Throwback Thursday: Having Her Boss's Baby by Susan Mallery

Author: Susan Mallery
First published in 2006 by Silhouette Books

When Noelle Stevenson saw the positive results of her pregnancy test, she didn't know what to do. The baby's father was gone, killed serving his country in Iraq. And nineteen-year-old Noelle was barely making ends meet putting herself through college and working part-time. So when her take-charge boss, Devlin Hunter, offered to marry her--in a purely temporary business arrangement--how could she possibly refuse?

Dev wanted to do the right thing for a woman in need. But he didn't anticipate that his beautiful bride, wed in a marriage of convenience, would stir his hardened heart. This platonic partnership was rapidly headed down the road to romance....

When you read this book, you have to let go of reality a little bit to fully enjoy the story. The title is a little deceiving because in Having Her Boss's Baby, Noelle finds out she is pregnant with her boss's BROTHER'S baby.  The problem is that he died in Iraq.  When Dev finds out, he immediately proposes to Noelle so that the baby can be taken care of and have the family name.  He proposes a 2 year marriage of convenience.  You know how that will turn out because marriage of convenience stories always end with a HEA.

The problem that I had with the story was the lack of confirmation that 1) Noelle was actually pregnant and 2) that it was in fact Jimmy's baby.  I just found it pretty unlikely that any guy would do something like this without confirming paternity and an actual pregnancy.  But, once I got over that, I ended up finding the story very sweet.   Noelle and Dev end up falling for each other despite trying to keep things platonic. Noelle was good for Dev and helped him realize that taking a chance on love was the best thing for him to do.  

If you are a fan of this author, I think you will like this early work by her.  It's the first in a trilogy, so I'm on the hunt for the next book,  The Ladies' Man.