Baby Before Business

Madelyn couldn’t argue that. She knew firsthand that most adults didn’t like him. Why should a baby be any different? Still, she didn’t trust the sudden spurt of honesty. His vulnerable act could very well be a trick to get her sympathy. She cautiously said, “I take it you haven’t had much contact with this child before.”

“No. And even if Seth wasn’t out of town for the weekend, he wouldn’t be any better with her than I am. He’s only cooed at her when Scotty brought her to visit.”

“Great.”

Ty drew a quick breath. “Do you think it’s going to be hard to find a nanny?”

Oh, so that was it. He was making himself look vulnerable because he needed assistance finding a nanny. Well, sorry. He was out of luck.

“I don’t know. I lived in Atlanta for two of the past three years. Any contacts I made there are too far away.” Madelyn snuggled the baby closer and Sabrina’s sucking slowed, an indication that she was drifting off to sleep. “So I’m afraid I’m not much help.”

“Actually, you look like lots of help.”

Their eyes met and Madelyn read Ty Bryant’s intentions as clearly as if he had spoken the words. He didn’t want assistance finding a nanny. He wanted her to be the nanny!

Though careful not to jar the baby, she bounced away from his desk. “Oh, no. No. No. No. I am not a nanny.”

“You might not be a nanny, but you’re certainly better with a baby than I am. And Seth’s already investigated you. Nobody gets the kind of authorization you got to interview staff and look at our five-year plan unless Seth has human resources run background checks. So you’re cleared.”

“No.”

“I’m not asking you to take the job permanently,” Ty angrily retorted as if she were the one being unreasonable. “I only need you for a few days, maybe a week. Just until I have time to properly interview and investigate a few candidates.”

“It will take more than a week to interview and investigate candidates!” Madelyn gaped at him. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t!” Madelyn emphatically disagreed as she leaned against the desk again to finish feeding Sabrina. “Babies get up in the middle of the night! I’d have to stay at your house!”

“I’d pay you well….”

“It’s not a question of money!”

“Okay, then. How about this? I won’t simply rehire you to do the PR job, I’ll do absolutely everything you want me to do to prepare for the Wall Street Journal interview.”

That stopped her. And she knew he’d done it on purpose. A sharp negotiator, he’d let her get out all of her objections before he went in for the kill and offered the only things she wanted. The job and his cooperation. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. Do this favor for me and I will do whatever you feel needs doing to make myself look nicer to the reporter,” he said, back to sounding like the in-control executive who had fired her, and Madelyn’s business instincts shot to red alert. Sure, he made it appear that they were on even terms, but this was the kind of guy who always kept the upper hand. There was a catch here somewhere.

So handsome he could have posed for GQ, Ty Bryant strolled closer and didn’t stop until he was mere inches in front of Madelyn and Sabrina. “Can I take her?”

Madelyn nodded and eased the nearly sleeping baby into his arms. He nestled the little girl against his chest as she sleepily suckled her bottle, but he didn’t move away from Madelyn.

Holding her gaze with his hypnotic brown eyes, he said, “I have something you want. A job. You have something I want. The ability to care for a baby. I’m offering you a simple deal. Take it or leave it.”

Feeling mesmerized by his magnetic gaze, Madelyn blinked, but it didn’t help. His nearness had caused her heart rate to triple. Her breathing had become feathery and light. She desperately wanted to swallow, but couldn’t because she knew he would see and take it as a sign of weakness.

Forcing herself to think his proposition through, she tried to come up with a downside and knew there wasn’t one. He might believe he could bully her out of his agreement once he had her commitment, but that wasn’t true. His inability to care for Sabrina gave Madelyn a weapon that she wouldn’t hesitate to use. Until he hired a nanny, any time he refused to do anything she asked, she would simply leave him alone with the child that he clearly couldn’t care for. Then he would either adhere to the terms of their deal, or be miserable. Of course, once he hired a nanny that leverage would be gone, but by then her advance work for the Wall Street Journal reporter would be done.

She still didn’t trust him.

“Even give away thirty thousand dollars worth of playground equipment and deliver a sappy speech?”

He grimaced but said, “If you honest to God think I need to do that, I will do it.”

For all practical intents and purposes, she had a deal. But she couldn’t force her mouth to form the words of acceptance. She’d seen his real temperament and demeanor when he fired her. She also remembered all the complaints his employees had made about him. There was a lot of damage to be repaired here. Though confident in her own abilities, she recognized that unless she could figure out a very solid way to get Ty Bryant to look, sound and behave like a totally different guy before the Wall Street Journal reporter arrived, she was going to fail. Because, the truth was, he could do every darned thing she said and still come across as an ogre.

Or, more realistically, Madelyn thought, he would come across as a powerful, distanced executive so wealthy and clueless about the real world he was heartless.

And if an employee got that opinion into the Wall Street Journal article, it would be all over.

The bottle slipped out of Sabrina’s mouth, a sign that she was asleep and Ty set it on the desk, passing within a millimeter of Madelyn’s shoulder as he did so.

Madelyn suppressed a shiver, as the room grew unbearably hot. What the hell was happening to her?

“Excuse me, Mr. Bryant?”

At the sound of Neil Ringler’s voice, Madelyn and Ty looked at the mailroom employee, who was at Ty’s door.

“What is it, Neil?” he asked quietly, obviously not wanting to awaken the sleeping baby.

“I’m sorry, but Joni’s not here.” Neil very cautiously stepped in the room, virtually shaking in his shoes. “And you got this package from a special courier. I…I was just about to leave when it arrived. But I stayed…” He gulped. “You know, so you’d get it. But I can’t sign for it. I’m not on that level yet.”

“Let Ms. Gentry sign for it.”

Again, Ty’s voice was quiet and the previously shaking mailroom employee not only gave Ty a baffled look, he also relaxed a bit.

“Here,” Neil said, handing the fat envelope to Madelyn along with the delivery log to be signed. As Madelyn put her signature on the appropriate line, Neil faced Ty. “Whose baby?” he whispered.

Ty said, “Shhh!” indicating Neil should lower his voice even more, then very quietly added, “Mine. Sabrina was the daughter of my cousin who was killed. I got custody today and I don’t want her to wake up, so grab that log and leave.”

Even though Ty’s command was straightforward, with his voice softened, it didn’t come across harshly, and Neil grinned.

“Okay,” he stage-whispered, then snatched the clipboard and left the room.

Madelyn stared at Ty.

“Did you see what you just did?”

Ty faced her. “Don’t lecture me on yelling at my employees.”

“You didn’t yell. You…” She stopped her explanation because if she came right out and told Ty that the soft voice he used while holding the baby made his demand more palatable, he would tell her that was liberal elitist crap. But his quiet tone had changed the entire dynamic of his exchange with Neil.

She took a quick breath as an idea began to form. She couldn’t have Ty hold a baby until all his employees saw what Neil saw. But as Ty cared for Sabrina over the next few weeks while he looked for a nanny, she probably could teach him to speak more softly. She might even be able to get him to laugh once or twice. Time alone with him and a baby had endless possibilities for inching him toward lightening up.

And any changes Ty made wouldn’t be questioned. Neil would quickly spread the news that Ty had taken in his deceased cousin’s baby, and before long every employee in the building would ascribe kindness to their scrooge boss, which they hadn’t before. More than that, though, they would ultimately believe that the baby was responsible for any change in Ty’s behavior, not the upcoming article.

It was perfect.

“I’ll do it.”

Ty glanced over and whispered, “What?”

“I’ll help you with the baby on the condition that you really do every darned thing I say both with her and for your PR.”

Ty smiled victoriously, but Madelyn sternly said, “I mean it. You have to really promise to do what I say. The first time you tell me no, I leave. And you’ll be alone with this baby.”

“Deal,” Ty said, then extended his free hand to shake hers.

Madelyn grasped it and a lightning bolt shot through her and warning bells went off in her head. She had just agreed to spend at least a week or more living with a guy she not only admitted to herself was gorgeous, but with whom she was having all kinds of weird physical reactions.

She stopped that thought because it was ridiculous. The man was a mean-spirited dictator and she was a smart professional woman. Smart women didn’t get involved with grouchy self-absorbed men.

“Deal,” she said, shaking once as she caught his gaze.

Big mistake. When she met his sexy dark eyes, the zing of attraction exploded through her again. Desperate to distract herself, she glanced at the baby he held, but when she did, she realized what was happening and she almost laughed.

All along she’d noticed Ty was gorgeous, but she hadn’t felt an attraction to him until he picked up the baby. The same thing that would ultimately make him attractive to his employees was making him attractive to her now: the baby.

Reaching to pull Sabrina from his arms, she said, “Let me take her.”

“No, I’m fine with her,” Ty argued.

But Madelyn shook her head. “Until we both adjust to this situation, I’m holding the baby when we’re alone.”

Chapter Two

Madelyn carried Sabrina, and Ty lugged her car seat and diaper bags to his black SUV, which was parked beside the private entrance to the Bryant Building—the entrance that prevented him from having to go through the lobby and interact with a boatload of employees on his way to his office in the morning.

After storing the diaper bags in the rear compartment, he tried to install the car seat. But when he couldn’t immediately get all the buckles and snaps aligned, he stepped out of the way, took the baby from Madelyn and let her connect it.

He wasn’t going to be an idiot about this. Raising Sabrina might be a high priority, but doing menial tasks involved in her upbringing weren’t. That was why he had hired the woman beside him.

With the seat installed and the baby contentedly cooing as she pounded on the padded seat guard in front of her, Ty drove Madelyn to her parents’ home to retrieve the clothes and accessories she would need for the weekend.

He stole a peek at the woman he’d coerced into helping him. Her straight red hair glistened in the late-afternoon sun. Her smooth pink skin gave her the look of a fresh-faced, all-American girl. For the first time, something very important struck Ty. Madelyn was young. He’d already guessed her age at around twenty-five. At most she had three years of experience in her chosen field. Yet, he’d agreed to let her splash his name all through the papers and get him out in the community for a love fest with people who should already be kissing his behind for providing them with jobs. That side of the agreement wasn’t exactly a good deal for him.

The other end of the bargain wasn’ t a total prize either. He might be getting care for Sabrina, but a stranger—no, an employee, someone who could take bits of his personal life into the office—would be living in his home.

Man, he hadn’t really thought this through.

They parked on the street in front of the huge Victorian-style house where Madelyn’s parents lived. White vinyl siding and modern green shutters had replaced the original exterior treatment of the dwelling that he suspected was built in the 1940s. But the actual shape of the structure hadn’t been altered so it managed to retain all of its charm. Flower gardens encircled the front porch. The manicured lawn spoke of a great deal of tender loving care.

If nothing else, Madelyn and her family were neat. Point one in her favor.

Madelyn opened the SUV door and jumped out. “I’ll be right back.”

Ty had assumed he would wait in the car with Sabrina while Madelyn got her things. But when a series of short bursts erupted from the baby as if she couldn’t decide whether or not to cry because Madelyn was gone, Ty punched open his door and leaped out of the SUV. With a potential storm in Sabrina’s whimpers of discontent, he didn’t have to debate his next move. He quickly pulled the baby out of the little plaid car seat, then scurried to catch Madelyn on the sidewalk.

She stopped and gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret. “Why don’t you and the baby wait for me in the car?”

“No way. You’re not leaving me with two feet of person that cries when it wants something and can’t control its bladder.”

Madelyn rolled her eyes and turned away from him, heading to the porch again. “You’re going to make a terrific dad.”

“Actually, I did make a pretty good dad for my brothers. I think that’s why Scotty chose me as the one to be guardian—”

Ty quit talking when he realized he was on the verge of telling a woman he hardly knew some incredibly personal information about himself. But before Madelyn could demand he continue, a sixtysomething man rounded the corner of the house. His crew cut was gray. So was the five o’clock shadow on his chin and jaw. He was also short. But beneath his T-shirt were broad shoulders and a flat stomach.

“W…ho’s that?”

“My dad.”

Dad?

Oh great! Ty had been on his own for so long he forgot other people had parents. And this guy was a piece of work. He looked like a marine who hadn’t yet gotten the message that he was retired. Someone who, if provoked, didn’t yell or scream or argue, he punched.

Ty realized another bad thing about his arrangement with his PR gal. Porter’s most successful businessman, avowed bachelor and reputed scrooge, had coerced this G.I. dad’s obviously young, probably innocent—if only in her father’s eyes—daughter into living with him. For money.

Great.

“Hey, little Miss Maddy! Who have you got there?”

Ty stole a peek at the reddening face of his temporary nanny. Not only was her dad not going to like their arrangement, but also Ty was just about certain little Miss Maddy probably already knew that. “Little Miss Maddy?”

“Just shut up.” Madelyn mumbled to Ty before she faced her dad. “Ty, this is my dad, Ron Gentry. Dad, this is Ty Bryant.”

“I know who Mr. Bryant is. Everybody in town knows Mr. Bryant.” He walked over and extended his hand. “The question is, why is he here?”

Oh, just here to get some things for your daughter so she can live with me for a while.

Silencing the voice in his head as he balanced Sabrina on one arm, Ty shook hands with Ron Gentry. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.” Miss Maddy’s dad eyed Ty speculatively. “You here for dinner? Because Maddy’s mom had some big church thing this afternoon. Supper’s not going to be for a while.”

Before Ty could answer, Madelyn did. “That’s okay, Dad. We’re not here for dinner. Ty just got custody of this baby—”

“Cute little thing,” her dad interrupted, glancing at Sabrina, but his gaze quickly jumped back to Ty because he was definitely more interested in Ty than the baby.

Once again Madelyn came to the rescue. “Yes, she is cute. Her name’s Sabrina. But Ty doesn’t have a nanny, so I’m going to help him care for the baby this weekend.”

Score another point for Miss Maddy. She wasn’t one to let anybody intimidate her. Not even her dad.

Liking her direct approach, Ty met Ron’s gaze, as Ron said, “All weekend?”

“Maybe longer,” Madelyn said, while Ty continued to hold Ron’s gaze, taking his cue from Madelyn to face this head-on. “I’ve helped with Arlene and Jeff’s kids. I can certainly care for one baby.”

Good one! Ty broke his stare-down with Ron to bestow a look of respect on the big guy’s daughter. She had deliberately misinterpreted her dad’s concern to steer him off track. Point three. And confirmation that Ty hadn’t misjudged her. She could handle this. She could probably handle his PR, too. Even though just thinking about having to go out in public and make nice with a bunch of people who hated him made Ty want to sigh with disgust, at least he knew Madelyn could do the job.

Ron sounded like he was growling when he said, “I wasn’t talking about the baby. I was—”

Worried about his daughter sleeping with the town tyrant, Ty thought, just barely holding back a grimace. But Madelyn didn’t let her dad go there.

“You know what, Dad? We’ll discuss this later. Right now, I’ve got to get some things from my room.”

With that she turned and jogged up the steps to the porch. Ty took one look at her dad and decided he wasn’t hanging around. Explaining this situation was Madelyn’s job. And he did mean job. He had hired her to work for him, not…not…

An odd feeling tightened his chest when he tried to think of Madelyn and himself together, and he couldn’t form the words or the images in his mind. Madelyn was younger than he was. Way too young for him to even entertain a casual fling. She was as safe with him as Sabrina was.

Madelyn didn’t feel a qualm of conscience about leaving Ty with her dad. Though she’d staved off her father’s questions long enough that she would have time to gather her things, Ty should have been the one doing the talking. After all, this was his plan. Let him justify it to her dad.

But when she turned to grab a few T-shirts from a drawer, Ty Bryant was right behind her. She gasped and clutched her chest. “What!”

“Your dad thinks we’re going to sleep together tonight.”

She sighed. “Don’t worry. If I tell him we won’t, he’ll believe me.”

“You’re not my type,” Ty continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Too young.” She saw him look around at the wedding ring quilt on her bed, her white Priscilla tie-back curtains. “And too nice.”

“What? You only date nasty women?”

“Sophisticates,” Ty corrected.

Madelyn tossed two pair of shorts in her duffel bag. Right. She knew that. Just as she knew it was wrong to be attracted to him because holding a baby did not change a man’s personality, she also knew that the CEO of Bryant Development would have absolutely no interest in her. But that was okay. She didn’t want him to be interested in her.

So why the hell did having him in her bedroom make her pulse jump?

Three reasons immediately popped into Madelyn’s head. First, with his shiny black hair and obsidian eyes, the man was absolutely delicious-looking. Second, holding the baby softened the hard edge of his personality. And, third, he was two feet away from her underwear drawer. All he had to do was look down to see her collection of lacy panties. Any one of those accounted for why her pulse was jumping. But the third was the best bet.

“Do you want to wait for me in the car?”

“No. I’m fine,” Ty assured her as if his comfort were the only thing to be considered.

“I’m not. I have to get a toothbrush, underwear and girlie things most guys don’t want to see.” She drew a long-suffering breath. “Could you just leave?”

For a second it appeared that he would tell her it didn’t bother him to see her undies. Not because he wanted a peek at her panties, but because he was trying to prove that sophistication of his. Luckily, he thought the better of it.

He glanced at Sabrina who was happily occupied with a rattle toy, and apparently decided it was safe to be alone with her for a few minutes. “I’ll see you in the car.”

“Wonderful,” Madelyn said, not meaning one syllable of the word.

She packed quickly, and scurried down the steps, but when she rounded the corner to rush to the front door she ran into her mom. A flour-covered apron covered Penney Gentry’s cropped jeans and T-shirt. A streak of flour decorated her graying brown hair.

Yet another great. Her dad thought she was moving in with the man who controlled the town and he wasn’t happy. But he wasn’t a match with Madelyn in a battle of wits because there were certain things he wouldn’t talk about in mixed company. Sex being the big one. Which meant he had called her mom home from baking pies for the upcoming church social to talk some sense into his daughter.

Another magic moment in the scrapbook of her life.

“You’re spending the weekend with a man?”

“In Atlanta, I could have spent hundreds of weekends with men and you wouldn’t have had a clue. But you knew I didn’t because you trusted me. Don’t spaz on me now, Mom.”

“I trusted you because we taught you better.”

“So, if you trusted me not to lie to you about Atlanta, that’s got to mean I’m not lying now. I really am spending the weekend with Ty Bryant to help him with his baby.”

Her mother smiled, making her green eyes twinkle. “You’re bad.”

“No, I’m good. And if it makes you feel any better, Mr. Bryant assured me he’s not interested. I’m too nice for him.”

Preoccupied with brushing the flour out of her hair, Penney absently said, “He only dates nasty women?”

“I asked him the very same question.” She kissed her mom’s cheek. “Go back to church and finish the pies. I’ll be home Monday or Tuesday night. I promised I would stay until he found a nanny, but I figured out in the car on the way over that he can probably hire someone from a reputable agency temporarily. We may not be able to get someone over a weekend, but Monday or Tuesday isn’t unrealistic. As soon as we get to his house I’ll have him call a service.”

“Okay,” her mom said with a smile. “I’ll handle your dad.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

When Madelyn came running down the walk, duffel bag over her shoulder, overnight case bobbing at her side and her face bright with the emotion of her parental confrontations, a weird sensation enveloped Ty. The way the scene was set, they could have been eloping.

He kicked that thought right out of his mind. But it ran back in and wouldn’t budge. And he knew why. Madelyn Gentry was a very sexy, very attractive woman, and though he might be discriminating he wasn’t dead. He found her as attractive as any man would find her. And now that he’d seen three rows of neatly folded pink, red and black panties, he could form those pictures and images that wouldn’t initially appear in his brain and she wasn’t as safe with him as he’d thought.

So he reminded himself that he wasn’t interested. First, she was too darned young for him. But, second, most women who pursued him only wanted his money. Madelyn, with dreams of establishing her own business, would be no exception. In fact, now that he thought about it, her financial situation was a lot like his former fiancée Anita’s had been when he met her. Wrestling with a failing business, Anita had impressed him as being tough and determined, so he’d happily lent her money….

He groaned, his hands forming fists on the steering wheel. That situation had ended abysmally. Anita hadn’t merely made him a laughingstock by taking him to the cleaners financially. She’d cheated on him the whole time they dated. Worse, she’d also cost Ty a brother. When Cooper discovered Anita was cheating, he’d warned Ty, but Ty had accused Cooper of using the information to manipulate him. By the time the truth came out that Anita was the one manipulating him and Cooper had been right about her cheating, Cooper was long gone. He’d packed his bags and moved to parts unknown and they hadn’t seen him since.