He stalked across the small kitchen, plucked the baby from her grasp and held Nathan up to eye level. The baby’s pout disappeared as if it had never been and the two of them simply stared at each other.
The baby was a solid, warm weight in his hands. Little legs pumped, arms waved and a thin line of drool dripped from his mouth when he gave his father a toothless grin. His chest tight, Simon felt the baby’s heartbeat racing beneath his hands and there was a…connection that he’d never felt before. It was basic. Complete. Staggering.
In that instant—that heart-stopping, mind-numbing second—Simon was lost.
He knew it even as he stood there, beneath Tula Barrons’s less than approving stare, that this was his son and he would do whatever he had to to keep him.
If this woman stood in his way, he’d roll right over her without a moment’s pause. Something in his gaze must have given away his thoughts because the small blonde lifted her chin, met his eyes in a bold stare and told him silently that she wouldn’t give an inch.
Fine.
She’d learn soon enough that when Simon Bradley entered a contest—he never lost.
“You’re holding him like he’s a hand grenade about to explode,” the woman said, ending their silent battle.
Despite that swift, sure connection he felt to the child in his arms, Simon wasn’t certain at all that the baby wouldn’t explode. Or cry. Or expel some gross fluid. “I’m being careful.”
“Okay,” she said and pulled out a chair to sit down.
He glanced at her, then looked back to the baby. Carefully, Simon eased down onto the other chair pulled up to the postage-stamp-sized table. It looked so narrow and fragile, he almost expected it to shatter under his weight, but it held. He felt clumsy and oversize. As if he were the only grown-up at a little girl’s tea party. He had to wonder if the woman had arranged for him to feel out of place. If she was subtly trying to sabotage this first meeting.
Gently, he balanced the baby on his knee and kept one hand on the small boy’s back to hold him in place. Only then did he look up at the woman sitting opposite him.
Her big eyes were fixed on him and a half smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, causing that one dimple to flash at him. She’d gone from looking at him as if he were the devil himself to an expression of amused benevolence that he didn’t like any better.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked tightly.
“Actually,” she admitted, “I am.”
“So happy to entertain you.”
“Oh, you’re really not happy,” she said, her smile quickening briefly again. “But that’s okay. You had me worried, I can tell you.”
“Worried about what?”
“Well, how you were going to be with Nathan,” she told him, leaning against the ladder back of the chair. She crossed her arms over her chest, unconsciously lifting her nicely rounded breasts. “When you first saw him, you looked…”
“Yes?” Simon glanced down when Nathan slapped both chubby fists onto the tabletop.
“…terrified,” she finished.
Well, that was humiliating. And untrue, he assured himself. “I wasn’t scared.”
“Sure you were.” She shrugged and apparently was dialing back her mistrust. “And who could blame you? You should have seen me the first time I picked him up. I was so worried about dropping him I had him in a stranglehold.”
Nothing in Simon’s life had terrified him like that first moment holding a son he didn’t know he had. But he wasn’t about to admit to that. Not to Tula Barrons at any rate.
He shifted around uncomfortably on the narrow chair. How did an adult sit on one of these things?
“Plus,” she added, “you don’t look like you want to bite through a brick or something anymore.”
Simon sighed. “Are you always so brutally honest?”
“Usually,” she said. “Saves a lot of time later, don’t you think? Besides, if you lie, then you have to remember what lie you told to who and that just sounds exhausting.”
Intriguing woman, he thought while his body was noticing other things about her. Like the way her dark green sweater clung to her breasts. Or how tight her faded jeans were. And the fact that she was barefoot, her toenails were a deep, sexy red and she was wearing a silver toe ring that was somehow incredibly sexy. She was nothing like the kind of woman Simon was used to. The kind Simon preferred, he told himself sternly. Yet, there was something magnetic about her. Something—
“Are you just going to stare at me all night or were you going to speak?”
—Irritating.
“Yes, I’m going to speak,” he said, annoyed to have been caught watching her so intently. “As a matter of fact, I have a lot to say.”
“Good, me too!” She stood up, took the baby from him before he could even begin to protest—not that he would have—and set the small boy back in his high chair. Once she had the safety straps fastened, she shot Simon a quick smile.
“I thought we could talk while we have dinner. I made chicken and I’m a good cook.”
“Another truth?”
“Try it for yourself and see.”
“All right. Thank you.”
“See, we’re getting along great already.” She moved around the kitchen with an economy of motions. Not surprising, Simon thought, since there wasn’t much floor space to maneuver around.
“Tell me about yourself, Simon,” she said and reached over to place some sliced bananas on the baby’s food tray. Instantly, Nathan chortled, grabbed one of the pieces of fruit and squished it in his fist.
“He’s not eating that,” Simon pointed out while she walked over to take the roast chicken out of the oven.
“He likes playing with it.”
Simon took a whiff of the tantalizing, scented steam wafting from the oven and had to force himself to say, “He shouldn’t play with his food though.”
She swiveled her head to look at him. “He’s a baby.”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, all of my cloth napkins are in the laundry and they don’t make tuxedos in size six-to-nine months.”
He frowned at her. She’d deliberately misinterpreted what he was saying.
“Relax, Simon. He’s fine. I promise you he won’t smoosh his bananas when he’s in college.”
She was right, of course, which he didn’t really enjoy admitting. But he wasn’t used to people arguing with him, either. He was more accustomed to people rushing to please him. To anticipate his every need. He was not used to being corrected and he didn’t much like it.
As that thought raced through his head, he winced. God, he sounded like an arrogant prig even in his own mind.
“So, you were saying…”
“Hmm?” he asked. “What?”
“You were telling me about yourself,” she prodded as she got down plates, wineglasses and then delved into a drawer for silverware. She had the table set before he gathered his thoughts again.
“What