and scooped a white bundle into his arms. The wails didn’t cease. He stood, looking down into the crumpled face of a newborn, and something in his own face twisted.
The pram was still blocking her path but with the baby out of it she could pull it to one side. She could leave.
She edged forward and Max turned as if he suddenly realised he had company.
‘You...’
She was still standing with her mop and bucket. Her cleaner’s uniform was damp down the front. Her curls were escaping from her regulation knot. She looked nothing like the image of immaculate efficiency the hotel insisted she maintain. Brent would have kittens if he could see her now, she thought, but there was nothing she could do about it.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you know anything about babies?’
There was a loaded question. The answer was more than she wanted to think about, but she wasn’t going there.
‘If you need help, you might ring Housekeeping,’ she suggested, clutching her mop and bucket like a shield and lance. ‘Or I can ask them to send someone up.’ She listened to the wails and softened just a little. ‘She sounds like she needs feeding,’ she suggested. ‘You might check the pram for formula, or Housekeeping could provide some. Goodnight, sir...’ And she edged forward.
She didn’t make it two steps. He was in front of her, blocking her way.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he growled. ‘Take her.’
‘I’m the cleaner.’ She wasn’t putting her mop and bucket down for the world.
‘Until I find someone else, you’re here to help. You stay until I get Housekeeping up here. Put that gear down and take her.’
‘Sir, she’s your baby...’
‘She is not my baby.’
It was a deep, guttural snap that shocked them both. It appeared to shock even the baby. There was a moment’s stunned silence while all of them, baby included, took a breath and reloaded.
Max recovered first. Maybe he had the most to lose. He strode to the door, slammed it shut, pushed the pram in front of it and then walked straight to her. He held the bundle out, pressing it against her.
She could hold her mop and bucket with all the dignity she could muster, or she could take this bundle of misery, a crumpled newborn.
Did she have a choice? What’s new? she thought bitterly. When there’s a mess, hand it to Sunny.
She set the cleaning aids aside and took the bundle. As if on cue, it—she—started wailing again.
‘I’ll ring Housekeeping,’ Max snapped. ‘Stop her crying.’
Stop her crying. Right. In what universe did this man live? A universe where babies had off switches?
But as he stalked to the phone she relented and peered into the pram.
There was a bag tucked in the side. She investigated with hope.
A folder with documents. A tin of formula. A couple of bottles. Two diapers.
Okay, this baby’s mother wasn’t completely heartless. Or...she was pretty heartless, but Sunny had coped with worse.
She sighed and headed for the penthouse’s kitchenette. She’d seen Max make himself a hot drink a few minutes ago. Blessedly, he’d overfilled the kettle, so she had boiled water. She balanced baby in one hand, scoop and bottle in the other, made it up, then ran cold water in the sink to immerse the base of the bottle to cool it.
The wailing continued but she could hear Max in the background on the phone. ‘What do you mean, no one? I want a babysitter. Now. Find someone. An outside agency. I don’t care. Just do it.’
A babysitter at ten o’clock, the night before Christmas Eve? Christmas was on a Sunday this year, which meant today was Friday. The whole world—except the likes of hotel cleaners—would have started Christmas holidays today. Celebrations would be almost universal and every babysitting service would be stretched to the limit.
Good luck, she thought drily, but then she looked down into the baby’s face. Phoebe was tiny, her face creased in distress, her rosebud mouth working frantically. How long since she’d been fed?
This little one’s mother had handed her over without a backward glance. This man didn’t want her.
There were echoes of Sunny’s background all over the place here, and she didn’t like it one bit.
She needed to leave.
She could feel sogginess under her hand. And the baby...smelled?
‘Get someone up here. Get me the manager.’ Max was barking into the phone, but she tuned it out. How long since this little one had been changed?
A tentative examination made her shudder. Ugh. She gave up on the thought of a simple change and headed for the bathroom. She stripped off all the baby’s clothes, then used the washbasin to clean her. The wailing was starting to sound exhausted, but the baby had enough strength to flail her legs in objection to the warm water.
But Sunny was an old hand. Washing was brisk and efficient. She had a replacement nappy but no change of clothes. No matter—she was warmed and dry. Sunny wrapped her expertly in one of the hotel’s fluffy towels, carried her back to the living room, checked the bottle, settled down on the settee—had she ever sat on anything so luxurious in her life?—and popped one teat into one desperate mouth.
Then finally the world settled. The silence was almost overwhelming.
Even Sunny was tempted to smile.
Such little things. A clean bottom. A feed. Deal with the basics and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. That had been Sunny’s mantra all her life and it served her still.
But now she had time to think.
Next on her list was getting out of here.
She glanced across at Max, still barking orders into the phone. He looked like a man at the peak of his powers, a business magnate accustomed to ordering minions at will. He was trying to summon minions now.
But there weren’t many Australian minions who’d drop everything at this hour to be at his beck and call.
It’s not my problem, she told herself and turned her attention back to the bundle in her arms.
She was a real newborn. A week old at most, Sunny thought, suddenly remembering Tom. Sunny had been nine years old when Tom was born. She remembered weeks where she couldn’t go to school, where she’d struggled with a colicky newborn, where she’d felt more trapped than she ever wanted to feel again.
But she wasn’t trapped now. This little one had a family and that family wasn’t her. What was she—half-sister to the man on the phone? She even looked like him, Sunny thought. Same dark hair. Same skin tone—she looked as if she’d spent some of her time in utero under a sun lamp.
Did
