LITMIR.BIZ

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she thought, it hadn’t taken more than five minutes for her to adjust. “But when I told Simon, he looked like he’d been hit with a two-by-four.”

      “God, honey, I’m sorry it didn’t go well. So what do you do now?”

      “He’s coming here tonight to meet Nathan and then we’re going to talk.” Tula thought briefly about the little buzz of sensation she’d received when he shook her hand and then pushed that thought right out of her mind. There was already plenty going on at the moment. She so didn’t need anything else to think about.

      But her mind couldn’t quite keep from remembering him as he stood over her, all fierce and furious.

      “He’s going to your house?” Anna asked.

      Tula shook her head and paid attention. “Yeah, why?”

      “Nothing. But maybe I could come over and help you get ready.”

      She knew exactly what Anna was thinking and Tula couldn’t help laughing. “You are not coming over to clean my house. He’s not visiting royalty or something.”

      Anna laughed, too. “Fine. Just warn him when he walks in to watch where he steps.”

      Tula stepped away from the kitchen counter and shot a look into her tiny living room. Toys littered the floor, her laptop was sitting open on the coffee table and her latest manuscript was beside it. She was doing revisions for her editor and when she was working, other things—like picking up clutter—tended to go by the wayside.

      Shrugging, she silently admitted that though her house was clean, it did tend to get a little messy. Especially now that she had Nathan living with her. She hadn’t had any idea just how much stuff came along with a baby.

      “Why did I call you again?” Tula asked.

      “Because I’m your best friend and you know you need me.”

      “Right, that was it.” Tula smiled and reached out one hand to smooth the wispy hairs on the top of Nathan’s head as he scooted past, babbling happily. “It was weird, Anna. Simon was crabby and rude and dismissive and yet…”

      “Yet what?” Anna prompted.

      There was a buzz of interest, Tula thought but didn’t say. She hadn’t expected it, hadn’t wanted it, but hadn’t been able to ignore it, either. The suit-and-tie kind of guy was so not what she was interested in. And for heaven’s sake, the last thing she needed was to be attracted to Nathan’s father. This situation was hard enough. Yet she couldn’t deny the flash of heat that had flooded her system the moment her hand had met his.

      Didn’t mean she had to do anything about it though, she assured herself firmly.

      “Hello?” Anna said. “Finish what you were saying! What comes after the ‘yet’?”

      “Nothing,” Tula said with sudden determination. One thing she didn’t need was to indulge in an attraction for a man she had nothing in common with but a baby they were both responsible for. “Absolutely nothing.”

      “And you expect me to just accept that?”

      “As my friend, I’m asking you to, yeah.”

      Anna sighed dramatically. “Fine. I will. For now.”

      “Thanks.” She’d accept the reprieve, even though she knew that Anna wouldn’t let it go forever.

      “So what’re you going to do tonight?”

      “Simon comes here and we talk about Nathan. Set something up so that he can get to know the baby and I can watch them together. I can handle Simon,” she said a moment later and wasn’t sure whether she was trying to convince Anna or herself. “I grew up around men like him, remember?”

      “Tula, not every man who wears a suit is like your dad.”

      “Not all,” she allowed, “but most.”

      She was in the position to know. Her entire family had practically been born wearing business suits. They lived stuffy, insular lives built around making and keeping money. Tula was half convinced that they didn’t even know a world existed beyond their own narrow portion of it.

      For example, she knew what Simon Bradley would think of her tiny, cluttered, bayside home because she knew exactly what her father would have thought of it—if he’d ever deigned to visit. He would have thought it too old, too small. He would have hated the bright blue walls and yellow trim in the living room. He’d have loathed the mural of the circus that decorated her bathroom wall. Mostly though, he would have seen her living there as a disgrace.

      She had the distinct impression that Simon wouldn’t be any different.

      “Look, the reality is it doesn’t matter what Nathan’s father thinks of me or my house. Our only connection is the baby.” As she spoke, she told her hormones to listen up. “So I’m not going to put on a show and change my life in any way to try to convince a man I don’t even know that I am who I’m not.”

      A long second passed, then Anna laughed gently. “What does it say about me that I completely understood that?”

      “That we’ve been friends too long?”

      “Probably,” Anna agreed. “Which is how I know you’re making rosemary chicken tonight.”

      Tula smiled. Anna did know her too well. Rosemary chicken was her go-to meal when she was having company. And unless Simon was a vegetarian, everything would go great. Oh, God—what if he was a vegetarian? No, she thought. Men like him did lunch at steak houses with clients. “You’ve got me there. And once we have dinner, I’ll talk to Simon about setting up a schedule for him to get to know Nathan.”

      “You?” Anna laughed. “A schedule?”

      “I can be organized,” she argued, though her words didn’t carry a lot of confidence. “I just choose to not be.”

      “Uh-huh. How’s the baby?”

      Everything in Tula softened. “He’s wonderful.” Her gaze followed the tiny boy as he continued on his path around the kitchen, laughing and making noises as he explored his world. “Honestly, he’s such a good baby. And he’s so smart. This morning I asked him where his nose was and he pointed right to it.”

      Well, he had been waving his stuffed bunny in the air and hit himself in the face with it, but close enough.

      “Harvard-bound already.”

      “I’ll sign him up on the waiting list tomorrow,” Tula agreed with a laugh. “Look, I gotta go. Get the chicken in the oven, give Nathan a bath and…ooh, maybe myself, too.”

      “Okay, but call me tomorrow. Let me know how it goes.”

      “I will.” She hung up, leaned against the kitchen counter and let her gaze slide over the bright yellow kitchen. It was small but cheerful, with white cabinets, a bright blue counter and copper-bottomed pans hanging from a rack over the stove.

      She loved her house. She loved her life.

      And she loved that baby.

      Simon Bradley was going to have to work very hard to convince her that he was worthy of being Nathan’s father.

      * * *

      The scent of rosemary filled the little house by the bay a few hours later.

      Tula danced around the kitchen to the classic rock tunes pouring from the radio on the counter and every few steps, she stopped to steal a kiss from the baby in the high chair. Nathan giggled at her, a deep, full-belly laugh that tickled at the edges of Tula’s heart.

      “Funny guy,” she whispered, planting a kiss on top of his head and inhaling the sweet, clean scent of him. “Laughing at my dance moves isn’t usually the way to my heart, you know.”

      He gave her another grin and

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