Bound by a Baby

‘It is bad, Dylan. Look, you know I have my own business. If I was an airhead, unable to do a basic set of yearly accounts and work out my profit margins, then I’d be starving and in debt up to my eyeballs. Just to clarify the situation for you, that’s not the case. My bank account’s in the black and my business is doing just fine, thank you. Or will you be requiring a letter from my bank manager to prove that?’

He held her gaze. ‘OK. I apologise. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Good. Apology accepted.’ And maybe she should cut him some slack. He’d said that Pete was as close to him as a brother, so right now he was obviously hurting as much as she was. Especially as he was having to deal with a relationship break-up as well. And Dylan Harper was the most formal, uptight man Emmy had ever met, which meant he probably wasn’t so good at emotional stuff. No doubt lashing out and making snippy remarks was his way of dealing with things. Letting it go—this time—didn’t mean that she was going to let him walk all over her in the future.

‘OK, so we don’t get on; but this isn’t actually about us. It’s about a little boy who has nobody, and giving him a stable home where he can grow up knowing he’s loved and valued.’ And this wasn’t the first time she and Dylan had had to put their differences aside. They’d managed it for Pete and Ally’s wedding. When, come to think of it, Dylan’s wife had been away on business and hadn’t been able to attend, despite the fact that she worked with the groom and was married to the best man.

Emmy and Dylan had put their differences aside again two months ago, in the same ancient little church where Ally and Pete had got married, when they’d stood by the font and made their promises as godparents. Dylan’s wife had been absent then, too. So maybe the marriage had been in trouble for a while, and Pete knew what was going on in Dylan’s life. Which would make a bit more sense of the decision to ask both Dylan and Emmy to be Tyler’s guardian.

She looked Dylan straight in the eye. ‘I meant every word I said in church on my godson’s christening day. I intend to be there for him.’

* * *

Was Emmy implying that he wasn’t? Dylan felt himself bristling. ‘I meant every word I said, too.’

‘Right.’

But he couldn’t discern an edge in her voice—at least, not like the one that had been there when he’d as good as called her an airhead. And that mollified him slightly. Maybe they could work together on this. Maybe she’d put the baby first instead of being the overemotional, needy mess she’d been when he’d first met her. Emmy wasn’t serious and focused, like Nadine. She was unstructured and flaky. Something Dylan refused to put up with; he’d already had to deal with enough of that kind of behaviour in his life. No more.

‘Look, Ally and Pete wanted us to take care of their baby, if anything happened to them.’ She swallowed hard. ‘And the worst has happened.’

Dylan could see the sheen of tears in her grey eyes, and her lower lip actually started to wobble. Oh, no. Please don’t let her cry. He wasn’t good with tears. And he’d seen enough of them in those last few weeks with Nadine to last him a lifetime. If Emmy started crying, he’d have to walk out of the café. Because right now he couldn’t cope with any more emotional pressure. As it was, he felt as if the world had slipped and he were slowly sliding backwards, unable to stop himself and with nothing to hang on to.

She dragged in a breath. ‘We’re going to have to work together on this and put our personal feelings aside.’

‘Fair point.’ They didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. And at least she was managing to hold the tears back. That was something. ‘We’ll work together.’ Dylan was still slightly surprised at how businesslike she was being. This wasn’t Emmy-like behaviour. She’d been late the first three times they’d met, and given the most feeble of excuses. And he’d lost count of the times he’d been over at Ally and Pete’s and Ally had had to rush off to pick up the pieces when yet another of Emmy’s disastrous relationships had ended. It was way, way too close to the way his mother behaved, and Dylan had no patience for that kind of selfishness.

And his comment about the glitter hadn’t been totally unfounded. He was pretty sure she’d choose to do the fun things with Tyler and leave him to do all the serious stuff. Emmy was all about fun. Which wasn’t enough: sometimes you had to put the fun aside and do what needed to be done rather than what you wanted to do. ‘So you’ve been looking after Tyler?’

‘Since they left.’ She shrugged. ‘Babysitting.’

Except now it wasn’t babysitting anymore. There wasn’t anyone to hand Tyler back to.

She blew out a breath. ‘The social worker came to see me last night. She said that Tyler needs familiarity and a routine. So I guess the first thing we need to do is to set up a routine, something as near as possible to what he’s used to.’

Considering the chaos that usually surrounded Emmy Jacobs, Dylan couldn’t imagine her setting up any kind of routine. But he bit his tongue. He’d already annoyed her today. Right now he needed to be conciliatory. For his godson’s sake. ‘Right.’

‘And, as the solicitor said, we’re sharing custody.’

‘Meaning that one week you have him, the next week I do?’ Dylan suggested. ‘Fine. That works for me.’

‘It doesn’t work at all.’

He frowned at her, not understanding. ‘Why not?’

‘Just as Tyler gets settled in with me, I have to bring him to you; and just as he gets settled with you, you have to bring him to me?’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not fair on him.’

‘So what are you suggesting?’

‘The social worker,’ she said, not meeting his gaze, ‘suggested that Tyler stays in his own home. She says that whoever cares for him needs to, um, live there, too.’

He blinked. ‘You’re planning to move into Ally and Pete’s house?’

She coughed. ‘Not just me.’

What she was saying finally sank in. ‘You’re suggesting we live together?’ The idea was so shocking, he almost dropped his coffee.

‘No.’ She lifted her chin, looking affronted. ‘The social worker suggests that we share a house and share Tyler’s care. Believe you me, it’s not what I want to do—but it’s the most sensible solution for Tyler. It saves us having to traipse a tired and hungry baby all over London at times that don’t suit him. We’ll be fitting round him, not the other way round.’

‘Share a house. That sounds like living together, to me.’ Something Dylan knew he wasn’t good at. Hadn’t he failed spectacularly with Nadine? His marriage had broken up because he hadn’t wanted a family and the wife he’d loved had given him an ultimatum. A choice he couldn’t accept. And now Emmy Jacobs—a woman who embodied everything he didn’t like—seriously expected him to make a family with her?

‘It isn’t living together. It’s just sharing a house.’ Her mouth tightened, and she gave him a look as if to say that he was the last person on earth she’d choose to live with.

He needed to be upfront about this. ‘I don’t want to share a house with you,’ he said.

‘It’s not my idea of fun, either, but what else—?’ She paused. ‘Actually, no, there is an easy solution to this. You can agree to me having full-time care of Tyler.’

‘That isn’t what Pete and Ally wanted.’ And he didn’t think Emmy was stable enough to look after Tyler, not permanently. Then again, Dylan couldn’t imagine himself taking care of Tyler, either. He knew practically nothing about babies. He’d never even babysat his godson. Pete and Ally had never asked him, knowing that his personal life was in chaos and his head wasn’t in the right place. And Dylan was guiltily aware that he’d jumped at the excuse rather than face up to the fact that he wasn’t a very good godfather.

He’d agreed to be Tyler’s guardian. Of course he had. For the same reason that Emmy had agreed, probably, wanting to support his best friend. But he’d never thought it would actually happen. He’d considered himself to be a safety net that would never need to be used.

And now...

Lack of sleep. That was why his head was all over the place. There was a black hole where his best friend had once been. And now there were all these new demands on him and he wasn’t sure he could meet them. He’d promised to be there for Tyler, and he hated himself for the fact that, now he actually had to make good on that promise, he didn’t want to do it. He resented the way that a baby could wreak such havoc on his life and turn everything upside down; and then he felt guilty all over again for resenting someone so tiny and defenceless, because it wasn’t the baby’s fault and—well, he was being selfish.

Emmy was offering him a get-out. It would be, oh, so easy to take it. And yet Dylan knew that he’d never respect himself again if he took it—if he did what his mother had done, and dumped all his responsibilities on someone else. If he ignored a child who needed him.

‘I know it isn’t what Pete and Ally wanted,’ Emmy said, clearly oblivious to the turmoil in Dylan’s head. ‘But it’s not fair to keep uprooting Tyler, just to suit ourselves.’

‘He’s a baby. He’s not even going to notice his surroundings,’ Dylan said.

‘Actually, he is. And if we did alternate weeks he’d have to get used to two different sets of rules, two different atmospheres. That’s too much to expect.’

‘And you’re an expert on childcare?’ he asked, knowing how nasty it sounded but unable to stop himself, because it was easier to fight with her than to admit how mixed up and miserable he felt right now.

‘No. But I’ve read up on it. I’ve spent time with him. And I know how Ally wanted him brought up.’

‘Fair point,’ he muttered, feeling even more guilty. He hadn’t done any of those things.

‘You don’t want to live with him, but you don’t want to let me have full-time care of him, either.’ She sighed. ‘So what do you want, Dylan?’

‘Pete and Ally back. Life as it was supposed to be.’ The words came out before he could stop them.

‘Well, unless you can turn into a superhero and spin the world round the other way to reverse time, and then stop the accident happening...’ She looked away. ‘Life isn’t like the movies. I wish it could be. That I could wave a magic wand and everything would be OK again. But I can’t. I’m a normal godmother, not a fairy godmother. And we have to do what’s right for Tyler. To make his world as good as it can be, now his parents are gone and he has only us.’

She was right. Which made Dylan feel even more guilty. He was acting like a spoiled brat, crying for the moon and stars. And it was wrong. ‘So what do you suggest?’

‘The way I see it, we have two choices. Either we do what Pete and Ally wanted, and we find some way to be civil to each other while we bring up their child, or you let me bring him up on my own.’