Ryan walked back into the conference room. “Sorry about that. So what did I miss?”

“We were just talking,” Todd said.

They returned their attention to business and wrapped things up in an hour. Ryan walked Julie to the elevator.

“The partners will be happy,” he said.

“I think they might even dance. I’m good at my job. You won’t be disappointed.”

“I know. How are you feeling?”

“Good. Still woozy a lot of the day, but I’m learning to live with it.”

The polite conversation made her crazy. She really wanted to ask about what Todd had said. Had Ryan fallen for her and if he had, what did that mean? Was any of this real or was he still trying to convince her to marry him? And was marrying the father of her child be such a horrible thing?

“Have you told your family?” he asked.

“Everyone except my dad. I have no idea where he is.” Not that she would waste any time tracking him down.

“I haven’t told my parents. They’re in Europe. They don’t get back to the States very often, but you’ll meet them when they do.”

She had a vision of her very pregnant self waddling to meet a couple straight from the pages of Town & Country magazine.

“Great,” she muttered.

“I should meet your family, as well,” he said.

“What?”

“Don’t you want me to?”

It was a trick question. No, she really didn’t want him to meet them. It would be awkward and strange and…awkward. But to refuse when they were having a baby together?

“That would be fun,” she managed to say.

“I’m free this weekend.”

How lucky for her. “Okay. Um, sure. I’ll, ah, set something up.”

“Good.”

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly.

There was none of the passion or power of their last kiss, but it still rocked her to her toes. He straightened and smiled.

“Until this weekend, then.”

“Sure. I’ll be the one with the pickle cravings.”

Ten

The house was modest at best, one in blocks and blocks of starter homes. Ryan parked and tried to take in the fact that while he’d grown up in a world of wealth and privilege, Ruth’s granddaughters had grown up here.

He climbed out of his sports car and walked to the front door. Julie already had it open. She leaned against the door frame.

“Are you braced? You should be braced.”

“Your sisters can’t be that bad,” he told her as he approached. “I’ll be fine.”

“Silly, silly man.” But she was smiling as she spoke.

He slipped past her, then turned around and kissed her. She didn’t react, but he caught the sudden surge in heat and tension. They might have other issues, but connecting sexually wasn’t one of them. Maybe he’d been too quick when he’d decided that his plan would progress better if they weren’t physically involved.

“My mom’s at work,” Julie said when he straightened. “She’s in charge of a low-cost vaccine clinic one Saturday a month, but she’ll be by later. In the meantime I have my sisters here to grill you—ah, keep you entertained.”

He chuckled. “They can grill me. I can handle it.”

“So you think.”

The morning was warm, with the promise of a hot day—the kind that pops up every now and then in the fall. Julie wore some kind of filmy, lacy blouse, with a loose neckline and tiny sleeves that left her arms bare. Instead of jeans, she had on a skirt that sort of floated around her calves. Her feet were bare, her hair hung loose. She looked like a wanton fairy princess.

Ryan stopped in the middle of the living room. A wanton fairy princess? What the hell was wrong with him?

“This way,” Julie said from a few feet in front of him. “No backing out now.”

“I don’t plan to.”

She led him through the kitchen and out into a backyard that was far more paradise than he ever would have expected. There were plants everywhere, a big patio with a table and chairs at one end and a barbecue and fire pit at the other. There were candles and things that spun in the wind and gauzy, hanging fabric that served no purpose he could see.

There were also two women, both blond and blue-eyed, with Julie’s features and identical “you’re going to have to prove yourself” expressions.

“My sisters,” Julie said. “Willow and Marina.”

Willow was fairly petite, delicate and pretty. Marina was the tallest of the three sisters, and a beauty as well. Great gene pool, he thought. At least their kid had a fighting chance at being cute.

“Nice to meet you,” he said and smiled. “Julie’s told me a lot about you.”

“Did she mention how we wanted to take you down?” Willow asked. “Not just you, either. I still want to march over to that house and give Todd Aston a piece of my mind. You wouldn’t happen to have the address, would you?”

Ryan cleared his throat. “I, ah, the backyard looks great. There are so many plants. You have a very special place here.”

“Not exactly a smooth change of subject,” Marina said, her arms folded over her chest. “I doubt you’re seriously interested in the landscaping, but in case you’re not just jerking us around, Willow’s the one who does all that.”

Ryan held in a groan. They were going to be a tough crowd.

Julie urged him to sit and took the chair across from his. “Willow can grow anything. She’s into herbs and all things organic. She has a line of candles that are very popular in some of the health-food stores and she writes a comic strip.”

He looked at Willow. “Impressive. Do you have any of your comics here? I’d like to read one.”

She picked up a slim magazine from the glass-topped table and tossed it to him.

“About eight pages in,” she muttered.

He flipped through the pages of the publication. There were articles on organic gardening, an essay on surviving cold-and-flu season and a pull-out diagram on how to get the most from your compost.

Then he saw the small six-panel comic. There were two squash talking about a shoe sale. Judging from the bows on their heads and their high heels, they were girl squash. Okay, then.

He read the panel and forced himself to chuckle at the end, even though he had no idea what the punch line meant.

When he’d finished, he said, “That’s great. Is this syndicated?”

“In a couple of small-town newspapers. The major publications aren’t interested in organic humor.”

“They’re missing a growing market.”

Willow eyed him as if trying to figure out if he was patronizing her. He was about to launch into a conversation on the phenomenal growth of the organic market—one of their start-ups was in the business—when Willow and Marina stood.

“We’ll go get snacks,” Marina said.

When they’d left, he turned to Julie. “I don’t get it,” he whispered, waving the magazine. “Explain it to me.”

She leaned close. “I can’t. I don’t get it, either. Maybe you have to be a vegan to understand, I don’t know. For a while I thought maybe Willow’s comics just weren’t funny. But she’s in more and more magazines all the time, so it must be me. Well, and Marina and my mom.”

“And me,” he said.

She smiled at him and he grinned back.

The sisters returned.

“Mango lemonade,” Willow said, handing him a glass.

Marina put a plate of cookies on the table.

Mango lemonade? He took a sip. It wasn’t half-bad.

Marina and Willow sat back down.

“Have you ever been married?” Willow asked.

“No.”

“Engaged?” This question came from Marina.

“No.”

“Any children, other than the one Julie is carrying? And please don’t say ‘not that I know about.’ That just makes guys look stupid.”

So the grilling had begun. “No other children.”

They were thorough. They covered everything from his relationship with his mother to asking about his financial situation and whether he paid his taxes on time. Through it all, Julie sat back and watched him, as if judging him by his answers.

He was good with that. He had nothing to hide. So he answered their questions without stumbling, right up until Willow said, “How could you be so weaselly to lie about who you were with the express purpose of hurting that person?”

The patio got very quiet.

He started to say he hadn’t thought Julie would get hurt, but that didn’t sound right. Saying he’d assumed she was incapable of emotion wasn’t smart. He could explain how he’d been hurt badly and why he’d felt the need to get back at someone. Only Julie hadn’t been the one to hurt him. In the end, he went with the truth.

“I was wrong,” he told Willow. “There’s no excuse for my behavior and I won’t try to make one.”

Marina and Willow looked at each other, then at Julie. Willow gave a slight shrug.

He felt that something important had just happened, but he wasn’t sure what. At times, women were a serious mystery.

“When we were little, Julie was really bossy,” Marina said. “Especially to me.”

Julie groaned. “I was not bossy at all. However, our mother worked and someone had to be in charge. I was the oldest.”

Willow leaned toward him. “Bossy. Big time.”

“I’m ignoring you,” Julie said as she stood and walked around the table so she could pour herself a glass of the mango lemonade. But instead of sitting back in her original chair, she settled in the seat next to his.

He made the mistake of glancing at her bare feet when she crossed her legs. Dear God—she painted her toes bright pink and wore a toe ring. It was about the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

Focus on the plan, he reminded himself. He had a plan to get Julie to marry him. For the sake of the child.

But right then, the child didn’t seem very real. All Ryan could think about was that he liked Julie and her sisters and that their cozy house was a home in ways his had never been.

“You didn’t buy this, did you?” Julie asked as Ryan pulled up in front of a massive Beverly Hills estate. The wrought-iron gates swung open, exposing a three-story house, manicured lawns and lawn art. Who owned lawn art?

“I grew up here.”

“What?” She stared at him. “You lived here? With your parents? You told me to dress casual. You said we’d probably be getting dusty. I can’t meet your parents looking like this.”

She was in jeans and a T-shirt she’d been about to toss in her “donate” bag. She hadn’t bothered with makeup or washed her hair.

“They’re not here,” he said as he parked by the front steps that led to the huge double front door and turned off the car. “They’re in Europe. I brought you here so we could go through the attic. I thought there’d be some stuff there you’d like.”

Her panic faded. “Oh. Okay. An attic sounds intriguing.” She climbed out of the car and looked around. “Very stylish. Nothing like my house.”

He moved next to her and unlocked the front door. “I liked your house. It was warm and homey. This place isn’t.”

They stepped inside and he pushed buttons on a keypad that had been concealed behind a panel. Julie took in the soaring ceilings, the hardwood floors and impressive artwork. Hey, and this was only the entryway.

“No staff?” she asked.

“There’s a live-in housekeeper. Today’s her day off. I told her we were stopping by but that she didn’t need to be here. We have the house to ourselves.”

Ryan led the way up a grand, curving staircase, then along a hallway flanked by bedrooms.

“So how big is this place?” she asked. “Ten thousand square feet?”

“I think closer to fifteen.”

“That’s a lot of vacuuming.”

He grinned. “I wouldn’t know.”

“It would be a full-time job. I can’t believe your parents own this place and they’re never here.”

“They like to travel.”

Julie rubbed the long, smooth banister. “My sisters and I could have had a lot of fun on this thing. Who would need to go to a theme park? You did good with them, by the way. Did I mention that? You nearly won them over.”

They reached the landing and he looked at her. “I did win them over. There’s no nearly about it.”

“Cocky, aren’t we?”

“With cause.”

Danger signs flashed all around them. She knew better than to be charmed but she couldn’t seem to help herself. The guy was pretty cool.

At the end of the hallway, they took another, slightly less impressive, staircase to the third floor. Instead of more bedrooms, there were several large, open areas, giving the space a loft-like feel. Windows let in massive amounts of light.

“I love this,” she murmured. “It makes me wish I was a painter or something creative. Wouldn’t this be a great studio?”

“Todd and I played up here when we were young. We had the whole floor to ourselves.”

“Kid heaven.”

Tucked in the corner was a third set of stairs. These were narrow and steep. Julie followed Ryan up and found herself in a musty attic.

It was something out of a PBS original movie—with exposed beams, furniture covered with sheets and dusty windows. There were boxes everywhere, along with trunks and hanging racks.