by Abby Gaines
“Two hours of your time, every day, to be spent with Ben.”
She surprised a laugh out of him. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch.” Her blue eyes were serious.
“Two hours a day doing whatever I want with Ben?” he said skeptically.
“Two waking hours,” she amended, “for both of you.”
Tyler couldn’t believe his luck. He would probably need to spend that much time with Ben anyway, with all the media appearances his PR manager had lined up over the next couple of weeks. For once, Bethany’s naiveté was working in his favor. She’d be sick to know how much better a deal she could have scored if she’d been tougher, if she’d realized how important this interview was. He didn’t let his inward smile show on his face, just stuck out a hand. “Deal.”
Satisfaction glinted in Bethany’s eyes. Ignoring his hand, without another word, she bent to pick up one of the infant car seats, passed it to Tyler.
She’d chosen the fat baby that hadn’t even made his shortlist. Dubiously, he inspected the pudgy white bundle. “Are you sure this is Ben? I didn’t think he was so, uh, round.”
“Of course I’m sure,” she said scornfully.
Tyler’s departure from the baby area was hindered by the arrival of the day-care lady and an anxious-looking man in a suit.
“This is Lucy’s father,” the woman said to Bethany.
Bethany’s brow creased in perplexity. Then it cleared. “I’m so sorry to have worried you,” she said to the guy. “From a distance I thought your daughter looked a little flushed and swollen, but I can see now there’s nothing wrong with her. My mistake.” The reassuring smile she gave the girl’s father might not have dazzled on the scale of Tyler’s, but it was sweet enough that the guy—who Tyler now saw was good-looking, in a weedy kind of way—perked up.
Her mistake? Tyler pinned Bethany with a glare, willing her to look at him. The connection between them was as telepathic as it was sexual. It took only a second for her to glance his way. The bland innocence of her countenance didn’t fool him for one second. Then she couldn’t help herself, and a pleased-as-punch smile broke out.
The manipulative little witch.
Though, he had to admit, that had been pretty quick thinking for a babysitter scraped from the bottom of the barrel. It bespoke the same almost poetic cleverness he liked to think he possessed himself. His mouth twitched, and he clamped it back into line.
“Don’t apologize.” Lucy’s father put a hand on Bethany’s arm. “I appreciate you taking so much care.” Care, that word again, Tyler thought sourly. The guy darted a lightning-quick glance at Bethany’s left hand, pushed his trendy rimless glasses higher up his nose and said, “Maybe I could buy you dinner soon. Just to say thank you.”
Someone should warn Bethany that divorced dads had more than gratitude on their minds when they asked a pretty woman to dinner. Tyler coughed significantly. All three of them—Bethany, Lucy’s dad, the day-care woman—turned to stare at him.
“I’d love to,” Bethany said. “But my employer is very unreasonable and I don’t get a lot of time off.”
Which didn’t stop her giving the jerk her cell-phone number along with an invitation to call her.
He could be an ax murderer, for Pete’s sake.
“Do you realize you just put Ben’s safety at risk, inviting a stranger into your life?” he demanded as they headed back to the journalists.
Her nose went up in the air. “I am so not talking to you.”
“You can’t go out with that guy,” he persisted.
She stopped suddenly, but her force field of self-righteousness prevented him from bumping into her. “What’s your problem, Tyler?” she demanded. “Are you jealous that despite this supposed attraction that’s rampant between us, I gave my number to another man?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m as jealous of Mr. Specs as you are of Miss Georgia.”
“Okay, you’re not jealous,” she agreed. “You’ve got the right baby, thanks to me, and all you had to do was agree to spend a lousy two hours a day with him. I’d say things are going pretty well for you.”
She flounced away.
CHAPTER SIX
BETHANY WATCHED from a distance as the photographers did their work and the reporters threw in a couple more questions that seemed designed to make Tyler look good. She couldn’t decide if she was furious with him—the cretin, not even recognizing Ben—or elated that she’d pinned him down to that daily two hours.
It might not seem like much, but Bethany was certain that she was on the right track.Tyler might have faked that moment of connection with Ben back in his office this afternoon, but once he was spending more time with the child, there was no way he wouldn’t fall for him. Then he’d be more open-minded about her research and a whole host of other issues where he could do some good.
She was going to make him care.
As they drove home in Tyler’s BMW M6, Bethany’s cell phone rang, breaking the loaded, wary silence that so far not even Ben had dared breach.
Overwrought by the tensions of the day, Bethany answered the phone without checking her display. And immediately wished she hadn’t.
“Where have you been?” her mom said. “I’ve been calling. The hospital said you’re on vacation.”
Bethany closed her eyes. Her parents had to know sooner or later. “I’m taking a short break from my research to look after Tyler Warrington’s baby.” From the corner of her eye, she saw his head jerk around. “Although it’s not actually his baby,” she amended.
“The little boy who’s been in the papers?” her mother said, flabbergasted.
“That’s right,” Bethany enthused. “He’s such a cutie, you’d love him.” They both knew that wasn’t true. Mom was all out of love.
“But what about your work?” Her mom’s voice turned high and thin, and Bethany’s conscience pricked. “You said you were getting more money.”
“I—I wasn’t quite right, as it turned out. But, Mom, Tyler Warrington, the guy I’m working for, is the man with the money.”
Next to her, the money pot’s eyebrows knitted in disapproval. Bethany shifted in her seat so she couldn’t see him.
“This job puts me close enough to Tyler to convince him to fund my work for another year.” Anxious silence down the phone. Bethany pictured her mother twisting the cord in her fingers, trying not to blurt out her disappointment. “Another two years,” she said desperately. She ignored Tyler’s snort. “Believe me, by the time he’s had me living in his house a few more weeks—”
“You’re living with him?”
“It’s a live-in job, Mom. Nothing’s going on.”
The sound from Tyler might have been emphatic agreement.
“Sweetheart, you know we love you.” Her mom’s voice dropped to a coaxing note.
Did they? In their own way, perhaps. But never as much as they’d loved Melanie.
Mom said, “But I’m worried you’re losing sight of what you’re working for.”
Her work was all Bethany ever thought about, so the unfairness of that comment stung. She ended the call as fast as she could, then let out a long, slow breath.
“Good thing I was under no illusions about how you feel about me,” Tyler said. “Discovering you only wanted my money could have been quite a shock.”
She stuck out her tongue.
“You’ve been spending too much time with juveniles,” he said.
“You haven’t been spending enough time with them.” She folded her arms. “But that’s about to change.”
She held on to that single bright spark.
TYLER WOULD HAVE SPENT his promised two hours with Ben on Saturday, but he’d already arranged his monthly football game with his pals before he’d made that commitment to Bethany. He couldn’t let the team down on such short notice. He told Bethany so, and explained that although the game didn’t take long, they always went for a few beers afterward, then ended up at one of the guys’ house
s to watch a game on TV. Obviously, he couldn’t mess with tradition.
She made a big show of counting to ten, hands behind her back, gazing at the ceiling, then grudgingly accepted his explanation with the rider that he had to start with Ben tomorrow.On Sunday, his almost-genuine intention to spend time with Ben was derailed when Tyler remembered that today was the two-weekly lunch at his mother’s house.
He canceled the planned visit from Miss Georgia and left for Mom’s. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to take Ben with him because Bethany had taken the baby out for a walk, even though it was her day off. Tyler had to admire her work ethic.
He left her a note to say where he was, and in a fit of generosity that he’d probably regret, added a P.S. promising to spend extra time with Ben on Monday.
It was a sunny day, though cold, so lunch was set up in the conservatory. As always, Tyler was the last to arrive, right behind Olivia, who was an honorary member of the family. Max, his brother, would have been first there, followed by their cousin Jake. Jake’s mother had died some years ago and he was estranged from his father. Susan Warrington, Jake’s aunt and godmother, treated her late husband’s nephew as a surrogate son.
“I can’t believe you didn’t bring the baby with you,” Susan complained as they started in on the appetizer of smoked-salmon roulade.
“If you smelled him you’d know why.” Tyler broke open a hot, freshly baked bread roll and savored the aroma.
His mom rapped the back of his hand with her fork. “That’s mean, and so are you for not bringing him.”
“Are you sure you didn’t put him in the trunk and forget about him?” Max said.
It was a referral to an incident from their childhood. A friend of their parents had given Max and Tyler, aged six and four, respectively, an enormous chocolate teddy bear each. Tyler had eaten his in about an hour. Max, possessed of much greater self-control—which he still was, now that Tyler thought about it—planned to eat his bear over the course of a month.
By day three, Tyler’s bear was a distant memory—he didn’t fully believe he’d ever had one, let alone eaten it all himself—so he began pestering Max for a share of his. Max had a strong sense of what was fair and right—again, he still did—and refused.
After a week, Tyler convinced himself that not only was Max the greediest kid alive, he must also have taken Tyler’s bear and eaten it. From there, it was a short step to finding a way to right this terrible wrong.
When Max was having his piano lesson, Tyler took the remaining three-quarters of chocolate teddy, and hid it in the trunk of their mother’s car. Amazingly, it took Max two days to notice the theft. By which time Tyler had forgotten where he’d put it.
Now, twenty-seven years later, Tyler figured his guilty conscience had blotted out the whole incident. No one had believed he couldn’t remember, and he’d had the sore backside to prove it. They found Max’s chocolate, or what was left of it, the next time Mom opened the trunk—on a scorching July day about a month later. They’d never gotten the trunk completely clean. And Max had never let Tyler forget the incident.
But these days it was a subject of humor, not acrimony, so when Max made that comment about leaving Ben in the trunk, Tyler laughed along with him. “I have a babysitter who’d never let me get away with that.”
He wondered if Bethany was home yet, what she was doing.
“I can’t imagine you looking after a kid,” Max said.
Tyler spread butter on his roll. “He’s kind of cute.”
“Yeah, but—ouch!” Max lifted the tablecloth and glared under the table. “Mom, that mutt of yours bit me.”
“Don’t be silly, darling,” Susan said. “Mitzy is the sweetest-natured dog in the world.”
“She sure is,” Tyler agreed, happy to let his mother’s unreasonable devotion to her aging Cavalier King Charles spaniel deflect his brother’s curiosity. He grinned in response to Max’s scowl.
His respite didn’t last long. Jake was gazing past him out the window of the conservatory with an abstracted expression, twirling his wineglass between his thumb and forefinger.
“It’s been a while,” his cousin said thoughtfully, “since an enraged female has descended on this place with the intention of amputating a sensitive part of your anatomy, Tyler.”
Yet another youthful memory that kept the family amused. “Those were my wild-oats days,” Tyler said. “I’ve grown up.”
Jake gave him a pained look, then focused back out the window. “Funny how those things can come back to haunt a guy.”
All eyes followed Jake’s. Tyler had to turn in his seat.
“What the—?” He inhaled a crusty flake of bread roll and began choking.
Bethany was walking—no, stomping—up the driveway, Ben strapped into his front-pack. Tyler had an awful feeling she’d taken a bus here from his place, which doubtless involved two transfers and a long walk in between. He imagined it wasn’t the sort of journey that left one in a happy frame of mind. He couldn’t actually see a knife, but even from this distance, he could read in Bethany’s black look the intention to emasculate him.
“Hell.” He coughed, managed to dislodge the rogue bread crust, swallowed. Cutlery rattled as he shoved his chair back from the table.
“She’s pretty, but she’s not your usual type,” his mother said, interested.
“She’s the babysitter.” Tyler threw his napkin onto the table. “I’ll go see what she wants.”
Jake snickered. “Apart from the obvious.”
Tyler hurried out into the hallway so he could head her off at the pass.
When he opened the heavy front door, Bethany’s teeth snapped together and she began unclipping the front-pack. Seemed she was too mad to speak.
“Let me help,” he said, and was rewarded with a filthy look from flashing blue eyes. He was fairly sure Bethany wouldn’t actually throw the baby at him, but just in case, he kept a tight grip on Ben while she wriggled her arms free of the harness. That achieved, she dropped the diaper bag on Tyler’s foot. Manfully, he didn’t flinch.
“Take your baby and look after him,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Would you like to come in?” He knew she wouldn’t, but he was intent on scoring points for hospitality.
“Do I look like I’ve had a lobotomy?” she demanded. “If I step through that door, you’ll have me feeding Ben, changing his diaper, putting him to bed…”
“You mean, all the things I pay you to do?”
She rammed fisted hands onto her hips. “You promised me two hours a day.”
“And you’ll get them. Soon. Look, I’m sorry about today, but I promised my family I’d be here, and Ben wasn’t around when I left.” As he explained himself, which he never did to, say, women he dated, Tyler’s sense of personal grievance grew. She’d blackmailed him into this two-hours-a-day thing, and hadn’t made any allowances for him needing to carve out that time. “I can’t just drop everything to suit you—do you have any idea how busy I am?”
“Too busy to have taken a good enough look at Ben’s face to remember what he looks like.”
Damn.
“Too busy to visit a bunch of sick kids who might die if researchers don’t figure out how to help them.”
Double damn.
“Too busy to—”
“You’ve made your point,” he snapped, before she convinced even him he was lower than…whatever the lowest bug was in the bug hierarchy.
“You made a promise. And I’m yet to hear a decent excuse for breaking it. Don’t give me busy.” She shoved a sticky-out piece of hair behind one ear. “I’m so busy with Ben, I haven’t had a proper meal in a week. You’re a—a—”
“He’s a brute,” Tyler’s mother said from behind him.
Just what he needed.
Bethany blinked, adjusted her focus. “Yes, he is.”
“It’s my fault,” his mom said.
Bethany blinked again.
“I gave birth to him,” Susan
apologized. “I inflicted him on the world, then I brought him up to have no regard for anyone other than himself.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Tyler said.
“Why would you do that?” Bethany asked, so mystified that Susan laughed.
“We all make mistakes. In my defense, he does have very good manners.” She clasped Bethany’s hands. “My dear, I’m Susan Warrington, mother to this wretched creature.”
Belatedly, Tyler remembered his famous manners. “Mom, this is Dr. Bethany Hart.”
“I’ve heard all about you from Olivia,” Susan said, and Tyler knew that had to be bad. “The research you’re doing into kidney disease is so important, it quite captivates me.”
Just like that, Bethany melted. She made an indistinct sound that left her lips parted, so Tyler could see the pink tip of her tongue, and she swayed slightly toward his mother.
“My dear, you’re clearly in need of a decent meal,” Susan said. Tyler rolled his eyes. “We just happen to be sitting down to a salmon roulade, followed by citrus-roasted goose, then peach cobbler with homemade ice cream.”
Bethany’s stomach growled, and she clamped her hands over it. “I can’t come in,” she said reluctantly, “because he—” she jerked her head at Tyler “—won’t do a thing for Ben if I’m here.”
“I’ll insist that he does,” Susan said. “Besides, who could refuse this gorgeous baby anything?” She leaned down to goochy-goo at Ben, which immediately sent her to the top of Bethany’s approval list—no easy feat, Tyler knew.
“He’ll con you into doing it instead,” Bethany said morosely.
Susan tugged on Bethany’s hands. “Absolutely not. You’re right, my son should face up to his responsibilities. Did you knit that sweater?”
Tyler was certain no reputable store would stock anything as odd as the open-knit blue sweater with the asymmetrical hem that Bethany had teamed with a long skirt and boots.
Bethany put a self-conscious hand over a particularly large hole in the weave. “I’m not very good.”
“The wool is lovely and the color is gorgeous on you,” Susan said diplomatically. She pulled Bethany over the threshold. “Come in, and I’ll show you the shawl I’m knitting. But first I’ll just shut Mitzy—that’s my dear little dog—away, not that she would ever hurt Ben. And you must tell me more about your work.” She spoke so rapidly, darting from subject to subject, that Tyler could see Bethany caving in under the gentle, inexorable force.