The Millionaire Affair (Love in the Balance 3)

Hmm. Her rust-colored couch would look odd in his elegant space. And what about her clutter of papers and bills for Hobo Chic? His office was pristine, everything in neat stacks and labeled… or at least it had been until he’d cleared the desk and threw her on top of it, she thought with a satisfied smirk. A smirk she wiped off her face before Glo caught her daydreaming about amazing sex with the father of her unborn baby.

“Could you imagine sharing a closet with him?” Glo said, taking another bite of her ice cream.

Kimber pictured her beat-up wardrobe next to Landon’s multi-thousand-dollar suits and shoes so shiny they could signal a plane. It was kind of ridiculous. Kind of like them.

He was a streamlined, sleek, suave businessman with a million-dollar company and a zillion employees. She was lucky to hold on to the three co-workers she had and tallied her inventory on a thirty-five-dollar program she’d downloaded off the Internet. She was scrappy. He was refined. She was mac-and-cheese-from-a-box. He was Tuna Tartare.

Glo cleaned the remainder of her ice cream from the stick. “What if he wants to send junior to a private or charter school and you want public or home school? What if he doesn’t share your views on religion? Vaccinations? Politics?”

Kimber’s ice cream dripped on the napkin she’d spread on the table in front of her. She hadn’t considered any of those things. Shouldn’t she at least know his political affiliation or if he believed in God before they raised a child together?

“The best thing for both of you”—Glo pointed at her with the bare popsicle stick—“is to talk through the major issues now. Before the baby is born and your judgment is completely clouded.”

Well. That sounded reasonable.

“Work it out ahead of time.” Kimber nodded, seeing the first glimmer of hope since Glo had turned into Debbie Downer. Landon was in his element in planning mode. If they sat down to have a conversation outlining the basics of bringing up their child, he’d handle it perfectly. She stared into the splashing water of the fountain next to her table, her worries beginning to dissipate. He was pragmatic, organized, and thorough. Everything she wasn’t.

“Honey.” Glo reached across the table to grasp her hand. “There’s only one way you’ll be able to make unbiased decisions with this man.”

She pegged Glo with a look that asked And that is?

“Break it off,” Glo answered firmly.

She felt the side-to-side motion of her head shaking.

“I mean it, Kimber,” her best friend insisted, concern coloring her blue eyes. “As long as you keep having sex with him, you’ll let him talk you into anything.”

“Ha!” She pointed her melting ice cream bar at Glo before making a face and dropping the mess onto her napkin. “That’s not true,” she said, cleaning off her fingers. “He didn’t talk me into anything this morning.”

“You didn’t have sex with him last night.”

Damn. She was right. Was the sex clouding her judgment? It is and you know it.

“No más,” Glo said with a wag of her finger. “It’s the only way.”

The terrifying part was that she suspected Glo was right.

* * *

At dark, Kimber parked her clanking car in the alleyway behind Hobo Chic and took the back stairs up to her apartment. As she slid the key in the lock, a scuffling sound came from the bottom of the steps. The safety light behind the man at ground level cast his face in shadow, but she easily made out his long, lean build and spiked, stylish hair.

“Landon.” Saying his name hurt, especially considering what she had to do.

“One and only.” He climbed the long flight, and she waited, pushing the door open and gesturing for him to go in ahead of her. He swept his arms around her, she assumed to pull her close for a long, wet kiss. Since that had been recently determined as ill-advised, she palmed his chest and pushed, just a gentle shove.

He blew out a sigh of frustration, and she walked into her apartment, rested her shopping bag on the kitchen counter, and tossed her keys beside it.

“I didn’t think that would work,” he said as he shut the door.

“What?”

He came to her. “Kissing you so you’d forget you’re mad at me.”

Wow. Gloria was a genius. Because right about now she thought a kiss could make her forget anything. Her own name, even.

“I’m not mad at you,” she said. He leaned against the counter over her, and her eyes traced the shape of his biceps beneath his sleeves, the strong line of his confident posture. She blinked and forced herself to stay on task. “I think we need to sort out where we are in this… whatever this is we have. We haven’t been very responsible about stating our positions.”