Maureen Child - Baby Bonanza

A book in the Billionaires and Babies series, 2008

Dear Reader,

In 2009 Silhouette Books will celebrate sixty years of providing women with pure reading pleasure.

Every month in Desire youll find six powerful, passionate and provocative readsguaranteed! For more than twenty-five years, whether set on the French Riviera or deep in the heart of Texas, Desires highly sensual romances have swept readers up in the tempestuous drama of falling in love.

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Ow! Jenna Baker hopped on her right foot and clutched at the bruised toes on her left one. Shooting a furious glare at the bolted-down table in her so-tiny-that-claustrophobics-would-die cabin, she called down silent curses on the head of the man who was the reason for this cruise from hell.

Nick Falco.

His image rose up in her mind, and just for a second Jenna enjoyed the nearly instant wash of heat that whipped through her. But the heat was gone a moment later, to be replaced by a cold fury.

Better all around if she concentrated on that particular emotion. After all, unlike every other passenger aboard Falcons Pride, she hadnt come aboard the floating orgy to party. She was here for a reason. A damn good one.

While her aching toes throbbed in concert with her heartbeat, Jenna cautiously stood on both feet and took the step and a half that brought her to a minuscule closet. Shed already hung up her clothes, and the few outfits shed brought with her looked crowded in the narrow wardrobe. Snatching a pale yellow blouse off the attached-to-the-rod hanger, she carried it to the bathroom, just another step away.

It was the size of an airplane bathroom, only it also contained a shower stall designed to fit pygmies. In fact, the opening of the sliding door was so slender, Jenna had slapped one arm across her breasts when leaving the shower, half-afraid shed scrape her nipples off.

Really nice, Nick, she muttered, when you upgraded this old boat and turned it into your flagship, you might have put a little extra thought into those people who arent living in the owners penthouse on the top deck.

But she told herself that was typical enough. Shed known what Nick was like even before shed met him on that sultry summer night more than a year ago. He was a man devoted to seeing his cruise line become the premier one in the world. He did what he had to do when he had to do it. And he didnt make apologies for it.

Shed been working for him when she met him. An assistant cruise director on one of the other cruise ships in the Falcon line. Shed loved the job, loved the idea of travel and stupidly, had fallen in love with the boss. All because of a romantic moonlight encounter and Nicks undeniable charm.

Jenna had known darn well that the boss would never get involved with an employee. So when the sexy, gorgeous Nick Falco had stumbled across her on the Pavilion Deck and assumed she was a guest, she hadnt corrected him. She should have and she knew it, but what woman wouldnt have been swept away by a chiseled jaw, ice-blue eyes and thick black hair that just tempted a woman to tangle her fingers in it?

She sighed a little, set her hands on the sides of the soapdish-size sink and remembered how it had been from the first moment hed touched her. Magic. Pure and simple. Her skin had sizzled, her blood had sung and her heart had beaten so frantically, it had been hard to breathe. Hed swept her into a dance, there in the starlight, with the Hawaiian breeze caressing them and the music from the deck below floating on the air like a sigh.

One dance became two, and the feel of his arms around her had seduced Jenna into a lie that had come back to haunt her not a week later. She fell into an affair. A blistering, over-the-top sexual affair that had rocked her soul even as it battered her heart.

And when, one week into that affair, Nick had discovered from someone else that she actually worked for him, hed broken it off, refused to hear her out, and once they were back in port, hed fired her.

The sting of thatdismissal felt as fresh as the day it had happened.

Oh, God. What am I doing here? She blew out a breath as her stomach began to twist and ripple with the nerves that had been shivering through her for months. If there were any other way to do this, she would have. After all, it wasnt as if she were looking forward to seeing Nick again.

Gritting her teeth, she lifted her chin, turned sharply and cracked her elbow into the doorjamb. Wincing, she stared into her reflection in the slim rectangular mirror and said, Youre here because its the right thing. The only thing. Besides, its not like he left you any choice.

She had to talk to the man and it wasnt exactly easy to get access to him. Since he lived aboard the flagship of his cruise line, she couldnt confront him on dry land. And the few times he was in port in San Pedro, California, he locked himself up in a penthouse apartment with tighter security than the White House. When she couldnt talk to him in person, shed tried phone calls. And when they failed, shed taken to e-mailing him. At least twice a week for the last six months, shed sent him e-mails that he apparently deleted without opening. The man was being so impossible, Jennad finally been forced to make a reservation on Falcons Pride and take a cruise she didnt want and couldnt afford.

She hadnt been on board a ship in more than a year and so even the slight rolling sensation of the big cruise liner made her knees a little rubbery. There was a time when shed loved being on ship. When shed enjoyed the adventure of a job that was never the same two days in a row. When shed awakened every morning to a new view out her porthole.

Of course, she admitted wryly, that was when I had a porthole. Now she was so far belowdecks, in the cheapest cabin shed been able to find, she had no window at all and it felt as though shed been sealed up in the bowels of the ship. She was forced to keep a light on at all times, because otherwise, the dark was so complete, it was like being inside a vacuum. No sensory input at all.

Weird and strangely unsettling.

Maybe if shed been able to get some sleep, shed feel different. But shed been jolted out of bed late the night before by the horrific clank and groan of the anchor chain being lifted. It had sounded as if the ship itself was being torn apart by giant hands, and once that image had planted itself in her brain, she hadnt been able to sleep again.

All because of Nick, she told the woman in the glass and was gratified to see her nod in agreement. Mr. Gazillionaire, too busy, too important to answer his e-mail. Did he even remember her? Did he look at her name on the e-mail address and wonder who the heck she was? She frowned into the mirror, then shook her head. No. He didnt forget. He knows who I am. Hes not reading the e-mails on purpose, just to make me crazy. He couldnt have forgotten that week.

Despite the way it had ended, that one week with Nick Falco had turned Jennas life around and upside down. It was simply impossible that she was the only one affected that strongly.