Emilie Rose - More Than a Millionaire / The Untamed Sheikh - More Than a Millionaire / The Untamed Sheikh

“It’s not morning.”

“The baby doesn’t wear a Rolex.” Ryan did—an expensive gold model like her father had gambled away at a casino. She remembered the screaming match that had ensued when her mother found out.

“I’ll drive you.”

She dropped her napkin beside her plate. “I’d rather call a taxi.”

“We haven’t finished our discussion.”

She couldn’t possibly remain polite in his company. “There’s no need. Please have your physician fax your health records to my office.”

“Mine?” His dark eyebrows winged upward.

“Yes. Yours. As you pointed out, I—we have every right to know if this baby will inherit something from you that might affect the pregnancy or delivery.”

“I told you I was healthy.”

“And you expect me to take the word of a stranger?” She threw his words back at him, and then smothered a wince.

That wasn’t nice, Nicole.

But maybe if he realized how ridiculously intrusive he was being then he’d back off.

“I’ll take care of it. But I’m not calling a cab for you. I brought you. I’ll take you back.” His inflexible tone and rock-hard jaw warned her arguing would be a waste of time.

Some battles weren’t worth fighting. As long as she won the war—and she would win—she could concede this one. “Fine. Lead the way.”

“Before you go, I have one more request.”

Her insides snarled into a tense knot at the calculating glint in his baby blues. Her control was already teetering on the edge. One teensy shove and she’d lose her temper.

“If you find my home unsuitable, then help me find another one.”

She blinked and swallowed, not liking the direction of his thinking. “Why would I do that? And why would you want me to?”

“Because we both want my child to be raised in a safe environment.”

My child. The words raised her hackles, her temperature and her heart rate each time he said them. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but be impressed that he cared enough to make the effort to provide a better environment. “A real-estate agent would be more knowledgeable.”

“Without a doubt. I’ll engage one to find the houses, but she won’t have a personal stake in my decision. You might as well know I intend to sue for sole custody, but worse case scenario, I’ll end up sharing with Beth and Patrick. Either way, I’m looking for a safe place, and I know you have a vested interest in my selection.”

He’d certainly laid his cards on the table. And while part of her respected him for his honesty, the other hated knowing his strategy.

Her lawyer had confirmed the courts would be unlikely to deny him some form of connection. If the worst case scenario he mentioned came about, the child’s welfare came first. And she’d rather her child live anywhere than here in a place where his or her safety would always be at risk.

“I’ll help you find a house. But don’t believe for one minute that equates to me accepting the inevitability of you as a parent to my— this baby. You are not parent material.”

One corner of his mouth quirked up with stomach-flipping, breath-catching effect. “Guess I’ll have to prove you wrong.”

“Is that your latest floozy?” Harlan Patrick spit the question from the opposite side of Ryan’s desk.

Ryan glanced at the photo lying on the top of the open file he’d composed on Hightower Aviation. He’d printed the professional shot of Nicole from the Hightower Web page. The photographer hadn’t managed to catch the fire in her aquamarine eyes or the golden glints in her light brown hair.

He wasn’t ready to share his surrogacy plan with his father yet or discuss how it had gone wrong. “I don’t sleep with every woman I meet.”

His father snorted in disbelief. He’d always believed the worst of his son—probably because until recently Ryan had given him reason to. Ryan had spent a lot of time acting obnoxious as a kid hoping his mother would get sick of his shenanigans and send him back to his father, but his strategy hadn’t worked. By the time he’d gone off to college the rebel pattern had become a habit.

But his partying and rebelling days were over. And while he would never deliberately deceive anyone, he wasn’t above letting his father’s tendency to jump to conclusions work in his favor for once.

Nicole Hightower was exactly the kind of woman his father wanted him to marry. Ryan had no intentions of marrying anyone, but if his father saw him and Nicole together and believed there might be a long-term relationship in Ryan’s future, then he wasn’t going to correct him. At least not now. There would be ample time for that later—after his father handed over the presidency of Patrick Architectural.

“Her name is Nicole Hightower. She’s a client services manager for Hightower Aviation Management Corporation.” He removed Nicole’s picture from the file, laid it to the side of his blotter and passed the folder to his father. “We should consider fractional ownership or leasing a plane from HAMC.”

“Why? So you can have another damned expensive toy? My God, Ryan, you risk your neck with no thought to who will take over Patrick Architectural if you kill yourself.”

The repetitive lecture that had launched Ryan’s current campaign set his teeth on edge.

“You already have a thirty-thousand-dollar motorcycle and a sixty-thousand-dollar boat. What next? A five-million-dollar plane? And I suppose you want to get your pilot’s license, too.”

Ryan bit back his irritation. “I don’t want or need a pilot’s license. Hightower maintains and staffs the plane. Patrick Architectural flies associates all over the country on a last-minute basis, and we pay a premium for those tickets. High tower guarantees that if we contract their services we could have our plane and their pilot on the runway within four hours or less.”

“Pretentious waste of money.”

“They’d fly us directly to our destination without connecting flights, layovers, limited flight schedules and other inconveniences. They can even land the jets at smaller airports when there isn’t a large hub near our destination.”

“The costs of owning a plane would be prohibitive.” His father dismissed the idea without even looking at the data. Typical.

“Not necessarily. I’ve talked to a Hightower representative. There are a variety of options. We can buy a plane outright, lease or even buy a specified number of flight hours per month or year in a pay-as-you-go program. The best deal is fractional ownership which means we’d only buy a oneeighth to one-sixteenth share, but a plane would always be available to us. When the size of our team required it, we’d be able to request a smaller or larger aircraft.

“The company makes it work for us. Their motto is Comfort, Convenience and Time Savings. From what I’ve heard, they deliver that promise.”

He rolled to his feet, circled the desk and tapped the folder in his father’s hands. “Turn to the chart on page six. Take a look at the data I asked Cindy to compile.”

God bless his assistant’s fascination with tracking the most ludicrous factoids.

He waited until his father did as asked. “This graph catalogs how much time our employees have lost over the past year on layovers, flight delays, inconvenient connector flights and last-minute cancellations or reroutings. They’re on the clock during that lost travel time. There’s your waste of money. Averaged out, our total travel expense comes close to covering the monthly cost for fractional ownership, but without the added benefit of a tax write-off and convenience. Access to our own plane would allow us to expand globally.”

His father’s gaze sharpened as the idea took root and the automatic rejection to any idea Ryan presented faded. Harlan ran a finger down the sheet as he perused the data a second time.