plan to win it.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Claire agreed quietly. “But you keep talking about those kids as if they are exclusively yours and they’re not. You have two brothers and the triplets need to be raised by all three of you, not just one of you.”
“Grant owns a construction company in Savannah. Chas has an interview with a law firm in Philadelphia in a few weeks. But I could and did leave my job, and my life. Just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I’m here to stay. In the end, those kids will be raised by me. Probably exclusively. And nobody’s going to keep me from doing that.”
“You saw me as that much of a threat?” she asked.
Cool, dignified, he caught her gaze. “I didn’t know what to think about you. That’s why I decided to confront you. Now that I see how loyal to my father you are, I sincerely doubt you could help Arnie do something my father wouldn’t have wanted.”
Stupefied, Claire stared at him. He wore a gray suit, a white shirt and a moss-green tie that brought out the verdant color of his eyes. Those eyes held a determined spark, but his perfect mouth tipped upward, just a fraction, as if he was relieved and couldn’t quite hide it. He looked innocent and sweet, and positively gorgeous. Not nervous. Not confused. Absolutely normal.
In a wave of understanding, she realized this conversation answered the question about why he behaved so oddly around her. He thought she was in cahoots with Arnie Garrett. He hadn’t been getting the same peculiar sensations she’d been getting for the past two days.
Not only was her body constantly on red alert, but she continually experienced a strange intuition that they were made for each other. That wasn’t just preposterous, it was premature. She didn’t even know the man, for pete’s sake. True, he was gorgeous, beautifully built and had a smile that could charm the angels, but it took much, much more than that to be “made for each other.”
And now she knew he wasn’t attracted to her. But, in fairness, she didn’t want to be attracted to him either. She couldn’t afford to be attracted to him. He was older. He was her boss. And he was way, way out of her social circle.
“It’s been a really difficult two days for all of us,” she said, though she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t. Something completely wrong was happening to her, and unless or until she was sure she could manage it, she wasn’t going to take any chances. “I have some things I need to do this morning. If you’re going to pick up where your father left off, those contracts—” she pointed at the corner of his father’s desk “—need to be renegotiated. I’d start there, if I were you.”
Evan nodded. Claire let herself out of his office and closed the door, since her desk was right outside and she didn’t want him watching her every move any more than she wanted to be reminded of him.
She didn’t need privacy or time to think about this. Her mother’s involvement with an older, more sophisticated…richer man had cost Claire her father.
Staying away from Evan Brewster should be a nobrainer.
Chapter Three
After work, Claire followed Evan to the Brewster mansion. Because she had been quiet all afternoon, Evan suspected she was probably still annoyed with him for suggesting she might have been in league with Arnie Garrett. For Evan that was good news and bad news. On the one hand, her irritation was a sort of proof that she hadn’t thrown in her lot with Arnie and Evan could trust her. On the other, being able to trust her nullified the argument he continually used to pull himself away from noticing she was a woman. If she wasn’t in partnership with Arnie to take the triplets, then there was no reason not to find her attractive. None, except that he had nothing to offer a wife, so he wasn’t in the market.
And he wasn’t. He had even begun to seriously doubt his attraction to her, in spite of the way it seemed to get worse as the day went on. Huddled together in two rooms, cocooned from the rest of the lumber mill, they were in their own private world. He was sure most of what he was feeling was nothing more than a response to being so close all the time.
As he pulled into the driveway, Evan wasn’t concerned about having to spend extra hours with Claire, since nobody would have time to be attracted to anyone while trying to feed, bathe and put to bed three children. If anything, these next few hours would probably nip the attraction in the bud.
He waited for her by the front door while she parked her car. When she met him at the entryway, he smiled. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
She laughed. It was the first time she’d laughed all day, and though Evan wished the sound hadn’t pleased him so much, he took it as a sign that she’d forgiven him for mistrusting her.
“I said I didn’t mind helping you guys get adjusted to parenting, and I don’t,” she said cheerily.
“You’re sure?”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Wondering if that wasn’t exactly what he was trying to do, Evan opened the door. “Welcome to paradise.”
Crying was the music that greeted them. Evan could see Grant running back and forth in the kitchen. A glance to the right showed Chas had all three sobbing kids corralled in the living room…on the white rug, white sofa and white wing chair.
“What are you doing?” he asked with a gasp, then strode in and scooped Cody off the rug. “Are you blind? Everything in here is white.”
“The kids are clean,” Chas argued in exasperation.
“Maybe now, but…”
Evan stopped when Claire tapped him on the shoulder. “I think I should go in the kitchen and help.”
“Good thinking.”
The minute Claire left the room, some of Evan’s tension eased. He lowered himself to the sofa and settled Cody on his lap. “Sorry,” he said to Chas. “I know you guys probably had a hell of a day.”
“That’s okay,” Chas said, easily accepting his apology. “I imagine your day couldn’t have been any easier than ours.”
“Actually, my day wasn’t too bad,” Evan admitted, pressing his cheek against the top of Cody’s head, not just because it was one of the little gestures of affection Claire had taught them the night before but because it felt right, good. Holding the baby was like getting grounded. Even amid the noise and confusion, everything they were going through made sense when Evan held one of the babies.
“Claire is very much on top of things,” he continued. “She seems to have the entire sequence of events down. When a contract comes in, she knows how to schedule inventory, labor and delivery, and then how to put each contract into the accounting system so it gets billed.”
“That’s a relief,” Chas said as he successfully caught Taylor, who was crawling away as if drag racing with Annie. Unfortunately, he just missed Annie, who eluded him by scrambling around the leg of the coffee table.
Today the girls wore ruffly yellow dresses with a row of very happy daisies across the front hem. Annie, who was now playing peekaboo with Chas around the leg of the table, was so cute Evan was momentarily taken aback. Sometimes when he looked at the kids and realized they were his
