“Lucas, I’ve had a change of heart. I can’t marry you after all.”

“The facts haven’t changed, Allie. I still need a wife so that I can adopt a child, and you still need money.”

“I intend to explore other avenues for the loan.” What those would be she had no idea. “I’m sorry I can’t help you with your…situation, but marriage is out of the question.”

Resting his arms on his desk, he leaned toward her. “Why?”

Why? she asked herself. Why couldn’t she marry him? Last night at two a.m., her bedsheets tangled around her legs from her restlessness, she’d had the answers. Now it seemed none of them would hold up to his scrutiny.

“Because we hardly know one another.” She groped for the words. “Because marriage…” Because marriage is far too intimate a relationship. Because it would force a false closeness on us neither one wants.

Because you kissed me.

The Boss’s Baby Bargain
Karen Sandler

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s for the Barbaras: Barbara McMahon, my mentor and good friend; Barbara Stier, my stepmom and biggest fan; and Barbara Williams, my mom, who no doubt keeps them hopping up in heaven.

And special thanks to Jo Cain-Stiles for helping me understand Lucas.

KAREN SANDLER

first caught the writing bug at age nine when, as a horse-crazy fourth grader, she wrote a poem about a pony named Tony. Many years of hard work later, she sold her first book (and she got that pony—although his name is Ben). She enjoys writing novels, short stories and screenplays and recently produced her first short film. She lives in Northern California with her husband of twenty years and two teenage boys who are busy eating her out of house and home.

Contents

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

Epilogue

Chapter One

Allie Dickenson paused at Lucas Taylor’s office door, gulping in a breath and smoothing her hair with nervous hands.

She knocked twice, waiting for his impatient, “Come in!” before slipping inside and shutting the door. He sat behind his desk, his dark head bent to his work, his complete focus on the papers in his hands. Breath held, spine straight, she moved to stand before him, her stomach a mass of knots.

“Lucas, I need to talk to you.”

He took another moment to finish scribbling a note, then looked up at her, his gray eyes narrowing. Behind him, the morning sun streaming through the window backlit his large frame, casting his face into shadow. “Talk to me? About what?”

She slid her hands into the side pockets of her full skirt, her fingers clenching into fists. “Something…somewhat…personal.”

He just stared, still as a tiger stalking prey. She wished he’d look away…back to the papers cluttering his desk, out the floor-to-ceiling window that formed the back wall of his office. But of course he didn’t, and Allie had no choice but to meet his hard gaze.

“Personal?” He raised one brow. “As in unrelated to your job?”

“Yes…” The word came out as a near whisper. She swallowed, took another long breath. “…and no.”

As he fixed his gaze on her, the deep well of wishful thinking inside her imagined something in his eyes, something that set her heart to beating faster. Then his mouth tightened with annoyance. “I’m busy, Allie. Can you get to the point?”

The knots in Allie’s stomach froze into a sickening weight. She forced herself to loosen her fingers, ordered her shoulders to relax. Forming the words in her mind, she imagined them marching off her tongue. I need to borrow twenty thousand dollars. But they wouldn’t quite come. “This is hard for me to say.”

He waited for her to continue, fingers drumming. Then he picked up a pen, stroked its length with his fingertips. Forbidden thoughts arose in her mind as she followed his unconscious gesture. The brief panoply of images that emerged before she could banish them reminded her of all the reasons asking Lucas for a loan was a bad idea, no matter how desperate she was.

“Is this about your last raise?” he prodded. “You don’t think I’m paying you enough?”

She shook her head. “No, no, it’s not that.”

If anything, he overpaid. Since she’d joined TaylorMade Foods two years ago, she’d worked hard and had taken on increasing responsibility. But her last employee review had overwhelmed her with its glowing accolades. And the amount of her raise left her gasping. Once the problems with her father had started, though, she was glad for every penny.

“I’m probably the best paid administrative assistant in Sacramento County.” She mustered a smile and his gaze sharpened on her in a way that sent heat curling inside her. In spite of herself, she looked away briefly, then back at him. “But I’ve had some problems recently.”

Her hands had scrunched back into fists and she pressed them against her thighs. Despite the fullness of her muted floral-print skirt, he detected the motion, his gaze flicking down to her hips, then dragging back up to her face. There was a message in his gray eyes, in the sharp line of his jaw, one that reached inside her, teased her to translate it— That he was her superior, that he was fourteen years older than her twenty-six years, shrank to insignificance in the face of that enticing lure.

A stunning thought flashed into her mind. Maybe these ridiculous feelings weren’t one-sided. Maybe Lucas felt the same way. Maybe—

When he spoke, it took her a moment to understand the quiet words. “Allie, are you in trouble?”

She flushed, all at once mortified and relieved. Thank God he couldn’t read her mind. “No,” she assured him. “It isn’t that at all. It’s just—”

His phone jangled on his desk, forwarded from her own phone when she hadn’t been there to answer it. She took a step toward his desk, reflexively reaching for the receiver.

Lucas put up a hand to stop her. “I’ll get it.” He punched the lighted button on the phone console and lifted the receiver. “Lucas Taylor.”

He listened a moment, then glanced up at her. “I’ll have to get back to you, John. Give me two minutes.” Hanging up the phone, he said to Allie, “Can we finish our conversation later?”

Even as she felt relief at the reprieve, she worried that waiting would only make the words harder to say. She nodded. “Let me know when you have time.”

“You know my schedule better than I do. When do I have time?”

She squelched her irritation at his abrupt tone. She thought she’d learned not to react to his arrogance. It must be her unease about their conversation that had her off-balance. “You have an hour after lunch.”

“Come back then.” His gaze lowered to his papers. When she didn’t turn immediately, he looked up again. “Anything else?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing.” She quickly turned on her heel and let herself out of his office, shutting the door behind her.

Crossing to her desk with two long strides, she sank into her chair. Her hands covering her face, she wondered which was the biggest mess—her father’s crisis or the impossible situation with her boss.

What had started as a dimly remembered erotic dream had quickly flowered into a series of daytime fantasies that she couldn’t seem to stop. She’d allowed herself the indulgence at first because the fantasies distracted her from her loneliness, never mind the inappropriateness of the central figure. But her daydreams had recently taken on a life of their own, until the sexual images had drifted into decidedly unwanted emotions. Feelings for a man she truly didn’t know.

She dropped her hands from her face and glanced back at the door to Lucas’s office. Considering the craziness of her feelings for him, she’d nearly talked herself out of asking him for the loan. But where else could she go? She didn’t have an asset to her name worth borrowing against. Her brother and sister were both struggling to support their own families. If they knew their father’s money was all gone, they would help her in a heartbeat. But they didn’t know, and she planned to keep it that way.

Agitated, she tugged open her bottom desk drawer and pulled out a plastic bag of bread scraps. She needed to get out of the office, needed a break from the emotions churning inside her. Some time outside would give her a chance to regain a bit of calm.

Setting her phone to ring through to Lucas’s office, she hurried to the elevators and escape.

Lucas stared down at his telephone, his finger hovering above the keypad. The urgency of his business with his attorney, John Evans, had faded into the background the moment Allie had appeared in his office. What had once been an obsession had been bumped to second place just by her presence. Hell, he had completely forgotten he’d asked John to call him this morning.

All because of Allie. Allie, who had become invaluable to him in the last two years. Allie, who had single-handedly brought order to his hectic schedule and the extensive travel his work demanded.

Allie, who in the last several months had intruded on nearly every waking thought, weaving her way into his every sensual fantasy.

He knew it wasn’t right. He knew he was one inadvertent touch away from sexual harassment. Yet sometimes it was all he could do to keep himself from reaching out to test the softness of her hair, the smoothness of her cheek.

Shoving back his chair, he rose to his feet and turned to gaze out the window. Five stories below, the campus of TaylorMade Foods stretched out before him. Despite the late-summer heat of the Sacramento Valley, the rolling hills between the buildings of TaylorMade’s headquarters glowed a verdant green. Trees dotted the landscape—valley oak and scrub pine. At the center of the three five-story structures, like the hub of a three-spoke wheel, a pond glimmered in the midmorning sunlight.

The king of all I survey, Lucas thought darkly.

As he watched, a solitary swan skimmed across the surface of the pond. It was all his—the pond, the swan and its mate hiding somewhere in the reeds, the buildings of wood and stone and glass, the TaylorMade corporation. He’d worked hard for all of it, yet the sight of all that neatly landscaped beauty filled him with an edgy dissatisfaction.

Feeling a heaviness inside him, he turned back to the phone and stabbed out his attorney’s number. When John answered, Lucas didn’t waste time with preliminaries. “Sorry. What did you find out?”

John had known him too long to be put off by his brusqueness. “The county adoption agency said no way. They won’t even look at your application.”

He’d expected as much, but still the news twisted his insides. He fixed his gaze on the swan below, watching its passage. He wished he had a tenth of the serenity of the graceful white bird. “What about private adoption agencies?”

His attorney let out a sigh before he answered. “It’ll be the same story there.”

As the swan’s mate emerged from the thick cluster of reeds at the pond’s edge, Lucas caught sight of someone striding across the lawn toward the water. Allie. “Are you telling me it’s impossible?”

“I told you at the outset this wouldn’t be easy. The agencies give top priority to married couples.”

As if she were right beside him instead of a hundred yards away on the lawn below, Lucas felt heat spreading in his loins. With an effort, he returned his attention to the conversation with his attorney. “I doubt many parents could give a child what I can.”

John hesitated, as if choosing his words carefully. “Materially, no.”

Lucas heard the unspoken message, the one the usually straightforward John had danced around since Lucas had first announced his intention to adopt. With his wealth, Lucas could give a child anything he or she might desire. As for what the child might need…

He watched Allie reach into the plastic bag she’d brought with her and toss something out onto the pond toward the swans. The grace of her every movement drew him, set off an ache inside. “What about that attorney friend of yours?”

“The teenage girl he represents already found placement for her baby with a young couple.”

The swans approached the grassy shore in tandem, gobbling up the treats as they swam. Allie reached precariously out over the water to drop more bread scraps for the birds, then straightened to empty the last of the bag. Lucas took too much damn pleasure in watching her movements, as lithe as the swans she fed.

He turned resolutely away from the window. “You said he came in contact with a number of unwed teenage mothers.”

“He does,” John said slowly. “Look, I know I’ve mentioned this before and you’ve dismissed it outright—”

“No,” Lucas said, knowing where John was leading.

He continued doggedly, “—but you really ought to consider a more conventional—”

“No.”

“Just because your marriage with Carol didn’t work out—”

“No. I won’t marry.”

There was a long silence as John seemed to digest his flat refusal. “Then forget about adopting. You’re forty years old—”

“Is it a matter of money?” He couldn’t help himself; he turned back to the window. But Allie had gone, no doubt back into the building. The swans drifted together across the pond. “If greasing the wheels would speed the process—”

“There aren’t any wheels to grease. Hell, you can’t buy a child.”

Self-recrimination settled inside him, sharp and bitter. This was exactly what he had feared. That despite good intentions, what was most crucial for a child was beyond his capacity to provide. “John, I’ve got to go. Get back to that attorney friend and get another referral.”

“If you’ll think about my suggestion.”

He wouldn’t, but no point in telling John that. “Call me later in the week.”

Slipping the phone back into its cradle, he tugged open the middle desk drawer to retrieve the bottle of antacids. He tossed three into his mouth and chewed the tart, chalky tablets with a grimace. He’d been downing far too many of the antacids, a point his doctor had made at his last checkup a couple months ago. His doctor had told him to relax, to slow down, as if that would cure what was eating away at him inside.

Women and their damn biological clocks didn’t have anything on his own urgency for a child. Everything he’d worked for for the last twenty years, every goal had narrowed down to a single purpose—to provide for his progeny. He had amassed a fortune, more money than a man could spend in his lifetime, and everything in him insisted he pass it on to someone. No brothers or sisters, no parents—a knot twisted inside him painfully—he had to give what he possessed to a child, a child of his own.

He didn’t completely understand his own motives. As a boy, he’d dreamed of wealth and riches. He’d longed for something as simple as a home of his own during the long, lonely nights spent in a strange bed at yet another foster placement. If he could save even one boy or girl from a life like his, it might begin to make up for those years of deprivation.

Or at least that was what he told himself.

He never would have let Carol go if he’d felt the urgency for a son or daughter so strongly seven years ago. He would have found a way to keep her. Never mind that there was no love lost between them, he would have tied her down somehow. Hell, he might have even made her pregnant, if he could have been sure the child would inherit her genes and not his. It was just as well he’d felt differently then. To have brought a child into a marriage like his and Carol’s would have been cruel.

He pressed his palm against the wall of glass behind his desk, gazed down on his domain. The swan and her mate had disappeared back into the reeds. The breathless stillness of late summer left the man-made pond surface mirror-smooth, forming a near-perfect oval. That was his life, a construction of perfection, from the neatly manicured lawns of the TaylorMade campus to the sleek barren lines of his home in nearby Granite Bay. From the artwork lining the walls of his home to the acres of tastefully decorated office space, he lived a perfect life.

If only his soul weren’t so damned empty.

Shooting the cuffs of his jacket, he checked the time on the slim gold watch on his wrist. He had a meeting scheduled in ten minutes with research and development in one of the other buildings. Then there was a lunchtime interview for a project lead position opening up soon. Then, finally, he could return to his office and resume his conversation with Allie.

Although talk was the last thing he wanted to do with her. He wanted her in his arms, pressed against his body. He wanted to bury his face in the silk of her hair, to grab a handful of her soft skirt and ease it up her legs. To inhale her beguiling scent and trail his tongue down the slender column of her throat.

Good God, what the hell was he thinking? Gritting his teeth against his body’s response to the all-too-vivid images, he slammed his chair into the well of his desk. Gathering up the papers scattered across the desk, he stuffed them into his briefcase and headed for the door.

Allie wasn’t at her desk—thank God for that. Lord only knew what he might do with the tantalizing images still dancing in his head. Stepping past her desk, he headed for the elevators and slapped the down button.

When the elevator door opened, he wasn’t prepared for the sight of Allie inside, head bent down, arms crossed over her middle. When her head swung up and she met his gaze, the impact of the visual contact felt as physical as a punch to the gut. The eager fantasies started up again, made more real by her presence. His hungry gaze took in the picture she made—her wary green eyes, the silky dark hair brushing her shoulders, the contrast of her pale arms to the copper-colored shell top she wore. Her flowered skirt reached nearly to her ankles, but somehow it was more provocative than the shortest of minis.

The door started to close; he reached out a hand to stop it. Her gaze fell from his as color rose in her cheeks. She moved past him out of the elevator. “Sorry,” she said, her low voice setting off new flares inside him.

He stepped inside the elevator, keeping a hand on the door. “I’ll be over in R and D.”

She seemed to want to look anywhere but at him. Good God, had she somehow picked up on his ridiculous middle-aged fantasies? That would be a disaster. At the least she’d want to transfer into another department. At the worst she might leave TaylorMade entirely, take a position at another firm.

The elevator buzzed, cutting into his thoughts. He wished she’d look up at him, so he could try to read what might be on her mind. The elevator buzzed again, so he called out, “See you after lunch,” then let go of the door. Just before it shut, she did look up at him, but damned if he could interpret what he’d seen in that brief glimpse of her green gaze.

As he rode the elevator down, his stomach roiled with an unfamiliar anxiety. The sudden fear that Allie might leave, that his own lack of control might have driven her away dug its claws into him. When he should have been planning for the meeting ahead of him, his mind wouldn’t leave that fear alone.

Was that what she’d come to talk to him about this morning? That she planned to leave the company? Despite his every effort to keep his feelings hidden, had she somehow sensed his passion for her? Lord, no wonder she’d seemed so skittish. She was probably afraid he’d make a play for her at any moment.

He was such a damned idiot. Striding through the downstairs lobby, he gave the glass door leading to the outside a savage push. As he followed the concrete pathway leading to the next building, he ran over and over every nuance of what Allie had said—and hadn’t said—this morning.

As he did, snatches of his conversation with John interwove themselves in his mind with images of Allie, and a preposterous idea floated briefly into his consciousness. He didn’t allow himself even a moment’s consideration before abandoning the notion. Instead he concentrated on the points he would use to counter Allie’s intent to leave.

He’d convince her that her impressions were wrong. That what she’d sensed from him had been merely his admiration for her abilities as his admin assistant. Because that was all that really mattered—her value to him as an employee. The rest was just his ill-timed lack of control, a weakness of approaching middle age.

Tugging open the door to the research and development building, he forced his attention back to his scheduled meeting. For the next hour he kept his focus there, his mind straying to thoughts of Allie no more than a half dozen times during the meeting.

When Allie returned to her desk after lunch, she found a yellow sticky note on her phone. She recognized the handwriting on it immediately as Lucas’s hasty scrawl.

Problem in R and D.

Have to postpone our meeting.

—L.

She stared at the brief message with Lucas’s extravagant looping L at the bottom. He’d taken the time to write her a note? Ordinarily he’d bark out a few words to whoever was nearby, leaving Allie to ask around to discover his whereabouts.

She was even more surprised when he called twenty minutes later, launching into his explanation without even a hello. “The developers and marketing are at each other’s throat. This might take the rest of the day.”

Even the sound of his voice set off a trembling inside her. Eyes shut, she held the phone to her ear and willed herself to be calm. “No rush,” she said, even though her father’s dilemma pressed in on her. “We can try again tomorrow.”

He paused, piquing her curiosity further. “What about dinner? Are you free?”

“Dinner? Tonight?” She had nothing planned, but dinner with Lucas seemed terribly…intimate. Part of her ached to say yes even as her mind warned that she would be treading into dangerous territory.

“If you have a date…”

“No,” Allie said quickly. “Dinner tonight would be fine. What time?”

“Six? Gives me a deadline for this group.”

A deadline. Of course. Dinner with her gave him an excuse to call an end to what would likely be an interminable meeting. There was nothing intimate about it.

“Six is fine. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” She pulled his calendar toward her, determined to be businesslike. “What about your afternoon appointments?”

“What have I got?”

“Two meetings, another interview.” She read the details from the calendar.

“Attend the meetings in my place. Get Randy Sato to do the interview. Got to go.”

“See you—” But he hung up before she could get the words out.

Allie sagged back in her chair, trying to quiet the clamor inside her. This couldn’t go on much longer, her feeling this way and working so closely with Lucas. She had to get over her silly schoolgirl crush. Before long, someone would notice. At the least, it would be terribly embarrassing. At the worst, she might well lose her job.

She didn’t even want to think about that possibility, not with the situation with her father so dire. She had to keep a level head, for her father’s sake.

Turning to her computer, she printed off the documents she needed for the two afternoon meetings, then caught up on some correspondence. When the time for the first meeting rolled around, she had her focus back, her mind on work. Yes, she had to return to her desk twice before she’d even reached the elevator—once to get her laptop, once to retrieve the papers she’d carefully printed for the meetings. And she did draw a blank on the names of two of the attendees—people she’d known for the entire two years she’d worked at TaylorMade. But her dinner with Lucas didn’t intrude on her thoughts at all.

Not much, anyway.

His fingers wrapped around the steering wheel of his Mercedes, Lucas glanced again at the rearview mirror. Allie was still behind him in her ten-year-old Buick, her face barely visible through the sun-gilded windshield. When he’d first seen her rattletrap car, he’d nearly insisted she ride with him in the Benz, just to be certain she’d make it to the restaurant. But the Buick had started right up, its badly tuned engine rattling and knocking as it idled.

The Mercedes’s engine purred as he took the turn onto Auburn-Folsom Road toward the American River. As Allie’s car lagged behind him, barely making the light, Lucas mentally included “company car” on the list of inducements he planned to present to her tonight. Added to the package he’d already put together, she couldn’t possibly say no.

Nevertheless, anxiety dug away at his gut. He shouldn’t have taken that damn call from his attorney just before he left the office. It was only more bad news and it had thrown him off his stride, set him to second-guessing his strategy for handling Allie. The two had nothing to do with each other, no connection whatsoever. His failure to adopt had no bearing on his ability to retain the best admin assistant TaylorMade had ever hired.

Turning into the Cliff House Restaurant parking lot, he maneuvered his silver sedan into a space, then quickly crossed to Allie’s car to open her door. She looked up at him, her startled green eyes a tantalizing enticement. Reaching across for her purse, she laid her fingers in his outstretched palm and rose from the car. She quickly pulled her hand free, turning to shut the car door.

Keep your damn hands off her, Taylor! He followed her into the Cliff House, maintaining a good two feet of space between them. When he stepped around her to open the restaurant door for her, he made certain he didn’t rest a hand at the small of her back or brush his fingers along her arm. But his mind went wild imagining it.

It was still fairly early and the restaurant was half empty. The maître d’ led them to a window table overlooking the American River. The setting sun glittered on the broad swath of water below, a nearly blinding display.

Lucas waited until the maître d’ had finished fussing with menus and water glasses before he launched into his campaign. “Before you say anything, I want you to know I can match any salary.”

“What?” Her eyes widened, momentarily distracting him.

He pushed on. “And I can accelerate your vesting. Four years instead of five.”

Her brow furrowed. “Lucas, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t intend to let you leave the company.”

“What? Oh!” She smiled, and his body reacted immediately to that simple curving of her lips. “I’m sorry.”

Thinking she was apologizing because she’d already made up her mind, he opened his mouth to offer another of the persuasions he’d devised. But then she reached across the table to lay her hand over the back of his and his good sense fragmented in that light touch.

His teeth clenched, his jaw worked to keep himself from turning his hand on the table to clasp her fingers in his. He dug his fingertips into the white linen tablecloth until he thought he would tear holes in the sturdy fabric. His eyes on her small hand, he felt her warmth melting into his skin.

He glanced up at her, her gaze tangling with his. One moment they seemed joined by an intangible but unbreakable cord, the next she was snatching her hand away, color rising in her face. Lucas forced himself to leave his hand where it was, ignoring the chill that seemed to brush against it now that her touch was gone.

She dropped her hands to her lap, and her gaze fell to the white linen. “I’m not leaving the company, Lucas.” She tipped her chin up. “I need a loan.”

He tried to understand what she was saying. “A loan?”

She bobbed her head. “From you, Lucas. Twenty thousand dollars.” Her voice faltered slightly over the amount.

She wasn’t leaving! A weight seemed to lift inside him at the news. Yet his relief made him feel somehow vulnerable. He hardened that softness inside him. “Why?”

At first he thought she wouldn’t answer. “It’s personal. I’d rather leave it at that.”

Her evasiveness made him feel justified in being harsh with her. “You expect me to give you twenty thousand dollars—”

Her eyes burned with green fire. “Not give…loan.”

“—loan you twenty thousand without any reason?”

To her credit, she kept her gaze on him. “I’m not in trouble, Lucas. This isn’t to pay off a gambling debt run up in Tahoe or a stack of credit-card bills. But it is personal. I’d hoped that in the two years I’ve worked for you I’d proved myself—”

“Yes.”

Her mouth hung open a moment as she absorbed what he’d said. “Yes? You’ll loan me the money?”

He gave her a clipped nod, the enormity of what was falling into place inside him nearly making him shake all over. It’s a business decision, nothing more, he told himself, but still it took a good long breath for him to continue.

“I’ll give you the money,” he said. “On one condition.”

She swallowed, the motion of her throat begging him to touch her there. “What condition?”

“Marry me.”

Chapter Two

Allie couldn’t possibly have heard him right. She stared at his implacable face, waiting for him to continue, to clarify what he’d said. But he just stared back at her, his gray eyes unfathomable.

“Marry?” She swallowed, shaking her head. “You?”

For an instant, he seemed flustered, then he gathered his usual cloak of arrogance around him. “Hear me out.”

He leaned back in his chair, his gaze falling a moment to the linen tablecloth. She knew that impenetrable expression, had seen it dozens of time during staff meetings or when he was in the midst of acquisition negotiations. It meant he felt fully in control of the proceedings and intended to turn circumstances exactly the way he desired.

“Lucas—” she began, but he forestalled her with a raised hand.

“Hear me out,” he said again.

He lowered his hands to the edge of the table, his fingers gripping so tightly, his knuckles whitened. Allie suddenly realized he wasn’t nearly as in control as she’d thought.

He kept his eyes fixed on her as if it were an effort of will. “For the past several months, I’ve been attempting to adopt.”

“A baby?” she asked, incredulous.

“Or a young child.” He cleared his throat. “The county doesn’t want to approve a forty-year-old single man. My attorney tells me I could even the odds considerably if I married.”

He made the process sound so cut-and-dried, she might have thought he considered a child one more step in the well-thought-out business plan of his life. Yet she detected the faintest tremor in his voice, a shadow of desperation in his eyes. This from a man who remained aloof when employees brought their children into the office.

“Lucas, we hardly know one another. To marry—”

“If it’s sex you’re worried about…”

Sex! Good God, she hadn’t even considered the physical side of a marriage to Lucas. Despite herself, her mind raced, her heart rate keeping pace. All the fantasies she’d struggled to contain surged forward.

“…I’m not proposing a conventional marriage,” Lucas continued, oblivious to her rampant thoughts. “It would be strictly platonic.”

The sudden rush of disappointment unsettled her. Pushing it aside, she focused on rational discussion. “Why me? There must be other women, women you’ve dated who could play the role of wife.”

“They have much more complex lives than you. They’ve been married before, have children, their own homes. You have no strings.”

True enough, but she felt irritation at the dismissive way he summed up her life. Allie shook her head. “Strings or not, I’m not interested in marriage.”

“Look,” Lucas said, reaching across the table to take her hand. She couldn’t suppress a shiver of reaction. “I need a wife, you need money. Agree to marry me and we both get what we want.”

His large hand covered hers, his warm palm nestling against her fingers. The warmth, the power of him seemed to sap her strength, to dissolve her will. Like her autocratic father, this man could swallow her up, diminish her.

Her own mother, a sweet and loving woman, had always seemed to shrink in stature when she was with her husband. French Dickenson barked out an order and Elizabeth complied, even if it turned her own plans upside down. Allie’s mother gave every ounce of her soul to the man she adored, tucking her own needs away time and again. When the cancer took hold, Elizabeth’s physical pain was nothing compared to the agony she had felt in defying French by dying.

Allie was not her mother. She couldn’t live like that.

“No.” She tugged her hand free. “I can’t marry you.”

His jaw tightened and she recognized the hard light in his gray eyes. “Then I can’t loan you the money.”

Allie sat there, stunned. Not that he would turn her down, but that he would coerce her this way. To back her into a corner went beyond arrogance, bordered on cruelty.

“You can’t mean that.”

“I can. It’s my money, Allie.”

She looked around her at the half-full restaurant, at the waiter hovering nearby, out the window at the American River below them. She couldn’t say yes, couldn’t let herself be sucked into Lucas’s control. She faced him again. “Then I’ll get the money somewhere else.”

A faint smile curved his lips. “If you could have borrowed it elsewhere, you wouldn’t have asked me. I’m your last resort.”

Of course he was right, damn him. And he surely knew how desperately she needed the money. Still, the words were impossible to drag out. “If I agreed, how long would we have to stay married?”

The tension in his face eased at her apparent capitulation. “One year, possibly two. However long it takes to finalize the adoption. I’ll have to consult my attorney.”

She nodded, her head suddenly pounding. She felt as if she perched on the lip of a chasm, readying herself to leap it. Would she safely reach the other side? Or fall to be crushed on the rocks below? “Then yes,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I’ll marry you.”

Triumph lit his eyes—triumph and something else. Relief? “Good then. Fine.” He picked up his water glass to sip; she could swear his hand trembled slightly. “A month enough time for you? To pack up your apartment and move to my estate?”

The enormity of what she’d agreed to swamped her. “Move? Why can’t I keep my own place?”

“Social services performs home visitations for prospective parents. They’ll expect husband and wife to be living together.”

She imagined herself standing in the river below, the swift currents below the surface taking her feet out from under her, sweeping her away. She tried to grasp for some measure of self-control. “When can you give me the money?”

He gestured peremptorily to the waiter. “After we’re married.”

“No,” she said, grateful for the opportunity to take a stand, no matter how weak. “I need the money now.”

“That’s acceptable.” He opened the menu, effectively dismissing her now that he had her concession. “I’ll wire the money to your account tomorrow.”

He ordered for them both, scarcely pausing to ask her approval of his choice. Shaken by what had transpired in the past several minutes, she realized she would have to strengthen her resolve if she hoped to survive this…this…agreement with Lucas with her self-esteem intact.

When her salad arrived, she dove into it, suddenly ravenous. She’d been so anxious about her upcoming discussion with Lucas, she’d eaten almost nothing at lunch. Now, with a little food in her stomach, she could wrest some control back from Lucas.

“Where shall we have the ceremony?” she asked.

He seemed surprised by her question. “The county courthouse. Or Tahoe. It doesn’t matter.”

She tipped her chin up stubbornly. “It does to me. I want my family there. They’d never forgive me if I didn’t invite them.”

“It isn’t a real wedding, Allie. We don’t need your family there.”

He was right, of course. There was no real commitment between them other than expediency. But she felt a compulsion to include her family. “I need them.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t want this turning into a circus.”

“Not a circus, Lucas. Just my sister, brother and their spouses.”

His gaze narrowed on her and she got the sense he was only now realizing he may have underestimated her. She felt a brief flare of satisfaction. Then he dipped his head in acquiescence. “Fine. We’ll include your family.”

She ought to be content with that victory, but she pushed on. “And I want the ceremony in a church, not the courthouse.”

She expected exasperation. Instead she got cold, tightly leashed anger. “Not a church. The courthouse or my own backyard. I won’t say the vows in a church.”

The bitterness in his tone, the bleak rage in his eyes shocked her. “The courthouse, then,” she said softly.

Even as he retreated behind his habitual arrogant mask, Allie wondered about the true self hidden beneath the layers of control, wondered if there was anything more to Lucas Taylor than the overbearing persona he showed the world.

Maybe not. Maybe some men, like Lucas, like her own father, only knew one way—power, control, dominance. Give and take, compromise didn’t exist in their universe. In all the years and all the battles with her father, Allie would have given anything for a truce. But in her father’s eyes, truce meant surrender and surrender meant defeat.

In the end, his own body had defeated him. As his lucent moments became scarcer, her father might never realize the way his daughter had sacrificed her own freedom on his behalf.

Leaning back as the waiter came to take away their salad plates, Allie felt the significance of her agreement with Lucas settle on her, a nearly unbearable weight. The delectable broiled salmon the waiter set before her a few moments later could have been sawdust for all the appeal it held for her roiling stomach. As she made a show of cutting a bite of the succulent fish, she glanced over at Lucas.

He sat motionless, looking out the window, his expression distant, his face emotionless. While she struggled to come to terms with the prospect of marriage, Lucas seemed to have already compartmentalized it as another finalized business decision. It meant no more to him than that.

Her gaze dropped to the table and saw a different story in Lucas’s hands. Resting on either side of his plate of swordfish, they gripped his fork and knife so fiercely she wondered if he would bend them in his agitation. Tension popped the tendons out in the backs of his hands, set his shoulders into a stiff, rigid line.

“Lucas.” She reached out, lightly touched his hand.

He jerked back from her, dropping the silverware. “Excuse me.” Tossing his napkin on the table, he rose and strode off toward the men’s room.

Allie watched him go, a thousand questions whirling in her mind. She ate a few bites of her salmon, a little of the fresh broccoli beside it on the plate, all the while forcing herself to sit still and wait for Lucas.

When he returned, he’d gathered his businesslike shroud around him again. “We can have the ceremony at a church, if you like.” He said it as if it mattered little to him, as if his vehement objection earlier had never happened. “I’ll leave it to you to pick the church.”

He dug into his swordfish then, finishing it off methodically. No explanation of why he’d left the table, no further discussion of the wedding. Allie could scarcely take another bite, he had her so off-balance.

Later, when he escorted her to her car, he opened the door for her and waited until she’d climbed inside. “Last Saturday in September,” he said. “The afternoon is fine.”

She might as well have been scheduling a business trip for him. “Have you considered what we should tell people at work?”

He shrugged. “They know how closely we’ve worked together the past two years. We’ll announce we’ve decided to marry. They’ll draw their own conclusions.”

It might be that easy for him. Most of TaylorMade’s employees were too intimidated to ask Lucas any personal questions. But she had a half dozen friends at the office who would grill her mercilessly when they found out.

He gazed down at her, his expression inscrutable. “That’s it, then.”

She waited for him to back away, to shut the door. Instead, he bent, leaning into the car, brushing his lips against her cheek. Then his hand cupped her chin, turning her toward him. He pressed his lips to hers, softly, his lingering warmth stealing her breath.

She couldn’t help herself, she kissed him back, slanting her mouth against his, raising her hand to his rough cheek. She heard a low sound in his throat, felt his fingers on her chin tighten. Then the briefest stroke of his tongue against the seam of her lips easing her mouth open. She parted her lips, ready to welcome him inside.

He straightened abruptly, backing away from her. “Sorry,” he rasped out before slamming her door. Rounding his car, he wrenched open his door, every movement full of anger. He waited until she’d started her engine and pulled out, but he wouldn’t look her way.

Her entire body shook in the aftermath of his kiss and the anger that followed it. As she navigated the streets back to her apartment, she kept a stranglehold on the steering wheel to keep from veering off the road.

She’d thought she could handle this. She’d thought she could marry Lucas and still keep her sanity. But now she realized it was entirely impossible. His kiss had brought home to her the utter lunacy of the notion.

She’d tell him tomorrow. First thing in the morning, when she walked into his office, she’d tell him she’d changed her mind. She’d just have to scare up another source of money.

Agitated, she missed the turn at Sunrise and had to double back. As she wended her way through the traffic, she tried to rehearse what she would say to Lucas. But despite all her efforts, her mind kept returning to the feel of his lips on hers, the strength of his hand cupping her face.

Lucas shut the front door behind him and tossed his keys on the small table in the spacious entryway. Through sheer will he kept himself from flinging his briefcase across the acres of Berber carpeting his living room. He dropped it under the table, unwilling for the moment to open it and pull out the work he’d brought home.

What the hell had he done? What madness had taken control of him, had driven him to kiss Allie? What had possessed him to suggest marriage in the first place?

He slipped out of his shoes and padded across the glowing oak hardwood of the entryway to the thick living-room carpet. At the far end of the wide room with its high ceilings and expanse of windows overlooking the three-acre lake below stood a fully stocked wet bar. The housekeeper, Mrs. Vasquez, always filled the ice bucket before she left for the day. Lucas pulled down a tumbler and dropped in a handful of ice.

An array of liquor bottles crowded the shelf above. Why did he keep so much alcohol in the house when he never entertained? Some damn test he supposed. To prove he could resist what had destroyed his mother, to refute the potential in his own genetic makeup.

Resolutely, he chose a bottle of tonic water and emptied it into the tumbler. A dish of cut lime waited for him in the small refrigerator under the wet bar. After squeezing a wedge into his glass, he moved to the sofa and sagged into it.

He took a swallow of the tart tonic water then set the tumbler aside. It had all seemed so logical in the moment. He needed a wife, she needed money, just as he’d said. But it was apparent from his lack of control when he walked her to his car that it had been his libido talking, not his brain.

He picked up the glass again, glided it back and forth against his brow. What now? There was really only one course of action—tell Allie he’d changed his mind, that after giving the matter consideration, he’d realized a marriage between them would be untenable. He’d loan her the money as he’d promised and work out an arrangement to deduct payments from her paycheck.

And the solution to his problem—the complete unlikelihood that the county would relent and decide him eligible to adopt? He’d have to find another way, through private agencies or contacts made through his attorney, John. Those prospects were just as bleak for a single father and time was certainly against him. But at least he had the money to pursue that route.

Rising, he walked to the kitchen to check his answering machine. There were two messages, both from John, both since he’d left his office. Without much hope, Lucas picked up his portable phone and headed out the back of the house. This side faced a grove of oak trees and the small vineyard he’d had put in four years ago. Leaning against the porch rail, he speed-dialed his attorney’s home number and waited for him to pick up.

After the greetings were out of the way, John cut to the chase. “Did I ever introduce you to my cousin, Angela?”

Lucas pressed his lips into a grim smile. “I don’t want you fixing me up, John.”

“But I think you two might hit it off,” John persisted. “She’s in her early thirties, absolutely gorgeous and ready to settle down. I told her about you—”

“Not interested, John.” Lucas paused, sipped his drink. “Besides, I’ve already made my own arrangements.”

“What arrangements?”

His hand shaking, Lucas had to set the glass on the porch rail. His decision of a few moments before might as well have never been. “I’ve asked someone to marry me.”

Total silence on the phone line. Lucas waited for John to muster a response. After several seconds, his attorney asked, “Who?”

“Allie Dickenson, my admin assistant.”

“I had no idea there was anything between you and—”

“There isn’t,” Lucas said flatly. “I explained the adoption situation to Allie and she agreed to help me out.”

“Just like that.” John sounded dubious.

“Not entirely. She’s in a financial bind. I promised her some money in exchange.”

It sounded so crass, laid out like that. He didn’t like the negative light Allie’s promise to marry him shed on her.

“I see,” John said. “And how long will your…commitment last?”

Tension tightened in Lucas’s stomach at John’s evasion of the word marriage. “Until the adoption is finalized. I hope things will move faster with the hurdles out of the way.”

“Even with private adoption, that could be a year or two,” John cautioned.

“I told her as much.” A year or two of living with Allie filled Lucas with an unexpected excitement. He paced across the porch, moving from one end of the house to the other.

John’s next statement brought him back to earth. “I assume you’ll want a pre-nup drawn up.”

A prenuptial agreement? Lucas hadn’t even considered that aspect. Something in him balked at the idea of asking Allie to sign a document protecting his assets. It seemed an insult to a woman who had been nothing but honorable as long as he’d known her. “Is that necessary?”

“I highly recommend it,” John said.

Lucas sighed. “How soon can you have it ready?”

“When’s the wedding?”

“Last weekend in September.”

“I’ll have it done by the end of next week.”

His mind working feverishly, Lucas re-crossed the porch. Beyond him, the gnarled branches of his vineyard glowed orange in the last of the setting sun, each vine heavy with grapes, Chardonnay and Zinfandel. He had so much, surely he could spare more than the twenty thousand he’d promised.

“I want to include a sizeable settlement for Allie.” Lucas named an amount, then immediately wondered if he should double it.

“You can’t be serious!” John protested. “Carol didn’t even get that much.”

“There wasn’t as much to give back then. Allie’s sacrificing one or more years of her life. It’s only fair.”

A thought niggled at him that it might have been fairest to simply loan her the money without the commitment of marriage. But he pushed it aside, determined to continue.

After he said his goodbyes to John, he considered calling Allie. He wanted to tell her about the pre-nup, about the additional compensation he was awarding her. He felt an urgency to cement the deal between them.

Pushing open the French doors leading back into the house, he strode to the kitchen cabinet where the phone books were kept. He could boot up his computer and get her home number from the company database, but this would be quicker. He’d found her number and was about to dial it when doubt lapped at him. Maybe he should leave her be tonight. He’d already dumped a mountain of turmoil in her lap, maybe she needed some breathing space.

He set down the phone on the counter and headed for the stairs, pausing only to grab his briefcase. But two hours later, he’d accomplished none of the tasks he’d brought home with him. He could think of nothing but Allie’s face, her lips, the taste and feel of her against his tongue. Just as he thrust aside one sensual image, another rose to take its place.

It was only lust, he told himself, and lust he could control. As long as those baser feelings didn’t give way to other, more intimate, more vulnerable emotions, he would be safe.

So, as he lay in his bed courting sleep, he allowed himself the harmless fantasies. When he finally slept, the eroticism followed him into his dreams. But as morning neared, the sensual haze parted and he saw only Allie’s face, her soft green eyes on him, her lips curved in a smile.

When he woke, he refused to acknowledge the inexplicable ache inside him. But it clung to him, nonetheless, as he dressed, ate a hurried breakfast, drove to TaylorMade headquarters. It eased only when he walked off the elevator and saw Allie waiting for him, a tentative smile on her face.

Chapter Three

Everything had changed, Allie realized as she watched Lucas stride toward her desk. Because of their agreement…because of their kiss. Telling him she’d had second thoughts, that she no longer intended to go through with the marriage wouldn’t bring things between them back the way they were before. In that one moment when his lips touched hers, the world had shuddered to a stop on its axis and had begun to spin an entirely different way.

He nodded at her as he passed, then waited at his door for her to follow. She wondered if he’d read her mind, had realized she wanted to talk to him. Then she remembered this was the way they started every morning, with his appointment book, going over his day.

As she picked up the laptop computer she stored all his engagements on, she mentally placed her declaration at the top of their to-do list. She had no intention of letting this slide as she had her request for a loan. They had to clear the air immediately.

She shut the door behind her, then crossed the room to set the computer in its usual place on his desk. As it powered up, she opened her mouth to speak.

He beat her to it. “I spoke to my attorney last night and this morning. There are a few details about the marriage we need to go over.”

No mention of their kiss, as if it had never happened. Lucas was back in control and Allie realized he could easily steamroller her if she let him.

She stood up straighter before him. “Lucas, I’ve had a change of heart. I can’t marry you after all.”

Not a flicker of reaction in his face. He just sat down and motioned her to do the same. “The facts haven’t changed, Allie. Your needs and mine dovetail. I’ve already arranged to have the funds you requested transferred. Just give me your account number.”

As she brought the visitor chair up to the desk opposite him, she tried to frame what she’d rehearsed late into the night. She lowered herself into her chair, sat perched on the edge. “I intend to explore other avenues for the loan.” What those would be she had no idea. “I’m sorry I can’t help you with your…situation, but marriage is out of the question.”

Resting his arms on his desk, he leaned toward her. “Why?”

It was barely a question, more a demand for information. Why? she asked herself. Why couldn’t she marry him? Last night at 2:00 a.m., her bedsheets tangled around her legs from her restlessness, she’d had the answers. Now it seemed none of them would hold up to his scrutiny.

“Because we hardly know one another.” She groped for the words. “Because marriage…” Because marriage is far too intimate a relationship. Because it would force a false closeness on us neither one wants.

Because you kissed me.

“Allie.” He said her name so softly, almost tenderly, bringing her attention to him. His steel-gray gaze fixed on her face, his expression intent. “What I did last night…it was a mistake. A ridiculous mistake. I won’t repeat it. I promised you a platonic relationship. You have no reason to fear I’ll overstep those bounds again.”

Under his scrutiny, she could barely bring two thoughts together. “Even still, Lucas—”

“Please reconsider, Allie.”

Every ounce of self-preservation within her screamed no. His promise didn’t change the thread of attraction stretching between them, her secret yearning that Lucas would do exactly what he’d just vowed he would not.

And yet… She studied his face, the impenetrable mask he wore. His eyes were guarded, giving nothing away. But when her gaze dropped to his hands on his desk, her impressions shifted. He’d clenched his fingers together, all the tension in his body centered on the tendons and bones of his hands.

What could be going on inside him that made control so imperative? She’d always seen him as arrogant, autocratic. In the two years she’d worked for him, she’d had to struggle constantly to hold her own, to stand her ground. Marrying him would make that battle ten times worse.

And yet… His gaze met hers unflinchingly as the grip of his hands tightened. Suddenly, her heart ached for him. And she knew, despite the sure peril ahead, what she would say.

“Yes, then,” she said, nodding. “We’ll marry.”

A smile flashed on his face and was gone in an instant. Tension seemed to drain from his body. “Let me update you on my conversation with my attorney.”

He launched into an explanation of the terms and conditions of their prenuptial agreement, his tone as impersonal as if he were discussing an upcoming corporate takeover. This was a union between a man and a woman, a joining together that should be done in love. She wished she could reach inside him somehow and shake that fierce reserve. But he’d withdrawn behind his barriers, unreachable.

She knew one way to shake him. She’d seen it last night when he’d leaned into her car to kiss her. He hadn’t planned it, she was sure of that. Something other than his formidable mind had taken charge, pulled him to her.

What if she initiated a kiss? What if she rounded his desk right now and touched him? Slipped onto his lap, threaded her fingers into his hair and brought his mouth closer to hers? She’d gotten such a brief taste of him last night and the images had replayed themselves over and over in her mind as she’d tossed and turned in bed.

Closing her eyes, she raised her hands to her heated cheeks. She couldn’t let her thoughts stray like this. A chaste marriage with Lucas would be difficult enough without fantasies to distract her.

“Allie, is something the matter?”

Her eyes flew open to see him staring at her intently. Thank God he couldn’t read her mind. “I’m fine. What were you saying?”

“The prenuptial includes a settlement for you when the marriage terminates.”

Planning the ending of their marriage so cold-heartedly only heightened her misgivings. But she was committed now, no matter how wrong it felt. “I don’t need a settlement. You’re already loaning me the twenty thousand.”

“Giving, not loaning.”

“I’m planning to pay it back.”

“Don’t be pigheaded about this, Allie. The money is yours, free and clear as of today. The rest will compensate you for the one to two years this process could take.”

“It’s not a process, Lucas. It’s a marriage. An adoption of a child—a human being. You can’t keep treating this as some sort of business transaction.”

His fingers wrapped more tightly around the arms of his chair, the only indication she’d hit home with her comment. “You’re right, of course. But I intend to give you the settlement, nonetheless.”

“How much?” she asked warily.

“Two million.” He said the amount casually, as if he were only offering her a couple hundred.

“You’re crazy!” She leapt to her feet. “Totally nuts! That’s too much, Lucas.”

“The hell it is.”

“I can’t take that much.” She shook her head. “No way.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, his expression cold. “I’m damn well not budging on this, Allie.”

She stared at him, completely flabbergasted. This was a man she’d seen go toe-to-toe with hardened businessmen, shaving millions off a deal if he felt the price was inflated. How could he justify giving her so much money?

But there was no arguing with him, at least for now. She’d have to find a way to refuse the money when the time came. She nodded her head in acquiescence.

“Give me your account number,” he said, moving his chair up to the desk again. “Then we have to get on with the day. When’s my first meeting?”

Lifting the laptop from his desk, she sank into her chair, trembling. Every time she thought she might have the upper hand, he backed her into a corner. How would she handle two years of this?

“The account number is in my purse. Why don’t we go through your schedule first?”

He gave her a brusque nod, then she read off his commitments for the day. He told her what data he needed for his various meetings, reeling off the information with machine-gun rapidity. Somehow he seemed able to maintain his same businesslike demeanor while her hands shook on the keyboard, making one error after another as she typed.

When she finally escaped from his office to retrieve her purse, she had to give herself a moment to recover before going back inside. She sagged over her desk, leaning against it as she took a few deep breaths. Helen, who worked for one of Lucas’s vice presidents, gave her a sympathetic smile. Allie responded in kind, although it was a weak effort.

Helen would know soon enough, and word would pass around the company from her and the handful of others Allie would tell. For now, she was just as glad to keep the news to herself, to have a chance to accustom herself to the shock.

Her phone buzzed, startling her. It was Lucas. Probably wanted to know what was keeping her. She picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“The account number?” he snapped out.

Struggling to hold onto her patience, she pulled out her checkbook and read off the appropriate digits. “Anything else?”

“Get on that church right away,” he said.

“I will.”

He fell silent and Allie assumed his mind had already shifted to his day’s meetings. She was about to take the phone from her ear when he said, “Allie?”

The tentativeness of his tone surprised her. “Yes?”

Another long pause. “Thank you.”

She didn’t know what shocked her more—that he’d said it or that he sounded so genuinely grateful. “You’re welcome.” She lowered the phone back to its cradle.

She sat for a moment at her desk, trying to resolve the tumultuous feelings inside her. She was marrying Lucas Taylor, her boss. They would put on a facade of a happy marriage to allow him to adopt a child. She would be on her guard every moment against his overpowering personality, against her own inappropriate desires.

She understood the fear inside her, even the excitement. But one emotion roiling within her baffled her completely.

Joy.

After a day spent playing telephone tag with Lucas, Allie returned home with her nerves in a frazzle. She’d finally left a note on his desk about the church, giving up on actually seeing him face-to-face again that day. Now as she threw together a quick meal in the microwave, her gaze kept straying to the phone. She’d thought he might call her, to touch base, to compare notes on how the plans for their wedding were coming along. But it seemed now that he had her consent, he’d relegated her to one of those myriad compartments in his brain.

She had to call her sister and brother, had already put it off too long. She just didn’t relish the inevitable questions and the answers she would have to fabricate. Not to mention she might miss a call from Lucas if she tied up the line.

She dawdled through her meal, eating little of it, then hurried downstairs to the apartment complex laundry room and started a load in the washer. When she returned, she quickly checked her answering machine—no message from Lucas. It was nearly eight; she couldn’t put off her calls to her family any longer.

Her sister Sherril’s husband answered the phone, giving Allie a few moments to compose what she planned to say. After assuring Sherril everything was fine both with her and their father, French, Allie asked, “Are you sitting down?”

Sherril’s throaty laughter eased the tension in Allie’s shoulders. “Lying down, actually. The baby’s been playing the tom-toms on my spine.”

Allie blurted out the news. “I’m getting married.”

The silence stretched out uncomfortably before Sherril finally spoke. “How could you be getting married? You haven’t even been dating anyone.” Another pause. “Have you?”

Allie had realized before she picked up the phone she couldn’t tell her sister the truth, not if she wanted to keep the predicament of their father’s care to herself. She could only hope the lie she’d concocted would sound believable.

“I’m marrying Lucas Taylor. My boss.”

Sherril was quiet so long, Allie wondered if the connection had been broken. Finally she said, “I had no idea there was anything going on between you two.”

Allie forced a laugh. “Neither did we. Just kind of sneaked up on us, I guess.”

“Well…congratulations, then. When’s the wedding?”

Allie braced herself for her sister’s reaction. “End of September.”

“What! I’ll still be pregnant then,” Sherril moaned. “Unless this beast decides to come early like his sister did. How am I going to find a whale-sized matron of honor dress?”

Allie smiled, pleased at Sherril’s assumption she would be matron of honor. “I’m sure we can find something. Besides, this way, I have at least a hope of outshining you at the wedding.”

“Allie, I gave up the crown of prettiest sister to you with my first set of stretch marks. Are you having it at the church?”

“Yes, the minister was able to fit us in, even at such short notice.” Reverend Harmon had been so delighted at her news. Even now, Allie felt a stab of guilt at the lies she’d told him. “The reception will be at Lucas’s estate.”

Allie filled Sherril in on the remainder of the details, then begged her to pass on the news to their brother, Stephen. She simply didn’t have the energy to spar with her brother, who still thought his baby sister needed his protection.

After she hung up the phone, Allie headed outside to the apartment complex laundry room to shift her clothes to the dryer. As she fished quarters from her pocket to start the dryer, she realized even this mundane task would change when she moved to Lucas’s expansive estate. No more lugging laundry down two flights of outside stairs in the winter rain or blistering summer sun. No tossing quarters into a jelly jar to have them ready for laundry day.

Would they wash their clothes together? Intermingling her life with Lucas’s in such an ordinary way seemed terribly intimate. It made their upcoming marriage somehow more real, more valid.

Rattled by the notion, Allie left her clothes tumbling in the dryer and returned to her apartment. The flashing light on her answering machine sent her heart into overdrive—had Lucas called her after all? But it was only her brother Stephen, demanding she call him back tonight.

The last thing she needed was Stephen and his lectures. She’d committed herself to Lucas, to their marriage. Her brother’s haranguing would only heighten her doubts.

Flipping on the TV, she watched a mindless cop show as she waited for her laundry to finish. Lucas never did call, but Stephen did, twice more. Allie resolutely ignored him each time.

With morning light spilling into his office, Lucas paced in agitation. In the week since he’d proposed marriage to Allie, he still hadn’t regained his focus. Each day his preoccupation with his admin assistant grew until it had become a nearly unmanageable obsession.

When he first arrived in the mornings he was barely able to pass her desk without touching her, without threading his fingers through her hair and tipping her head up to kiss her. He could hardly make it through their morning reviews, the urgency to round the desk and pull her into his arms so overwhelmed him. Sometimes her gaze met his as they worked together and he could see the wariness in her eyes. She had to sense his attraction for her.

His only recourse was to rush her through the recitation of his schedule, to hurry her out of his office. But her absence seemed to tantalize him more than her presence. Just the thought of her expressive green eyes set off a throbbing low in his body, a response he couldn’t seem to control. Fantasies played themselves out in his mind—of him calling Allie into his office, tugging the dove-gray sleeveless shirt she wore today from the matching skirt, slipping his hand under it to cup her breast. Then lifting her to the desk, parting her legs and—

Damn, he had to get himself under control. He strode behind his desk and forced himself to sit. Locking his fingers together, he gripped them tightly on his desk.

If he couldn’t keep his hands off her in these weeks before their wedding, how the hell would he do it once they were married? Once they were sharing his home, he wouldn’t have a prayer if he didn’t keep his rampant desires in line now. And he damn well intended to keep that promise.

Lucas dragged in a long breath and let it out. Most of the women he knew looked at sex the way he did—a necessary physical release. No messy emotions to get in the way. But Allie—still young and idealistic and full of hope—she might think physical intimacy meant more than it did. And the last thing he needed was Allie believing she was in love with him.

Unclenching his hands, he lifted a small Post-it square from the left side of his desk and repositioned it on the right. The note had been there all week, a glaring reminder of the upcoming wedding. On the pale-yellow square of paper, Allie had written down the name of the Methodist church in Fair Oaks and the time and date of the ceremony. Reverend Frank Harmon, she’d penned across the bottom of the note, the neat flowing loops of her script as feminine as the woman who wrote them.

A knock on his office door sent tension zinging up his spine. He dragged a folder to the center of his desk and opened it, dipping his head down to the stack of papers he should have been reviewing. “Enter.”

Allie slipped inside, shutting the door behind her. As she crossed the office, her soft skirt rippled around her, shaping itself to the curves of her body. “Could we talk?” The faintest trace of irritation colored her tone.

He closed the folder with precise care. “Certainly.”

She stood before his desk, shoulders thrown back. “You might be able to see our marriage as a cold-blooded business deal, but I can’t. Even though we’re not marrying for love, we’re going to live together for the next two years. We ought to get to know each other better.”

He struggled to focus on what she was saying, distracted by the way the late-morning sun lit her slender form. Would her skin feel warmer under that yellow glow? He shook off the image. “What do you want, Allie?”

“I want you to stop avoiding me.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you.”

She just stared at him a moment, her expression telling him she knew a snow job when she heard one. “I want to spend some time with you, Lucas. I want a chance to get to know you a little better before the wedding.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request, if you ignored the heat rippling through his body that urged him to get to know her much, much better. More time spent with her meant an even greater trial for his libido. But hell, he was a grown man. He ought to be able to give Allie what she wanted without breaking his promise of a platonic relationship.

She stood there, watching him, no doubt preparing her next argument if he turned her down. Lord, she was a hell of a fighter.

“What am I doing for lunch?” he asked her.

The question caught her off guard. She glanced around her as if seeking her laptop. “No meetings scheduled.”

“I have one now,” he said. “With you.”

Her brilliant smile cut straight to his heart, setting off a flurry of unfamiliar emotions. Before he could catch his balance again, she’d moved around his desk and bent to put her arm around his shoulders. “Thank you,” she murmured in his ear.

The warmth of her breath teased him, the nearness of her crumbled his good intentions. Before she could straighten, he’d curved his hands around her face, brought her mouth to his.

His fingers dove into her silky black hair, the softness against his skin a sweet torment. He brushed his mouth against hers, telling himself with each light touch to back off, to push her away. But when he’d kissed her a week ago, he’d had only the briefest taste. The memory of it had haunted him every night, stealing his sleep, infiltrating his dreams.

And he had to have more.

Chapter Four

Allie never should have touched him. In her delight over sharing lunch with Lucas, she’d let impulse take control. Now with him so near, with his breath fanning across her face as he stroked her lips with his, the snare of his passion wound around her.

She had to pull away. She took a step back to do just that when Lucas’s mouth drifted from her lips, along her jaw to nuzzle in her ear. She swallowed back a moan, her pleasure easing out in a sigh instead. The hand he’d buried in her hair moved restlessly, its random pattern electric and breath-stealing.

Her own hands took their cue from him, gliding along the stiff shoulders of his jacket to the warm column of his throat. She wanted to ease her fingertips into his hair, explore his sensitive scalp as he did hers. She wanted to do more—to shift to stand in the V of his legs, to press her aching breasts against his chest.

She was lost. With so little effort, Lucas had taken over. And yet she had only to take another step back, to straighten and tug herself away and he would let her go. He had to let her go.

Drawing in a trembling breath, Allie struggled to regain her strength, her will. She slid her hands from Lucas’s throat, pressed her palms against his shoulders. The instant he felt the pressure of her hands against him, he released her so that she nearly stumbled as she backed away.

He sprang from his chair, turning away from her. Facing the window, he pressed both palms against the glass, arms stiff with tension. “Hell.”

She heard a tremor in the softly spoken word. Raising a shaky hand, she smoothed her hair from her face. “I’m sorry.”

His head swiveled toward her, his eyes blazing. “What the devil do you have to be sorry for?”

“Because I…” Her stomach knotted, cutting off the words. She took a breath. “I shouldn’t have touched you.”

For a long moment, he just stared at her. Then he pushed away from the window. “No you shouldn’t. Because I damn well can’t seem to control…” Stabbing his fingers through his thick dark hair in agitation, he raised his gaze to hers. “I’m the one who should apologize. You did nothing wrong. I took advantage…hell.”

She’d seen Lucas angry, seen him throw on a cloak of intimidation that drove fear into the hearts of his adversaries, but she’d never seen him this way—flustered, uncertain, off-balance. His unsettling vulnerability set off a chord inside Allie, an unexpected tenderness.

Which sent her thoughts marching in a perilous direction. She edged away from him, headed for the door. She could feel his eyes on her every step, but couldn’t quite meet his gaze. “Is lunch still…do you still want to…?”

“When are my appointments finished?”

“Twelve-thirty.” She chanced a quick glance at him. The softness she’d seen before in him had gone, replaced by his usual icy calm.

“Twelve-thirty, then.”

He retrieved his chair and lowered himself into it. She reached for the door.

“Allie.”

The gentleness of his tone drew her back around. Arms across her middle, she faced him. Something flickered in his eyes, emotions that seemed to struggle to the surface before sinking again into the mystery that was Lucas Taylor.

He dropped his gaze, shuffled papers into the file folder on his desk. “I’ll need that production cost spreadsheet for the eleven o’clock sales meeting.”

He’d shut himself off again, reverting to the businessman. He so easily suppressed the emotions that still had her in turmoil.

Irritation gnawed at her. “How many copies?” she snapped out.

“Ten should do it.”

He still kept his gaze fixed on the file folder as if it revealed some crucial secret. Despite the bland neutrality of his expression, tension gripped him, holding him so tightly Allie’s heart ached for him.

Her irritation faded away. “I’ll have them ready for you in ten minutes.”

She slipped from his office, moved to sit at her desk. As she connected her laptop with her desktop computer, she tried to untangle the confusion inside her. But when it came to Lucas Taylor, nothing was simple.

With a sigh, Allie brought up the spreadsheet program and with an effort of will, threw herself into her work.

At exactly twelve-thirty, Lucas returned from the sales meeting and strode to her desk. “Let’s go,” he demanded.

In the process of transferring figures from the quarterly marketing report to a spreadsheet, Lucas’s command splintered Allie’s hard-won concentration. She pressed the wrong key and deleted the last hour’s work. “Damn!”

She glared up at Lucas, then quickly clicked the Undo command. Banging at the keyboard, she saved her work and set her laptop on standby. With an angry jerk she pulled open her desk drawer and grabbed her purse.

She seethed silently in the elevator. He seemed oblivious to her anger. When they reached the ground floor, he laid his hand lightly at the small of her back and guided her through the lobby.

“We’ll visit my jeweler after lunch.” He opened the lobby door for her, stepping aside to let her go first. “We haven’t selected rings yet. I’d rather have you there since I don’t know your preferences.”

The midday heat scorched her in the first few steps outside the building’s air-conditioned comfort. She couldn’t hold in her agitation an instant longer. Whirling to stand in his path, she stopped his forward progress.

“My preference is that you treat me with a modicum of respect and courtesy. My preference is that you remember I’m not a serf you can order to do your bidding.”

He gazed down at her, his expression baffled. “What are you talking about?”

She clenched her jaw and looked away a moment to gather her patience, then she returned her gaze to his. “If you hadn’t noticed, I was working in there, doing your work as a matter of fact. In the time I’ve been employed by you I’ve put up with your arrogance because you were my boss.”

She pointed a finger at him, prodded him in the chest for emphasis. “You’re still my boss. But if we go through with this crazy idea of a marriage, I want you to ask politely, not bark out an order.”

Before she could take another breath, his hand flew up to capture hers. He held it against his chest, his lips thinning with what looked like the genesis of anger. For an instant, he was her father, his rage at her impertinence a storm brewing inside him. It had happened every time she’d stood up to him, asserted herself as an individual. And even knowing this was Lucas, not her father, she couldn’t help the first tendrils of insecurity winding around her stomach.

Even as she tensed for the anticipated explosion, his mouth relaxed, his lips softening and curving into a faint smile. “I’m sorry,” he said, his thumb moving against the back of her hand. “I’m too much a creature of habit.”

Relief flooded her, even as her body responded to the stroking of his thumb, to his gaze fixed briefly on her mouth. She supposed she should pull her hand away, but it felt so pleasant enfolded in his, resting lightly against his chest. He’d worn a pale-gray shirt today and she imagined gliding her palm along the crisp smoothness, shaping the musculature underneath.

“Thank you,” she said, not sure what she was thanking him for. The sun beat down on them, rivaling the heat Lucas’s touch had set off in her. “I guess we should go.”

She thought he would release her hand, but he kept it in his, interlacing his fingers with hers. Her bare arm rubbed against the sleeve of his suit jacket as he kept pace with her.

Up ahead the parking lot steamed in the brilliant sunlight. When they reached his silver Mercedes, he paused before pulling out his keys, raised her hand again to his chest. “It’s been a long time since I’ve held a woman’s hand.”

His comment startled her. She knew he hadn’t been without a woman for long; he’d been dating someone as recently as late spring. The woman had come into the office a half dozen times, a tall edgy blonde who apparently owned a high-power consulting firm in downtown Sacramento. Allie tried to remember if she’d ever seen Lucas holding the woman’s hand. She could only recall the blonde’s stunning looks, how striking a couple she and Lucas had made.

Yet another puzzle piece that didn’t seem to fit. Lucas brushed his lips against her knuckles, sending a tremor through her, then let go to fish the car keys out of his pocket. He opened the passenger-side door, helping her in before rounding the car to the driver’s side.

As they pulled out of the lot, Allie remembered what Lucas had said about the jeweler. “We don’t need rings,” she told him.

He didn’t even look her way, just glanced at the rearview mirror as he merged into traffic on Douglas Boulevard. “We’re getting rings.”

“I’ll just have to return mine when we…after.”

“You’ll keep it.”

Along with that ridiculous amount of money he was insisting she take. “Then we’ll just get plain bands. Something inexpensive.”

Brow arched, he shot his gaze her way, then returned his attention to his driving. Allie sighed, realizing he might have agreed to treat her with courtesy, but it wouldn’t change his attempts to run her life. She’d have to be constantly vigilant, or he might smother her very identity as her father had done for all those years.

Lucas saw the surprise in Allie’s face when they pulled up to the tiny Mexican restaurant he’d decided on for lunch. She’d expected something pricey and upscale, more like the Cliff House where they’d dined the night he’d proposed to her. Cocina Caldera was nearly a hole-in-the-wall by comparison, but the food was good, the service excellent. That he had a connection to the owner, Teresa Caldera, that he felt a certain comfort here he felt nowhere else was immaterial.

When they stepped inside the packed restaurant, Teresa Caldera and her daughter Inez greeted Lucas by name as they hurried by with steaming plates. As he and Allie waited for a table, Lucas shifted uneasily, wondering what Allie thought of the place, wondering if by being here he somehow revealed too much of his past.

Suddenly anxious to leave, he said, “It’s too crowded. We’ll try somewhere else.”

She smiled up at him. “I’m not in any hurry. This place smells wonderful.”

By now they’d edged their way up to the cash register where Teresa rang up a sale. The stout woman, her dark hair threaded with gray, grinned up at him. “Hola, guapo, ¿Cómo estás?”

“Bien,” he replied in automatic response to the familiar greeting.

Teresa gave Allie a pointed look, and Lucas felt suddenly awkward, like a teenager introducing his girlfriend to his parents for the first time. This was the only time he’d brought anyone but a business associate to the restaurant.

“This is Alison Dickenson, my administrative assistant. Allie, this is Teresa Caldera.”

The two women shook hands, then Teresa rushed off to pick up another order. Inez came to seat them and Lucas sank into the booth in relief.

As they scanned their menus, the crowd thinned out and the din quieted. Lucas could feel Allie’s gaze on him. He raised his eyes to hers.

“What?”

She shrugged. “You didn’t introduce me as your fiancée.”

Of course she’d noticed. “It slipped my mind.”

She eyed him in frank disbelief. “Nothing slips your mind, Lucas.”

“Teresa would have made a big deal over it. I didn’t want her fussing.”

“You must know her well to have her fuss over you like that.”

Damn Allie and her observant nature. “I eat here often,” Lucas said evenly as the plastic edges of the menu bit into his palms. “Teresa has a way of making her regulars family.”

Lucas could see she wanted to push the issue of Teresa. He set the menu down. “Are you ready to order?” Without waiting for her to answer, he signaled Inez.

Out of habit, he ordered in Spanish and Inez joked about his atrocious accent as she always did. She insisted he introduce Allie, her dark brow rising when he described Allie as “his good friend.” No doubt Inez would be comparing notes with Teresa back in the kitchen.

The questions seemed to pile up in Allie’s green eyes. While they waited for their food, Lucas kept Allie busy with questions about work, querying her about when she’d have the month-end reports ready.

When Inez brought their lunch, Lucas dove into his fajitas, focusing on piling strips of beef, red pepper and onion onto the flour tortillas. From the corner of his eye he could see Allie watching him.

“Is there something wrong with your molé?” he asked. “We can send it back.”

“The molé is fine,” Allie said. “But we’re kind of defeating the purpose here. The whole point to having lunch together was to get to know each other. We never will if we keep talking about work.”

He set down his fork. “What do you want to know?”

She smiled at him across the table. “I’d just like to learn a little more about you.”

Wariness crept into the pit of his stomach. “Like what?”

“Where you grew up, where your parents live, if you have brothers and sisters.”

Such ordinary questions, easy enough for most people to answer. But for him, they opened a can of worms he had no intention of opening. “I grew up in the Sacramento area. I have no brothers and sisters. My parents are dead.”

He could see the sympathy in her face. “I’m sorry. How long have they been gone?”

“A long time.” To cut short her inquiry, he turned the question around to her. “What about your family?”

“A brother and a sister. Both married, both have kids. I have four nieces and nephews with another on the way. My mom…” She looked away a moment, and grief flashed across her face. “She died a few years ago. My dad…he lives in Reno.”

“French Dickenson, right? Forbes did quite a write-up on him, what…ten years ago?”

“Twelve.” Her gaze dropped to her plate and she ran the tines of her fork through the thick molé sauce. “He was very proud of that article.”

The motion of Allie’s wrist as it bent and straightened, bent and straightened, snagged Lucas’s attention. He could imagine that same mesmerizing movement against his own body. Shaking the image off, he asked, “Is he still running Postal Express?”

Her hand froze. She kept her eyes on her plate. “No. He’s retired.”

Lucas could see something in her face…. Sorrow? Regret? He wanted to reach across the table, lay a soothing hand against her cheek. He squelched the impulse. “Will he be coming to the wedding?”

Now she did look up at him, eyes wide. “No!” She smiled, gesturing with her hand as if to take away the vehemence of her denial. “Traveling is difficult for him. He’s not in the best of health. Sherril, Stephen and I visit him on Sundays.”

Now it was his turn to be curious. He tried to remember what he might have read in the business-trade magazines about French Dickenson’s retirement. If there had been mention, it must have been small enough to have passed his notice.

“I’ll meet him later, then,” Lucas said.

She nodded, then bent her head to her lunch. She pushed more of it around on her plate than she actually ate. By the time Inez came to bring the check, Allie had slid the nearly full plate aside.

She laced her fingers together and rested them on the table, tipped her head up to him. “So you won’t have anyone to invite to the wedding. No family, I mean.”

Across the room, Teresa stood at the register. She smiled broadly, speculation clear in her lined face as she watched him with Allie. There were people he could invite—Teresa, her brother Guillermo, Inez. Until this moment it hadn’t crossed his mind. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to him how hurt Teresa would be to be excluded. He’d gone off to Tahoe to wed Carol and Teresa still nursed that pain. It had been enough of a disappointment that his chosen bride hadn’t been Inez.

Yet, by inviting the Calderas, Lucas risked opening a door to his past he’d long ago nailed shut. How would he explain to Allie what Teresa and Guillermo were to him without telling her the rest? Only by flat lies which his foster mother would never be party to.

Damn, he never should have brought Allie to Cocina Caldera. What had he been thinking?

Glancing at the check, Lucas tossed down a twenty and rose abruptly to his feet. “The jeweler’s expecting us.”

He put out his hand to help Allie from her seat, conscious all the time of Teresa’s eyes on him. As he followed Allie from the restaurant, he waved to Teresa and Inez, glad to escape from their scrutiny.

Allie looked thoughtful as she sat beside him in the Benz, as if she was considering all the evidence and waited for it to click into place. The leather-wrapped steering wheel went slick with the sweat of his palms.

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