gripped her. She couldn’t tell Darius about losing her husband and child without making herself look like an empty, sad, still-grieving woman, who wasn’t ready to help him with Gino. Though part of her knew that was true and she should be honest, the other part warned her to tread lightly with this man. He was rich, powerful. If she showed her weakness too soon, he could take her to court, seeking full custody, citing her incompetence. Then Gino would be raised by him. Alone. And she wouldn’t be able to fulfill Missy’s wish that she love her baby.
She couldn’t let Missy’s son be raised only by Darius. Hadn’t he gotten her into his house and almost put her into a room on the other side of the mansion? He’d have poor Gino in boarding school before he was four.
The thought of sweet baby Gino in a boarding school shored up her defenses and she felt herself growing ready to protect him. She would fight to her last breath before she let him put that child in boarding school—ever. And that wouldn’t be their only argument. She and Darius would have hundreds of fights over the course of raising his half-brother.
That thought caused her to fall to a chair in complete shock. In the confusion of the day, she hadn’t carried this guardianship all the way through in her head. But it was suddenly abundantly clear that whether they wanted it or not, this child bound them forever.
They might as well be married.
Or divorced.
Good God.
What had Missy gotten her into?
Tonight was supposed to have been the night she did her laundry. Instead, here she was in the home of a virtual stranger, with a baby who made her relive the best and worst part of her life and a man she was so attracted to she sometimes couldn’t breathe in his presence.
It would be a miracle if she survived the weekend, let alone a lifetime.
WHEN THE BABY AWAKENED at about three, Darius bolted up in bed. For a few seconds he was disoriented, then he remembered he was in the hideous floral and lace master bedroom of the house in Montauk. By the time he remembered Gino was in the room next door, the little boy’s crying had stopped.
He got out of bed anyway, grabbed one of the pairs of jeans he’d had his staff pack and messenger to the estate and jumped into them. Heading out of the closet, he opened another drawer and snagged a T-shirt.
In a few long strides, he was at the door that connected his room to the nursery. Mrs. Tucker sat in the rocker feeding Gino, who gulped noisily.
He tiptoed into the room, but Mrs. Tucker laughed. “No need to be quiet now. He’s wide awake.”
Leaning against the crib, Darius crossed his arms on his chest. “And by the looks of things he’s starving too.”
Mrs. Tucker snorted a laugh. “They always are.”
“Always? You mean this isn’t an isolated incident? He’s going to be getting up at three every night?”
“Maybe not on the dot, but, yes, he’ll be waking somebody up in the middle of the night every night until he learns to sleep for long stretches without needing a bottle.”
Staring at the dark-haired, dark-eyed little baby, Darius said only, “Hum.” Gino was so sturdy that he looked packed into the green one-piece pajama. His hair sort of stuck up in all directions, making him even cuter.
Gino stopped sucking and Mrs. Tucker set the bottle on the table by the rocker. She lifted him up and he suddenly belched loudly. Mrs. Tucker laughed. “Well, now that takes care of that.”
She reached for a tissue in the box also on the table beside the rocker and wiped away white gunk from Gino’s mouth.
Darius winced. “Am I ever going to get the hang of this?”
“Eventually.” She caught his gaze and smiled. “And just when you do the rules will change.”
Darius’s face fell. “What rules?”
Settling Gino on her lap to rock him, Mrs. Tucker laughed again. “Not exactly rules, but the things you’ll need to do. He’s a baby now. In a few months he’ll be a toddler. Then there are the terrible twos—”
“Terrible twos?”
“You don’t want to know about that yet.”
He did but he also didn’t. Because right now, falling asleep in Mrs. Tucker’s arms, Gino looked like an angel. Darius swallowed. Strong, protective feelings rose up in him, feelings more intense than anything he’d ever felt.
He pushed them down. He might intend to be a part of this kid’s life, but these feelings were weird. They had to be wrong.
Mrs. Tucker rose from the rocker and settled the sleeping baby in the crib. “Better go back to bed. Morning comes quickly when you have a baby.”
Darius headed for the door. “Good night.”
Heading for the opposite door, Mrs. Tucker whispered, “Good night.”
In his room, he crawled back into bed. He didn’t like the idea that Mrs. Tucker had to do double duty, as his estate manager and the temporary nanny, so he set his alarm for six, hoping he’d get up before the baby.
When it went off a few short hours later, he didn’t balk or linger. He quickly pulled on the jeans from the night before and a fisherman-knit sweater and, paying no mind to his bare feet, raced to the nursery.
“Good morning.”
Dressed in jeans and a pretty blue sweater that brought out the blue of her eyes, Whitney stood on the far side of the crib, watching Gino, who was still asleep.
“Do you want to learn how to feed him this morning?”
He took an instinctive step back. He and Whitney had shared a powerful few minutes at her bedroom door the night before, but she didn’t appear to be any the worse for the wear. Like him, she seemed to want to ignore their chemistry.
And he did want to feed the baby. But before he could say that, Gino’s eyes fluttered open. He yawned and stretched and then let out with a yelp.
“That’s your cue,” Whitney said with a laugh. “Change his diaper, while I get a bottle.”
Whitney calmly walked to the small fridge in the room and retrieved a bottle, which she put in the warmer.
Not wanting to jeopardize the peace between them or have Gino wake poor, sleeping Mrs. Tucker, Darius carried Gino to the changing table and simply did the things he’d done the night before when he changed the baby’s diaper and put him into a clean sleeper.
Gino wasn’t really happy about the arrangement and he began to scream. Darius noticed that Whitney was preoccupied with staring at a bottle warmer that seemed not to need her attention. It confused him that she didn’t react to Gino’s crying, but he wanted to learn how to care for this kid. He also wanted Whitney’s help. He wanted them to get along, be a team. He couldn’t complain about the
