The Rival's Heir

While Judah struggled to make sense of the man’s words, a booming voice from the front of the room rolled into the hallway.

“I am pleased and proud to announce that the architect designing the Grantham-Ford Art Museum will be Judah Huntley. Judah, please come forward and say a few words.”

Judah’s eyes darted between three faces: Rossi, the baby and the blonde.

It was official. He’d just fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole.

Two (#u6491bffd-a4ba-5955-80d6-a973f0f7dd05)

Three things occurred to Darby at the same time.

One, Judah Huntley was more gorgeous than she remembered.

Two, he had a kid he didn’t know about.

Three, hers wasn’t the only messed-up life.

Oh, he was good. On hearing he had a child, his expression barely changed, but his ink-blue eyes held disbelief and a heavy dose of WTF. The baby, stunningly gorgeous with rosy cheeks and hair the color of bitter chocolate, looked at them from the stiff arms of the woman carrying her.

Darby knew she should move away, she should give them some privacy but...

She wasn’t that noble, and this was too good to miss. How would Judah Huntley juggle the announcement of the commission and the news that he had a child? Would he flip, freeze, flee?

Darby couldn’t wait to find out.

The baby let out a soft cry, Judah was called to the front of the room again and the weary woman took a step toward Judah, holding the baby out like a parcel. Judah threw up his hands in a hell-no gesture and the baby responded by letting out a shriller cry.

Darby forgot about the drama playing out in front of her eyes and focused on that small face scrunched up and turning red. The wails grew louder and someone she recognized as one of the foundation’s board members appeared at the door.

“Mr. Huntley, they are calling for you. You’ve been awarded the design contract.”

No surprise there. Judah was an amazing architect.

But his ability to ignore a screaming baby annoyed her. Pushing past the lawyer, she reached for the little girl, ignoring the look of relief on the older woman’s face. Tucking the baby into the crook of her arm, Darby placed her pinkie finger in the little girl’s mouth and felt the tug of tiny lips.

Darby looked at Judah. “She’s hungry.”

He threw his hands up in the air and shook his head. “Not my problem.”

“Apparently it is,” Darby responded tartly.

“Um... Mr. Huntley. Really, you need to come back inside.” The man tugged the sleeve of Judah’s jacket.

Darby noticed, again, that the jacket covered a set of rather big arms and broad shoulders. Judah’s easy dismissal of this beautiful baby was irritating, but her hormones had yet to receive the message that she shouldn’t be imagining what Huntley’s body looked like under that expensive suit.

Judah pushed his hand through his thick, expertly cut hair and she heard the barely audible swear he dropped. Yeah, Huntley wasn’t having a good day.

He gripped the bridge of his nose. After a brief pause, he lifted his head and Darby saw the determination on his face, the assertiveness in his eyes. There was something superhot about an alpha male doing his thing...

Judah nodded to the closed door of the ballroom.

“I’m going to go back in there to accept this damn commission. Rossi, you are going to take the baby with you and you will call me and we will arrange a suitable time to meet and discuss Carla’s insanity. Do not ambush me again.” That dark blue gaze scraped over her and he shook his head. “You, I have no idea who you are but if you’d kindly give the kid back, we can all go on with our lives.”

His tone suggested that he wasn’t interested in hearing any arguments and when no one spoke, he turned around and walked back into the ballroom, the board member following closely behind. Darby heard the audience’s roar of applause and looked down at the little girl in her arms.

She had Judah’s nose and the shape of his eyes and Darby could see the hint of Judah’s shallow dimple in the baby’s left cheek. Like his, the baby’s hair was dark, her sweet brows strong. She was utterly perfect and those deep dark eyes—brown, not blue—looked up at Darby’s, content to suckle on her pinkie.

She was, possibly, the most beautiful baby Darby had ever seen and as she’d been obsessed by babies for longer than was healthy, she’d seen more than a lot. This little girl looked like what she was, the offspring of two boundlessly beautiful people.

Before his death, Darby’s father had been a well-known Boston businessman and her parents had been, at one time, the heart of Boston society, so she’d had a taste of fame. But Huntley and his ex-girlfriend were famous on an entirely different level. Carla, an exciting, lushly beautiful, stunningly wealthy opera-singing heiress, had millions of social media followers and was tabloid gold. Thanks to his talent, his stupidly sexy body, and his penchant for dating models and actresses, Judah was also a media golden boy.

They might be famous, but Darby wasn’t impressed by either of the little girl’s parents right now.

How could Carla just shove her child out of her life, pass her on like she was an unwanted package? And why hadn’t Judah stepped up? Didn’t they realize that a child was a gift, indescribably precious? What was wrong with these people?

Had the world gone mad?

The baby burped and then her face scrunched up, her eyes closing. Darby had enough experience to know that the little girl was about to fill her diaper. The telltale smell wafted up and Darby half smiled. Yep, there it was.

Darby looked up and saw the two lawyers grimace in immediate expressions of distaste.

“She needs changing,” Darby stated just in case they hadn’t made the connection between the smell and the problem.

Identical looks of horror and two steps back. “No! No, no, no!”

The baby squirmed in Darby’s arms and let out a wail loud enough to be heard in Fenway Park. Okay, time to go.

The baby was stunningly cute and too adorable for words, but Darby had come here to work. It wasn’t a surprise that Huntley had been awarded the project, but Darby knew there were lots of well-heeled socialites in that room with money to burn. Some of them might want a summer place designed or a house renovated.

Business had been a bit slow lately and she needed a new, lucrative project. She also needed to finish the renovations to two small apartment buildings she owned in Back Bay and get them on the market, but she knew it might take some time to sell them at the price she wanted.

Thank God she was due her quarterly dividend check from Winston and Brogan tomorrow; that was the money she’d allocated to her IVF fund. With that money and any she managed to save over the next four months, she could have the procedure in five months’ time. At the thought, her stomach churned, then burned.

Unlike Huntley and his ex, she wanted a child.

Didn’t she?

The two Europeans exchanged a long look as if they were silently arguing about who was going to do the honors of changing the little girl. They both looked horrified.

“I need to get going,” Darby said.

A charming smile crossed the lawyer’s face. “The nanny we hired to look after Jacquetta since we left Italy has been dismissed. Could you change her since neither of us knows how?”

“What makes you think I do?” Darby asked.

Mr. Slick just shrugged, and Darby knew she was being played. It had been years since she’d changed a diaper, but she’d looked after babies as a teenager. She was sure it was like riding a bike; one didn’t just forget. And God, if she left little Jacquetta—goodness, what a mouthful—in their hands, the kid would be more miserable than she was now. It was one diaper, Darby could deal.

Darby held out her hand for the bag draped over the lady’s shoulder. Darby would change Jacquetta—Jac—make up a bottle for the little girl and send them on their way. There was no doubt she’d remember this encounter for the rest of her life: hot guy, cute kid, drama...