Baby Before Business (Silhouette Romance) (6 page)

Sandy-haired, green-eyed Seth Bryant rose from his seat beside Ty’s place at the head of the table. “Scotty’s little girl?”

Ty took a slow breath and caught Madelyn’s gaze. She saw absolutely nothing in his coal-black eyes. Not amusement. Not anger. Damn. He had to give her
something to “spin” or she was going to fall flat on her face.

Finally, he quietly said, “Yes, Seth, that’s Scotty’s daughter. Pete Hauser brought her in Friday afternoon.”

Seth slowly walked toward the baby. When he reached the foot of the table, though, he held back. Still, Madelyn almost expected that. Seth was a quiet, withdrawn man. From what she’d gathered from gossip, Seth had been a real philanderer. A wild card. The Bryant everybody loved. But after losing a contract—which Madelyn now knew was the Florida mansion contract—people said he’d become quiet and subdued.

“She’s cute.”

“Would you like to hold her?” Madelyn prodded.

He pulled back. “I’ve never actually held a baby before.”

“Neither had Ty,” Madeline assured him. “But he took to her like a pro.”

The gazes of the seven remaining department heads shot to Ty, who sighed heavily. “Ms. Gentry, in case you missed it, I’m having a meeting here.”

“Yeah, I know. Executive staff,” Madelyn said as she unbuckled the strap that was looped over Sabrina’s shoulders and Seth quietly made his way back to his seat. “I thought you could hold Sabrina while I brief everyone on the
Wall Street Journal
interview that’s coming up.” She lifted Sabrina out of the seat.

“And exactly why would
you
need to brief them?”

“So, they’re aware of what’s going to happen,” Madelyn said as she handed Sabrina to Ty, all but forcing him to take her. The move got Madelyn’s desired effect, though. When Ty didn’t let Sabrina drop to the floor, and
quite naturally settled her into the crook of his arm, all eight department managers, including Ty’s own brother, gaped at him.

Madelyn turned to face the group, as if nothing were amiss. “I have a reporter from the
Wall Street Journal
coming in three weeks. Chances are he’ll want to interview some of you. Be honest. If he asks to speak with your staff, let him.”

Though Madelyn expected a gasp at that, no one uttered a sound. She was just about certain they were in shock. Not only was Ty Bryant holding a baby, but also they’d just been instructed to let their staff speak to the press. Obviously, both were unheard of here at Bryant Development.

“I want the reporter to have access to anybody he wishes to speak with, if only to show him this company has nothing to hide.”

“Madelyn—” Seth began, but Madelyn interrupted him.

“I’m sorry, Seth, did I misinterpret something when you hired me? Does Bryant Development have something to hide?”

All eyes shifted to Ty. He stood off to Madelyn’s right, holding the baby who was currently banging a rattle against his shoulder. They looked at him. He looked at them. No one said a word.

“Okay, then,” Madelyn said, deliberately ignoring the fact that everybody, even Ty, believed he should be hidden from the
Wall Street Journal
reporter, as she reached to take Sabrina from Ty. “That’s all I needed to tell you. If anybody has any questions for me, I’ll be in my office.”

She walked to the foot of the conference table. Holding Sabrina over the baby seat, she gasped as if she’d forgotten something. “I’m sorry, Ty. I just assumed you would want me to take Sabrina with me to my office. Did you want to keep her here?”

He said only, “No.”

Madelyn set Sabrina in the baby carrier and buckled her in. His answer wasn’t a perfect response but it was good enough. “I’ll see you tonight, then.” She paused on her way out the door. “Oh, unless you’d like to have lunch with the baby?”

This “no” was a little firmer and Madelyn got his message loud and clear that she was pushing things. Whatever. As long as Ty didn’t out-and-out yell, Madelyn knew she was making points with his staff.

That night when Ty returned home, he methodically searched his house for Madelyn. He found neither nanny nor baby, but he did discover a mouthwatering pot roast in the oven. The scent made his stomach growl.

“My parents shopped today and my mother will be cooking dinner every afternoon.”

He spun away from the stove to see Madelyn standing in the doorway. Dressed in denim shorts and a pink T-shirt, she could have been a teenager. Even the baby on her hip didn’t make her look any older. Recognizing that nothing could make Madelyn look old enough for an affair with him should have stifled the immediate surge of attraction Ty felt for her. It didn’t. Instead of her youth and enthusiasm making him feel old and battered, somehow looking at her made him feel younger.

Luckily, he knew better. “I didn’t hire your mother.”

“No, you didn’t. But she’s not helping you. She’s helping me.”

“I’m not paying her.”

“She doesn’t care. She’s helping anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because I bit off more than I can chew and family helps out when trouble strikes.”

“I know what family does. I raised two brothers, remember?”

Madelyn looked at him oddly. “That’s right. You have
two
brothers.”

He sighed. There was that age difference again. She wasn’t even old enough to remember his younger brother Cooper. “Not only have we talked about this before, but I would have thought you would have easily remembered since there are four bedrooms upstairs. One for my parents, and one each for three kids.”

Madelyn gaped at him. “This was your family home?”

“Why does that surprise you?”

Madelyn sat on one of the kitchen chairs as if too shocked to stand, dropping the baby on her lap. “This explains a few things. Like why everybody thinks you’re a scrooge.”

“Keeping my parents’ house makes me a scrooge?”

“You’re a rich guy. You should have a mansion. Instead you live in a house you inherited.” She glanced around, as if taking inventory. “You probably never even remodeled it.”

“It didn’t
need
to be remodeled and I don’t
need
a mansion. This house is good enough.”

“Whatever. But I’ll need to know everything about
your second brother. I must have been too young to have met him when I lived here before.”

Well, thanks for rubbing that in.
“His name is Cooper. He graduated from college and struck out on his own. End of story.”

Madelyn studied him for a few seconds, then she sighed. “If there’s more to it than that, if you had a big fight, if your brother bad-mouthed you, I need to know what happened.”

“My brother did not bad-mouth me. If anything my brother left so he
wouldn’t
bad-mouth me.” He squeezed his eyes shut. Damn. If she didn’t get to him one way, she did another. “Stop poking your nose where it doesn’t belong and do your job.”

“My nose belongs anywhere I sense there’s a problem that’s hurting your reputation. If your brother’s a problem, I need to know.”

“My brother left town with a college education that gave him the opportunity to be as successful as Seth and I are.”

“That’s another thing. Seth is so darned withdrawn and cautious. One public show of support from you would probably turn him into Mr. Personality.”

“He
was
Mr. Personality until he lost that contract I told you about on Saturday. I like him much better withdrawn and cautious. It doesn’t cost me any money.”

He turned and headed for the door. “I’m going back to the Bryant Building.”

“Fine, but you should know that your constant running out on me, avoiding looking for a nanny, makes you look like even more of a scrooge.”

He backpedaled until he was directly in front of her.
“Why do you think I’m going back to the office? So I can make some
private
calls. Some calls that won’t be overheard, dissected, interpreted and spit back at me like ammunition. If nothing else, Ms. Gentry, you’ve shown me a few traits I definitely do not want in the next care-giver I allow in my home.”

T
y raced along the streets of Porter, so angry that he finally understood what the term spitting fire meant. He’d intended to lay down the law with Madelyn about her bringing the baby to the office, about pushing her agendas, about meddling in his business and instead she’d blindsided him. She had not only brought her parents into his home—again—without his knowledge, she’d also turned the tables until he was defending himself to her, not putting her on the defensive.

Unfortunately, he knew he wasn’t at his best because his attraction to her distracted him. Worse, the attraction was the only thing he was just about certain she
wasn’t
using, manipulating or twisting to get him to appear to be something he wasn’t—
nice
—or to do things he didn’t want to do—like hold Sabrina in the middle of a meeting. So he couldn’t even order her to stop. Hell, he’d
tried
getting her to stop giving him those lovesick
puppy looks on Friday night. By kissing her, he’d forced her to see, feel and taste exactly what she was getting into so she would know…

Both Ty’s thoughts and his SUV screeched to a stop.

Well, darn her little hide. She was doing to him what he had done to her. She was forcing him to deal with the baby, to deal with the PR, to deal with his employees, by throwing him into those types of situations. It wasn’t exactly the same as how and why he’d kissed her, but it was damned close. So close he might even have given her the idea!

But she was better at it than he was. She was so good he hadn’t realized what she was doing. Worse, he’d walked right into her trap and behaved exactly as she needed him to behave. As if he were some kind of simpleton.

No, as if he were some kind of ogre. It appeared she had bought into everything his employees had told her in the days he had been out of the office for Scotty’s funeral. But she wasn’t changing the employees’ impression of him. She was changing
him.

He’d be damned.

He squelched the surge of disappointment that she thought he was as mean, as ornery, as unlikable as his employees believed. A personal relationship between them couldn’t happen. And he liked being thought of as ornery. It gave him an edge with the employees. No one questioned any of his orders for fear he would yell. Which actually meant he rarely had to yell.

He also stomped down an unexpected surge of appreciation for both her cleverness and her ability to put her plans into action. Because
he
was the person she was hoodwinking, he couldn’t applaud that.

He sat in the middle of Oak Avenue for only another thirty seconds before the driver of the car behind him honked his horn, indicating Ty should get going.

Yeah, he would get going all right. He would go straight home and put such a crimp in the plan of little Miss Public Relations that she’d never,
ever
try to bulldoze anyone again.

Madelyn was feeding Sabrina rice cereal when Ty returned. “What the heck?” she said, when she heard his SUV pull into the driveway close to the kitchen door.

She almost rose to glance out the window to be sure it was him, but he was in the kitchen before she got off her chair.

His penetrating onyx eyes pinned her and she felt a chill of foreboding run down her spine. She was in trouble. Deep trouble.

“I think you’re going to need to teach me a few things about the baby.”

Fearing a reprimand, or the prospect of being fired again, Madelyn wasn’t expecting that request. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He ran his finger along the bridge of his nose trying to appear casual, but Madelyn knew there was nothing casual about this guy. He did nothing without a reason. That was why she had had to trick him into looking like a good dad and a nice person. He would never choose to be either because both eroded his reputation as a scrooge, bully and tyrant.

“Did you call a nanny service and discover you were going to have to do night duty or something?”

“Nope. Didn’t call yet. Not going to call until I can take care of Sabrina myself.”

Terror skittered through Madelyn as she envisioned herself teaching him—and living here—until Sabrina graduated from college. “Are you kidding me?”

Obviously seeing her fear, he smiled. “No. I simply want to learn how to care for the baby.”

“Great.” Yeah, great. It didn’t make a whit of sense that he’d changed his mind. She knew that undeniably meant he was up to something. She almost swallowed, but refused to show him any weakness. In fact, the best thing to do would be to meet his challenge head-on.

“Why don’t we start with your feeding her the rest of her cereal?”

The baby pounded on the high chair as if signaling her approval.

He shrugged off his jacket. “Okay.”

“You might want to change out of more than your coat.”

“I’m already burning a pair of Armani pants. Another suit won’t make any difference. I need to learn this.”

The determination in his voice again confused Madelyn until she realized
that
was the deal. He’d figured out that the baby always threw him off balance and that using his confusion was how she guided him to do the things that would come naturally to him if he wasn’t so busy being aloof, trying to convince everyone he didn’t have a nice side. And having seen her strategy, he had resolved to take away her advantage.

Well, she’d see about that.

“Feeding a baby is a very simple thing.”

Sabrina contradicted that by screeching and pounding her fist against the high chair tray, almost toppling the bowl.

Ty nodded. “First, I’d probably set the bowl on the
table,” he observed, sounding as if he was approaching this the way he did a business problem and already coming up with better ways to do things.

“You could do that,” Madelyn agreed calmly, not letting him gloat. “But having to turn back to the table to get bites will add time to the process and Sabrina’s not going to like it.”

“Really?”

“When she’s hungry, she wants to eat. So leave the bowl on the tray, but watch it, and her.” Madelyn smiled as if she’d told him something easy, when they both knew that watching Sabrina and the bowl would be far from simple. “Just get a little bite of cereal on the baby spoon and slide it into her mouth.”

With the bowl on the tray, Ty did as instructed and Sabrina eagerly opened her mouth. Madelyn saw the determined expression in his eyes soften. But not with love for the baby. Nope. The expression in his eyes softened with relief. He was beating Madelyn and he was doing it deliberately.

Or so he thought.

“I’m glad you didn’t call about the nanny,” Madelyn said, going back to the strategy that had already worked so nicely for her. Confuse, disorient and conquer. “Because I realized something while you were gone.”

“Really.” He slid another spoonful of cereal into hungry Sabrina’s mouth. This time his eyes sharpened. He’d gone from relief to victory in two spoonfuls.

“Yes. For the next few months the nanny may not mind sleeping in the same room with the baby on the same floor with her employer, but eventually she’ll want more privacy.” She glanced around the kitchen toward
the laundry room, as if thinking through what he could do. “The only way she’ll get real privacy is if you put her quarters downstairs, but that will be cramped. I think you’re going to need to buy a new house.”

“Something bigger,” he ventured.

Well, now, that was too darned agreeable. “Yeah. Bigger.”

“Sure, so that the nanny can have her own quarters.”

Damn it! What was he doing? “Yeah.”

“And while we’re on the subject of houses,” Ty said, spooning another bite into Sabrina’s mouth. “I suppose I hadn’t made myself clear before this, but I don’t wish to have Captain Bunny and the Sarge roaming through my house at will.”

“Captain Bunny and the Sarge?”

“Your parents. In case you haven’t noticed, I like my privacy. I don’t want strangers rooting through my things.”

“My parents don’t root through your things!”

“How do you know? You weren’t here while they were stocking the house with groceries.”

“Are you kidding me?”

He rose, growing angry now. “This is my home.” He began walking to the kitchen doorway where Madelyn stood leaning against the frame. “I have a right to privacy.”

She straightened away from the security of the door and squared her shoulders. “And I have a right to eat!”

“So go shopping yourself!” He took a step closer.

She took a deep breath that made her feel taller, stronger. This was it. Armageddon. She either won this fight or it was over. All of it. She would not be the wishy-washy employee who let him get away with not
raising his own child just to maintain his scrooge image. She would stand up to him and teach him or she would leave. “When? I’m not even sleeping anymore!”

He took the final step that put him directly in front of her and forced her to look up at him. “You should have thought of that before you made the agreement.”

Though her chin was tipped up in an unspoken testimonial to his superior height, she made sure her eyes told him she was conceding
nothing
and was a lot tougher than he thought.

“Ha! You should have considered your schedule before you agreed to ‘do anything I said’ for the baby and for the PR!”

“I’ve held up my end of the deal.” Though she didn’t think it possible he somehow got even closer.

“Not hardly.” She raised the heat in her eyes a notch. “Every time I ask you to do something you have an excuse for why you can’t.”

“Legitimate reasons.”

“Our agreement doesn’t leave room for reasons. You said you would do
anything
I wanted for both the baby and the PR, yet all I get are excuses. You’re the one who’s letting me down.” She paused, her eyes locked with his. “No. You’re letting
the baby
down.”

They stood nose to nose. Their gazes clashing. Both breathing heavily. Both out of steam.

With no more points to be made or defended, Madelyn suddenly noticed how masculine he was when he was out of control with the passion of his conviction. She didn’t want to be attracted to him. He was too old for her and he wasn’t the kind of man she always pictured herself getting involved with. But she couldn’t
deny that standing so close she could virtually feel his power. That strength was as attractive as his dark hair and eyes.

When he pulled his gaze away from hers, she relaxed somewhat, but he didn’t step back as she expected he would. Instead, his gaze took a quick inventory of her body, and when she realized he was as attracted to her as she was to him, heat spiraled through her.

Determined to ignore the sexual electricity sizzling between them, she took the step back and shifted her attention to the fact that she was actually winning a battle with him. He wasn’t arguing anymore because he couldn’t argue. He seemed to finally see that not picking up his end of the responsibilities didn’t hurt her, it hurt the baby.

Trying to get his mind off how soft Madelyn’s skin looked, how plump her lips were and how easy it would be to kiss her again, Ty focused his attention on the fact that she was right. He wasn’t merely Sabrina’s “guardian.” He was her
father.
He had to pay more attention to her.

He was suddenly glad Madelyn was bold enough to stand up to him, but he quickly amended that. She wasn’t just bold enough to stand up to him. She out-and-out fought with him. Like an equal. That realization sent a thunderbolt of arousal through him. He looked at women as competent employees, friends, conquests, agreeable sex partners, but never his equal.

That was why the difference in their ages didn’t deter his libido. Her age didn’t matter because intellectually she was his equal.

He swallowed and watched Madelyn risk a quiet breath. One of them had to take another step back. And quickly.

Sabrina screeched noisily, then pounded her spoon against the high chair tray. Both he and Madelyn glanced over in time to see the baby grab the cereal bowl and heave it across the room. White mush splattered everywhere, including Ty’s back.

Madelyn began to laugh. She laughed so long and hard, tears formed in her eyes. Ty stared at her. She was so different from anybody he’d ever met that he wasn’t sure what to say or do. And not just about their work situation. He had to do something about the chemistry between them. Either stop it or enjoy it. Because he knew they would enjoy it. In fact, he was beginning to believe that if he let her get away without following through on their natural instincts, they might regret it for the rest of their lives.

“I think I need to change my shirt,” he said, stepping back.

“Yeah,” Madelyn said between giggles. “I’ll take care of the baby.”

“Then we need to talk.”

“Uh-huh.”

Ty left the room. He didn’t know what he was going to say. All he knew for sure was that something had to change.

Madelyn turned from the counter when Ty returned to the kitchen ten minutes later. But wearing jeans and a T-shirt, looking relaxed and comfortable, he was incredibly attractive to her again. Worse, she now knew
he found her attractive. He couldn’t deny it because he hadn’t been able to hide it. He couldn’t even bluster his way out of it. Being as close and as passionately angry as he had been, he hadn’t had his usual personal control and she’d seen the way he’d looked at her.

Still, their attraction was secondary to the baby. “I wiped the cereal off everything.”

“So I see,” he said, then glanced at Sabrina. “How do I get her out of the high chair?”

“There are levers on both sides of the tray. You squeeze them and the tray slides off. But don’t take it the whole way off. Just open it far enough that you can pull her out.”

“Okay,” he said, and followed her instructions, creating a space through which he lifted the baby. “Hello, Sabrina,” he said, tickling her chin. She giggled. “You really are an adorable kid.”

Madelyn smiled. “She really is.”

He drew a long breath. “And I understood what you were saying about my caring for her.”

“It isn’t that you have to care for her,” Madelyn said cautiously, not wanting to make him think she was shirking her responsibilities. “You can hire someone to do the menial tasks. But she needs to spend time with you. When you come in the room, you should acknowledge her. When you leave, say goodbye. Kiss her goodnight. Give her ten minutes of playtime. Read her a story.”