The Baby Deal Read online

  “What does that mean—shaking your head?” Jack said, his voice rising a decibel.

  Andrew shrugged. “I guess it means I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on with me. I got in from Tahiti yesterday and apparently when I thought I was opening my suitcase I was really opening Pandora’s box instead.”

  Andrew forced himself to look at his brother in time to see Jack frown fiercely at him and shake his own head. “What does that mean? You opened Pandora’s box because you have to work for a living now? Please. The last thing I need is more drama.”

  “I’m not being dramatic,” Andrew said, a tinge of anger peeking its head through his stupor.

  “Can we get down to business?” Jack said then.

  “Isn’t that what I’m here for?”

  “We haven’t established that you’re actually here at all. But if you can pretend to be, for just a minute, maybe you can tell me about the McCrays.”

  “I met them in Tahiti. There’s a brother, too. Kyle.”

  “And did you all hit it off?”

  Andrew shrugged again. “They’re nice people. I

  overheard them talking about snorkeling and offered to show them the best spot for it. Then I spent the next day with them, doing that.” He omitted the fact that he’d also spent the evening with them. And the night with Delia. Which had, through the course of the last half day, become something he didn’t want to think about.

  “Do they like you?” Jack asked, as if the right answer might be tantamount to striking gold.

  “I don’t know,” Andrew responded, his own tone somewhat ominous.

  “They were friendly towards you. In a reserved sort of way. And then Delia McCray stayed to have coffee with you.”

  That was a leading statement. But Andrew didn’t let it lead anywhere but to a confirmation. “Right.”

  “So what happened? Did you close the deal? Persuade her to give Hanson Media Group the top spot on the list of possibilities? What?”

  “We didn’t talk business.”

  “How could you not talk business? That’s why we were there. Discovering a connection to the client, using it as a springboard, that’s a plus when it comes to sales. And you didn’t even bring up the subject after I left?”

  Jack’s anger was growing.

  “We had other things to talk about.”

  “Nothing as important as Delia McCray giving us her advertising,” Jack said, raising his voice again.

  “Something more important,” Andrew said under his breath.

  “There isn’t anything more important right now.”

  Andrew closed his eyes against the burn of sleeplessness, clasped his hands together, propped his elbows on the conference table and dropped his brow to his thumbs.

  “I’m afraid there is,” he muttered.

  Jack hit the table and even though Andrew couldn’t see him, he knew his brother had gotten to his feet. “Dammit, Andrew, what are you talking about? What did you do, fool around with Delia McCray in Tahiti and blow this for us before we even got a chance?”

  “Maybe,” Andrew said quietly.

  “Maybe? Maybe what? Maybe you fooled around with Delia McCray in Tahiti or maybe you blew her account for us?”

  Jack was shouting now. Andrew knew his brother was under a lot of pressure, but so was he.

  He opened his eyes, raised his head from his hands and stared daggers at Jack. “There’s no maybe about my fooling around with Delia in Tahiti. That baby she’s going to have? Mine.”

  Jack stared back at him and for a moment there was a certain amount of satisfaction for Andrew in seeing that, for a change, he’d dished out the shock rather than been the recipient of it.

  But it was only a moment before he realized what he’d just done. He’d just told his brother that he’d fathered Delia McCray’s baby. Something he was a very long way from coming to grips with himself yet. Let alone being in any condition to face whatever his brother’s response was going to be.

  “Tell me that’s a joke. A bad joke, but a joke,” Jack ordered in a voice that was suddenly so quiet it was much, much more dangerous than any loud rant.

  Still, Andrew had reached his own limit and he met Jack’s glare eye to eye. “It isn’t a joke.”

  “Sweet holy mother of—” Jack said as he threw his hands in the air and turned away, presenting only his back to Andrew.

  But it was enough to let Andrew know that Jack was too mad to even look at him, to trust himself to say or do anything until he gained some control.

  Andrew merely waited. What else was he going to do? Pandora’s box really was open and there was no closing the lid now.

  A full five minutes passed before Jack faced him again. Two fists went to the top of the conference table and Jack leaned on them and let his eyes bore into Andrew.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Hanson Media Group is still reeling from the porn scandal. The meeting you just zoned out of was about how many more advertisers have pulled their accounts from us. They’re leaving us in droves. Our competitors are cashing in on it, luring our clients away. Even clients who have been with us from the get-go are bailing. The wolves are at the door and you just unlocked it.”

  “Oh, come on. My personal business has nothing to do with Hanson Media Group,” Andrew insisted.

  “You may think this is just your own personal business, but it isn’t,” Jack said, his voice rising again. “Word of this leaking out—and things like this always do leak out somehow—could be the last straw. It could be what does us all in. David and I are breaking our necks trying to convince the whole damn world that Hanson Media Group would never be involved in pornography in any way, shape or form. That we’re a family-owned and-operated company with a commitment to values—family and otherwise. That we’re responsible and upstanding and as wholesome as apple pie. And now you think it’s only your own personal business that you had a sleazy one-night stand—”

  “It wasn’t sleazy. Delia isn’t that kind of woman.”

  “Okay, a non-sleazy one-night stand with a potential client. And you think it’s your own personal business that you were too damn stupid and irresponsible to use a condom, and that now that woman—who you are not married to—is pregnant? You don’t think that reflects back on the family? On the business? That it doesn’t give ammunition to every single person who’s rooting for us to go under and using morality as leverage against us?”

  “Now you have to be joking,” Andrew said, holding on to his own temper, but by only a thread. “This isn’t the Victorian era, Jack. People sleep with each other. Yes, sometimes they even have one-night stands. And even though they know better, sometimes they even have unprotected sex. We’re human. Even the Hansons.”

  “We can’t afford to be human right now!” Jack yelled. “We have to be better than that to prove ourselves all over again.”

  “Obviously it’s too late for me to prove I’m better than anyone,” Andrew shouted back, losing his tenuous hold on his own mounting anger. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Fix it! Take responsibility for your actions! Wake up to the fact that you’re an adult and start behaving like one! For the first time in your worthless life, surprise me—surprise us all—and be a man!”

  “And a man would do what?” Andrew asked, his teeth clenched now.

  “Marry her!” Jack commanded.

  “Marry her?” Andrew repeated in disbelief.

  But that was when he saw something in his brother’s expression that he’d never seen before. Something intolerable.

  He saw disgust.

  He heard disgust in Jack’s voice when Jack said,

  “That probably would be too much to expect from you, wouldn’t it? Doing the right thing for once?”

  Then Jack pushed himself away from the table and stood ramrod-straight, towering above Andrew. “Everything David and I and everyone else around here have done since Dad died, everything I’ve given up, could all be shot to hell beca
use of you. More people could lose their jobs. This family could lose what’s kept it going for three generations. Because of you. I can’t even look at you right now,” Jack said, spinning on his heels and storming out of the conference room.

  Because of you….

  Because of you….

  His brother’s condemnation seemed to echo off the walls as Andrew once again found himself deserted in that particular office space.

  He let his head fall to the back of his chair as wave after wave of emotions washed over him. Fury and anger. Insult. Frustration. Confusion. Bewilderment. Resentment. Fear and worry. And complete and utter dismay.

  Marriage? Andrew thought. Jack actually wanted him to marry Delia? A woman he didn’t even know?

  Jack couldn’t be serious.

  But Andrew knew he had been.

  In his brother’s eyes it was either marriage or risk the entire fate of Hanson Media Group, of the family finances and of the livelihood of numerous other people employed by the company.

  “Because of me.”

  Andrew took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  Never in his life had the urge to run been so strong. The urge to simply get on the next plane out of Chicago and head for some tropical isle. The urge to leave behind all the complications, all the emotions, all the burdens, all the recriminations.

  Only this time Andrew knew he couldn’t do that. And not just because if he did, the money he needed to live wouldn’t be forthcoming anymore. Also because it would support what his brother had just said about him—that he was irresponsible. That he was a child.

  A stupid, irresponsible child.

  Nice. Nice to know that that’s what his brother and his uncle and the rest of his family thought of him.

  Okay, yes, he’d lived a privileged life, thanks to Hanson money. And yes, that privilege had allowed him few responsibilities. And no, he hadn’t done what Jack had done—become super-achiever in spite of all Hanson Media Group had provided. But he was a grown man. And just because he didn’t have a lot of responsibilities—or hadn’t had until yesterday—didn’t mean he was irresponsible.

  But the fact that that’s what his brother and his family thought of him…? It was like wearing a hair shirt. It felt bad. Really bad.

  But would it honestly take marrying Delia McCray to show Jack and anyone else who thought of him like that that they were wrong?

  Drastic. That seemed too drastic.

  Except, of course, that proving his naysayers wrong wasn’t the only reason to marry her. She was, after all, pregnant.

  Another ripple washed over him. This one something that closely resembled panic. The same kind of claustrophobic panic he’d experienced the previous day when he’d had to accept working here.

  But a job was one thing. Marrying someone he didn’t even know was something else entirely. Being a husband—a father—was something else entirely…

  He swallowed with some difficulty and closed his eyes for the second time, pinching them tight against the sting.

  And there in his mind was the picture of Delia.

  Odd, but in all of this, he hadn’t thought much about her. He’d thought about her being pregnant. About the baby being his. Now he was thinking about what his family thought about him. He was worrying about what kind of an impact his next action could have on people who were just nameless faces outside of his office. But Delia? Sweet, sunny Delia—who had been on his mind a lot since he’d hooked up with her in Tahiti—had not been what he was thinking about since last night.

  And odder still, seeing her in his head, thinking about her, suddenly made him feel better. Not a lot, but some.

  Yet the idea of marrying her continued to just be bizarre.

  Marriage?

  Him?

  To Delia?

  No, even just trying the idea on for size didn’t help.

  It still seemed totally surreal.

  But was it the only way to redeem himself in the eyes of his family? The only way to do the right thing.

  The right thing—Jack’s words.

  They seemed old-fashioned. Archaic, even. Or maybe he’d been out playing around for so long that his concept of what was right and what was wrong had progressed too far. Far enough to become skewed. So skewed that the notion of marrying the mother of his child seemed weird to him.

  The mother of his child—now that seemed weird. But that’s what Delia was now. And that’s what he had to deal with. The consequences of his actions.

  Consequences that reached far beyond what they would have been had he not been a Hanson. Had he not been in the middle of this Hanson Media Group mess.

  But he was a Hanson. And he was in the middle of the Hanson Media Group mess. And maybe this was where he finally paid the piper. Where he paid for the luxury and privilege he’d enjoyed so freely.

  “So, for the greater good and to prove myself, I have to marry Delia?”

  Have to…

  Another old-fashioned idea. And not a particularly appealing one.

  But Delia herself was appealing, he thought. In Tahiti and last night, too.

  And as for the baby?

  Okay, the thought of becoming a father was daunting. Especially when he considered that he didn’t have any idea what kind of father he would make. When he considered that he hadn’t had the greatest role model in his own father.

  But dealing with that wasn’t going to happen right away, he reminded himself to keep some sense of control. First things first. And first he’d deal with the hurdles that had been shoved in front of him and get over them, and then he’d have some time to adjust to the other…

  So, was he actually considering the whole “do the right thing” marriage? he asked himself, slightly surprised that that seemed to be where he was ending up.

  Yeah, maybe he was coming to that, he thought. Maybe there really wasn’t any other choice. Not if he ever wanted his family to think of him as more than a screwup. Not if he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life as the person who just might have struck the final blow to Hanson Media Group’s existence. And not if he didn’t want to be the kind of guy who got someone pregnant and then turned his back on her.

  Which all boiled down to one thing.

  Marriage.

  To Delia.

  “It’ll be all right,” he said forcefully to reassure himself.

  But despite his outward show of bravado, despite his conviction that he wasn’t the stupid, irresponsible kid his brother had accused him of being, despite his sudden discovery that he just might want to do the right thing, at that moment, faced with making a living and marriage and fatherhood, he felt pretty unprepared for it all.

  Hell, he felt completely unprepared for it all….

  Chapter Five

  It was after nine o’clock that night when Delia left her office at Meals Like Mom’s headquarters. After spending the day at the kitchens she’d had to return to the main office to do some paperwork. Because everyone but the cleaning crew had been gone by the time she’d arrived—and even the cleaning crew was gone now—she was alone when she left the building.

  She wasn’t the only person in the parking lot, however. When she got there, there was a second car parked in the spot next to hers—a Jaguar sports coupe—and a man was getting out from behind the steering wheel.

  Had she not recognized him instantly she might have been uneasy with the situation. But she did recognize him so she continued the short walk from the building to her car.

  “Andrew?”

  “Hi,” he said, closing his car door without taking his eyes off Delia.

  He didn’t look good. Well, he was good-looking enough never to look bad—especially in a navy blue suit that rode his broad shoulders and narrow hips to perfection. But it crossed Delia’s mind that he must have slept even less than she had because he looked exhausted and drained, and his handsome face was as strained and stressed as any face she’d ever seen.

  “Are you okay?” she asked as she ca
me to stand at the front of her own sedan.

  “Sure,” he said, sounding as if he were putting too much effort into being chipper. “How about you?”

  “I’m fine,” Delia answered, but with a query in her own tone to let him know she didn’t believe he was all right. “What are you doing here?” she asked then, not beating around the bush.

  He held up a file folder. “I have the formal proposal based on what we discussed over dinner last night. I thought I’d get it to you as soon as I finished it. And maybe we could talk.”

  “It’s late and I’ve done about as much work as I’m going to do today. I’ll take the proposal and look at it tomorrow.” And go home and try to figure out why she was feeling disappointed that that was the only reason he was there.

  “It isn’t business I want to talk about,” he informed her quietly. Then, with a nod at the coffee bar across the street he added, “How ’bout I buy you a cup of decaf? I promise to stick around long enough to drink it tonight.”

  The half smile he flashed her way was deadly. Even if it did have shades of shame and embarrassment to it. In fact, that made it all the more appealing, somehow.

  But Delia reminded herself of all she’d hashed through since the evening before. She reminded herself of their age difference. And of how nothing could ever come of anything between them. Then she said, “I don’t think so. I think it’s better if we just go our separate ways and pretend we never met.”

  “I don’t think we can do that,” he said, his natural charm in the cock of his head.

  “Sure we can. Had we not met again purely by coincidence that’s what would have happened, so let’s just let it happen anyway.”

  “You never even thought about trying to find me? To tell me about the baby?”

  “I considered it. But it didn’t seem realistic that I’d be able to find you. And even if I had… Well, I just decided not to.”

  He nodded slowly, his dark brown gaze on her the entire time.

  Delia thought he might be willing to accept what she was proposing, that he would figure that it was enough that he’d come back, made contact, given her the opportunity to take this further if she wanted to. And that since she was making it clear that she didn’t want to, he’d feel let off the hook and this would be the end of it.