hand and nodded, back to being cool and businesslike. “I’ll meet you at the bar. Seven o’clock.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said before she turned and strode from his office. “More than you know,” he murmured to the empty room.

He tapped a thumb to his bottom lip, still prickling with awareness of her. If he could get her to agree to his plan, if he could convince her, then it’d be full steam ahead.

And he had a gut feeling that it would be. That he’d just made a date with his future wife.

Two

At seven o’clock, Macy stood outside The Jazz Room, taking in the scene—an upmarket cocktail bar with live jazz, and a deep room full of beautiful people in their glamorous best. Muted red walls surrounded the almost-capacity crowd who sat on tall stools at the gleaming bar or at polished silver tables.

She spotted Ryder sitting at the bar, and was uncharacteristically nervous for the second time in one day. She was on a date with Ryder Bramson. She’d always been so careful about keeping her work and private life separate, yet she’d agreed to meet her boss socially.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been hit on by a colleague or employer, but it never got any easier to rebuff. Ryder had quickly moved past her first line of defense—her aloof exterior—and now she had to play very carefully.

Rejecting the boss was just as bad a career move as sleeping with him.

In effect, she was cornered.

Ryder saw her and unfurled his long frame from the stool and strode toward her, purposeful intent oozing from his whole body. Her knees felt weak and she locked them to keep from swaying.

He stopped near enough for her to smell his clean woodsy scent, to feel the heat from his body, to see the shiny-smooth skin of his jaw where he’d recently shaved.

Ryder bent to kiss her cheek and she was surprised he’d do something so familiar. Surprised at the tingling on the side of her face where his lips had touched.

“You look beautiful,” he murmured.

His voice was a note deeper than it’d been in his office, and she felt it reverberate through her body. And there was something reassuring about his American accent. She was used to being the only American in the room, surrounded by Australian accents. Her eyes were drawn to his mouth, wanting him to say something else just to hear him speak again.

Oh, who was she kidding? This was nothing like when she’d been hit on before. Which only meant she had to tread with even more caution—the danger of forgetting her self-imposed boundaries was greater.

She’d been burned far too many times by people ready to sell her out, or walk away when times got tough, to trust again. Everyone had an angle, or they were only looking out for themselves. Even her own father, the person she should be able to depend on utterly, had distanced himself from her when she’d needed him the most—as a thirteen-year-old girl who’d just lost her mother.

So she’d accept Ryder’s compliment but not read anything much into it.

She ran her tongue over dry lips. “Thank you.”

She saw him watch the action, then move his gaze slowly up to her eyes. “Do you want to sit at the bar or take a table?”

Glad for a reason to break eye contact, she scanned the room. “The tables down the back are quieter.”

He put a hand on her waist and guided her toward the back of the room. As they wove their way through the tables, Johnny, a waiter who’d served her here before, was delivering drinks to a group of customers. He saw her and winked before continuing to place the brightly colored cocktails on the table.

As she spared him a brief smile, Macy thought she’d caught a faint scowl marring Ryder’s features but when she looked fully at him, there was no sign.

Ryder found a table in a corner that had a modicum of privacy. He pulled her chair out for her to sit, then turned to take his own seat, giving her a brief view of his back, so broad in the moss-green shirt, and exquisitely tapered down to his black trousers. For a man who had sat virtually motionless through the meeting today, he moved with masculine grace.

“You come here regularly?” Ryder’s voice held the first hint of curiosity she’d heard from him. Strange that he hadn’t seemed as curious about her reports—detailing launch expenses in the millions—as her social life.

Macy shrugged one shoulder as she scanned the drinks menu. “Occasionally.”

The live jazz was always exceptional, and sometimes when she’d finished a long day at work, after eating takeaway at her desk, all she wanted was to be lost in a dimly lit crowd for one drink. To unwind before going home.

Ryder didn’t respond for one minute, then two. But she wouldn’t look up from the list of drinks. She could feel him watching her—the air was charged with the tension of it—another tactic that probably worked well for him with employees. She continued to casually read the cocktail options.

Finally, he spoke. “Why do I get the feeling you don’t talk much about yourself?”

She smiled, closed the drinks list and laid it on the silver tabletop. “I’ll have a margarita.”

Without looking around, he held up a finger. Johnny appeared and Ryder ordered her margarita plus a martini, no olive.

Once Johnny left, Ryder cleared his throat. “What made you settle in Melbourne?” “

I like it here.”

“You obviously didn’t move for the weather. Hot as hell today, yet arctic winds on the way over here tonight.” He smiled ruefully.

She recrossed her legs under the table, irritated that he’d been here less than a day and was already finding fault with her adopted home. But annoyance was another reaction she couldn’t show her boss. “Actually, I like the weather. Makes me feel like I’m not stuck in one place all the time. The trick is to dress in layers.”

“Useful local information.”

Johnny returned back with their drinks, and she gave him a quick smile. Waiter and customer—a nice, uncomplicated relationship, just how she liked them.

Then she looked across at her date—a more complicated, tangled relationship she couldn’t imagine. But she smiled at him, too, and accepted her glass. “Thank you.”

“Believe me, it’s my pleasure.” He tasted his martini and winced. “Too dry.”

Macy slowly twirled her glass, looking for the perfect place on the salt-encrusted rim to sample her drink. A much better option than looking at the man across from her. If he’d been anyone other than her boss, this might have been playing out differently … but he was.

He swallowed a mouthful of his drink then sat back in his seat. “Tell me something about yourself.”

Macy sipped her margarita then licked the salt from her lips. This was the exact problem with being out socially with a colleague—the sharing of personal information. The press had shared her personal information with the world most of her life. It’d left a bitter taste in her mouth.

She tapped a fingertip on the stem of her glass. “Ryder, don’t pretend you don’t know who I am.”

Even if her face hardly ever ran in the media nowadays, her name wouldn’t slip past a man as savvy and intelligent as Ryder. Her father worked in a similar industry and her sister was in the glossy magazines most weeks. Her surname was hardly low profile.

His eyes held hers with intensity. “I know what family you come from. I know a little bit about your childhood, like most Americans. But you’re wrong. I don’t know who you are.” Ryder stretched his legs to the side of the table. “But I’d like to.”

Macy expelled a long breath. This farce had gone on long enough. She’d thought she could play this game—one date with the boss, but she’d been wrong. Every moment this went on, she was getting in deeper into her own personal catch-22: she couldn’t get involved with him and she couldn’t rebuff his efforts to get involved. Either way she’d possibly offend him and kiss her promotion goodbye. She had to say something now before she was completely out of her depth.

She flicked her hair over a shoulder and met his gaze. “Ryder, I know I said I’d meet you here tonight, but I have to tell you, I’m uncomfortable about this.”

He straightened in his chair, frowning. “Have I done something to make you uncomfortable?”

Her stomach dipped. Now she had offended him. The man who would decide her promotion.

She held a palm out. “No, that’s the thing—you don’t have to do anything. You’re my boss. You pay my wage and hold a potential promotion in your hands, so I can’t relax.”

Ryder leaned closer. “I understand your concern. I’ve never done this kind of thing before, either.” His voice dipped. “Here and now, I’m not your boss. I’m just a man.”

Macy hesitated. She needed no reminder he was a man. Every feminine instinct she had screamed the fact. But he was her employer, too. “That’s not possible. You’re my boss whether you want to think about it right now or not. It’s inescapable.”

He raised one brow. “What if we don’t try to escape it? What if we try to build on it?” His eyes darkened in a depth of emotion that took her breath away. It transformed his features from rugged to something beautiful. She wanted to reach out and touch his lips, run her hands along his strong jaw. She’d never reacted with this intensity to a man before.

Her body screamed yes, but she didn’t, couldn’t, say the word.

Instead she gave herself an internal shake. Maybe it was time to go home. “I don’t think this is working.”

Ryder inclined his head. “I agree. My understanding of a date includes some small talk about ourselves. If you don’t want to talk about yourself, how about I talk a bit about me?”

Macy hesitated on the edge of her seat, half wanting to leave, half wanting to hear what he’d say. Like her, he was famous for not giving media interviews, and from the comment that one of his staff had made today about him being The Machine, she suspected it wasn’t only the media he refused to be open with.

Apparently taking her silence as consent, Ryder took a sip of his martini, swallowed, then began. “I suspect you know I was born in Rhode Island and that I grew up there and in New York City.”

She nodded, settling back into her seat now he’d made the decision for her about staying. She’d also heard about the open secret of his half brothers—would he go as far as mentioning them? From what she knew of him, it wasn’t likely.

“Although my parents were married, my father was absent, so I was raised by my mother.” A flash of a frown creased his forehead—too quick for her to be completely sure she’d seen it. But something told her that there was carefully guarded pain inside that statement. And the girl inside her who’d lost her mother understood.

She relaxed her face and body into an empathetic smile. “Your mother did a good job.”

One corner of his mouth turned up in acknowledgment of the compliment before he took another mouthful of his drink. “My father had a second family—a mistress and two sons. I’d seen them around on occasion, but I met them for the first time at my father’s funeral and then again at the will reading.”

She paused, not quite believing what he’d just shared. “I saw something about that in the papers. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” He met her gaze for a moment before finishing his drink and pushing the glass to the side of the table. “His death was unexpected but our relationship wasn’t particularly friendly.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not a shock.” Her mind flew back to when she’d heard the worst news of her life and she felt the sting of emotion in her eyes that always accompanied the memory. She paused until she had it under control before continuing. “My mother died in a plane crash when I was thirteen.”

“I can’t imagine how you got through that,” he said, voice rough. “You must have been devastated.”

She’d wanted to curl up and die. Even now, just thinking about it, her insides were like a black hole that sucked in and destroyed any sign of joy.

She closed her eyes for a long moment, willing herself back from that place of despair before opening them again and nodding. “More than devastated. My father and sister turned to each other, and I—” learned to never rely on anyone “—learned to cope with life on my own.”

She shook her head, banishing the thoughts, and changed the subject. “Do you wish you’d had siblings to grow up with?”

He opened his mouth, about to reply, then frowned and shut it again. She had the feeling he’d been about to offer her a standard reply, but for some reason had changed his mind.

When he spoke, his voice was pitched even lower than usual. “I used to, when I was a boy. But I don’t think I would have made a good brother.”

Her heart softened, honored that she’d been given this gift of truth from a man seemingly unused to bestowing it. “I think anyone would be lucky to have you.”

Ryder’s dark eyes changed, sparked, and the awareness that had been simmering between them leaped to life.

Her insides melted.

She watched Ryder swallow then reach across the table and lay his hand on hers.

Her blood pounded through her veins and she felt the world slow to a stop. Noises retreated until the only sound she was aware of was her own breath. There was no one but the two of them, connected through their hands on a polished metal table.

Eyes locked on his, she turned her wrist so their hands lay palm to palm. The burning heat from his hand suffused hers and traveled throughout her body, bringing goose bumps across her skin and desire coiling low in her belly.

His chest rose and fell in the same erratic rhythm as hers. His lips were slightly parted, ready to speak … or kiss. And with startling clarity she realized she wanted his kiss more than she’d ever wanted anything. Wanted to hear him whisper sweet words in her ear, to lose herself in his embrace.

Then he whispered, “Macy,” and the world came crashing back with reality.

Spell broken, she lowered her eyes and extricated her hand from his gentle clasp, leaving it to lie in her lap. Ryder slid his hand across the table to grasp his empty glass.

“Another margarita?” His voice was like gravel. “You said one drink,” she said softly, still not meeting his eyes.

“I’d hoped you might want another.”

“No,” she said. “Thank you for the offer, but no. I have a lot of work to get through tomorrow.” Feeling like she needed to make the excuse stronger, she added, “Making last-minute arrangements for our trip to Sydney in a couple of weeks.” They would look at potential retail space for one of their first brand-name stores, a companion to the Melbourne shop.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

She stood, smoothing down her jacket with a trembling hand. “So, I’d better make it an early night.”

He moved to her side and settled his palm into the small of her back. “I’ll see you home.”

Macy bit down on her lip. She needed this date over before she did something truly stupid—like press herself against him and wind her arms around his neck. “That won’t be necessary.”

He guided her through the room. “It’ll be my pleasure. I’ve always seen my dates home.”

Once they stood on the pavement, she turned to face him in the dappled streetlight. “No, really, I’m fine.”

Ryder gave a half smile, as if he knew exactly what she was doing. “I won’t compromise on this.”

He picked up her hand and laid a soft kiss on her wrist that sent a slow burn through her bloodstream. She snatched her hand back—she couldn’t let herself be dazzled.

Ryder gave another half smile. Then he turned to hail a cab. A bright orange car pulled up on the street in front of them and she slid into the backseat, soon joined by Ryder. He was close, so close, and it was much more intimate sharing the backseat of a sedan than in a public bar.

“Where to, Macy?” Ryder asked.

She clipped her seat belt, determined to keep her distance at all costs—a promotion was worth more than a night in the boss’s bed.

Ryder listened to Macy give the driver her address and frowned. Having never been to Melbourne before, there were only a few streets that were familiar to his ears.

“You live next door to our office?”

She settled back into her seat. “Yes.”

Though it would have been covered in her resume, he remembered the location of both her previous workplace and home address from the dossier he’d had prepared on her once he’d decided they would marry. And her home those three weeks ago was not their current destination.