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“About the time you stopped coming I stopped slipping out.” He laughed. “It seems that as I got older, the parties got less boring.”
Bent inside the car, Audra called, “Really?”
***
Dominic took a pace back. She probably didn’t realize she was presenting a very enticing view of her backside, and as a gentleman appreciative of the help she was giving him, Dominic diverted his attention.
“Yes. When I became the administrator of the Manelli College Scholarship, as my first full-fledged family responsibility, I thought it was best to begin getting to know the people in line for the money so I could choose the right recipient.”
“I never did thank you.”
Her voice drew his gaze back to his car where she busily worked on freeing the baby seat. This time he noticed the long length of leg exposed beneath her coat. She certainly wasn’t twelve anymore. And from the way she didn’t hesitate to help him, she’d become a lot like her generous, happy mother. He couldn’t believe he’d thought her annoying all those years ago when she’d always found his Christmas party hiding place and gone running to his dad.
“Why would you want to thank me?”
“For the scholarship.”
“You earned it.”
She pulled out of the car, then reached in and retrieved the car seat. “All set.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She motioned to the kitchen door. “I’ll just follow you in. We’ll give the car seat to my mom and have her assign someone to put it in your SUV.”
Dominic said, “Great.” He started toward the door, but the diaper bag strap slipped off his shoulder and landed with a thump on his forearm. That caused the bottle to fall. The already-wet baby blanket billowed beside the bottle and even the baby looked precarious.
“Damn it.”
Joshua began to cry and Audra grimaced. Obviously feeling sorry for him, she reached for the little blue bundle of joy. “I’ll take the baby. You put the bottle in that side compartment on the diaper bag. Then put the diaper bag in the car seat and the wet blanket behind the diaper bag and then carry the car seat.”
Dominic handed Joshua to her. “I swear I will learn how to do this stuff.”
Baby on her arm, she headed for the door again. “Of course you will. All new parents need a little time.”
Reminded of his brother and sister-in-law and how silly they’d been, fussing over Joshua in the first days after his birth, Dominic sucked in a breath to control a burst of sadness, as he shoved the bottle into the diaper bag.
“Yeah. Well, if there’s one thing I don’t have, it’s time. When Marsha’s mother discovered she had cancer and the doctors recommended she begin chemotherapy immediately, I had to take Joshua. Now. Today. I don’t have a nanny, so I’ll be walking the floor with him tonight. Without a clue of what I’m doing.”
Almost at the door, she glanced over her shoulder at Dominic. Her pretty eyes filled with concern that she quickly masked with a big smile before she said, “You’ll do great.”
Joshua dropped his rattle and without a second’s hesitation, she dipped, scooped it up and tucked it in her coat pocket—not giving the dirty rattle back to Joshua—and without missing a beat in the conversation.
“Waiting for my sisters to come home, I’ve walked the floor. At two o’clock in the morning it seems like hell, but then you cuddle the baby against you and whisper sweet things, and he settles down. You’ll feel like a million dollars because you could soothe him.”
Tucking the diaper bag into the car seat, Dominic stood in awe. She didn’t merely know what to do. She knew what not to do, and both appeared to be second nature to her.
“I’d give you just about anything you wanted if you’d help me tonight.”
Audra laughed.
“I’m serious.” He took a breath and glanced at the baby in her arms who was no longer crying but appeared very happy nestled against her chest. Dominic studied the calm baby and the woman holding him for only a second before he said, “Except, I’d want more than one night’s help. If you could spend the next month with me while I interview nannies, I’d make it worth your while.”
She winced. “Sorry. No can do. I have a job.”
“I know you have a job. I paid for you to get your degree, remember? I’m not asking you to help me forever. Just the three or four weeks that I’ll need to interview nannies.”
When she opened her mouth to argue, he cut her off, saying, “Look, I’m smart enough to recognize when I’m in over my head and smart enough to recognize a person well qualified to get me out. Plus, you’re from a family I know. I can trust you. If we need to juggle a few things, I’m in the right circles and have enough clout that no matter who employs you, I can arrange for you to get the time off.”
She reached for the knob on the back door. “Even if you could arrange it, I can’t take time off right now. I have a big money problem that I have to solve. That’s why I’m here. My mom volunteered to talk me through it.”
“You have a money problem?” Standing in his snow-covered driveway in front of the huge Tudor-style mansion that had been in his family for generations, he motioned in a circle with his hand. “Look around. The one problem I don’t have is money.” A few quick strides brought him beside her. “If you need money, I’m your guy. Didn’t I just say I’d pay you handsomely?”
“My problem’s too big to be covered by the salary of someone you’d hire to be a nanny for a few weeks.”
“How much money would you need to get out of trouble?”
She sighed. “Dominic, it’s too much—”
“Nothing is too much.” He nodded at Joshua. “He’s my family. For Manellis, money is no object when it comes to family.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You can’t pay me a hundred thousand dollars for a little bit of work.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s illogical.”
“Not really. The way I see this, it will probably take me a month to find a nanny. So you’re giving up a good bit of time. And I’ve already told you money’s no object. Not because I don’t know the value of a dollar but because Joshua’s that important to me. You have the expertise I need but no money. I have money but need your expertise. To me it’s a perfect fit.”
She drew a breath. “Dominic—”
“Please?”
“I can’t take a month off work.”
“You can go to work. I really only need help at nights anyway.”
“Right. Who’s going to watch Joshua during the day?”
“I was hoping your mom could,” he said, his lips lifting into a sheepish smile. “I know it’s not in her job description, but I don’t think she’ll turn me down. Especially since she’s got plenty of staff she can assign to take turns with him. But that still leaves me with nights—” He paused, caught the gaze of Audra’s pretty blue eyes and held it. “Please.”
“I don’t know—”
“I do know. I know your family. It’s in your blood to help people.” Which was why he persisted. Her mother could never resist a person in need, but her mother was also the head of his household. Though she had staff, she and everybody on her staff worked set hours. He might be able to temporarily squeeze Joshua into their schedules during the day, but he couldn’t press them for night duty, too. And he most desperately needed someone for night duty. Not for himself but for the poor baby entrusted to his care. “Think of Joshua.”
She glanced at the baby in her arms. Wonderful Joshua picked that precise second to grin toothlessly at her. She groaned. Joshua was getting to her.
“I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars up front and fifty at end of the month. If it goes longer, I’ll pay you twenty-five thousand a week.” Holding her gaze steadily, he said, “Money’s never been an object for me. You need money, and Joshua needs you.”
CHAPTER TWO
THEY stepped into the enormous working kitchen of the Manelli mansion. Audra’s mom turned from the stainless-steel stove. As always her short brown hair and simple black dress were neat as a pin, and her blue eyes sparkled. Her gaze touched on Dominic then Audra then Joshua.
“I thought you were coming here to chat with me,” she said, shifting from the stove to one of three islands with beige-and-gold-flecked black granite countertops that sat on functional beige ceramic tile floors.
“We met in the driveway.”
“And found a baby under the big oak by the garage?”
“This is Peter’s son, Mary,” Dominic said. “I got a call from Marsha’s mom this morning. She’s ill and can’t raise Joshua as she’d wanted. We all agreed the smartest thing to do was have me take over.”
“Oh, Dominic, I’m so sorry,” Mary said, walking to them. “But this actually might work out better for Joshua.”
“Yeah,” Dominic chided. “He’s much better off in the hands of a guy with absolutely no baby experience.”
“You’ll get the hang of being a daddy,” Mary said, reaching for the baby. “And this baby needs to know his dad’s family, as well as his mom’s.”
Audra handed the squirming little boy to her mother, and he immediately began to cry.
“Oh-oh.” Mary chuckled, and then brushed her lips across the baby’s forehead. “Somebody’s sleepy.”
She made a move to hand him to Dominic, but Audra took him. She wasn’t ready to explain to her mother that she’d agreed to help Dominic for the next month, and decided that was Dominic’s job, anyway. She faced Dominic. “Do you have a crib ready for him to sleep?”
“Damn it!” He ran his hand over the top of his head in frustration. “No.”
“It’s okay.” She laid crying Joshua across her arm and began to rock him. “Did Marsha’s mom give you a baby carrier by any chance?”
“Yes.”
“He’s small enough that he can nap in that. Where is it?”
“In the trunk with two duffel bags of baby clothes and what seems like a hundred stuffed animals that Marsha’s mom said he couldn’t live without.”
“Mom, can you rock him while we bring those things inside?”
Her mother gave her an odd look, but smiled and said, “Sure,” as she took Joshua again. “Come on, little sweetie-pie. Aunt Mary will take off all these heavy clothes and tell you a story.”
Audra’s mom left the kitchen, and Audra and Dominic stepped out into the fat white snowflakes again. “So, I’m guessing you want me to tell your mom about our arrangement.”
“She’s your employee, not mine. Besides, you’re the one making her watch a baby for the next few weeks until you hire a real nanny. The honor falls to you.”
He laughed. “I just didn’t want to step on any toes.”
“When you tell her you’re paying me well to work nights for you, my mom won’t bat an eye. If there’s one thing she understands, it’s not going into debt when someone’s offering you money. It wasn’t easy raising three girls with no husband. She knows a smart person doesn’t turn down a good opportunity. I’ve already told her that Wedding Belles is in a bit of a financial bind.” She shrugged. “She’ll probably be proud of me.”
He chuckled again as he opened the trunk of his car, revealing two duffel bags, a baby carrier and at least twenty stuffed animals. “These are the toys and clothes Marsha’s mom said Joshua can’t do without. I’ll be getting the rest of his things this afternoon.”
“You don’t have somebody you can send to get them?”
He shrugged and bent into the trunk to gather the stuffed animals. As he handed an armload to Audra, he said, “It doesn’t seem right to send someone. Marsha’s mom is family. And she’s sick. I think it’s better for me to do it personally.”
She smiled. What a softie he was. “Yeah.”
Dominic hoisted the two duffel bags out and nodded to the back entrance. “You open the door for me. We’ll dump these in the kitchen and come out and get the rest.”
Leading the way, Audra said, “I think we should leave Joshua with my mom this morning, drive to Marsha’s mom’s for the remainder of the baby things and then hit a furniture store.”
“For a crib?”
“And high chair. Changing table. Dressers. Toy box.” She grinned at him. Having always had to watch her pennies, even talking about spending somebody else’s money was fun. Especially when he had so much. “Then we can go to a department store and get a swing, play yard, baby tub.”
He rolled his eyes. “Nothing else?”
“I thought money was no object.”
“Money might not be an object, but time is. I had four important meetings scheduled for this morning.”
Audra opened the kitchen door and walked to the first of the three islands in the huge room. She set the stuffed animals on it. “If you don’t mind risking my taste in baby furniture, I could do those things for you. I already told our assistant, Julie, that I’d be out most of the morning.”
His dark eyes brightened with hope. “I wouldn’t care if you bought a purple crib.”
Audra laughed. “Actually you would. But I’m thinking more in the line of white furniture.” Familiar with the Manelli home, she added, “I’ll need a suite of rooms for Joshua and his nanny. The nanny’s room can probably stay furnished as it already is. The sitting room will probably be good as is, too. But one bedroom of the suite should be emptied so I can set up the nursery.”
“I think I have just the suite. Come with me.”
As Dominic walked Audra through three long corridors to the opulent entrance hall that led to the stairway, memories flooded her. Every time she’d been in this house, the carved wood banister of the wide circular stairway had been decorated with red velvet bows and twinkling white lights. A ten-foot fir dressed with silver stars and gold ornaments had always filled the foyer.
But as they ascended the stairs, the strongest of Audra’s memories were of scrambling around, opening doors, going into rooms typically off-limits to the guests, trying to find Dominic’s hiding place. She was twelve when she stopped attending the Manelli Christmas parties with her mom. That was the year she’d realized she wasn’t looking for Dominic to rat him out to his dad but because she liked him and she hated being a cliché. The cook’s daughter who swooned over the son of her mom’s wealthy employer? No way. She intended to be a success in her own right, find a man who would swoon over her, and be somebody herself.
If only she’d stuck to that plan.
At the top of the stairway, Dominic said, “This way,” pressing his hand at the small of her back to direct her down the hall to the right.
Audra smiled and nodded, but tingles of awareness formed on her back where his hand rested. Another woman might have been alarmed at the attraction, worried about picking up her crush right where she’d left off when she was twelve, but Audra knew she had no reason for concern. Only this time it wasn’t because she refused to be a cliché. Adult Audra was smart enough to stay away from Dominic because he was a playboy.
That much of his story her mother had told. Not by way of gossip, but through offhand comments. She’d refer to Dominic as flirty Dominic. Or say she had only the senior Manellis to cook for because Dominic was in Monaco or Vegas or with friends again. Or when forced to work a weekend, she’d frequently say that Dominic had charmed her into cooking for yet another party for his friends.
That was why Audra had been so surprised to see him in the driveway with a baby. Not because she hadn’t heard that he’d married or had a child, but because subconsciously she’d never expected him to settle down. Dominic might have taken over the serious job of running his family’s conglomerate, but a playboy leopard like that couldn’t change his lifestyle spots.
And she knew all about those spots. Her fiancé, a supposed “reformed” playboy, had left her at the altar. He’d humiliated her in front of her friends and family. And when he finally did call to explain, he’d blamed it all on her. She was too strong. He was afraid that if he tried to tell her that he didn’t want to marry her, she wouldn’t hear him out. She wouldn’t argue or discuss. She’d simply demand he be at the church. The only way he’d believed he could stop their wedding was to not show up.
Audra swallowed, willing away the sense of failure that caused her breath to freeze in her chest. That had been almost a year ago. She hadn’t even thought about it in months. But right at this moment, standing by a man very similar to the man who had dumped her, it felt like yesterday. The warmth of humiliation washed through her. As if it wasn’t bad enough he’d embarrassed her, he’d all but told her she was a total zero as a woman as well. A bossy, nagging harpy.
Thanks, David.
Yeah. She was perfectly safe with Dominic Manelli.
Dominic removed his hand as they walked into the group of rooms that had been his before he’d taken over the master suite. He couldn’t believe the zing of attraction he’d gotten when he set his palm on Audra’s back to direct her down the hall, but it shouldn’t have surprised him.
