A Baby In His In-Tray

‘I hope your mother is all right,’ she murmured.

‘I beg your pardon?’

Oops! ‘Oh... I was talking to the baby, but... Her mother must’ve felt in the direst of straits to leave her baby like this.’

And she’d left her baby in the care of Sebastian Tyrell. What did that show?

That she trusted him?

She swallowed. That he was the father?

‘I’d prefer it, Ms Gilmour, if you refrained from enacting a Cheltenham tragedy.’

Her chin shot up. ‘To be perfectly frank with you, sir, I’m not sure it much matters what you’d prefer. I’d have preferred not to have come back from lunch to find an anonymous baby abandoned on my desk. There’s not only a mystery to solve—’ who was the child’s mother ‘—but a couple of serious issues to be dealt with too. I can’t help feeling time is of the essence.’

Don’t lose me my job, Livvy.

She grimaced and waited for him to take her to task for her insolence. He didn’t. Instead there was that darn silence again. She suddenly laughed. ‘You don’t feel that you can reprimand me at the moment because you’re in my debt.’

‘I have no wish to reprimand you. You’re worried, understandably so, and I share your concerns. I will own, however, to a little...surprise over your fieriness.’

She winced. She needed to tread carefully—channel her more level-headed sibling. ‘Babies bring it out in me,’ she offered weakly.

‘I see.’

‘I should go and let you make your travel arrangements.’ She blinked. ‘I mean...you are planning to return immediately, aren’t you?’ She’d simply taken that for granted.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Or perhaps you’d like me to organise your travel arrangements?’ She gave a silent scream. Were they part of her job description? She had no idea.

‘The arrangements are already underway.’

The tap-tapping noises in the background suddenly made sense. She wondered how many devices he had open in front of him besides his phone—his tablet and laptop perhaps? Those strategic silences suddenly took on a different complexion.

A moment later she dismissed that thought. No, she’d bet her life on the fact that Sebastian Tyrell was a master of the strategic pause.

‘I’ll be back in London as soon as I can.’

‘Travel safe, sir.’

‘Wait!’

She wanted away from him—now! Though she couldn’t explain why. ‘Yes?’

‘I’d like you and the baby to move into my house on Regent’s Park.’

Not a chance! ‘I’m sorry, Mr Tyrell, but I’m not comfortable with that. I’ll go back to my—’ she gulped back the word sister’s, covered it with a cough ‘—flat. I know where everything is there.’

‘I—’

‘Please don’t waste time arguing with me.’

‘Very well.’

She winced at the tightness of his voice.

‘You’re going to incur expenses—the baby will need things. Please charge them to my personal account. I insist that I take care of all the expenses.’

‘OK, will do.’ She made a mental note to keep all receipts.

‘I hope to see you very soon, Ms Gilmour.’

And then he was gone. Liv scowled at the receiver, miffed beyond measure that she hadn’t had the chance to hang up first. She dropped the receiver back into its cradle. ‘I can hardly wait.’

* * *

Liv sat bolt upright in bed and grabbed her phone before it could ring again. The clock by the bed read five forty-four a.m. Please don’t have woken the baby! She held her breath but no answering wail met her expectant ears. Thank you, God!

‘What?’ she growled into the phone without the slightest bit of grace. It was too early and she was too tired.

‘Ms Gilmour?’

Oh, God! ‘Mr Tyrell?’

A sigh heaved down the phone. ‘For the last five minutes I’ve been knocking on your door. I understand that it’s early, but I’m starting to worry that I’m disturbing your neighbours.’

‘Don’t you dare wake the baby!’ she whisper-hissed at him. ‘Don’t make another sound on threat of...of something dire!’

She leapt out of bed and shot to the front door of Liz’s flat, reefing it open as quietly as she could. Her finger halted halfway to her lips when she took in the man that stood on the other side. Six feet two inches of solid-muscled man stood there, bristling with square-jawed arrogance and wide-legged impatience. Dark chestnut hair, lighter on the ends, stood up at odd angles as if he’d repeatedly run his hand through it. She had to fight the impulse to reach out and smooth it down.

She swallowed. Liz had never mentioned how handsome Sebastian Tyrell was. Why not? A pulse started up in her throat, making her breath choppy and uneven. Sebastian Tyrell wasn’t merely handsome—the man was hot with a capital H!

‘I know I look a mess,’ he growled. ‘But you could have the manners to pretend to not notice. I’ve come directly from the airport, and it’s taken me more than fifty hours to get here, so what do you expect? And, I might add, you don’t look much better.’

Dear God, she was standing in the open doorway in her pyjamas. They were perfectly respectable. They covered everything adequately. Some would argue more than adequately.

He continued to stare at her. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

She tried to smooth it down. It probably looked like a rat’s nest, though she knew that wasn’t what he referred to. ‘A...a change is as good as a holiday,’ she mumbled.

He looked as if he were going to say something more, but then blinked and shook himself. ‘Are you going to let me in?’

‘You cannot wake the baby.’

* * *

Sebastian took in the martial light in his office manager’s eyes and raised both hands. ‘Understood.’

He’d never seen Ms Gilmour so...undone, if that was the correct term. He could barely discern a trace of his cool, efficient office manager in the woman in front of him. Granted, he’d never knocked on her door at the crack of dawn and dragged her from her bed either.

And then there was her hair!

It took all his strength not to reach out and touch it, to track a strand’s length to see if it contained some kind of magic.

He rolled his shoulders—jet lag.

To be fair, he’d never contemplated Ms Gilmour’s life outside of the office before now either. To be brutally honest, he’d barely considered her at all beyond appreciating her myriad business skills and her efficiency...and feeling guilty about refusing her leave request a fortnight ago.

Damn it all to hell! She’d had no leave left. He’d needed her in the office overseeing things while he was overseas. He wasn’t a tyrant, he was far from unreasonable, but he hadn’t been able to shake off the memory of the desperation that had momentarily threaded through her voice. When the London office number had flashed up on his phone three days ago, he’d thought she’d rung to hand in her notice.

Had her hair been a response to her disappointment at having her leave declined?

He dragged both hands back through his hair. For heaven’s sake, he’d not seen her in...what? Two months? She could’ve been wearing her hair like this the entire time.

He fought back a frown. He’d have sworn she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d ever dye her hair like that. Evidently he’d misjudged her.

But then he had form for misjudging women.

He glanced at her again.

And tried to ease the knots in his shoulders. Her hair looked great—really great. He hoped it’d given her some solace.

He dragged his gaze from her hair to her face. She was staring at his chest as if hypnotised. ‘Ms Gilmour?’

She didn’t move.

‘Ms Gilmour,’ he repeated, a little louder.

She gave a violent start before pressing her finger to her lips. ‘Shh.’

She looked as jet-lagged as he felt. A frown built through him. ‘How much sleep did you get last night?’

She held up two fingers.

He stiffened, but managed to keep his voice low. ‘Two hours?’ No wonder she looked so wrecked. For a crazy moment he had to fight an impulse to pull her into his arms and hug her, tell her to rest. He didn’t, of course. It was a crazy notion. She’d probably slap him. And he’d deserve it. ‘And the night before?’

Two fingers again.

He planted his hands on his hips. ‘And the same the night before that?’

She nodded. ‘Baby Jemima is a creature of the night. A demon. We—as in you and I—are not going to talk as we walk through the living room, because talking wakes her. We’re not even going to look at her, because looking at her wakes her. You’re going to follow me through to the kitchen and you’re going to keep your eyes firmly forward the whole time. Got it?’

‘Got it.’

Unfortunately eyes straight ahead meant his gaze was firmly fixed on her. Hips shouldn’t move with such a provocative sway when encased in such ridiculously baggy garments. But apparently they could...and they did.

A pulse started up deep inside him and spread out until he throbbed with it. He wanted to dismiss it as jet lag, but he knew what it was—desire. And it had no place in his relationship with this woman. None whatsoever.

She gestured for him to take a seat at a small kitchen table, collapsing into the one opposite. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, ‘but I can’t offer you coffee. The coffee machine is too loud. Apparently the kettle is too loud too, so I can’t even offer you instant.’

He was dying for a coffee, aching for it. He now rued his decision to skip it at the airport to make his way here as quickly as he could instead. He wanted to sleep for a week, and yet he’d managed more sleep on the plane than she’d had in three days! ‘I don’t need coffee.’

‘I do.’ The words left her on a whimper. ‘It’s unfortunate on several counts. The primary one being that I don’t function as a halfway decent person in the morning until after a shower and a mug of strong coffee.’

She dropped her head to her folded arms, every line of her etched in exhaustion. An answering exhaustion rose through him. He tried to smother a yawn. ‘How much longer will the baby sleep for?’

She lifted her head to stare blearily at the clock on the wall. ‘Probably another two hours...but it’s one of those toss-a-coin things.’

Another yawn took him off guard. ‘Maybe we should take advantage of that? Follow suit?’

She stared at him. ‘Wow, you must be really tired.’

‘Really tired,’ he agreed. ‘Spent.’ But what he wanted was for her to jump back into bed and sleep until the lines around her eyes eased. ‘Why don’t you go back to bed and I’ll stretch out on your sofa?’

‘Reverse that and you have yourself a deal.’ She shook her head when he went to argue. ‘This is a one-bedroom flat. I can’t offer you a spare bed, and I don’t want to think what Jemima’s reaction will be if the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes is a strange man.’

Ah. Right.

He insisted she take her duvet. He stretched out on top of her covers. He only meant to lie there for a minute—just to help straighten out the kinks in his spine—before checking his emails. While he caught up on his emails he could try and think of a practicable way forward where Jemima was concerned.

What on earth was he going to do with her? He closed his eyes and Ms Gilmour’s autumn-hued hair filled his mind. A glorious fall of hair shaded in horizontal bands from a deep, dark auburn through to gorgeous oranges and finally a pale blonde. Shaded dark to light, from root to tip.

Gorgeous.

CHAPTER TWO

SEBASTIAN WOKE TO the scent of coffee. His nose told him it was seriously good coffee too. He sat up gingerly, stretched... All the kinks were gone. His back didn’t hurt, his shoulders didn’t hurt, his head didn’t hurt.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up feeling so rested!

Obviously a nap was exactly what he’d needed. A couple of hours to—

His jaw dropped when he caught sight of the bedside clock. It was after one-thirty in the afternoon. He’d been asleep for over seven hours?

Dear God! What would Ms Gilmour think? He’d left her holding the baby...again!

He shot out of the bedroom and came to a halt. His office manager turned from pouring out two steaming mugs of coffee to send him a smile that momentarily dazzled him. She looked utterly together. She looked like his efficient office manager again. Except rather than a black pencil skirt and business jacket she wore jeans and a jumper, and that magical autumn hair. And the smile.

‘Come and have a coffee.’

He forced himself forward. He was careful not to look into the living room as he went past, even though he was sure the ‘don’t look at the baby’ embargo had been lifted.

Critical eyes roamed over his face and she gave a satisfied nod. ‘You look much better.’

He collapsed into a seat and pulled a mug of coffee closer. ‘So do you. You managed to get more sleep?’

‘A blissful three hours.’

She poured milk into her coffee. Whenever he visited the London office she drank it black—like him. But...she preferred it with milk? She did know she was free to order milk in for her coffee, didn’t she? Where the Tyrell Foundation was concerned he’d accept the charge of penny pinching, but he could stretch to milk for his office manager’s coffee.

‘You should’ve woken me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we have things to sort out.’

‘People make better decisions when they’re well-rested.’

She looked so perky and chipper he felt at a distinct disadvantage. He leaned across the table towards her. ‘The baby?’ he whispered.

‘Happily engrossed with her baby gym at the moment,’ she answered at a normal tone and volume. ‘She’s an absolute angel during the day. It’s only at night she turns into a demonic creature from the deep.’

How could she sound so cheerful? She’d been sleep-deprived for three whole nights. How could she look so...delectable?

‘Drink your coffee, and then have a shower while I make us some lunch and—’

‘I couldn’t possibly impose on you more than I already have—’

‘You can and you will. You can’t just up and leave with the baby. Besides, Jemima is due for a feed soon and then she’ll go down for a nap. There’s really not much point in trying to do anything before then. There’s a fresh towel for you in the bathroom.’

He supposed she had a point. And he was dying for a shower.

He collected a few things from his suitcase—left by the front door when he’d arrived earlier. On his way past he peeked at the baby. She lay on a quilted rug, batting at the soft toys suspended above her. Her head wobbled around to look at him, the tiny body went rigid and then she let forth with such a piercing wail he had to cover his ears.

Ms Gilmour came racing in from the kitchen. ‘What did you do to her?’

‘Nothing! I... I just looked at her.’

‘And what were you told?’

‘Don’t look at the baby,’ he mumbled, feeling all of two inches tall.

She leant down to sweep the baby up in her arms, cuddling the tiny body against her chest. Her jeans pulled tight around the soft swell of her backside and that damn pounding started up at the centre of him again, sending warm swirls of appreciation and need racing through his bloodstream.

He swallowed when she turned back around to face him.

‘Did the big, bad man scare you, pretty girl? Did he sneak up on you and frighten you?’

He watched in amazement as baby Jemima snuggled into her rescuer, her crying ceasing as if a switch had been flicked. Ms Gilmour then blew a raspberry and the baby gave her a big smile and waved her arms about in evident delight.

‘How...?’ He stared at the baby and then his office manager. ‘How did you do that? You took her from crying to laughing in seconds!’

She blew on her nails and polished them against her shoulder. ‘Just call me Poppins, Mary Poppins.’

She said it in the same tones James Bond always used when introducing himself, Bond, James Bond, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

She hitched the baby a little higher in her arms. ‘Jemima, meet...’ She frowned. ‘What would you like her to call you?’

He had no idea. Did she have to call him anything? He frowned. Hold on, she couldn’t call him anything. She was too young and—

One look at his extraordinary office manager told him that wouldn’t wash. ‘What does she call you?’

‘Auntie...uh... Liz.’

Her gaze slid away, and he understood why. He knew her Christian name was Eliza, but he didn’t want to call her that. He wanted things to remain on as formal a footing as possible.

He let out a long, slow breath. ‘Uncle Sebastian,’ he clipped out.

‘Right. Baby Jemima, meet Uncle Sebastian.’

She said his name impersonally and yet something inside of him stretched and unwound as she uttered it.

He did his best to ignore it.

‘Well, say hello,’ she ordered him. ‘Talk to her.’

He shuffled a step closer.

‘Don’t frown or you’ll make her cry again.’

He smoothed out his face and tried to find a smile. ‘Hello, Jemima, it’s nice to meet you.’ He fell silent. The baby frowned at him. ‘What do I say?’

‘Say something nice. Tell her she’s pretty. Tell her you’ve been on a big plane...recite a poem. It doesn’t matter. She just needs to know you’re friendly.’

A poem? He used to love poetry. Once upon a time. It felt like a hundred years ago now. He pulled in a deep lungful of air. ‘“The Assyrian came down like a wolf on—”’

‘Good God, not Byron!’

Both woman and child swayed away from him.

‘You’ll scar her for life.’

Behind those honey-brown eyes he had a feeling she was laughing at him.

‘Can’t you think of something more...cheerful?’

Cheerful? Inspiration struck. ‘The Jabberwocky!’

He recited the entire poem and both woman and child stared at him as if mesmerised.

‘Give her your finger.’

He did as bidden. Jemima stared at it for a moment or two, swaying in her protector’s arms, before reaching out and clasping it in one tiny fist. Something inside of him felt as if it were falling.

She pulled it closer and then up towards her mouth, but he gently detached himself from her grip. ‘You might want to wait until I’ve washed my hands first. You’ve no idea where these have been.’

Jemima stared at him and then gave a big toothless grin before letting forth with a sound partway between ‘Gah!’ and a gurgle.

He could feel his entire body straighten—his chin came up and his shoulders went back—and he couldn’t help smiling back. ‘She smiled at me. She...she smiled.’

He glanced at his office manager to find her staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. Something arced in the air between them, and colour flooded her cheeks. She shook herself and sent him a smile that didn’t hide the consternation in her eyes. ‘You’ve just been given the official seal of approval.’ She laughed and suddenly seemed more natural again. ‘Hold tight to the memory. You might just need it at two o’clock in the morning, and at three...and four.’

It hit him then that she’d been right. He couldn’t just walk out of here with Jemima. He was going to need help.

Her help?

Something inside him chafed at the idea. He had a feeling it’d be best for him and Ms Gilmour to get back on a professional footing asap. He could hire someone else. He’d have to come up with a cover story for Jemima of course, but...

‘Mr Tyrell?’

But first he had to stop staring at her! ‘I’ll, uh, just go have that shower.’

When he emerged from the shower, he found Jemima asleep and his hostess making sandwiches.

‘Egg and lettuce,’ she said, setting two in front of him.

They ate in silence. She kept glancing across at him and he knew he should initiate the conversation, but he didn’t know where to start.

‘Do you have any idea who her mother might be?’ she finally asked.

‘None whatsoever.’

She pulled in a breath. ‘I know we’re straying into dangerously personal territory, but...can you recall all of the women you’ve been...intimate with in the last twelve to fifteen months?’

He choked on his sandwich. ‘I’m not Jemima’s father!’

One eyebrow kinked upwards. ‘How do you know that for sure?’ Her lips twisted. ‘Contraception isn’t always a hundred per cent effective.’

He knew that, but... Something in her tone caught at him. He frowned. ‘You sound as if you’re speaking from experience.’

Her gaze dropped to her plate. ‘Second-hand experience. A, um...girlfriend.’

‘I’m not Jemima’s father.’

She glanced back up at him. ‘How can you be so certain?’

Because he’d not slept with anyone in two years! But he had no intention of confessing that to this woman. It made him sound priestly, saintly, celibate, and he was none of those things.

‘Have you kept in contact with them all?’

He grabbed the branch she’d unknowingly handed him. ‘Yes.’

She leant back and folded her arms, staring at him in outright disbelief. It rankled.

‘I don’t know what kind of man you think I am, Ms Gilmour, but there haven’t been an endless parade of women in and out of my bed. I know every woman I’ve slept with in the past two years, and I’ve kept in contact with all of them. I can assure you that none of them have become pregnant—not with me and not with anyone else.’

She unfolded her arms, but he didn’t know if she believed him or not. He didn’t know why it should matter so much to him either way. She was his office manager, not his moral guardian.

‘Jemima and I can get DNA tests done if it’ll put your mind at rest,’ he snapped out. ‘A paternity test.’

Luscious lips—lips he’d never realised were luscious until this moment—pursed. ‘Could you, though? You’ve not been made Jemima’s legal guardian. You don’t have the authority to give legal consent for such a test.’

He opened his mouth. He closed it again. She had a point.

‘Which is why,’ she continued, ‘I’m not going to let you leave here with Jemima.’

He blinked. Had she just said...? ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I’m not letting you take the baby.’

He stared at her. ‘You can’t stop me.’

Their gazes locked and clashed. ‘Do you mean to take Jemima by force?’

His hands clenched to fists. Of course he wasn’t going to take the baby by force! Was she threatening him with the police? He pulled in a measured breath. ‘Jemima’s mother entrusted her to my care,’ he reminded her.

‘You’ll have to excuse me for not putting much faith in Jemima’s mother’s reasoning.’ She’d leapt up and now proceeded to pace—back and forth in agitated circles. ‘She left Jemima in my office during my lunch break. What if I’d decided to take a half-day—to skive off because the boss was away?’

His head rocked back. ‘You’d never do such a thing.’

‘I know that and you know that, but she doesn’t know me from Adam. So she couldn’t know that.’

She had a point.

‘She left the baby in your care but you were out of the country. What was she thinking? I mean, you live in Lincolnshire, not in London. Had she put any thought into this at all? Hadn’t she done any research?’

He couldn’t fault her reasoning.

She planted herself back in her chair. ‘Look, this is all beside the point. I wish I wasn’t involved. I don’t want to be involved. But I am, and ethically and morally I can’t just hand that baby over to you and walk away. Not when you aren’t her father. Not when you know nothing about babies.’

He dragged both hands back through his hair. If their positions were reversed he knew he’d feel the same.

‘Why do you want to take her anyway? Why do you feel so responsible for her?’

Finally they came to the crux of the matter. Exhaustion, disgust...and a still searing sense of betrayal momentarily overtook him. He dropped his head to his folded arms. Eventually he lifted it and met her gaze. ‘I suspect Jemima and I are related.’

‘Related?’

He forced himself to maintain eye contact. ‘A niece perhaps.’

‘But...you don’t have any siblings.’