Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader1

Title Page

Dedication

About the Author

Dear Reader2

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Copyright

“What could we possibly do that would make your grandmother believe we’re getting married?”

Unexpectedly, Gabe’s face lit up. “Set a wedding date,” he said.

Kassandra backed away from him. “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “This was only supposed to be a fake engagement. That’s going too far in this charade.”

“Then we’re going to have to act more like an engaged couple. We’ll have to hold hands more and hug every once in a while.”

Kassandra nodded. “Okay.”

“And kiss more often than we’ve been doing.”

Swallowing, she nodded again. “Okay. No problem.” She licked her lips. The thought of kissing him more often made her shiver. She was still tingling from the memory of the last kiss they’d shared. Suddenly she was all too aware-the greatest danger in this charade wasn’t disappointing Gabe’s grandmother, but falling in love with him…for real!

Dear Reader,

What better way for Silhouette Romance to celebrate the holiday season than to celebrate the meaning of family….

You’ll love the way a confirmed bachelor becomes a FABULOUS FATHER just in time for the holidays in Susan Meier’s Merry Christmas, Daddy. And in Mistletoe Bride, Linda Varner’s HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS miniseries merrily continues. The ugly duckling who becomes a beautiful swan will touch your heart in Hometown Wedding by Elizabeth Lane. Doreen Roberts’s A Mom for Christmas tells the tale of a little girl’s holiday wish, and in Patti Standard’s Family of the Year, one man, one woman and a bunch of adorable kids form an unexpected family. And finally, Christmas in July by Leanna Wilson is what a sexy cowboy offers the struggling single mom he wants for his own.

Silhouette Romance novels make the perfect stocking stuffers—or special treats just for yourself. So enjoy all six irresistible books, and most of all, have a very happy holiday season and a very happy New Year!

Melissa Senate

Senior Editor

Silhouette Romance

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Merry Christmas, Daddy
Susan Meier

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my dad, John Petrunak

SUSAN MEIER has been an office manager, the division manager for a charitable organization and a columnist for a local newspaper. Presently, she holds a full-time job at a manufacturing company.

Even though her motto, “The harder you work, the luckier you get,” is taped to the wall of her office, Susan firmly believes you have to balance work and play. An avid reader and lousy golfer, she has learned to juggle the demands of her job and family, while still pursuing her writing career and playing golf twice a week.

Dear Reader,

My father always tried to make Christmas magical for us. There were eleven kids in my family, so money was always tight, but somehow, some way, my dad—in cahoots with my mother—always found a way to make every Christmas memorable.

The year that sticks out most in my mind was the year my father worked out of state. He had to be back at work on Christmas, which meant he needed to be on the road right after lunch on Christmas Eve, and wouldn’t be able to spend any of the holiday with us—not even to see us open our presents. We were all upset about that because everyone knew Santa brought the gifts around midnight and my dad would be long gone.

It was a cold year, so we’d blocked off the kitchen from the rest of the house with a blanket and gathered around the table for lunch. After we ate, one of my sisters left the kitchen and immediately ran back yelping for joy that Santa had come while we were eating and all our gifts were under the tree. I was astounded. Getting gifts one day early was about the best thing that could happen to an eight-year-old, but to have it happen the very year my dad couldn’t be home for Christmas made the whole episode seem downright magical.

We talked about that Christmas for years. Still do, in fact. I think my sister Helen helped my parents set the whole thing up. She won’t admit to it though. Neither will my parents. But whatever the explanation, that one Christmas left us with the feeling that Christmas and family are magic. Real or created by someone who loves you, it doesn’t matter. Magic is magic.

Merry Christmas!

Chapter One

When the elevator doors opened, Gabriel Cayne thought he had walked into an ad for blue jeans. Bent before him, encased in prewashed, natural-fit jeans was the most perfect derriere he’d ever seen. The woman unsuccessfully tried to gather groceries, as they rolled in all directions down the hall, but Gabe didn’t pay too much attention to her dilemma. For this short span of time he had nothing on his mind but enjoying the view. And what a view. The right kind of curves in all the right places.

His vision of perfection lasted three more seconds, then—after snagging a can of green beans—his quarry straightened, and Gabe saw she was his stuffy, conservative neighbor who lived in the apartment across the hall with her two equally stuffy friends. He almost sighed.

He didn’t care to run into her on a normal day, but on this cold, rainy December day, after receiving the news his grandmother was dying, he’d rather take his chances in the rain again than have to make small talk.

“Good evening,” he mumbled, trying to be polite, anyway.

Pushing her blond hair off her face, she glanced at him. Even in the dim hall light, Gabe could see her eyes were green. Despite their many “encounters” over her contention that he played his stereo too loud, his parties lasted too long and his friends made too much noise, he’d never noticed them before.

“Good evening,” she mumbled, then she bent again, grabbed a jar of mayonnaise and set it along the wall by her door since her shopping bag was so wet it had disinte grated.

Looking down the corridor, Gabe saw her groceries had traveled the whole way to 3C. Though his key was two millimeters away from his lock, the gentleman in him couldn’t leave without helping her. He set his briefcase beside his apartment door, placed his wet trench coat on top of it, then strode down the hall as he said, “I’ll get these.”

But Kassandra wished he wouldn’t. Really wished he wouldn’t. Not on the day she’d discovered one of her roommates had eloped. Not on the day the engine in her car had caught fire. And not a week before her second roommate was transferring to Boston. She wasn’t in the mood to have to be friendly to the six-foot-three playboy from across the hall, no matter how good he looked in his striking black suit….

Or maybe because of how good he looked in his striking black suit. The expensive suit—tailored to fit his perfect body—personified everything she disliked about him. He had a flawless life—an easy life. Since he ran his family’s company, he not only didn’t have to worry about money, but he could do anything he wanted, including have parties until all hours any day of the week. Every time he had a party, Kassandra’s baby, Candy, cried all night.

And when Candy didn’t sleep, neither did Kassandra…and then she’d miss school the next day.

It was no wonder she found it so hard to be nice to him.

“Here you go,” he said, striding toward her, holding an odd assortment of canned spaghetti and soups, most of them with cartoon characters on the labels. Her food choices seemed odd to Gabe. Almost odd enough to tease her about. That is, if she had been someone with whom he actually wanted to speak. He made a move to give her the cans, saw her hands were full and looked at her.

Great! Now she was going to have to let him in. They both stifled a sigh.

Kassandra turned and inserted her key into her lock, and the door gave easily. Standing directly behind her, Gabe noticed that her hair looked almost the color of wheat, and was, in fact, quite pretty. Surprisingly pretty. And sweetsmelling, too.

Deciding that train of thought was ludicrous, Gabe moved away from her hair. He bent down to gather a few more items from the floor. Then he followed Kassandra as she led him through her foyer and into her kitchen.

All the apartments in this reasonably new building were neat as a pin, elegant in a functional sort of way. Gabe had decorated his ultramodern—flashy black lacquer trimmed in gold—from the bedroom to the bath to the kitchen. But Kassandra and her two friends had used a softer touch. Though Gabe couldn’t say he would want to live here, he sort of liked her overstuffed floral sofa and chair and the green-and-white leaf pattern incorporated into the all-white kitchen. He knew she couldn’t afford this apartment on her own and neither could either of her friends. He’d expected it to be an inexpensive nightmare, decorated with everybody’s gaudy taste. Instead, he found they must have compromised….

Which amazed him because Kassandra O’Hara had never tried to compromise with him, only demanded that he tone it down. Twice she’d even called the police on him.

That still rankled, particularly since his family owned the company that owned this building. His parents and grandmother continued to get activity reports from the superintendent. Those reports, brief as they were, had to list any visits by the police. And every time the police came to his apartment, his father called for an explanation. Thirty years old, president of a multinational corporation, and he’d had to answer to his dad for making too much noise.

It was no wonder he found it hard to be nice to her.

“I’ll just gather the rest of your groceries,” he said, and bolted toward the door. He wasn’t sorry he’d stopped to help her, but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend an extra minute in her company if he could avoid doing so. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could leave.

A few seconds later, he returned with soup, frozen vegetables and a loaf of bread. “Where do you want these?”

She forced a smile. “Oh, just leave them on the table. I’ll put them away.”

“No, no. I don’t mind helping,” he assured her, also forcing a smile.

But to Kassandra it sounded as if he would rather be wrestling an alligator than helping her, and she didn’t want his help, anyway. She was tired. She had some major problems to think about, and worse, Candy would be here any minute. Kassandra had never tried to hide her eight-monthold daughter from Gabe Cayne, but she’d never gone out of her way to introduce them, either. If Gabe had ever given any thought about Candy, he would put two and two together and figure out Candy was the reason Kassandra always complained about his noise. As president of the company that owned this building, Gabe had the power to alter the building’s general lease to exclude children, and that wouldn’t just hurt Kassandra, it would hurt other people, as well. As long as Candy wasn’t too obvious or too visible, Gabe might never make the connection and no one would have to worry.

“I think I can handle things myself from here,” she said, trying hard not to sound like she was kicking him out, though she was. “So, you can leave now.”

“Gladly,” he said, and pivoted away from her. But just as quickly, he turned to face her again. “You know, you’ve done nothing but harass me for the past several months. You call me if my stereo gets too loud and call the police almost every time I have a party. It was actually very nice of me to be so considerate of you tonight. The least you could do is appreciate it.”

“I appreciate it,” Kassandra said, straining for a courteous tone as she stowed her groceries and wished he’d just leave.

“No, you don’t,” Gabe insisted, and Kassandra’s temper began to sizzle. “You don’t appreciate anything. Sometimes I think you’re nothing but a spoiled brat who has to have everything her way….”

Her temper leaped from sizzling to boiling to bubbling over in about three seconds. “Well, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black,” she yelped, spinning to face him. “You, Mr. Born-With-a-Silver-Spoon-in-His-Mouth, have no right to call me spoiled or a brat.”

“Then how do you justify kicking me out?”

“I’m tired,” she said honestly. “But more than that I have problems. Big problems I need to think about. My roommates are gone…or going. Janie eloped last night. Sandy’s leaving for Boston next week, which means I’m stuck with six months of a lease I can’t afford. Then my car broke down this morning and had to be towed. Unless I find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, I won’t be able to attend this semester of college—can’t afford to,” she said, gathering steam as rehashing her problems fueled her anger. “Which is something you wouldn’t understand because you don’t know the first thing about trouble. You’ve always had everything handed to you!”

“Oh, really, Miss-High-and-Mighty,” he shot back. “Try this on for size. I had to wrangle my family’s company away from an overpossessive board of directors. I still have a few enemies on the staff. And my grandmother is dying. Dying! My favorite person in the world has terminal cancer and she may not live past Christmas.” He didn’t even pause for breath, but kept on speaking as he took slow, measured steps toward her.

“And if all of that isn’t bad enough,” he continued, “I now have to go down to Georgia for Christmas vacation and explain to the woman I love most in the world that I don’t have a fiancée.”

Though his situation was bad—sad—the last of his tirade struck Kassandra as funny, at the very least out of place with everything else he’d said. She didn’t smile, wouldn’t smile over something so tragic, but she couldn’t stop her retort. “What a pity.”

“It is a pity,” Gabe angrily said, pacing away from her. “I’d made up a story that I was engaged to make my grandmother happy for the past few months, but now it’s backfiring. She called me this afternoon and told me that her only wish before she dies is to meet my fiancee.”

If his story hadn’t involved a dying grandmother whom he obviously loved, Kassandra knew she might have gloated over the fact that he’d made his own bed and now he had to lie in it. Instead, Kassandra felt more than a stirring of compassion. She cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry.” She paused. “Really sorry.”

Gabe was really sorry, too. Not merely sorry for antagonizing her, but also sorry that he’d told her so much. No one, but no one, knew about his made-up fiancée except the people he’d made up the fiancée for—his parents and grandmother. Now Kassandra something-or-another, the grouch from across the hall, knew his deepest, darkest secret.

“I’m sorry, too,” Gabe said, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have burdened you with my troubles, but it just hit me like a ton of bricks today and I couldn’t seem to stop myself from taking my anger out on you.” He paused and caught her gaze. “In fact, that’s probably why I yelled at you about not appreciating my help. I’m sorry for that, too.”

“That’s okay,” Kassandra said quietly.

A strange, uncomfortable silence settled over them. They’d never had a civil conversation before, and it appeared to Kassandra that neither one of them knew what to do or say next.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Kassandra finally asked, filling the awkward pause.

Gabe shook his head. “Not unless you’d like to go to Georgia with me and pretend to be my fiancée through the Christmas season.”

The absurdity of the suggestion made Kassandra laugh. They couldn’t get along for the five minutes it took to gather her groceries. There was no way they could spend three weeks together—particularly not as two people in love. She almost laughed again. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Yeah,” Gabe agreed. Evidently following her line of thinking about the absurdity of the situation, he smiled. In fact, he smiled at her.

She found she rather liked it.

He realized it didn’t kill him.

They’d actually made some progress.

Ill at ease, he rubbed his hand across the back of his neck again. “So, your roommates are leaving, huh?”

She nodded, regretting that she’d revealed so much to him. Then she realized it didn’t matter. She didn’t have a fairy godmother. There was no gold at the end of the rainbow. And she wasn’t going to be able to keep this apartment. Period.

“I’ll probably be turning in a request to get out of my lease.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, and Kassandra could tell he genuinely meant it. “This is a good building, a safe building.”

“I know,” she agreed. “That’s why I liked living here. To tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure where I’m going to go….” Kassandra trailed off, watching as a curious expression crossed Gabe’s face.

He looked her up and down, from her feet to her head, then from her head to her feet.

He smiled wickedly, handsomely. “You know, if you think about this, we could be the answer to each other’s problems.”

Kassandra shook her head. “I don’t think so. Unless you’d be willing to let me live here rent free until I get my degree, there’s nothing anyone can do to help me.”

“But I would be willing to let you live here rent free while you get your degree. I’d even be willing to help you with your other expenses, if you would go to Georgia with me for the holidays.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Kassandra said, thinking distress had driven him just slightly delirious and he didn’t realize what he was offering.

“Don’t say no so quickly,” he insisted, this time sounding as if he were getting a little desperate. “I’m serious about this. Rent and help with your other expenses. Figure out how much money it would take for you to finish school and give me a number. I don’t care. I really need this favor.”

“You must,” Kassandra agreed, overwhelmed by his generosity. “But whether you’re serious or not doesn’t matter, because I can’t do it.” First, she knew she couldn’t impose on her parents to take care of Candy for the better part of a month. Second, she didn’t want to miss Candy’s first Christmas. Third, she didn’t think Gabe Cayne would appreciate her bringing her daughter on a holiday visit with his family—particularly since she didn’t know if Gabe knew Candy existed.

And, fourth, his proposition was just a little too good to be true. She’d been around long enough to know there had to be a catch. There was no way she’d hungrily jump at this chance and make a fool of herself.

“You have to do it,” Gabe said. “There is no other way out for you.”

“Of course there is,” Kassandra argued casually. “I might have to adjust my schedule and put back graduation, but I’ll get there.”

She set some more things in the refrigerator. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Gabe staring at her, clearly thinking she was crazy. “I know what you’re thinking,” she told him as she busied herself with storing some canned goods. “That I’m nuts. Well, I have a news flash for you. For every bit as much as you might think I’m crazy to turn down such a lucrative offer, I think you’re equally crazy for making it.”

“Why?”

“Because people who don’t have money are always suspicious of people who offer it so freely.” Smiling smugly, she tossed a can into a cupboard. “There’s a catch. I know there is, so I’m not buying into this.”

“What if I told you there was no catch?” he asked.

“There’s always a catch.”

“Not this time.”

His quietly spoken statement stopped her. “You’re kidding? You’d let me live here for eighteen months and you’d shell out enough money to take care of my other expenses?”

“I have money. You need it. And you’d be giving up your holiday. Two-thirds of December and a few days into January. To me it’s worth it.”

Flabbergasted, she shook her head. “You rich people kill me.”

“Why?” he countered. “I’m offering you a simple way out of this and you’re too…too…”

“Stupid?” she inquired, her eyebrows raised questioningly.

“Stubborn,” he corrected her, “to take it. Why?”

“For a million reasons,” she said. “First of all, I don’t know you.”

“Ah, come on. Everybody in this city knows me, at least by reputation—good reputation, I might add. Even you, if you’re honest. In spite of the fact that you think my parties are too loud and too long, you know I’m basically a person of integrity. So, saying you don’t know me is no excuse.”

What he said was true. She did know him by reputation, but more than that she knew his family. Everybody knew his family. They weren’t merely pillars of the community. Until a few years ago when they retired in Georgia, they were the community. The most generous, most benevolent people in town…

Which made his offer even more than tempting. Knowing the family she’d be visiting were such likable, easygoing people made his offer possible. Very possible. Rent and expenses for eighteen months. She could actually quit her job as a waitress. Study full-time. Graduate early.

Suddenly he turned and strode toward the door. “I’ll tell you what, since this was a spur-of-the-moment idea, I’m going to give you some time to think about it. I’m leaving in my family’s private plane Friday afternoon at two, municipal field. If you’re not there, I’ll understand.” He paused and faced her again. “But if you want to come with me, pack for three weeks.”

Kassandra watched the door close behind him, then fell into her chair. She could tell from the way he issued that last order that he expected her to be at that airport at two o’clock on Friday.

He’d made an incredibly generous offer—one she could hardly walk away from—and he knew that.

But, then again, he obviously didn’t know about Candy….

Chapter Two

At twenty minutes after two on Friday afternoon, Gabe’s plane was fueled and had been moved to the boarding area of the small airstrip. Gabe stood in the biting December wind, arms crossed on his chest, as he studied the parking lot of the municipal field. Kassandra was now late enough for him to officially assume that she wasn’t coming and had turned him down.

Which seemed impossible. Short of throwing in a block of Cayne Enterprises stock, Gabe didn’t know how he could have made her a better offer. Yet, obviously, his very lucrative, very generous proposition wasn’t good enough.

On the verge of giving up, Gabe saw Kassandra jump out of a late-model car someone else was driving. Though Gabe felt a burst of relief, followed by a stirring of guilt since he never thought to offer her a ride to the airport, he didn’t want to weaken. Couldn’t weaken. This trip had to be on his terms, because this was his family. He couldn’t have Kassandra calling the shots, or running the show, or even being smart with him.

Not in front of his family.

Somehow or other, he had to get control of this situation and he had to keep it. And that wasn’t going to be easy. Not only had this woman kept him and his noise in line for almost a year, but she’d arrived twenty minutes late, and Gabe had waited for her. She was smart enough to know her own power, and she also had him in a very precarious position. They both knew it. Because of his lie he was at her mercy. But what Kassandra didn’t seem to understand was that if she didn’t play this part right, there would be no point in taking her to Georgia.

Deciding the best thing to do would be to board the plane and leave her to her own devices with her luggage, so it wasn’t so obvious he was watching for her, Gabe stepped onto the first step of the three-stair entry to the streamlined vehicle. He made one quick backward glance to confirm the woman he saw really was Kassandra, then boarded, settling himself in one of the eight seats in the small but roomy craft. He even opened his briefcase and set papers all over the seat beside him so she wouldn’t realize he’d waited for her.

But twenty minutes later he was still waiting. Furious now, he tossed the paper he was reading to the seat beside him and was just about to go to the cockpit and tell the pilot to leave, when he saw the pilot walking toward him.

“Mr. Cayne, there’s a problem in the terminal that needs your attention.”

Gabe looked up at Art Oxford. “My attention?” he asked, confused.

“There’s a woman claiming you’re waiting for her…”

“Now, you know I’m waiting for a woman, Art!” Gabe said, bounding from his seat and starting out of the plane. “You should have just told them to let her through.”

“But this woman has—” Art began, but Gabe didn’t stay to listen to the end of his sentence. He didn’t have time to wait. In the few minutes it would take for the pilot to call to the terminal to tell security to allow Kassandra through, Gabe could straighten this out himself and probably more satisfactorily.

Storming across the tarmac, Gabe muttered to himself about incompetent people. Everybody had been told to let a five-foot-six blonde through to his plane, yet here he was having to make a personal identification. He bounded through the glass door, strode through the small terminal, burst into the manager’s office and nearly knocked Kassandra on her bottom.

Dressed in a black wool coat and fluffy cashmere hat, she didn’t look anything like the women Gabe normally dated. She wasn’t tall. She wasn’t slender. And she certainly wasn’t sophisticated. Though, she was cute. Cuddly. Sexy in a sweet kind of way. Unfortunately, she was also holding a baby. A little girl dressed in a one-piece pink winter garment with a bunny embroidered on the front. One shock of black hair peeked from beneath the rim of a pink knit cap. She was sucking on a plastic thing that must have been a modern-day version of a pacifier, though Gabe had never seen one that fit flat against a baby’s lips before. The minute Gabe stepped into the room, the kid spit it at him.

It thumped against his chest, then bounced to the floor.

“Hey!” Gabe yelped, jumping away from them. He looked at Kassandra, who appeared sufficiently mortified, but the baby only grinned, held out her arms and said, “Dada.”

Beyond angry, beyond confused, beyond everything, Gabe merely looked at Kassandra.

She cleared her throat, then bent to retrieve the pacifier before she turned to the airport manager. “Mr. Byron, could we have a little privacy, please?”

“Sure,” Charlie Byron said, rising from his seat. “You want me to take Candy with me?”

Kassandra shook her head negatively, then watched as Charlie left the room, closing the door behind him.

“This is the reason I keep nagging you about your noise,” Kassandra said as she shoved the dirty pacifier into an open diaper bag. “I have a daughter.”

She paused, waiting for him to respond, but Gabe was so flabbergasted he didn’t know what to say. Not only did this explain why she always complained, but it made him feel like a heel for disturbing a baby. Worse, it appeared she’d decided to bring her baby to Georgia. Georgia! To meet his mother, his father and his grandmother!

“This is her first Christmas and I don’t want to miss it. Besides, I didn’t want to impose on anybody by asking them to watch her for three weeks.” Kassandra drew a long breath. “So I decided to bring her along,” she added softly, cautiously.

“I see,” Gabe said as he slid onto a chair, then covered his face with both hands. He absolutely, positively did not know what to say…or do. Taking this woman and her baby to Georgia wouldn’t work. His last-minute attempt to save himself from looking like a liar to his family had failed.

“Look,” Kassandra said, obviously becoming annoyed with him. “It isn’t as bad as you think. Candy’s a baby, not a pet rat. I had a choice. Miss out on this opportunity—which I need—or bring Candy along. I didn’t want to lose this chance, so here I am. Now you have a choice. Take us as a team or leave us as a team, but as I recall—” she paused until she caught his gaze “—you didn’t put any stipulations on your offer. You just told me to show up at the airport.”

“You,” he said, then rose so he could pace. “I told you to show up at the airport. Not a package deal. I need one girl, not two. And one of you is a little bit too young for my taste, anyway.”

The baby babbled happily, clapping her chubby little hands and staring at Gabe as if he were the Prince of Wales, but Kassandra looked at him as if he were crazy. “I don’t want to leave her. Three weeks is a long time, and it’s her first Christmas. That’s a special time. I don’t want to miss it.”

“No, I suppose not,” Gabe muttered. Aside from a few company picnics, he hadn’t had much contact with babies before. And this one made him nervous. Oh, she was cute enough, but she also had a very unusual way of looking at him—almost as if she already knew him. He tried to get himself out of Candy’s line of vision. But the baby must have thought they were playing some kind of game, because when Gabe moved out of her way, she peeked around her mother’s shoulder to find him. When she saw him, she grinned, revealing two teeth trying to sprout from her upper gums. “But even so, I can’t take the two of you to meet my family.”

“Fine,” Kassandra said, and she smiled, albeit halfheartedly. “That’s your choice. You can’t say I didn’t give you an option.”

If her voice hadn’t quivered with disappointment, Gabe might have thought this was a bizarre scheme to annoy him since she was so good at that. Because her voice had trembled, Gabe knew all this was real. She really did have a baby, and she really did hold out the hope that Gabe would let her take Candy to Georgia with them. He glared at her. “Some option.”

She shook her head. “That all depends on how you look at it. If you need a fiancée as bad as you say you do, Gabe, then we’re actually better than nothing.”

His eyes narrowed, but he knew she was right. Taking this woman and child home for the holiday would be much better than taking no one. If he took no one, he didn’t have to admit he’d lied. He could always make up the story that he’d broken up with his fiancée. But then his grandmother would be disappointed. And he didn’t want his grandmother to be disappointed—not on her last Christmas. Taking Kassandra would make his grandmother happy.

That’s as far as he would allow himself to think for right now. “Okay. You win. Let’s go.”

Kassandra smiled, and Gabe felt the strangest tightening in his chest. She genuinely was one hell of an attractive woman. Not his type, Gabe reminded himself, but very attractive.

Before he could finish that thought, Kassandra pointed behind Charlie Byron’s desk. “Candy’s car seat, diaper bag, playpen, swing, high chair and overnight bag are all over there,” she said, and watched Gabe’s mouth fall open.

“All that for one kid?”

“We left most of her things at home,” Kassandra announced casually, though she agreed an eight-month-old was not the perfect traveling companion. Still, it wouldn’t do to give Gabe any other way or means to find fault with this situation. Particularly since he hadn’t yet thought of the most obvious complication. “You can get those. I’ll ask Mr. Byron if he can assign someone to help me get my things from Sandy’s car. We should be on our way in ten minutes.”

“It’ll take me ten minutes to haul this stuff through the terminal,” he complained, still staring at the pile of baby paraphernalia stacked in the corner, but Kassandra was already halfway out the door. “Wait a minute,” he called after her. “How am I supposed to explain Candy to my grandmother?”

Chapter Three

Kassandra didn’t give Gabe an answer to his question because she was just about positive he wouldn’t like her answer—at least not until he had a few minutes to adjust to the news she’d already given him. But he didn’t press for an explanation. Because Candy began to cry the very second they stepped into the small plane, Gabe pulled some papers from his briefcase and occupied himself by reading while Kassandra rocked Candy to sleep.

Unfortunately, after Candy fell asleep, Gabe continued to read. He even read through the short limousine ride to his parents’ home. Candy slept. Gabe read. All in all, everything was going smoothly—much better than Kassandra expected—until they turned into the long, circular driveway, and Kassandra got her first jolt of reality.

They were about to meet Gabe’s parents, but he hadn’t instructed her on the things she’d need to know to pretend to be his fiancée.

“I think there’s no time like the present,” Kassandra said, gesturing toward the tastefully luxurious white mansion which was now only about a hundred feet away. “For you to tell me a little bit about yourself and your family. Otherwise, we’ll never pull this thing off.”

Gabe glanced up from his document. He’d apparently come to the airport straight from work because he was wearing one of his tailored suits. His short black hair was combed in the casual way he wore it to the office, not the slick way he combed it for his parties. Dressed as he was, he appeared capable, smart and strong. Powerful. To look at him, no one would ever guess he was the kind to have loud parties, or date women who looked like rejects from rap videos…or do absolutely anything to please his grandmother.

“Won’t talking disturb the baby?”

“Well, yes,” Kassandra reluctantly agreed. “But even if our talking does awaken her, we still need to put a plan together, figure out what I should say when you introduce me….”

Gabe looked down at his papers again. “At this point, I think it’s more important that we don’t wake the baby.”

Feeling summarily dismissed, Kassandra leaned back on her seat. Prickles of fear danced along her spine, but she ignored them. This was his family. If Gabe was comfortable walking into that great big house without a strategy in place, then so be it.

Without as much as a word of comment, Gabe opened the front door of his family home and, carrying Candy, Kassandra stepped through. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust, but once they had, her brow furrowed. Though the huge white mansion had a bright look from the outside, inside it was gloomy and cold. Dark-stained wainscoting covered the lower half of all the walls, even up the stairway. The upper half had been painted an oppressive green. All of the doors were closed to any rooms visible from the hall, making the foyer seem smaller than it really was. A large crystal chandelier hung from the high ceiling, but it wasn’t lit. The only light in the foyer came from candle-shaped wall sconces. Still, though it was dark, the foyer dripped with elegance, beauty and money.

“I’m going to show you to a room,” Gabe whispered, directing Kassandra up the long stairway of the front foyer as sleeping Candy nestled into her neck. “So you can put Candy on a bed.”

Since the quiet house appeared to be empty, Kassandra breathed a sigh of relief. Giving Gabe the benefit of the doubt, she decided he must have known they would have plenty of time for discussions once they got Candy to a bed. She nodded her agreement with his instructions, and once they were on the second floor Gabe led her down a long hall and to a huge bedroom. But when they were behind the closed doors of the bedroom and Candy had been settled in the center of the double bed, Gabe still didn’t say anything.

“Your family has a lovely home,” Kassandra said, seeking to start a conversation she hoped would lead him into telling her the things she needed to know.

“Yes. Thank you,” Gabe agreed absently.

He used the same tone he’d used when he said good morning in the hall the day after the first time she called the police on him, and Kassandra only stared at him. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he had every intention of treating her the same way here as he did in Pennsylvania. “Look, Gabe,” she said. “You can’t give me the silent treatment for the next three weeks. You brought me down here to make your family think you’re engaged—happily,” she reminded him. “This charade isn’t going to work if you keep treating me as if I have the plague.”

“I am not treating you as if you have the plague.”

“All right, just a bad case of the flu, then,” she said, attempting to lighten the mood enough that he’d relax with her.

“Very funny,” he said, though he certainly wasn’t laughing. “To you this is just a big joke, and in this case I’m left holding the bag. We’re going to fail because I don’t know a damned thing about kids and I’m supposed to have been dating you long enough that I would be accustomed to your daughter by now,” he said, revealing to Kassandra that he might not have been reading through the ninety-minute plane ride to Georgia, but rather thinking about their predicament and not liking the conclusions he had drawn. He combed his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “Hell, I don’t know why I bothered bringing you. Once I saw the baby, I should have realized this wouldn’t work.”

With that, he turned and stormed to the door. “I’m going to get Candy’s things,” he said, bounding from the room.

Kassandra dropped to the bed, dispirited. She’d never thought of that. A man engaged to marry a woman would have been dating her long enough to know her child. And Gabe didn’t know her child.

He was right. They were destined to fail. And it was her fault. If she couldn’t come alone, be what he wanted, then she never should have come. He had every right in the world to be angry with her.

“What the hell is wrong with Mr. Cayne?”

Kassandra glanced up and saw a short, white-haired woman standing in the open doorway. She wore a simple gray dress and sensible shoes. She clutched a thick black cane in one hand, but her other hand and arm were weighted down with clean linens. “I said, what the hell is wrong with Mr. Cayne?”

For a full ten seconds, Kassandra sat openmouthed, staring at the woman, not quite sure how to respond. Kassandra might not be a member of the ruling class, but she knew one didn’t talk about the family’s troubles with the maid.

“Uh, thank you for the linens,” Kassandra said, hoping she’d changed the subject.

The woman hobbled to the bed and laid the linens on one corner. As she did, sleeping Candy rolled onto her belly and rubbed her face into the comforter. “Well, what have we here?”

“That’s my daughter, Candy,” Kassandra said.

“Oh, let me guess,” the old woman said. “I’ll bet this is why Gabriel Cayne went storming out of here a few minutes ago.” Leaning over to get a better look at Candy, she added, “He doesn’t like complications in his life. Wants everything to be perfect. I wouldn’t worry about what he thinks, though. He can be a real uppity pain in the butt sometimes.” She pointed at the towels. “Here, honey, put these towels in the bathroom for me, would you?”

“Sure,” Kassandra answered, taking the stack from the bed where the maid had set them. Walking to the bathroom, she realized that though she, herself, wasn’t actually saying anything, the maid could be drawing all kinds of conclusions from this conversation, and Kassandra knew she had to nip them in the bud. “Mr. Cayne just wasn’t expecting me to bring Candy along,” Kassandra explained. “At the last minute, I decided I didn’t want to miss Candy’s first Christmas. He wasn’t angry. We were both simply stressed out from the trip. Not only does Candy have more luggage than six adults, but she cried for most of the plane ride. Candy’s not the most wonderful traveling companion,” Kassandra added as she walked out of the bathroom.

“Nonsense,” the old woman said. “I think she’s perfect. Why, look at her,” she said, smoothing her gnarled fingers along Candy’s feathery hair. “She’s adorable.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Kassandra agreed, gazing at Candy’s rosy cheeks and velvety skin. Her hair had been matted into little tufts, and the spot right beside her ear held the imprint of Kassandra’s coat button, but in spite of that Candy managed to look beautiful. “It is hard to believe Mr. Cayne doesn’t find her as adorable as we do.”

The maid looked at Kassandra quizzically. “Do you always call him Mr. Cayne?”

“Not really,” Kassandra answered, unwittingly thinking of the hundreds of things she’d called him in the past year, particularly the things she’d called him when he woke Candy with one of his parties. “I’m only trying to be respectful.”

“Well, the hell with that,” the maid said with a cackle. “You can be honest with me.”

Not thinking that a very wise idea, Kassandra glanced at the linens. “Were you going to change the bed?”

“Yeah, but you beat me up here,” the maid said, still gazing at Candy who was sleeping soundly. “And now one of us is going to have to hold the little one while the other one works.”

“Fair enough,” Kassandra agreed, glad to be off the subject of Gabe Cayne. “You hold Candy,” she said, motioning the old woman to the rocker by the bay window. “And I’ll change the bed.”

“I like the way you think,” the old woman said, her eyes shining. “I could use a few minutes off my feet.”

Kassandra was half tempted to ask the poor thing how long she’d been working for the Caynes and how much longer she’d have to work before she could retire, but she thought the better of that one, too.

“Why don’t you tell me where you’re from while Gabe’s out getting your bags?”

Bags wasn’t the half of it. There was an odd assortment of baby things too numerous to mention. She didn’t want to think about that any more than she wanted to carry on a personal conversation with a member of the staff, but at this moment the conversation was the lesser of two evils. Besides, the question itself was harmless.

“Pennsylvania.”

“You work with Gabe?”

“Not really. Actually, I live in his apartment building.”

“I see,” the maid said quietly.

Kassandra shook her head. “No, I don’t think you do. I didn’t start dating him because his company owns the building I live in. I started seeing him because he wanted to see me,” she said, realizing how easily a story could be created by using the actual facts. “Things just sort of fell into place after that,” she added, deciding that this really was simple. Easy enough that they could pull this off—even with Candy—if Gabe would just loosen up enough to give her a few minutes to prime him for his part.

“No kidding,” the maid said, genuinely impressed, then she cackled. “To tell you the truth, I’m surprised the old scrooge brought you with him. He never brings his girlfriends down here. From what I hear, he’s ashamed of them. In fact, I’m real surprised he’s dating a woman who not only has a brain in her head, she also has enough class to give an old woman a break by making her own bed.”

Wide eyed, Kassandra gaped at her. “You shouldn’t be talking about him like that.”

The maid batted her hands again. “Oh, hell, when something’s true I think everybody’s got a right to say it. Gabe’s a chauvinist,” the old woman added candidly. “After seeing one or two of his girlfriends, even you would have to admit he’s a chauvinist.”

Not wanting to touch this conversation with a ten-foot pole, Kassandra frowned.

The maid gave her a crafty look. “You’ve seen some of the women he’s dated, haven’t you?”

Kassandra couldn’t help it, she winced.

“Awful, weren’t they?”

“No, not awful,” Kassandra began, scrambling to think of something positive to say about Gabe to counteract her wince, but she stopped herself. The woman just admitted Gabe never brought a girlfriend to Georgia before. Kassandra was the first. So, the maid couldn’t know about Gabe’s girlfriends.

Just as quickly as Kassandra reasoned that out, she also realized Gabe’s grandmother would know about his girlfriends, if only because of visits to Pennsylvania. She slumped on the bed. “Oh, God.”

As she said the last, the bedroom door swung open. “Judas H. Priest,” Gabe said, puffing as he dragged the playpen and swing into the room. “I’m surprised you didn’t roll up her bedroom carpeting and bring it along.”

He looked at Kassandra and then looked past her and saw his grandmother sitting on the rocker by the window, holding sleeping Candy. “Grandma!”

“Don’t you grandma me,” The woman said as she motioned for Kassandra to take the baby. “You have about four hours of explaining to do, young man,” she added, hoisting herself out of her chair. “What kind of man gets angry with his girlfriend because she doesn’t want to miss her baby’s first Christmas?”

Taken aback, Gabe glanced at Kassandra. Her eyes had widened, and her face had frozen into a look that said quite clearly she’d fallen for one of his grandmother’s traps. Seeing this, Gabe smiled. Two could play this game.

“I wasn’t angry that she wanted to spend Candy’s first Christmas with her,” Gabe explained. “I just didn’t want to spoil your holiday by having a baby around when we’re not used to children.”

Before Gabe realized what she was about to do, his grandmother swatted him across the back of his knees with her cane. “Poppycock. Don’t try to fool the master. I see what’s going on here.. If I hadn’t already realized you gave poor Kassandra a hard time about bringing Candy, I would have known it when I saw you bring Candy’s gear in.”

She drew a long, life-sustaining breath, and in that second Gave remembered that this woman who talked a good game was in the final minutes of her final quarter. The whole purpose of this visit was to spend some time with his grandmother before she died. And happy time. The purpose was not to argue or antagonize her. Or beat her at her own game.

“Apologize,” she said simply.

Without hesitation or qualm, Gabe turned to Kassandra. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, and suddenly realized he meant it. Not only had his silent treatment been unfair, but the child sleeping in Kassandra’s arms wasn’t all that bad. A little noisy, maybe, he thought, remembering the plane ride down, but not bad. “I yelled before I thought,” he added, leaning toward her. He brushed his lips across Kassandra’s for his grandmother’s sake, and though the move had been so unexpected Kassandra hadn’t responded at all, Gabe got a surprising little jolt.

Telling himself he was testing this only for his grandmother’s sake, he took Candy from Kassandra’s arms and laid her on the bed. Then he hooked his hands under Kassandra’s elbows and forced her to stand before he went back for another taste of her mouth. Not quick, or without thought, this kiss was long and lingering…and purposeful. The way Gabe had life figured, there was a reason behind everything, and once he uncovered the reason, then the problem had no power over him.

But as he kissed Kassandra with purpose and deliberation, he found himself getting lost, forgetting his purpose and losing his deliberation. There was something about the sweet, spicy taste of her mouth that drew him in until he wasn’t thinking anymore, he was only feeling. If his grandmother hadn’t cleared her throat, Gabe didn’t know how far he would have gone, how lost he would have become.

Trying to get himself out of the situation gracefully, he pulled away, but when he did he saw confusion in Kassandra’s eyes that mirrored his own. He also saw a sparkle of desire that he knew mirrored his own, too. Both of which he had to think about.

Clearing his throat, he turned to his grandmother. “So, were you going to make Kassandra dust, too?”

“Well, I figured a chauvinist like you better find a woman who enjoys making a house a home,” Gabe’s grandmother said. She faced Kassandra. “By the way, I’m Emm alee. You can call me Emma if you wish.”

“Thank you,” Kassandra responded politely, but, inside, her heart was beating so fast she wondered why no one noticed. She hadn’t had an overabundance of boyfriends in her life, but she’d had enough to know that kissing Gabriel Cayne wasn’t a normal experience. It was like falling out of an airplane, a rush of excitement followed by several minutes of sheer pleasure. Fortunately, she was wise enough to realize the crash to the ground at the end wasn’t worth it.

Emmalee began walking toward the door. “Oh, and Gabe,” she said as she slowly made her way out of the room. “I hope you’re not planning on sleeping in the same room with the baby,” she said pointedly.

Gabe smiled. “Grandma, we are always very careful of Candy’s feelings, but I’m also very careful of yours. I know your preferences and this is your house. You do not have to worry. Kassandra and I will respect your wishes.”

“Good boy,” she said, then hobbled out of the room.

Gabe immediately closed the door behind her. “Well,” he said, sighing slightly, as if suddenly uncomfortable around Kassandra. “That’s one hurdle out of the way. At least no one will question why we’re not sleeping together.”

Kassandra cleared her throat. “No, they won’t.”

“On the plane,” Gabe said, “I got a little worried that we might have had to—you know—share the same room for appearances’ sake.”

“I don’t think your grandmother would have liked that.”

“I was banking on that, but just in case she might have forced us into the same room as a test of our relationship, I knew we could have worked something out, with me sleeping on the floor or something.”

Kassandra nodded. “That would have worked.”

“Not that we would have to worry about being in the same room. You can trust me,” he hastily assured her, but though Kassandra knew Gabe believed himself to be very dependable, what happened between them when they kissed wasn’t as manageable as the very controlled Gabriel Cayne would like to believe.

Still, because their sleeping in the same room wasn’t an issue, Kassandra smiled. “Yes, I know I can trust you.”

Gabriel smiled, too. He smiled his best, biggest, most wonderful smile as he grabbed the doorknob behind him and began to pull the door open. He was certainly glad he’d convinced her he could be trusted, because that meant he only had to convince himself.

The door bumped his back. Gabe stepped out of its way so he could open it completely and slide behind it. Then he waved slightly as he slipped into the hall. For the first time in his life, he was relieved, very relieved, his grandmother was such a prude, because if he had to spend eight or ten hours in the same room with Kassandra, watching her undress, knowing she was wearing very little only a few feet away from him and on the same bed, and remembering what it felt like to kiss her, neither one of them would be safe.

With those thoughts, he headed toward his room and a very cold shower.

Chapter Four

They were already late for dinner when Gabe knocked on Kassandra’s door that evening. She let him in while bouncing into her right shoe and trying to fasten an earring simultaneously.

“This isn’t good,” he said, glancing at her bathrobe.

“I’m sorry, but Candy slept until a few minutes ago and any wise mother knows you never dress yourself before you dress your baby.”

From the playpen, Candy gurgled at him. Though he didn’t have a clue about why a wise mother dressed her baby first, Gabe turned to Kassandra and said, “No, I suppose not.”

Awkward, he stood in the middle of the room, not exactly sure what to do. He couldn’t very well wait for Kassandra in the hall while she put on her clothes—that would be a dead giveaway. Yet he didn’t quite feel comfortable waiting in here, either.

Kassandra made his decision for him by stepping into the bathroom to finish dressing. “You know, Gabe,” she called, “I was thinking this afternoon that this charade doesn’t have to be all that complicated. When I was talking with your grandmother I discovered that the truth works for us in a lot of places. The only thing is, we need to make up some stories about us dating, how we decided to get engaged, even about how you got to know Candy.”

“Okay,” Gabe agreed absently, sitting on the bed while he studied the brown-eyed wonder in the playpen. Dressed in a red-and-white striped dress, her dark hair adorned with a red flower which was held in place by a half-inch red elastic ribbon that circled her head, Candy looked cute enough to pose in a magazine.

“I’ve already told your grandmother we live in the same apartment building.”

Gabe smiled. “Did she accuse you of dating me for my money?”

Leaning out of the bathroom, Kassandra peered at him. “Almost. I nipped it in the bud before she could.”

“Good girl,” Gabe said, then Kassandra slid behind the door, going back to doing the things women do in bathrooms. Gabe looked at Candy again. Patting some sort of bright plastic toy, the baby gurgled loudly, reminding him that Kassandra was right. This situation had some anomalies in it that would have to be covered with stories—maybe more lies.

Resting his elbow on his knee and his chin on his closed fist, Gabe shut his eyes. He didn’t like the idea of lying to his parents and grandmother, not one damned bit. But he also didn’t have any choice. Because Emma worried that he’d never get married, Gabe had invented the story that he was engaged to ease his grandmother’s mind. Now, because it was her dying wish to meet the woman who had stolen his heart, Gabe had to introduce Emma to his fiancée. True, this fiancée was fake, but a fake was better than nothing. And in this case, the fake was also a cover for a lie—a bad lie that started with the best of intentions, but a lie nonetheless. Now he was stuck with the consequences—a semitoothless gurgle machine. As he thought the last, Gabe opened his eyes and found Candy studying him. When she realized his eyes were open, she smiled broadly, revealing gums and two, maybe three, teeth.

He decided she looked like an eight-month-old, almost bald flapper from the Roaring Twenties.

Her grin widened.

“I was thinking we could just tell your grandmother Candy’s the result of another relationship, and leave it at that,” Kassandra said from the bathroom, intruding into Gabe’s thoughts.

“My parents might buy that,” Gabe admitted honestly, “but I’m not sure my grandmother will.”

“You’re not suggesting that you’re going to claim her as your own?” Kassandra asked, stretching out of the bathroom to look at him again. The baby gave him a hopeful look and said, “Da-da.”

Feeling strangely hypnotized by the little nymph in the playpen, Gabe rose to pace and broke the spell. “No, I don’t want to make the story go that far. We were only supposed to have been dating for four months or so….”

“So you don’t have anything to worry about, and we can just keep this simple,” Kassandra said, then slid into the bathroom again. “If your grandmother asks about Candy’s father, I’ll just tell her the truth.”

For a good thirty seconds, Gabe stared at the bathroom door, wondering why Kassandra didn’t tell him the truth. He wasn’t really curious in a prying sort of way. Just curious. After all, they had to spend the next three weeks together. It was only fair that he know.

He glanced into the playpen again and Candy grinned at him.

On a whim he reached inside for her. “Come on,” Gabe said, pulling her out of the playpen. “I’ll just hold you here for a few minutes so you get adjusted to me.”

But this baby didn’t have any adjusting to do. She willingly went to him, even patted his fact as if delighted with the texture of his whiskery stubble. With his hands beneath her arms, resting on her rib cage, Gabe held her in a loose standing position. “Anybody ever tell you you’re too friendly?” he asked the happy little girl who gazed up at him dreamily.

“She doesn’t know fear yet,” Kassandra said from the bathroom. “Give her another month or so, though. From what I’ve read, she’s about to tumble into a shyness phase and I won’t be able to leave her with my own parents.”

Still staring at Gabe, Candy stuck her hand in her mouth. Gabe couldn’t quite figure out what to do with her legs, so he just let her dangle in front of him. Candy didn’t seem to mind. The closeness gave her the opportunity to study his face.

“Your parents keep her a lot?” he asked, unable to hide his curiosity any longer, and deciding this was as good a way as any to probe discreetly.

“Always,” Kassandra replied from the bathroom. “I couldn’t make it without them.”

“Actually, I’m surprised you got this far,” Gabe said, then realizing she might have taken that the wrong way, Gabe hastened to amend it. “I’m not surprised in a bad way,” Gabe quickly assured her. Candy said something that was a cross between a “boo” and a “goo,” and when she did a little stream of slobber slipped from her mouth to his jacket sleeve. Knowing he would probably be used to this kind of stuff if he really was dating Kassandra, Gabe didn’t react, except to swallow a yelp just dying to leap from his lips.

“I’m surprised in a good way. My God, Kassandra, husband and wife teams sometimes have trouble raising a child. And you’re doing it all alone. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Kassandra said, stepping out of the bathroom. Kassandra’s red jumpsuit matched her daughter’s red-and-white-striped ensemble. Her thick blond hair was down, curving into a loose wave that sat casually on her shoulders. She wore enough makeup to accent her features, but not so much as to look overdone.

Gabe’s immediate thought was to tell her she looked beautiful, but he stopped it. In the first place, she wasn’t the type of woman he dated. He dated uncomplicated women who wouldn’t mind marrying him for his money and then doing exactly what he told them to do for the rest of their lives. And Kassandra was nothing like that. She was a strange combination of sophisticated, smart and conservative. If they dated for real, she’d want to be an equal partner. But they weren’t dating for real. They were the kind of people who antagonized each other from across a hall, and that’s exactly what they would revert to doing the minute they returned to Pennsylvania. There was no need to get too personal. He bit back his compliment and smiled at her.

“Want to take her?” he asked meekly, holding Candy in front of him as if he were afraid to break her.

“You’ve got to learn to do this,” Kassandra said, then shifted Candy until Gabe was holding her on his arm. “See? Isn’t that better?”

“Yes,” Gabe agreed. He could smell Kassandra’s perfume, and that scent tripped the memory of kissing her. He’d hoped he’d blotted that out of his mind for good, but one whiff of her perfume brought it back full force. He felt those odd, wild impulses again, the ones he’d forgotten from his youth. He felt stirrings and longings that went much further and much deeper than were proper for a man who’d only really known this woman for a few hours. And, thinking about it, he couldn’t exactly say he knew her because they’d never actually held a real conversation.

“I think you should carry Candy downstairs,” Kassandra said, making her way to the door. “You could hand her to me as we step into the dining room, so no one sees that you’re not completely comfortable with her, but they’ll assume you are because you brought her downstairs.”

“Sounds logical,” Gabe said, but Kassandra was beating a hasty retreat to the door.

God, he looked wonderful tonight, she thought. She wasn’t sure if the proper name for the suit he was wearing was a tuxedo, but she could tell this wasn’t the kind of suit a man wore to the office. It was more dressy, more stylish, and so perfectly tailored, he looked incredibly sexy. Thinking about him tripped off the memory of kissing him, and Kassandra knew she was blushing. Blushing! She, a woman who’d had a baby, shouldn’t blush over a kiss. And not even a kiss, just the memory of a kiss. Good Lord, she was losing her marbles.

To keep her face hidden from Gabe, she led him down the stairway, but he had to direct her to the dining room. Exactly as they’d planned, Gabe handed Candy to Kassandra the minute they stepped into the room, but they hadn’t needed to plan that far ahead. As Kassandra took Candy from Gabe’s arms, both his parents and his grandmother rose and all three offered to take the child—before they were introduced.

Gabe made quick introductions around the table. His parents were Sam and Loretta, two tall, perfectly groomed, very attractive people in their fifties. His grandmother, of course, was Emmalee, a short, dignified woman—when she wasn’t pretending to be the maid.

Once the introductions were completed, it was obvious that Gabe’s family was having so much fun just having Candy around, that none of them was concerned about how or why she came into this world.

“Oh, Emma told us you had a baby,” Gabe’s mother said delightedly. “Isn’t she darling, Sam?”

Candy grinned broadly. Kassandra pressed her lips together to hide her own grin. “You’re going to spoil her,” she said, then laughed lightly.

“Grandparents are for spoiling babies,” Gabe’s dad announced as he beat the women to Candy and slid her from Kassandra’s arms.

“Put her in the high chair, Sam,” Loretta instructed, but Sam only smiled and shook his head.

“Babies don’t eat salad, so I’ll hold her through the first course.”

“All right,” Loretta reluctantly agreed. “But I get to feed her.”

“You feed her the peas and the awful stuff,” Emma said. “Then I’ll feed her the ice cream and she’ll like me best.”

“I’m sure she’ll like you all equally,” Gabe said, pulling out a chair for Kassandra. He took the seat beside her. “God knows, if she can like me, she can like anybody.”

“It is a bit of a shock to see you with a baby, Gabe,” Loretta said honestly. “It’s a pleasant shock, but a shock.”

“Not only that,” Emmalee interrupted, “but Kassandra’s not even Gabe’s type. She’s not bossy, or snotty, or half naked. I think our prayers have been answered, Loretta.”

Loretta took a quick, close look at Kassandra. “Why, Emma, you know, I think you’re right.”

“I’ll thank you both not to talk about me as if I’m not in the room,” Gabe muttered.

“We’ve been doing it since you were Candy’s age, Gabe. I hardly think we’re going to stop now,” Emmalee said. “Pass me a roll.

“Besides, it’s true,” Emma continued as she tore her roll apart and began to liberally apply butter. “This is the woman we’ve always wished to find in your apartment when we made our surprise visits to Pennsylvania. In fact, I’m so pleased, I swear I could cry.”

Right then and there Gabe knew all the torment he’d suffered over the past four days had been worth it. He also knew he’d do anything he had to do over the next three weeks to keep this charade going. Anything. Absolutely anything.

“That’s why I think you should get married while you’re here.”

If Gabe had been drinking something, he would have spit it across the table. Kassandra, however, reacted beautifully.

“We can’t, Emma,” she said sweetly, then patted Gabe’s hand. Grateful, he flipped his palm up, wrapped his fingers around hers and squeezed lightly. “I still have eighteen months of school.”

“Eighteen months of school?” Sam asked as he paced behind Emma’s chair, patting Candy’s back as Candy noisily patted his cheeks.

“Yes,” Kassandra answered. “I’m studying to be a teacher.”

“A teacher…?” Gabe said, then realized his mistake. But he was just so surprised. From the way she’d badgered him and thrown ordinance numbers at him, Gabe was sure she was studying to be a lawyer. “Is a very wonderful choice for Kassandra,” Gabe finished, covering his faux pas the best he could. “She’s very good with children.”

“Well, I should say so,” Emma scoffed, rising from her chair. Without asking for permission or giving a word of warning, she pulled Candy from Sam’s arms. “Just look at how happy and pleasant her baby is.” Candy picked that exact moment to lean forward and rub noses with Emma. “And what a darling,” Emma cooed. “She’s so darned sweet she deserves the name Candy.” Abruptly Emma stopped herself. She glanced at Candy, then glanced at Gabe, then back to Candy again.

The room seemed to fall into suspended animation, as Gabe felt the weight of the anticipated question—how to explain Candy to his grandmother. From the look on her face, and the way she kept glancing from Candy to Gabe, Gabe believed she almost expected Candy to be his. Kassandra had given him a logical answer for that. But he wasn’t sure telling his grandmother that Candy was the result of another relationship would be quite enough to satisfy her curiosity, or placate her delicate sensibilities. He held his breath, waiting.

“You know, Gabe,” Emma said, almost giddy. “She looks exactly like you.”

He drew a long breath. “She’s not mine, Grandma. Candy’s the result of a past relationship of Kassandra’s.”

“Oh, I don’t care,” Emma blustered. “What I’m saying is, Candy looks so much like you she’ll fit right into your family—once you start one,” she added craftily. “You do plan to adopt her?”

“Yes,” Gabe said, and gave Kassandra a quick look to see how she was reacting. From the expression on her face, Gabe saw Kassandra wasn’t going to contradict him—or rescue him. She was letting him keep the ball. He felt a bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck.

“Good. A child needs security. Though I’m sure I don’t have to explain that to you,” Emma added, smiling at Kassandra, who, to her credit, nodded, letting his grandmother have her opinions without argument—whether she agreed or not. Which was a hell of a lot more than he could say for his other girlfriends.

“And I also think it’s important that everyone in the family have the same name. So when you adopt her, Gabe, she’ll get your last name.”

Knowing this idea was really passé, and not knowing Kassandra’s feelings on the subject, Gabe held his breath. Still not contradicting, Kassandra only smiled.

“Oh, my goodness,” Emma said, then laughed noisily. “I just thought of something else. Once you change her name, she’ll be Candy Cayne.”

“Isn’t that adorable!” Loretta gasped.

Sam, Gabe and Kassandra all winced.

“Sounds like a stripper,” Sam muttered, shaking his head.

Kassandra said, “All I can picture is Candy getting teased through most of her school years.” She turned and smiled at Gabe. “Maybe we’d better give this another thought.”

“I think I would,” Sam agreed just as the maid arrived with dinner. Emma handed the baby to Loretta, who slid her into her high chair. “I’m more interested in hearing about Kassandra’s schooling. Do you go full-time?”

“Part-time. I can’t afford to go full-time.”

Taking her seat, Emma smiled shrewdly. “All the more reason for you to get married now. Then you’d be able to afford to be full-time because your husband would be responsible for your tuition.”

Unexpectedly, Kassandra laughed. “Don’t you think that’s a little bit inconsistent? I’m getting an education because I want to be my own person. Marrying a man to get my independence is almost paradoxical.”

“I say it’s common sense,” Emma said primly. “In my day…”

Candy let out a yelp, and Loretta, Sam and Emma all jumped to their feet.

“She’s just anxious,” Kassandra told Loretta with a chuckle. “She’s a very healthy eater and a fast eater. She wants you to speed things up.”

“Oh, I’m making you mad,” Loretta cooed to the baby. “Well, we’ll just go faster, then.”

Gabe watched the way his mother fawned over Candy, feeding her, tickling her, teasing her, and realized he’d never seen his mother like this. She was so happy she was buoyant.

“Give her a bite of the peas,” Sam said, and Gabe switched his attention to his father. He’d also never seen his father like this. Hell, he didn’t even know his father liked kids….

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