Bella up the stairs. At the top, Matt pointed down the hall. “This way.”
He guided her down two corridors and stopped at a set of double doors. Rich with grain that came through the red mahogany stain, they gleamed at her. He took both knobs, opened the doors and walked inside.
Claire stood on the threshold, her mouth gaping. A huge bed sat on a pedestal in the back of the room, near a bank of windows covered in elegant drapes that looked to be silk. What seemed like half a football field of space sat between the door and the bed, and in that space were a fireplace, white shag area rugs and two club chairs in front of a big-screen TV.
But that was it. The place was so open that gleaming hardwood floors dominated the room.
“This is your nursery?”
“I don’t have a nursery, remember? This is my bedroom.”
“Your bedroom.”
“She’s going to cry and get up in the middle of the night, isn’t she?”
“Yes. But I assumed you’d have the nanny get up with her.”
“Not tonight. It feels too much like I’ll be abandoning her. That’s why I put her crib—” he pointed at an open door to the right “—in there.”
“You put her in a closet?”
He snorted a laugh. “No. That’s an empty room beside mine. I was going to put an office in there but changed my mind. So it will come in handy tonight. With the door open, she’ll be close enough that I’ll hear her cry and she won’t feel alone.”
Gratitude tugged on her heart. She didn’t know why this man so easily empathized with Bella’s situation, but she was glad he did. Still—
“Do you know what to do when she gets up?”
“Change her diaper and give her a bottle.” He headed out of the room. A few minutes later he came back with a flat sheet and walked through the open door into the room beside his. “I watched what you did with the diaper. It didn’t seem like rocket science and neither does getting her a bottle.”
“I just don’t see you walking the floor.” She glanced around and took in all the…space. She swore she could fit her condo in the front of his bedroom. “Though there’s plenty of floor to walk a baby in here.” She glanced around again and finally followed him into the room where the newly assembled crib stood. “My God. Your room is huge. Like a high school gymnasium with better furniture.”
“It’s adequate.” He arranged the sheet on the mattress in the crib.
“It’s empty.”
“I don’t have any need for more than a bed, a few chairs and a TV.”
Seeing no point to arguing his personal choices, she laid the baby in the crib. “Whatever. But you still have to consider the hours you’ll be spending walking the floor when Bella cries.”
“She cries a lot?”
“Nights are the hardest for her.”
He combed his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want anything to be hard for her. This transition has to be smooth.”
“Well, we don’t have to make any decisions now. Let’s call the nanny service. Maybe there’ll be one who won’t mind sleeping in the room with the door open?”
“She’s going to sleep in the room with the crib?”
“Well, you could give her a suite in another wing, but then she wouldn’t hear Bella cry.”
“So I have to put a bed in there for her, too?”
“Unless you want to drag one of your chairs over there and make her stay awake all night, watching Bella.” She caught his gaze. “And she’s probably going to ask you to close the door while she’s sleeping.”
“Great. That sort of defeats the purpose.”
“Not really. Trust me. That close, you’ll still hear Bella cry. Plus, you have to make some concession somewhere,” she said, leading him out the door.
“I know, but something inside me says I can’t leave Bella. I want to be with her tonight. I want her to know she hasn’t been abandoned.”
Claire’s heart swelled again. Her worries that Matt was going to be like her dad, ignoring Bella the way her father had ignored her, lessened a bit. For all his faults, he truly wanted to care for this baby.
They walked out into the hall, but the second the door to Matt’s bedroom closed behind them, they heard a soft cry. By the time they opened the door and returned to the little room with the crib, Bella was sobbing.
As naturally as breathing, Matt reached in and pulled her up into his arms. “Ah, Bella. Don’t cry.”
Claire’s eyebrows rose. He hadn’t hesitated. He hadn’t deferred to Claire. He’d automatically taken Bella into his arms.
He really wanted to care for this baby.
“You could be very good with her.”
“Right,” Matt said. His voice rose to be heard above the sobbing. “As you can see, my picking her up really stopped her crying.”
“Not yet. But it will. Once she gets accustomed to you.” She walked around Matt, noting that his hold on the baby was secure but not a death grip that would frighten Bella. Though his shirt would be permanently wrinkled where Bella leaned against him, he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. And the baby had her arm on Matt’s shoulder, her hand stopped just at his neck. She was beginning to trust him. “You hold her easily, naturally, as if you’ve done this before.”
“I did have her by myself for an hour.”
“Hmm.” She walked around them again. “You held her the whole time?”
His face reddened a bit. “Yes. Once we got out of the limo I held her.”
“And walked to keep her from crying?”
He licked his lips. “Yes. We…walked.”
“So maybe you can handle her all night on your own.”
He glanced down at Bella, who still sobbed in his arms. “I’d rather the baby in my care not cry all night. If a nanny can get her to sleep, then I say we need to bring in those reinforcements.”
“Okay. Let’s go downstairs and make the call.”
They made it as far as the stairway before sobbing Bella leaned out of Matt’s arms and toward Claire. Once Claire took her, her crying turned to sniffles, then hiccups, then nothing.
Leading them down the hall to the den, Matt turned. “Amazing. That’s at least the second time she’s stopped crying for you.”
“She’s been with me for the four days it took you to return from London.”
