The Baby Deal. Kat Cantrell

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Stacy Boyd, editor extraordinaire.

      Thanks for asking me to write this book and then

      making it so much better, proving once

      again that we’re a great team.

      One

      Juliana Cane hadn’t spoken to Michael Shaylen in eight years, not since the day she’d realized that if she was going to lose him, she’d rather do it on her terms.

      And today, when she opened her front door to the man who’d once taken her to heights never experienced before or since, her brain deserted her. She’d practiced a highly appropriate “hello” and a lovely “nice to see you,” both suitable greetings for an ex-boyfriend who calls with no warning.

      But obviously his brief and to-the-point “I need to talk to you” had knocked her upside down, and she hadn’t reoriented yet because all she managed was “You’re not on crutches.”

      Like the last time she’d seen him. A broken leg did take less than eight years to heal.

      “Day’s not over.”

      A familiar, cloud-parting smile broke open across his stubbly jaw, its effect a forceful punch to a feminine place long forgotten.

      Unbelievable. After all this time, both her brain and her body still reacted to him without her permission.

      “How are you?” he asked. “It’s Dr. Cane now, right?”

      “Yes.” She was a psychologist and thus well equipped to handle this unexpected visit, if the bongo drum in her chest would lay off. “But only my clients call me that. You didn’t mention on the phone if you’d be staying long. Do you have time to come in?”

      “Sure.” He shot a glance toward the long, sleek car idling at the curb.

      “Is someone in the car? Everyone is welcome.” Even a size-zero supermodel with photo-worthy hair and fourteen thousand dollars’ worth of dental work. His usual type, if the media could be believed. “I don’t want you to feel awkward about this visit, Michael.”

      His name stuck in her throat. She’d never called him Michael.

      His lips curved into a half grin. “Then stop first-naming me. I’m still Shay.”

      Shay. His mega-watt personality engulfed the porch, too big to be reined in by skin. That chiseled physique honed by hours of brutally challenging sports hadn’t changed. A new scar stood out in sharp relief on his biceps, a long slash interlaced with crosshatches.

      Stiches. Messy stitches, which meant he must have been sewn up by a third-world doctor after a zip-line accident in Off-The-Map City. Probably without anesthetic or antibiotics.

      Still the same Shay.

      She stepped back, refusing to dwell on scars—visible or otherwise—and nearly tripped over the Persian runner in the foyer. “Come in, please.”

      With another glance at the idling car, cryptic with its rental tags and tinted windows, he followed her into the house. Where to put him? In the living room or the less formal family room? She decided on formality, at least until she got her feet under her and her brain functional.

      How could Shay still wreak such havoc on her senses after eight years?

      Maybe because he was still gorgeous and untamed and … She didn’t like that kind of man anymore, despite certain feminine parts trying to insist otherwise.

      She ushered him into the living room and gestured to the plush navy couch. It was supposed to be big enough for two people but Shay’s six-foot frame dwarfed it. As he settled onto a cushion, she worried for a fanciful second that the metal webbing beneath the fabric would collapse under the weight of so much man.

      Eric was six feet tall. The couch had never seemed small when her ex-husband sat on it. She opted for the armless Queen Anne chair at a right angle to the couch and didn’t allow a speck of self-analysis about why she hadn’t sat next to Shay.

      “I’m sorry about Grant and Donna,” she said right away. The deaths of his friends and business partners was no doubt fresh on his mind. “How was the funeral?”

      “Long.” Grief welled inside his sea-glass-green eyes.

      She could still see clear through them, straight into the wrenching agony of having to bury his best friends. Her primal, unchecked reaction to his emotions was frighteningly unchanged as well—a strong urge to soothe, to heal. To hold on to him until the pain fled.

      Instead of reaching for him, she clasped her fingers together in a tight weave. They were virtually strangers now, no matter how abnormal it seemed. No matter how convinced she’d been that time would surely have dimmed the shimmering, irrational dynamic between them.

      It hadn’t. But she’d pretend it had.

      Once, she’d been so drawn to his lust for life, to his powerful personality and his passion for everything—especially her—that he’d engulfed her, until she couldn’t see the surface anymore. It was too much. He was too much.

      She’d never been enough for him.

      So why was he here? Instead of jumping right into it, she went with a safer subject. “Tell me about the funeral.”

      “We did both services together. Better that way, to get it all over with. Closed casket. It was easier. I didn’t have to see them.”

      “Of course,” she murmured. It wasn’t like they’d had a choice.

      Grant and Donna Greene had died in the explosion of an experimental ship designed for space tourism.