by Emerson Rose
“I can’t know for sure, but it’s a possibility. She came back here with the baby knowing she was terminally ill. Maybe she wanted to get back together with me for whatever time she had left. Maybe she wanted to give me our baby. I’ll never know now.”
I bite my bottom lip remembering the diary in Faye’s bag. “That might not be true.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lilly left a diary in the baby’s bag. I didn’t read it. I was looking for information about Faye, when she eats, when she needs her diaper changed, things like that. I found one and put the diary back for you.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry for dumping all of this on you. I didn’t know where else to go, and all I could think about was getting back to you. When you weren’t at home, I came here.”
“I waited for a while, but you didn’t answer your phone, so I decided to come home.”
“I was stunned when they told me what had happened, and then they handed me a baby, and I shut down. Lang was worried when I asked him to bring us here, but I couldn’t go home alone with a baby. I don’t know the first thing about them.”
“It’s okay, I’m glad you came to me.”
I hear Faye squawk from the living room. I turn and kiss Alex gently on the lips and roll away from him. “Duty calls, go back to sleep. I’ve got her for tonight.”
He follows me out of bed. “She’s my responsibility, you don’t have to do that.”
I turn suddenly, and he lurches to a stop. I place my hands on his chest. “How about we do this together then. We can bring her to bed with us, and all three of us can get some sleep.”
He looks unsure, so I continue. “You’re a lawyer, if you’re going to argue your case, now’s the time.”
“No, you’re right, I don’t know what I’m doing. I need you.”
Those three words are for me as meaningful as I love you are for other people. I thrive off being needed. It’s in my DNA to support and care for those I love, and crazy as it seems, I think I’m falling in love with this man.
14
I gathered Faye and brought her into my bedroom. Jacob’s nose was a little out of joint at being abandoned three-fourths of the way through a scary clown movie. But when I spelled out the alternative, him taking care of the baby while I continued to take care of Alex, his pout faded.
“I’m going to grab her a clean diaper before she falls back to sleep,” I say handing the baby to Alex. He hesitates and takes her from me holding her similarly to the way Jacob had earlier. I was ready to walk away when I realize her discomfort and turn around to show him how to do it right. “Hold her close like you do with me. Support her back with this hand. Good, yes, exactly like that. Now she feels safe in her daddy’s arms.” I smile down at him sitting on the edge of my bed, and he smiles up at me although his smile is small, crooked, and unsure.
It’s a good look. The arrogant smugness that he usually exudes is gone for now, and I am enjoying the sensitive and vulnerable side of Alex Wolfe. I take my time going to the living room to get Faye’s bags. I stop at Jacob’s door on my way and blow him a kiss good night.
“Night, honey. Will you wake me in the morning? I’m sleeping with earplugs in case your little screamer wakes up.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, princess. I’ll make sure you’re up. Six o’clock okay?’
He gasps. “Are you out of your mind? Seven at the earliest, I need my beauty sleep.”
He doesn’t need beauty sleep at all. He’s beautiful enough for both of us, but I nod and pad down the dim hall. I stop just outside my door to peek in to find Alex holding Faye the same way I left him. He has relaxed a bit, and he is talking softly to her while she looks at him in awe. I know how she feels—he’s a ruggedly metrosexual man who is easy on the eyes. I’d stare at him like that, too, if I could get away with it.
“Okay,” I say announcing myself when I enter the room. “How about a dry diaper and some sleep, sound good?”
“Yes, I think she’s wet,” he says laying her down on her back.
I tickle her under the chin, and she smiles. “I’ll bet she is. She had a whole bottle before she went to sleep.”
“When will she eat again?” he asks as she wraps her hand around his finger and pulls it to her mouth.
“She’s nine months old. I think she will be okay until morning.”
“Are you sure? That seems like a long time for a baby.”
“She’s eating rice cereal and some baby food, too, not just bottles. You’re a biggie girl, aren’t you?” I say wiggling her out of her pink sleeper.
“How do you know that?”
“Her schedule. Lilly put it in her bag.”
“You seem to know a lot about babies.”
“I babysat a lot growing up to help with the bills. They’re pretty easy, just change their diaper, feed them, play with them, and make sure they get good sleep.”
“I highly doubt it’s as easy as that.”
I look at him out of the corner of my eye. “You’ll be fine. Maybe you should hire a nanny for a little while until you two are comfortable with one another.”
“A nanny?”
“Yes, there are tons of agencies around. Just call and set up some interviews.”
“I don’t want a nanny. I want you.”
I slide the clean diaper under her butt and remove the wet one wrapping it up and tossing it into the trashcan next to my bed. I choose my words carefully. “Alex, I would love to help you when I can, but I have a business to run, and we hardly know each other. Wouldn’t you rather have a professional taking care of her?”
“No. I want you. She likes you, look at her smile.”
“She probably has gas.”
“See, you are a professional. I would never have known babies smile when they have gas.”
“You’ll learn, it takes time to get to know someone.” The double meaning behind my words aren’t lost on him.
“Olivia, I realize we have only known each other for a short time, but my feelings for you are not going anywhere, and I think you feel the same way.”
“I don’t usually get too involved because I’m so busy…”
“You don’t get involved because you don’t want to get hurt. It’s okay to be honest with me. I understand that hesitance.”
“I am busy, too, though.”
“I run a law firm, so I understand busy.”
“Then how are we going to do this? If we do it, I mean.”
“Help me with Faye, and I’ll take care of the rest. I promise, your business will not suffer. I’ll hire someone extraordinary to do what you want to be done, and when things are running smoothly at home with Faye, you will be able to go right back to work.”
“What happens to Faye then?”
“I’ll take care of her myself.”
I straighten up and place my hand on my hip. “Wait a minute. You’re going to take care of a baby, run your law firm, and do whatever else you do with no help?”
“I never said that. You will still be in my life, and she can go to the daycare at the firm when I’m there.”
“You’d rather take her to a daycare than hire a full-time nanny?”
“Yes. She will be well cared for at the daycare, it’s my daycare after all. And I don’t want anyone else living under my roof and being so close to me.”
“What about all of your staff that already live there?”
“They have specific jobs to do, and they live in their perspective quarters away from me. I would want Faye to be near me, and that puts a strange woman near me, and I do not want that. My employees have been with me for years, they’ve all had extensive background checks, and I trust every one of them with something I value above all else, my privacy.”
He doesn’t want a strange woman in his living quarters. That makes sense. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but how long are we talking?”
“I’m not sure, how long do you think it will take to get her on a new schedule and settled in
at my house and with me?”
I drop my arm and tip my head back to look at the ceiling. “I have no idea, Alex. This isn’t something I ever had to deal with when I was thirteen years old and babysitting the Anderson’s twins down the street. I’m not sure how I feel about handing over my life’s work to some stranger either. I’ll still have to work.”
“Okay, how about this, you nanny for me, and I will pay you handsomely to do so for two months. During that two months we, you and I together, will hire someone to work in your shop and perform your daily tasks such as baking and helping customers. Any and all major decisions will go through you, and you can work there on weekends so your beautiful face will stay synonymous with your brand.”
He’s good, really good. No wonder he’s the best medical malpractice attorney around. My mom used to use the expression he could sell a cape to Superman. I think she was talking about Alex Wolfe.
“You’ve thought of everything.”
“That’s what I do, sweet girl.”
I look down, and Faye has fallen to sleep. I’m glad she’s too little to understand what’s going on around her. “She’s asleep. We should move her to the middle of the bed and sleep on either side of her.”
“No, I need to sleep next to you.”
Alex stands up, and I move Faye to the center of the mattress and build a wall of pillows and blankets on one side of her, and we crawl in and spoon on the other side.
“Have you made a decision?”
“I have. I’ll do it on one condition.”
“Name it, anything you want.”
“I will have a say in every decision made with my shop, not just major ones. If they need to order an extra bag of flour, I want to know about it. And, I want all of this drawn up by my lawyer, no offense.”
“None taken… your shop, your rules, your lawyer.”
“That’s right.” He may be good at manipulation, but my business is my life, and I’ll protect it at all costs.
He presses against me, and I feel his cock harden. “I missed your sass.”
“You’re going to keep missing it, too. From what I hear, having a baby can seriously mess with your sex life.”
“Never. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You can bank on that.”
I smile in the dim room and relax in his arms watching Faye’s little chest rise and fall with every breath. My life has done a complete three-sixty in a matter of a week, and amazingly enough, I’m not too freaked out about it. Being with Alex makes me feel like we can do anything together.
I hope that’s true.
15
My alarm goes off at five-thirty, and I roll over in bed to quiet it. When I open my eyes, it takes a few moments for yesterday to come rushing back to me. When it does, I sit up in my empty bed in a panic.
“Alex,” I call out my open door. When I get no response, I get out of bed, pull on a robe and hurry down the hall. I breathe a sigh of relief when I step into the living room.
“Holy crap, it looks like Toys “R” Us threw up in here,” I say looking around. Faye’s few belongings have mated producing dozens of new friends. Stuffed animals, boxes of diapers, wipes, new bottles, clothes, shoes, and so many toys sit in stacks everywhere. “What happened?”
Alex is lounging at the kitchen table reading a tablet big enough to be a laptop and drinking coffee while Faye crawls around inside a configurable baby gate playing with some of her new toys.
“I couldn’t sleep. I have a friend who owns a children’s store. I called George, and he picked everything up and brought it here.”
“They opened the store in the middle of the night? Wait, who’s George?”
He lowers the tablet and raises his brows as if to say, really? “Oh yeah, billionaire hot shot, how could I forget?”
He frowns and pushes the chair next to him out with his foot. “You wouldn’t believe the things people will do for discounted legal representation. And George runs the house. Come, sit, tell me what’s on your mind.”
“What’s on my mind is coffee. I don’t need to sit to tell you that.” I go to where Faye is playing and give her a little wave. She smiles up at me and bounces up and down. “Morning, tiny girl. I’m going to get some coffee, and I’ll be back.” I round the island and find a pot of coffee already made. “How long did you say you’d been up?” I say pointing at the pot.
“It’s fresh, I would have made you a cup, but I wasn’t sure what time you got up.”
Fresh coffee that I don’t have to wait for sounds like heaven. I pour a cup and add a dash of cream. I start back toward Faye when Alex hooks me around the waist.
“Me first, baby second. Always.”
It’s my turn to raise my brows at him. “Oh really? So that’s how it works?”
“Yes.” He pulls me into his lap and kisses me senseless. I forget where I am and what’s going on around us when he takes me into a kiss like this one. His strong arms are commanding holding me tight as if I would try to break free. If I were given three wishes, I’d only have to use one. I’d wish to be kissed by Alex this way forever.
His hands loosen and travel up and down my spine as he softens the kiss and eventually pulls away leaving me breathless and featherbrained. My lips part as I attempt to catch my breath and open my heavy eyelids.
“Mmm, bedroom eyes look good on you, my mistress.”
“Mistress?”
“You’re my mistress, a woman with power over my pleasure.”
“When I hear the word mistress, I think of a whore sleeping with a married man. Wait, you’re not married, are you?” I gasp scrambling out of his lap.
He chuckles and takes a sip of his coffee before returning to his tablet. “Would I be here with you if I were married, Olivia? I took you to my home and gave you a tour, introduced you to my staff, and we were seen driving up my driveway where you spent the night. If I were married, my wife would be an extremely tolerant woman, wouldn’t you say?”
I shake my head at myself. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Too many changes all at once, I guess.” I go back to where I left my coffee and take a sip while I watch Faye playing with her new toys and her elegant father reading the news.
“Has she eaten?” I ask suddenly remembering my new role in Faye’s life.
“Yes, I found her schedule and memorized it. I also read Lilly’s diary.”
“It must not have been very long if you finished it already.”
“I didn’t have to read every word. She only started writing it when she was diagnosed six months ago. It was painful and grim. I wish she would have come to me.”
He speaks to his tablet instead of looking me in the eye, something I’ve noticed he does when he’s uncomfortable with the topic of conversation.
“Six months ago?”
“Yes, she was breastfeeding and found a lump. She put off going to the doctor for a month thinking it was an infected duct, but it wasn’t. When she finally went, it was too late, and cancer had spread throughout her body. They gave her a year at best.” He looks up at me, and his eyes have gone cold.
I do the same thing when I am trying to protect myself from something painful. It helps to block the feelings before they spread and drag you so far down you can’t find a way out.
“I’m sorry, that had to be difficult to read.” His mouth forms a straight line, and he returns to the news.
“I’m going to shower. I have to get to the shop early today.”
He sets his tablet down giving me his full attention. “We need to hire someone to help you right away. I emailed an agency this morning, and as soon as they get in, I’m sure they will be contacting me.”
“So, what’s going to happen in the meantime? I was serious about having my lawyer draw up papers. I won’t let my business suffer from this arrangement.”
He nods slow and deliberate steeping his fingers with his elbows on the arms of the chair. “I don’t mean to rush you, but I am in the middle of a billion-dollar case
against a major medical equipment supplier. I need to go to work, too.”
“This is why you should hire a nanny. There are tons of agencies you could call, any of them would be able to send you someone today.”
“You know how I feel about that. I don’t want a stranger taking care of my daughter. And before you say it, I do not consider you a stranger.”
I wonder what he does consider me. I refrain from asking in the interest of finding out how we will solve today’s immediate problem.
“What about Jacob? He has a sister and two brothers. I’m sure he could take over for one day.”
“I don’t want to leave her with anyone I don’t know so soon. I don’t want to leave her at all.” My heart swells, and I feel relieved that he is bonding with her so quickly. I don’t know how a child so young deals with the death of her mother, but surely having another parent there to soften the blow will help. “Who do you call when you have to stay home sick?”
“I’ve never called in sick a day in my life. Not even to school.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“That’s impressive, although I can’t remember ever doing it either.”
“Workaholics, that’s what they call us. Let me see if Marissa has anything on the books today in the grooming salon. Maybe she can help out for a little while. Is there a particular part of your day that’s more important, a time you have to be at work?”
“I have a meeting at eleven and court at one, but I should be able to get away at four.”
“All right so eleven to four. I’ll go to work until ten and make sure things are running smoothly. I can be here by ten-thirty. Will that give you enough time to get to work? I don’t even know where your building is.”
“That will be fine, and I work at the Wolfe Building downtown.” Of course, how stupid of me, he owns the biggest building in downtown Seattle. Faye starts to cry, and we both jump to her rescue. He reaches her first and lifts her up cuddling her like he’s been fathering her since birth.
“You’re pretty good at that. You sure you don’t have any experience?”