The Ten-Day Baby Takeover

Aiden blew out a breath and they strolled into the modern, open apartment. The space had very high ceilings and was decorated almost exclusively in white, black and gray. Everything was meticulous and neat, just like Aiden’s office at LangTel. He was in for a big wake-up call when Oliver took over and there were toys everywhere. Best not to mention that, though. He’d learn.

To her right was a massive gourmet kitchen with an eight-burner stove and seating for six at the center island. Beyond the kitchen, she could see a hint of a dining room tucked away, then a staircase, and beyond that a room with a sofa and the beautiful windows she’d noticed on the front of the building. As a nanny, Sarah had seen grand displays of money, but nothing that hinted at this level of affluence. Although she was no real estate agent, the house had to be at least five thousand square feet if the other floors were the same size. By comparison, her Boston apartment probably could’ve fit inside the kitchen. When Aiden had said he needed his space, he wasn’t kidding.

“The living room is at the front of the building, overlooking the park.”

“Beautiful. Absolutely stunning.” Sarah followed as Aiden led them in the opposite direction.

“This is the library.” He nodded to his right, where black, open-back bookcases delineated the room. The shelves were packed with books. “The room with the French doors at the back of the building is my home office.”

Aiden did a one-eighty and Sarah trailed behind him, past the dining room and stairs, to the living room. It was a grand and comfortable space with charcoal-gray sectional couches, a flat-screen TV above a stacked stone fireplace and a massive glass coffee table. “Another beautiful room.”

“Thank you.” He shifted Oliver in his arms, seeming ever-so-slightly more comfortable with holding him.

“Unfortunately, we’re going to need to babyproof in here like nobody’s business.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

Sarah didn’t know where to start. “There are outlets everywhere. The coffee table is a disaster waiting to happen. I can just see Oliver bonking his head. You’ll probably have to put up a gate to keep him away from the fireplace. As for the rest of the house, that’s going to need an overhaul, too. Those stairs will need a gate, too.”

“Isn’t that how children learn? By making mistakes?” There was no misconstruing the annoyance in his voice.

“Not on my watch, they don’t. At least not the kind of mistakes that put a child in the emergency room.”

A low grumble left his throat. “Talk about turning my entire life upside down.” He shook his head and took what seemed like his hundredth deep breath. “I’ll need you to make a list. We’ll tackle it that way.”

“Not a normal nanny responsibility, but okay.”

“I thought you weren’t a nanny anymore.”

“I’m not.”

“Well then. This is part of our business arrangement. You need my expertise. I need yours.”

“Fine.” Sarah walked over to a long, dark wood console table against the wall, plopping her handbag down to dig out a piece of paper. A handful of framed photographs were directly above—one taken from the viewpoint of someone skydiving, one looking straight down the side of a cliff with a waterfall and jungle in the periphery, and another of a group of men and donkeys on a narrow path carved into a mountainside. Each looked like something out of a movie. “Nice pictures. Are these from National Geographic?”

“Remembrances of my adventures.”

“Wait. What? These are yours?”

Aiden nodded, fighting a smile. He joined her, Oliver in tow. Aiden was doing well with the baby, and she was happy to see him master his first few moments of dad duty. “I enjoy pushing the limits,” he said.

Goose bumps cropped up on Sarah’s arms. A man with a dangerous side held mysterious appeal, probably because it was the opposite of her personality. She’d fallen for a few guys who liked to live on the edge over the years. None of them was good at flexing their bravado in the realm of relationships.

“You’re going to have to set aside your daredevil escapades for a little while. Skydiving is not an approved activity for a toddler.”

He scowled. “I’m not enjoying this part, in case you’re wondering. The part where you tell me how I have to construct my life around someone else’s needs.”

She patted him on the shoulder. “Welcome to parenthood. It’s good for you. It’ll remind you that the world doesn’t revolve around you.”

“Jumping out of an airplane reminds me that I’m still alive,” Aiden countered. “And that I’d better find a way to enjoy my time on this planet.”

There was a somber hint to that last string of words, but she was still piecing together who and what Aiden Langford truly was. It struck her as sad that he lived all alone in this big house, however much it was a showplace. Despite his protestations, Sarah couldn’t imagine Oliver as anything less than a blessing in Aiden’s life, quite possibly his salvation.

Oliver reached for the pictures, pointing to the skydiving snapshot. Aiden stepped close enough for him to touch it.

“Pretty cool, huh? I took that picture. I jumped out of an airplane. Maybe you and I can do that someday. Someday when Sarah isn’t around to tell us what to do.”

Oliver turned to Aiden, concentrating hard on his face. He flattened his palm against Aiden’s cheek. Aiden reached up and covered Oliver’s hand with his, a fascinated smile crossing his face. A sweet and tender moment, it left Sarah on the verge of tears. For the first time since she’d gotten off the train that afternoon, she was less worried about Aiden accepting fatherhood. They weren’t out of the woods, but he was already showing signs of folding Oliver into his life. Which meant one step closer to Sarah being out of it.

Oliver needs his father. His new family. “For now, I still get to tell you what to do, at least when it comes to Oliver. I say it’s time to find him a bedroom in this massive house of yours.”

* * *

Aiden walked Sarah and Oliver up to the second floor, holding the little boy. He was slowly growing comfortable with this tiny human clutching the lapel of his suit coat, keeping him warm and reacting to the world Aiden walked through every day without giving it a second thought. It all was new to Oliver—sights and sounds, people and places. He didn’t play the role of stranger though; he played explorer, full of curiosity. Aiden had to admire that disposition. He was cut from the same cloth.

They reached the top of the stairs and the hall where all four bedrooms were. At the far end was his master suite. There was only one other room furnished, for guests. The other two remained unused and unoccupied. With most of his family in the city, visitors weren’t common, nor would they likely ever be. His friends, small in number and much like him in that they preferred to roam the globe, were not prone to planning a visit. No, the apartment with arguably too much space for a confirmed bachelor had been purchased with one thing in mind—breathing room.

He fought the sense that Sarah and Oliver were encroaching on his refuge. He made accommodations for no one and doing so put him on edge, but it was about more than covering electrical outlets and putting up gates. He hadn’t come close to wrapping his head around his newfound fatherhood, even if he did accept that with the arrival of Sarah Daltrey, everything had changed.

He was counting on the results of the paternity test to help it all sink in. He’d already made the call to his lawyer. It would mean a lot to know that Oliver was truly his. Aiden had lived much of his own life convinced that Roger and Evelyn Langford—the people he called his parents—had lied to him about who Aiden’s father was. Roger Langford’s death nearly a year ago had made the uncertainty even more painful and the truth that much more elusive. He wasn’t about to badger his mother, a grieving widow, over his suspicions. But he would confront her, eventually. He couldn’t mend fences with his family until that much was known, and there was a lot of mending to be done. Aiden had made his own mistakes, too. Big, vengeful mistakes.

“I was thinking we could put Oliver in here.” Aiden showed one of the spare rooms to Sarah. “It’s the biggest. I mean, he is going to get bigger, isn’t he?” Talk about things he hadn’t considered...life beyond today, when Oliver would be older...preschool, grade school and beyond. No matter what, Aiden didn’t need to think about where Oliver would go to school. He would be wherever Aiden was. There would be no shipping him off as his parents had done to him.

“Is it the closest room to yours?” Sarah asked.

“No. The smallest is the closest.”

“That’s probably a better choice for now.” Without invitation, she ventured farther down the hall. “In here?” Sarah strolled in and turned in the small, but bright space—not much more than four walls and a closet. “This is better. It’ll make it easier on you. He still gets up in the middle of the night.”

“And I’ll need to get up with him.” He stated it rather than framing it as a question. He was prepared to do anything to feel less out of his element, as if any of this were logical to him, which it wasn’t.

Oliver fussed and kicked, wanting to get down.

“Let’s let him crawl around,” Sarah said.

Aiden gently placed the little boy on the floor. He took off like a bolt of lightning, scrambling all over the room on his hands and knees.

Sarah pulled a few toys out of her bag and offered them to Oliver. “Yes. You’ll need to get up with him and comfort him, especially when he’s teething like he is now.”

Aiden leaned against the door frame, acting as a barrier in case Oliver decided to escape. “Is that why he drools so much?”

Sarah smiled and sat on the floor with Oliver, tucking her legs beneath her, her dress flounced around her. “My mother used to say that’s not drool. It’s the sugar melting.”

Aiden wasn’t prone to smiling, let alone laughing, at things that were quaint and homey. But he couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted to. He drank in the vision of Sarah. She was so different from every woman he’d ever known. She was beautiful, but not made up. Eloquent, but not pretentious. There was no hidden agenda, nor did she seem concerned with impressing him. She just came right out with it, but didn’t mow people over with her ideas. She simply stated what she found to be best, in a manner that made it seem as if it were the only logical choice.

Sarah again looked around the room. “We should probably order a crib online and see how quickly we can have it delivered, along with some other necessities. He’ll need a dresser, a changing table. You should probably invest in a rocking chair for this room.” She began counting on her fingers. “Then there’s clothes, diapers, formula, bottles, toys, bath supplies, baby laundry detergent.”

“Special laundry detergent?”