am constantly on the receiving end of lectures from my dear sister about the state of my emotional bankruptcy,” he said pleasantly. “But despite my notoriously cavalier attitudes, I really did think you were arriving tomorrow. I’m sorry. I especially wouldn’t want to hurt Susie.”
Susie shot him a suspicious look, popped her thumb in her mouth and sucked. Hard.
Dannie juggled the baby from one arm to the other and gently removed Susie’s thumb. He could suddenly see that despite the nanny’s outward composure, the baby was heavy and Dannie was tired.
Was there slight forgiveness in her eyes, did the stern line around her mouth relax ever so slightly? He studied her and decided he was being optimistic.
He could read what was going to happen before it did, and he shot up from behind his desk, hoping Dannie would get the message and change course. Instead she moved behind the desk with easy confidence, right into his space, and held out the baby.
“Could you? Just for a moment? I think he’s in need of a change. I’ll just see if I can find his things in my bag.”
For a moment, Joshua Cole, self-made billionaire, was completely frozen. He was stunned by the predicament he was in. Before he could brace himself or prepare himself properly in any way, he was holding a squirming, puttylike chunk of humanity.
Joshua shut his eyes against the warmth that crept through him as his eight-month-old nephew, Jake, settled into his arms.
A memory he thought he’d divorced himself from a long, long time ago returned with such force his throat closed.
Bereft.
“Don’t worry. It’s not what you think,” Dannie said. Joshua opened his eyes and saw her looking at him quizzically. “He’s just wet. Not, um, you know.”
Joshua became aware of a large warm spot soaking through his silk tie and onto his pristine designer shirt. He was happy to let her think his reaction to holding the baby was caused by an incorrect assumption about what Jake was depositing on his shirt.
The baby, as stunned by finding himself in his uncle’s arms as his uncle himself, was shocked into sudden blessed silence and regarded him with huge sapphire eyes.
The Buddha-like expression of contentment lasted for a blink. And then the baby frowned. Turned red. Strained. Made a terrifying grunting sound.
“What’s wrong with him?” Joshua asked, appalled.
“I’m afraid now it is, um, you know.”
If he didn’t know, the sudden explosion of odor let the secret out.
“Amber,” he called. The man who reacted to stress with aplomb, at least until this moment, said, “Amber, call 911.”
Dannie Springer’s delectable lips twitched. A twinkle lit the depths of those astonishing eyes. She struggled, lost, started to laugh. And if he hadn’t needed 911 before, he did now.
For a time-suspended moment, looking into those amazing blue depths, listening to the brook-clear sound of her laughter, it was as if disaster was not unfolding around him. It was as if his office, last sanctuary of the single male, had not been invaded by the enemy that represented domestic bliss. He might have laughed himself, if he wasn’t so close to gagging.
“Amber,” he said, trying to regain his legendary control in this situation that seemed to be unraveling dismally, “forget 911.”
Amber hovered in the doorway. “What would you like me to do?”
“The children haven’t eaten,” Miss Pringy said, as if she was in charge. “Do you think you could find us some lunch?”
How could anyone think of lunch at a time like this?
Or put Amber in charge of it? Even though Amber disappeared, Josh was fairly certain food was a question lost on her. As far as Joshua could see, his secretary survived on celery sticks.
Did babies eat celery sticks?
For a moment he felt amazed at how a few seconds could change a man’s whole world. If somebody had told him when he walked into his office, he would be asking himself questions about babies and celery sticks before the morning was out, he would not have believed it.
He would particularly not have believed he would be contemplating celery sticks with that odor now permeating every luxurious corner of his office.
But he, of all people, should know. A few seconds could change everything, forever. A baby, wrapped in a blue hospital blanket, his face tiny and wrinkled, his brow furrowed, his tiny, perfect hand—
Stop! Joshua ordered himself.
And yet even as he resented memories of a long-ago hurt being triggered so easily by the babe nestled in his arms now, he was also aware of something else.
He felt surprised by life, for the first time in a very, very long time. He slid his visitor a glance and was painfully aware of how lushly she was curved, as if she ate more than celery sticks. In fact, he could picture her digging into spaghetti, eating with robust and unapologetic appetite. The picture was startlingly sensual.
“I’ll just change the baby while we wait for lunch.”
“In here?” he sputtered.
“Unless you have a designated area in the building?” she said, raising an eyebrow at him.
Joshua could clearly see she was the kind of woman you did not want to surrender control to. In no time flat, she would have the Lalique bowl moved and the change station set up where the bowl had been.
It was time to take control, not to be weakened by his memories but strengthened by them. It was time to put things back on track. The nanny and the children had arrived early. The thought of how his sister would have delighted in his current predicament firmed his resolve to get things to exactly where he had planned them, quickly.
“The washroom is down the hall,” Joshua said, collecting himself as best he could with the putty baby trying to insert its pudgy fingers in his nose. “If you’d care to take the baby there, Miss Pringy—”
“Springer—” she reminded him. “Perhaps while I take care of this, you could do something about, er, that?”
A hand fluttered toward the Lalique. He knew it! She was eyeing the table for its diaper changing potential!
“It’s art,” he said stubbornly.
“Well, it’s art the children aren’t old enough for.”
Precisely one of his many reservations about children. Everything had to be rearranged around them. Naturally, he needed to set her straight. It was his office, his business, his life. No one, but no one, told him how to run it. She and the children were departing as soon as he could arrange the limo and reschedule their reservations by a day.
But when she took the evilly aromatic baby back, after having fished a diaper out of a huge carpetbag she was traveling with, he was so grateful he decided not to set her straight about who the boss was. After she looked after the baby change, there
