Emma Darcy - The Billionaire's New Year Gift

“Well, if you’re happy, then I’m happy for you,” she said now. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Courtney sipped at her ginger ale and eyed her sister over the rim of her glass.

P.J. knew she wanted to say something. To prevent yet another conversation about P.J.’s situation, she hurriedly asked, “Do Mom and Dad know?”

“Not yet.”

“You mean, you’re telling me before you told them?”

“You’re my favorite sister, you know that.”

They smiled at each other, and P.J. forced herself to remember how lucky she was. She might not ever be able to have any children of her own, and she might have repudiated her family’s money and her status as an heiress, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love her parents and siblings. And she absolutely adored her nieces and nephews—Courtney’s three and soon to be four, Jillian’s two, and Peter’s two.

P.J. told herself it didn’t matter if she couldn’t have kids, because she had no intention of getting married, anyway. She’d known long ago she wasn’t cut out for marriage. In fact, she couldn’t imagine subjugating herself to a man… any man. Just the idea of a man telling her what she could and couldn’t do set her teeth on edge.

And she certainly wasn’t cut out for homemaking. Hell, she couldn’t even boil water, let alone cook. And as far as cleaning went, forget that, too. One of her indulgences was a once-a-week maid service, and even if she had to give up food, she intended to keep that.

Well, maybe that was an exaggeration. She liked food too much, especially carbs. In fact, she’d never met a carb she didn’t like. That was the biggest reason she forced herself to run five miles every day. So she could keep eating all those fries and pasta and pizza and still keep her figure.

Yet, even as she told herself all of this, she knew she might have been willing to give the marriage thing a try if not for her probable inability to have children. Providing, of course, the right man should come along.

You can always adopt .

Maybe, she thought. But there again, it would take the right kind of man. And lately, she’d begun to think he didn’t exist.

Plenty of single women adopt .

P.J. had actually considered adoption. In fact, she’d given some serious consideration to adopting an older child—one of the ones considered hard to place since everyone seemed to want babies. And maybe one of these days she’d finally get around to doing something about it.

By now the waiter had brought P.J.’s beer and the sisters had placed their orders—P.J. a steak sandwich and fries, Courtney the house specialty of coconut-crusted shrimp salad.

“P.J., you eat entirely too much junk food,” Courtney said mildly as their waiter walked off.

“I know. That’s why I run.”

“Do you ever eat a salad?”

“Sure.”

“How often, once a month?”

P.J. grinned. “You know me too well.” After taking a swallow of her beer, she said, “So you’re due in…mid-February?”

Courtney nodded. “February fourteenth, to be exact.”

“At least it’s not Christmas day.” P.J.’s birthday was two days before Christmas and she’d always hated that. “Just don’t name him Valentino or something like that.”

Courtney snorted. “Like Brad would let me.”

To keep from saying something snide about Brad, P.J. said, “So what else is new?”

“Let’s see. Um, Melissa McKee is getting a divorce.”

“You’re not serious!”

“Melissa’s the one who told me.”

“That’s a shame. I thought she and Rod had a good marriage.”

“Hey, he’ll be eligible now…” Courtney’s eyes were speculative.

P.J. knew what she was thinking. “Forget that,” she said quickly. “He’s not my type. But he’ll have no shortage of women lining up to be the next Mrs. McKee, I’m sure of that.”

Rod was a very wealthy man as well as a good-looking one. P.J. wasn’t sure what he did. Something in commodities trading, she thought. He probably had no social conscience to speak of. Definitely not her type.

Thinking that, she couldn’t help remembering she’d said the same thing about Alex Noble just today, that he was not her type, either. Something in her expression must have alerted Courtney to the direction of her thoughts because her sister said, “Wait a minute. Are you dating someone?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“You had a strange look on your face.”

“Oh, I was just thinking about a new guy who started working for me today. Anna—you’ve heard me talk about her—said something about him and I told her he wasn’t my type, either.”

“Why’d she say something about him?”

P.J. shrugged. “He’s kind of a hunk. If you like that type.”

“And what type is that?”

“Oh, you know, tall, dark, handsome.” P.J. smiled in spite of herself.

“And you don’t like that type.” Courtney shook her head, laughing. “You’re one of a kind, you know that?”

Just then the waiter came with their food, and the sisters fell silent until he was gone again.

Courtney began to cut up her salad. She speared a piece of shrimp and some lettuce leaves, but before putting them into her mouth, she said, “Maybe you should give this new guy at work a chance. Who knows? You might actually like him.”

“Who said he’s interested in me? ” P.J. poured a mound of ketchup next to her fries and dipped one in.

Courtney gave her a look. “You’re a very pretty, very sexy woman. Of course he’ll be interested in you.” She forked another bite of salad into her mouth. Then she grinned. “That’s if you can keep your mouth shut.”

P.J. glared at her sister. But she couldn’t hold the expression and was soon laughing. “Yeah, that can be a problem,” she admitted. She’d run more than one guy off by expressing her opinions, which were almost always diametrically opposed to theirs.

“So tell me more about this guy,” Courtney said when their laughter subsided.

“No point. I’m not interested in him. And even if I were , which I’m not , he works for me. I don’t date guys who work for me. It wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Courtney nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Conflict of interest or something.” She studied P.J. for a minute. “Are you sure it’s not the baby thing stopping you? Because if it is, lots of guys don’t want kids.”

P.J. sighed. “I know that.” She wanted to add that any guy who didn’t want kids was probably not the kind of guy she’d want to be with, anyway, but she didn’t. Courtney would just feel bad if she said something like that.

“Do you? Seems to me you throw up all kinds of excuses to keep men at a distance, and I can’t help thinking that’s the real reason.”

P.J. shrugged. “It’s not. But I can’t help thinking about it. I mean, what if I start dating someone and really like them and they like me? Then I tell them I can’t have kids? Is that fair?”

“Well, you can hardly tell them before you go out with them,” Courtney pointed out. She made a face. “It is a problem, isn’t it?”

P.J. nodded, then made a face. “Let’s change the subject, okay? I’m awfully tired of this one. Tell me what Jillian and Peter are up to. I haven’t talked to either one in weeks.”

“The phone works both ways, you know.”

P.J. started to laugh. “If my eyes had been closed, I would have sworn that was Mom talking.”

The expression on Courtney’s face was priceless. But then she joined P.J.’s laughter, and for the rest of evening, they kept their conversation lighthearted.

Alex had just finished his dinner—a really excellent omelette—and before settling in with the new T. Jefferson Parker book he’d bought, he decided to check his messages on his home phone. He didn’t really expect there to be anything important, but he’d better check, anyway.