Baby Benefits (4 page)

Raina narrowed her gaze. “That’s not—”

“When Dex is in the room.” Her frown deepened and he could see her looking for an out. A bargain more easily met. “Take it or leave it.”

After a moment more of hesitation, she nodded. “It’s a deal.”

Only then did he release her hand. As he slid his hand from hers, he was struck by the delicacy of her bone structure. Such a contrast to the strength of her handshake, as if all the force of her will had been concentrated down into that one simple movement.

She turned and all but pranced from the room, her step lightened in a way he’d never before seen. As if she were overjoyed to be leaving him.

He, on the other hand, still felt the warmth of her palm against his and was struck by the impulse to fist his hand to contain that heat, as if he could hold on to a little bit of her that much longer. Instead he wrapped the hand around Isabella’s chest, held her out to look her over.

He waited for some pang of paternal recognition. Maybe the groundwork for fatherly bonding. Instead, he felt only discomfort. Inadequacy. Incompetence. So he did what he always did when faced with an obstacle. He bluffed.

“Don’t worry, Isabella,” he began, only to hesitate over her name. Isabella sounded so formal for such a squirmy little bundle.

Studying her face, he ran down a list of nicknames. Bella? No, too…girly. Izzie? Out of the question. That’s what Dex called her. Well, crap.

“Don’t worry, kid. She’s not really going to leave. I’ve just bought us two weeks to convince her to stay.”

And he had to convince her to stay. He relied on her too much to let her go. There was no way he’d make it through this without Raina’s help.

And he had a lot in his favor. For starters, he’d seen her expression when she’d held Isabella. The kid was a charmer for sure. She’d win Raina back, even if he couldn’t.

Which meant he had a plan for dealing with only one of the women in his life. As for Kitty, that was another matter entirely. He’d been avoiding her calls ever since he’d returned home to find out the news about Isabella.

He knew postponing the conversation wouldn’t make it any easier. But so far, he had no idea how to break the news to her. He’d been in crisis mode, dealing with Isabella for the past day and a half. A cardinal rule of business was that you first put out the fire most likely to burn down your house.

Of course, now that he had a plan for dealing with Isabella and had convinced Raina to stay on for now, it was time to tell Kitty she was about to become a stepmother.

Almost as if she knew she’d been relegated to the back burner, Isabella scrunched her face up and let out a howl of protest. Unsure of what else to do, Derek sank into his executive leather chair. Holding the screaming child on his lap, he rocked slowly back and forth as exhaustion ate away at his patience.

How could one little infant cause this many problems?

Sometimes, she wondered if she had any brains at all.

“So you didn’t quit?” Raina’s sister Lavender asked from her spot at the kitchen counter where she was tossing a salad.

Raina, sitting at the table, stacked her fists on the tabletop and propped her chin on top of them. Tonight, the scent of French bread warming in the oven and spaghetti sauce simmering on the stovetop wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. “No, I didn’t quit. Not exactly.”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” quipped Kendrick as he strolled through the doorway, nonchalantly dropping his backpack onto the chair beside Raina.

Lavender glared at him as she brushed a strand of light brown hair off her forehead. “Be supportive.”

Kendrick shrugged, swiping a bite of tomato off Lavender’s cutting board as he continued on his way to the living room to where their mother sat, watching her nightly dose of CNN. “Hey, I call ’em like I see ’em.”

Raina lifted her head up just long enough to call, “And don’t leave your backpack in the kitchen.”

Without looking back, he waved a hand as if to say he’d get it later. It didn’t make her feel any better.

“Of course I didn’t really quit. Apparently I have no spine. Even my brother ignores me.”

Lavender chuckled as she scraped the tomatoes into the bowl. “Of course he ignores you. He’s seventeen. He ignores everyone.” Lavender cocked her head to one side, her hazel eyes suddenly serious as she studied Raina. “So?” she prodded gently. “What happened? Why didn’t you quit? Did Darth Vader bully you?”

“Oh, what’s the point in rehashing it all?” Raina stood, ignoring Lavender’s slur against Derek. Cassidy, the youngest of Raina’s three sisters, had nicknamed Derek “Darth Vader” years ago. Because—in Cassidy’s words—he was “tall, dark, and intimidating. And pure evil.” Unfortunately it had stuck.

While it had been amusing at first, her family’s intense dislike of Derek only made her feel awkward now. If her siblings only knew how much he’d done for their family…Well, they’d be embarrassed to say the least. However, if they knew how she really felt about Derek, then they’d just be baffled.

Sidetracking the question, Raina asked, “Don’t you need help with dinner?”

But Lavender held up a hand in protest. “No way. Tomorrow night is your night to do dinner. And I happen to know that Kendrick let you help with last night’s tacos. Besides, I suspect you’re just trying to distract me.” She pointed the chef’s knife at Raina with a mock scowl. “Now ’fess up.”

“It’s not that I didn’t quit, it’s just that it didn’t go exactly as I’d planned.” She struggled to put her feelings into words. When she’d stormed out of his office, she’d felt confident. Sure she’d made the right decision. Won a major victory. But the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she’d been outsmarted.

Lavender made a “keep it coming” gesture, so Raina summed up the agreement she’d made with Derek. As Raina spoke, Lavender’s chopping slowed, then stopped all together as she focused her attention on Raina’s story.

“So after two weeks, he’s supposed to fire you?”

“Yep.”

“Well.” Lavender cocked her head to the side. “That sounds like a good thing. All you have to do is make it through the next two weeks, win this bet you’ve got going with him and walk away with a bundle of money.”

“That’s if I can get Isabella to respond to him,” Raina pointed out, her sense of dread building.

“True. But that shouldn’t be so hard to do.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re the early childhood development major. Me, I passed myself off as some kind of expert on kids.”

“You helped Momma raise four kids. I’d say you are an expert.”

“Did you miss the part where I said Isabella is five months old? Sure, if she was fifteen or even five, maybe I’d be a help. But Momma didn’t get sick until I was nineteen. Before that I was just an ordinary kid with younger brothers and sisters. There’s certainly nothing in my background that makes me an expert on infants.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re great with babies. They love you. And you certainly adore—” Lavender broke off, frowning. “Oh. That’s what you’re worried about.”

“What?” Raina tried to keep her expression blank, but failed miserably.

“You’re worried you’re going to fall in love with this kid of his. That after a couple of weeks of dealing with the charming little tot, you won’t want to quit. You’ll be afraid of leaving her at the mercies of Darth Vader.”

“I—” She started to deny it, but then shrugged. Why bother? “I guess I am.”

Yes, the girl was adorable. And yes, Raina nursed a serious hankering to scoop the imp up in her arms, nuzzle her head, and suck in a big ol’ lungful of baby smell. And of course, the idea of getting attached to Isabella scared her. After all, she’d made a pledge to herself. Kids were not in her immediate future. It was time to put her own needs first for once.

But Isabella was only part of the problem. It was Derek who really had her worried. He was hard enough to resist as it was. Toss in an adorable kiddo and Raina may well be doomed. After all, was there anything sexier than a man with a baby? Look what had happened to Lucy, after all. She’d fallen for the Dex/Isabella combo like a ton of baby formula. Raina, already nine-tenths of the way to hopelessly devoted to Derek, didn’t stand a chance.

Of course, she couldn’t explain that to Lavender. She just wouldn’t get it. Raina had exerted far too much effort over the years convincing her family Derek was a jerk. They saw him as…well, the nickname said it all.

Lavender would never understand how Raina had seen past all that to fall in love with him.

She dropped her head back into her hands. “I should have just quit. If I’d stuck to my original plan, I’d never have to even walk into the office again.”

Let alone see Derek, she added to herself with misery.

“So do it.”

“What?” Raina looked up.

“Go back there tomorrow and quit. For real this time.” Lavender sliced through a carrot with a bloodthirsty flourish. “Go all Donald Trump on him and fire his sorry butt.” She punctuated each of the last four words with an emphatic chop.

Raina tried not to wince. “But the money,” she protested.

“Forget the money.”

“I can’t forget the money. That bonus is the difference between whether I leave Messina Diamonds to look for another job as an executive assistant or go back to culinary school.”

Lavender rolled her eyes, then opened her mouth and snapped it shut again several times in an exaggerated mime of struggling for words.

“What?” Raina asked innocently.

“Don’t you ‘what’ me.” Lavender pointed the tip of the knife in Raina’s direction. “How many times do we have to go over this? You are not allowed to go back to work. You’ve served your time. The next stop for you is culinary school.”

“Which costs a load of money. Which I don’t have. Which means, the next stop for me is gainful employment.”

“You have money, you just don’t want to spend it.”

Raina pressed her lips together. “How do you know—”

“Momma told me, of course. Did you really think she’d keep secret a savings account with that much money in it?”

“That money isn’t mine,” Raina stated firmly.

“Of course it’s yours. You earned it.”

“I earned it for Momma. And you kids.”

“You’ve been providing for Momma and us for nearly a decade now.” Lavender’s tone made it sound like a bad thing. “It’s time to provide for yourself for a change. Besides, we are doing fine. You said so yourself. Momma’s got disability checks, the house is paid for, and we all have scholarships and financial aid.”

Lavender looked so smug, Raina didn’t bother to argue with her. Raina wouldn’t be dipping into the family’s savings to pay her tuition to culinary school. Yes, for the moment, everyone was provided for. But Raina knew all too well that accidents could happen without warning. Her mother’s stroke nine years ago had taught her that lesson.

But there was no point in arguing with Lavender about it. And thankfully, Raina was saved from having to do so by the ringing of her cell phone. Not her personal cell phone, but her always-on, always-had-to-answer-it work cell phone.

She’d developed a strict rule about not talking to Derek during dinner with her family, but otherwise, she was accessible twenty-four hours a day. Since they hadn’t yet sat down at the table, she pulled the phone from her pocket, glancing at the number as she did so. She didn’t recognize it, but was relieved to see the New York area code. The last thing she needed was to talk to Derek right now.

“Raina here.”

“Louraina Huffman?” asked a disdainful woman’s voice.

“Yes.”

“The Louraina Huffman who’s Derek Messina’s assistant?” The voice seemed to imply that maybe some other Raina Huffman had swiped the phone for nefarious purposes.

“Yes,” Raina repeated.

“Well, then, I’ll need you to get a hold of him. I’ve been calling for the past day and a half and haven’t reached him. It’s been most inconvenient.”

Raina nearly chuckled, despite her grim mood. Whoever this lady was, she was clearly put out. Somehow it just lightened her spirits knowing that some pretentious woman in New York was having a hard time with Derek, too.

Keeping her humor to herself, she said in her most professional voice, “If you’ll just leave me your name and number I’ll pass them on to him immediately.”

“This is Kitty.”

She couldn’t place the name, so she asked, “And you are?”

“His fiancée.”

He’d known very few people in his life whose strength of will matched his own. Isabella, apparently, was one of those rare individuals.

Not that fortitude, perseverance and pure mule-headedness were bad qualities in a daughter. He just wished she hadn’t aimed them all at him. Or that she’d do so more quietly.

By nine-thirty, after less than six hours alone with Isabella, he’d given in and called Mrs. Hill to take over. The only thing worse than Mrs. Hill’s cloying sympathy when she showed up at his house was the smug expression on Isabella’s face. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she was gloating.

This minor setback only fueled his determination. She was his daughter. He would make her love him.