Bound by a Baby

Good? No, it just made everything much more complicated, Emmy thought. Or maybe it meant he intended to fight her for custody of the baby: family man versus single mum, so it was obvious who’d win. But she didn’t have a chance to protest because the solicitor went on with the reading of the will. ‘Now, obviously Ally and Pete left financial provisions for Tyler. I have all the details here.’

‘I’ll deal with it,’ Dylan said.

Immediately assuming that a flaky, air-headed jewellery designer wouldn’t have a clue what to do? Emmy knew that was how Dylan saw her—she’d overheard him say it to Pete, on more than one occasion—and it rankled. She’d been her own boss for ten years. She was perfectly capable of dealing with things. Whereas he was so uptight and stuffy, she couldn’t even begin to imagine him looking after a baby or a toddler. Given that Ally had always been diplomatic about Dylan’s wife, merely saying that she worked with Pete, Emmy was pretty sure that Nadine Harper was from the same mould as Dylan. A cold workaholic who wouldn’t know what fun was if it jumped out in front of him and yelled, ‘Boo!’ And not the sort that Ally would’ve wanted caring for her son.

But the solicitor was off again, going through the details of the arrangements made in the will. Emmy had to ignore her feelings and listen to what the man was telling her before she got completely lost. This was important.

And then at last it was all over.

Leaving her and Dylan to pick up the pieces. Together. Unthinkably.

She gave the solicitor a polite smile, shook his hand, and walked out of the office. On the doorstep of the building, she came to a halt and faced Dylan.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘we need to talk. Like now.’

He nodded. ‘And I could do with some coffee.’

There were shadows under his cornflower-blue eyes, and lines at the corners betraying that he hadn’t slept properly since the crash; for the first time ever, Dylan actually looked vulnerable—and as if he hurt as much as she did, right now. It stopped her from uttering the kind of snippy remarks they usually made to each other.

‘Make that two of us,’ she said. On the sleep front, as well as the need for coffee. Vulnerability, no way would she admit to. Especially not to Dylan Harper. No way was she giving him an excuse to take Tyler from her. He and Nadine were not taking her place.

‘Where’s Tyler?’ Dylan asked.

‘With my mum. She’ll ring me if there’s a problem.’ She lifted one shoulder, daring him to criticise her. ‘I didn’t think the solicitor’s office would be the best place for him.’

‘It isn’t.’

Another first: he was actually agreeing with her. Maybe, she thought, they might be able to work something out between them? Maybe he’d be reasonable? A baby wouldn’t fit into his busy, workaholic lifestyle. It’d be tough for Emmy, too, but at least she’d spent time with her godson and would have some clue about looking after him.

‘Shall we?’ she asked, indicating the café across the road.

‘Fine.’

At the counter in the café, Emmy ordered a latte. ‘What would you like?’

‘I’ll get these,’ Dylan said immediately.

She gave a small but determined shake of her head. No way was she going to let him take charge. ‘I offered first.’

‘Then thank you—an espresso would be great.’

‘Do you want anything to eat?’

He grimaced. ‘Thank you for the offer, but right now I really can’t face anything.’

She, too, hadn’t been able to choke much down since she’d heard the news. It seemed that the situation had shaken him as much as it had shaken her. In a way, that was a good thing. Maybe they could find some common ground.

‘If you go and find us a table, I’ll bring our coffee over,’ she said.

And she was glad of that small space between them. Just so she could marshal her thoughts. Right now, she didn’t want to fight with Dylan. She just wanted her best friend back. For everything to be the same as it had been, three days ago. For Pete to have taken Ally on a surprise anniversary trip to Venice, for them to be happy and for Ally to be texting her to let her know they were on their way back and couldn’t wait to see their little boy and tell her all about the trip. For them to be alive.

Emmy paid for the coffees, and carried them over to the quiet table Dylan had found for them in the corner.

‘So you had no idea Pete had asked me to be Tyler’s guardian?’ Dylan asked.

Typical Dylan: straight in there. No pussyfooting around. Though, for once, she agreed with him. They needed to cut to the chase. ‘No. And you had no idea that Ally had asked me?’

‘No.’ He spread his hands. ‘Of course I said yes when he asked me—just as you obviously did when Ally asked you.’ He sighed. ‘I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead—and Pete was my best friend, the closest I had to a brother—but what the hell were they thinking when they decided this?’

‘They’re both—were both,’ she corrected herself, wincing, ‘only children. Pete’s dad is nearly eighty and Ally’s mum isn’t well. How could Pete and Ally’s parents be expected to cope with looking after a baby full-time? And it isn’t going to get any easier for them over the next twenty years. Of course Pete and Ally would ask someone nearer their own age to be Tyler’s guardian.’

Dylan gave a pained sigh. ‘I didn’t mean that. It’s obvious. I mean, why us?’

Why ask two people who really didn’t get on to take care of the most precious thing in their lives? Good question. Though that wasn’t the one uppermost in her mind. ‘Why you and me instead of you and your wife?’ she asked pointedly.

He blew out a breath. ‘That isn’t an issue.’

‘If I was married and my husband’s best friend asked him to be the baby’s guardian if the worst happened, I’d be pretty upset if another woman was named as the co-guardian instead of me,’ Emmy said.

‘It isn’t an issue,’ Dylan repeated.

Patronising, pompous idiot. Emmy kept a rein on her temper. Just. ‘Don’t you think this discussion ought to include her?’

‘You’re the one who said we needed to talk.’

‘We do.’ She switched into superpolite mode, the one she used for difficult clients, before she was tempted to strangle him. ‘Could you perhaps phone her and see when’s a good time for her to join us?’

‘No,’ he said tightly.

Superpolite mode off. ‘Either she really, really trusts you,’ Emmy said, ‘or you’re even more of a control freak than I thought.’

‘It isn’t an issue,’ Dylan said, ‘because we’re separated.’ He glared at her. ‘Happy, now?’

What? Since when had Dylan split up with his wife? And why? But Emmy damped the questions down. It wasn’t any of her business. Whereas Tyler’s welfare—that was most definitely her business.

‘I guess it makes this issue a bit less complicated,’ she said. Especially given what the social worker had suggested to her yesterday—something Emmy had baulked at, but which might turn out to be a sensible solution now.

She took a sip of coffee. ‘Maybe,’ she said slowly, ‘Pete and Ally thought that between us we could give Tyler what he needs.’

He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘How do you mean?’

‘We have different strengths.’ And different weaknesses, but she wasn’t going to point that out. They were going to need to work together on this, and now wasn’t the time for a fight. ‘We can bring different things to his life.’

He folded his arms. ‘So I do the serious stuff and you do all the fun and glitter?’

Emmy had been prepared to compromise, but this was too much. And this was exactly why she’d disliked Dylan from practically the moment they’d met. Because he was judgemental, arrogant, and had the social skills of a rhino. Either he genuinely didn’t realise what he’d just said or he really didn’t care—and she wasn’t sure which. She lifted her chin. ‘You mean, because I work with pretty, shiny things, they distract my poor little female brain from being able to focus on anything real?’ she asked, her voice like cut glass.

His wince told her that he hadn’t actually meant to insult her. ‘Put that way, it sounds bad.’