Excuse Me? Whose Baby?: Excuse Me? Whose Baby? / Follow That Baby!

Dex was about to ask who the third place setting was for when Rocky helped himself to a plate and got into line first. Obviously, he was in the habit of dining with Jim.

“What about Kip and Grace?” she asked, falling into place behind him.

“Kip’s too shy to eat in company.” Jim stood close behind her. Dex could feel his warmth radiating against her bottom, and recalled that that had been one of the positions they’d experimented with during their night together. “Grace prefers canned beans and fruit to Rocky’s cooking, or so she claims.”

“Perverse woman,” grumbled the butler as he piled potatoes alongside his steak. “When she wasn’t barking orders at the troops, she used to be quiet and polite. I thought that was her real personality, and it suited me fine. I didn’t know she was depressed.”

“It’s lucky Jim came along,” Dex said. “She must have felt miserable.”

“I wish she was still depressed,” Rocky grumbled. “She didn’t give me so much trouble.”

Jim sat at the head of the table, with Rocky and Dex on either side. As the meal passed in general conversation, she was intrigued to hear that Jim’s stock had shot through the roof, thanks to some new computer chip.

What was the man going to do with even more money? Buy a few new cars, build another mansion, plan the most fabulous wedding of the decade?

She didn’t envy his bride. Dex hated pomp and ceremony. When she got married, she wanted a quiet service with friends and family.

What was she thinking? Of course she envied his bride. Not because Dex wanted to marry Jim, but because she wished she were the type of woman who could.

Being this close to him was agony. She kept wanting to touch his closely shaved cheeks and rumple his sun-streaked hair.

And she kept remembering how much she’d wanted to make love to him on a thick, soft carpet piled with cushions. She could think of so many creative positions, but her carpet was too short and scratchy.

He’d suggested they go to his house and mentioned that he had the ideal carpet in his bedroom. Under no circumstances, she told herself now, would she ever enter that bedroom.

“Looks like Annie’s ready for bed,” Jim said.

Dex gave a little jump. “Excuse me?”

“The baby’s yawning,” said Rocky. “I can take her upstairs.”

“No, thank you.” Dex wanted to enjoy every minute of the scant time she had with her daughter.

“We’ll take care of her,” Jim told the butler. “Go relax.”

“I am relaxed.” He eyed the child wistfully. “My youngest sister has a baby not much older than Annie. She should sleep on her back, you know, without a pillow.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

After he left, Dex said, “You mentioned that Kip is lonely. I think Rocky is, too.”

“He’d like to have a family of his own,” Jim said. “He got the idea, when he lost his leg, that women wouldn’t be interested in him. I can’t talk him into going to a singles mixer or a dating service. He’s sure he’d be a complete failure.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dex said.

“I think so, too.” Jim scooped up his daughter from the playpen and lifted her to his shoulder. The movement was surprisingly natural, considering that he’d had little experience with babies until this afternoon.

He was a born father, Dex thought with a twinge of guilt as she followed the pair out of the dining room and up a central curving staircase. But Annie needed a mother, too. A real mother who would love her, not merely tolerate her.

Dex needed to know more about Jim’s almost-fiancée. She supposed she could ask him some discreet questions, but it hurt too much to think about the woman.

At the top of the stairs, they emerged into a central court around which opened a number of doors. Dex felt as if she were in a hotel.

Jim headed for the door next to Dex’s. Rocky had pointed it out earlier as Annie’s room, but she hadn’t gone in.

Now she followed the millionaire into an airy chamber with pale yellow flowered wallpaper, canary-and-tan stripes around the upper moldings and a lacy canopy bed. A crib, which must have been delivered that afternoon, stood against the near wall, across from a rocking chair.

At the far end of the room, Dex could see the twilit sky through glass doors. Beyond them lay a rounded balcony edged by a wrought-iron railing.

“This looks as if it had been deliberately decorated for a little girl,” she said.

“It was.” Jim laid Annie on a changing table. “I’ve always wanted children. Now, how do you work this diaper thing?”

Dex showed him. Every time their hands touched, she had to fight down rebellious fantasies.

She imagined that the carpet in his room was tan, as in here. The pile felt thick beneath her feet. If only the two of them could sink into it, could feel it against their skin.

Nearby, Jim’s breathing sped up. Was he thinking the same thing?

That night at the faculty party, they’d found themselves operating on the same wavelength. Noticing the brightness of the stars at the same time. Leaning toward each other as if they’d planned it. Dancing as if they were a team.

It was amazing, considering how different they were. And how incompatible.

I don’t even know what I’m doing here, Dex thought, and inched away. She didn’t belong with a sleekly sophisticated man who made millions in the wink of an eye, or in a mansion that might have been designed for a glittery home tour.

Her parents were bookish people, their house efficiently small and filled with well-organized paper clutter. They couldn’t understand why anyone would waste time on appearances. They weren’t impressed by designer labels or by the nouveau-riche club crowd in their Florida town, either.

Their ideal woman was Dex’s sister, Brianna. The editor of a literary magazine, she was married to an investigative journalist and lived in a small apartment in New York’s SoHo district. They lacked much money and didn’t want kids, but they were the darlings of the intellectual set.

“How’s this?” Jim hoisted their daughter aloft. A pink nightgown covered her neatly diapered body to her evident pleasure.

“Beautiful.” Dex inhaled the scent of baby powder and innocence.

Jim placed Annie into the crib on her back, as Rocky had instructed. The only jarring note was the quilt, which had a geometric design worked in black, purple and white. “Dr. Saldivar’s taste in baby decor was a bit different from mine,” he said, noticing her reaction. “I’ll have Grace pick up something more appropriate tomorrow.”

“There’s no sense investing a lot of money,” Dex told him. “Annie isn’t staying.”

They faced each other from opposite ends of the crib. She could feel Jim seeking the right words, the right tone to change her mind.

“Why are you so determined to put her up for adoption?” Apparently he’d decided on the direct approach.

Because if I can’t be her mother, I never want to see her again. It would break my heart.

She didn’t say so, because she didn’t expect Jim to kowtow to her feelings. He was the most powerful person in this town, and she was, if anything, the most powerless.

Dex struggled to find a more rational reason for her position. In what she hoped was a logical tone, she said, “You’ve got to see how hard it will be for her when people find out about her background. The gossip. The teasing.”

“No one has to know her background,” Jim said.