Emily McKay - Baby for the Tycoon

The wedding itself went off with all the precision of a well-planned military maneuver. And it was just about as romantic. A small ceremony performed in a drab municipal office in downtown Palo Alto, it was over so quickly that Jonathon felt sure Claire and Matt wished they had stayed in Curaçao instead of making the trip back.

After that first kiss in her office had gotten so out of control, he didn’t even dare cement the ceremony with more than a quick peck. So much for convincing their friends that they were in love. But no one in the office that day seemed surprised, least of all Wendy.

That evening, they swung by Wendy’s apartment to pick up her suitcase and Peyton’s few possessions before heading over to his house. They’d decided to keep her apartment for now. Her lease wasn’t up for another few months, which would give her plenty of time to decide when she wanted to move into his house and what she wanted to keep in storage. When they arrived at his house, they discovered that Claire had made them dinner, and they found it waiting for them in the warming drawer of his kitchen.

He stood beside Wendy in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at the table with a fist clenching his heart. The table had been set with two of the elegant place settings his interior designer had bought seven years ago and which he’d never used. Long, thin tapers sat in the center of the table, a book of matches propped against the candle holder. In between the two chairs sat the new Svan high chair he’d had delivered. A bottle of unopened champagne sat chilling in a bucket opposite the high chair.

Wendy cleared her throat. “Um…” She hitched Peyton up on her hip. “I think I’ll just… urn… unpack a few of the bags first.” Her gaze looked from the wine to him. “I’m not really hungry yet.”

Before he could muster a response, she took the final suitcase from him and made a dash for the door. Probably a wise decision. Neither of them was ready yet for a intimate dinner. Let alone wine.

Three hours later, she still hadn’t made it back down to eat. He’d sat at the table himself, eating in front of his laptop. Finally, he shut his laptop and went in search of Wendy. He found her upstairs in the room he’d set aside as a nursery.

He paused just outside the door. Leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, for a long moment he simply watched her. The room had been painted pale pink. Butterflies fluttered across the walls and bunnies frolicked in the grass painted along the trim. A white crib sat in the corner under a mobile of more butterflies and flowers. Overall, the décor of the room was a little cloying in its sweetness, but the decorator had assured him that it was perfect for the new addition to his life. This evening, he barely noticed the butterflies, but rather focused his attention on the woman sitting in the rocking chair in the corner and the baby she held in her arms.

At some point, Wendy had changed out of the dress and into a pair of jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt. Peyton was asleep in her arms. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back against the headrest of the rocking chair. Only the faint tensing of her calf as she occasionally nudged the chair into movement indicated that she wasn’t asleep too.

He cleared his throat to let her know he was there.

Her head bobbed up. “Oh,” she said, wiggling in the chair to reposition Peyton in her arms without waking her. “How long have you been there?”

“I just walked up.”

She glanced down at the baby in her arms as Peyton stirred but didn’t wake. “I suppose I should put her down,” she whispered. “But I hate to do it. If she wakes up again…”

If the smudges of exhaustion under her eyes were any indication, Peyton wasn’t the easiest of babies. No wonder given the upheaval in her young life.

“If she wakes back up,” he found himself saying, “then I’ll take over and you can get some sleep. You should go eat.”

Wendy shook her head. “I can’t ask you to do that. That’s not why we got married.”

There was almost a hint of accusation in her voice.

“Maybe not,” he hedged. “But we are married now. And you obviously could use the sleep. At this point, I’m more rested than you are. A sleepless night won’t hurt me, but a good night’s sleep could do you a world of good.”

“If she needs a bottle in the night—”

“Then I’ll give it to her.”

Wendy looked skeptical. “The bottles are downstairs. You just—”

“I saw you mixing the formula. I’ve got it.”

“But—”

“Wendy, I’m one of five kids. I had a niece and two nephews before I graduated from high school. Peyton won’t be the first baby I’ve ever fed.”

“Oh.” After a moment of hesitation, she stood and crossed to the crib.

As he’d told her, he knew his way around an infant. It was so obvious to him that she did not. There was a sort of fearful hesitancy to the way she moved. As if she were afraid of breaking Peyton.

She lowered the baby into the crib then stood there for a long moment, her hand resting on Peyton before she moved back a step. She cringed as she raised the side of the bed and the hardware clattered. But Peyton slept on and Wendy slowly backed away.

She paused as she closed the door to unclip the baby monitor from her hip and turn it on, as if Peyton might start crying any second and Wendy would miss it now that she was out of sight. He couldn’t help chuckling when she raised the monitor to her ear to listen more closely.

She shot him an annoyed look. “What?”

“You know you’re only one room away. You could probably hear her cry without the monitor.” When she looked as if she might comment, he reached out and carefully extracted it from her fingers. “Not that you’re going to need this tonight any way.”

“I really don’t mind staying up with her.” “The discussion is over.”

She opened her mouth to respond, then snapped it shut, her lips twisting into a smile. “I guess I know you well enough to recognize that I’m-the-boss-and-what-I-say-goes tone.”

“I have a tone that says all that?”

She snorted her derision. “Yeah. And don’t pretend you don’t know it.” She took a step in the direction of the room at the end of the hall—the guest room she’d claimed for her own—then she paused. “You didn’t have to do this, you know.”

“Wendy, let’s not have another discussion about my motives.”

She took another step toward him, closing the distance between them and lowering her voice. “No. I’m not talking about the wedding. I’m talking about all this.” She nodded her head in the direction of Peyton’s room. “I mean the nursery. The crib. The rocking chair. It’s all—”

“It’s nothing.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Like the twenty percent nothing? Unless you were up all night hand-painting butterflies and daisies last night, I’m guessing you hired an interior decorator to come in and do this. In less than a week. That’s not nothing.”

“Kitty mentioned that all you had was a bassinet.”

She smiled a slow, teasing smile. “And you knew that wasn’t enough. Being such an expert on babies and everything.”

He was struck once again by the idea that this was their wedding night. That if there wasn’t a baby asleep in the next room, he might now be slowly lifting that sweater up over her head. He might be unhooking that hot-pink bra of hers and stripping her naked.

But of course, if there wasn’t a baby asleep in the next room, then there wouldn’t have been a wedding to begin with. Let alone a wedding night.

Suddenly she reached up and cupped his jaw in her hand. Her gaze was soft, her touch gentle. “Thanks for taking such good care of us.”