The Expectant Executive
Besides, fate couldn’t possibly be that cruel. She’d conceived Jessie the night she’d lost her virginity to Sebastian. Surely the odds of her becoming pregnant again after making love with a man one time had to be astronomical.
No, missing her period had to be an indication that something else was wrong.
Swiveling her chair around, she reached for the phone to make an appointment with her gynecologist, but gasped at the unexpected sight of Travis Clayton leaning one broad shoulder against her doorframe.
“I know I’m not the best-looking thing to come down the pike, but I wasn’t aware that I’d started scaring the hell out of pretty women and little kids,” he said, his deep voice filled with humor.
The teasing light in his sinfully blue eyes sent a delicious warmth coursing throughout her body. If she’d ever seen a man as ruggedly handsome as Jessie’s adoptive father, Fin couldn’t remember when. Looking much younger than his forty-nine years, he was the epitome of the modern western man from the top of his wide-brimmed black cowboy hat all the way to his big-booted feet. Wearing a pair of soft-looking, well-worn jeans, chambray shirt and a western-cut sports jacket that emphasized the breadth of his impossibly wide shoulders, he could easily be one of the male models in an advertisement for men’s cologne.
“Travis, it’s good to see you again. I don’t remember Jessie mentioning that you would be visiting this week.” Rising to her feet, Fin walked around the desk to greet him. “Please, come in and sit down.”
Giving her a smile that caused her toes to curl inside her Italian designer heels, he straightened to his full height and crossed the room with the confidence and grace of a man quite comfortable with who he was and what he was about. “When I talked to Jess the other day, she sounded a little hassled from all this wedding stuff, so I decided to surprise her,” he said, settling into one of the chairs in front of Fin’s desk.
“A little paternal support never hurts,” she agreed, wondering what it would be like to have a father who was sensitive to his child’s emotional needs.
Patrick’s approach to childrearing had been nothing short of dictatorial and he could have cared less how his issued orders affected his offspring’s emotions—in particular, hers.
“How have you been, Fin?” Travis asked when she sat down in the chair beside him.
The warmth and genuine interest in his smooth baritone sent a little shiver up her spine. “Fine. And yourself?”
He shrugged. “Can’t complain.” Looking around her office, his curious gaze seemed to zero in on a stack of ad proofs on her desk. “When I asked Jess how you’ve been getting on, she said you’re working like crazy to win this contest your dad set up.”
Her stomach did a funny little flip at the thought that he’d been asking Jessie about her. “The competition and helping with Jessie and Cade’s wedding arrangements have been keeping me pretty busy.”
“I’ll bet it has.” He chuckled. “All this wedding hoopla makes me kind of glad I’m stuck off in no-man’s-land until it’s time to walk her down the aisle. Jess said all I have to do is go for the final fitting on my tux while I’m in town and that suits me just fine.”
He wasn’t fooling Fin for a minute. Travis and Jessie had a wonderful father-daughter relationship and he had to be feeling a little left out for him to fly all the way from Colorado.
“This is pretty tough for you, isn’t it?”
He started to shake his head, then looking a bit sheepish, he grinned. “It shows that much, does it? I thought I was doing a pretty fair job of hiding it, but I guess I was wrong.”
Fin nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure it’s a difficult transition to suddenly be relegated to the number-two man in your daughter’s life when you’ve always been number one.”
“I can’t believe she’s old enough to get married,” he said, removing his hat to run his hand through his thick dark blond hair. Replacing his hat, his
expression turned wistful. “It seems like just yesterday I was kissing her skinned elbows and teaching her how to print her name for kindergarten.”
A little pang of envy gripped Fin’s heart. She’d been cheated out of so much when Patrick had forced her to give her baby daughter up for adoption.
They sat in silence for several long moments before Travis spoke again. “I know this is short notice, but I stopped by to ask if you’d like to join Jessie and me for supper this evening. We’ll be meeting at some place she called the Lemon Grill.” He grinned. “If the name is any indication, it sounds like a place a man could get a decent steak.”