It was perfect.
“I’ll do it.”
Ty glanced over and whispered, “What?”
“I’ll help you with the baby on the condition that you really do every darned thing I say both with her and for your PR.”
Ty smiled victoriously, but Madelyn sternly said, “I mean it. You have to really promise to do what I say. The first time you tell me no, I leave. And you’ll be alone with this baby.”
“Deal,” Ty said, then extended his free hand to shake hers.
Madelyn grasped it and a lightning bolt shot through her and warning bells went off in her head. She had just agreed to spend at least a week or more living with a guy she not only admitted to herself was gorgeous, but with whom she was having all kinds of weird physical reactions.
She stopped that thought because it was ridiculous. The man was a mean-spirited dictator and she was a smart professional woman. Smart women didn’t get involved with grouchy self-absorbed men.
“Deal,” she said, shaking once as she caught his gaze.
Big mistake. When she met his sexy dark eyes, the zing of attraction exploded through her again. Desperate to distract herself, she glanced at the baby he held, but when she did, she realized what was happening and she almost laughed.
All along she’d noticed Ty was gorgeous, but she hadn’t felt an attraction to him until he picked up the baby. The same thing that would ultimately make him attractive to his employees was making him attractive to her now: the baby.
Reaching to pull Sabrina from his arms, she said, “Let me take her.”
“No, I’m fine with her,” Ty argued.
But Madelyn shook her head. “Until we both adjust to this situation, I’m holding the baby when we’re alone.”
Chapter Two
Madelyn carried Sabrina, and Ty lugged her car seat and diaper bags to his black SUV, which was parked beside the private entrance to the Bryant Building—the entrance that prevented him from having to go through the lobby and interact with a boatload of employees on his way to his office in the morning.
After storing the diaper bags in the rear compartment, he tried to install the car seat. But when he couldn’t immediately get all the buckles and snaps aligned, he stepped out of the way, took the baby from Madelyn and let her connect it.
He wasn’t going to be an idiot about this. Raising Sabrina might be a high priority, but doing menial tasks involved in her upbringing weren’t. That was why he had hired the woman beside him.
With the seat installed and the baby contentedly cooing as she pounded on the padded seat guard in front of her, Ty drove Madelyn to her parents’ home to retrieve the clothes and accessories she would need for the weekend.
He stole a peek at the woman he’d coerced into helping him. Her straight red hair glistened in the late-afternoon sun. Her smooth pink skin gave her the look of a fresh-faced, all-American girl. For the first time, something very important struck Ty. Madelyn was young. He’d already guessed her age at around twenty-five. At most she had three years of experience in her chosen field. Yet, he’d agreed to let her splash his name all through the papers and get him out in the community for a love fest with people who should already be kissing his behind for providing them with jobs. That side of the agreement wasn’t exactly a good deal for him.
The other end of the bargain wasn’ t a total prize either. He might be getting care for Sabrina, but a stranger—no, an employee, someone who could take bits of his personal life into the office—would be living in his home.
Man, he hadn’t really thought this through.
They parked on the street in front of the huge Victorian-style house where Madelyn’s parents lived. White vinyl siding and modern green shutters had replaced the original exterior treatment of the dwelling that he suspected was built in the 1940s. But the actual shape of the structure hadn’t been altered so it managed to retain all of its charm. Flower gardens encircled the front porch. The manicured lawn spoke of a great deal of tender loving care.
If nothing else, Madelyn and her family were neat. Point one in her favor.
Madelyn opened the SUV door and jumped out. “I’ll be right back.”
Ty had assumed he would wait in the car with Sabrina while Madelyn got her things. But when a series of short bursts erupted from the baby as if she couldn’t decide whether or not to cry because Madelyn was gone, Ty punched open his door and leaped out of the SUV. With a potential storm in Sabrina’s whimpers of discontent, he didn’t have to debate his next move. He quickly pulled the baby out of the little plaid car seat, then scurried to catch Madelyn on the sidewalk.
She stopped and gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret. “Why don’t you and the baby wait for me in the car?”
“No way. You’re not leaving me with two feet of person that cries when it wants something and can’t control its bladder.”
Madelyn rolled her eyes and turned away from him, heading to the porch again. “You’re going to make a terrific dad.”
“Actually, I did make a pretty good dad for my brothers. I think that’s why Scotty chose me as the one to be guardian—”
Ty quit talking when he realized he was on the verge of telling a woman he hardly knew some incredibly personal information about himself. But before Madelyn could demand he continue, a sixtysomething man rounded the corner of the house. His crew cut was gray. So was the five o’clock shadow on his chin and jaw. He was also short. But beneath his T-shirt were broad shoulders and a flat stomach.
“W…ho’s that?”
“My dad.”
Dad?
Oh great! Ty had been on his own for so long he forgot other people had parents. And this guy was a piece of work. He looked like a marine who hadn’t yet gotten the message that he was retired. Someone who, if provoked, didn’t yell or scream or argue, he punched.
Ty realized another bad thing about his arrangement with his PR gal. Porter’s most successful businessman, avowed bachelor and reputed scrooge, had coerced this G.I. dad’s obviously young, probably innocent—if only in her father’s eyes—daughter into living with him. For money.
Great.
“Hey, little Miss Maddy! Who have you got there?”
Ty stole a peek at the reddening face of his temporary nanny. Not only was her dad not going to like their arrangement, but also Ty was just about certain little Miss Maddy probably already knew that. “Little Miss Maddy?”
“Just shut up.” Madelyn mumbled to Ty before she faced her dad. “Ty, this is my dad, Ron Gentry. Dad, this is Ty Bryant.”
“I know who Mr. Bryant is. Everybody in town knows Mr. Bryant.” He walked over and extended his hand. “The question is, why is he here?”
Oh,
