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Overview
When attorney Angelica Windsor is forced to work alongside software mogul Dan Roberts, she can’t stop butting heads with him. Most infuriating is the fact that he’s insanely sexy. But when they stumble upon an abandoned baby, she needs Dan to follow her lead—otherwise the child will end up in foster care, something Angelica cannot see happen. In the presence of social services, Angelica blurts out that she and Dan are engaged—and before the unwitting couple knows it, they’re living together and acting as temporary parents until the newborn has a suitable home.
Even though Angelica and the baby have disrupted his life, Dan is finding a lot to like about the unexpected turn of events. Secretly, he’s thrilled that he has a reason to spend more time with the outspoken brunette bombshell. But Dan soon discovers that he’s heading for deep water. Because playing house with Angelica makes him want the real thing—especially when he falls head over heels in love with her.
Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from other Loveswept titles.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780307798930 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 01/21/2014 |
| Series: | Roberts Windsor , #2 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 208 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
One
“Please explain why I need to rest right in the middle of negotiations,” Angelica Windsor whispered fiercely to Dan Roberts as he led her down the hotel corridor, his hand tightly wrapped around her arm.
“Because you’re tired,” Dan said as he stabbed the Up elevator button. “If you don’t like that one, think of it as lunch.”
“At eleven in the morning!”
“It beats watching you fall into Garner’s trap,” he said, shaking his head. “First you seem to be off in space, and then you’re losing your temper, against all the rules. You know better than to tell the opposition he got his law degree from a preschool. What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“Nothing,” she muttered. Silently she added, nothing except that Dan Roberts was sexy. And she had found herself paying more attention to him than to the delicate business meeting they’d been attending—with near disastrous results. Everything was always wrong when she was with Dan. Fortunately, she had been with him only five times since they had first met, but that was five times too many for her peace of mind.
The elevator arrived. They stepped into it, and she sneaked a glance at him. He was definitely the most attractive man she knew. He was tall and slim, almost to the point of thinness, yet she could easily see the strength under his dark gray suit. He wore round, studious-looking glasses, but they didn’t detract from the sharp, rugged planes of his face. His eyes were a deep brown, his nose straight and narrow, and his mouth … his mouth was sensual, enticing.
Stop looking at his mouth! Angelica ordered herself. Her relationship with Dan was purely business, always had been, always would be. They had met nine months ago when he had tried to buy the rights to her cousin Diana’s latest computer game. Dan’s offers had been straightforward and up-front—but then someone had stolen the game from Diana’s house. Since Diana had been involved with Dan’s brother, Adam, Angelica had accused the two men of stealing the game.
Of course they hadn’t, and she had felt like a fool when the real culprit was revealed. Perhaps, she mused as the elevator stopped and they stepped out, if she and Dan hadn’t started off on such a very wrong footing, they would now be more friendly with each other. As her cousin’s attorney, though, she had had to negotiate with Dan for the sale of Diana’s new game to his company, Starlight Software. Unfortunately, the relationship between her and Dan hadn’t improved.
This week she had flown up from San Francisco to Seattle, where Dan’s company was located, to sit in on the negotiations for the licensing of Diana’s game to another company, Mark IV Computers. And he’d just pulled her out of those negotiations because she’d been distracted, not knowing he had been the distraction!
Dan glanced worriedly at Angelica as they walked down the hall to the Starlight company suite. She was much too quiet, and wasn’t kicking up any fuss about his hauling her out of the room where they had been meeting with Mitch Garner, the representative of Mark IV. That wasn’t like Angelica.
She had always mystified him, though. It would be easy to miss the tigress in this tall, willowy, always elegantly dressed woman. But there were subtle clues in the tawny brown of her shoulder-length hair and the fire that flashed in her light green eyes. After their initial dealings over her cousin Diana’s game, he had seen her only a few times—once when his brother Adam had married Diana, and he had been the best man and Angelica the maid of honor, twice regarding further legal matters on Diana’s association with Starlight, and once more when he had visited Adam and Diana in San Francisco. Each time he had been more attracted to her, more on the verge of suggesting they change their business relationship to one more … intimate. Yet each time they had ended up arguing over anything and everything. If he said white, Angelica instantly said black. Most times he didn’t know whether to strangle her or kiss her.
Opposites might attract, he thought as he unlocked the door to the suite, but that was as far as it would logically go between him and Angelica. Yet, illogically, the pull he felt for her grew stronger with each disagreement. He wanted her in his bed, but sensed that a temporary relationship would never be enough for either of them. Yet that was the only one they could have.
He opened the door and ushered her over the threshold. The sitting room was spacious and had a small wet bar, refrigerator, and stove behind the far alcove. The bedroom was to the right. On the left was an open connecting door that led to another suite, which he used during the weekdays. Weekends he spent at his home on Nadera Island, one of the San Juan Islands. Angelica was staying in the company suite, and he’d been aware from the moment she had stepped into the room last night that the connecting door, normally a necessary barrier whenever people were staying in the company suite, was instead a nearly unbearable temptation.
She settled gracefully on the sofa and kicked off her shoes. “Okay, Dan, now what?”
“Now you stay out of the picture for a while,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Angelica, you were letting Mitch Garner provoke you. I warned you that one of his tactics is to anger the opposition while trying to pull a fast one. You almost lost your temper once.”
“I’m about to lose it again. With you.”
“I’m going to join Clark and Mitch for lunch.” Clark was Starlight’s own lawyer. “You, in the meantime, will ‘rest.’ ” He had gotten Angelica out of the meeting by saying she had flown in from San Francisco that morning and was exhausted. It was a blatant lie, as anyone could tell by looking at her. Her eyes were bright—probably with irritation at him—and her skin smooth and lightly tanned. He imagined how soft that skin must feel, and imagined stroking a finger across her cheek just to make sure. Then he would—
Dan cleared his throat and pushed away his lustful thoughts. “Perhaps,” he said, “Clark and I could just handle Diana’s—”
“No. Diana’s my client. And my cousin.”
Her words touched several already raw nerves in him. “And she’s my sister-in-law. That’s the problem with you, Angelica. You have never once trusted me. If you’d care to recall when Griegson stole Diana’s game, you’d also recall that I take care of my own as much as you do.”
“Dan!”
Angry and frustrated, he ignored her and strode through the connecting door to his room. Dammit, he thought as he passed through the bedroom and on into the bathroom, how did that woman always manage to get to him? She had insisted on attending today’s meeting, and he was sure she had done so because she didn’t trust him to get a good deal for Diana.
The hell with it, he thought, taking off his glasses and splashing water on his face to cool his skin. That he lived in Seattle and Angelica in San Francisco was probably just as well. Otherwise, she’d always be driving him crazy—in more ways than one.
Drying his face with a hand towel, he walked back into the bedroom. He knew he was hardly ready for lunch, especially under the present tension. Something out of place in the room caught his eye, and he lowered the towel. He stared. Somehow his bedroom had acquired an unusual addition. He hadn’t seen it there before he went into the bathroom, but he had been preoccupied. Maybe he was dreaming, he thought wildly. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. He opened them again and stared in shock.
There, lying snuggled in the middle of his bed, was a sleeping baby.