Chapter 4

Gina rushed around the apartment, and she definitely kept her panties on. She gathered up every spare scrap of material the sitter could possibly need. “And here’s another pile of wipes. There are four bottles made up in the fridge. You shouldn’t need that many, but you never know what might happen. The heating instructions are on the kitchen counter, and there’s another bale of diapers in the hall closet. Here’s my front carry pack. You probably don’t want to take her out for a walk, but if you have to go anywhere, like in the event of an emergency, it might come in handy. You never know. Here’s my cell number, and here’s the number of the office where I’ll be in case you can’t get me on my cell. Come to think of it, I’ll have my phone turned off during the meeting, so only use it in case of dire emergencies. Okay? No, wait. I’ll put my phone on vibrate, so I can check if it’s you. That’s a better idea. That works, doesn’t it?”

Maggie, the sitter, stood behind the kitchen counter. A knowing smirk spread across her face while she listened to this tirade. She was a forty-year-old mother of five teenagers from another apartment down the hall. She’d seen it all and lived to tell the tale. She could handle two hours with a newborn. Gina never trusted anyone the way she trusted Maggie, but she couldn’t stop ranting about every possible contingency.

The clock struck eleven-fifteen. Gina couldn’t delay any longer. She gathered her paperwork and her laptop and bolted. She couldn’t face Winnona to give her a good-bye kiss. If she looked at her baby daughter’s face, she would lose her nerve. This first heart-destroying separation distressed Gina far more than it distressed Winnona.

Maggie didn’t say goodbye, either. She bent over Winnona’s carry capsule and cooed in the baby’s face. The last sound Gina heard—besides the pounding of her own heart—was Winnona gurgling back at Maggie.

That ungrateful little beast actually had the nerve to like her sitter. Maybe she liked Maggie better than Gina. Maggie had all the moves. What did Gina have? Nothing.

Gina raced downstairs to find the cab waiting by the door. She dove into the back seat before she could doubt. The cab wheeled into traffic. Gina gave the driver the address, but she couldn’t relax. In five minutes, she would face the firing squad. Would Giles be able to see the bright red letters imprinted across her forehead that read Mother for all the world to see?

The cab pulled up in front of Infrastructure Consultants. That name didn’t scratch the surface of Giles’s multibillion-dollar contract firm. That guy weaseled his claws into every major development happening in every corner of the globe. He worked himself up from a penniless engineering student at CalTech to founding one of the most lucrative firms in the Northern Hemisphere.

He started to dig in his roots in the Southern Hemisphere, too. That’s why he sent Gina to New Zealand in the first place. He wasn’t satisfied with all the money and contracts one man could ask for. He wanted to rule the world, and he wasn’t far off it now.

Gina went on autopilot when she stepped out of the cab. She’d walked into that office a million times without batting an eyelash. She could do the same thing today, and she would do it. Everyone at Southern Mining knew she was a mother. They’d never seen her without that bright red lettering on her forehead.

Only one person upstairs worried her. She had to act casual. She had to keep it cool, like nothing between them ever changed.

He already knew everything between them changed. That was the problem. He wouldn’t accept her at the negotiating table like an old colleague with a raft of expertise under her belt. He would be on the eagle-eyed lookout for the slightest hint of disturbance in her. He would keep her under a microscope until she cracked and told him what was going on.

She’d never kept a secret from him before, especially not one as big as this. She always thought she could trust him with anything. She told him everything, but that was light years away now. Now everything hinged on her keeping the charade going. She had to talk shop and stay away from anything personal.

She thought she’d die of happiness when she met the Southern Mining negotiating team in the elevator. They chatted and joked with Gina, just the way they used to do Down Under. She asked after their wives and kids, their hobbies and challenges. They all picked up where they left off. They could have been back in Auckland instead of on the opposite side of the Pacific.

Gina started to unwind. She could waltz through this negotiation with her hands tied behind her back. She could talk to these guys, and they trusted her. She started to see the light at the end of the tunnel when the elevator dinged on the tenth floor instead of rising straight to the seventeenth where Giles kept his office. The doors slid open, and Giles stepped into the elevator.

A cloud crossed his face when he spotted Gina. The next, he wiped his countenance clear. He backed up against the wall to take his place facing the door. He nodded to Gina. “All set?”

Gina jerked her chin at the man standing next to her. “I was just telling Luke here about the results in my report.”

Giles’s head whipped around. “You haven’t even told me about them, and you’re sharing them with the other side?”

“I was just telling him the results favor both sides. We couldn’t ask for better results, and now Jerry Tompkins over there is planning to buy a new fishing boat and build a bach on Lake Wairarapa.”

Giles stared at her. Gina smiled up at him. He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. He glanced around the circle of New Zealanders, who all smiled at Gina. She spoke their language. She was one of them, while Giles looked in from the outside.

Wesley Faulkner spoke up from across the elevator. “You could come back to Wanaka on your commission, Gina. You could come out white-baiting with me and the team.”

“I would love to come back to Wanaka sometime, mate,” she replied. “Let’s get in there and get this thing done.”

The elevator hummed to a stop on the seventeenth floor. Jerry tried to bow to Gina to exit first, but she held back. “Ladies first,” Gina told him. “I insist.”

The whole team burst out laughing. Luke slapped Wesley on the back, and Wesley and Jerry embraced. They cascaded out of the elevator surrounded by a halo of glowing positivity and goodwill.

After the Southern Mining team emptied out, Gina took a few steps forward to follow them when Giles caught her hand. He pulled her back around the corner while the team moved toward his office.

Giles darted forward to murmur into Gina’s face. “I knew you were the best person for this negotiation.”

Gina’s eyes widened. “You knew? You said they requested me.”

He shrugged. “You do all the talking in there. Knock their socks off, just the way you know how to.”

“I won’t have to knock their socks off, Mr. Pendragon. The results will do all the hard work for us.”

He stared at her. A wicked glint sparked in his eyes. “Say that again.”

“Which part? The part about the results?”

“Call me Mr. Pendragon again.”

Gina blushed. His nearness played its thrilling notes along her body. She couldn’t get into this with him right now. She had to keep her eyes on the prize. She had to do her job and get out of here so she could go home to Winnona. “I’ve always called you….that.”

He whispered low. “Say it again, Ms. Kemp. I want to hear you call me that. You know I can’t stand it when you talk to me like that.”

Gina’s blood scorched in her veins. She had to stop this thing before it started. “We’ve got a negotiation waiting for us, Mr. Pendragon…..”

She didn’t mean to say it. It just slipped out through force of habit. She’d never called him anything else in the whole time she’d known him.

A sweet blush flashed over his cheeks. His eyes widened and his lips parted. His teeth flashed between the grin on his face. He moved in closer, and he whispered under his breath. “Again. Say it again.”

She squeaked through her parched throat. “I can’t. We have to get in there. We can’t do this.”

Even before she finished saying it, she realized she was whining and begging, exactly the way he wanted her to, exactly the way she did before he….

His skin radiated its heat into her being. Her crotch ached so bad, she couldn’t stand up straight. She wanted nothing more in the world to collapse against the wall behind her with his delicious weight pinning her down. Her thighs brushed each other under her skirt.

He sensed her thoughts roaming down between her legs. “Are you wet right now? Does this get you hot down there?”

His hand moved out toward her hips. His fingers twitched to touch her. Gina shied away. “Oh, please, don’t do this to me. I can’t….”

He leaned forward. One hand rested on the wall behind her so his lips hovered in front of her face. “Are you wearing any panties under that skirt?”

She could barely hold her eyes open. Her head lolled on one side, and she looked away. “Yes, sir.”

He tilted his head to meet her eyes. “That’s right, baby. Who’s your Daddy?”

She whimpered out loud. How did this happen? How did he reduce her to a puddle with a few words? “Oh, please, Mr. Pendragon. Please, no.”

He nodded. “Oh, yes, baby. You know you’re gonna love it. I’ll only do it if you want me to.”

She could only moan and wait for those fingers to slither under her skirt. He already knew she was wetter than he ever dreamed. He already knew he had her excited and willing to do whatever he wanted.

He sniffed and shoved himself off the wall. He tugged his jacket down into place and glared at her. “Stand up straight, Ms. Kemp. You don’t want the guys to see you slouching.”

Gina’s eyes snapped to his cold, cruel face. He wasn’t going to touch her after all. He wasn’t going to stir her to screaming orgasm right here in the elevator before she had to face that negotiation team across the table. He moved back another step toward the door.

Gina’s heart sobbed. How could she want a man this much and let him walk away? She couldn’t bring herself to beg, not after she scolded herself all morning not to get too close to him.

Giles already turned his attention to the office outside the elevator. He wasn’t thinking about her, or if he was, his sexual desire for her got all mixed up in the competitive thrill of chasing another massive contract. He was never hornier than when he just won some sensational profit or made a daring purchase against all odds.

Gina braced herself to follow him. At the last second, he bent close to her ear and murmured so no one could hear but her. “I’m gonna eat ‘em for lunch.”

She started back. “Sir?”

“Your panties. I will be thinking of them as you sit across from me getting them all wet and juicy. When you look at me across the table, you think about me licking you and making you even wetter. Then, after this meeting is over, I’m taking those panties of yours home if I can’t have you.”

She could only stare at him. His eyes glowed with inner fire. His jaw tensed when he clenched his teeth. He meant every word he said. She would be thinking about those words all through the meeting. Did he really intend to take her panties home with him afterward?

She learned a long time ago not to doubt his word when he said things like this. The expression on his face told her he wasn’t fooling around this time, either. He wanted her panties, and he wanted her.