word “personal” would have been enough to deter most men. But Sam looked interested. “Personal as in a man?”
Without meaning to, she had hooked the writer in him, she saw. She would have to be more careful. “I really don’t think—”
“My point exactly,” he cut in. “You can’t think straight when you’re preoccupied with another matter. Do I remind you of this man who’s on your mind?”
If he only knew. She tried to keep her face impassive. Sam was too intuitive to accept an outright denial. “Perhaps.”
“It would explain the displaced antagonism,” he said as if to himself. “Sorry, analyzing people is a hobby of mine, as it is with most writers.”
“But you’re a children’s writer.”
He looked affronted. “My readers still expect believable characters with convincing motivation. The only difference is that my stories are written at an appropriate level of vocabulary.”
“I didn’t mean to suggest anything else.”
His shoulders lifted. “I’m used to it. Demeaning children’s literature is a spectator sport for some people. Do you have children of your own, Haley?”
“I hardly see—”
“That it’s any of my business?” he finished for her. “You’re probably right, but if we’re to be on the same wavelength, I need to know more about you.”
If it was a line, it was as smooth as silk, Haley thought. No wonder Ellen had found him so easy to fall for. Luckily she wasn’t going to make the same mistake. “All you need to know about me is that Miranda sent me to take care of your staffing needs.”
“Precisely,” he concluded. “So, do you have children?”
He was impossible. “Yes,” she snapped. Anything to get the discussion back on track.
“Boys? Girls?”
How old did he think she was? “Boy, singular. I’m only twenty-three myself. Joel is six months old, so you won’t find him standing in line for your autograph.”
Sam seemed unruffled. “He’s a bit young for my books,” he agreed, “Although hopefully they’ll still be around when he starts reading.”
This wasn’t getting her anywhere. She made herself remember Miranda’s script. “I’m sure they will,” she said in what was supposed to be a flattering tone.
He saw right through it. “This man you’re so mad at, is he Joel’s father?”
This, at least, she could answer truthfully. “Yes, he is.”
She felt his gaze settle on the third finger of her left hand. “You’re not married to him?”
Cursing herself for not thinking to wear a ring as camouflage, she snapped, “I should hope not.”
Her vehemence intrigued him, she saw. “You have a child by him but you don’t want him in your life. Interesting.”
She tried to tell herself it was the writer in him, finding story possibilities in everything, but she didn’t like the way his interest threatened to undermine her anger. “I don’t want to talk about me,” she said shortly. She was alarmed at the way the conversation kept coming back to her, when the whole point was to learn as much as she could about him so she could share it with Joel when he was old enough to ask about his father.
Her body had its own ideas, she found to her dismay. Sam sat so close that her senses were assailed by the woody fragrance of his aftershave lotion, coupled with the indefinable man-scent of Sam himself. The combination was relaxed and outdoorsy, not sophisticated like Richard, she thought, unwillingly comparing Richard with the man beside her. Sam’s aura was so overpoweringly alluring it was in danger of throwing her completely off balance. Richard had never affected her so strongly.
She wasn’t planning on dating Sam, she reminded herself hastily. After Richard, she enjoyed being accountable to no one but herself and Joel. So it hardly mattered whether Sam was the indoor or outdoor type, or given to group orgies behind his impressive wrought-iron gates.
Now where had that thought come from? What was it about him that made her thoughts turn in directions they had no business going? She and Richard had only split up a few weeks ago, so it wasn’t as if she were starved for a man’s attention.
The image of Sam’s savagely rumpled bed returned to her mind. She kept a rein on her runaway thoughts by reminding herself that he had slept with her half sister, made her pregnant then denied that the baby could possibly be his.
Sobering as the reminder was, still she had trouble keeping her mind focused. Was this what he had done to Ellen?
It wasn’t hard to see how it could happen, Haley thought. She pulled herself together with an effort. Sam might well be the kind of man who attracted women as effortlessly as a magnet attracted iron filings, but Haley had no intention of falling prey to his allure.
There was probably a good reason for his divorce, she told herself. Being the kind person she was, Ellen had accepted his explanation that he and his wife were simply incompatible, but Haley would have wanted to dig deeper. Was he a workaholic or a womanizer? Insanely jealous? That the fault could have been on his ex-wife’s side, she didn’t want to think. It brought her dangerously close to feeling compassion for him, and look where that had gotten Ellen!
For Joel’s sake Haley knew she had to keep a clear head and the best way to do that was to remind herself that he was The Beast and he wasn’t about to turn into a handsome prince any time soon. Had it been possible, he would surely have done so when Ellen had told him about the baby. Instead, he had rejected both her and their child. Haley made herself remember that part.
“I’d say your child is highly relevant to our discussion, if you’re to be my house sitter while I’m on tour,” he said, breaking into her thoughts.
“You misunderstand,” she said primly. “I’m only interviewing you about your requirements, not taking the job myself.”
“Why not? You’re not Miranda’s regular assistant. What happened to the pretty redhead with the infectious laugh? Donna—isn’t that her name?”
Telling herself she didn’t care that he obviously found Miranda’s assistant attractive, Haley nevertheless found great satisfaction in saying, “I’m only filling in while Donna’s on her honeymoon. She eloped with a client.”
She had surprised him, she saw, when his dark eyebrows arched upward. Serve him right if he had fancied Donna and she had run off with someone else. It was time he got a taste of his own medicine. At the same time, something uncomfortably like jealousy gripped her. What would it be like to be the object of his passion?
“Is she coming back?” he asked.
Didn’t the man ever give up? “She’ll be back in a few days with her new husband.” She gave the relationship extra emphasis to make sure he got the point.
“What will happen to you when she does?”
Had
