The Billionaire's Christmas Baby

They were in the next room. Sleeping.

Or...had something woken him? Maybe they were awake and he was wasting time, hanging out for a snack. Besides, he was paying her.

Do it.

The minibar was by the door through to the elevators. Moonlight from the open drapes showed the way.

He moved soundlessly across the room.

And stopped.

A sliver of moonlight was casting a beam of light across the settee.

The woman—Sunny Raye, her name tag had said—was sleeping. The settee had been made up as a bed, loaded with the hotel’s luxury sheets and duvet and pillows.

They weren’t being appreciated.

The pillows were on the floor. The duvet had been discarded as well, so her bedding consisted of an under-sheet and an open weave cotton blanket pulled to her waist.

Having discarded the pillows, she was using her arm to support her head. That’d give her a crick neck or a stiff shoulder in the morning, he thought, but he was distracted.

She was wearing an oversized golfing T-shirt with the hotel’s logo emblazoned on the chest. Her curls, caught up in a knot when he’d last seen her, were now splayed over the white sheet. Brown with a hint of copper. Shoulder-length. Tangled.

Nice.

Earlier he’d thought she was in her thirties. Her face had worn the look he often saw on hotel staff at the lower end of the pay scale—pale from not enough sunlight, weary, worn from hard physical work.

Now, though, he revised his age guess downward. She looked younger, peaceful in sleep, even vulnerable?

And then a faint stir in the crook of her arm had him focusing to her far side.

The baby was asleep beside her.

In what universe...? Even he knew this!

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ The exclamation was out before he could stop himself. She jerked awake, staring up, as if unsure where she was, what she was doing, what he was.

She looked terrified.

He took a couple of fast steps back to give her space. He didn’t apologise, though. He might have scared her but he was paying for childcare. He wanted childcare—not a baby suffocated in sleep.

‘She shouldn’t be sleeping with you,’ he said, louder than he should because there were suddenly emotions everywhere. He shouldn’t care. Or should he care? Of course he should because this baby was his sister, but that was something he didn’t have head space to think about. The idea, though, made him angrier. ‘I know little about babies but even I know it’s dangerous to sleep in the same bed,’ he snapped. ‘Surely you know it too.’

He saw the confusion of sleep disappear, incredulity take its place. She pushed herself up on her elbow, making a futile effort to push her tumbling curls from her eyes. The baby slept on beside her, neatly swaddled, lying on her back, eyes blissfully closed.

‘You want an apology?’ she demanded and an anger that matched his was in her voice. ‘It’s not going to happen. I’m a cleaner, not a nanny.’

‘I’m paying you to care for her.’

‘Which I’m doing to the best of my ability. Sack me if you don’t like it. Look after your baby yourself.’

‘I might have to if you won’t.’

And the anger in her face turned to full scale fury. All traces of sleep were gone. ‘Might?’ she demanded. ‘Might? How much danger would she have to be in before you showed you care enough to do that?’ She rose to face him. She was wearing T-shirt and knickers but nothing else. Her legs were long and thin and her bare feet on the plush carpet made her seem strangely vulnerable. His impression of her age did another descent. ‘You want me to leave?’

‘I want you to do what you’re being paid for.’

‘Believe it or not, I am.’ She glared her fury. ‘Your sister’s sleeping on a firm settee that has no cracks in the cushioning and a sloping back that’s too firm to smother her. See the lovely soft settee cushions? They’re over there. See my pillows and my nice fluffy duvet? They’re over there too. So I’m sleeping on a rock-hard settee with no cushions and no duvet.’

‘Because...’

‘Because the moron who set up Phoebe’s pram filled it with a feather mattress, which is far more dangerous to a newborn than how I’ve arranged things. The mattress is stuck in the pram. Did you notice? Of course not. But I did when I checked her before I went to sleep. Some idiot’s screwed in an elephant mobile—for a newborn!—and they’ve caught the fabric of the mattress. I’d need to rip the mattress to get it out and feathers would go everywhere and you’d probably make me pay for it. Housekeeping’s up to their ears in work and it would’ve taken them an hour to get me a cot, even if there was one available, which I doubt. I didn’t fancy putting her to sleep on the floor and by the time I’d figured all that out I was tired and over it so she slept with me. She’s been as safe as I could make her. But take over, by all means. I’ve a crick in my arm like you wouldn’t believe. It’s been over four hours since she fed so she’s likely to wake up any minute but she has formula and the instructions are on the tin. Forget the money. I couldn’t give a toss. I’m leaving.’

There was a stunned silence. He stared at the settee, bereft of anything soft. He looked at the still miraculously sleeping Phoebe.

He looked at the furious, tired, overworked woman in front of him and he felt a sweep of shame.

He was way out of his comfort zone and he knew enough to realise he had to back off.

‘I apologise.’

‘Of course you do. You’ve given me a lecture. Now you’re expecting to go back to your nice comfy bed and leave me holding the baby. I don’t think so.’ She was a ball of fury, standing in her bare feet in the near-dark, venting her fury. Righteous fury.

‘I could double the chocolates,’ he said, feeling helpless.

‘You think you can buy me with chocolates?’

‘I thought I already had.’

‘Get stuffed,’ she told him and flicked on the table lamp and started searching among the discarded bedding for her uniform.

And, as if on cue, the baby woke.

Phoebe. His sister.

She didn’t cry but he was attuned to her, and the moment her eyes flickered open he noticed.

She was so tiny. So fragile. She was swaddled in a soft wrap, all white. Her hair was black. Her eyes were dark too.

She looked nothing like Isabelle.

She was all his father.

She was all...him?

Dear heaven...

‘The formula’s on the sink,’ Sunny said, sulkily now, as if she thought she was misbehaving. ‘Make sure the bottle’s clean and the water’s been boiled.’