The Christmas Baby Bonus

“You know, keep him upright, rub his back, encourage him to burp.”

“No.”

“Then he’s probably just got gas in his stomach. Put a cloth or a towel on your shoulder and rub his back firmly. He’ll come around.”

“Like this?” Piers said, rubbing the baby’s tiny little back for all he was worth.

“Yes, but you’ll need a towel—”

Casey let out an almighty belch and Piers felt something warm and wet congeal on his shoulder and against the side of his neck. He fought a shudder, almost too afraid to look.

“—in case he spits up on you,” Faye finished with a smug expression on her face.

If he didn’t know better he’d have accused her of enjoying his discomfort, but, never one to let the little things get him down, Piers merely went through to the kitchen and grabbed a handful of paper towels to wipe off his neck and shoulder. His nostrils flared at the scent of slightly soured milk.

“Try not to let it get on his clothes if you can help it. Unless you want to bathe and change him, that is.”

Yes, there was no mistaking the humor in her tone. Piers turned on her, the now silent baby cradled in one arm as he continued to dab at the moisture on his shoulder.

“You do know about babies,” he accused her.

She shrugged in much the same way he had when she’d protested the clothing he’d given her. “Maybe I just know everything, like you said.”

“Can you hold him for me while I go and change?”

“You could just get me something decent to wear and I can give you this abominable snowman back,” she answered, tugging at the front of the sweater he’d given her. “Seriously, do you have an entire collection of these things?”

“Actually, I do. So, back to my question, can you hold him for me?”

“No.”

She turned and walked away.

“Then what am I supposed to do with him?”

“Put him on a blanket on the floor or lay him on your bed while you get changed. Although, if you’ve fed him you might want to check his diaper before you put him on the bed. You wouldn’t want anything to leak out on that silk comforter of yours.”

Piers shuddered in horror. “Check his diaper? How does one do that?”

Faye sighed heavily and turned to face him. “You really don’t know?”

“It doesn’t fall under the category of running a Fortune 500 company and keeping thousands of staff in employment. Nor does it come under the banner of relaxing and enjoying the spoils of my labors,” he answered tightly. “Seriously, Faye. I need your help.”

A look of reluctant resignation crossed her dainty features. “Fine,” she said with all the enthusiasm of a pirate about to walk the plank into shark-infested waters. “Give him to me, go get changed and come straight back. I’ll give you a lesson when you’re ready.”

* * *

Faye reluctantly accepted the infant as Piers handed him over and was instantly forced to quell the instinctive urge to hold him close and to nuzzle the fuzz on the top of his head. Instead she walked swiftly over to the Christmas tree, where there were more than enough ornaments and sparkling lights to hold his attention until Piers returned.

She could do this, she told herself firmly. It was just a baby. And she was just a woman, whose every instinct compelled her to nurture, to protect, to care. Okay, so that might have been the old Faye, she admitted. But the reinvented Faye was self-sufficient and completely independent. She did not need other people to find her joy in life, and she was happier with everyone at a firm distance. She did what she could on a day-to-day basis to ensure Piers’s life ran smoothly, both in business and personally, and that was where her human interactions began and ended. She did not need people. Period. Especially little people, who in return needed you so much more.

“You look comfortable with him. Has he been okay?”

Faye hoped Piers hadn’t seen her flinch at the unexpected sound of his voice. Give the man an inch and he took a mile. No wonder it had become her personal mission to stay on top of their professional relationship every single day.

“What? Did you expect me to have carved him up and cooked him for dinner?”

Piers cocked his head and looked at her. “Maybe. You don’t seem too thrilled to be around him.”

Faye pushed the child back into his arms. “I’m not a baby person.”

“And yet you seemed to know what was wrong with him before.”

Faye ignored his comment.

Of course she knew what was likely wrong with little Casey. Hadn’t she helped her mom from the day she’d brought little Henry home from the hospital? Then, after the accident, hadn’t she spent three years in foster care, assisting her foster mom as often as humanly possible with the little ones as some way to assuage the guilt she felt over the deaths of her baby brother, her mom and her stepdad? Deaths she’d been responsible for. Hadn’t her heart been riven in two as every baby and toddler had been adopted or returned to their families, taking a piece of her with them every time? And still the guilt remained.

“Knowing what to do and actually wanting to do it are two completely different things,” she said brusquely. “Now, you need to learn to change his diaper. By the way, did that note explain who he belongs to?” She switched subjects rather than risk revealing a glimmer of her feelings.

“Me, apparently. Although I have my doubts. Quin was here at the time he was likely conceived. Casey could just as easily be his.”

More likely be his, Faye thought privately. While Piers was a wealthy man who enjoyed a playboy lifestyle when he wasn’t working his butt off, his identical twin brother had made a habit of taking his privileged lifestyle to even greater heights—and greater irresponsibility—always leaving a scattering of broken hearts wherever he went. Faye could easily imagine that he might have been casual enough to have left a piece of himself here and moved on to his next conquest with not even a thought to the chaos he may have left behind. Still, it didn’t do to think ill of the dead. She knew Piers missed his brother. With Quin’s death, it had been as though he’d lost a piece of himself.

“What do you plan to do?” she asked.

“Keep him if he is my son or Quin’s.”

“What if he’s not?”

“Why would his mother have any reason to bring him here if he wasn’t?”

She had to admit he had a good point, but she noticed he’d dodged her question quite neatly. Almost as neatly as she might have done in similar circumstances.

“How long do you think it’ll be before the phones are back up and we can get some help to clear the driveway?”

“A day. Maybe more. Depends on how long before the storm blows over, I guess.”

“A few days! Don’t you have a satellite phone or a backup radio or something?”

Faye began to feel a little panicked. Being here alone with her boss wasn’t the problem. They had a working relationship only and she would never presume to believe she came even close to his “type” for anything romantic, not that she wanted that, anyway. But alone with him and a baby? A baby that even now was cooing and smiling in her direction while Piers held it? That was akin to sheer torture.

Three (#u33bf27ae-8255-52e4-b866-2c946453115a)

“No, no radio.”

“Well, I plan to get right on that as soon as I get home. You can’t be stranded here like this. In fact, I’m not sure how an event like this is even covered under your protection insurance for the firm.”

“Faye, relax,” Piers instructed her with a wry grin. “We’re hardly about to die.”