Jackie Braun - Boardroom Baby Surprise

Even as she said this another one began. Just how many minutes had passed since the last? She didn’t dare chance a glance at her wrist now.

“It is necessary,” Bryan objected. “Assuming what you say is true, that child is a Caliborn.”

“Assuming—” She gritted her teeth, and not because of the contraction. She would have stalked out then, but one of the technicians, a kind-faced man with salt-and-pepper hair and a bushy mustache, laid a hand on her arm.

“Let’s have a look at you first, okay? We wouldn’t want you to have that baby while you’re stuck in traffic on Michigan Avenue.”

He reminded Morgan of her father, which was the only reason she let him lead her back to the couch.

Once she was seated, the EMT knelt in front of her and pulled a blood-pressure cuff from his bag. As it inflated over her upper arm, she glanced at Bryan, who stared back at her stone-faced. She was coming to know that expression. She could only imagine what he was thinking.

Damn Dillon! Damn him for doing this. And damn him for being dead!

Bryan wanted to throttle his little brother, pin him in a chokehold like he used to do when they were kids and pound some sense into him. Only he couldn’t. Knowing that reopened a wound that had just barely begun to heal. Why did Dillon have to go and get himself killed?

Bryan still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that Dill was gone, buried in the family plot at Winchester Memorial Gardens alongside their paternal grandparents and a spinster great-aunt. How was it possible for someone that vibrant and full of life to die? Half the time Bryan wanted to believe that his younger brother was simply off on another one of his irresponsible jaunts, charging his good time to Bryan’s accounts.

He’d done that often enough after burning through his own trust fund by his late twenties, Vail being the last wild excursion. Bryan had been furious when his credit card company had called to confirm the charges. Only the best accommodations and restaurants for his little brother. He’d dialed Dill at the luxury hotel where he was staying in a suite that was costing Bryan a few grand a night, and left him a blistering message.

“Grow up, already!” he’d shouted into the receiver. “You’re thirty, for God’s sake. You have a position at the company if you’d ever deign to work. You need to start earning your own way and stop mooching off me. You do it again and I swear, Dill, I’ll call the police.”

Of course, he wouldn’t have. But he’d been so furious.

Now, sitting in his office looking both terrified and lovely as she answered the EMT’s questions and cringed her way through another contraction, was one doozy of an example of his little brother’s foolishness. As per usual, it would be up to Bryan to clean up the mess. He’d done that Dill’s entire life. Apparently, that applied posthumously, too.

He scrubbed a hand across his eyes. This mess was going to be harder than the others, assuming Morgan wasn’t lying about her baby’s paternity. That was a possibility given the Caliborn family’s net worth. She probably thought she had a big payout coming. Given the state of his brother’s finances, she was in for a rude awakening. Unfortunately, determining the truth wasn’t as easy as requesting a DNA test. It wasn’t because the father in question was deceased. Bryan’s DNA could be used to confirm a biological link between the baby and the Caliborns. That was precisely what had him hesitating. He was in no hurry to go through that…again.

He had to say, Morgan Stevens wasn’t Dill’s usual type. His brother had always gone for flashy women—bombshell blondes, busty brunettes and sassy redheads whose idea of keeping up with current events was to leaf through the tabloids while they had their hair styled. One of the dates Dill had brought to a family dinner last year had actually thought Austria was an abbreviation for Australia.

Morgan appeared to be intelligent and well-spoken, if her phone messages and letters were any indication. She was wearing conservative, if hideous, attire and, despite her advanced pregnancy, didn’t appear to be built like a Playboy centerfold.

So, just what had Dill seen in this woman?

Bryan didn’t have to wonder what Morgan had seen in Dill. His brother had been good-looking, charming and exceptionally free with his money, which he could afford to be since the money was actually Bryan’s.

Gold digger.

It was an old-fashioned term, but Bryan had met enough of those sort of women over the years to know it still applied. Rock stars weren’t the only ones who had groupies. Power brokers attracted them, too, though admittedly they were more refined and they tended to be looking for a ring and a Bergdorf charge card.

His ex-wife came to mind. She was remarried to a Texas oil tycoon whose fortune made the Caliborns’ look paltry by comparison. And she’d borne the tycoon a son, a son who, for a brief time, she’d allowed Bryan to believe was his.

The scandal had been the talk of Chicago for months after the news broke. The DNA test results had been leaked to the media—even before Bryan had seen them. The gossipmongers had had a field day and they would again if they caught wind of this.

Morgan’s moan brought him out of his bitter musings. Her lips parted and she began to pant. Her eyes were pinched closed, her face drawn and dotted with perspiration. She looked incredibly young and scared, especially when she whispered brokenly, “I don’t…think I can…do this.”

Bryan didn’t like weakness. In business, he considered it a character flaw. Oddly, her vulnerability touched him. It made him want to go to her, hold her hand, stroke her cheek and offer reassurance. Absurd reactions, all. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the edge of his desk instead.

“Sure you can. You’re going to be fine,” the EMT told her. “Lie back on the couch now. I’m just going to check to see how far you’ve dilated.”

That brought Bryan upright. He was no expert on labor and delivery, but he’d heard that term before and knew what it meant. On his way to the door, he said, “I’ll be outside.”

In the reception area, he paced uncharacteristically. He was used to taking charge of any given situation and then taking action. At the moment, he wasn’t sure what to do. Should he call his folks, who were currently vacationing abroad, and tell them…what? What exactly could he say? Congratulations, you may soon be grandparents.

Dill’s death had been so hard for Julia and Hugh Caliborn to accept. The death of a child, no matter how old, was wrong. It flouted the natural order of things. Parents were not supposed to bury their offspring.

Bryan pictured his mother upon hearing about Morgan’s baby. She would be excited and weepy about reclaiming a precious bit of her younger son. No doubt, she would lavish the child with every comfort and amenity. And Morgan, too, by default. She’d done the same with his former wife and the baby she’d been cruelly duped into believing was her first grandchild. Four months before the due date his mother had already made over one of her home’s guest rooms into a nursery. Then she’d thrown her daughter-in-law a lavish shower, buying everything left on gift registry afterward. She’d been at the hospital for the birth, crying the happy tears women cry at such occasions. And, eighteen months later, when they’d learned that Caden Alexander Caliborn was not a Caliborn at all, she’d shed more tears, nearly as devastated as Bryan had been.

He clenched his fists. Until he knew for certain this young woman wasn’t pulling a very convincing con, he had to protect them. That meant keeping news of Morgan not only from his parents, but from the press.