Baby Bonanza by Maureen Child Page A

members of the “celebrity crowd.” A guy who could buy silly T-shirts for babies he wasn’t even sure were his. A guy who could still turn her into a puddle of want with a glance.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” Mary asked quietly.
    Jenna took a long, deep breath and looked around the room to avoid meeting Mary’s too-knowing gaze. Muted sunlight, diffused by the tinted glass, filled the room, creating shadows in the corners. It was quiet now, with Nick somewhere out on deck and the hum of the ship’s powerful engines silenced while in port.
    Shifting her gaze to Mary’s, Jenna thought about spilling the whole story. Actually she could really use someone to talk to, and Mary had, in the past several days, already proven to be a good friend. But she couldn’t get into it now. Didn’t want to explain how she and Nick had come together, made two sons and then drifted apart. That was far too long a story.
    “Thanks,” she said, meaning it. “But I don’t think so. Anyway, you don’t have time to listen. Joe will be waiting for you.”
    Mary frowned at her, but apparently realized that Jenna didn’t feel like talking. Standing up, she said, “Okay, I’ll go. But if you decide you need someone to talk to…”
    “I’ll remember. Thanks.”
    Then Mary left and Jenna was alone. Alone with her thoughts, racing frantically through her mind. Alone with the desire that was a carefully banked fire deep inside. Suddenly antsy, she jumped to her feet, crossed the room and left the suite. She’d just go up on deck. Sit in the sun. Try not to think. Try to relax.
     
    The business of running a cruise line kept Nick moving from the time he got up until late at night. People on the outside looking in probably assumed that he led a life of leisure. And sure, there was still time for that. But the truth was he had to stay on top of everything. This cruise line was his life. The one thing he had. The most important thing in the world to him. He’d worked his ass off to get this far, to make his mark. And he wasn’t about to start slowing down now.
    “If the band isn’t working, contact Luis Felipe here in town,” he told Teresa, and wasn’t surprised to see her make a note on her PDA. “He knows all the local bands in Acapulco. He could hook us up with someone who could take over for the rest of the cruise.”
    The band they’d hired in L.A. was proving to be more trouble than they were worth. With their rock star attitudes, they were demanding all sorts of perks that hadn’t been agreed on in their contracts. Plus, they’d been cutting short their last show of the evening because they said there weren’t enough people in attendance to make it worthwhile. Not their call, Nick thought. They’d been hired to do a job, and they’d do it or they’d get off the ship in Mexico and find their own way home.
    “Got it,” Teresa said. “Want me to tell the band their days are numbered?”
    “Yeah. We’ll be in port forty-eight hours. Give ’em twenty-four to clean up their act—if they don’t, tell ’em to pack their bags.”
    “Will do.” She paused, and Nick turned to look at her. They were standing at the bow of the ship on the Splendor Deck, mainly because Nick hadn’t felt like being cooped up in his office. And he couldn’t go to his suite because Jenna was there. Being in the same room with her without reacting to her presence was becoming more of a challenge.
    The last few days had been hell. Being with her every day, sleeping down the hall from her at night, knowing she was there, stretched out on a king-size bed, probably wearing what she used to—a tank top and a pair of tiny, bikini panties—had practically killed him. He’d taken more cold showers in the last three days than he had in the past ten years.
    His plan to seduce Jenna and then lose her was backfiring. He was the one getting seduced. He was the one nearly being strangled with throttled-back desire. And he was getting damned sick