The Baby Arrangement (10 page)

“Do you see any other baby here?” Derek snapped with impatience.

“Oh, yeah.  Right.”  Brian knelt down in front of the baby and smiled and made some goofy faces before standing up and facing Derek and Kayleigh.  “So you’re sure she’s mine?”

Kayleigh felt ill.  This moron didn’t deserve Emery.  Even the thought of him touching the baby, let alone raising her made her want to scream. 

“Paternity tests prove that she’s a Sloan and the woman who attacked Kayleigh said that she was yours.”  Derek walked across the room and found the sketch that Kayleigh had done of the woman in question.  He handed it to his brother.  “Does she look familiar to you?”

“Yeah, that’s Melissa.  We dated briefly about a year ago. 
Great in bed, crazy as hell once she’s out of it.”

“Charming,” Kayleigh muttered, as she went to take dinner off of the stove.

“Something smells good,” Brian said, coming up to stand behind Kayleigh as he peered over her shoulder.  “Looks good, too.”

Derek wanted to pull his brother away from Kayleigh and tell him that he’s not allowed to go near her.  But he couldn’t.  This whole scene wasn’t going to go well and it was important for him to keep a clear head.

Kayleigh shrugged Brian away from her and began to prepare their plates.  Without a word, she made up three plates and placed them on the table.  It was awkward to say the least.  There were at least a dozen questions racing through her mind.  Was Brian really back for good?  Was he going to take Emery home?  Did he even know how to take care of a baby?  Was Derek going to allow this to happen?

They sat down and it was as if she wasn’t even there.  The brothers conversed with one another, seemingly unaware of her presence.

“Can you get in touch with this Melissa person?” Derek asked.

“I’m going to have to.  The kid is hers.”

Derek tensed and had to fight off the urge to scream.  “She’s your child, too, and her name is Emery.”

“What kind of name is that?” Bri
an asked.  “Is that even a girl’s name?  Are you sure she’s a girl?”

“Yes, Bri
an.  For the three weeks that I’ve been caring for her, I’ve made sure to take note of the fact that she’s a girl.”

Bri
an shrugged.   “Look, all I’m saying is that this is not my responsibility.  I didn’t have any idea that Melissa was pregnant; she never contacted me and now I’m just supposed to…what?  Be a dad?”

“Yes,” Derek snapped, his patience quickly coming to an end.  “That is exactly what you’re supposed to do!”  Next to him, Kayleigh rose to comfort Emery.  Derek’s
loud tone had startled the her and she was starting to fuss.  “In case you haven’t noticed, that’s what I had to do.  Emery was dropped off at the damn office and I had to step up and take care of her.  She’s your daughter; you need to do what’s right!”

“Yeah, okay, from where I’m sitting, Bro, you didn’t do all that much.  You hired yourself a hot nanny,” he said as he leered at Kayleigh, “and played house.  You probably didn’t do a whole hell of a lot to take care of the kid; you had your playmate here handle it.”

Derek nearly knocked the table over as he rose.  “First of all, Kayleigh isn’t my playmate; she came here and helped to take care of
your
daughter because you couldn’t be found!  Instead of making crude comments, maybe you should be thanking her for sacrificing her time to help you out.”

Bri
an looked at Kayleigh and then Derek and back to her.  “I’m sure it was a real hardship to leave your boring job at Sloan’s to come and sit in a mansion and play with a baby.  And my brother.  Thanks.”

Derek saw red.  He yanked his brother up out of his seat.  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded. 

Brian shook him off and took a step back.  “What’s wrong with me?  You’re standing here telling me what to do, what to say, how to act and I’m tired of it!  I had to cut my vacation short…”

“You were already gone a week longer than you originally said!” Derek yelled and then cursed when Emery started to cry.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kayleigh leave the room to take the baby up to the nursery.  “Vacation time is over; it’s time for you to get your head on straight and take care of your responsibilities.”

His brother shook his head.  “I didn’t ask for this responsibility and I don’t want it.”

“What are you saying?” Derek asked with a deadly calm that he didn’t feel.

“I don’t want a kid, Derek.  I enjoy my freedom; I like to travel.  There’s no room in my life for a kid, let alone a baby.”

“You ca
n’t just walk away from her, Brian.  She’s your daughter.”

He shrugged.  “Melissa just walked away.  Why can’t I?”

Derek couldn’t believe his ears.  Why had he never realized just how selfish his brother was?  When had he changed so much?  Unfortunately, he knew the answer to that question.  While Derek had been raised and groomed to take over the company, Brian had been indulged and looked over.  And this was the end-product; a grown man who didn’t have a connection to anything or anyone but himself. 

“Don’t do this,” Derek pleaded.  “Don’t make a rash decision.  Take her home and bond with her.  I didn’t think I’d be able to handle it and I didn’t want to.  Hell, if you had seen me that first day you’d see that I reacted exactly like you are.  But I changed.
You can’t just abandon her, Brian.  She’s family.  She’s your daughter.”

Bryan looked from his brother to the now empty infant swing.  “You and I both know that I can’t do it alone. 
And if we’re being honest, I don’t particularly want to.  If I decide to do this, I’m going to need someone to help me.  Can Kayleigh come with us to make the transition easier?  Clearly she likes the kid and the kid knows her.  It would be a great help.”

Kayleigh stood at the foot of the stairs in the shadows and held her breath.  Surely Derek wouldn’t just hand her off to his brother like this?  Even if it was for Emery’s sake!
  The sound of her own breathing was the only thing she heard for several long moments.  “That’s Kayleigh’s decision,” Derek said lowly right before Kayleigh burst into the room.

“You can’t be serious?” she yelled at Derek.  “You cannot stand here and honestly tell me that you think he should take Emery out of this house!  He doesn’t want her!  He doesn’t even know how to take care of her!”

Everything that she was saying was right, but Derek knew that he had to be firm and do what was morally right.  “Emery is Brian’s daughter, Kayleigh.  He just needs time to get used to her, just like I had.  I didn’t settle in with her immediately; you know that.”

“But you at least wanted to try,” she reminded him.  “You didn’t immediately throw her out or ask someone to take her away.  You sacrificed and made sure that she was taken care of.  He’s not going to do that!” she cried.

“Um…I’m right here,” Brian said.

“Shut up,” Derek snapped and turned his attention back to Kayleigh.  “Yes, I did what I had to do, but that’s who I am.  I’m responsible and I make sure that I do everything that I can to keep my life on track.  I hired you so that I didn’t have to do anything.  You made sure that Emery was safe and taken care of.  I just footed the bill.”

His words were cold and callous and she had no idea where they had come from.  “Why are you doing this?” she asked sadly.  “Where is this coming from?”

Her words and the disappointment in her voice were nearly his undoing.  “I’m stating the facts, Kayleigh.  I needed to take care of a situation so that I could keep doing what I had to do for the business.  You
made it easy for me to do that.”  The look of shock on her face was killing him.  Didn’t she know that he had to do this?  That he had to physically and emotionally detach himself from the situation otherwise he would fall apart?

It wasn’t fair that his brother constantly got to be carefree, have no responsibilities and then got rewarded for his bad behavior while Derek worked night and day to make a success of
himself.  It killed him that Brian would get to come home, waltz in and take Emery away.  He didn’t deserve her.  But what choice did Derek have?  Biologically, Emery belonged to his brother and while he would always have a connection with her, he’d have to learn to deal with the role of uncle.

If Bri
an kept her.

Kayleigh’s blue eyes filled with tears.  “Don’t let him take her, Derek.  Please.”  She clutched his shirt in an attempt to get him to snap out of whatever was going through his mind and make him see how he was desperately wrong.

Although it pained him to do it, Derek wrapped his hands around Kayleigh’s wrists and pried her hands from his shirt and put her away from him.  “You’ll need to explain to Brian about Emery’s schedule and you can help him find a nanny or maybe you can help him during the transition,” he said coolly.

In that moment, Kayleigh felt all of the blood drain from her face.  “Go to hell,” she said before leaving the room and going up the stairs to her former room.  She was packed within minutes and although part of her was appalled that neither Sloan brother came to her aid, she was relieved to make it out the door without having to look at either one of them.

When the front door closed, Brian sat back down at the table and looked at his brother.  “Good job, Bro.  Now what the hell am I supposed to do?”

It didn’t take long for Kayleigh to realize that she had made a colossal error in judgment.  The man that she thought Derek Sloan to be, the man that she had fallen in love with, hadn’t existed.  She always knew he was ruthless in business when he went after what he wanted, she just didn’t realized that he played by the same rules in his personal life.

Lesson learned.

It took her a couple of days before she was able to go back to work at the office and it took her less than a day to realize that she couldn’t stay.  Derek had told her that she had talent and Kayleigh had to believe that if she put an effort into a job search, that she’d be able to find something as a designer.  Besides, seeing Derek every day, being this close to him and not being able to talk to him or touch him was more torture than she was willing to endure.

To say that her supervisor was shocked was an understatement.  If she suspected that Kayleigh’s sudden resignation had anything to do with her time away from the office, she said nothing.  “We’re going to miss you,” she had said and Kayleigh knew that she was going to miss all of her co-workers, as well.  It was just time to move on. 

The original plan had been to give at least a two-week notice, but after the first time that she saw Derek from a distance, Kayleigh knew she wouldn’t survive that long.  It may not have been the most professional move on her part, but the one-week advance was all she could do.  The extra money she had made while caring for Emery would go a long way in keeping her covered until she found a new job.  Luckily, being that she only had herself to take care of, she also had a decent savings account to keep her going just in case the job search went on for longer than she hoped.

“I still can’t believe you’re leaving,” Carol said later that day at lunch.  “I mean, you were gone for three weeks, living with the boss no less, and then you come back and quit.”  She gasped.  “Oh, my gosh!  Is that why you’re leaving?  Is Derek as big of a jerk at home as he is at work?”

It would have been easy to lie, but Kayleigh had a feeling she wouldn’t sound believable.  “He’s not a jerk.  I just realized that this is not my dream job.”

“This is nobody’s dream job,” Carol said dryly.  “It’s a paycheck.”

Kayleigh shrugged.  “I’m tired of just getting a paycheck.  I need to move on and do something that gives me a sense of accomplishment.”

“Do you know what you’re going to do?”  Kayleigh told her about her designs and her plan to seek out a firm that would be interested in them.  “Why not apply here?  You and I both know this place could use a bit of new blood and some inspiration in the design department.  You’ve gotten to know the boss pretty well, obviously, why not ask him for a chance?”

Because it would be emotional suicide
.  “It’s just time to move on,” she said instead.  They ate their lunch in silence.  “I’m really going to miss you.”

“It’s not like we can never hang out together again.  I just hope you don’t forget me when you’re a big, famous designer.”

Kayleigh laughed.  “Of course I won’t.”

****

With the last of her personal items in the box, Kayleigh looked around her cubicle.  She had spent five years in this space and it seemed weird to see it look so bare.  She had barely gotten any work done today; there had been cake and everyone took her to lunch and most of the time was spent organizing her files and passing them on to the people who would now be handling her customers.

The department looked a lot like the Super Target had several weeks ago.  There were flowers and balloons everywhere in celebration of Valentine’s Day.  While most people were excited that it fell on a Friday this year, Kayleigh would have been perfectly happy to not have to spend the day surrounded by everyone’s stories of their big plans for the evening.

Her big plans consisted of ordering Chinese takeout and watching anything that didn’t involve love.

Maybe she’d rent a horror movie.