adding politely, “Congratulations.”
“Oh, um, thanks,” she dismissed with a self-conscious shrug. “It’s a boutique hotel, very well respected even before the upgrades. They’re looking to bring in a higher clientele and hired me because of my experience with Makricosta’s. I guess I’m indebted to you...again.” Her voice trailed off. The way she bit her lips together suggested she would rather be run over by this limo than face him after referencing their night together.
He pretended they’d left it at the point where she’d thanked him, as if the rest hadn’t happened. “As I said then, the hoteliers here got lucky.”
Her eyelashes flinched in a way that seemed to say, Did you really just say that?
He had. It was unkind, but he wasn’t about to acknowledge how lucky he’d been that night. If his insensitivity toward her made his gut knot with sick self-hatred, so be it. He was here for only one reason.
Jaya visibly pulled herself together. “I’ve arranged the Presidential Suite. It’s yours as long as you need it. I’ll talk to the staff, keep housekeeping out of there, tell them you’re antisocial.” Her tight smile said, It’s not even a lie, and the churning rolled in his stomach again. “My new boss isn’t nearly as hands-on as you were. You’ll be long gone before he asks who was in there.”
Hands-on?
Her cool delivery let him know that two could play this game.
Androu curled his banana-coated fingers into Theo’s shirtfront and tried to wriggle down to his feet, forcing Theo to break their stare.
“I need more than a safe place to hide,” Theo said, tentative in his struggle with Androu, afraid of hurting his tiny body, but not wanting him hurting himself by trying to walk around in a moving vehicle. Androu grew frustrated and started arching with temper. “I don’t know what to do with babies. I need your help.”
“Like a nanny? I can call an agen—”
He shook his head, impatient that she was being obtuse. “I can’t trust strangers. That chauffeur hearing my name is bad enough. I need complete discretion, at least until I know the situation on the ship. Twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight, then we can reassess.”
“We? You’re suggesting me? No.” She shook her head. “Definitely not. I can’t.” Her eyes grew big, panicked maybe, but she shielded them with a downward sweep of her lashes. “I really can’t. It’s impossible. No. Sorry.”
Because of their history. Because he’d just been a bastard about it. Damn it. There was a reason he didn’t make promises to women: he couldn’t keep them, not the emotional kind. He didn’t have it in him to fulfill and make happy. Not in a romantic way. In other ways...
He thought fast. “Look at what you gain. This is the son of the Makricosta chain of hotels and resorts. Do you recognize how much favor will be bestowed on the person who keeps him from harm? How do you feel about working cruise lines? Gideon has another ship launching next fall. You’re climbing ladders so I assume your career is still very important to you. You’ll be able to write your own ticket, Jaya. Anything you can’t do, Adara will pay for you to learn. Hell, name your price and I’ll pay it to know that I’ve got someone I can trust for the next few days.”
“To babysit.” Her mouth stayed in a flat, grim line of disgust.
“They’re the toughest guests to please. Free dinner goes nowhere with them.”
“Am I supposed to be laughing? Because I don’t find this funny.”
“Look, I know it sounds sexist. That’s not why I’m asking. You’re good with kids. Or does it bother you that I’d offer you money to help me?”
“Your being here bothers me, Theo,” she snapped, turning her face away. “This is...” Her brow flinched into anguish.
Her anxiety was a kick in the chest, especially as he sensed that her refusal wasn’t coming entirely from being scorned. There was a fear component. Something more emotional. It occurred to him there might be a man in her life making her hold back.
His insides shrunk to knotted pieces of rawhide. He couldn’t bring himself to ask if that was the problem. He didn’t want to know.
“It’s a big favor, I realize that,” he managed.
She choked out a laugh. “Is that what this is? A favor? A professional courtesy?”
“It’s an appeal to your better nature. Think of the children.”
“Are you serious right now?” She pursed her mouth in a furious white line.
“Jaya, I can’t afford mistakes. Letting a stranger look after these kids would be wrong. I need you. Tell me what it will cost. I’ll pay it.”
JAYA’S EMOTIONS ROSE and fell on his words along with her temper. Think of the children. Really. Really?
As for mistakes, he obviously thought they’d made one. The truth was the complete opposite.
Her eyes kept gravitating to Androu. The resemblance was startling. Her family was supposed to be the one with the cookie-cutter genetics that stamped out cousins who could ride each other’s passports. To see so much of Theo in his nephew threw her for a loop and she was already in a tailspin at seeing the man himself.
One glimpse of the sky pilot with his broody expression behind mirrored aviators and she’d turned into a lovestruck schoolgirl again. Never mind that she’d spent the past year and a half taking on responsibilities she’d never dreamed herself capable of shouldering. Men had been completely off her radar, given her being needed so much at home. She’d shut down thoughts of a future with Theo when he had neglected to return her few calls. She hadn’t felt sexy and romantic anyway. She’d been tired and grief-stricken and determined to continue her career for the sake of her pride.
Finally, in the past few months, things had begun to settle into a routine. She’d felt good, if wistful, at the way things had turned out. She was empowered and in control: the independent, worldly, modern woman she’d always longed to be.
And yet she’d leaped to respond to Theo’s text and had grown breathless watching his athletic frame tether his helicopter. Her eyes kept stealing glances at his leather bomber jacket and black jeans that were old enough to be scuffed gray in all the right places, accenting the muscles of his thighs. He was tough and aloof and as quietly commanding as always, framing his demands with that polite, I need. I need a file, I need lunch at one, I need you, Jaya. I need you to care for my babies.
Her heart lurched.
“I need to think,” she mumbled, even though this situation was beyond comprehension. Her mind was going a mile a minute, trying to figure out what to do. Where was Saranya when she needed her cousin’s sensible advice? Why did life have to keep throwing such hard curves in front of her?
No time for a pity party, she reminded herself as Oscar turned into the underground parking garage and stopped next to the elevators.
They’d arrived at Theo’s discreet
