Jackie Braun - Boardroom Baby Surprise

From the other side of the curtain, he heard the man talking softly to his wife. Though Bryan couldn’t hear the actual words, the tone was intimate. He recalled seeing a bouquet of fragrant flowers and a congratulatory helium balloon bobbing toward the ceiling. When Bryan’s wife had given birth, he’d bought out the hospital’s floral shop and had lavished her with gifts, including a diamond pendant necklace and matching earrings.

Morgan’s side of the room was stark. No flowers, no balloons. No man whispering soft words of love and encouragement. No expensive gifts from a proud father. Bryan swallowed. He tried to picture Dill in the role of new dad. He tried to picture his brother being supportive and taking responsibility. But he couldn’t. Even in a situation like this.

What was it Dillon had said upon learning Bryan was to become a father? After offering his congratulations, he’d added, “Better you than me.”

How bitterly ironic.

From the bassinette beside the bed came a faint sound, more like a mewling than a proper cry. Morgan might have been exhausted but her eyes opened immediately at the sound and a smile tugged at her lips.

“I’m here,” she crooned softly as she shifted somewhat awkwardly to sit on the edge of the bed. “Mommy’s here.”

It was then that she noticed Bryan.

He cleared his throat, feeling as if he should apologize for intruding. Instead, he said, “Hello.”

“Hi. I didn’t realize you were here. I must have dozed off for a minute.” She attempted to run her fingers through her hair, only to have them snag in a knotted clump of pale gold. Her cheeks grew pink.

“I won’t stay. If I’d known you were asleep…” He shrugged. “I just stopped in to see the baby and… Do you need anything?”

“No.” Then she shrugged. “Well, the little suitcase I had packed and ready for the hospital would be nice. I have a hairbrush in it, among other things.” Her smile turned wry.

“Where is it? I’ll send someone for it.”

“At my hotel.” When she mentioned the hotel’s name Bryan’s lips must have twisted in distaste, because she said dryly, “Apparently it’s not up to your high standards.”

No, it wasn’t. The place was little more than a flophouse. He kept that opinion to himself, though the idea of her and the baby—of any young, single woman and helpless infant—staying there bothered him tremendously.

“I’ll have Britney bring it by first thing in the morning.”

“Thank you.” When he backed up a step, she said, “Don’t you want a closer look?”

He did. That was why he’d come to her room when good sense had told him to be on his way. Yet he hesitated, oddly more afraid of what he might not see than what he might.

The baby was lying on its back. Bryan remembered from Caden’s infancy that doctors recommended the position to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. When Caden had learned to roll over onto his stomach, Bryan had woken up at all hours of the night to check on him, watching his tiny back rise and fall in the low light of the nursery.

“He has hair under the cap,” Morgan said.

Bryan spied a few dark brown wisps poking out. Puffy eyes, that deep sea-blue ubiquitous to newborns, were wide open, and though the baby probably was merely trying to focus, he seemed to be regarding Bryan. Finally, one side of his tiny mouth crooked up in a fair imitation of a smile.

Dillon .

Bryan felt as if he’d taken a sledgehammer to the solar plexus. He saw his brother in that little face, not in obvious ways, for the baby’s features were too small. But taken in total, they reflected familiarity. Bryan’s heart ached again, this pain bittersweet because he couldn’t be completely sure he was seeing things as they were or as he wished them to be.

That had been the case once before. And how it had cost him to believe and later find out he’d been deceived.

“What will you name him?” he asked stiffly.

“Brice Dillon Stevens.”

He nodded, not surprised that she’d worked his brother’s name in somehow. But he wondered if Morgan had chosen to give the child her surname because she was unmarried or because she knew the baby wasn’t really a Caliborn. Of course, that hadn’t stopped Bryan’s ex-wife. She’d tossed the child’s paternity in his face when their marriage had splintered apart. She’d stayed with Bryan for all the months it took her to convince the oil tycoon he was the biological father.

Bryan’s lips twisted at the memory.

“I suppose you listed my brother as the father on the birth certificate?”

“I did. Is that a problem for you?” Morgan’s voice held an edge that belied her otherwise fragile appearance. She looked so young and vulnerable in that hideous hospital-issue gown that snapped closed at the shoulders. Yet her direct gaze and even more direct query hinted at steel.

He ignored her question. “I’ll be going. You need your rest.” Before he did, though, he removed a business card from his wallet and handed it to her. “If you require anything else, my private number is on the back.”

“Thanks, but I won’t be calling. I’m…” She glanced down at the baby, her expression softening in a way that tugged at him. “ We’re going to be just fine.”

After Bryan’s departure the doubts Morgan had been experiencing for the past several months once again began circling like vultures, picking away at her usual optimism and determination.

We’re going to be just fine .

Were they?

What had she been thinking, packing up and crossing state lines without a firm plan in place? That wasn’t like her. Of course, nothing about her current situation fell within her personal range of normal. What was she going to do for a job, a place to live?

She hadn’t come to Chicago expecting Bryan—er, Dillon—to help out financially, though their child certainly was entitled legally and morally to monetary support. But she had hoped he would offer to pitch in on some expenses, such as the hospital bill. After that, she’d planned to leave up to him how much or how little he wanted to be involved in his son’s life both physically and financially. Morgan wasn’t a charity case. She had a small settlement from her parents’ estate. Unfortunately, the higher cost of living in Chicago was chewing through it more quickly than she’d anticipated.

And now she’d discovered that Dillon not only had lied to her about his identity, but he had been killed in an accident every bit as unforeseeable as the one that had claimed her parents. Gazing at the son they had created together in Aruba, she wasn’t quite sure how to feel. Being angry over his betrayal served no purpose. He was gone. She wanted to mourn the man she had known as Bryan, and she did, in the abstract way one mourns any life that is snatched away too soon. And, of course, she mourned him as her baby’s father. Morgan had been lucky enough to enjoy a close relationship with both of her parents, but she’d been especially tight with her dad. She’d wanted the same for Brice. God knew her son had precious few relatives as it was, with her parents gone.

As for mourning Dillon as someone significant to her, she didn’t. She couldn’t. It simply wasn’t possible since she hadn’t known him well. Indeed, beyond physically, she hadn’t known him at all, she realized again, and experienced another wave of shame. She wasn’t the sort of woman who engaged in a vacation fling, which perhaps explained why she’d gotten pregnant the one and only time she’d been foolish enough to throw caution to the wind. Or maybe subconsciously she had wanted a child, someone to love and nurture and to help fill up the yawning emptiness she’d felt since her parents’ deaths.