of a door opening made him wheel around to face her. He didn’t even give her a moment before he spoke.
“Why aren’t you at my house?” he growled, fighting to keep his voice level.
For a split second she looked taken aback, but her composure quickly settled back around her like an invisible cape.
“I sent my associate. Is there a problem?” she asked.
“Yes, there’s a problem. Your lack of professionalism is the problem.”
“My what? Are you complaining about the level of care my company is giving to your contract?” she answered, her face pale but resolute.
“I’m complaining that you’re not doing the job yourself.”
She squared her shoulders and lifted that dainty chin of hers a notch. “Deb has been with me since the firm opened, and she is equally capable of seeing to it that your nursery is completed on time.”
“Deb’s your receptionist, right?”
“Normally, yes,” she answered, with obvious reluctance.
“And how many contracts has she undertaken that are as time-sensitive as this one?”
“This is her first, but I’m still supervi—”
“Not good enough.”
“Your contract is with Best for Baby, not specifically with me,” she pointed out in what was, to his way of thinking, a totally unreasonable reasonable voice.
But beneath her sangfroid, though, he heard the tremor of unease. It gave him power he wasn’t afraid to use. Not when the ends justified the means. He wanted the best for his nephew, and that meant Ali Carter. If he had to make a stink to get her to handle his contract with her precious company personally, then a stink he’d darned well make.
“You will complete the contract with me, and only you.”
Or else ominously remained unsaid.
“Are you threatening me?” she asked, her voice obviously unsteady now.
“Do I need to? Your firm promotes itself as doing what’s best for baby. It’s your name behind that promotion. If I’m not mistaken, doing what’s best is the basis of your mission statement. Yes,” he said in response to the look of surprise that flitted through her blue-gray eyes, “I’ve done my research.”
“And your problem?”
Oh, she was good. He’d give her that. She’d pulled herself together, and if he hadn’t already heard that weakness just a few moments before, he’d have thought she had the upper hand right now.
“My problem is that I contracted with your company with the expectation that I would receive the best, not the second best.”
“I can assure you that Deb is as skilled and efficient as I am. In fact, she’s probably better for this contract, as she has no reason on earth not to be. She’s eager to work with you.” She left the words “I am not” unsaid, but they echoed in the air around them nonetheless.
“So you admit that you’re letting a personal issue stand in the way of your Best for Baby creed, as stated on your company website?”
“I...”
“Not terribly professional, is it?”
“I’m not compromising what my firm offers in any way by putting Deb on the contract.”
“But she’s not you. I want you.”
In more ways than one, he added silently. She picked up on the entendre, her cheeks draining of color before flushing pink once more.
“Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we?” she snapped back.
“Give me one good reason why you won’t work on this project yourself.”
“A reason?” her voiced raised an octave. She let out a forced laugh that hung bitterly in the air between them.
“Is that so difficult?”
His words became the catalyst that broke the crucible of her control.
“Fine,” she snapped. “You want my reason for not working directly with you, you can have it. Men like you who cheat on their wives and who expect the rest of the world to simply drop everything at their behest make me sick. Do you hear me? Sick! You’re scum. You swan around an exotic location under the guise of work and you pick up stray needy women. You betray everything about yourself as a decent human being and all the promises you’ve made before heading home—without so much as a goodbye, I might add—to your perfect life and your perfect wife. That’s why I won’t work directly for you. Satisfied?”
A lesser man might have staggered under her onslaught. He was not that man.
“I’m not married,” he said succinctly in the echoing silence that followed her unexpected tirade.
“Oh, and you think that makes it okay? Wife, partner—what difference does it make? You betrayed the mother of your child when you slept with me, which in my book makes you both a liar and a cheat.”
Ronin tamped down his increasing anger, forcing his voice to remain calm. “I repeat. I am not married. Nor am I currently in any kind of romantic relationship. The baby is not my son. Legally, he’s my ward.”
“Your...your ward?”
Ali clutched at the lapels of her blouse with a shaking hand.
“He’s my nephew. My dead sister’s son.” He sighed. Just saying the words ripped off the carefully layered mental dressing he’d been using to protect his emotional wounds. “Look, can we sit somewhere and discuss this like rational people?”
* * *
Ali let go of her blouse and gestured to the room behind her. “Please, come into my office.”
Her heart raced as her mind played over the appalling way she’d just spoken to him. She never lost it like that, ever. Not to anyone, and especially not to a client. But this was just a little bit too raw for her. The first time since her divorce she’d trusted anyone enough to even consider kissing them, let alone sleeping with them, and this had happened. She could be forgiven for jumping to the wrong conclusion, but she couldn’t be forgiven for the diatribe she’d just delivered. She’d be lucky if he didn’t rip up their contract right now and throw it back in her face.
Two facts now echoed in her mind.
The baby wasn’t his.
He wasn’t married.
“Take a seat,” she said, moving over to the carafe of iced water she kept on a credenza. She poured out two glasses and placed one on her desk in front of him. “Here. I know we both could probably do with something stronger, but it’s all I have on hand.”
“It’s fine,”
