I don’t know what the fuck to say.

Skye stands just outside my office door, looking as delicious as the first day I saw her, and I think—I think—she might have just offered to solve my problem. 

Which is crazy. I can’t let her do that. I can’t touch her. The last thing I need is a reputation for getting my secretaries pregnant.

No matter how much I want to get Skye pregnant.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I say finally, breaking the silence between us. Behind Skye, the outer office door is open to a bustling hallway. I’ve hired the best people I could find to help me manage this business, and any one of them could walk into this conversation at any moment.

Skye blushes a deep, deep red. I want more than anything to raise my hand to her face and run my thumb across her cheekbone, but I force myself not to move. “If you need…an heir,” she says finally, then runs her tongue across her pink lips. Those perfect, pink lips that would look unbelievable wrapped around my cock. I’m hard as a rock, and she has to know it. “I could help you with that.”

I want to laugh, but more than that, I want to take her in my arms and kiss her, claim her, and then explore every inch of that creamy skin. “I think you’d better step inside.”

It’s dangerous, and I know it. It’s always dangerous to be alone with female employees, even when you’re the owner of a company. Especially when you’re the owner of a company. My work is too important to be jeopardized by gossip that I’m a womanizer. But I can’t turn Skye away—not when she’s just said something like that.

She steps into my office and I close the door behind her. 

Instantly, the air shifts. She takes a breath, her breasts rising beneath her blazer, and then she bites at her lip nervously.

My cock twitches in my pants.

“Let’s be clear with each other,” I say, looking her in the eye. Her green eyes are bright, nervous—but burning with something I think is lust. That I know is lust. It’s not like I haven’t noticed her staring. I just can’t believe she’d take it this far. “You’re offering to have a baby for me, so that I can access my father’s trust fund.”

“Could we…sit down?” Skye sounds slightly breathless, and it’s only in this moment that I realize how nervous she must be.

“Of course.” I go around behind my desk and take my seat, and Skye slides into one of the two chairs across the desk from me.

She folds her hands in her lap. “From what I heard, you can’t access your trust fund until you have an heir,” she says, her voice soft and even. I’d like to hear that voice begging me to make her come. “And I know—at least, I think I know—that you need that money for the new Southlake project.”

Nothing gets by her. Skye isn’t involved in planning for any of these projects—just managing my meeting schedule and taking my calls—but she’s clearly spent time learning the ins and outs of what we do here, job descriptions be damned. I don’t want to admit to her that I’m in this position, but it seems like she already knows. “The Southlake project, and more.”

“More?” Her forehead wrinkles.

“The money will cover the launch of the Southlake development, but after that, my goal is to take Hunter Housing nationwide. If I can do it without having to involve investors, it’ll be much better for everyone.” A thousand times better for the men and women and families I want to put in this housing, who won’t have to worry that I’ll hike up the rent and fuck them over for shareholders. “But I can only do that if I get access to the trust I was promised.” My anger is starting to bubble up again, but Skye doesn’t flinch.

“And your—father? He’s the one who’s keeping the money from you?”

I shouldn’t be telling her about this. I shouldn’t be admitting any of this to her. But her big green eyes are so wide and hopeful that I can’t stop myself. 

“Yes. He just informed me this week that the heir is a…necessary stipulation to releasing the trust.” I grit my teeth, then take a big breath and let it out. “According to my lawyer, there’s really no way around it. And my father has ten lawyers to my one. There’s no way I’m going to claw that money out of his hands unless I play his game.”

Skye nods, glancing down at her hands. Holy shit, she is gorgeous. “I’m sorry for eavesdropping.”

“I wasn’t being very discreet.”

“It’s just that when I heard what you said, I—” Suddenly, Skye’s green eyes are covered with a sheen of tears. What the fuck is happening? She swallows hard, then continues. “I’m in a…situation myself, and I thought—”

“What situation?” Not once in this entire month has Skye let on that anything in her life is less than perfect. I’m caught off guard by the surge of protective emotion that takes over in my chest. She hasn’t even told me yet, but I already want to fix this for her.

Why?

I have no idea.

She waves a hand in the air. “Just—my living situation, really. Things have been hard lately. My sister—” She cuts herself off. “It’s not important, really. I just thought that maybe we could…we could make a deal.”

A deal.

Skye—sweet, innocent Skye—has come in here ready to trade her body for a way out of some trouble she’s in. She’s willing to give herself over to me, to have my baby in her belly, in order to save herself, to save her sister.

From what, I don’t know…but I have to find out.