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“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.”
