She wished they hadn’t agreed to first names. She wished they’d maintained the formality of surnames—of Mr and Ms.
She finished dressing and then sat on the side of her bed, drawing in a deep breath. Bonding over the baby had evidently broken down barriers with an ease that wasn’t the norm. Combine it with sleep deprivation...
She let the breath out slowly. But she was no longer sleep-deprived. They’d do their best to get Jemima sleeping through the night in four-hourly blocks, and she’d insist on them taking shifts—he could take the first half of the night and she’d take the second. Or vice versa.
No more cosy chats in the wee small hours. And no more sharing confidences. In fact, if she could get Jemima to sleep in four-hourly blocks, she wouldn’t need Seb’s help during the night at all.
She shot to her feet. It was time to badger him to start searching for Jemima’s mother in earnest. That’d keep them out of each other’s hair.
When she returned to the kitchen she found a steaming mug of coffee waiting for her, a small but sweet porcelain jug standing near by—probably a priceless heirloom—filled with milk. She carefully—very carefully—poured milk into her mug.
He smiled as if satisfied with something and eased back in his chair. She took a sip—such good coffee!—and he said, ‘How do you feel?’
She wanted to laugh and say, Human, but a voice inside her intoned Distance in such stern tones she didn’t. ‘Thank you for letting me sleep.’
His eyes narrowed a fraction. ‘You’re welcome. You’d earned it.’
‘How did you keep Jemima quiet?’ She winced as a sudden thought hit her. ‘Tell me I didn’t sleep through the wailing and gnashing of teeth?’
He shook his head. ‘Audio books did the trick. Both you and Jemima slept through E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View.’
They had?
‘Or, at least, a portion of it.’
He grinned. ‘I’m saving the rest for tonight.’
It took all of her strength not to grin back.
‘Though now we’ve a selection to choose from as I’ve bought a whole range of children’s audio books. Mind you, I suspect it’s the vocal rhythms rather than the content of what’s being said that Jemima appreciates. I also bought a crate of baby custard, and the pram you requested.’
She glanced in the direction he pointed to find a gleaming pram standing there. How had she not noticed it earlier? It looked like the highest of high-end prams! ‘How...how did you make that happen so quickly?’
‘Online shopping. London. Express delivery.’
She’d bet that express delivery had cost him a pretty packet. ‘Excellent. Thank you.’
His eyes narrowed a fraction more. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘So that’s Jemima and me taken care of for the day—sunshine in the park. What’s your plan?’
‘I thought I’d help you with the baby.’
Her heart clenched, but she hardened it. ‘I don’t need help with the baby.’
He stared at her, his mouth slightly open, and then he snapped it into a tight line and his face shuttered closed and she’d never felt like a bigger heel in her life.
She forced herself to go on. ‘Have you hired your private investigator yet?’
His chin came up, all stone and disdain. ‘I have.’
‘And have you made your phone call?’
‘Yes.’
She moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘So...what did your father say?’
He frowned as if she’d lost him, the hauteur momentarily falling away. ‘It wasn’t my father that I rang.’
CHAPTER FOUR
NOT HIS FATHER? Then who—?
A woman?
None of your business.
She glanced at Jemima playing happily with her baby gym in the light-filled conservatory—and she offered up a silent prayer of thanks for all of that light—but... While it might not be her business, it was certainly Jemima’s business. And as soon as she’d agreed to look after the baby, Jemima’s business had become her business.
She glanced back at Seb, who surveyed her steadily, although no compelling smile now flickered in his eyes, no shared camaraderie softened the firm lines of his mouth.
She missed that. She wished she didn’t, but she did.
She forced back an apology, and a teasing quip designed to open the way for their previous easiness again. It wouldn’t do. She forced herself to concentrate on the conversation rather than her sense of loss.
He’d rung a woman? And yet she’d believed him when he’d sworn that none of his ex-girlfriends could be Jemima’s mother. Maybe she shouldn’t have, but she did. There was something innately honest about Seb. He was a man you could trust.
Unlike you.
She pushed the thought away. She might be lying to him, but she was also helping him. They mightn’t precisely cancel each other out, but it had to help balance the scales a little bit.
She moistened her lips. ‘Did your phone call give you any clues as to the identity of Jemima’s parents?’
‘No.’
She waited but he didn’t expand further. Fine, she’d just have to come right out with it. ‘Don’t you think you need to speak to your father?’
One of his hands tightened to a fist. When he saw her staring at it, he opened it and started drumming his fingers against the table. ‘My father can’t be trusted.’
The glare he sent her should’ve charred her on the spot. Whoa! So this was the grumpy boss her sister had told her about. She lifted her chin and glared right back.
He slammed a finger to the table between them. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘I want you to find Jemima’s parents!’
‘No.’ His glare intensified, his eyes narrowing on her face. ‘You’re angry with me and I want to know why.’
* * *
‘You’re talking rot.’
But her gaze slid away as she said it and something in his chest clenched up hard and tight.
‘I’m not the least bit cross with you. But I do want this situation sorted.’
While he’d been looking forward to spending the day in the park with her and Jemima? He was a certifiable idiot!
He stilled, recalling the near panic that had flicked across her face when he’d told her he meant to spend the day helping her with the baby. He remembered that moment last night when they’d stared at each other with such naked hunger he’d almost combusted on the spot. A tiger had woken inside him and roared to full wakefulness. He’d been about to kiss her. And she’d wanted him to.
He’d been ready to take everything she offered him. He’d wanted her to offer everything. He’d been tempted to seduce her into mindless compliance so they could both lose themselves to the pleasure they could give each other, regardless of the consequences.
His lips twisted. Like father, like son.
He had to back away from that edge fast. He deliberately brought Rhoda’s face to his mind.
‘You’re concerned about that moment last night when I nearly kissed you. It’s playing on your mind.’
She opened her mouth as if to deny his words, but shut it again, her eyes clouded and troubled.
‘It’s been playing on mine too.’ He leaned across the table towards her. ‘You have my word that you’ve nothing to fear.’ He kept his gaze, his attention, on her eyes. Not on her mouth, or the beguiling line of her throat, or that amazing hair. ‘I promise that I will not try to kiss you or do anything else the least inappropriate.’
Her hands twisted together. ‘It’s just... You’re still my boss.’
‘And you don’t want history repeating itself.’ She’d trusted him enough to confide that, and her trust deserved a better repayment than him drooling all over her.
She drooled back.
That was
beside the point!
‘Seb, you’re nothing like my previous...boss.’
That eased the burning in his soul a fraction.
‘But I still don’t want to have a workplace romance.’
‘It’s a recipe for disaster,’ he agreed.
‘Listen, we were both tired and it was the small hours of the night and—’
He gave a laugh, but it lacked mirth. ‘That’s nonsense and we both know it.’
Her eyes widened. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed.
‘We can at least be honest with ourselves. I find you very desirable and I don’t think the attraction is completely one-sided.’
‘Oh!’ She bit her lip and stared at him with deer-in-the-headlights eyes.
‘But, being aware of it, we can take care to avoid fanning the flames...to tread with caution. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
But her voice came out high and squeaky, and the need to kiss her roared through him. He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands...and waited for it to pass.
And kept right on waiting.
He unclenched his jaw a fraction. ‘Yesterday you confided in me. Let me now make my position clear too. Like you, I’ve been burned by an...unhealthy relationship.’
Her throat tightened as she swallowed. ‘Unhealthy?’
He had no intention of confiding the details of the betrayal he’d suffered at Rhoda’s hands. He refused to relive the humiliation, the shame...the degradation. ‘I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that the aristocrat thing has a tendency to attract the worst kind of person. I have no desire to form any kind of lasting relationship. I have no desire to perpetuate the species or to keep my line running.’
Her throat bobbed once, twice...three times. ‘Wow. Right. OK.’
‘I choose my liaisons...carefully.’ She folded her arms, her eyes going hard. ‘You prefer to fraternise with women of your own class.’
He opened his mouth to debunk her theory as snobbish rubbish, but closed it again. He thrust out his jaw. He didn’t need to justify himself to her. Besides, if she thought that then maybe she’d feel safe. ‘I refuse to risk my business relationships for the sake of scratching a temporary itch,’ he said, deliberately crude. ‘Sleeping with my secretaries would mean having to hire a new secretary every time the current one flounced off in a huff when she realised I meant it when I said I’d never marry.’
She blinked.
‘Good help is harder to get than a good—’
‘I get your point, Mr Tyrell! You don’t need to explain it in any further detail.’
He tried not to wince at that Mr Tyrell. But the automatic way it came out of her mouth made him think that maybe, once this was all over, things would return to normal.
The thought should make him feel happier.
He lifted his chin. ‘I just want us on the same page. I don’t want you worried that I’ll attempt to seduce you. You have my word that I won’t.’
She laughed, but he didn’t understand why. ‘Don’t worry, I believe you. And I appreciate your frankness, Seb.’
He had a feeling that she said his name to let him know she wasn’t outraged at his revelation, that she didn’t hold it against him. But he had to fight back a groan at the sound of it on her lips. The rightness of it.
‘So I’m going to be equally frank.’
Dear God. How could this conversation get any franker?
‘It still appears obvious to me that you need to speak to your father.’
Acid burned in his gut, tempering his lust.
‘If he’s the key to this mystery, as you suspect, then why are you delaying confronting him?’
The last of his desire dissolved. He shoved away from the table on the pretext of pouring himself more coffee. He held the coffee pot up towards her in a silent question, but she shook her head.
She continued to stare at him with relentless eyes. ‘Well?’
He took a measured sip, leaning back against a kitchen bench as if the cares of the world weren’t trying to pound him into the ground. ‘I think it’ll be best to wait and see what the private investigator turns up.’
‘That could take days!’
‘What is it you’re really worried about?’
She shot to her feet, slamming her hands to her hips. ‘What I want to know is why you’re not more worried? In not reporting Jemima’s situation, I suspect we’re both skating on the wrong side of the law.’
It was unconscionable to have put her in this position.
‘But apart from my fears about the legalities, there’s a woman out there who obviously felt so far at the end of her tether she abandoned her baby to strangers. For Jemima’s sake we need to find her and help her.’
‘You’re putting a singularly positive spin on it.’ He shifted, trying to get comfortable against the bench. ‘Jemima’s mother could be a drug addict who’ll contact us soon enough with menaces—demanding money.’
‘If someone in your family is Jemima’s father, her mother is entitled to financial aid in the shape of child support. Do you know how financially difficult it is for single mothers in this country? Do you know that across all developed countries in the world single mothers are among the poorest members of society?’
How did she know that? And then he recalled her sister’s predicament. He suddenly saw how personal this situation must feel to her.
‘And they can’t win! If they have a full-time job they’re bad mothers for not spending enough time with their child. But if they decide to be stay-at-home mums they’re vilified for being welfare queens and a strain on society. Single fathers aren’t viewed in the same way. They aren’t subjected to the same prejudices. No!’ She paced up and down, waving her hands in the air. ‘They’re patted on the back for going above and beyond. How can it be considered above and beyond when it’s your own child? This world is set up to benefit and protect men, at the expense of women. It makes me so mad!’
Jemima gave a loud cry and Eliza immediately dropped down on the quilted rug beside the baby, all smiles, making Jemima laugh with the aid of a teddy bear and a silly voice.
His gut clenched up tight. ‘Is there anything I can do to help your sister?’
Her shoulders slumped. ‘I’m not blaming you for society’s ills, Seb. I’m not saying they’re your fault or of your making.’
‘I know that.’ But it didn’t change the fact that he benefited—unknowingly—from the way society was set up. ‘But if there’s anything I can do to help, then I want to.’
She glanced up at him and he couldn’t read the expression in her eyes—it was a mixture of warmth, sadness, and feeling all at sea. ‘You can’t help my sister, but you can help the poor woman who left Jemima in your care.’
Her words sucker-punched him. He had to brace his hands on his knees for a moment to catch his breath. ‘I haven’t seen or spoken to my father in two years.’
Her mouth fell open. She snapped it shut. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was a rift.’
‘You wouldn’t.’ He straightened. ‘It’s not a story that ever made the papers.’
She pursed her lips and then lifted the baby onto her lap. Woman and child stared at him and myriad emotions crowded his chest. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling and counted to ten before glancing back at her. ‘What? Out with it.’
She grimaced. ‘It’s going to sound hard and—’
‘I’m discovering, Eliza, that you have a propensity for uttering hard truths.’
‘I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.’
Those golden eyes were so wide and so worried he found himself biting back the beginnings of a smile. ‘Understood and appreciated.’
She grimaced again. ‘It’s just that I don’t believe your pride should hold much weight in the face of Jemima’s predicament.’
‘Look at her, Seb.’ She ran her hand over the crown of the baby’s head as if he needed further convincing. ‘She’s so innocent...and so lovely. She deserves only good things, the best that life can offer.’ She pulled in a breath. ‘She deserves better than this.’
He wanted to point out that the baby currently had a roof over her head, food in her belly and two people at her beck and call, but it wasn’t what she meant.
She was right. They needed to clear up this mystery and put things to rights as quickly as they could—for the baby’s sake.
But...
‘You don’t seem to understand. Confronting my father will do no good.’ Everything inside of him went cold. ‘Hector is a liar and a cheat without an honest bone in his body. He won’t tell me—or you—the truth. The sight of a baby won’t move him. There are reasons we’re estranged. Good reasons.’ He and his father were done. For good.
She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes cloudy, and then rose with Jemima in her arms. ‘Why don’t we go for that walk?’
‘I didn’t think you wanted—’
‘We’re making a plan or, at least, trying to find a way forward. That’s good...useful. We may as well make it in the sun in the pretty gardens.’
And just like that she made him feel less alone. It should’ve been impossible. And he probably shouldn’t have revelled in the sensation, not even for a single second. But for a moment he simply couldn’t help it.
Less than ten minutes later they were strolling in the park. It was a perfect spring day—warm with blues skies, the occasional ripple of white cloud drifting high above. The gardens were bursting with colour and blooms. Tulips in myriad colours all vied to out-display each other. The scent of freshly mown grass and cherry blossom filled the air. Everything was warm, fragrant...idyllic.
Liv halted the pram to adjust the little sunhat Jemima wore and the hood of the pram to make sure the baby’s face was properly shaded. ‘I want her to get lots of light, but I don’t want her to burn.’ She straightened and glanced across at him. ‘Is pushing a pram unmanly?’
A Baby in His In-Tray Page 6