Marion Lennox - The Billionaire's Christmas Baby

He hadn’t.

Tentatively he lifted the wailing bundle into his arms. Even the movement seemed to soothe her, and her sobs eased. Did she sense then how close she was to being abandoned?

The bathroom door opened again. Sunny stood there, still rumpled by sleep, but back in her stained uniform, her sensible shoes, her workday gear.

‘Where will you go?’ he asked, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘Home.’

‘Where’s home?’

‘Out west. Because there’s no public transport at four a.m. it’s an hour’s bike ride but that’s none of your business. I have no idea why I’m telling you.’

‘Stay.’

‘In your dreams.’

‘Sunny, I’m sorry,’ he said and he was. Deeply sorry. He looked at her tilted chin, her weary pride, her humiliation, and he felt a shame so deep it threatened to overwhelm him. That she was tired and overworked he had no doubt. Hotel cleaners were a race apart from the likes of him. They were shadows in the background of his world.

This one was suddenly front and centre.

And then he had a thought. A bad one.

‘You know about babies.’ The words were suddenly hard to form. ‘Are you...? Do you...?’

She got it before he could find the words. ‘You mean do I have my own baby strapped to my bike, waiting for me to finish my shift? Or left in a kitchen drawer with a bottle of formula laced with gin?’ She gave a snort of mirthless laughter. ‘Hardly. But I’ve raised four, or maybe I should say I’ve been there for them while they raised themselves. They’re grown up now, almost independent, apart from Tom’s teeth. But that’s my problem and you have your own. Goodnight and good luck.’ She headed for the door.

But he was before her, striding forward with a speed born of desperation. Putting his body between her and the door. But her words were still hanging in the air even as he prevented her leaving.

Four? He thought of how old she was, and how young she must have started, and he thought of a world that was as removed from his as another planet.

And she got that too. She gave a sardonic grin. ‘Yep, I started mothering when I was five, with four babies by the time I was nine. Life got busy for a while, and I admit I even co-slept. Not just with one baby—sometimes all five of us were in the same bed. But, hey, they’re all healthy and your Phoebe’s still alive so maybe I’m not such a failure. Now, if you’d let me leave...’

He didn’t understand but now wasn’t the time to ask questions. ‘Please,’ he said, doing his best to sound humble. ‘Stay.’

‘You can cope.’

‘I probably can,’ he admitted. ‘If you refuse then I’ll pay for a taxi to take you home and to bring you back tomorrow.’ He hesitated. ‘But, to be honest, it’s Phoebe who needs you. She shouldn’t be left with someone so inept.’

She hesitated, obviously torn between sense and pride. It was four in the morning. Even in a taxi it’d take time for her to get home, he thought. She was weary and she had to be back here again in a few hours.

Logic should win, but he could also sense something else, an anger that didn’t stem from what had just happened.

He was replaying things she’d said. ‘How much danger would she have to be in before you showed you care?’ She thought he didn’t care and she was right. He had nothing invested in this baby. Tomorrow he’d see lawyers, come to some arrangement, pay whatever it took to reunite her with her mother.

Except...she looked like him. And this woman was looking at him with judgement.

‘I’ll do it on one condition,’ she said.

‘I’ve already said more chocolates. And I’ll double your pay.’

‘Gran’s got the appetite of a bird. One box is fine, and I’m not taking any more of your money.’

‘Then what?’

‘I’ll stay on condition you change her and feed her now,’ she told him. ‘I’ll watch but you do it.’

‘I need to write the eulogy for my father’s funeral.’ He said it harshly but he couldn’t hide the note of panic. ‘That’s why I’m awake.’

‘Oh, that’s hard,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘I’m sorry about your dad.’ But then her chin tilted again. ‘But your dad’s dead and this little one’s not, and it seems to me that someone’s got to go into bat for her. So you change her and feed her and then you can do what you like. I’ll go back to caring. My way. But it’s that or nothing, Mr Grayland.’

She met his gaze full-on, anger still brimming. She was flushed, indignant, defiant, and suddenly he thought... She’s beautiful.

Which was an entirely inappropriate thing to think and, as if she agreed with him, baby Phoebe opened her mouth and wailed again.

‘Fine,’ he said helplessly. ‘Show me how.’

‘It’d be my pleasure,’ she said and grinned and went to fetch a diaper.

* * *

She could have insisted that he take the baby back to his bedroom to feed her, but Max’s tension was tangible. She could almost reach out and touch it. According to the media, this man was one of the most powerful businessmen in the world, but right now he was simply a guy who’d been thrust a baby he didn’t know what to do with.

And didn’t she know what that felt like?

So she helped prepare the bottle, showed him the skin test for heat and agreed there should be some scientific way—there probably was but who had time to search for a thermometer at four in the morning? She watched as he did the diaper change, blessing herself that she’d asked the hotel shop to send up extras. It took him three tries to get it right without messing with the adhesive tapes.

Then she retreated to her settee and gave herself the luxury of leaning on pillows, while Max sat at the desk by the window and fed his little sister.

When she’d fed her last time it had been a desperate feed, a baby over-tired and over-hungry, relieved beyond measure that here was the milk she needed. She’d sucked with desperation.

This time, though, things had settled. Phoebe was warm and dry, and the bottle was being offered almost as soon as she’d let the world know she needed it. She seemed content to suck lazily, gazing upward at the world, at the man who was holding her.

They hadn’t turned on the main light. Sunny was watching by moonlight, seeing the tension slowly evaporate as Max realised he was doing things right. As Phoebe realised things were okay in her world.

It wouldn’t always be as easy as this, Sunny thought. What did this man have in store for him? Colic? Inexplicable crying jags? Teething? All the complications that went with babies. Would he cope with them?

Of course he wouldn’t. The thought was laughable. He’d been so desperate for help that he’d employed her, a cleaner. He’d employ someone more suitable the moment he could.

Still, she had to cut him some slack. He’d come to Australia for his father’s funeral. All the world knew that. Colin Grayland had been a colossus of the Australian mining scene. His son had taken over the less controversial part of a financial empire that was generations old. He must have kept his head down, because she knew little about him. He’d been an occasional guest in this hotel. There was always a buzz when he visited, but it was mostly among the female staff because a billionaire who looked so gorgeous...well, why wouldn’t there be a buzz? And there was also a buzz because his visits usually coincided with his father storming into the hotel, usually shouting.

Here in Australia, Colin Grayland had seemed to court controversy. He’d ripped into open cut mining, overriding environmental protections, refusing to restore land after it had been sucked of anything of any value. He had such power, such resources, that even legal channels seemed powerless to stop him.