Regarding The Tycoon's Toddler...

She scrambled out of bed, padded barefoot across the floor to the bathroom, and fumbled for the light switch by the door. The illumination from an old-fashioned tulip fixture over a pedestal sink and mirror made her blink at first. It exposed the claw-footed tub, the old-fashioned shower stall and the tank-topped toilet. And it exposed her.

She saw herself in the mirror, and gripped the sides of the sink. Her cap of blond hair was mussed around a decidedly pale face. The only color she had was from her eyes, a deep amber hue with smudges under them. Quickly, she turned on cold water, splashed her face with it, and was unnerved that her hands were shaking.

This was stupid. She had that dream so often, it was in some ways like an old friend to her. But she never got used to the end. And now that was changing. She was certain she’d caught a glimpse of someone. She shook her head, then grabbed a white towel and pressed it to her face.

She wasn’t six years old anymore, locking herself in a closet because that was the only place she felt safe. And she wasn’t a teenager anymore, dreaming of a knight in shining armor rescuing her and whisking her away with him. She was an adult who was making her own life, doing her own rescuing by working hard, getting an education and trying to make a difference in the world.

She’d fought so long to find the stability she now had. She had a good life. She loved her job, and being alone was okay. It was fine. It was what she wanted. She tossed the towel to one side and went back into the bedroom area of the loft, but instead of going back to bed, she crossed to an old-fashioned desk by the far windows. She snapped on the lamp on the scarred wooden surface, sank down in the padded office chair and raked both hands through her short hair.

She wasn’t going to sleep again tonight, so she’d get something done. The first thing she saw was the request forms for funding. She reached for the yellow sheets of paper, found a pen, then started to fill in the fourth form she’d completed in the past month. The other three forms asking for more money for programs in the day care center at LynTech had all brought rejections from the new powers-that-be—the last one just hours old. But she wasn’t giving up.

She methodically filled out all the spaces again, almost knowing by heart what to put in each place. Mr. Lewis had loved the program. He’d brought her to LynTech to build it and fine-tune it, and he’d been behind her a hundred percent. But he was retired now, and the company had been bartered off to the highest bidder.

The head man, a person called Zane Holden, didn’t love anything but money. He didn’t care about anything but the bottom line, and the word was that a lot of jobs and programs were going to be eliminated. She hesitated, then, on a line that said, Reasons for Request, she printed, The well-being of the children of the employees of LynTech Corporation.

Well-being? She could have put safety, happiness, security and helping them not have horrible dreams. So many reasons. She sat back. “To keep the boogeyman away,” she whispered. But a man like Zane Holden wouldn’t know about boogeymen, or children who lived with the fear of being alone. No, he wouldn’t understand that. Not many people did.

And improved work performance for the parents, she added, knowing she was trying to appeal to the only thing Holden seemed to care about. Then she scrawled, L. Atherton, Project Director on the bottom and dated it.

Number four. Maybe that would be the charm. She put the papers in her folder, set them by her purse, then went back across the space, avoiding the bed and heading for the bathroom again. A hot shower, a book to read. She could get through the night. Then, first thing in the morning, she was going to submit the request again. But this time she was going to do it in person. No more company mail and waiting days to find out.

She stripped off her sleep shirt, turned on the shower and stepped under the hot water. As she turned, the light from the bathroom seemed to stream into the shower stall, cutting through the shadows, like in the dream. She shook her head, then lifted her face to the spray and closed her eyes.

She needed to concentrate on life, and what she had to do. As the water streamed around her, she went over and over what she was going to say to Zane Holden when she finally met with him. The rumor was that he didn’t have a heart, but she didn’t buy into that. He just didn’t understand.

If she said the right thing, if she put things in the right way, she knew that he’d understand the importance of what she was doing. She’d talk until he saw her point of view. And after all, it was for the children. Even a heartless man had to care about the children.

Chapter Two

Wednesday

Lindsey found out it was easier said than done to get a face-to-face appointment with Zane Holden. She persevered through frustrating phone calls to his office, and being told he was “unavailable.” But she refused to take no for an answer. Stubbornness. That had always been one of her saving qualities. A quality that had helped her survive everything she’d gone through. What she had, she’d fought for—and the funding for the center was something she’d fight for.

Finally, she got some satisfaction when Zane Holden’s secretary capitulated slightly with “I’ll see if there’s any way to work you in.”

Lindsey tasted a degree of victory when the woman came back on the line. “Mr. Holden can see you for a brief meeting tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

A brief meeting? She’d take anything she could get. “Thank you. I’ll be there,” she said, hung up the phone in her office at the center and let out a cheer. “Yes!” she yelled and raised both hands, curling them into fists over her head.

“Shhhh, keep it down.”

She turned and found Amy Blake, her coordinator, at the open door of the small office. The tiny woman, dressed in jeans and a pink sweater, her long dark hair pulled back from a fine-featured face in a single braid, had her arms full of stuffed animals.

“Oh, sorry. I thought you were gone,” Lindsey said.

“Taylor’s still in the nap room, and I’m letting her sleep while I pick up a bit. What’s going on?” She came farther into the room as a smile grew on her face. “Come on, tell me. That sounded like a victory yell. We’ve got funding? We can get a new van? Start the Mommy and Me program?”

“No, we don’t have any of that—at least, not yet. But I have a meeting with Mr. Zane Holden, head of LynTech, tomorrow at nine in the morning.”

“That’s great,” Amy said, but the smile wasn’t as big now. Lindsey knew that Amy had more to lose than she did if the center had to make drastic cuts. She barely made enough now to support herself and her daughter. But being employed here was the only way Amy could be with her tiny daughter and still work.

“At least I can talk to the man face-to-face instead of through notes. It took me forever to convince his secretary, ‘the human iceberg,’ that I needed to see him in person.” Her sense of victory was starting to fade under nervous anticipation of the meeting. “I’ve got prep to do before the meeting.”

“You know everything inside and out.”

“I’d better,” she sighed as she smoothed the brown slacks she was wearing with a beige silk shirt. She looked around her cluttered office. Boxes and bare board shelves didn’t make it look very professional, but it was usable. Organization was not her strong suit, but she had to be completely in control for her meeting. “I need to go over the figures to make them look better. Maybe take away a few little things to make him think I’m compromising. But I’ll get the most important things, believe me. I’ll try to get you more money, too.”

“If you can do that, it would be terrific.”

Lindsey couldn’t spot her clipboard with her list of what they needed, then remembered she’d had it out in the play area. “I’ll give it my best shot,” she said as she moved past Amy and into the hallway to head for the main part of the center. She stepped into the space with clouds painted on the pale blue ceilings, walls alive with murals depicting various fairy tales, and dividers that looked like rows of giant crayons.

It was quiet now, but for ten hours a day the center was alive with children who desperately needed the care, children whose working parents knew that their children were close by and well taken care of, and children who weren’t coming home to empty houses and hiding in closets just to feel safe.

She spotted her clipboard on one of the tiny mushroom tables near the napping area on the far side of the room. “What to cut,” she whispered as she crossed to pick it up. Then she sank down on one of the mushroom-shaped stools by the flower petal tables in the story area. It was an awkward place to sit with her leggy five-foot seven-inch frame. But the only adult chair in the playroom was a rocking chair filled with children’s toys.

Amy was there, talking quickly in a low voice. “Do you think he’ll go for it? He’s rejected three attempts.”

She stared at the lists she’d made. It would be hard to cross off anything, but she could start with a few of the extras. The new storybooks. The new sleeping pads. They could make do for now. But they did need the stove for the kitchen area, and they needed a better van for transporting school-age kids to the center so they could wait here for their parents to get off work.

“I’m going to get everything I can,” she said, “even if the meeting is going to be ‘very brief.”’

“If anyone can talk Mr. Holden into giving us the funding, it’s you. Look what you did with Mr. Lewis. He didn’t even know about day care centers until you met him and convinced him to start this place.”

“He was anxious to make things better for his employees, not just worried about how much profit he could make. I just wish he were still here, instead of running all over Europe chasing that daughter of his.” She grimaced up at Amy. “Last I heard, he was in France with her celebrating her third engagement in three years and no marriages. Now, that has to be some sort of record.”

Amy shook her head. “I heard she’d gone through tons of colleges, too, and got kicked out of most of them. She’s running her parents a merry chase.”

“And I think she’s part of the reason he retired and sold out to the Holden group.” Lindsey exhaled. “Tell me, what’s the point in getting a corporation like this, then cutting it up into little pieces and selling the pieces off to the highest bidder?”

“Money, Lindsey. It’s the money. It’s called doing business for a profit.”

Lindsey wrapped her arms around herself in a hug, rubbing the flats of her hands on her upper arms. “I don’t care what it is, as long as it doesn’t ruin this program.” She looked at the other woman, as dark and tiny as she was leggy and blond, her face tight with concern. “I won’t let anyone destroy this program.”

“They’ve already started the layoffs. You might not have a choice.”

Lindsey hadn’t had a choice about not having parents, or being in foster homes, or being alone and scared, but she’d had a choice in making a life for herself when she was old enough to be on her own. And she had a choice now.

“No, I’ve got a choice. I can fight or I can give up. I’m not giving up. I’m not going to let Zane Holden ignore us any longer. For better or worse, he’ll have to deal with me in person.”

“Isn’t that like trying to reason with the Big Bad Wolf? All he knows is killing and eating.” Amy smiled. “I don’t mean he’s a killer, but you know what I mean. He’s ruthless.”

“Do you think he has kids?”

“Do people like that breed?”

Lindsey laughed at that, and it felt good to find humor in something at that moment. “Forced sterilization is against the law,” she said. “But, God help his kids. If they don’t perform up to expectations, he probably has them downsized.”

A tiny voice came from the other room: “Mommy?” Amy turned and called out, “Taylor, Mommy’s out here, in the playroom.” She looked back at Lindsey. “I need to get her, then head on home. How about you?”

“I have to face the Big Bad Wolf, and I’m not going to end up as his dinner. So, I have to have a good battle plan in place. I think I’ll be here for a while.”

“Don’t stay too late. You’ve looked tired all day.” She frowned at her. “Are you sleeping okay?”

Lindsey shrugged away the dream that disrupted her nights. “I don’t sleep well at the best of times, but I know what we need around here. I’ll get everything I can for the kids.”

“I know you will. If anyone’ll fight for the kids, you will. It’s a shame you don’t have any.”

Lindsey shrugged that off, too. “Some have kids, some help kids, some do both. I think I’m meant to help.” She pushed aside the idea of her own kids. She didn’t even have the prerequisite—someone she loved enough to want to be with forever. A child deserved parents that wanted to be parents, not parents forced to be parents. “Tomorrow morning at nine, Zane Holden had better be ready for me.”

“Well, word is his co-C.E.O. runs interference for him. You’d better watch out for him. His name’s Terrel. I don’t know his first name, but he sounds as if he’s built like a linebacker. You know the kind—no neck, huge?”

Lindsey stood, caught a glimpse of herself in an acorn-shaped mirror. She really should wear a suit tomorrow, something very businesslike. Something Zane Holden would take seriously. There was no way he’d take her seriously looking like this, in casual clothes, with fine blond hair that insisted on curling at the worst moments, no makeup and freckles. Freckles definitely didn’t engender confidence or fear.

“Okay, if I have to, I’ll go through Terrel, but Mr. Holden is going to listen to me.”

“Mommy?”

Lindsey looked around at a tiny little girl in a rumpled pink pinafore, standing in the arched doorway to the napping room. Taylor looked just like her mother—a two-year-old version with wispy dark hair, dark eyes heavy from her nap, and clutching an oversize white teddy bear that had seen better days.

She ran over to Amy, who scooped her up and hugged her. “I’m sorry, honey. I was talking. We’re going home now.”

“And I’m going to get to work,” Lindsey said, brushing the child’s silky hair with her hand. “See you both tomorrow.”

Amy looked over the child in her arms at Lindsey. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just cross your fingers,” Lindsey said. “And hope that the Big Bad Wolf is all bark and no bite.”

“We’ll go out the back after I get my things in the kitchen,” Amy said. “Good luck.”

Lindsey watched Amy head into the back area, and, moments later, heard the back exit click open, then shut. In the silence, she took the clipboard back to her office, and, as she passed a mural of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf on the way, she stopped.

She and Amy had painted it, and the Big Bad Wolf was looking a bit worn and not so threatening, with chips in the color at his legs, and scuff marks where tricycle handles had brushed against him over and over again. The poor old thing looked pretty vulnerable to her.

She tapped the wolf on its painted snout just above his toothy snarl. “You won’t know what hit you when I get through with you,” she said. And hoped she was right.

Thursday

ZANE SAT ALONE in his office, the drapes still pulled to shut out the glare of the morning sun. In the dusky light with the blue flicker of the computer screen to his right, he stared into the shadows…thinking. He did his best thinking alone in the morning, before the full blast of the day hit him. He swiveled slowly back and forth, and admitted he did most things in his life alone. He always had.

Suzanne had known that and complained about it. Now her child was cluttering up things, making him trip over logical thinking and rational reasoning. If there were two things he valued in his line of work, they were ration and logic. Lead with the head, he’d always thought, and shove emotions out of the way.

He turned away from the stack of papers and computer, stood and crossed to open the drapes. But before he could pull back the fabric, there was a flash of light behind him.

“Hey, Zane,” Matt said. “I thought you’d be at things early.”

He turned without opening the curtains toward the big man who, once again, was dressed all in black, from a turtleneck sweater to slacks and boots. “I’ve been here since six. I was just going to call you to work out a time as soon as possible for us to meet with Sol Alberts’s people.” He undid the buttons at the cuffs of his gray dress shirt and slowly rolled the sleeves up as he talked. “I have a good feeling about Alberts’s group. A real good feeling.”

“Okay, let’s do it. Tomorrow. I’ll make time.”

“Great. Now, what’s up with you?”

He came over to the desk. “I was just going to update you on the nanny situation.”

Matt didn’t look pleased as he dropped down in one of the two chairs by the desk. “I thought you said it was under control,” Zane said.

“That turned out to be a bit of an overstatement. Rita’s on it, doing interviews, but it appears that none of the nannies that have been sent out so far from the agency is right for this situation.”

He sat forward, elbows on the desk. “How can a nanny that’s trained to be a nanny not be right?” Zane didn’t have the patience for this right now. “What about that woman who showed up yesterday afternoon—the one I saw talking to Rita in the hallway by your office with that silly hat and sensible shoes? She looked like a real Mary Poppins type.”

“More like Attila the Hun, according to Rita.” Matt leaned forward. “Listen, I don’t know one end of a kid from another, but Rita’s got three children. She knows what she’s doing. That’s why I asked her to take care of this for you. And she says that none of the applicants so far is acceptable.”

“You trust her judgment?”

“Implicitly.”

Zane exhaled as he sank back in his chair. Strong fingers raked though his slightly long, brown hair, and his gray-blue eyes narrowed. “Then, let her do her job. We have until Monday. How hard can it be to find a glorified babysitter? I had a dozen nannies when I was a kid—and a nanny’s a nanny. My mother never had any trouble finding one.”

“According to Rita, the first one was a ditz, another one thought that painting a child’s face blue and dancing in circles would free his spirit. Another older lady wasn’t up to the stress of a two-year-old. One was acting like a drill sergeant.”

“Then came Attila the Hun?”

“She was about number five, I think.”

Zane clasped his hands behind his neck, lacing his fingers together and staring hard at the shadowy face of his friend. “How are you with kids?”

Matt smiled immediately. “I told you, I don’t know one end from the other. I never go near the little people. I like the way they look from a distance, but I don’t like the way they act. Besides, I’m an attorney turned co-C.E.O.—at least, I was last time I looked.”

“No chance of making an addendum to your job description?”

“None. Rita’s got some interviews today, so she’ll probably hit upon someone who she thinks is right for the job. I just wanted to tell you this isn’t easy and it’s eating up a lot of time.”

“Yeah, I know. And we don’t have extra time right now. Not with the Alberts group showing interest.”

“That’s my point.”

“Well, when Rita meets the kid’s flight on Monday morning, there has to be a nanny at the penthouse—a wonderful, intelligent, caring nanny who bears no resemblance to Attila the Hun.”

Matt grinned at him. “This is crazy.”

“Tell me about it.”

The phone rang, and Zane reached for it. “Holden.”

“Ron Simmons here. Have you got a minute?”

“Sure, hold on,” he said, then hit the speaker button. “Okay, I’m here. Matthew Terrel’s in the office, too.”

“Good. I need input on the figures you sent over. Is there any chance you can come by for half an hour, no more?”

Zane looked at Matt, who shook his head. Zane sighed, then pointed to himself. Matt nodded. “Sure, your office?”

“Yes, over on Grammercy. I’ll see if I can get someone from Alberts over, too.”

“Great, see you as soon as I can get there.”

He hung up, then sat back. “The first nibble on our offer.”

Matt stood. “Let me know what happens,” he said, then headed for the door. But before he could leave, he turned. “Zane, it’s sunny out. Open the curtains.”

“I’m leaving, anyway. Meet me back here after lunch, and we’ll talk?”

“Sure, your office or mine?”

“If the nanny candidates are meeting with Rita at your place, come on up here. We’ll have more privacy.”

“Okay, see you then,” Matt said, and left.

Zane rolled his sleeves down, buttoned the cuffs, then reached for his jacket and briefcase. He headed out of the office. As he passed the reception area, he stopped long enough to lay his briefcase on the desk and to talk to his secretary. “Cancel appointments for the next two hours and reschedule anything important.” He slipped on his jacket as he spoke. “Route any calls that you need to, to Mr. Terrel. Just hold down the fort,” he said as he checked his inside pocket for his gold pen and cell phone.

He smoothed his vest, then picked up his briefcase, but before he could head back into the office to take his private elevator down, she stopped him. “Mr. Holden, all the elevators are down, even yours. One of the maintenance men just came in to say they’d be shut down for an hour.”

“Oh, great.” He headed for the outside door and the stairwell beyond the useless elevators. At least it was all down for the twenty flights.

Thursday

THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY of her life, and it had been messed up for her before it even got going. First, the dream came again, taking away her sleep. Then when Lindsey had finally gotten back to sleep, she’d almost slept through the alarm. She’d been so preoccupied with the paperwork to present during her meeting with Zane Holden, she’d forgotten the only suit she owned was stained from finger paint and still at the dry cleaners. She’d missed her bus to work and had had to call a taxi—and the final blow had been the elevators.

The future of Just For Kids was in her hands, and she was in the stairwell of the building trying to get from the sixth floor to the twentieth floor in five minutes. She hurried up, the envelope with her printout in one hand, her purse in the other. She prayed Mr. Holden would cut her some slack if she was a few minutes late.

It was probably his doing that the elevators were down. “A servicing problem,” the maintenance man had told her when she’d stepped out of the day care center to head up to the corporate offices.

“Service problem, my eye,” she muttered. It was Zane Holden’s cuts—him and his “lean and mean” program to make the company more viable.

She’d agonized over her lists far into the night. She hoped she’d done them right. That they wouldn’t be so much that they’d put him off, but that they would be strong enough for her to get what the center needed. An echoing click of her heels rang with each step on the metal stair treads as she passed the landing for the fifteenth floor. Five more floors. A bit more time to go over in her mind what she was going to say to Zane Holden, if she had any breath left when she got there.

Thank goodness she was used to the stairs. Every day since she’d hired on as director of the day care program, she’d taken the stairs for the exercise. But not because of broken elevators—at least, not until today.

“Damn it,” she muttered, annoyed at this edge of frustration that was becoming an almost permanent thing since the company had changed hands. The man and his people had come into the company and upset everything, including all her plans for the kids.

She went over again what to say. “Hello, Mr. Holden. I want your money.” That brought a slight smile to her face, a welcome reprieve from the ever-present tension. “Just give me a blank check. Trust me, I’ll make good use of it.” That sounded good. A blank check. She smiled again as she turned right, stepped onto the next landing. Then, as she turned to start up the next flight of stairs, she realized she wasn’t alone in the stairwell. At the same time, she ran directly into someone coming down.