The Diaper Diaries
The Diaper Diaries
Abby Gaines
The Diaper Diaries
Abby Gaines
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#ub1c43ef0-2c32-53c0-aaa5-cf9476a13e10)
Title Page (#u7cf141b9-af81-57fc-bdea-3d2dbd68ebfb)
About the Author (#u1a180a54-2885-5541-9589-b5878d08300c)
Dedication (#u30697f15-10b8-5a0c-b350-55baeb559e96)
CHAPTER ONE (#u55e0c7eb-5cac-5d0c-ada3-9d8c53d816b5)
CHAPTER TWO (#uccba2cbc-ce66-5b44-8715-599d62c6aec0)
CHAPTER THREE (#ub5195808-9aba-5676-bd28-7b80d7016dca)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ube676f9d-c044-5f15-b3ee-3e90e67d7f30)
CHAPTER FIVE (#uf3694edf-d0a1-5502-9ef0-9bfeace88820)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Abby Gaines wrote her first romance novel while still in her teens. Encouraged by her incredibly supportive parents, she wrote her novel longhand in school notebooks, supplying new pages daily to her biggest fan, her younger sister. When she’d finished, she typed up the manuscript and sent it to Mills & Boon and was shocked when they rejected it. To this day, no trace remains of that original work.
Yet after five years of submitting she sold her first Superromance. A few years ago Abby and her family moved out of the city to live on an olive grove. It’s beautiful, peaceful—and a long way from the mall. Contact Abby on abby@abbygaines.com.
For the Novelchicks: Karina Bliss, Sandra Hyatt and Tessa Radley. Wonderful writers and wonderful friends—I couldn’t have done it without you, gals.
CHAPTER ONE
THE LETTER ENDED the same way they all did. Thank you for caring.
“I’m too damn busy to care,” Tyler snarled at his secretary, who’d just deposited today’s stack of heartrending pleas for cash on the corner of his steel-and-glass desk.
“You always are,” Olivia Payne agreed cheerfully. With her graying hair held back in a bun, she looked staid and professional—an appearance that was entirely deceptive. She nodded at the letter Tyler held in his hand. “Anything interesting?”
Tyler fanned out the four pages of closely written text dotted with exclamation points. “Some guy wants two hundred grand to save the red-spotted tree frog. If we don’t act fast, we might never see the frog again.”
He picked up another letter—a single-page e-mail asking for thirty thousand dollars to buy computers for a preschool—and weighed it against the frog letter, as if he could somehow gauge the relative worthiness of the two causes.
The Warrington Foundation, whose purpose was to give away some of the multimillion-dollar profits earned by Warrington Construction, had hired extra staff in the new year to do the preliminary evaluations. It was their job to send polite rejections to the men who wanted bigger breasts for their wives and the people seeking donations to surefire lottery schemes.
But that still left anywhere up to a hundred potentially genuine requests for the chairman—Tyler—to read each day. Many of them ended with what seemed to be that mantra: Thank you for caring.
Tyler folded the first page of the frog letter into a paper airplane.
All he cared about right now was convincing the powers that be in Washington, D.C., that he was the right person to head up their new think tank, established to determine how charities and government could work together to support families. They were looking for someone who understood the concerns of ordinary American families. And Tyler had ended up on the shortlist thanks to the foundation’s good work with various children’s charities.
Presumably, he was at the very bottom of that shortlist. Yet he wanted the job to an extent that surprised him and would have amazed his family, who would doubtless say he was more suited to a think tank on how to get more fun into people’s lives.
Tyler flipped his hand-forged-silver Michel Perchin pen between his fingers as he contemplated his possibly irredeemable reputation. Every news report about his work at the foundation was countered by a juicy piece in the gossip pages about “playboy bachelor Tyler Warrington.” He’d made a major lifestyle adjustment—dating the same woman every night the past two weeks—but he wasn’t sure that act of heroism was enough. Correction: after the headline in this morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he knew it wasn’t.
He smoothed out the paper plane, slapped the two letters together, handed them to Olivia. “The frog’s a no go. Invite the preschool to pitch at the next committee meeting.”
What could be more ordinary and American than preschool?
Maybe his PR team could write an opinion piece about early-childhood education and submit it to the Journal-Constitution in Tyler’s name.
Olivia tucked the letters into her folder. “I’ll deal with these right after I go downstairs. Joe called to say there’s a delivery for you. He sounded pretty excited.”
“Just as well our security guy doesn’t make the allocations.” Unlike Tyler, Joe was a sucker for the attentiongetting ploys to which some people resorted when they asked for money. “If it’s balloons, cake or cigars, tell him to take them home to his kids.” He raised his hands in selfdefense against Olivia’s daggered look. “Okay, okay, hold the cigars.”
OLIVIA RETURNED carrying a faded green duffel bag in a fierce grip, the straps wrapped around one hand, her other arm underneath the bag. She cradled it with a delicacy that suggested its contents were at least as valuable as the Venetianglass sculpture she’d spent hundreds on last week.
Tyler shoved his chair back from the desk, got to his feet. “What is it?”
Very gently, she slid the bag across the surface of the desk; Tyler saw the zipper was open. “Take a look,” she invited, her voice curiously high.
He parted the top of the bag, peered in. And met the unblinking blue gaze of a baby.
Wrapped in a whitish blanket and wearing a soft yellow hat so that only a little round face showed…but definitely a baby.
“What the—” Tyler leaped backward, glared at his secretary. “Is this a joke?”
Olivia blew out a breath as she shook her head. “A young woman came in, told Joe she had a delivery for you. She excused herself to go to the bathroom and left the bag on Joe’s desk. After a couple of minutes, the baby sneezed—gave Joe a heck of a fright. That’s when he called me.”
Tyler raked a hand through his hair. “For Pete’s sake, the woman’s probably still in the bathroom. Or by now, back out with Joe and wondering where her kid’s gone. Take it back down.”
Olivia handed Tyler an envelope, his name written on it in blue ink. “This was in the bag.”
It had already been opened—Olivia read all Tyler’s correspondence. The paper crackled: thin, cheap, almost weightless. Yet it felt far heavier than those requests he’d been reading a few minutes ago. Tyler unfolded the page.
The handwriting was young, or maybe just uneducated, and the message brief.
Dear Mr. Warrington,
I know you are kind and generous and you help lots of people. Please can you adopt my baby? I just can’t do this. Thank you very very very much for caring.
No signature.
So much for the she’s-still-in-the-bathroom theory. Tyler read the letter again. Damn.
With a caution that would have amazed the college buddies he played football with every month, he advanced on the duffel. The infant was still there, still staring. It had worked one little hand loose and was clenching and unclenching a tiny fist against the blanket.
Hey, kid, if you’re frustrated, how do you think I feel? “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?” he said, the words rougher than he’d intended.
The baby blinked, and its mouth moved. If it cried now Tyler would be screwed. He patted the small hand as gently as he could, while he tried to think of words that might soothe. Snatches of nursery rhymes flitted through his head but were gone before he could catch them. “I meant heck,” he said at last.
The kid still looked worried, so Tyler moved out of its line of vision. He looked out the window, over Peachtree Street, where courier bikes scraped between cars and vans with no margin for error, and the crosswalks thronged with businesspeople. No place for a baby.
“We have to find the mother,” he told Olivia. “Ask Joe to send up the security-camera footage.”
“I already did, but he doesn’t think it’ll help,” she said, cheerful now she’d handed the problem to Tyler. “The woman wore a woolen hat pulled right down, and she had a scarf wrapped around her face. It’s cold out, so Joe didn’t think anything of it.”
“Someone has to know who she is,” Tyler persisted. “We’ll give the tape to the police. And you’d better call social services—they can take the baby until the mom turns up.”
“And they say you’re just a pretty face,” Olivia marveled. “I don’t know why that young woman didn’t go to social services in the first place.” She chuckled. “I mean, do you know anyone less suited to looking after a baby than you?”
“You,” Tyler returned sharply. Stupid to let her “pretty face” comment needle him. He might not be an expert on diapers and drool, but he knew he could do whatever he set his mind to. And that made him good for a whole lot more than simply doling out the money his brother Max made in the family’s “real” business. Which he was about to prove by winning the job in Washington, D.C.
Olivia, who’d never married, never had kids, and as far as Tyler knew, was having too much fun to regret either omission, laughed at his insult.
She didn’t know about Washington. She and Tyler’s mom were close enough that there was no chance she wouldn’t spill the beans. No one knew, not even Tyler, officially. The news that he was under consideration had come from his cousin Jake, who had reliable political connections. But the whole thing was so sensitive, so confidential, there was no way Tyler could do what he knew would work best—jump on a plane to D.C. and talk them into giving him the job.
All he could do was continue his strategy of raising his profile in the media—his political profile, not his social profile. He glared at the duffel from his safe distance.
“The press will be all over this,” he told Olivia, “no matter how fast we palm the kid off to social services.”
“It can’t be as bad as today’s story.” She ruined the comforting effect by snickering.
Two women Tyler had dated in the past had gotten into a tipsy argument at a nightclub a couple of evenings ago, apparently over which of the two he’d liked best—he barely recalled either of them. In a misguided attempt to emphasize her point, one had slugged the other with her purse.
None of that would have made the newspaper if one of the women’s pals hadn’t posted the purse for sale on eBay. The purse had been of supreme disinterest to most of the world, but the bidding in Atlanta was fierce and the story had spread in the media as one of those quirky “I sold my grandmother on eBay” tales. Tyler could only hope it hadn’t reached Washington.
He needed damage control, and he needed it now. Pacing in front of the window, he tried to think of a political angle he could play up with the baby that might counter the gossip. How about a photo opportunity of him handing the baby to social services, commenting about the challenges facing young mothers?
Then it hit him—or, rather, smacked him in the head with a force that left him dizzy.
There wasn’t just one political angle to the baby story, there were dozens—the foster system, parenting, money, infant health, who knew what else?—that he could tap into. This was his chance to show the world how well he understood the concerns of families.
“On second thought, don’t call social services,” he told Olivia. “Nor the police.” He grinned at the duffel, suddenly feeling a whole lot warmer toward its occupant. “We need to get the baby out of the bag.”
“We?” she said, horrified.
“You,” he amended.
She backed off. “Uh-uh, no way.”
Tyler directed his most cajoling smile at her. “Please.”
She rolled her eyes, but came back and reached into the bag. He steadied it while she lifted the baby out. Olivia held it in a grip that he judged possibly too tight, but the baby didn’t protest, so Tyler bowed to its superior knowledge. He looked around his office, all hard surfaces, sharp corners, glass and metal. “How about we spread the blanket on the floor,” he suggested, pleased with his own parental-improvisation skills.
He managed to get the blanket out from around the baby, who turned out to be encased from head to toe in yellow terry. “We’ll use your office,” he told Olivia.
“My floor has slate tiles.” With the unnaturally pointed toe of her shoe—and with undisguised triumph—she nudged the plush rust-colored carpet that enhanced Tyler’s luxurious work space. “Yours is much more suitable.”
Too bad she was right. He spread out the blanket, smoothed it confidently—because looking after a kid wasn’t rocket science—then nodded at Olivia, who knelt down to lay the baby on its back. She rubbed her own back as she got to her feet. “Now what?” she said.
Tyler looked down at the infant. Two short, pudgy arms waved at him, but there was still no crying. Thoughtful of the mom to give me a well-behaved kid. “You’d better organize a crib or whatever it is babies hang out in.”
“You can’t be thinking about keeping this child,” Olivia said, shocked.
“Of course not. Just until we find the mom.” At least a few days, he guessed, even if he put a private investigator onto it today. Maybe as much as a week or two. He would call his PR manager, tell her to arrange some media opportunities for him right away—just as soon as she found someone to get him up to speed about kid-parent issues.
“But—” Olivia shook her head, nonplussed “—you don’t know the first thing about looking after a baby.”
“That’s what sitters are for. Call an agency, see if you can get someone immediately.”
“I didn’t even know you liked children.” She was practically wringing her hands with worry, which Tyler considered an overreaction.
“I only have to like this one.” He didn’t even have to do that, but he was willing to try.
Olivia picked up a pad and pen off the desk. “Then I guess we need to think about food. Special baby formula.” She jotted that down. “And diapers. They go through those pretty fast.” She shuddered.
The baby hiccuped, its face contorted. Hell, was it about to puke? They did that all the time, didn’t they?
“We should call a doctor,” Tyler said. “Find out if the kid’s okay before I make any plans.” He pulled out his handkerchief in case of an emergency wipe-up situation. “Call that woman we gave money to last year. The pediatrician doing the kidney research.”
“Great idea.” Olivia’s voice warmed. “She’s a real peach.”
Tyler frowned. “Are we talking about the same woman?”
“Dr. Bethany Hart.”
“That’s her.” He would have described Bethany Hart as more frosty than peachy. And she was quite possibly the most ungrateful woman he’d ever met. The Warrington Foundation had granted her a generous sum for her research into childhood kidney disease which was part of a wider research project at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, attached to Emory University. Instead of the thank-you letter most people wrote, she’d sent Tyler a curtly worded missive to the effect that if he was at all serious about helping young kidney patients he would give a lot more money.
Unlike everyone else, she’d accused him of not caring. Tyler had found her ingratitude refreshing.
Just a couple of weeks ago she’d written to him again. The money, intended to cover her salary, along with admin support and the use of lab facilities and equipment, was almost gone: she’d asked him to renew her funding. She’d enclosed a comprehensive—in his opinion, boring—report on her work to date, and had invited him, rather insistently, to visit a bunch of sick kids in the hospital.
“She may not be your biggest fan,” Olivia said with rare diplomacy. She’d read the pediatrician’s letters, too. “But she sure loves kids.”
Tyler had noticed the way Dr. Hart’s blue eyes lit up when she talked about the children she worked with. “Then she’ll want to check out this baby.”
He didn’t plan to give her a choice. Bethany Hart might have complained about the amount of money she’d received, but no one else had offered her a dime. The foundation had given more than her presentation to the Philanthropic Strategy Committee had merited.
Tyler had swayed the PhilStrat Committee in her favor. Not because she’d wowed him with her presentation—despite her obviously high intelligence, she’d been inarticulate to the point where he’d been embarrassed for her. Definitely not because of that spark of attraction that had flared between them, despite her frostiness—he never let that kind of thing get in the way of business.
When she’d bumbled to the end of her appalling pitch, she’d shot Tyler a look of angry resignation that said she might have messed up, but it was his fault.
He shook her hand as she left, and couldn’t help smiling at the furious quiver in her otherwise stiff fingers. Which enraged her further. She looked down her nose at him as she said, “You haven’t heard the last of me.”
He sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
She reeked of do-gooder earnestness, coupled with the kind of instinctive, misguided courage that led people to pursue hopeless causes without, unfortunately, actually losing hope.
So Tyler had believed Bethany when she said he hadn’t heard the last of her. During the PhilStrat Committee’s deliberations, he’d cast his vote in her support largely to shut her up.
Now, as it turned out, that might have been a smart move. He needed her discreet cooperation over this baby and he expected her to give it, however reluctantly.
Because Bethany Hart owed him.
CHAPTER TWO
BETHANY WAS IN THE SHOWER sloughing off the fatigue of three straight shifts in the E.R. at Emory University Hospital when the phone rang in the studio apartment she rented near the campus.
It was Olivia Payne, Tyler Warrington’s secretary, asking if Bethany could come to the Warrington Foundation offices right away. “Tyler would like to meet with you.” Olivia paused. “At this stage I can’t tell you why.”
He wants to give me more money. Jubilation surged through Bethany; adrenaline transformed her exhaustion into energy. She punched the air with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone, then had to clutch the towel she’d wrapped around herself before it slipped to the floor.
After she’d hung up, she celebrated with an impromptu dance around her living room singing, “I aaaaam a reeesearch geeenius” to the tune of Billy Joel’s “Innocent Man.” But the room was too small for her to burn off this much excitement: as she danced, she grabbed the phone again and dialed her parents.
“Mom, it’s me. Bethany.” She slowed down, suddenly breathless. Crazy that she still felt compelled to identify herself—it was fourteen years since her sister’s death, there was no chance of confusion. Without waiting for a reply, she said, “Looks like the Warrington Foundation plans to extend my research grant.”
Her mom squawked with delight, none of her usual listlessness evident. “Darling, that’s wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“I’m seeing Tyler Warrington this morning. The foundation can extend the grant for a second twelve months at its discretion, without me having to pitch again.”
“That’s the best news—let me tell your dad.”
Bethany heard her mom calling out to her father, heard his whoop of excitement. Then a muffled question she didn’t catch, and an “I’ll ask her” from her mom.
“Uh, honey,” her mother said into the phone, “is there any chance they’ll give you more money than last year? You always say you could get so much more done if you could afford to pay your assistant for more hours.”
The familiar defensiveness—the urgent need to impress upon her parents that there just wasn’t enough money around to fund all the research into kidney disease—constricted Bethany’s chest. She puffed out a series of short, silent, relaxing breaths. Her parents weren’t worried about other projects, only about hers. She understood; she even sympathized. Brightly, she said, “Of course I’ll ask for more, but I may not get it.”
Mentally, she doubled the figure she would propose to Tyler Warrington. If she started high, even ridiculously high, chances were she’d end up with more than if she went in low.
“I know you’ll do your best,” her mother said warmly.
Bethany basked in that praise. No use telling herself she was too old to be grateful for the crumbs of parental approval that came her way; some things never changed.
The moment she’d finished the call, her phone rang again. It was Olivia. “I forgot to say, you’ll need to bring your medical bag.”
Bring her bag so Tyler could hand over a check? Uh-oh. A chill shivered through Bethany, the kind that either meant she was ill or something bad was about to happen. And in her own expert opinion, she wasn’t ill.
Should she call Mom now and admit she might have been hasty with her talk of more money? Her finger hovered over the phone’s redial button.
Then her natural optimism took over, binding itself to the remains of that energy surge. Okay, so Tyler likely had a nephew or niece with a chest cold, and His Egoness figured he had dibs on Bethany’s time now that he’d contributed to her research. But if he didn’t plan to renew her funds, surely he wouldn’t dare summon her help? And that report she’d sent a couple of weeks ago had made an excellent case. Whatever he wanted today, she could still talk to him about money.
Provided, of course, she could string together more than two coherent words. As always, the recollection of how she’d mangled her last pitch to the super-smooth Tyler mortified her. No matter how often she prayed for selective amnesia—either for her or Tyler—her memory stayed depressingly clear. His was doubtless just as sharp.
But with any luck, he was so hopelessly in love with his new girlfriend—according to the newspapers, he was embroiled in a hot-and-heavy romance with Miss Georgia—that he’d see everything, including Bethany, through rose-tinted lenses.
“All you have to do is stay calm,” she told herself out loud as she fished through her wardrobe for something to wear. Last time, she’d borrowed a suit from a colleague, but Banana Republic navy chino hadn’t stopped her messing up.
She tugged a burgundy-colored woolen skirt off its hanger. Maybe she’d have better luck with this—unmistakably homemade, it was a gift from a young patient’s grateful grandmother. If anything could fire Bethany up to get more money from Tyler it would be a reminder of the kids she hoped to help. She pulled the skirt on, added a long-sleeved black T-shirt, then inspected herself in the mirror.
Hmm, maybe the skirt was a bit too peasant style, with those large felt flowers appliquéd around the hem, and—she twirled around—maybe said hem wasn’t entirely straight—the old lady’s eyesight had been failing—but Bethany’s highheeled pumps would dress it up.
Besides, she didn’t have a lot of choice. Thanks to her huge student loans, her wardrobe consisted of scrubs, lab coats and a bunch of stuff she could hide beneath them.
Bethany waved the blow-dryer briefly at her shoulderlength reddish-brown hair, then, in deference to the importance of the funds she was about to request, not to the man who was to bestow them, she applied some mascara and a pinky-red lipstick.
“Calm,” she reminded her flustered, wild-eyed reflection as she rolled her lips together to smooth the lipstick.
She couldn’t afford to screw up again. Last time, Tyler hadn’t bothered to hide first his boredom, then his amusement at her inarticulateness. Then, of course, he’d done that stupid thing that had left her feeling like the joke of the day.
Maybe she’d been oversensitive, she chided herself. There was probably a good explanation for his behavior. A nervous tic. Tourette’s syndrome. Thirty-something years of silver spoon-slurping, privileged existence that had blinded him to the needs of—
Okay, now she was being uncharitable, the very thing she’d accused Tyler of in the letter she’d sent after her pitch. Besides, Miss Georgia was apparently committed to working tirelessly for world peace. Clearly Tyler’s charitable instincts were in full working order.
Bethany would give him the benefit of the doubt and ask him politely—and coherently—for more money.
OLIVIA PAYNE GAVE Bethany a warm welcome, then phoned through to tell Tyler she had arrived.
When he appeared in the doorway of his secretary’s office, Bethany was struck anew by his good looks. The camera loved him—she knew that from the newspaper photos—but real life suited him even better. She might not like the guy, but she’d have to be blind not to notice he had dark hair just too long for decency and when he smiled, as he was doing now, his eyes gleamed with a dare that plenty of women might be tempted to accept.
She doubted anyone could consistently achieve a smile like that without hours of practice in front of a mirror.
“Good morning, Dr. Hart.” His voice was part of the package, low and warm, as if she was the person he most wanted to see right now.
Poised, calm, smooth, she cautioned herself. She shook his hand firmly, noted the gold links that punctured the crisp white of his cuffs. In his immaculately tailored charcoal suit he looked more put together than a GQ cover, and for some unspecified, illogical reason, Bethany disapproved. “Good to see you again, Mr. Warrington—Tyler.”
“How is your research going?” he asked courteously.
“Quite well, given the funding shortfall.” Not subtle, but definitely articulate.
His lips twitched. “That shortfall would be my fault, I assume?”
“Nothing you can’t rectify,” she said encouragingly, and he chuckled outright. Was he laughing at her again? She plowed on. “As you’ll have seen from my report, I’m on the verge of a breakthrough into therapies that interfere with antibody production. If the foundation would consider—” she thought of her parents, drew a shaky breath “—tripling its investment in my work, there’s every chance—”
“I didn’t ask you here to talk about your funding.” His interruption confirmed her fears, sent her spirits into free fall. Bethany clenched her toes inside her shoes to counter the sagging of her knees. Less abruptly, Tyler continued, “But if you want to call Olivia next week and ask her to set up a time in my diary…”
Bethany’s hopes shot back up again. Her first instinct was to grab the opportunity he offered. Then he favored her with that calculated smile that seduced socialites and beguiled beauty queens. And distracted Bethany? Not this time. She folded her arms and said deliberately, “And what will Olivia say when I call?”
Tyler blinked. Olivia made a strangled sound. Bethany waited.
Then he grinned, something much more genuine—as if to say, “You got me.” “She may say there’s no room in my diary,” he admitted.
“Just like there was no room for you to visit the kidney patients I work with?”
“I have a lot of demands on my time.” He spread his hands disarmingly. “You wouldn’t believe the number of people who want a piece of me.”
Most of them female. Even before Miss Georgia, the newspapers had reported his dating exploits so comprehensively, Bethany wondered how he found time to make it into the office. But evidently he did, because lately the press had been covering the foundation’s charitable activities, and in that sphere, at least, it seemed Tyler was a saint. Albeit one untroubled by anything so pesky as a vow of celibacy.
“I want a piece of you, too,” she said. Tyler raised his eyebrows, and she stuttered, “I—I want you to guarantee me that appointment to talk about my funding. Please.”
For a long moment Tyler stared at her. Then he said, “I like a woman who knows what she wants.” Before she could decide if he was being provocative, he turned to Olivia. “Give Bethany some time next week. And when I tell you to fob her off, don’t listen to me.”
That frank admission of his lack of interest in her work floored Bethany…and, amazingly, made her want to laugh. Which she was not about to do: she took her work seriously, even if he didn’t. She compressed her lips, picked up her bag. “Olivia asked me to bring this. I assume there’s a patient you want me to look at?”
“In my office.” He held the door open for her.
Tyler figured it was the oddness of Bethany’s skirt that drew his attention to the neat round of her bottom as he followed her into his office. That, and the same kick of awareness that had surprised him at their last encounter.
He couldn’t think why he found her so intriguing. Yes, that polished-cherry-wood hair waved nicely around her heartshaped face. But her nose was too pointy, all the easier for her to look down it at him, and her mouth a trifle wide for that stubborn chin. She was pretty, but Tyler dated beauties.
He was still puzzling over his attraction to her when she stopped; he almost bumped into her. She’d seen the baby.
“Oh, you gorgeous little thing.” She sounded awed, breathless, as she dropped to her knees on the carpet. “Hello, precious,” she crooned. The baby’s face split in an enormous smile, and Bethany laughed out loud.
Humor widened her mouth to even more generous proportions and revealed a dimple in her chin. All trace of obstinacy vanished, and she was much more the peach Olivia had suggested. A cute-but-not-his-type peach. Women who went gaga over babies usually had him hightailing it out the door.
She looked up at Tyler, confusion wrinkling her brow. “Who’s this?”
He shifted on his feet. Now that he had to explain, he realized just how weird this was. “Someone left it downstairs for me.”
“It?” Her eyebrows drew together, and the effect in combination with that skirt was of a disapproving pixie.
“Uh…her?” Damn, he should have had Olivia check.
Bethany unsnapped the terry garment. She hooked the front of the baby’s diaper with one finger and peered inside. “Him,” she corrected as she refastened the snaps. “What do you mean, someone left him?”
Tyler handed her the note. Watched curiosity turn to shock to alarm, all telegraphed across her face. She stared at him, mouth slightly open, apparently dumbfounded.
“This woman…” She groped for words. “This child’s mother thinks you would make a good parent?”
As if her intimate knowledge of children’s kidneys put her in a position to judge him. “I’m one of Atlanta’s favorite sons—and its most generous.”
Bethany sat back on her heels. “You hadn’t even figured out he’s a boy.”
“I believe in equal-opportunity parenting. Gender is irrelevant.”
She pffed. “You need to call social services.”
“My lawyer says I don’t.” He was glad he’d clarified the legality of the situation in the forty-five minutes that he’d waited for Bethany. “The mother’s letter effectively appoints me the baby’s guardian. According to my attorney, that may not carry weight long term, and I’ll need to meet with social services. But if they’re satisfied he’s well looked after and that efforts are being made to find the mother—which I’ll hire a private investigator to do…”
Bethany leaned over to scoop up the baby, then scrambled to her feet. As she hoisted the infant to her shoulder in a casual, practiced movement, Tyler caught a glimpse of slim, winterpale midriff where her T-shirt pulled away from her skirt.
“You mean, you plan to keep him?” she said. “What about your incredibly busy schedule? Babies take time and attention.”
“I’ll organize a sitter.”
“You can’t tell me you care about this baby.” She sounded suspicious and she was doing that looking-down-her-nose thing, one of his least favorite memories from the first time they’d met.
“I care about families, about children.” What the heck, he might as well try out some of the lines he planned to use in media interviews. “Children are our future.”
“Wonderful,” she said brightly—to the baby. “Your new guardian is a graduate of the Whitney Houston School of Philosophy.” She looked at Tyler and her eyes sparked, not with the tenderness she’d directed at the baby, but with something more…electric.
Tyler’s senses stirred in response to that spark, and he struggled to keep his mouth from curving, his wits from deserting him to go frolic with his imagination in a place that involved him and Bethany and not much clothing. Definitely not that skirt. “Are you saying children aren’t our future?” he asked with spurious confusion.
She shifted her hold on the baby, and the movement emphasized the high, full curve of her breasts. “You made it plain you’re not interested in my kidney patients, so why should I believe you have any real concern for this child?”
But he hadn’t invited her here to examine his motives. All he needed was for her to check the baby over and leave. Then he could get Operation Family Man under way. Still, he couldn’t resist saying, “You’re carrying a grudge because I didn’t give you all the money you wanted, and it’s clouding your judgment. You need to admit that was your own fault.”
Bethany’s face heated. So much for Tyler being either amnesiac or love-struck to the point of forgetting her humiliation. Yes, she’d brought it on herself…but he hadn’t helped. She’d been sucked in by his charm—the charm she’d been too naive to realize was hardwired into him and freely dispensed to every female he came across—and in the misguided belief she’d already won him over, she’d wandered away from the scientific facts to support her case and detoured into anecdote.
Halfway through her pitch, she’d realized she’d lost Tyler’s attention. He’d still been giving her that encouraging smile, but he’d glanced at his watch a half-dozen times, yawned more than once. She’d scrambled to get back onto the solid ground of medical fact, lost track, dropped her notes and been too nervous to take a break and sort them out. She’d garbled her way through, and just as she hit the crux of her case, Tyler—
“You winked at me!” she accused.
“I did not.” He widened his eyes, as if to prove there was no winking going on. At the same time, his brows lowered in a puzzled frown that hinted she was being irrational.
“When I pitched to your committee.” The baby hiccuped and she rubbed his back in a circular motion. “You sat there not listening to a word I said and then you winked.”
“That’s why you’re so touchy? Because I winked?” Tyler ignored the way Bethany stiffened at being called touchy. “I could see you felt awkward and I guessed it was because of that thing between us…”
“What thing?” she demanded.
“That…awareness, that—” he flung a hand wide to encompass the full spectrum of sexual attraction “—edge. It’s here again, right now, even when you’re mad at me.”
Her face was blank. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
Tyler snorted. No way was this all on his side. There’d been a real and definite connection between them and it hadn’t abated. He was used to women finding him attractive and, less often, to experiencing a mutual chemistry. If the situation wasn’t appropriate, he could shrug it off and get on with the job. But he could see Bethany inhabited a less sophisticated planet than the women he dated. That big doctor brain of hers was probably a handicap when it came to something as simple as sexual attraction.
“You winked,” she said again, a note of revelation creeping into the words.
Being an egghead was no excuse for not understanding the basics. “I told you,” he said impatiently, “I did it because you—”
“While I was putting my heart into that pitch, you were flirting?”
CHAPTER THREE
“I WAS READING your signals,” Tyler corrected her. “And I acknowledged them. I was being polite.”
Just when Bethany had thought she’d reached the pinnacle of embarrassment, he’d thrown this at her. Why didn’t he just come out and say he thought she was an all-round loser, and sex-starved to boot?
“I was pitching for the most important thing in my life,” she said in a tight, strained voice. If she hadn’t been holding the baby, she would have yelled.
The baby whimpered. Through his hat, she nuzzled the top of his sweet little head with her chin, a caress intended to soothe herself as much as him.
No wonder Tyler hadn’t taken her pitch seriously, if his rampant ego had decided she was making a pass at him.
“If you weren’t giving me any signals—”
“I wasn’t,” she snapped.
“Then my…wink was out of order. I apologize.”
Bethany saw the opening and dived for it. “You need to let me pitch again, right away.”
He grinned. “Nice try.”
The baby wriggled against her, and automatically she noted his good neck control—he had to be at least a couple of months old. “You can’t have made an objective decision, if you thought I was flirting.”
“Women flirt with me all the time. I don’t take it seriously,” he said, half laughing, half irritated. “Look, Bethany, I promise the reason you only got fifty thousand dollars was because that’s the maximum the team thought your work deserved. I didn’t underpay you because I thought you were flirting.”
“And you’re certain you weren’t—” it sounded stupid, but she had to say it “—so distracted by your attraction to me that you failed to grasp all aspects of my presentation?” Because that happened to her all the time. Not.
“I swear I wasn’t.” His face was so grave she just knew he was laughing hysterically inside. “It wasn’t even an attraction. It was an awareness, a spark. Not that you’re not very attractive,” he added hastily, as if she was about to take offense on a whole new scale. “But…you must know your presentation didn’t do you any favors.”
The fire left Bethany, and suddenly she was cold. “No,” she agreed quietly. And now that she’d accused him of being in the thrall of an overwhelming attraction to her, how likely was it he’d give her more money when they met next week?
She’d blown it again.
“Can we start over?” he said, evidently deciding he’d neutralized her.
Start over. That’s what she’d have to do with her research funding. Nausea churned in her stomach.
“I asked you in here to examine the baby, to check if he’s healthy,” Tyler said.
“Of course.” She could at least do something for this child, get that right.
“There’s a meeting room that adjoins this office.” Tyler pointed to a door halfway along the far wall. “You can use the table in there.” He looked at the baby, now dozing against her shoulder. “I’ll carry your bag.”
She followed him into a room that, like his office, had expansive views over midtown. Instead of a desk, it held a long table flanked by leather-upholstered chairs.
“How about you hold this little fellow while I set up?” Bethany said.
Tyler took the infant from her, held him at arm’s length, like a puppy that had rolled in something nasty and needed a good hose-down.
“He won’t bite,” she said.
“It’s more the barfing I’m worried about.” He glanced down at the fine wool of his jacket, which fitted his shoulders snugly enough to reveal their breadth, while still allowing fluidity of movement.
“That’s why I don’t buy custom-made suits,” she sympathized. “I don’t mind dropping a thousand dollars on a new suit, it’s the twenty bucks for the dry cleaning that kills me.”
He gave her a hard look, but he took the hint, held the baby closer. The little boy’s head flopped against Tyler’s chest, a tiny thumb went into his mouth. Then a fist curled around Tyler’s lapel. Tyler looked less than thrilled.
Bethany tore open a plastic pack and pulled out a sterile mat. “I hope you’ve baby-proofed your house, because these critters get into everything.” The baby was several months away from that stage, but why not give Tyler a scare?
“Luckily I had that done last year, on the off chance someone abandoned a baby on me.”
She frowned so she wouldn’t smile.
“But even if I hadn’t,” he continued, “this guy looks too young for me to worry about him digging out the magazines from under my bed.”
Her head jerked up.
“Car magazines,” he said blandly. “I only buy them for the pictures.”
From her bag, Bethany took out the items she’d need for her examination. She rescued the baby from Tyler, laid him on the mat. Instantly wide-awake, he gurgled up at her. “Can you imagine how desperate his mom must have been,” she mused aloud, “to abandon a cutie like this?”
“Why do you think she did it?” Tyler perked up.
“It’s more common to abandon babies at birth if the pregnancy was a secret or if the mom had no support. At this age…possibly if he had a birth defect or a serious illness she couldn’t handle…” She unsnapped the yellow sleeper and began to remove the garment. “But there’s nothing obviously wrong with this guy.” She appreciated the healthy pink tone of the baby’s skin. Too often the youngsters she saw in the E.R. were either pale or flushed from illness. “I’m wondering if there’ll be some clue to his name, maybe a wristband or ankle band under these clothes.”
“Uh-huh.” Tyler was looking at the baby, but the tapping of one black loafer on the carpet told her his thoughts were elsewhere.
A thought struck Bethany. “You don’t know his name, do you?”
That brought his gaze back to her. “It wasn’t in the note, so how could I?”
She waited before she replied, listening through her stethoscope to the baby’s heart. He’d flinched when the cold metal touched his chest, but he didn’t cry. Heart rate of one-fifty, perfectly normal.
“It occurs to me,” she said carefully as she coiled her stethoscope, “that this might be your son.”
He jerked backward. “Mine?”
“I mean—” she put a thermometer to the baby’s ear, relieved she didn’t have to meet Tyler’s gaze as she elaborated “—your…love child.”
She didn’t expect the silence. It was unnerving, so much so that even after the thermometer beeped a normal reading, she kept looking at the display.
“Tell me that’s a joke,” he said.
She swallowed. “I have to ask. I’m a doctor, I have my patient’s best interests in mind.”
“You’re not just a gossip with a juicy story to spread?” he asked silkily.
“Certainly not.” She put the thermometer away.
“Because if a rumor like that got around, it could do me a lot of damage.”
Bewildered, she said, “Tyler, according to the newspapers, you’ve dated half the women in Atlanta and the other half are eagerly awaiting their turn. Miss Georgia must know she’s the latest in a long line.”
“Professional damage,” he elaborated. “And for your information, dating a lot of women doesn’t mean I’m siring love children—” he embellished her euphemism with sarcasm “—all over town, then neglecting them until their mothers abandon them.”
“Only one love child,” she corrected reasonably. Then, when his face darkened, “If you say he’s not yours, I believe you. But like you said, you’re Atlanta’s favorite son, you could get away with—”
“Forget it,” he said with flat finality.
Bethany pressed her lips together and conducted the rest of her checks on the baby in silence. She put a finger in his mouth, ran it over his gums. Next, she pulled a brightly colored rattle from her bag, held it above and in front of the baby. His eyes focused on the toy, and when she moved it to her left and then her right, his gaze followed. When she put the rattle down on the table, the little boy turned his head to see it. His hand reached out, found only air, and he gave a squirm of frustration.
Bethany picked up the toy, held it to the tips of his fingers. He curled his fingers around it, held it for a moment, then dropped it. “Hmm, I’d say he’s hit three months.”
“How do you know that?”
She’d forgotten momentarily that she wasn’t talking to Tyler after he’d accused her of being a gossip. Nonetheless, she magnanimously decided to share her conclusions with him. “He’s able to follow an object with his eyes and grasp it, but he’s not rolling over, though he’s in good health, with plenty of fat, plus good muscle development. And there’s no sign of teething.”
There was a knock, then Olivia stuck her head around the door. “I have diapers. And something called baby wipes.”
“Perfect timing.” Bethany pulled the tapes on the diaper the baby wore. “Bring them in.”
She tugged the wet diaper out from under the baby. She gave his private parts a quick check, then Olivia handed her a fresh diaper and a wipe. The secretary left the room double quick.
“On all the obvious measures he’s fine, a healthy little guy,” Bethany said as she fastened the clean diaper. She glanced at Tyler. “I still think it’s best if I call social services and have them pick him up.” She began to dress the baby again.
Tyler shook his head. “I can’t throw him into the welfare system when his mom asked me to take him. Who knows what might happen to him.”
“I know.” She gathered the baby in her arms. “Social services will send someone to get him. They might be satisfied with my medical assessment, or they might take him to another doctor. While they try to find his mom, they’ll place him with a foster parent who knows how to look after a baby,” she said with heavy emphasis. “Someone who’ll care about him.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then his gaze flicked down to the baby in her arms. “Thanks very much for your professional advice, Dr. Hart. Be sure and send Olivia your bill.”
Just like that he was dismissing her. He even had the nerve to offer her that meaningless smile, the one he’d given when he’d dismissed her pitch.
He would do the same at their meeting next week. It wouldn’t make any difference if she was coherent, babbling or speaking Swahili.
Bethany’s future flashed before her eyes, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. She’d have to pull out of the research team at Emory; she’d been a late addition to the team, accepted on the basis of her funding from the foundation. Every cent was allocated, they couldn’t carry freeloaders. She would have to start traipsing around the charitable foundations, submitting applications, presenting her case. And every time, she’d be up against dozens of other worthy projects.
This could mean the end of the goal she’d worked toward since she was thirteen years old.
She could find a way to deal with the recriminations from her parents—she just wouldn’t answer her phone for a year—but knowing she’d failed to do the one thing that would make any sense of Melanie’s death…that would haunt her.
Now Tyler stood before her, frowning with faint confusion, as if he couldn’t understand why she was still in his office, still holding “his” baby. He didn’t give a damn about the children she hoped to save. Did he care about anyone, other than himself?
Bethany’s mouth set in a determined line. “I’m not leaving until I’m certain you’ve made acceptable arrangements for this baby.”
“For Pete’s sake.” His hands came together in a throttling motion that she hoped was involuntary. “I told you, I’ll find a sitter. I’ll have Olivia call you later and let you know how I get on.”
“Does that work the same as, ‘Call Olivia and have her slot you into my diary’?”
A smile tugged at Tyler’s mouth. Surprise, surprise, he wasn’t taking her seriously again.
“Do you know how to choose a sitter?” she demanded. He probably planned to ask one of his girlfriends. Goodness knew what sights the poor baby might be subjected to. “You need someone qualified. And I mean capable of more than sashaying down a catwalk.”
He laughed out loud. “Modeling is a very demanding profession,” he chided. “I’ve been told many times.”
“I’m trying to say—”
“I am saying, this is none of your business,” he interrupted. “I assure you, though I don’t have to, and I really don’t know why I’m bothering, that I’ll hire a qualified, professional sitter, the best that money can buy.”
Everything came back to money.
He had it, she needed it.
Which seemed so monumentally unfair, Bethany wanted to cry.
“We’re done here.” Tyler took a step toward the door. “I’ll be happy to update you about the baby at our meeting next week. If you’ll hand him over to me…”
“No,” Bethany said. Because an idea was glimmering in the recesses of her mind, and she just needed a minute to tease it into the open.
“You don’t want an update?” He added hopefully, “Or you don’t want to meet next week?” It obviously didn’t occur to him she wasn’t about to hand over the baby.
It was coming closer, her idea, coalescing into a plan. A plan to get money out of him, without her having to beg, or rob him at gunpoint, both of which had occurred to her in the course of this encounter.
“I want,” she said casually, confidently and—best of all—coherently, “you to hire me as your babysitter.”
The allure of Bethany’s feisty brand of cute was wearing off fast, Tyler decided. And the way she was holding on to the baby as if he was a bargaining chip was decidedly alarming. “No way.”
“I’ve worked with social services in the emergency room,” she said. “They know me, they trust me. When I tell them you’re not a fit guardian for this baby, they’ll be around here faster than you can proposition a supermodel.”
“I doubt that’s possible,” Tyler said coolly. “But, humor me here, why exactly would you want to tell social services that?”
“Because it’s true.” Her tone said, Duh, and he could see she believed it. “I’m not going to let you risk this child’s well-being because you want, for whatever reason, to keep him—” She stopped. “I bet you see this baby as some kind of chick magnet.”
“I’m a chick magnet. And I don’t need you telling lies to social services.” Just the thought of her carrying out that threat made Tyler go cold. He imagined the resulting furor when the news hit the headlines. He might as well go out and have Don’t choose me to run a family think tank tattooed on his forehead right now.
“If this is about the handbag incident,” he said, “I swear I was nowhere near that nightclub, and I haven’t seen either of those women in a long time.”
“What handbag incident?” She shifted the baby to her other shoulder.
Great, why didn’t he make things worse? “Just kidding. Look, how about I let you choose a sitter—one who meets whatever standard you want to set.” He reached for the baby. “Here, he looks heavy, why don’t you pass him over.”
She squinted at him and held the infant tighter. “The standard is, it has to be me.”
“You’re overqualified,” he said. “And you have lives to save. Your research, remember?”
“The research I’ve run out of money for,” she pointed out. “I’ve been pulling shifts in the E.R. for weeks now, so I can use some of the foundation’s grant to extend my assistant’s hours. But as of this week, she’s working for someone else until I get more money.”
The money. Again. “I find it difficult to believe you have a burning ambition either to work for me or to be a babysitter.”
“I admit I have an ulterior motive—access to you.” She turned her cheek to avoid a sudden grab by the baby. “I’ll use up the vacation time I’m owed looking after this little guy until his mother is found, and I’ll spend every minute I can educating you about my research.”
The days and weeks stretched before Tyler in a Groundhog Day nightmare of lectures about kidneys and caring.
“Did you think of demanding a renewal of your funding in exchange for your butting out of my business?” Not that he would have paid her off, but it would in theory have been simpler than this Machiavellian scheme.
“That would be blackmail,” she said, shocked. “All I want is a fair hearing.” The baby blew bubbles, and she wiped gently at his mouth with her finger. “I’ll work for you—” the hardness of her voice, at odds with that tender gesture, startled Tyler “—and I’ll make you listen.”
She couldn’t make him do anything. But he couldn’t afford to have her bad-mouthing him to social services. And he did need a qualified sitter. Plus, her knowledge, not just of how to look after this baby, but of wider child-related issues, might come in handy.
Tyler made a decision—his decision, for his reasons. “You can have the job.” Her eyes lit up, so he said hastily, “But if you think that’s going to make me listen to you…all I can say is, hold your breath.”
She blinked. “I believe the expression is don’t hold your breath.”
“Ordinarily,” he agreed. “But in this case I’m hoping you’ll suffocate yourself.”
“And then this poor baby will have no one who cares.” She patted the little boy’s back. “Let me tell you how much I charge for my services.” Bethany named a sum that had Tyler’s eyebrows shooting for the ceiling.
“I had no idea babysitting was such a lucrative profession.”
“One of a thousand things you have no idea about,” she said loftily. “Now, when can I move in?”
“Move in?” Tyler felt as if his brain was ricocheting around his head, trying to keep up with her twisted mind. What was she planning next?
“You’re aware that babies wake in the night?” she asked. “That they need feeding and changing 24/7?”
Tyler had been vaguely aware of the unreasonable nature of infants, but he hadn’t yet translated that to having to violate his privacy by having someone move in. He’d never even had a live-in girlfriend. “You’re not moving in.”
“Okay, if you think you can handle the nighttime stuff…” She shrugged. “I guess with your dating history you’re used to not getting much sleep. But those middle-of-the-night diapers are the worst. Just make sure you buy a couple of gallons of very strong bleach and three pairs of rubber gloves. Oh, and have you had a rabies shot?”
Was she suggesting he could get rabies from the baby? He stared at her, aghast. She looked back at him and there was nothing more in her blue eyes than concern for his wellbeing. Which made him suspicious. But he wasn’t willing to take the risk.
“Fine,” he said, “you can move in.”
She didn’t blink. Only a sharp breath betrayed that she hadn’t been certain he would agree. Immediately, he wished he hadn’t. “But don’t get too comfortable. I don’t imagine I’ll have custody of him for more than a few weeks, max, before either his mom is found or social services take over.”
“That’s all the time I’ll need,” Bethany said.
“I’ll have Olivia get me some earplugs,” he said. “When you’re nagging me about your research, I won’t be listening.”
“While she’s out buying those, she can buy or rent some baby equipment and supplies,” Bethany said. “I’ll write you a list—do you have a pen?”
Tyler handed over his silver pen with a sense of impending doom.
Bethany scribbled a list of what looked like at least two dozen items, and handed it to him.
“If you like, I can take the baby to your place right now and—” She stopped. “We can’t keep calling him ‘the baby’—how about you choose a name for him?”
“Junior?” he suggested.
“A proper name. One that suits him.”
Tyler rubbed his chin. “Okay, a name for someone with not much hair, a potbelly, incontinent…My grandfather’s name was Bernard.”
Bethany laughed reluctantly. “Bestowing a Warringtonfamily name on him might create an impression you’d rather avoid.”
Good point. Tyler looked the baby over. “Ben’s a nice name for a boy.”
“Ben,” she repeated. “It suits him.” She dropped a kiss on the infant’s head, as if to christen him. “Okay, Ben, let’s get you home.” To Tyler, she said, “I don’t have a car. Are you going to drive me, or call me a cab? Better order one with a baby seat.”
“How did you get here today?”
“By bus,” she said impatiently.
“Everyone has a car,” he said.
“Underfunded researchers don’t.”
Pressure clamped around Tyler’s head like a vise. He massaged his aching temples.
Bethany had promised to give him hell, and she didn’t even have the decency to wait until she’d moved in.
CHAPTER FOUR
BETHANY PULLED her knitting out of its bag, propped herself against two large, squashy pillows and checked out the view. Of Tyler’s bedroom. From Tyler’s bed.
This was so undignified, being forced to wait for her employer on his bed. No doubt he’d be less than impressed to find her here.
“It’s his own devious, underhanded fault,” she muttered as she untangled a knot in her wool.
She’d been full of self-congratulatory delight at having inveigled her way into Tyler’s multimillion-dollar home in Virginia Highlands so she could brainwash him into giving her money. Her sense of triumph had lasted through three nights of interrupted sleep, fifteen bottles of formula and thirty thousand dirty diapers.
At least, that’s how many it felt like. It was now Thursday evening, and Bethany hadn’t seen Tyler since the meeting they’d had with social services on Monday afternoon, at which it had been agreed that Tyler would have temporary custody of Ben. Correction: she hadn’t seen him in the flesh. Beside her on the bed was today’s newspaper, featuring a photo of Tyler and Miss Georgia at the opening of an art exhibition in Buckhead on Tuesday.
She tossed the newspaper across the deep crimson bedcover. Who would have thought crimson could look so masculine? It must be the combination of the white walls, the dark polished floorboards, the Persian rug woven in rich reds and blues.
Her cell phone rang, breaking the silence and startling her. Bethany fumbled her knitting, reached for the phone’s off button. She’d spent the past few days dodging calls from her mother and stalling the head of the emergency department at Emory with vague promises that she’d be available for work “soon.”
The one person she wanted to talk to was Tyler. But she hadn’t even said two words to him about her research.
Because the man was never here.
So now, when Ben was napping and Bethany should have been sleeping—the dark circles beneath her eyes were growing dark circles of their own—she was instead relying on the irregular clack of her knitting needles to keep her awake. If she wasn’t careful, Tyler would make one of his lightning raids on the house while she dozed.
She didn’t know how he managed to figure out exactly when she’d be out taking Ben for a walk, or catching forty winks, or at the store stocking up on diapers. But at some stage every day she’d arrive home, or come downstairs into the kitchen, and there’d be…no actual evidence of his presence, just an indefinable sense of order shaken up. And, occasionally, the scent of citrus aftershave, freshly but not too liberally applied.
Tyler wouldn’t elude her today, she promised herself as she hunted for a dropped stitch with little hope of rescuing it. No matter how much Bethany knitted, she never improved, probably because knitting was a means of relieving tension rather than a passion.
Since she’d arrived at Tyler’s home, she’d knitted most of a sweater.
Today, she would relieve her tension by delivering Tyler a brief but salient rundown on childhood kidney disease. Waiting on his bed meant he couldn’t sneak past her; she wouldn’t let him out of the house until she’d said her piece.
Bethany yawned and leaned back into the pillows, letting her eyelids droop just for a moment. Her bed in Tyler’s guest room was very comfortable, but this one was in a different league. It was like floating on a cloud….
THE NEAR-SILENT SWISH of a well-made drawer sliding stealthily closed woke Bethany. She jerked upright.
And saw Tyler standing frozen next to the dresser, holding a plastic shopping bag, watching her watching him.
Bethany roused her wits. “Who are you, and how dare you barge into this house?”
She had the satisfaction of confusing him, but only briefly. Those full lips curved in irritated appreciation of her comment.
“Sorry I haven’t been around, I’ve been busy.” He crossed the room, a picture of relaxed grace, and dropped the shopping bag onto the end of the bed. He stood, clad in Armani armor, looking down at her as if she were a territory he had to conquer before dinner.
“I’ve been busy, too,” Bethany said. Unlike him, she bore the ravages of her day, evidenced in the baby-sick that blotted the shoulder of her sweater, in her lack of makeup, in the hair she hadn’t had time to wash this morning.
“You mean, busy doing something other than snoozing on my bed?” He took a step closer. “Or are you here because you want…something?”
“I want to talk to you.” She scowled. “You were hoping to sneak in and out without waking me, weren’t you?”
“You looked so sweet,” he said blandly, “it seemed a crime to disturb you. Where’s Ben?” He glanced around with casual interest, as if she might have stowed the baby under a pillow. For all he knew, that was exactly what she did each day.
“He’s sleeping.”
Tyler sat on the other side of the bed from Bethany, and farther down so he was facing her. Still too close for her liking. She’d have liked to stand up, but one foot was still asleep, and she’d probably topple over if she tried. She settled for edging away from him.
“That kid’s amazing,” he said. “Every time I come home, he’s fast asleep. I feel as if I’ve hardly seen him.” He must have noticed the anger kindle in her eyes, for he continued hastily, “So, how are you?” His gaze flicked over her from top to toe. “You look tired.”
Didn’t every woman love to hear that?
“I,” she said deliberately, “am exhausted. The reason Ben is asleep whenever you’re around—” she pointed her knitting needles at him for emphasis “—is because he’s awake every other minute of the day. And night.”
“Careful, Zorro.” Tyler reached out and deflected the needles, which were almost stabbing him in the chest. “It’s not my fault if I don’t hear Ben at night.”
“The only way you wouldn’t hear him is if you’re wearing those earplugs Olivia bought you.”
He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
Bethany narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you can’t hear him because you’re sleeping somewhere else.”
He appraised her through thick lashes. “I’ve been right here every night. In this bed.”
She didn’t need to think about that.
“Alone,” he added mournfully.
With that newspaper article visible from the corner of her eye, she couldn’t help saying, “Things not going well with Miss Georgia?”
“That would be your business…how?”
“It’s the whole city’s business, if you read the newspaper. Besides, if she dumped you,” Bethany said hopefully, “and you’re looking for an excuse to see her again, you can set me up to brief her about my research. She gets a lot of media coverage, she might be a useful spokesperson.”
“Nice idea, but I think she has her hands full with world peace. And in the unlikely event of a woman dumping me, I won’t need your help in patching things up.” He leaned forward and grabbed the plastic shopping bag, which bore the logo of a local independent bookstore. He pulled out several books, stacked them on the nightstand on his side of the bed. Among them, Bethany recognized one that many of her patients’ parents recommended: What to Expect the First Year. He crowned the pile with Real Dads Change Diapers.
He caught her watching him. “Obviously I’m philosophically opposed to this last one.”
“I noticed,” she said. “Still, it looks as if you’re willing to be educated. So you’ll be interested to learn that if researchers could figure out how to control antibody-producing cells, kidney patients might be able to accommodate transplanted organs from incompatible donors.”
“Who do you think Ben’s dad is?” Tyler asked.
Bethany counted to five and managed an ungracious “How would I know? Has the private investigator come up with something?”
“Nothing yet. I was just wondering…What if his dad is looking for him?”
Bethany blinked. Tyler had noticed she did that whenever he disconcerted her…which wasn’t as often as he’d like. Too often it worked the other way around.
“Good question, I’ve been thinking more about his mother,” she admitted.
“That’s because you’re a woman,” he said smugly. “It’s hard for you to acknowledge that Ben’s dad has just as much claim on him.” It was a line he’d found when he’d skimmed Real Dads Change Diapers, a somewhat political tome, in the bookstore. He’d also skimmed the index of What to Expect the First Year and found no reference to rabies, which gave him another score to settle with Bethany.
She frowned. “In my experience, fathers love their kids just as much as moms do, though they’re not always as good at showing it. But every kid needs a dad he can rely on. Maybe not so obviously at Ben’s age, but in a few years’ time he’ll need someone to show him what being a man is all about.”
Tyler was sorely tempted to pull out a pen and make notes. Bethany was more useful than any number of books when it came to getting up to speed on baby issues.
Bethany continued. “I’m not a guy—” stating the obvious, he thought, scoping out the fullness of her breasts in her thin, ribbed sweater “—but I’d bet being a father is the most rewarding, fulfilling, hope-giving experience a man can know. It’d beat those other coming-of-age experiences—first car, first girlfriend, graduation—hands down.”
Enthusiasm lit Bethany’s face, emphasizing its pixieish quality. Very cute. Then she added, “If you talk to some of the fathers of children in the kidney ward at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta—”
Okay, now she’d gone past quotable and was riding her hobbyhorse into earnestness.
“Fascinating though this is,” Tyler interrupted her, “I’m due at dinner in half an hour. You’re welcome to stay, but I need to get changed.”
“Miss Georgia again?” she said coolly, ignoring his invitation.
He folded his arms. “You seem overly interested in Miss Georgia.”
Bethany flushed. “I’m interested in the fact you’re never here with Ben.”
“Right,” he said dryly. They both knew she wanted him here so she could spout kidney facts. “The fact is, I pay you to care for him.” Damn, he could sense another of her lectures coming. He said quickly, sympathetically, “You know, you wouldn’t be the first woman to be jealous of Miss Georgia.”
Her outraged gasp had him stifling a smile. “I’m about as jealous of Miss Georgia as I am of that table leg.” She waved at the nightstand.
“That’s a very shapely table leg,” he conceded, “but you shouldn’t put yourself down.” He eyed her sweater again, noticed that it had worn perilously thin in places. “You have a great figure.”
She drew herself up, and her indignation had the interesting effect of swelling her bosom. “My figure has absolutely nothing to do with—”
“There’s every chance you’ll find a boyfriend one day,” he continued.
“I have a boyfriend,” she snapped.
That was unexpected. Even more out of left field was Tyler’s sudden urge to tear a telephone directory in half with his bare hands—he’d never indulged in primal-male competitive behavior. Finding Bethany curled on his bed asleep, one arm flung behind her head, her lips parted, must have struck a chord with some unconscious fantasy, and it had obviously unbalanced him. He forced himself to say lightly, “Is he deaf?”
“Of course he’s not deaf!”
“I just wondered how he puts up with you.” He dodged vengeful knitting needles. “What does he think about you living with me?”
“He’s not exactly a boyfriend,” she admitted. Tyler’s testosterone surge ebbed slightly. “Kevin is just…someone I see sometimes.”
“Ah.” Tyler put all the knowledge of a man who knew every nuance of dating into the syllable. “Someone convenient. I’ve had plenty of those.”
Bethany raised an eyebrow. “Convenient boyfriends?”
He grinned. “Plenty of convenient girlfriends.”
She sniffed. “Emphasis on the plenty.”
“Emphasis on the convenient,” he corrected. “Did it occur to you that you might get further convincing me about your funding if you were nice to me?”
“You have more than enough people being nice to you,” she said. “I plan to stand out from the crowd.”
No matter that even sitting on the bed she was discernibly shorter than him, she was giving him that superior look down her nose. He said, “I don’t have any trouble noticing you.”
No trouble at all.
His gaze locked with hers across the bed, and there was a connection that Tyler figured even Bethany couldn’t deny. It made no sense that he should find her so attractive—she dressed like a color-blind bag lady, she persisted in judging him according to her own overemotional standards and she was a pain in the backside.
But since when had sex and sense had anything in common, beyond the fact that they were both one-syllable words starting with S?
He leaned closer to her, which prompted her, gratifyingly, to lick her lips. His gaze zeroed in on that full mouth.
“Tyler,” she warned, “I am not sending out signals. Not now, not ever.”
He shook his head. “You are so deluded. One day you’re going to wake up to this attraction, and when you do, I’ll be here.”
“Never,” she insisted.
“You’re making this hard on yourself,” he chided her. “The longer you hold out, the more there’ll be egg all over your pretty face when you have to admit it.”
Bethany put a hand to her face involuntarily, then scowled when he laughed.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to make this easier on you.”
“You’re going to walk out that door and have dinner with your girlfriend?”
“Uh-uh,” he chided her. “Miss Georgia is fun, but she’s not my girlfriend. Now, Peaches, I’m going to figure out a signal you can give me so you don’t actually have to say out loud that you want me.” He added kindly, “I understand that might just about choke you.”
He took his time pretending to think, all the while enjoying the sight of her on his bed. Obviously sensing he planned a handson demonstration, she backed up against the headboard. “Don’t touch me.” Her voice held irritation, panic…doubt.
“Just this once,” he said, “so you’ll know what I mean.”
In one graceful movement, Tyler shifted so close to Bethany that she could see the gold flecks in his blue eyes. Just as plainly as she could read the amused condescension in them. He stretched a finger toward her, and Bethany forced herself not to flinch. Let him play his stupid game.
“This is what you need to do,” he said softly. His finger found the tender skin just below her left ear, traced the line of her jaw. He tilted her chin so she was looking directly into his eyes and smiled down at her. Appreciatively. Seductively. And Bethany, dammit, was only human. She smiled back. If more world leaders were women, she thought, the USA would have a secret weapon right here in Tyler Warrington.
“That’s all you have to do, Peaches, to tell me you want me.”
Reason found her again, and Bethany jerked away from his touch. “Never going to happen.” To her horror, she sounded breathless. And her jaw, where his finger had traced, felt tight, tingly.
Tyler laughed. “Never say never.” His mission of throwing her off her stride apparently accomplished, he got off the bed and said briskly, “By the way, if I don’t see you when I get in tonight, I need you to bring Ben to my office tomorrow afternoon. Four o’clock.”
Now he was done toying with her, he was dismissing her.
“Tyler,” she said firmly, “I need to talk to you about my research. Now.”
“Go ahead,” he invited, surprising her. Then he unbuckled his belt. His hand hovered over the button of his pants. “You don’t mind if I get changed while we talk, do you?”
If she’d been braver, or at least less prone to blushing, she would have told him to go right ahead. But with her face in flames, Bethany scrambled off the bed and almost ran from the room.
AT THREE-THIRTY on Friday, Olivia was typing the latest batch of rejection letters Tyler had asked her to send out, when the door to her office opened. She looked up.
And thought, Call Security.
A hobo stood framed in her doorway. A giant hobo, more than six feet tall, enormous shoulders made broader by a grubby overcoat. His hair, an unkempt salt-and-pepper mix of brown and gray, grazed his collar, and Olivia judged the matching stubble on his chin to be at least three days’ growth.
She reached for the phone.
“I’m Silas Grant,” the hobo announced.
Two things stayed Olivia’s hand. First, his name seemed familiar. Second, the words were uttered in a voice that was slow to the point of sleepiness, gravelly…and unquestionably educated.
As she puzzled over that riddle, he walked toward her with a silent, purposeful tread at odds with his sleepy voice. That lithe, almost graceful gait would have worried her if she’d been walking down a darkened street, but here she couldn’t believe he posed any threat. Other than to her discriminating taste in fashion. His brown corduroy trousers were pale and worn at the knees, and over them he wore a heavy shirt in brown and green plaid, buttoned to the neck, but untucked. But while they may have been more suited to gardening, the clothes did appear clean. Unlike the overcoat.
“I’m here to see Tyler Warrington,” he said.
Now that he was up close, Olivia saw he had gray eyes, but they weren’t at all cold. They held the deep, dormant heat of ashes, beneath which lurked the potential, if stirred by just a hint of breeze, for fire.
“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Grant?” She knew he didn’t—neither she nor Tyler believed in Friday-afternoon appointments. Tyler invariably had a hot date to prepare for, and, often enough, so did Olivia. Today she planned to be gone by four; she’d promised Gigi Cato she would come by to approve the floral arrangements for this evening’s soiree. It was inconvenient—she’d have to drive home from Gigi’s to change, then turn around and go straight back to the Catos’ again—but what were friends for?
Silas Grant frowned. “How could I have an appointment,” he asked gently, “when Tyler Warrington can’t see a conservation crisis when it’s right in front of him?”
Conservation crisis? Olivia remembered where she’d read those words.
“You’re the man with the red-spotted tree frog,” she said, pleased with herself. She couldn’t quite remember if the spots were red or yellow.
“Hyla punctatus,” he said sternly.
It took Olivia a moment to realize he wasn’t uttering some dreadful curse over her, but rather was giving her the Latin—or was it Greek?—name of the frog.
“It’s on the verge of extinction,” he said. “And Tyler Warrington just signed its death warrant.”
He spoke slowly, even for a Georgian. The pace lent an unlikely authority to his words, went some way toward countering his oddball appearance. But not far enough.
“I’m Olivia Payne, Mr. Warrington’s secretary. I’m afraid he’s unavailable,” she told him with the dismissive, wellbred Atlanta-belle tone that had served her through her years as a debutante, then as a single woman. Olivia was an expert at giving men their marching orders. Over the years, she’d broken off no fewer than six engagements. Possibly seven, if you counted Teddy Benson, who’d popped the question three years ago. She’d seen the light faster than normal, and broken it off even before the engagement announcement hit the newspapers.
“Thank you so much for stopping by,” she added pleasantly to Silas. Because one should always be polite in one’s dismissal.
He planted both hands on her desk, which might have intimidated her if he’d done it any faster than a hedgehog crossing the road. The movement put his eyes level with hers, close enough to break through the professional distance she’d set with her voice.
She dropped her gaze, and observed that his hands were clean, his fingernails cut so neatly they might be manicured. She recalled that the tree-frog funding application had come from an address in Buckhead—could this man really live in the most expensive area of Atlanta?
“I won’t take no for an answer,” he said, and there was a hint of steel behind the soft drawl.
While his announcement might be tiresome—at this rate she’d be late to Gigi’s house—it was nothing Olivia couldn’t handle.
“Mr. Grant, as you were told in the letter you received, the foundation does not enter into correspondence about its endowment decisions.” The same clean-break policy worked well with fiancés, she’d found. “I understand you’re disappointed, but I can assure you, Mr. Warrington will not see you.”
He straightened, but only so he could reach one long arm to pull up a chair. “I’ll wait,” he said, and sank into it, legs stretched out in front of him.
This had happened before, so she said, “As you wish,” and returned to her typing.
Most people started to fidget within two minutes. After five minutes, they’d bluster some more. But when they saw she wouldn’t be moved, they’d leave. The longest anyone had stayed was fifteen minutes. Something about silence unnerved them.
Today, it was Olivia who was unnerved. Silas didn’t fidget, not once, for fifteen minutes. He sat with his arms folded, quite still.
She kept her gaze fixed on her screen and wished the phone would ring with a summons to collect something from another part of the building, so she’d have a reason to move. But for once, no one called.
“Who else have you refused money to lately?” Silas’s abrupt question startled her, so that she mistyped a word and looked at him before she remembered not to.
“It’s not my money to give,” she said politely. She added, “Nor is it Mr. Warrington’s.”
“What are your views on conservation and the environment?” he asked.
He really did have an attractive voice, one that almost made her want to say those things mattered to her. But, in this respect at least, she was always honest. Better to admit an unnatural lack of sentiment than to pretend to care.
“I don’t have any.” She was concerned, of course, that the planet shouldn’t be flooded or burned up as a result of global warming. But that wasn’t going to happen in her lifetime, so she didn’t lose any sleep over it.
“Hyla punctatus is a Georgia native, not found anywhere else in America.”
“I’m aware of that. From your funding application.”
He ran a considering gaze over Olivia. She half wished she’d had her roots done this week. She wasn’t out to impress him, she scolded herself. And if she was, her hair, worn loose today in its sculpted bob, her artfully applied makeup and the emerald-green cashmere polo-neck that made her neck look longer and slimmer would surely withstand his scrutiny.
“You know what this world lacks?” he said.
She pressed a hand to her mouth and gave a ladylike yawn.
“People who care.” Sharpness tinged his words.
Of course she knew that! She said lightly, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
Fire sparked into life in his eyes, and his jaw jutted beneath the mouth that she now noticed was firm and well shaped behind all those whiskers.
Olivia had the same keen appreciation for good-looking men that she did for silk lingerie and French champagne. Each of her seven fiancés had been gorgeous by anyone’s standards. So she could only look at Silas Grant and rue the waste of such a fine specimen.
She wondered why his bizarre appearance didn’t exempt him from her appreciation. Discomfited by the thought that perhaps, now that she’d turned fifty-five, she might be desperate enough to let her standards slip, Olivia looked away.
“It’s exactly your kind of apathy that’s sending this world to hell in a handbasket,” he growled.
She’d obviously pressed one of Silas’s buttons, because he began to decry, albeit in an undramatic way, the parlous state of the world, the shallowness of materialism and the loss of life’s simple pleasures.
Olivia, who collected designer handbags, liked to dine on Wagyu beef and had two real fur coats in her wardrobe that she resented being unable to wear, struggled to sympathize.
Yet still, Silas Grant mesmerized her, whether with that unexpectedly cultured voice or with his sheer size. When she found herself wondering what he would look like with a shave and a tuxedo, she realized this had gone far enough.
“What will it take to convince you to leave?” she said abruptly, heatedly. She’d never reacted like this before, not to any of the cranky rejectees who’d turned up here.
“Your promise that you’ll ask Warrington to meet me.” Either Silas had the good sense to say no more, or he’d run out of steam.
Olivia was so relieved to hear the end of that gentle diatribe that she agreed. “I’ll let you know Mr. Warrington’s response.”
“Thank you.” The two syllables stood stark, and for one moment, Silas sounded alone, as alone as Olivia.
CHAPTER FIVE
BETHANY PAUSED on the threshold of Olivia’s office. Tyler’s secretary was locked in a death glare with a bum in a dirty coat. Should she fetch help? She tightened her grip on Ben’s car seat in case she had to run and said, “Olivia?”
The bum didn’t acknowledge her arrival. He said to Olivia, “I’ll be back,” with about as much menace as a low-on-batteries Terminator. He swung around, loped past Bethany with his coat flapping.
Before Bethany could ask Olivia what that was about, Tyler opened the door of his office. “Olivia, have you seen my silver pen? I can’t think where I—” He stopped, distracted by the disheveled appearance of the departing visitor, now out of earshot but still visible. “Who’s that?”
Olivia cleared her throat. “Silas Grant, the guy who’s saving the red-spotted tree frog. He wanted to see you.”
“Was he bothering you?” Tyler took a step forward as if he might head down the corridor and grab hold of the man.
Olivia shook her head. “He’s all right. Just…odd. I told him I’d find out if you’re willing to meet with him.”
Tyler cast another look at the guy, then turned to Bethany. He scanned her outfit—black leggings and a taupe crochet sweater, a by-product of the stress-relief technique that had preceded knitting, worn over a black slip. A taupe cardigan completed her layered look.
Bethany liked to think of it as Bohemian.
“Why is it that most do-gooders dress so badly?” he demanded. “It’s like a badge of honor with some of you.” He glanced down at his own clothing, which Bethany observed was unusually casual, yet as crisp and new looking as if he had a Calvin Klein store tucked in his office. “Nope,” Tyler said complacently. “I don’t see any reason why you can’t look good and do good.”
Bethany gaped. “You call yourself a do-gooder?”
He rubbed his chin. “Let me see…my job involves giving millions of dollars away to people in need, I’m an acknowledged expert on philanthropy, and now I’m fostering an abandoned baby.” He nodded at Ben in his car seat but made no move to take him. “You’re right, I’m evil.”
“You spend money,” she said, “but you don’t care.”
He groaned. “If you mean I don’t respond emotionally to every problem, you’re right. But if you mean providing practical assistance that makes a difference…”
“I mean,” she said, “giving something of yourself, caring in a way that changes you as well as the other person.”
He looked mystified. “Why would I want to change, when everyone loves me the way I am?”
Bethany was about to deliver a few choice words on that topic, when she saw laughter lurking beneath the innocent inquiry in his eyes. Tempted though she was to laugh—something she felt surprisingly often around Tyler—she chose not to indulge him. “That pen you’re looking for,” she said, referring to the question that had brought him out of his lair. “Would that be the one I borrowed the other day to write out a list of baby equipment?”
“So you did,” he said.
“I took it,” she admitted. “By accident.”
He held out a hand. “May I have it back?”
“I haven’t seen it in a couple of days.” She frowned. “I know I used it to sign a check at the supermarket. I’m not sure if I put it back in my purse…”
“Could you think a little harder?” Tyler said. “It’s my favorite.”
Oops. Bethany grimaced. “I think I left it in the store.”
“You’re kidding, right?” His shock sounded out of all proportion to the loss of a pen.
“Keep your hair on,” she said. “I’ll buy you another one.”
He folded his arms. “You’re going to buy me another twelve-hundred-dollar Michel Perchin pen?”
She clattered Ben’s car seat onto Olivia’s desk before she dropped it. Olivia leaned back in her chair, looking askance.
“You didn’t say twelve hundred dollars, did you?” Bethany pleaded. “You said twelve dollars.”
Tyler glared at her.
She felt sick.
“That money’s coming straight off your next research grant,” he said. “Or it would, if I had any intention of giving you more cash.”
In an instant, her fighting spirit was resurrected.
She planted her hands on her hips. “Twelve hundred dollars is an obscene amount to pay for a pen. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“You have an attitude problem.” Tyler’s effortless urbanity had vanished, and he spoke with the fulminating tension of a man goaded beyond endurance. “You’ve lost my handmade pen, which for all you know could be of great sentimental value, and somehow you’ve made this all about my flaws.”
“Could be of sentimental value,” she mocked. “But it’s not, is it, because for that, you’d have to have a heart.”
Into the seething pause, Olivia said, “What shall I tell Silas Grant? Will you see him?”
Bethany saw Tyler grapple to regain his control as he turned to his secretary. “I’m a family guy, not a frog guy,” he said to Olivia with a passable replica of his normal ease, though Bethany’s snort had his fists clenching at his sides. “I’m not interested.”
Olivia looked relieved. “I’ll let him know.” She pulled a file out of her drawer. “In fact, I’ll call and leave a message on his voice mail before he gets home.”
Tyler frowned. “If you’re worried about dealing with him, I’ll do it.”
His offer surprised Bethany. As far as she knew, Tyler didn’t do anything for other people.
Olivia’s face flushed. “It’s no problem.”
“Don’t say I didn’t care enough to offer,” he said, with a pointed glance at Bethany. So that’s what his sudden consideration was about. Then he said to her, “You’ll be pleased to know I’ll be caring for Ben personally tonight. I’m taking him out with me.”
“Taking him where?” Bethany picked up Ben’s car seat again. Somewhere that didn’t involve Tyler’s usual suit and tie, obviously. He wore designer-faded jeans, a long-sleeved fine-knit polo shirt, casual shoes. He looked like…like…Bethany struggled to define the annoyingly alluring blend of preppy and rugged. She failed.
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Abby Gaines
The Diaper Diaries
Abby Gaines
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#ub1c43ef0-2c32-53c0-aaa5-cf9476a13e10)
Title Page (#u7cf141b9-af81-57fc-bdea-3d2dbd68ebfb)
About the Author (#u1a180a54-2885-5541-9589-b5878d08300c)
Dedication (#u30697f15-10b8-5a0c-b350-55baeb559e96)
CHAPTER ONE (#u55e0c7eb-5cac-5d0c-ada3-9d8c53d816b5)
CHAPTER TWO (#uccba2cbc-ce66-5b44-8715-599d62c6aec0)
CHAPTER THREE (#ub5195808-9aba-5676-bd28-7b80d7016dca)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ube676f9d-c044-5f15-b3ee-3e90e67d7f30)
CHAPTER FIVE (#uf3694edf-d0a1-5502-9ef0-9bfeace88820)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Abby Gaines wrote her first romance novel while still in her teens. Encouraged by her incredibly supportive parents, she wrote her novel longhand in school notebooks, supplying new pages daily to her biggest fan, her younger sister. When she’d finished, she typed up the manuscript and sent it to Mills & Boon and was shocked when they rejected it. To this day, no trace remains of that original work.
Yet after five years of submitting she sold her first Superromance. A few years ago Abby and her family moved out of the city to live on an olive grove. It’s beautiful, peaceful—and a long way from the mall. Contact Abby on abby@abbygaines.com.
For the Novelchicks: Karina Bliss, Sandra Hyatt and Tessa Radley. Wonderful writers and wonderful friends—I couldn’t have done it without you, gals.
CHAPTER ONE
THE LETTER ENDED the same way they all did. Thank you for caring.
“I’m too damn busy to care,” Tyler snarled at his secretary, who’d just deposited today’s stack of heartrending pleas for cash on the corner of his steel-and-glass desk.
“You always are,” Olivia Payne agreed cheerfully. With her graying hair held back in a bun, she looked staid and professional—an appearance that was entirely deceptive. She nodded at the letter Tyler held in his hand. “Anything interesting?”
Tyler fanned out the four pages of closely written text dotted with exclamation points. “Some guy wants two hundred grand to save the red-spotted tree frog. If we don’t act fast, we might never see the frog again.”
He picked up another letter—a single-page e-mail asking for thirty thousand dollars to buy computers for a preschool—and weighed it against the frog letter, as if he could somehow gauge the relative worthiness of the two causes.
The Warrington Foundation, whose purpose was to give away some of the multimillion-dollar profits earned by Warrington Construction, had hired extra staff in the new year to do the preliminary evaluations. It was their job to send polite rejections to the men who wanted bigger breasts for their wives and the people seeking donations to surefire lottery schemes.
But that still left anywhere up to a hundred potentially genuine requests for the chairman—Tyler—to read each day. Many of them ended with what seemed to be that mantra: Thank you for caring.
Tyler folded the first page of the frog letter into a paper airplane.
All he cared about right now was convincing the powers that be in Washington, D.C., that he was the right person to head up their new think tank, established to determine how charities and government could work together to support families. They were looking for someone who understood the concerns of ordinary American families. And Tyler had ended up on the shortlist thanks to the foundation’s good work with various children’s charities.
Presumably, he was at the very bottom of that shortlist. Yet he wanted the job to an extent that surprised him and would have amazed his family, who would doubtless say he was more suited to a think tank on how to get more fun into people’s lives.
Tyler flipped his hand-forged-silver Michel Perchin pen between his fingers as he contemplated his possibly irredeemable reputation. Every news report about his work at the foundation was countered by a juicy piece in the gossip pages about “playboy bachelor Tyler Warrington.” He’d made a major lifestyle adjustment—dating the same woman every night the past two weeks—but he wasn’t sure that act of heroism was enough. Correction: after the headline in this morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he knew it wasn’t.
He smoothed out the paper plane, slapped the two letters together, handed them to Olivia. “The frog’s a no go. Invite the preschool to pitch at the next committee meeting.”
What could be more ordinary and American than preschool?
Maybe his PR team could write an opinion piece about early-childhood education and submit it to the Journal-Constitution in Tyler’s name.
Olivia tucked the letters into her folder. “I’ll deal with these right after I go downstairs. Joe called to say there’s a delivery for you. He sounded pretty excited.”
“Just as well our security guy doesn’t make the allocations.” Unlike Tyler, Joe was a sucker for the attentiongetting ploys to which some people resorted when they asked for money. “If it’s balloons, cake or cigars, tell him to take them home to his kids.” He raised his hands in selfdefense against Olivia’s daggered look. “Okay, okay, hold the cigars.”
OLIVIA RETURNED carrying a faded green duffel bag in a fierce grip, the straps wrapped around one hand, her other arm underneath the bag. She cradled it with a delicacy that suggested its contents were at least as valuable as the Venetianglass sculpture she’d spent hundreds on last week.
Tyler shoved his chair back from the desk, got to his feet. “What is it?”
Very gently, she slid the bag across the surface of the desk; Tyler saw the zipper was open. “Take a look,” she invited, her voice curiously high.
He parted the top of the bag, peered in. And met the unblinking blue gaze of a baby.
Wrapped in a whitish blanket and wearing a soft yellow hat so that only a little round face showed…but definitely a baby.
“What the—” Tyler leaped backward, glared at his secretary. “Is this a joke?”
Olivia blew out a breath as she shook her head. “A young woman came in, told Joe she had a delivery for you. She excused herself to go to the bathroom and left the bag on Joe’s desk. After a couple of minutes, the baby sneezed—gave Joe a heck of a fright. That’s when he called me.”
Tyler raked a hand through his hair. “For Pete’s sake, the woman’s probably still in the bathroom. Or by now, back out with Joe and wondering where her kid’s gone. Take it back down.”
Olivia handed Tyler an envelope, his name written on it in blue ink. “This was in the bag.”
It had already been opened—Olivia read all Tyler’s correspondence. The paper crackled: thin, cheap, almost weightless. Yet it felt far heavier than those requests he’d been reading a few minutes ago. Tyler unfolded the page.
The handwriting was young, or maybe just uneducated, and the message brief.
Dear Mr. Warrington,
I know you are kind and generous and you help lots of people. Please can you adopt my baby? I just can’t do this. Thank you very very very much for caring.
No signature.
So much for the she’s-still-in-the-bathroom theory. Tyler read the letter again. Damn.
With a caution that would have amazed the college buddies he played football with every month, he advanced on the duffel. The infant was still there, still staring. It had worked one little hand loose and was clenching and unclenching a tiny fist against the blanket.
Hey, kid, if you’re frustrated, how do you think I feel? “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?” he said, the words rougher than he’d intended.
The baby blinked, and its mouth moved. If it cried now Tyler would be screwed. He patted the small hand as gently as he could, while he tried to think of words that might soothe. Snatches of nursery rhymes flitted through his head but were gone before he could catch them. “I meant heck,” he said at last.
The kid still looked worried, so Tyler moved out of its line of vision. He looked out the window, over Peachtree Street, where courier bikes scraped between cars and vans with no margin for error, and the crosswalks thronged with businesspeople. No place for a baby.
“We have to find the mother,” he told Olivia. “Ask Joe to send up the security-camera footage.”
“I already did, but he doesn’t think it’ll help,” she said, cheerful now she’d handed the problem to Tyler. “The woman wore a woolen hat pulled right down, and she had a scarf wrapped around her face. It’s cold out, so Joe didn’t think anything of it.”
“Someone has to know who she is,” Tyler persisted. “We’ll give the tape to the police. And you’d better call social services—they can take the baby until the mom turns up.”
“And they say you’re just a pretty face,” Olivia marveled. “I don’t know why that young woman didn’t go to social services in the first place.” She chuckled. “I mean, do you know anyone less suited to looking after a baby than you?”
“You,” Tyler returned sharply. Stupid to let her “pretty face” comment needle him. He might not be an expert on diapers and drool, but he knew he could do whatever he set his mind to. And that made him good for a whole lot more than simply doling out the money his brother Max made in the family’s “real” business. Which he was about to prove by winning the job in Washington, D.C.
Olivia, who’d never married, never had kids, and as far as Tyler knew, was having too much fun to regret either omission, laughed at his insult.
She didn’t know about Washington. She and Tyler’s mom were close enough that there was no chance she wouldn’t spill the beans. No one knew, not even Tyler, officially. The news that he was under consideration had come from his cousin Jake, who had reliable political connections. But the whole thing was so sensitive, so confidential, there was no way Tyler could do what he knew would work best—jump on a plane to D.C. and talk them into giving him the job.
All he could do was continue his strategy of raising his profile in the media—his political profile, not his social profile. He glared at the duffel from his safe distance.
“The press will be all over this,” he told Olivia, “no matter how fast we palm the kid off to social services.”
“It can’t be as bad as today’s story.” She ruined the comforting effect by snickering.
Two women Tyler had dated in the past had gotten into a tipsy argument at a nightclub a couple of evenings ago, apparently over which of the two he’d liked best—he barely recalled either of them. In a misguided attempt to emphasize her point, one had slugged the other with her purse.
None of that would have made the newspaper if one of the women’s pals hadn’t posted the purse for sale on eBay. The purse had been of supreme disinterest to most of the world, but the bidding in Atlanta was fierce and the story had spread in the media as one of those quirky “I sold my grandmother on eBay” tales. Tyler could only hope it hadn’t reached Washington.
He needed damage control, and he needed it now. Pacing in front of the window, he tried to think of a political angle he could play up with the baby that might counter the gossip. How about a photo opportunity of him handing the baby to social services, commenting about the challenges facing young mothers?
Then it hit him—or, rather, smacked him in the head with a force that left him dizzy.
There wasn’t just one political angle to the baby story, there were dozens—the foster system, parenting, money, infant health, who knew what else?—that he could tap into. This was his chance to show the world how well he understood the concerns of families.
“On second thought, don’t call social services,” he told Olivia. “Nor the police.” He grinned at the duffel, suddenly feeling a whole lot warmer toward its occupant. “We need to get the baby out of the bag.”
“We?” she said, horrified.
“You,” he amended.
She backed off. “Uh-uh, no way.”
Tyler directed his most cajoling smile at her. “Please.”
She rolled her eyes, but came back and reached into the bag. He steadied it while she lifted the baby out. Olivia held it in a grip that he judged possibly too tight, but the baby didn’t protest, so Tyler bowed to its superior knowledge. He looked around his office, all hard surfaces, sharp corners, glass and metal. “How about we spread the blanket on the floor,” he suggested, pleased with his own parental-improvisation skills.
He managed to get the blanket out from around the baby, who turned out to be encased from head to toe in yellow terry. “We’ll use your office,” he told Olivia.
“My floor has slate tiles.” With the unnaturally pointed toe of her shoe—and with undisguised triumph—she nudged the plush rust-colored carpet that enhanced Tyler’s luxurious work space. “Yours is much more suitable.”
Too bad she was right. He spread out the blanket, smoothed it confidently—because looking after a kid wasn’t rocket science—then nodded at Olivia, who knelt down to lay the baby on its back. She rubbed her own back as she got to her feet. “Now what?” she said.
Tyler looked down at the infant. Two short, pudgy arms waved at him, but there was still no crying. Thoughtful of the mom to give me a well-behaved kid. “You’d better organize a crib or whatever it is babies hang out in.”
“You can’t be thinking about keeping this child,” Olivia said, shocked.
“Of course not. Just until we find the mom.” At least a few days, he guessed, even if he put a private investigator onto it today. Maybe as much as a week or two. He would call his PR manager, tell her to arrange some media opportunities for him right away—just as soon as she found someone to get him up to speed about kid-parent issues.
“But—” Olivia shook her head, nonplussed “—you don’t know the first thing about looking after a baby.”
“That’s what sitters are for. Call an agency, see if you can get someone immediately.”
“I didn’t even know you liked children.” She was practically wringing her hands with worry, which Tyler considered an overreaction.
“I only have to like this one.” He didn’t even have to do that, but he was willing to try.
Olivia picked up a pad and pen off the desk. “Then I guess we need to think about food. Special baby formula.” She jotted that down. “And diapers. They go through those pretty fast.” She shuddered.
The baby hiccuped, its face contorted. Hell, was it about to puke? They did that all the time, didn’t they?
“We should call a doctor,” Tyler said. “Find out if the kid’s okay before I make any plans.” He pulled out his handkerchief in case of an emergency wipe-up situation. “Call that woman we gave money to last year. The pediatrician doing the kidney research.”
“Great idea.” Olivia’s voice warmed. “She’s a real peach.”
Tyler frowned. “Are we talking about the same woman?”
“Dr. Bethany Hart.”
“That’s her.” He would have described Bethany Hart as more frosty than peachy. And she was quite possibly the most ungrateful woman he’d ever met. The Warrington Foundation had granted her a generous sum for her research into childhood kidney disease which was part of a wider research project at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, attached to Emory University. Instead of the thank-you letter most people wrote, she’d sent Tyler a curtly worded missive to the effect that if he was at all serious about helping young kidney patients he would give a lot more money.
Unlike everyone else, she’d accused him of not caring. Tyler had found her ingratitude refreshing.
Just a couple of weeks ago she’d written to him again. The money, intended to cover her salary, along with admin support and the use of lab facilities and equipment, was almost gone: she’d asked him to renew her funding. She’d enclosed a comprehensive—in his opinion, boring—report on her work to date, and had invited him, rather insistently, to visit a bunch of sick kids in the hospital.
“She may not be your biggest fan,” Olivia said with rare diplomacy. She’d read the pediatrician’s letters, too. “But she sure loves kids.”
Tyler had noticed the way Dr. Hart’s blue eyes lit up when she talked about the children she worked with. “Then she’ll want to check out this baby.”
He didn’t plan to give her a choice. Bethany Hart might have complained about the amount of money she’d received, but no one else had offered her a dime. The foundation had given more than her presentation to the Philanthropic Strategy Committee had merited.
Tyler had swayed the PhilStrat Committee in her favor. Not because she’d wowed him with her presentation—despite her obviously high intelligence, she’d been inarticulate to the point where he’d been embarrassed for her. Definitely not because of that spark of attraction that had flared between them, despite her frostiness—he never let that kind of thing get in the way of business.
When she’d bumbled to the end of her appalling pitch, she’d shot Tyler a look of angry resignation that said she might have messed up, but it was his fault.
He shook her hand as she left, and couldn’t help smiling at the furious quiver in her otherwise stiff fingers. Which enraged her further. She looked down her nose at him as she said, “You haven’t heard the last of me.”
He sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
She reeked of do-gooder earnestness, coupled with the kind of instinctive, misguided courage that led people to pursue hopeless causes without, unfortunately, actually losing hope.
So Tyler had believed Bethany when she said he hadn’t heard the last of her. During the PhilStrat Committee’s deliberations, he’d cast his vote in her support largely to shut her up.
Now, as it turned out, that might have been a smart move. He needed her discreet cooperation over this baby and he expected her to give it, however reluctantly.
Because Bethany Hart owed him.
CHAPTER TWO
BETHANY WAS IN THE SHOWER sloughing off the fatigue of three straight shifts in the E.R. at Emory University Hospital when the phone rang in the studio apartment she rented near the campus.
It was Olivia Payne, Tyler Warrington’s secretary, asking if Bethany could come to the Warrington Foundation offices right away. “Tyler would like to meet with you.” Olivia paused. “At this stage I can’t tell you why.”
He wants to give me more money. Jubilation surged through Bethany; adrenaline transformed her exhaustion into energy. She punched the air with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone, then had to clutch the towel she’d wrapped around herself before it slipped to the floor.
After she’d hung up, she celebrated with an impromptu dance around her living room singing, “I aaaaam a reeesearch geeenius” to the tune of Billy Joel’s “Innocent Man.” But the room was too small for her to burn off this much excitement: as she danced, she grabbed the phone again and dialed her parents.
“Mom, it’s me. Bethany.” She slowed down, suddenly breathless. Crazy that she still felt compelled to identify herself—it was fourteen years since her sister’s death, there was no chance of confusion. Without waiting for a reply, she said, “Looks like the Warrington Foundation plans to extend my research grant.”
Her mom squawked with delight, none of her usual listlessness evident. “Darling, that’s wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“I’m seeing Tyler Warrington this morning. The foundation can extend the grant for a second twelve months at its discretion, without me having to pitch again.”
“That’s the best news—let me tell your dad.”
Bethany heard her mom calling out to her father, heard his whoop of excitement. Then a muffled question she didn’t catch, and an “I’ll ask her” from her mom.
“Uh, honey,” her mother said into the phone, “is there any chance they’ll give you more money than last year? You always say you could get so much more done if you could afford to pay your assistant for more hours.”
The familiar defensiveness—the urgent need to impress upon her parents that there just wasn’t enough money around to fund all the research into kidney disease—constricted Bethany’s chest. She puffed out a series of short, silent, relaxing breaths. Her parents weren’t worried about other projects, only about hers. She understood; she even sympathized. Brightly, she said, “Of course I’ll ask for more, but I may not get it.”
Mentally, she doubled the figure she would propose to Tyler Warrington. If she started high, even ridiculously high, chances were she’d end up with more than if she went in low.
“I know you’ll do your best,” her mother said warmly.
Bethany basked in that praise. No use telling herself she was too old to be grateful for the crumbs of parental approval that came her way; some things never changed.
The moment she’d finished the call, her phone rang again. It was Olivia. “I forgot to say, you’ll need to bring your medical bag.”
Bring her bag so Tyler could hand over a check? Uh-oh. A chill shivered through Bethany, the kind that either meant she was ill or something bad was about to happen. And in her own expert opinion, she wasn’t ill.
Should she call Mom now and admit she might have been hasty with her talk of more money? Her finger hovered over the phone’s redial button.
Then her natural optimism took over, binding itself to the remains of that energy surge. Okay, so Tyler likely had a nephew or niece with a chest cold, and His Egoness figured he had dibs on Bethany’s time now that he’d contributed to her research. But if he didn’t plan to renew her funds, surely he wouldn’t dare summon her help? And that report she’d sent a couple of weeks ago had made an excellent case. Whatever he wanted today, she could still talk to him about money.
Provided, of course, she could string together more than two coherent words. As always, the recollection of how she’d mangled her last pitch to the super-smooth Tyler mortified her. No matter how often she prayed for selective amnesia—either for her or Tyler—her memory stayed depressingly clear. His was doubtless just as sharp.
But with any luck, he was so hopelessly in love with his new girlfriend—according to the newspapers, he was embroiled in a hot-and-heavy romance with Miss Georgia—that he’d see everything, including Bethany, through rose-tinted lenses.
“All you have to do is stay calm,” she told herself out loud as she fished through her wardrobe for something to wear. Last time, she’d borrowed a suit from a colleague, but Banana Republic navy chino hadn’t stopped her messing up.
She tugged a burgundy-colored woolen skirt off its hanger. Maybe she’d have better luck with this—unmistakably homemade, it was a gift from a young patient’s grateful grandmother. If anything could fire Bethany up to get more money from Tyler it would be a reminder of the kids she hoped to help. She pulled the skirt on, added a long-sleeved black T-shirt, then inspected herself in the mirror.
Hmm, maybe the skirt was a bit too peasant style, with those large felt flowers appliquéd around the hem, and—she twirled around—maybe said hem wasn’t entirely straight—the old lady’s eyesight had been failing—but Bethany’s highheeled pumps would dress it up.
Besides, she didn’t have a lot of choice. Thanks to her huge student loans, her wardrobe consisted of scrubs, lab coats and a bunch of stuff she could hide beneath them.
Bethany waved the blow-dryer briefly at her shoulderlength reddish-brown hair, then, in deference to the importance of the funds she was about to request, not to the man who was to bestow them, she applied some mascara and a pinky-red lipstick.
“Calm,” she reminded her flustered, wild-eyed reflection as she rolled her lips together to smooth the lipstick.
She couldn’t afford to screw up again. Last time, Tyler hadn’t bothered to hide first his boredom, then his amusement at her inarticulateness. Then, of course, he’d done that stupid thing that had left her feeling like the joke of the day.
Maybe she’d been oversensitive, she chided herself. There was probably a good explanation for his behavior. A nervous tic. Tourette’s syndrome. Thirty-something years of silver spoon-slurping, privileged existence that had blinded him to the needs of—
Okay, now she was being uncharitable, the very thing she’d accused Tyler of in the letter she’d sent after her pitch. Besides, Miss Georgia was apparently committed to working tirelessly for world peace. Clearly Tyler’s charitable instincts were in full working order.
Bethany would give him the benefit of the doubt and ask him politely—and coherently—for more money.
OLIVIA PAYNE GAVE Bethany a warm welcome, then phoned through to tell Tyler she had arrived.
When he appeared in the doorway of his secretary’s office, Bethany was struck anew by his good looks. The camera loved him—she knew that from the newspaper photos—but real life suited him even better. She might not like the guy, but she’d have to be blind not to notice he had dark hair just too long for decency and when he smiled, as he was doing now, his eyes gleamed with a dare that plenty of women might be tempted to accept.
She doubted anyone could consistently achieve a smile like that without hours of practice in front of a mirror.
“Good morning, Dr. Hart.” His voice was part of the package, low and warm, as if she was the person he most wanted to see right now.
Poised, calm, smooth, she cautioned herself. She shook his hand firmly, noted the gold links that punctured the crisp white of his cuffs. In his immaculately tailored charcoal suit he looked more put together than a GQ cover, and for some unspecified, illogical reason, Bethany disapproved. “Good to see you again, Mr. Warrington—Tyler.”
“How is your research going?” he asked courteously.
“Quite well, given the funding shortfall.” Not subtle, but definitely articulate.
His lips twitched. “That shortfall would be my fault, I assume?”
“Nothing you can’t rectify,” she said encouragingly, and he chuckled outright. Was he laughing at her again? She plowed on. “As you’ll have seen from my report, I’m on the verge of a breakthrough into therapies that interfere with antibody production. If the foundation would consider—” she thought of her parents, drew a shaky breath “—tripling its investment in my work, there’s every chance—”
“I didn’t ask you here to talk about your funding.” His interruption confirmed her fears, sent her spirits into free fall. Bethany clenched her toes inside her shoes to counter the sagging of her knees. Less abruptly, Tyler continued, “But if you want to call Olivia next week and ask her to set up a time in my diary…”
Bethany’s hopes shot back up again. Her first instinct was to grab the opportunity he offered. Then he favored her with that calculated smile that seduced socialites and beguiled beauty queens. And distracted Bethany? Not this time. She folded her arms and said deliberately, “And what will Olivia say when I call?”
Tyler blinked. Olivia made a strangled sound. Bethany waited.
Then he grinned, something much more genuine—as if to say, “You got me.” “She may say there’s no room in my diary,” he admitted.
“Just like there was no room for you to visit the kidney patients I work with?”
“I have a lot of demands on my time.” He spread his hands disarmingly. “You wouldn’t believe the number of people who want a piece of me.”
Most of them female. Even before Miss Georgia, the newspapers had reported his dating exploits so comprehensively, Bethany wondered how he found time to make it into the office. But evidently he did, because lately the press had been covering the foundation’s charitable activities, and in that sphere, at least, it seemed Tyler was a saint. Albeit one untroubled by anything so pesky as a vow of celibacy.
“I want a piece of you, too,” she said. Tyler raised his eyebrows, and she stuttered, “I—I want you to guarantee me that appointment to talk about my funding. Please.”
For a long moment Tyler stared at her. Then he said, “I like a woman who knows what she wants.” Before she could decide if he was being provocative, he turned to Olivia. “Give Bethany some time next week. And when I tell you to fob her off, don’t listen to me.”
That frank admission of his lack of interest in her work floored Bethany…and, amazingly, made her want to laugh. Which she was not about to do: she took her work seriously, even if he didn’t. She compressed her lips, picked up her bag. “Olivia asked me to bring this. I assume there’s a patient you want me to look at?”
“In my office.” He held the door open for her.
Tyler figured it was the oddness of Bethany’s skirt that drew his attention to the neat round of her bottom as he followed her into his office. That, and the same kick of awareness that had surprised him at their last encounter.
He couldn’t think why he found her so intriguing. Yes, that polished-cherry-wood hair waved nicely around her heartshaped face. But her nose was too pointy, all the easier for her to look down it at him, and her mouth a trifle wide for that stubborn chin. She was pretty, but Tyler dated beauties.
He was still puzzling over his attraction to her when she stopped; he almost bumped into her. She’d seen the baby.
“Oh, you gorgeous little thing.” She sounded awed, breathless, as she dropped to her knees on the carpet. “Hello, precious,” she crooned. The baby’s face split in an enormous smile, and Bethany laughed out loud.
Humor widened her mouth to even more generous proportions and revealed a dimple in her chin. All trace of obstinacy vanished, and she was much more the peach Olivia had suggested. A cute-but-not-his-type peach. Women who went gaga over babies usually had him hightailing it out the door.
She looked up at Tyler, confusion wrinkling her brow. “Who’s this?”
He shifted on his feet. Now that he had to explain, he realized just how weird this was. “Someone left it downstairs for me.”
“It?” Her eyebrows drew together, and the effect in combination with that skirt was of a disapproving pixie.
“Uh…her?” Damn, he should have had Olivia check.
Bethany unsnapped the terry garment. She hooked the front of the baby’s diaper with one finger and peered inside. “Him,” she corrected as she refastened the snaps. “What do you mean, someone left him?”
Tyler handed her the note. Watched curiosity turn to shock to alarm, all telegraphed across her face. She stared at him, mouth slightly open, apparently dumbfounded.
“This woman…” She groped for words. “This child’s mother thinks you would make a good parent?”
As if her intimate knowledge of children’s kidneys put her in a position to judge him. “I’m one of Atlanta’s favorite sons—and its most generous.”
Bethany sat back on her heels. “You hadn’t even figured out he’s a boy.”
“I believe in equal-opportunity parenting. Gender is irrelevant.”
She pffed. “You need to call social services.”
“My lawyer says I don’t.” He was glad he’d clarified the legality of the situation in the forty-five minutes that he’d waited for Bethany. “The mother’s letter effectively appoints me the baby’s guardian. According to my attorney, that may not carry weight long term, and I’ll need to meet with social services. But if they’re satisfied he’s well looked after and that efforts are being made to find the mother—which I’ll hire a private investigator to do…”
Bethany leaned over to scoop up the baby, then scrambled to her feet. As she hoisted the infant to her shoulder in a casual, practiced movement, Tyler caught a glimpse of slim, winterpale midriff where her T-shirt pulled away from her skirt.
“You mean, you plan to keep him?” she said. “What about your incredibly busy schedule? Babies take time and attention.”
“I’ll organize a sitter.”
“You can’t tell me you care about this baby.” She sounded suspicious and she was doing that looking-down-her-nose thing, one of his least favorite memories from the first time they’d met.
“I care about families, about children.” What the heck, he might as well try out some of the lines he planned to use in media interviews. “Children are our future.”
“Wonderful,” she said brightly—to the baby. “Your new guardian is a graduate of the Whitney Houston School of Philosophy.” She looked at Tyler and her eyes sparked, not with the tenderness she’d directed at the baby, but with something more…electric.
Tyler’s senses stirred in response to that spark, and he struggled to keep his mouth from curving, his wits from deserting him to go frolic with his imagination in a place that involved him and Bethany and not much clothing. Definitely not that skirt. “Are you saying children aren’t our future?” he asked with spurious confusion.
She shifted her hold on the baby, and the movement emphasized the high, full curve of her breasts. “You made it plain you’re not interested in my kidney patients, so why should I believe you have any real concern for this child?”
But he hadn’t invited her here to examine his motives. All he needed was for her to check the baby over and leave. Then he could get Operation Family Man under way. Still, he couldn’t resist saying, “You’re carrying a grudge because I didn’t give you all the money you wanted, and it’s clouding your judgment. You need to admit that was your own fault.”
Bethany’s face heated. So much for Tyler being either amnesiac or love-struck to the point of forgetting her humiliation. Yes, she’d brought it on herself…but he hadn’t helped. She’d been sucked in by his charm—the charm she’d been too naive to realize was hardwired into him and freely dispensed to every female he came across—and in the misguided belief she’d already won him over, she’d wandered away from the scientific facts to support her case and detoured into anecdote.
Halfway through her pitch, she’d realized she’d lost Tyler’s attention. He’d still been giving her that encouraging smile, but he’d glanced at his watch a half-dozen times, yawned more than once. She’d scrambled to get back onto the solid ground of medical fact, lost track, dropped her notes and been too nervous to take a break and sort them out. She’d garbled her way through, and just as she hit the crux of her case, Tyler—
“You winked at me!” she accused.
“I did not.” He widened his eyes, as if to prove there was no winking going on. At the same time, his brows lowered in a puzzled frown that hinted she was being irrational.
“When I pitched to your committee.” The baby hiccuped and she rubbed his back in a circular motion. “You sat there not listening to a word I said and then you winked.”
“That’s why you’re so touchy? Because I winked?” Tyler ignored the way Bethany stiffened at being called touchy. “I could see you felt awkward and I guessed it was because of that thing between us…”
“What thing?” she demanded.
“That…awareness, that—” he flung a hand wide to encompass the full spectrum of sexual attraction “—edge. It’s here again, right now, even when you’re mad at me.”
Her face was blank. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
Tyler snorted. No way was this all on his side. There’d been a real and definite connection between them and it hadn’t abated. He was used to women finding him attractive and, less often, to experiencing a mutual chemistry. If the situation wasn’t appropriate, he could shrug it off and get on with the job. But he could see Bethany inhabited a less sophisticated planet than the women he dated. That big doctor brain of hers was probably a handicap when it came to something as simple as sexual attraction.
“You winked,” she said again, a note of revelation creeping into the words.
Being an egghead was no excuse for not understanding the basics. “I told you,” he said impatiently, “I did it because you—”
“While I was putting my heart into that pitch, you were flirting?”
CHAPTER THREE
“I WAS READING your signals,” Tyler corrected her. “And I acknowledged them. I was being polite.”
Just when Bethany had thought she’d reached the pinnacle of embarrassment, he’d thrown this at her. Why didn’t he just come out and say he thought she was an all-round loser, and sex-starved to boot?
“I was pitching for the most important thing in my life,” she said in a tight, strained voice. If she hadn’t been holding the baby, she would have yelled.
The baby whimpered. Through his hat, she nuzzled the top of his sweet little head with her chin, a caress intended to soothe herself as much as him.
No wonder Tyler hadn’t taken her pitch seriously, if his rampant ego had decided she was making a pass at him.
“If you weren’t giving me any signals—”
“I wasn’t,” she snapped.
“Then my…wink was out of order. I apologize.”
Bethany saw the opening and dived for it. “You need to let me pitch again, right away.”
He grinned. “Nice try.”
The baby wriggled against her, and automatically she noted his good neck control—he had to be at least a couple of months old. “You can’t have made an objective decision, if you thought I was flirting.”
“Women flirt with me all the time. I don’t take it seriously,” he said, half laughing, half irritated. “Look, Bethany, I promise the reason you only got fifty thousand dollars was because that’s the maximum the team thought your work deserved. I didn’t underpay you because I thought you were flirting.”
“And you’re certain you weren’t—” it sounded stupid, but she had to say it “—so distracted by your attraction to me that you failed to grasp all aspects of my presentation?” Because that happened to her all the time. Not.
“I swear I wasn’t.” His face was so grave she just knew he was laughing hysterically inside. “It wasn’t even an attraction. It was an awareness, a spark. Not that you’re not very attractive,” he added hastily, as if she was about to take offense on a whole new scale. “But…you must know your presentation didn’t do you any favors.”
The fire left Bethany, and suddenly she was cold. “No,” she agreed quietly. And now that she’d accused him of being in the thrall of an overwhelming attraction to her, how likely was it he’d give her more money when they met next week?
She’d blown it again.
“Can we start over?” he said, evidently deciding he’d neutralized her.
Start over. That’s what she’d have to do with her research funding. Nausea churned in her stomach.
“I asked you in here to examine the baby, to check if he’s healthy,” Tyler said.
“Of course.” She could at least do something for this child, get that right.
“There’s a meeting room that adjoins this office.” Tyler pointed to a door halfway along the far wall. “You can use the table in there.” He looked at the baby, now dozing against her shoulder. “I’ll carry your bag.”
She followed him into a room that, like his office, had expansive views over midtown. Instead of a desk, it held a long table flanked by leather-upholstered chairs.
“How about you hold this little fellow while I set up?” Bethany said.
Tyler took the infant from her, held him at arm’s length, like a puppy that had rolled in something nasty and needed a good hose-down.
“He won’t bite,” she said.
“It’s more the barfing I’m worried about.” He glanced down at the fine wool of his jacket, which fitted his shoulders snugly enough to reveal their breadth, while still allowing fluidity of movement.
“That’s why I don’t buy custom-made suits,” she sympathized. “I don’t mind dropping a thousand dollars on a new suit, it’s the twenty bucks for the dry cleaning that kills me.”
He gave her a hard look, but he took the hint, held the baby closer. The little boy’s head flopped against Tyler’s chest, a tiny thumb went into his mouth. Then a fist curled around Tyler’s lapel. Tyler looked less than thrilled.
Bethany tore open a plastic pack and pulled out a sterile mat. “I hope you’ve baby-proofed your house, because these critters get into everything.” The baby was several months away from that stage, but why not give Tyler a scare?
“Luckily I had that done last year, on the off chance someone abandoned a baby on me.”
She frowned so she wouldn’t smile.
“But even if I hadn’t,” he continued, “this guy looks too young for me to worry about him digging out the magazines from under my bed.”
Her head jerked up.
“Car magazines,” he said blandly. “I only buy them for the pictures.”
From her bag, Bethany took out the items she’d need for her examination. She rescued the baby from Tyler, laid him on the mat. Instantly wide-awake, he gurgled up at her. “Can you imagine how desperate his mom must have been,” she mused aloud, “to abandon a cutie like this?”
“Why do you think she did it?” Tyler perked up.
“It’s more common to abandon babies at birth if the pregnancy was a secret or if the mom had no support. At this age…possibly if he had a birth defect or a serious illness she couldn’t handle…” She unsnapped the yellow sleeper and began to remove the garment. “But there’s nothing obviously wrong with this guy.” She appreciated the healthy pink tone of the baby’s skin. Too often the youngsters she saw in the E.R. were either pale or flushed from illness. “I’m wondering if there’ll be some clue to his name, maybe a wristband or ankle band under these clothes.”
“Uh-huh.” Tyler was looking at the baby, but the tapping of one black loafer on the carpet told her his thoughts were elsewhere.
A thought struck Bethany. “You don’t know his name, do you?”
That brought his gaze back to her. “It wasn’t in the note, so how could I?”
She waited before she replied, listening through her stethoscope to the baby’s heart. He’d flinched when the cold metal touched his chest, but he didn’t cry. Heart rate of one-fifty, perfectly normal.
“It occurs to me,” she said carefully as she coiled her stethoscope, “that this might be your son.”
He jerked backward. “Mine?”
“I mean—” she put a thermometer to the baby’s ear, relieved she didn’t have to meet Tyler’s gaze as she elaborated “—your…love child.”
She didn’t expect the silence. It was unnerving, so much so that even after the thermometer beeped a normal reading, she kept looking at the display.
“Tell me that’s a joke,” he said.
She swallowed. “I have to ask. I’m a doctor, I have my patient’s best interests in mind.”
“You’re not just a gossip with a juicy story to spread?” he asked silkily.
“Certainly not.” She put the thermometer away.
“Because if a rumor like that got around, it could do me a lot of damage.”
Bewildered, she said, “Tyler, according to the newspapers, you’ve dated half the women in Atlanta and the other half are eagerly awaiting their turn. Miss Georgia must know she’s the latest in a long line.”
“Professional damage,” he elaborated. “And for your information, dating a lot of women doesn’t mean I’m siring love children—” he embellished her euphemism with sarcasm “—all over town, then neglecting them until their mothers abandon them.”
“Only one love child,” she corrected reasonably. Then, when his face darkened, “If you say he’s not yours, I believe you. But like you said, you’re Atlanta’s favorite son, you could get away with—”
“Forget it,” he said with flat finality.
Bethany pressed her lips together and conducted the rest of her checks on the baby in silence. She put a finger in his mouth, ran it over his gums. Next, she pulled a brightly colored rattle from her bag, held it above and in front of the baby. His eyes focused on the toy, and when she moved it to her left and then her right, his gaze followed. When she put the rattle down on the table, the little boy turned his head to see it. His hand reached out, found only air, and he gave a squirm of frustration.
Bethany picked up the toy, held it to the tips of his fingers. He curled his fingers around it, held it for a moment, then dropped it. “Hmm, I’d say he’s hit three months.”
“How do you know that?”
She’d forgotten momentarily that she wasn’t talking to Tyler after he’d accused her of being a gossip. Nonetheless, she magnanimously decided to share her conclusions with him. “He’s able to follow an object with his eyes and grasp it, but he’s not rolling over, though he’s in good health, with plenty of fat, plus good muscle development. And there’s no sign of teething.”
There was a knock, then Olivia stuck her head around the door. “I have diapers. And something called baby wipes.”
“Perfect timing.” Bethany pulled the tapes on the diaper the baby wore. “Bring them in.”
She tugged the wet diaper out from under the baby. She gave his private parts a quick check, then Olivia handed her a fresh diaper and a wipe. The secretary left the room double quick.
“On all the obvious measures he’s fine, a healthy little guy,” Bethany said as she fastened the clean diaper. She glanced at Tyler. “I still think it’s best if I call social services and have them pick him up.” She began to dress the baby again.
Tyler shook his head. “I can’t throw him into the welfare system when his mom asked me to take him. Who knows what might happen to him.”
“I know.” She gathered the baby in her arms. “Social services will send someone to get him. They might be satisfied with my medical assessment, or they might take him to another doctor. While they try to find his mom, they’ll place him with a foster parent who knows how to look after a baby,” she said with heavy emphasis. “Someone who’ll care about him.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then his gaze flicked down to the baby in her arms. “Thanks very much for your professional advice, Dr. Hart. Be sure and send Olivia your bill.”
Just like that he was dismissing her. He even had the nerve to offer her that meaningless smile, the one he’d given when he’d dismissed her pitch.
He would do the same at their meeting next week. It wouldn’t make any difference if she was coherent, babbling or speaking Swahili.
Bethany’s future flashed before her eyes, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. She’d have to pull out of the research team at Emory; she’d been a late addition to the team, accepted on the basis of her funding from the foundation. Every cent was allocated, they couldn’t carry freeloaders. She would have to start traipsing around the charitable foundations, submitting applications, presenting her case. And every time, she’d be up against dozens of other worthy projects.
This could mean the end of the goal she’d worked toward since she was thirteen years old.
She could find a way to deal with the recriminations from her parents—she just wouldn’t answer her phone for a year—but knowing she’d failed to do the one thing that would make any sense of Melanie’s death…that would haunt her.
Now Tyler stood before her, frowning with faint confusion, as if he couldn’t understand why she was still in his office, still holding “his” baby. He didn’t give a damn about the children she hoped to save. Did he care about anyone, other than himself?
Bethany’s mouth set in a determined line. “I’m not leaving until I’m certain you’ve made acceptable arrangements for this baby.”
“For Pete’s sake.” His hands came together in a throttling motion that she hoped was involuntary. “I told you, I’ll find a sitter. I’ll have Olivia call you later and let you know how I get on.”
“Does that work the same as, ‘Call Olivia and have her slot you into my diary’?”
A smile tugged at Tyler’s mouth. Surprise, surprise, he wasn’t taking her seriously again.
“Do you know how to choose a sitter?” she demanded. He probably planned to ask one of his girlfriends. Goodness knew what sights the poor baby might be subjected to. “You need someone qualified. And I mean capable of more than sashaying down a catwalk.”
He laughed out loud. “Modeling is a very demanding profession,” he chided. “I’ve been told many times.”
“I’m trying to say—”
“I am saying, this is none of your business,” he interrupted. “I assure you, though I don’t have to, and I really don’t know why I’m bothering, that I’ll hire a qualified, professional sitter, the best that money can buy.”
Everything came back to money.
He had it, she needed it.
Which seemed so monumentally unfair, Bethany wanted to cry.
“We’re done here.” Tyler took a step toward the door. “I’ll be happy to update you about the baby at our meeting next week. If you’ll hand him over to me…”
“No,” Bethany said. Because an idea was glimmering in the recesses of her mind, and she just needed a minute to tease it into the open.
“You don’t want an update?” He added hopefully, “Or you don’t want to meet next week?” It obviously didn’t occur to him she wasn’t about to hand over the baby.
It was coming closer, her idea, coalescing into a plan. A plan to get money out of him, without her having to beg, or rob him at gunpoint, both of which had occurred to her in the course of this encounter.
“I want,” she said casually, confidently and—best of all—coherently, “you to hire me as your babysitter.”
The allure of Bethany’s feisty brand of cute was wearing off fast, Tyler decided. And the way she was holding on to the baby as if he was a bargaining chip was decidedly alarming. “No way.”
“I’ve worked with social services in the emergency room,” she said. “They know me, they trust me. When I tell them you’re not a fit guardian for this baby, they’ll be around here faster than you can proposition a supermodel.”
“I doubt that’s possible,” Tyler said coolly. “But, humor me here, why exactly would you want to tell social services that?”
“Because it’s true.” Her tone said, Duh, and he could see she believed it. “I’m not going to let you risk this child’s well-being because you want, for whatever reason, to keep him—” She stopped. “I bet you see this baby as some kind of chick magnet.”
“I’m a chick magnet. And I don’t need you telling lies to social services.” Just the thought of her carrying out that threat made Tyler go cold. He imagined the resulting furor when the news hit the headlines. He might as well go out and have Don’t choose me to run a family think tank tattooed on his forehead right now.
“If this is about the handbag incident,” he said, “I swear I was nowhere near that nightclub, and I haven’t seen either of those women in a long time.”
“What handbag incident?” She shifted the baby to her other shoulder.
Great, why didn’t he make things worse? “Just kidding. Look, how about I let you choose a sitter—one who meets whatever standard you want to set.” He reached for the baby. “Here, he looks heavy, why don’t you pass him over.”
She squinted at him and held the infant tighter. “The standard is, it has to be me.”
“You’re overqualified,” he said. “And you have lives to save. Your research, remember?”
“The research I’ve run out of money for,” she pointed out. “I’ve been pulling shifts in the E.R. for weeks now, so I can use some of the foundation’s grant to extend my assistant’s hours. But as of this week, she’s working for someone else until I get more money.”
The money. Again. “I find it difficult to believe you have a burning ambition either to work for me or to be a babysitter.”
“I admit I have an ulterior motive—access to you.” She turned her cheek to avoid a sudden grab by the baby. “I’ll use up the vacation time I’m owed looking after this little guy until his mother is found, and I’ll spend every minute I can educating you about my research.”
The days and weeks stretched before Tyler in a Groundhog Day nightmare of lectures about kidneys and caring.
“Did you think of demanding a renewal of your funding in exchange for your butting out of my business?” Not that he would have paid her off, but it would in theory have been simpler than this Machiavellian scheme.
“That would be blackmail,” she said, shocked. “All I want is a fair hearing.” The baby blew bubbles, and she wiped gently at his mouth with her finger. “I’ll work for you—” the hardness of her voice, at odds with that tender gesture, startled Tyler “—and I’ll make you listen.”
She couldn’t make him do anything. But he couldn’t afford to have her bad-mouthing him to social services. And he did need a qualified sitter. Plus, her knowledge, not just of how to look after this baby, but of wider child-related issues, might come in handy.
Tyler made a decision—his decision, for his reasons. “You can have the job.” Her eyes lit up, so he said hastily, “But if you think that’s going to make me listen to you…all I can say is, hold your breath.”
She blinked. “I believe the expression is don’t hold your breath.”
“Ordinarily,” he agreed. “But in this case I’m hoping you’ll suffocate yourself.”
“And then this poor baby will have no one who cares.” She patted the little boy’s back. “Let me tell you how much I charge for my services.” Bethany named a sum that had Tyler’s eyebrows shooting for the ceiling.
“I had no idea babysitting was such a lucrative profession.”
“One of a thousand things you have no idea about,” she said loftily. “Now, when can I move in?”
“Move in?” Tyler felt as if his brain was ricocheting around his head, trying to keep up with her twisted mind. What was she planning next?
“You’re aware that babies wake in the night?” she asked. “That they need feeding and changing 24/7?”
Tyler had been vaguely aware of the unreasonable nature of infants, but he hadn’t yet translated that to having to violate his privacy by having someone move in. He’d never even had a live-in girlfriend. “You’re not moving in.”
“Okay, if you think you can handle the nighttime stuff…” She shrugged. “I guess with your dating history you’re used to not getting much sleep. But those middle-of-the-night diapers are the worst. Just make sure you buy a couple of gallons of very strong bleach and three pairs of rubber gloves. Oh, and have you had a rabies shot?”
Was she suggesting he could get rabies from the baby? He stared at her, aghast. She looked back at him and there was nothing more in her blue eyes than concern for his wellbeing. Which made him suspicious. But he wasn’t willing to take the risk.
“Fine,” he said, “you can move in.”
She didn’t blink. Only a sharp breath betrayed that she hadn’t been certain he would agree. Immediately, he wished he hadn’t. “But don’t get too comfortable. I don’t imagine I’ll have custody of him for more than a few weeks, max, before either his mom is found or social services take over.”
“That’s all the time I’ll need,” Bethany said.
“I’ll have Olivia get me some earplugs,” he said. “When you’re nagging me about your research, I won’t be listening.”
“While she’s out buying those, she can buy or rent some baby equipment and supplies,” Bethany said. “I’ll write you a list—do you have a pen?”
Tyler handed over his silver pen with a sense of impending doom.
Bethany scribbled a list of what looked like at least two dozen items, and handed it to him.
“If you like, I can take the baby to your place right now and—” She stopped. “We can’t keep calling him ‘the baby’—how about you choose a name for him?”
“Junior?” he suggested.
“A proper name. One that suits him.”
Tyler rubbed his chin. “Okay, a name for someone with not much hair, a potbelly, incontinent…My grandfather’s name was Bernard.”
Bethany laughed reluctantly. “Bestowing a Warringtonfamily name on him might create an impression you’d rather avoid.”
Good point. Tyler looked the baby over. “Ben’s a nice name for a boy.”
“Ben,” she repeated. “It suits him.” She dropped a kiss on the infant’s head, as if to christen him. “Okay, Ben, let’s get you home.” To Tyler, she said, “I don’t have a car. Are you going to drive me, or call me a cab? Better order one with a baby seat.”
“How did you get here today?”
“By bus,” she said impatiently.
“Everyone has a car,” he said.
“Underfunded researchers don’t.”
Pressure clamped around Tyler’s head like a vise. He massaged his aching temples.
Bethany had promised to give him hell, and she didn’t even have the decency to wait until she’d moved in.
CHAPTER FOUR
BETHANY PULLED her knitting out of its bag, propped herself against two large, squashy pillows and checked out the view. Of Tyler’s bedroom. From Tyler’s bed.
This was so undignified, being forced to wait for her employer on his bed. No doubt he’d be less than impressed to find her here.
“It’s his own devious, underhanded fault,” she muttered as she untangled a knot in her wool.
She’d been full of self-congratulatory delight at having inveigled her way into Tyler’s multimillion-dollar home in Virginia Highlands so she could brainwash him into giving her money. Her sense of triumph had lasted through three nights of interrupted sleep, fifteen bottles of formula and thirty thousand dirty diapers.
At least, that’s how many it felt like. It was now Thursday evening, and Bethany hadn’t seen Tyler since the meeting they’d had with social services on Monday afternoon, at which it had been agreed that Tyler would have temporary custody of Ben. Correction: she hadn’t seen him in the flesh. Beside her on the bed was today’s newspaper, featuring a photo of Tyler and Miss Georgia at the opening of an art exhibition in Buckhead on Tuesday.
She tossed the newspaper across the deep crimson bedcover. Who would have thought crimson could look so masculine? It must be the combination of the white walls, the dark polished floorboards, the Persian rug woven in rich reds and blues.
Her cell phone rang, breaking the silence and startling her. Bethany fumbled her knitting, reached for the phone’s off button. She’d spent the past few days dodging calls from her mother and stalling the head of the emergency department at Emory with vague promises that she’d be available for work “soon.”
The one person she wanted to talk to was Tyler. But she hadn’t even said two words to him about her research.
Because the man was never here.
So now, when Ben was napping and Bethany should have been sleeping—the dark circles beneath her eyes were growing dark circles of their own—she was instead relying on the irregular clack of her knitting needles to keep her awake. If she wasn’t careful, Tyler would make one of his lightning raids on the house while she dozed.
She didn’t know how he managed to figure out exactly when she’d be out taking Ben for a walk, or catching forty winks, or at the store stocking up on diapers. But at some stage every day she’d arrive home, or come downstairs into the kitchen, and there’d be…no actual evidence of his presence, just an indefinable sense of order shaken up. And, occasionally, the scent of citrus aftershave, freshly but not too liberally applied.
Tyler wouldn’t elude her today, she promised herself as she hunted for a dropped stitch with little hope of rescuing it. No matter how much Bethany knitted, she never improved, probably because knitting was a means of relieving tension rather than a passion.
Since she’d arrived at Tyler’s home, she’d knitted most of a sweater.
Today, she would relieve her tension by delivering Tyler a brief but salient rundown on childhood kidney disease. Waiting on his bed meant he couldn’t sneak past her; she wouldn’t let him out of the house until she’d said her piece.
Bethany yawned and leaned back into the pillows, letting her eyelids droop just for a moment. Her bed in Tyler’s guest room was very comfortable, but this one was in a different league. It was like floating on a cloud….
THE NEAR-SILENT SWISH of a well-made drawer sliding stealthily closed woke Bethany. She jerked upright.
And saw Tyler standing frozen next to the dresser, holding a plastic shopping bag, watching her watching him.
Bethany roused her wits. “Who are you, and how dare you barge into this house?”
She had the satisfaction of confusing him, but only briefly. Those full lips curved in irritated appreciation of her comment.
“Sorry I haven’t been around, I’ve been busy.” He crossed the room, a picture of relaxed grace, and dropped the shopping bag onto the end of the bed. He stood, clad in Armani armor, looking down at her as if she were a territory he had to conquer before dinner.
“I’ve been busy, too,” Bethany said. Unlike him, she bore the ravages of her day, evidenced in the baby-sick that blotted the shoulder of her sweater, in her lack of makeup, in the hair she hadn’t had time to wash this morning.
“You mean, busy doing something other than snoozing on my bed?” He took a step closer. “Or are you here because you want…something?”
“I want to talk to you.” She scowled. “You were hoping to sneak in and out without waking me, weren’t you?”
“You looked so sweet,” he said blandly, “it seemed a crime to disturb you. Where’s Ben?” He glanced around with casual interest, as if she might have stowed the baby under a pillow. For all he knew, that was exactly what she did each day.
“He’s sleeping.”
Tyler sat on the other side of the bed from Bethany, and farther down so he was facing her. Still too close for her liking. She’d have liked to stand up, but one foot was still asleep, and she’d probably topple over if she tried. She settled for edging away from him.
“That kid’s amazing,” he said. “Every time I come home, he’s fast asleep. I feel as if I’ve hardly seen him.” He must have noticed the anger kindle in her eyes, for he continued hastily, “So, how are you?” His gaze flicked over her from top to toe. “You look tired.”
Didn’t every woman love to hear that?
“I,” she said deliberately, “am exhausted. The reason Ben is asleep whenever you’re around—” she pointed her knitting needles at him for emphasis “—is because he’s awake every other minute of the day. And night.”
“Careful, Zorro.” Tyler reached out and deflected the needles, which were almost stabbing him in the chest. “It’s not my fault if I don’t hear Ben at night.”
“The only way you wouldn’t hear him is if you’re wearing those earplugs Olivia bought you.”
He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
Bethany narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you can’t hear him because you’re sleeping somewhere else.”
He appraised her through thick lashes. “I’ve been right here every night. In this bed.”
She didn’t need to think about that.
“Alone,” he added mournfully.
With that newspaper article visible from the corner of her eye, she couldn’t help saying, “Things not going well with Miss Georgia?”
“That would be your business…how?”
“It’s the whole city’s business, if you read the newspaper. Besides, if she dumped you,” Bethany said hopefully, “and you’re looking for an excuse to see her again, you can set me up to brief her about my research. She gets a lot of media coverage, she might be a useful spokesperson.”
“Nice idea, but I think she has her hands full with world peace. And in the unlikely event of a woman dumping me, I won’t need your help in patching things up.” He leaned forward and grabbed the plastic shopping bag, which bore the logo of a local independent bookstore. He pulled out several books, stacked them on the nightstand on his side of the bed. Among them, Bethany recognized one that many of her patients’ parents recommended: What to Expect the First Year. He crowned the pile with Real Dads Change Diapers.
He caught her watching him. “Obviously I’m philosophically opposed to this last one.”
“I noticed,” she said. “Still, it looks as if you’re willing to be educated. So you’ll be interested to learn that if researchers could figure out how to control antibody-producing cells, kidney patients might be able to accommodate transplanted organs from incompatible donors.”
“Who do you think Ben’s dad is?” Tyler asked.
Bethany counted to five and managed an ungracious “How would I know? Has the private investigator come up with something?”
“Nothing yet. I was just wondering…What if his dad is looking for him?”
Bethany blinked. Tyler had noticed she did that whenever he disconcerted her…which wasn’t as often as he’d like. Too often it worked the other way around.
“Good question, I’ve been thinking more about his mother,” she admitted.
“That’s because you’re a woman,” he said smugly. “It’s hard for you to acknowledge that Ben’s dad has just as much claim on him.” It was a line he’d found when he’d skimmed Real Dads Change Diapers, a somewhat political tome, in the bookstore. He’d also skimmed the index of What to Expect the First Year and found no reference to rabies, which gave him another score to settle with Bethany.
She frowned. “In my experience, fathers love their kids just as much as moms do, though they’re not always as good at showing it. But every kid needs a dad he can rely on. Maybe not so obviously at Ben’s age, but in a few years’ time he’ll need someone to show him what being a man is all about.”
Tyler was sorely tempted to pull out a pen and make notes. Bethany was more useful than any number of books when it came to getting up to speed on baby issues.
Bethany continued. “I’m not a guy—” stating the obvious, he thought, scoping out the fullness of her breasts in her thin, ribbed sweater “—but I’d bet being a father is the most rewarding, fulfilling, hope-giving experience a man can know. It’d beat those other coming-of-age experiences—first car, first girlfriend, graduation—hands down.”
Enthusiasm lit Bethany’s face, emphasizing its pixieish quality. Very cute. Then she added, “If you talk to some of the fathers of children in the kidney ward at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta—”
Okay, now she’d gone past quotable and was riding her hobbyhorse into earnestness.
“Fascinating though this is,” Tyler interrupted her, “I’m due at dinner in half an hour. You’re welcome to stay, but I need to get changed.”
“Miss Georgia again?” she said coolly, ignoring his invitation.
He folded his arms. “You seem overly interested in Miss Georgia.”
Bethany flushed. “I’m interested in the fact you’re never here with Ben.”
“Right,” he said dryly. They both knew she wanted him here so she could spout kidney facts. “The fact is, I pay you to care for him.” Damn, he could sense another of her lectures coming. He said quickly, sympathetically, “You know, you wouldn’t be the first woman to be jealous of Miss Georgia.”
Her outraged gasp had him stifling a smile. “I’m about as jealous of Miss Georgia as I am of that table leg.” She waved at the nightstand.
“That’s a very shapely table leg,” he conceded, “but you shouldn’t put yourself down.” He eyed her sweater again, noticed that it had worn perilously thin in places. “You have a great figure.”
She drew herself up, and her indignation had the interesting effect of swelling her bosom. “My figure has absolutely nothing to do with—”
“There’s every chance you’ll find a boyfriend one day,” he continued.
“I have a boyfriend,” she snapped.
That was unexpected. Even more out of left field was Tyler’s sudden urge to tear a telephone directory in half with his bare hands—he’d never indulged in primal-male competitive behavior. Finding Bethany curled on his bed asleep, one arm flung behind her head, her lips parted, must have struck a chord with some unconscious fantasy, and it had obviously unbalanced him. He forced himself to say lightly, “Is he deaf?”
“Of course he’s not deaf!”
“I just wondered how he puts up with you.” He dodged vengeful knitting needles. “What does he think about you living with me?”
“He’s not exactly a boyfriend,” she admitted. Tyler’s testosterone surge ebbed slightly. “Kevin is just…someone I see sometimes.”
“Ah.” Tyler put all the knowledge of a man who knew every nuance of dating into the syllable. “Someone convenient. I’ve had plenty of those.”
Bethany raised an eyebrow. “Convenient boyfriends?”
He grinned. “Plenty of convenient girlfriends.”
She sniffed. “Emphasis on the plenty.”
“Emphasis on the convenient,” he corrected. “Did it occur to you that you might get further convincing me about your funding if you were nice to me?”
“You have more than enough people being nice to you,” she said. “I plan to stand out from the crowd.”
No matter that even sitting on the bed she was discernibly shorter than him, she was giving him that superior look down her nose. He said, “I don’t have any trouble noticing you.”
No trouble at all.
His gaze locked with hers across the bed, and there was a connection that Tyler figured even Bethany couldn’t deny. It made no sense that he should find her so attractive—she dressed like a color-blind bag lady, she persisted in judging him according to her own overemotional standards and she was a pain in the backside.
But since when had sex and sense had anything in common, beyond the fact that they were both one-syllable words starting with S?
He leaned closer to her, which prompted her, gratifyingly, to lick her lips. His gaze zeroed in on that full mouth.
“Tyler,” she warned, “I am not sending out signals. Not now, not ever.”
He shook his head. “You are so deluded. One day you’re going to wake up to this attraction, and when you do, I’ll be here.”
“Never,” she insisted.
“You’re making this hard on yourself,” he chided her. “The longer you hold out, the more there’ll be egg all over your pretty face when you have to admit it.”
Bethany put a hand to her face involuntarily, then scowled when he laughed.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to make this easier on you.”
“You’re going to walk out that door and have dinner with your girlfriend?”
“Uh-uh,” he chided her. “Miss Georgia is fun, but she’s not my girlfriend. Now, Peaches, I’m going to figure out a signal you can give me so you don’t actually have to say out loud that you want me.” He added kindly, “I understand that might just about choke you.”
He took his time pretending to think, all the while enjoying the sight of her on his bed. Obviously sensing he planned a handson demonstration, she backed up against the headboard. “Don’t touch me.” Her voice held irritation, panic…doubt.
“Just this once,” he said, “so you’ll know what I mean.”
In one graceful movement, Tyler shifted so close to Bethany that she could see the gold flecks in his blue eyes. Just as plainly as she could read the amused condescension in them. He stretched a finger toward her, and Bethany forced herself not to flinch. Let him play his stupid game.
“This is what you need to do,” he said softly. His finger found the tender skin just below her left ear, traced the line of her jaw. He tilted her chin so she was looking directly into his eyes and smiled down at her. Appreciatively. Seductively. And Bethany, dammit, was only human. She smiled back. If more world leaders were women, she thought, the USA would have a secret weapon right here in Tyler Warrington.
“That’s all you have to do, Peaches, to tell me you want me.”
Reason found her again, and Bethany jerked away from his touch. “Never going to happen.” To her horror, she sounded breathless. And her jaw, where his finger had traced, felt tight, tingly.
Tyler laughed. “Never say never.” His mission of throwing her off her stride apparently accomplished, he got off the bed and said briskly, “By the way, if I don’t see you when I get in tonight, I need you to bring Ben to my office tomorrow afternoon. Four o’clock.”
Now he was done toying with her, he was dismissing her.
“Tyler,” she said firmly, “I need to talk to you about my research. Now.”
“Go ahead,” he invited, surprising her. Then he unbuckled his belt. His hand hovered over the button of his pants. “You don’t mind if I get changed while we talk, do you?”
If she’d been braver, or at least less prone to blushing, she would have told him to go right ahead. But with her face in flames, Bethany scrambled off the bed and almost ran from the room.
AT THREE-THIRTY on Friday, Olivia was typing the latest batch of rejection letters Tyler had asked her to send out, when the door to her office opened. She looked up.
And thought, Call Security.
A hobo stood framed in her doorway. A giant hobo, more than six feet tall, enormous shoulders made broader by a grubby overcoat. His hair, an unkempt salt-and-pepper mix of brown and gray, grazed his collar, and Olivia judged the matching stubble on his chin to be at least three days’ growth.
She reached for the phone.
“I’m Silas Grant,” the hobo announced.
Two things stayed Olivia’s hand. First, his name seemed familiar. Second, the words were uttered in a voice that was slow to the point of sleepiness, gravelly…and unquestionably educated.
As she puzzled over that riddle, he walked toward her with a silent, purposeful tread at odds with his sleepy voice. That lithe, almost graceful gait would have worried her if she’d been walking down a darkened street, but here she couldn’t believe he posed any threat. Other than to her discriminating taste in fashion. His brown corduroy trousers were pale and worn at the knees, and over them he wore a heavy shirt in brown and green plaid, buttoned to the neck, but untucked. But while they may have been more suited to gardening, the clothes did appear clean. Unlike the overcoat.
“I’m here to see Tyler Warrington,” he said.
Now that he was up close, Olivia saw he had gray eyes, but they weren’t at all cold. They held the deep, dormant heat of ashes, beneath which lurked the potential, if stirred by just a hint of breeze, for fire.
“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Grant?” She knew he didn’t—neither she nor Tyler believed in Friday-afternoon appointments. Tyler invariably had a hot date to prepare for, and, often enough, so did Olivia. Today she planned to be gone by four; she’d promised Gigi Cato she would come by to approve the floral arrangements for this evening’s soiree. It was inconvenient—she’d have to drive home from Gigi’s to change, then turn around and go straight back to the Catos’ again—but what were friends for?
Silas Grant frowned. “How could I have an appointment,” he asked gently, “when Tyler Warrington can’t see a conservation crisis when it’s right in front of him?”
Conservation crisis? Olivia remembered where she’d read those words.
“You’re the man with the red-spotted tree frog,” she said, pleased with herself. She couldn’t quite remember if the spots were red or yellow.
“Hyla punctatus,” he said sternly.
It took Olivia a moment to realize he wasn’t uttering some dreadful curse over her, but rather was giving her the Latin—or was it Greek?—name of the frog.
“It’s on the verge of extinction,” he said. “And Tyler Warrington just signed its death warrant.”
He spoke slowly, even for a Georgian. The pace lent an unlikely authority to his words, went some way toward countering his oddball appearance. But not far enough.
“I’m Olivia Payne, Mr. Warrington’s secretary. I’m afraid he’s unavailable,” she told him with the dismissive, wellbred Atlanta-belle tone that had served her through her years as a debutante, then as a single woman. Olivia was an expert at giving men their marching orders. Over the years, she’d broken off no fewer than six engagements. Possibly seven, if you counted Teddy Benson, who’d popped the question three years ago. She’d seen the light faster than normal, and broken it off even before the engagement announcement hit the newspapers.
“Thank you so much for stopping by,” she added pleasantly to Silas. Because one should always be polite in one’s dismissal.
He planted both hands on her desk, which might have intimidated her if he’d done it any faster than a hedgehog crossing the road. The movement put his eyes level with hers, close enough to break through the professional distance she’d set with her voice.
She dropped her gaze, and observed that his hands were clean, his fingernails cut so neatly they might be manicured. She recalled that the tree-frog funding application had come from an address in Buckhead—could this man really live in the most expensive area of Atlanta?
“I won’t take no for an answer,” he said, and there was a hint of steel behind the soft drawl.
While his announcement might be tiresome—at this rate she’d be late to Gigi’s house—it was nothing Olivia couldn’t handle.
“Mr. Grant, as you were told in the letter you received, the foundation does not enter into correspondence about its endowment decisions.” The same clean-break policy worked well with fiancés, she’d found. “I understand you’re disappointed, but I can assure you, Mr. Warrington will not see you.”
He straightened, but only so he could reach one long arm to pull up a chair. “I’ll wait,” he said, and sank into it, legs stretched out in front of him.
This had happened before, so she said, “As you wish,” and returned to her typing.
Most people started to fidget within two minutes. After five minutes, they’d bluster some more. But when they saw she wouldn’t be moved, they’d leave. The longest anyone had stayed was fifteen minutes. Something about silence unnerved them.
Today, it was Olivia who was unnerved. Silas didn’t fidget, not once, for fifteen minutes. He sat with his arms folded, quite still.
She kept her gaze fixed on her screen and wished the phone would ring with a summons to collect something from another part of the building, so she’d have a reason to move. But for once, no one called.
“Who else have you refused money to lately?” Silas’s abrupt question startled her, so that she mistyped a word and looked at him before she remembered not to.
“It’s not my money to give,” she said politely. She added, “Nor is it Mr. Warrington’s.”
“What are your views on conservation and the environment?” he asked.
He really did have an attractive voice, one that almost made her want to say those things mattered to her. But, in this respect at least, she was always honest. Better to admit an unnatural lack of sentiment than to pretend to care.
“I don’t have any.” She was concerned, of course, that the planet shouldn’t be flooded or burned up as a result of global warming. But that wasn’t going to happen in her lifetime, so she didn’t lose any sleep over it.
“Hyla punctatus is a Georgia native, not found anywhere else in America.”
“I’m aware of that. From your funding application.”
He ran a considering gaze over Olivia. She half wished she’d had her roots done this week. She wasn’t out to impress him, she scolded herself. And if she was, her hair, worn loose today in its sculpted bob, her artfully applied makeup and the emerald-green cashmere polo-neck that made her neck look longer and slimmer would surely withstand his scrutiny.
“You know what this world lacks?” he said.
She pressed a hand to her mouth and gave a ladylike yawn.
“People who care.” Sharpness tinged his words.
Of course she knew that! She said lightly, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
Fire sparked into life in his eyes, and his jaw jutted beneath the mouth that she now noticed was firm and well shaped behind all those whiskers.
Olivia had the same keen appreciation for good-looking men that she did for silk lingerie and French champagne. Each of her seven fiancés had been gorgeous by anyone’s standards. So she could only look at Silas Grant and rue the waste of such a fine specimen.
She wondered why his bizarre appearance didn’t exempt him from her appreciation. Discomfited by the thought that perhaps, now that she’d turned fifty-five, she might be desperate enough to let her standards slip, Olivia looked away.
“It’s exactly your kind of apathy that’s sending this world to hell in a handbasket,” he growled.
She’d obviously pressed one of Silas’s buttons, because he began to decry, albeit in an undramatic way, the parlous state of the world, the shallowness of materialism and the loss of life’s simple pleasures.
Olivia, who collected designer handbags, liked to dine on Wagyu beef and had two real fur coats in her wardrobe that she resented being unable to wear, struggled to sympathize.
Yet still, Silas Grant mesmerized her, whether with that unexpectedly cultured voice or with his sheer size. When she found herself wondering what he would look like with a shave and a tuxedo, she realized this had gone far enough.
“What will it take to convince you to leave?” she said abruptly, heatedly. She’d never reacted like this before, not to any of the cranky rejectees who’d turned up here.
“Your promise that you’ll ask Warrington to meet me.” Either Silas had the good sense to say no more, or he’d run out of steam.
Olivia was so relieved to hear the end of that gentle diatribe that she agreed. “I’ll let you know Mr. Warrington’s response.”
“Thank you.” The two syllables stood stark, and for one moment, Silas sounded alone, as alone as Olivia.
CHAPTER FIVE
BETHANY PAUSED on the threshold of Olivia’s office. Tyler’s secretary was locked in a death glare with a bum in a dirty coat. Should she fetch help? She tightened her grip on Ben’s car seat in case she had to run and said, “Olivia?”
The bum didn’t acknowledge her arrival. He said to Olivia, “I’ll be back,” with about as much menace as a low-on-batteries Terminator. He swung around, loped past Bethany with his coat flapping.
Before Bethany could ask Olivia what that was about, Tyler opened the door of his office. “Olivia, have you seen my silver pen? I can’t think where I—” He stopped, distracted by the disheveled appearance of the departing visitor, now out of earshot but still visible. “Who’s that?”
Olivia cleared her throat. “Silas Grant, the guy who’s saving the red-spotted tree frog. He wanted to see you.”
“Was he bothering you?” Tyler took a step forward as if he might head down the corridor and grab hold of the man.
Olivia shook her head. “He’s all right. Just…odd. I told him I’d find out if you’re willing to meet with him.”
Tyler cast another look at the guy, then turned to Bethany. He scanned her outfit—black leggings and a taupe crochet sweater, a by-product of the stress-relief technique that had preceded knitting, worn over a black slip. A taupe cardigan completed her layered look.
Bethany liked to think of it as Bohemian.
“Why is it that most do-gooders dress so badly?” he demanded. “It’s like a badge of honor with some of you.” He glanced down at his own clothing, which Bethany observed was unusually casual, yet as crisp and new looking as if he had a Calvin Klein store tucked in his office. “Nope,” Tyler said complacently. “I don’t see any reason why you can’t look good and do good.”
Bethany gaped. “You call yourself a do-gooder?”
He rubbed his chin. “Let me see…my job involves giving millions of dollars away to people in need, I’m an acknowledged expert on philanthropy, and now I’m fostering an abandoned baby.” He nodded at Ben in his car seat but made no move to take him. “You’re right, I’m evil.”
“You spend money,” she said, “but you don’t care.”
He groaned. “If you mean I don’t respond emotionally to every problem, you’re right. But if you mean providing practical assistance that makes a difference…”
“I mean,” she said, “giving something of yourself, caring in a way that changes you as well as the other person.”
He looked mystified. “Why would I want to change, when everyone loves me the way I am?”
Bethany was about to deliver a few choice words on that topic, when she saw laughter lurking beneath the innocent inquiry in his eyes. Tempted though she was to laugh—something she felt surprisingly often around Tyler—she chose not to indulge him. “That pen you’re looking for,” she said, referring to the question that had brought him out of his lair. “Would that be the one I borrowed the other day to write out a list of baby equipment?”
“So you did,” he said.
“I took it,” she admitted. “By accident.”
He held out a hand. “May I have it back?”
“I haven’t seen it in a couple of days.” She frowned. “I know I used it to sign a check at the supermarket. I’m not sure if I put it back in my purse…”
“Could you think a little harder?” Tyler said. “It’s my favorite.”
Oops. Bethany grimaced. “I think I left it in the store.”
“You’re kidding, right?” His shock sounded out of all proportion to the loss of a pen.
“Keep your hair on,” she said. “I’ll buy you another one.”
He folded his arms. “You’re going to buy me another twelve-hundred-dollar Michel Perchin pen?”
She clattered Ben’s car seat onto Olivia’s desk before she dropped it. Olivia leaned back in her chair, looking askance.
“You didn’t say twelve hundred dollars, did you?” Bethany pleaded. “You said twelve dollars.”
Tyler glared at her.
She felt sick.
“That money’s coming straight off your next research grant,” he said. “Or it would, if I had any intention of giving you more cash.”
In an instant, her fighting spirit was resurrected.
She planted her hands on her hips. “Twelve hundred dollars is an obscene amount to pay for a pen. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“You have an attitude problem.” Tyler’s effortless urbanity had vanished, and he spoke with the fulminating tension of a man goaded beyond endurance. “You’ve lost my handmade pen, which for all you know could be of great sentimental value, and somehow you’ve made this all about my flaws.”
“Could be of sentimental value,” she mocked. “But it’s not, is it, because for that, you’d have to have a heart.”
Into the seething pause, Olivia said, “What shall I tell Silas Grant? Will you see him?”
Bethany saw Tyler grapple to regain his control as he turned to his secretary. “I’m a family guy, not a frog guy,” he said to Olivia with a passable replica of his normal ease, though Bethany’s snort had his fists clenching at his sides. “I’m not interested.”
Olivia looked relieved. “I’ll let him know.” She pulled a file out of her drawer. “In fact, I’ll call and leave a message on his voice mail before he gets home.”
Tyler frowned. “If you’re worried about dealing with him, I’ll do it.”
His offer surprised Bethany. As far as she knew, Tyler didn’t do anything for other people.
Olivia’s face flushed. “It’s no problem.”
“Don’t say I didn’t care enough to offer,” he said, with a pointed glance at Bethany. So that’s what his sudden consideration was about. Then he said to her, “You’ll be pleased to know I’ll be caring for Ben personally tonight. I’m taking him out with me.”
“Taking him where?” Bethany picked up Ben’s car seat again. Somewhere that didn’t involve Tyler’s usual suit and tie, obviously. He wore designer-faded jeans, a long-sleeved fine-knit polo shirt, casual shoes. He looked like…like…Bethany struggled to define the annoyingly alluring blend of preppy and rugged. She failed.
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Abby Gaines
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The Diaper Diaries, электронная книга автора Abby Gaines на английском языке, в жанре современные любовные романы