The Billionaire Boss's Innocent Bride by Lindsay Armstrong Page B

doesn’t it?’
    His lips twisted, then he gave a jolt of laughter. ‘I wouldn’t like to have to advertise it.’ He sobered. ‘But from the moment you made such a hit with Nicky—’
    ‘My fate was sealed,’ she supplied. ‘Part of my fate was sealed. But you are serious about the other side of it?’
    ‘Perfectly,’ he assured her.
    Alex heard herself say swiftly, ‘Then I’ll do it,’ as if getting it out fast was the only way to do it because once she stopped to let herself think, she’d be tempted to run away and hide. But she couldn’t spend her life running and hiding. She’d decided that only this morning, hadn’t she?
    ‘Good girl,’ he said briskly. ‘But if we are to have Nicky for extended periods, we’re going to need some back-up for when we’re not here. Any thoughts there?’
    Alex chewed her lip before she offered her thoughts. ‘Mrs Mills’ daughter is virtually a single mum—her husband’s in the army and overseas on an extended tour of duty. It’s her son Bradley that Nicky has played with and they get on really well together. I’m just wondering if Bradley’s mum could stand in for me. She seems pretty sensible, she’s nice, she’s young, it would be good for Nicky to have company, it would take the pressure off Mrs Mills—’
    ‘Don’t go on,’ he murmured. ‘You’ve convinced me. Would you like to go home and collect some more of your things?’
    Her eyes widened. ‘Now? How? And what about Nicky?’
    ‘Mrs Mills and I can cope for a couple of hours. Stan could drive you.’ He stood up. Alex hesitated, then she said candidly, ‘I feel like pinching myself.’
    He smiled, but said nothing.
    ‘I’ll go now, then. Thank you for thinking of me and offering me this job.’ She rose.
    ‘My pleasure, Alex,’ he murmured.
    She hesitated, then made her way to the door.
    He watched her go and sat down again behind the desk, leaning his chin on his fingers, his elbow on the desk with his brow furrowed.
    He’d handled that rather well, he thought, but something was puzzling him. The fact that he felt strange in a way he couldn’t put his finger on—not strange so much, but different, or was that splitting hairs?
    Was it because he really did have a household now? For a long time everything had revolved about him exclusively, but now he was doing the revolving…
    Then his eyes fell on the blotter on the desk, and Cathy’s name. He’d taken her call in the study last night after Paul O’Hara had left, and he’d written her name on the blotter with slashing strokes, then drawn a bolt of lightning through the letters. He sat up, then lay back in his chair with his hands shoved into his pockets. What needed to be done, what needed to be sorted out, was an amicable arrangement whereby Nicky got the best of both his parents. What was paramount now was Nicky’s well-being.
    And he had to acknowledge he was astonished by the depth of his feeling for a little boy he barely knew. That had actually slammed into his consciousness from the moment he’d laid eyes on Nicky and he’d seen something pretty close to a mirror image of himself. This is my flesh and blood, he’d thought, this child who doesn’t know me from a bar of soap and is trying so desperately to look brave about it!
    Was it any wonder he felt different? he reflected.
    And what about all the problems he could foresee there? What if Cathy married?
    How was he going to feel about another man being involved in the upbringing of his son? And there was Nicky’s inheritance to think about, and his safety. He sat up and ripped the top layer out of his blotter and threw it in the wastepaper basket. Of course the solution to that was simply to ensure it couldn’t happen by marrying her himself…
    Alex sat in the back, not of the Bentley, but a Mercedes on the way to Brisbane a little while later.
    She and Stan had conversed for a time, but now he was concentrating on his driving and she was thinking her