but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She sighed and scrolled back to the beginning. She’d find the discrepancy and deal with it. Details were what she did best.
Faye had been lost in numbers and projections for the better part of fifteen minutes when she heard an enraged howl through the monitor. A chill washed through her and she looked at the time on her computer screen. No way. Casey shouldn’t be waking now. Another scream bellowed through the speaker on her desk, forcing her to her feet and out of the office. A few yards down the hall she stopped at the door to the nursery. Her hand trembled as she reached for the doorknob.
This was ridiculous, she told herself. He was just a baby. Just a helpless, sweet thing needing comfort. And yet she could barely bring herself to turn the knob and let herself into the room. Another cry from inside pushed her into action.
She opened the door and stepped into the nursery and was instantly assailed with an array of scents. Soothing lavender in an electric oil burner in one corner was overlaid with the powdery scent of talcum powder. Over that again was something sharper, more sour.
She hurried across the room to discover Casey had been sick in his bed.
“Oh, you poor wee thing,” she cooed to him in an attempt to soothe him with her voice.
At the sound of her voice, Casey’s cries lessened. She lifted him from the crib and took him across to the change table, swiftly divesting him of his dirty clothing and wiping him clean. She checked his diaper, which was thankfully dry, and then redressed him in a clean onesie.
“There we go,” she crooned, lifting him into her arms and resting her cheek on the top of his downy head. “All tidied up. Now we just have your bed to sort out, don’t we?”
He didn’t feel feverish, she noted with relief. Hopefully his throwing up wasn’t a precursor to something serious. With one hand she stripped the dirty linens from the crib, balled them up with his soiled clothing and put them in a hamper in a corner of the room. All the while she kept talking softly to Casey, who’d grown quieter in her arms—just emitting a grumble every now and then. Faye put him in the stroller—in the room for when the nanny took him out for fresh air a couple of times a day—so she could remake the bed, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“Silly boy,” she chided gently, picking him up again. “I can’t make your bed if you don’t let me put you down for a couple of minutes.”
Casey settled against her, his little body curling up against her chest and his head resting on her shoulder. A fierce wave of emotion swept over her. So much trust from one so small. For as long as she held him, his world was just as it ought to be. Secure. Safe. Loved.
Loved? Tears sprang to her eyes and she blinked them away fiercely. No, she didn’t deserve to love or be loved. Her baby brother had loved her, as had her mom and her stepdad. And she’d let them down. Living without love was her punishment for destroying their future together. And Casey’s trust in her was obviously misplaced.
She rubbed his tiny back with one hand and closed her eyes—allowing herself to pretend for just a minute that it was her brother, Henry, she held. That it was his little snuffles she heard. His sweet baby scent that filled her nostrils. The weight of his chubby little body that felt so right in her arms.
“Oh, Henry,” she whispered brokenly. “I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
Tears began in earnest now, rolling down her cheeks as though the floodgates had truly been opened. Faye reached for a box of tissues and wiped at the moisture, but it was no good. The tears kept on coming.
She had no idea how long she stood there, rocking gently with the infant in her arms and tears streaming down her face. He’d fallen asleep again, she realized, but she couldn’t put him in the bassinette because it wasn’t ready. At least, that’s what she told herself. It was the only reason why, now that she held him, she couldn’t let him go.
A movement at the door caught her gaze and then Piers’s strong, male presence was in the room with them.
“Faye?” he asked gently, reaching a hand to touch the tear tracks on her cheek. “I heard you on the monitor. Are you okay?”
His touch, his words, they were the reality check she needed. She shouldn’t be there. Shouldn’t be holding this child like this.
“He was upset. He’d been sick,” she choked out even though her throat felt as though it was clogged with cotton wool. “Here, take him. He doesn’t need me.”
She deftly transferred the sleeping child to Piers’s arms and tried to ignore the aching sense of emptiness that overcame her the second she let him go. Faye turned to make up the crib, keeping her back firmly to Piers. The moment she was done she left the room, not even trusting herself to speak another word.
Instead of returning to her office she took refuge in the ladies’ restroom on their floor. She turned on the faucet and dashed cold water over her wrists and then her face before straightening and looking at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was pale—her eyes shadowed, haunted. Somehow she had to pull herself together, go back to her desk and get on with her day, but she knew something had irrevocably changed for her back there in the nursery.
She couldn’t stay at this job. She couldn’t face every day watching Piers bond with Casey, watching Casey grow and develop from baby to toddler. It hurt too much. It was a constant, aching reminder of all she’d lost. Of the pain she’d endured for so long now. She’d thought she had it under control. She lived her life the way she wanted it, by creating distance between herself and others. There was no risk that way. No chance she’d lose her heart and face the hazards that loving someone else brought.
But now she was lost on a sea of change and swirling emotion that threatened to drown her. She had to go. Had to leave this place—leave Piers, the job she looked forward to every day. Leave the baby who’d stolen her heart despite her best efforts to remain aloof. She reached for a paper towel and wiped her face one last time before straightening her shoulders and setting her mouth into a grim line of determination.
She’d hand in her notice today. And she’d survive this. Somehow.
“You’re resigning?” Piers couldn’t keep the shock from his voice. “But why? Are you unhappy here? I thought you loved your job.”
“I’m sorry, Piers. I’m giving you the required four weeks’ notice, effective from today, and I’ll contact HR straight away to begin recruitment.”
She was still pale and he could see she was holding on to her composure by the merest thread. Everything about her urged him to take her into his arms and to say that whatever it was that worried or frightened her so very much back there in the nursery, he would make it okay—if only she’d let him. And there was the rub. She wouldn’t let him, would she? She’d made being an island an art form. Though she was cordial and worked well with everyone, she had no true friends among the staff and, to the best of his knowledge, few, if any, close friends outside of work, either. Certainly, she was respected here in the office, but she was always strictly business and didn’t allow herself to be included in anything personal.
He’d returned to the office today much sooner than he’d expected. Halfway to meet his mother for an unexpected and apparently urgent meeting during a layover at LAX, she’d called and said she’d
