Free A Baby for the Boss by Maureen Child Page B

conversation here.”
    Jenny flinched at the cold, sharp edge of his voice. “I’m not having it at all.”
    “Yeah you are. We’ll talk about it upstairs. Your room or mine?”
    “Ha!” She laughed shortly. “Despite that charming invitation, I think I’ll pass.”
    “We talk privately,” he said, lowering his voice until it was a hush, “or we do it right here in the middle of the damn hotel.”
    “Fine. Upstairs. My room because I want to be able to tell you to leave.”
    He snorted, took her elbow in a grip firm enough she couldn’t shake him off and steered her to the bank of elevators. One of them opened instantly as soon as Mike stabbed the call button. The two of them stepped into the open car as soon as it emptied and were joined by a half-dozen other people.
    The elevator was crowded and the piped-in music was straight out of the 1980s. Mirrors on the walls made it seem as if there were fifty people crammed together, but the only person Jenny really looked at was Mike. He was at least a head taller than anyone else and in the mirror, his gaze shifted to hers and held. The car stopped, people got off, got on, and then they were moving again. Conversations rippled around them, but Jenny hardly heard them. All she could focus on was the glint in Mike’s eyes and the grim slash of his mouth. Finally, though, they hit the eleventh floor. Jenny stepped off and Mike followed after.
    The hallway was dimly lit and narrow, and with Mike right behind her, felt even tighter. She reached her door, slid the card key through the slot and opened it. Jenny’d left her drapes open, so afternoon sunlight swamped the room as she walked to the bed and tossed her purse down on it.
    Mike closed the door and was walking toward her when she turned to face him.
    “What the hell was that all about?”
    “What was what about?” Jenny threw both hands high and then let them fall.
    “You and the carpenter.” Mike bit the words off. “When I walked into the lobby, you were flirting and he was drooling, so I ask again, what the hell was that about?”
    Sincerely stunned, Jenny gaped at him for a second or two. “Flirting?” she repeated as anger bubbled and churned in the pit of her stomach. “I was talking about paint. About the mural I want on the wall in the lobby.”
    “Yeah, I heard the end of the performance.” Mike cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Deep, breathy voice going all dreamy and soft. Hell, you had that carpenter standing there with his mouth open and his eyes bugging out.”
    “Dreamy? Soft?” Had she really sounded like that, she wondered, then shook her head to dismiss the question. Didn’t matter if she had, Jenny thought. She hadn’t been flirting, she’d been sort of lost in her own vision.
    Mike inhaled sharply and said, “You sounded just like you did when you woke up in my arms.”
    Now it was her turn to drag a deep breath into her lungs. Reminding her of their most recent night together wasn’t playing fair. “You’re wrong.”
    He took a step closer, grabbed her upper arms and pulled her up against him. Jenny’s heart leaped into a gallop and as he was holding her so tightly to him, she felt his heart raging in the same rhythm.
    “I know what I heard,” he said, staring down into her eyes. “What I saw.”
    She fought the natural impulse to wrap her arms around his waist and hold on. To go up on her toes and kiss him. To feel that rush of incredible sensations one more time. Instead, she reminded herself just how little he really thought of her. Of the fact that he didn’t want her—it was only desire driving his reactions.
    “I wasn’t flirting,” she told him. “But even if I had been, what business is that of yours? You’re my boss, Mike, not my boyfriend.”
    “I am your boss,” he agreed. “And I don’t want you playing with the crew. I want them focused on the work, not you.”
    Stunned all over again, Jenny demanded, “Can you hear yourself? Do you even