Page 3 of The CEO
Against the wall to his left was a sitting area with a leather couch and two matching over-stuffed leather chairs. The table in front of the sofa was gleaming chrome with a smoked glass top. On the table was a beautiful Ming vase he’d picked up on his last trip to Hong Kong.
The back wall was entirely glass. The vast windows were tinted dark, so the afternoon sun didn’t glare into and heat the room. The wall opposite the sitting area was floor to ceiling bookshelves. The cases were arranged so some were only half shelves. The bookcases held books and more treasures from the Orient. More vases, some very large and some no taller than a paperback book, were artfully arranged on the shelves, intermingling with the leather-bound books.
The carpeting was plush and light gray. It silenced Emily’s entrance into his office.
He looked up. “Who is it?”
“A woman named Sally Raines. She says it’s of a personal nature.”
“I don’t know anyone named Sally Raines.” Even as he said it, a memory niggled in the back of his mind. He shook his head to rid himself of the thought. “Very well, send her in.”
A statuesque blonde woman carrying a baby in a car seat with a diaper bag over the other shoulder entered the room. “Hello, Adam. Long time no see.”
He pushed back the leather chair, stood and came around the massive mahogany desk. “I remember you. It’s been about a year-and-a-half since we…uh…connected.” He shouldn’t be surprised that she found him, but he was.
“Fifteen months to be exact.” She set her burdens on the floor, then bent and extracted the baby from the carrier. “I’d like you to meet Lilly. Lilly Kincaid, your daughter.”
Adam’s eyebrows flew up his forehead, and his eyes popped wide. “My daughter? That’s impossible.” He looked at the blonde baby with the blue-gray eyes.
The baby looked back at him and graced him with a toothless grin.
He smiled back and then realized what he was doing and frowned.
“Oh, it’s very possible. I’ve got her birth certificate, declaring you as the father, and you can get a DNA test if you want, but sheisyour daughter. And she’s the reason I’m here.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I suppose you want money.” He remembered a wild weekend with Sally, but he’d had people try to shake him down for money before.
Sally smiled. “Nothing of the kind. I’m here to give her to you. I’m tired, and I have an opportunity that I can’t have a child for. You have the wherewithal to raise her quite easily. All you have to do is hire someone.”
“You can’t do this. I don’t know the first thing about babies.” He ran a hand through his hair as his pulse raced. He couldn’t do this. How was he supposed to raise a daughter? “I have some business deals coming up, and I can’t be a single father for them.”Danvers will never agree to my offer if I’m a single father.
She laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. In this day and age, there isn’t a stigma to being a single parent.”
He rolled his eyes and paced, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck. “You don’t understand. This is a very old-fashioned couple, and they’re set in their ways. If you have children, you have to be married with two parents.”
Sally wasn’t moved. “Then I guess you better find a wife.”
Adam sighed. “How am I supposed to do that in time? I have a meeting with him in two weeks.”
Sally lifted a brow and then shrugged. “That’s your problem. Surely, you have a friend or friends with sisters, who wouldn’t mind marrying a billionaire.”
Adam narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brows. “Andyoudon’t want money from me? I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, believe it. I’m headed to the Middle East for my dream job, and I mean to take it. Nowthereis a place where you can’t be a single parent.” She closed the distance to Adam andshifted Lilly into his arms. “I have to go. My plane leaves at noon, less than two hours from now, and you know how Denver International Airport is. Or maybe you don’t. You probably have a private plane and don’t have to go through TSA.”
He shrugged. “I don’t deal with DIA at all, so I have no idea about TSA other than what I see on the news. My plane is at Centennial Airport. Are you sure you don’t want money? I’ve never met a woman who didn’t want my money.”
“I don’t. I like to work for what I get. It was the way I was raised, and I hope you’ll instill those values in Lilly. Goodbye, Adam. Have a good life.” She turned and walked out the door, closing it behind her.
“Wait!” But she was gone. Adam turned his gaze to his daughter.His daughter.
She looked up at him with big blue-gray eyes, his eyes, and pounded her fist against his chest.
Adam was thirty-six years old and had younger siblings but hadn’t paid much attention to them when they were babies. “What am I going to do with you, little one?” Then a thought struck him. Bree. He could kill two birds with one stone if she agreed to his proposition.
“What will I do if Bree says no?” He didn’t know why he was asking Lilly, but it was almost as if she understood because she gave him another toothless grin. “Well, at least your mother left you with a car seat, so we can go see Bree together. I have a feeling that once she sees you, she won’t have any qualms about marrying us.”
Adam put Lilly into the car seat and then realized he didn’t have any idea how to strap her in. He strode to the door, opened it, and saw Emily at her desk. “Emily, can you come in here for a moment, please?”
