by Zoe Chant
“Sophia,” he said quietly. “How’s that? Sophia Gray.” Sofia Dragomir, that would be easy enough.
Sophia squirmed and made a tiny baby noise that seemed approving.
Teddy looked up at the social worker with a grin, filled with relief at getting the first thing right. He could do this. “So, now what? Do I have to sign something?”
The social worker was smiling, but she looked perplexed and a little sad. Her fingers were curled around the pendant Sophia had been clutching, like she missed the baby’s grip on it. “I need to speak with you a little more, to be sure that you’re prepared to care for her. I must ask you, just to be clear. Do you have reason to be absolutely sure that this is your child?”
Teo nodded quickly. He noticed that Ms. M looked tired. He also noticed that she was more beautiful than he’d realized at first glance, despite her drab work clothes and severely pulled-back hair. She was only about his own age.
He really didn’t want to finish this and leave, now that he had Sophia in his arms and Ms. M here with them. Ms. M could talk to him as much as she wanted, but he didn’t want her to send them away.
He also really wanted to know what Ms. M looked like with her hair undone, and her clothes—
He forced his mind off that track, bouncing Sophia against his chest.
Ms. M raised her eyebrows. “Mr. Gray? Could you answer the question?”
There was some trick of her expression when she gave him that skeptical look that made him recognize her in a flash, impossible as it was.
“McCullough!”
She blinked at him.
Teddy grinned, shaking his head. “Your name is McCullough! Amy McCullough.”
She tilted her head, her frown deepening. It only increased her resemblance to her grandmother, which was disconcerting when it also made him want to kiss her. “It is, yes. As I said in the voice mail I left for you.”
Teo shook his head, forcing down thought of kisses. Not now. “I didn’t catch it until you looked at me like that, I wasn’t putting it together. But you reminded me of your grandmother just then.”
Amy put her hand on the back of a chair, looking dizzy. Teo darted over to her, sparing one hand from holding Sophia to catch her elbow. Even through the layers of her shirt and sweater it was a thrill to touch Amy.
Teo was in big trouble. The best trouble.
“Teddy?” Amy asked, looking up at him disbelievingly.
So much trouble. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted—
Teddy took a half step back, shifting his grip on Sophia as he nodded to Amy’s question.
“You gave me a present, when you were in first grade and I was in second,” Teddy recalled. “All the presents from the first-graders were supposed to be for my oldest brother, Gus. I was standing next to him to help sort things, and when you got to the front of the line, you gave yours right to me.”
He had wanted to give her a gift back, something to balance the lovely little sculpture of glass and wire, the work of her own hands. He hadn’t even understood why he wanted to so badly until right now. At the time his mother had told him to wait until Amy’s birthday, and by then she had moved away.
Teo had never seen her again, and after a while the empty feeling of the gift never given had faded to something he didn’t notice.
It was back now with a vengeance. He found himself frantically inventorying the contents of his bag, working out what he could give her and still have enough to look after Sophia. His poor gold-starved baby needed more than just an anklet, but his first gift to Amy was long overdue.
Amy already had that necklace, though. The one Sophia had liked so much. Teo could sense the gold in it; it wasn’t just ordinary human-worked gold. It was something special.
Amy shook her head. Teo tightened his grip on her arm, supporting her weight as she swayed slightly. He didn’t want to believe that she was saying no, though he reminded himself that if she did he had to back off. He couldn’t push her or scare her. This wasn’t just about tonight, after all.
“I should—I need to sit down,” Amy said.
Teo held her arm while she pulled out a chair from the table. He guided her into it and then sat down in the chair beside hers, turning it so he could face her.
They were sitting so close that her feet were between his. She had one hand over her mouth, but her eyes were just as blue as when they were kids.
She was obviously all grown up, and what Teo was feeling wasn’t any kind of kid stuff. Teo didn’t let himself look in any obvious way—she was at work, he wasn’t going to be that kind of creep, especially not while holding his baby daughter. He still couldn’t help knowing that she had a full womanly body, all round soft curves even in sensible dull clothes.
“Teddy Gray.” Amy moved her hand from her lips to her forehead, not quite quickly enough to hide the way her eyes swept over him from head to toe.
Teo didn’t let himself preen. He did shift his weight a little as he resettled Sophia against his chest. Amy had given him a gift. They had been kids, and of course it hadn’t meant back then what it might mean now, but here they were. She still liked the look of him.
“From Gray’s Hollow,” Amy went on, sounding dazed. “Where we lived with my grandmother for a year when I was six. You’re Teddy. You’re the youngest of the Gray family, and you’re...”
Her eyes widened. She lowered her hand and looked from Teddy to Sophia and back. After a few seconds she leaned forward and touched the anklet he’d made for Sophia.
“That’s why she wouldn’t stop crying.” Amy touched her necklace with her other hand. “She needed gold. Because she’s—you’re...”
Teo nodded.
“I really thought it was just that I had a weirdly vivid imagination as a little kid,” Amy said quietly. She giggled a little, sounding on the verge of hysteria, and put her face in her hands.
Teo shifted his weight again, letting his knee just touch hers. He didn’t mind waiting as long as he had to. Eventually she would be ready to talk about what was going to happen next.
***
Amy seriously considered the possibility that she was dreaming all of this. Maybe she was still on Jamila’s couch, holding Sophia—holding Baby Jane Doe—and dreaming the most perfect possible fairy-tale ending for her. For both of them.
Maybe Amy had completely lost her mind.
Marnie was right, Amy thought, swallowing another hysterical laugh. I really do need this break.
It wasn’t even that Teddy Gray was someone out of Amy’s own personal fairy tale, although that was the cherry on top of this impossible night.
Amy had been doing social work in New York for two years. That was plenty of time to learn that it just didn’t work out like this for the kids who wound up in her care. The dad who’d never been informed he had a kid didn’t show up in the middle of the night, eager to take his baby home. He didn’t turn out to be breathtakingly gorgeous, rich and privileged in every way—and then also polite and earnestly determined to take care of his kid. He didn’t latch on to his kid instantly, bonding with her like he’d never missed a day of her life.
He certainly didn’t look at Amy the way Teddy had been looking at Amy, interested but not leering. And guys she met on the job definitely never ignited this thoroughly work-inappropriate heat low in her belly.
But then, Amy wasn’t really on the clock anymore.
Teo Gray had been impossible even before he turned out to be Teddy Gray, her first grade crush, the youngest son of a vastly wealthy family. Not to mention that Teddy Gray was also, if Amy hadn’t hallucinated that entire year of her childhood, sometimes a dragon.
“Is it a conflict of interest?” Teddy asked tentatively.
Amy looked up at him, but he was still there.
He was still incredibly gorgeous. He still looked kind and sincere. He was leaning his knee against hers like she might not notice he was touching her when her body didn’t want to notice anything else.
He was
still holding Baby... Sophia carefully and competently against his chest. Sophia snuggled into him like she’d always known him. She was falling asleep, held competently against that strong chest; Amy thought that she wouldn’t mind doing the same.
She shook her head, dragging her gaze up to meet Teddy’s eyes. He was smiling like he had an idea of where her eyes, and her thoughts, had wandered.
“I mean, since you know me,” Teddy prompted. “Do you have to have another social worker handle Sophia’s case?”
Amy shook her head. “I only make a recommendation, the judge will decide. Tomorrow—today, you’ll need to go to family court with her. And it’s not like I know you that well. Not really.”
Teddy’s expression did something weird at that, and for a moment his gray eyes looked like fire, reminding Amy that she knew him a hell of a lot better than any other social worker who could have been in her place. He didn’t argue, though. Amy couldn’t remember the last time someone had accepted what she said without arguing.
Amy pushed on. “Technically I’m on leave as of today anyway. I’ll file the paperwork, but if there’s any follow-up it will be assigned to someone else.”
That was enough to remind Amy to wrap things up. She pulled out Sophia’s file and looked through the forms, making her preliminary notations. “Are you planning to reside in Pennsylvania?”
“Oh,” Teddy said, sounding taken aback by the question. “I guess, yeah, officially, at least to begin with. I have to take her home to my family, so that makes sense. Gray’s Hollow. Do you need an address? The big house is my permanent address for taxes and things.”
“Still living with your parents?” Amy asked absently, jotting down notes. Mr. Gray travels widely and resides with his family, but has expressed an intention to settle down permanently in his home town (Gray’s Hollow, PA) with his daughter.
“Uh,” Teddy said.
Something in his tone made Amy look up, startled.
“No,” Teddy said with a grimace, almost apologetic. “Mom died about four years ago, and Dad... not long after. But I’ve got five brothers and three sisters-in-law, so I’m not exactly alone in the world. And I have a niece, too, I—”
Teddy pulled out his phone and started to search for something on it. He stopped and looked down at Sophia, who was now definitely asleep against his chest. Amy’s heart went painfully tender at the way the look on his face changed, like he was surprised and amazed by her all over again. She wanted to hug Teddy right then nearly as much as she wanted to kiss him.
Neither one was possible here and now, with Sophia’s file still open on the table.
Teddy offered his phone to Amy. “Could you take a picture? I just realized I have a daughter and I don’t have any pictures of her in my phone.”
“Sure, of course.” Amy had done this enough times in more normal circumstances—for adoptions, and sometimes foster placements. She had never reunited a dragon and his dragonet daughter before, but clearly it was cause for at least as much celebration. She took a few pictures while Teddy posed playfully, tilting Sophia in his arms to get her sleeping baby face from a few angles.
“Thanks.” Teddy smiled warmly as he took his phone back, meeting her eyes steadily. Amy pretended not to feel the tingle that rushed through her when he deliberately brushed his fingers against hers.
“So I do have somewhere to go, although, uh,” he frowned down at Sophia, and then looked up and gave Amy a sheepish smile. “I guess I’d better figure something out for tonight, huh? I can’t really take her home right now.”
Amy glanced at the clock; it was nearly one in the morning. Jamila wouldn’t require more than a text message to understand why Amy didn’t bring the baby back. If Amy made the call that Teddy was the legitimate biological parent—and crazy as the circumstances were, that was her judgment here—he had a presumptive right to custody. The judge could confirm that tomorrow, or require a DNA test, or whatever they wanted to do.
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Amy said. “You have a court date tomorrow here in New York. And if you’re planning to put her in any vehicle at all when you walk out of here, I’m going to insist on knowing that you have a car seat for her.”
Teddy mouthed car seat like it was a foreign word. He looked like he’d walked straight out of some Manhattan club, no matter how natural he looked holding his baby, so she supposed it might be. He probably wasn’t the one driving his niece anywhere.
“Right,” Teddy said. “My sleep-over-wherever plan for tonight is out the window, and Gus is super territorial about the condo since he finished getting it baby-proofed, so that just leaves...”
Teddy swiped at his phone, and tapped decisively a couple of times. Amy barely heard a ring before a smooth, not-quite-British voice answered. “Hello, Mr. Gray, this is Richard on night concierge duty at Maison D’Or. How may I assist you?”
“Richard, hi,” Teddy said, shooting Amy a sheepish look and shrugging as if to say, Sorry to remind you that I’m terrifyingly rich, but how else can I solve this problem? “I know it’s late, but have you got a two-bedroom suite open?”
“For you, Mr. Gray, of course. Are you bringing additional guests along?”
Teddy looked down. “Yeah, I’m going to need a crib in one room, actually. For my—my daughter. Sophia.”
“I had not heard the news,” Richard said, still sounding perfectly unruffled. “Congratulations, sir. How old is Miss Gray?”
“One month today,” Teddy said. “I’m also going to need a car to pick us up, with a car seat.”
“Of course,” Richard said. “There may be a brief delay while I contact an appropriate car service. What address?”
Teddy’s gaze darted around the room, like he thought there might be helpful stationery lying around with the police precinct’s address on it.
Amy leaned toward the phone and rattled off the street address and nearest cross streets from memory. She’d directed plenty of people here.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Richard said, not reacting to her presence at all. “And is young Miss Gray traveling light as you usually do, sir?”
Teddy looked at the messenger bag on the table and then at Amy, who picked up the diaper bag Jamila had given her for Sophia. It held half a dozen diapers, two changes of clothes, and one empty bottle along with a few packets of the kind of formula they’d been feeding her.
“Yeah, she is,” Teddy said slowly. “I might need you to send up... diapers? And, uh...”
“I will make the standard arrangements, sir. And of course anything else you or Miss Gray require can be obtained upon request.”
“Thanks, Richard,” Teddy said. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“I try,” Richard said smoothly. “The car will be about forty minutes, sir, I do apologize.”
“No problem, I’m not in a hurry.” Teddy leaned back in the chair like he meant it.
Amy glanced at the clock. That would mean Teddy and Sophia didn’t leave—and Amy wasn’t done here—until one-thirty in the morning. She wouldn’t get home to her own bed until a truly ungodly hour.
So why did she feel like forty minutes wasn’t nearly enough time to spend with Teddy and Sophia? Why was the thought of her own bed so much less appealing than another hour unofficially on the job?
“Will you need to come inspect the place?” Teddy asked, with a smile too sweet to be quite a smirk. “Make sure everything is in order?”
Amy smiled back and glanced down at the paperwork. It was starting to look blurry. She really had to be dreaming all of this, especially the part where she said, “Well, it’s not normally required, but maybe I should.”
“I mean,” Teddy sounded earnest, but his knee nudged deliberately against hers. “I want to make sure I’m doing everything right. For Sophia. And I’m sure you know a lot more about this than I do.”
Amy glanced at Teddy’s phone. “You’re not going to have any problems with providing for her.”
“That doesn’t mean I have any i
dea what I’m doing here, Amy.” Teddy sounded suddenly completely serious, no playful flirtation in his voice at all. “I—I really would appreciate you coming with me to at least get her settled. As a friend.”
Amy looked at him for a moment. She really shouldn’t find his genuine concern for his daughter this attractive, but it took her a moment to think of a reaction that wasn’t leaning over and kissing that anxious look off his face. She glanced down at the file again, anchoring herself on something familiar.
“Before we can do anything as friends, I need to finish doing my job.” Amy pushed the file over. “I need you to sign here and here, attesting that you are certain that you are Sophia’s father, and that you’re taking responsibility for her.”
Teddy signed without hesitation. Amy tried not to notice that even his handwriting was gorgeous.
***
Teo held very still while Amy closed up Sophia’s file. He didn’t dance around or burst into song. He followed her down to a police officer’s desk and didn’t scream his good news to everyone in sight or kiss her in front of all of them. She handed the folder off to a police officer to be delivered to Amy’s office first thing in the morning. He almost managed to keep from even smiling.
She had to be off duty after all that, right? When she walked with him out to a bench near the front doors to wait for the car... she was waiting to come with him. She had to be.
He didn’t ask, because he was too busy being dazed with happiness. She sat down close beside him on the bench, her hip and thigh running alongside his, her shoulder tucked against his arm. Teo leaned his head back against the wall, looking down at Sophia sleeping on his chest and then over at Amy, leaning subtly against his side.
Somehow in barely two hours he had gone from just another night and another city, to sitting here with the most precious treasure imaginable. He had his daughter, and his...
Amy had to be his mate. That had to be what this was. He’d always secretly suspected he didn’t have one, even before he’d partied with enough random women to feel like he should have found her by now if he was going to. But all the time he’d just been waiting to find Amy again—and now he had, thanks to Sophia.