Snowbound with the boss—and a baby! Only from USA TODAY bestselling author Yvonne Lindsay.

When his assistant finds an abandoned baby at his family’s lodge, wealthy Piers Luckman takes full responsibility. He might be clueless about children, but being snowbound with his capable, sexy employee has its benefits. Except Faye Darby shies away from little Casey and wants nothing to do with baby-rearing, Christmas...or the smoldering attraction between her and her boss. For the first time in his life, Piers must fight for what he wants—this little family...and Faye by his side and in his bed.

“This little one isn’t going to grow up alone,” Piers said.

He kept his gaze on the baby in his arms and added, “I will always be there for him.”

“You don’t even know for sure he’s your brother’s child,” Faye protested.

Piers caressed the baby’s cheek. “It fits. I want to offer him the kind of life he deserves.”

His words made something twist deep in Faye’s chest. Made her see another side of him that was all too appealing. It was the baby. It had to be. After the terrible tragedy she’d been through thirteen years ago, she’d learned to inure herself to getting involved, to forming an emotional bond.

And here she was, stranded with a man who appealed to her on so many levels, despite her best efforts to keep her reactions under control—and a helpless infant who called on those old instincts she thought she’d suppressed.

She knew he was determined to get to the root of why she was so unwavering about having nothing to do with the baby. Or him.

She couldn’t give in to temptation.

* * *

The Christmas Baby Bonus

is part of Mills & Boon Desire’s No.1 bestselling

series, Billionaires and Babies: Powerful men…

wrapped around their babies’ little fingers

The Christmas Baby Bonus

Yvonne Lindsay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A typical Piscean, USA TODAY bestselling author YVONNE LINDSAY has always preferred her imagination to the real world. Married to her blind-date hero and with two adult children, she spends her days crafting the stories of her heart, and in her spare time she can be found with her nose in a book reliving the power of love, or knitting socks and daydreaming. Contact her via her website, www.yvonnelindsay.com.

To my wonderful friends,

who often know me better than I know myself.

In particular to Nalini, Nicky and Peta for

prompting (aka pestering) me to write this book

while I stared with loathing (yes, I’m a Grinch)

at a Christmas tree, and to Shar,

who couldn’t make it that night

but who would have been pestering, ahem,

prompting me right along with them.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Extract

Copyright

One

There, let that be the last tartan bow to be tied, Faye begged silently as she stood back and eyed the turned-wood balustrade that led to the upstairs gallery of the lodge. Swags of Christmas ribbon looped up the stairs, with a large tartan bow at each peak.

Not for the first time, she cursed the bad luck that had seen her boss’s usual decorator fall off a ladder and dislocate her shoulder a week before Piers was due to arrive at his holiday home here in Wyoming for his annual Christmas retreat and weeklong house party.

Faye had suggested he go with a minimalistic look for the festive season this year, but, no, he’d been adamant. Tradition, he’d called it. A pain in the butt, she’d called it. Either way, she’d been forced out of her warm sunny home in Santa Monica and onto an airplane, only to arrive in Jackson Hole to discover weather better suited to a polar bear than a person. So, here she was. Six days away from Christmas, decorating a house for a bunch of people who probably wouldn’t appreciate it. Except for her boss, of course. He loved this time of year with a childlike passion, right down to the snow.

She hated snow, but not as much as she hated Christmas.

She turned slowly and surveyed the main hall of the lodge. Even her late mother would have been proud, Faye thought with a sharp pang in her chest, before she pushed that thought very firmly away. The entire house looked disgustingly festive. It was enough to make a sane person want to hurl, she told herself firmly, clinging to her hatred of the season of goodwill. There was no reason to be sad about being alone for the holidays when she hated the holidays with a passion, right?

At least her task was over and she could head back to the sun, where she could hide in her perfectly climate-controlled apartment and lose herself in her annual tradition of binge-watching every Predator movie made, followed by every Alien DVD in her collection, followed by any other sci-fi horror flick that was as disassociated from Christmas as it was from reality.

She moved toward the front door where her compact carry-on bag was already packed and waiting for her retreat to normality and a world without decorations or Christmas carols or—

The front door swung open and swirl of frigid air preceded the arrival of her boss, Piers Luckman. Lucky by name and luckier by nature, they said. Only she knew what a hard worker he was beneath that handsome playboy exterior. She’d worked for him for the past three years and had the utmost respect for him as a businessman. And as a man...? A tiny curl of something unfurled deep inside her. Something forbidden. Something that in another person could resemble a hint of longing, of desire. Something she clamped down on with her usual resolute ferocity. No. She didn’t go there.

Piers stomped the snow off his feet on the porch outside then stepped into the lobby and unslung his battered leather computer satchel from one shoulder.

“Good flight?” she asked, knowing he’d probably piloted the company jet himself for the journey from LA to Jackson Hole.

He had no luggage because he always kept a full wardrobe at each of his homes peppered around the world.

“Merry Christmas!” Piers greeted her as he saw her standing there and unzipped his down-filled puffer jacket.

Oh, dear mother of God, what on earth was he wearing underneath it?

“Weren’t you supposed arrive on Saturday, the day before your party? You’re four days early,” she commented, ignoring his festive greeting. “And what, by all that’s holy, is that?”

She pointed at the gaudy hand-knitted sweater he wore. The reindeer’s eyes were lopsided, his antlers crooked and...his nose? Well, suffice to say the red woolen pompom was very...bright.

A breathtaking grin spread across Piers’s face.

Faye focused her gaze slightly off center so she wouldn’t be tempted to stare or smile in return. The man was far too good-looking, and she only remained immune to his charms because of her personal vow to remain single and childless. That aside, she loved her job and getting a crush on her boss would be a surefire way to the unemployment office.

After all, wasn’t that what had happened to a long line of her predecessors? It wasn’t like he could help it if personal assistants, who had an excuse to spend so much time with him, often found him incredibly appealing. He was charming, intelligent, handsome and, even though he’d been born with a silver spoon lodged very firmly in that beautiful mouth, he wasn’t averse to working hard, overseeing his empire with confidence and charisma. The only time Faye had ever seen him shaken had been last January, when his twin brother had died in a sky-diving accident. Since then he’d been somewhat quieter, more reflective than usual.

While Faye had often felt Piers had been a little on the cavalier side in his treatment of others—particularly his revolving door of girlfriends—he’d become more considerate over this past year. As if Quin’s death had reminded him just how fleeting life could be. Even Lydia, his latest girlfriend, had been on the scene far longer than was usual. Faye had even begun to wonder if Piers was contemplating making the relationship a permanent one, but then she’d received the memo to send his usual parting gift of an exquisite piece of jewelry in a signature pale blue box along with his handwritten card.

It was purely for reasons of self-preservation that she didn’t find him irresistible, and she was nothing if not good at self-preservation. Besides, if you didn’t have ridiculous dreams of happy-ever-after then you didn’t see them dashed, and you didn’t get hurt—and without all of that, you existed quite nicely, thank you.

“This?” he said, stroking a hand across the breadth of his chest and down over what she knew, from working with him at his place on the Côte D’Azur where swimwear replaced office wear, was a tautly ripped abdomen. “It’s my great-aunt Florence’s gift to me this year. I have a collection of them. Like it?”

“It’s hideous,” she said firmly. “Now you’re here, I can go. Is there anything else you need me to attend to when I get back to LA?”

* * *

Piers looked at his erstwhile PA. He’d never met anyone like Faye Darby, which was exactly why he kept her around. She intrigued him, and in his jaded world there weren’t many who still had that ability. Plus, she was ruthlessly capable, in a way he couldn’t help but admire. It might have been cruel to have sent her to decorate the house for him for the holidays—especially knowing she had such a deep dislike of the festive season—but it needed doing and, quite frankly, he didn’t trust anyone else to do it for him.

And as to the sweater, although his late great-aunt Florence had knitted him several equally jaw-droppingly hideous garments in the past, the truth was that he’d seen this one in the window of the thrift store during his morning run and he’d fallen in love with it instantly, knowing exactly how much Faye would hate it. The donation he’d made to the store in exchange for the sweater was well worth the look on Faye’s face when he’d revealed the masterpiece.

But now she was standing there, having asked him a question, and waiting for a response.

“I can’t think of anything at the moment. Did you send the thank-you gift to Lydia?” he asked.

Another thing he probably should have dealt with himself, but why not delegate when the person you delegated to was so incredibly competent? Besides, extricating himself from liaisons that showed every sign of getting complicated was something best left to an expert. And, goodness knew, Faye had gained more than sufficient experience in fare-welling his lady friends on his behalf.

To his delight, Faye rolled her eyes. Ah, she was so easy to tease—so very serious. Which only made him work that much harder to get a reaction out of her one way or another.

“Of course I did,” Faye responded icily. “She returned it, by the way. Do you want to know what she said?”

Piers had no doubt his latest love interest—make that ex-love interest—had been less than impressed to be dusted off with diamonds and had sent the bracelet and matching earrings back to the office with a very tersely worded note. Lydia had a knack for telling people exactly what she thought of them with very few words, and he would put money on her having told him exactly where he could put said items of jewelry.

He also had every belief that Faye agreed with Lydia’s stance. The two women had gotten on well. Perhaps a little too well. He cringed at the thought of the two of them ganging up on him. He wouldn’t have stood a chance. Either way, he would stick firm to his decision to cut her out of his life, although he’d had the sneaking suspicion that Lydia would not give up as easily as those who’d gone before her.

“No, it’s okay, I can guess,” he answered with a slight grimace.

“She isn’t going to give up,” Faye continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “She said she understands you’d be getting cold feet, given how much you mean to one another and your inability to commit.”

“My what?”

“She also said you can give the jewelry to her in person and suggested dinner at her favorite restaurant in the New Year. I’ve put it in your calendar.”

Piers groaned. “Fine, I’ll tell her to her face.”

“Good. Now, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my way.”

She was in an all-fired hurry to leave, wasn’t she? He’d told her she was welcome to stay for his annual holiday house party, but Faye had looked at him as if she’d rather gargle with shards of glass.

“No, nothing else. Take care on the road. The forecasted storm looks as if it’s blowing in early. It’s pretty gnarly out there. Will you be okay to drive?”

“Of course,” she said with an air of supreme confidence.

Beneath it, though, he got the impression that her attitude was one of bravado rather than self-assurance. He’d gotten to understand Faye’s little nuances pretty well in the time she’d worked for him. He wondered if she knew she had those little “tells.”

Faye continued, “The rental company assured me I have snow tires on the car and that it will handle the weather. They even supplied me with chains for the tires, which I fitted this morning.”

“You know how to fit chains?” he asked and then mentally rolled his eyes. Of course she knew how to fit chains. She pretty much could do everything, couldn’t she?

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

While she didn’t ever seem to think anyone should worry about her, Piers was pretty certain he was the only person looking out for her. She had nobody else. Her background check had revealed her to be an orphan from the age of fifteen. Not even any extended family hidden in the nooks and crannies of the world.

What would it be like to be so completely alone? he wondered. Even though his twin brother had died suddenly last January, both his parents were still living and he had aunts and uncles and cousins too numerous to count—even if they weren’t the kinds of people he wanted to necessarily be around. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be so completely on your own.

She reached for her coat and Piers moved behind her to help her shrug it on, then Faye bent to lift her overnight case at the same time he did.

“I’ll take it,” she said firmly. “No point in you having to go back out in the cold.”

Her words made sense but grated on his sense of chivalry. In his world, no woman should ever have to lift a finger let alone her own case. But then again, Faye wasn’t of his world, was she? And she went to great pains to remind him of that. “Thanks for stepping into the breach and doing the house for me,” he said as they hesitated by the door.

Faye gave one last look at the fully decorated great hall—her eyes lingered on the stockings for Piers’s expected guests pinned over the fireplace, at the tree glittering with softly glowing lights and spun-glass ornaments—and actually shuddered.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said with obvious relief.

It was patently clear she couldn’t wait to get out of there.

“Thanks, Faye. I do appreciate it.”

“You’d better,” she warned direly. “I’ve directed the payroll office to give me a large bonus for this one.”

“Double it, you’re worth it,” he countered with another one of his grins that usually turned women to putty in his hands no matter their age—women except for his PA, that was.

“Thank you,” Faye said tightly as she zipped up the front of her coat and pulled up her hood.

He watched as she lifted her overnight case and hoisted the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder.

Piers held the door open for her. “Take care on the driveway and watch out for the drop-off on the side. I know the surface has been graded recently but you can’t be too careful in this weather.”

“Trust me, careful is my middle name.”

“Why is that, Faye?”

She pretended she didn’t hear the question the same way he’d noticed she ignored all his questions that veered into personal territory.

“Enjoy yourself, see you next year,” she said and headed for the main stairs.

Piers watched her trudge down the stairs and across the driveway toward the garage, and closed the front door against the bitter-cold air that swirled around him. He turned and faced the interior of the house. Soon it would be filled with people—friends he’d invited for the holidays. But right now, with Faye gone, the place felt echoingly empty.

* * *

The wind had picked up outside in the past couple of hours and Faye bent over a little as she made her way toward the converted stables where she’d parked her rental SUV. Piers hadn’t seen fit to garage the Range Rover she’d had waiting for him at the airport, she noted with a frown, but had left the vehicle at the bottom of the stairs to the front door. Serve him right if he has to dig it out come morning, she thought.

It would especially serve him right for delivering that blasted megawatt smile in her direction not once but twice in a short space of time. She knew he used it like the weapon it truly was. No, it didn’t make her heart sing and, no, it didn’t do strange things to her downstairs, either. But it could, if she let it.

Faye blinked firmly, as if to rid herself of the mental image of him standing there looking far more tempting than any man should in such a truly awful sweater—good grief, was one sleeve really longer than the other?

Well, none of that mattered now. She was on her way to the airport and then to normality. A flurry of snow whipped against her, sticking wetly to any exposed patches of skin. Had she mentioned how much she hated snow? Faye gritted her teeth and pressed the remote in her pocket that opened the garage door. She scurried into the building that, despite being renovated into a six-stall garage, was still redolent with the lingering scents of hay and horses and a time when things around here were vastly different.

Across the garage she thought she saw a movement and stared into the dark recesses of the far bay before dismissing the notion as a figment of her imagination. Faye opened the trunk of the SUV and hefted her overnight bag into the voluminous space. A bit of a sad analogy for her life when she thought about it—a small, compact, cram-filled object inside an echoing, empty void. But she didn’t think about it. Well, hardly ever. Except at this time of year. Which was exactly why she hated it so much. No matter where she turned she couldn’t escape the pain she kept so conscientiously at bay the rest of the year.

An odd sound from inside the SUV made her stop in her tracks. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and Faye looked around carefully. She could see nothing out of order. No mass murderers loitering in the shadows. No extraterrestrial creatures poised to hunt her down and rip her spine out. Nothing. Correction, nothing but the sudden howl of a massive squall of wind and snow. She really needed to get going before the weather got too rough for her to reach the airport and the subsequent sanity her flight home promised.

Stepping around the SUV to the driver’s door, Faye realized something was perched on her seat. Strange. She didn’t remember leaving anything there when she’d pulled in two days ago, nor had she noticed anything amiss this morning when she’d come out to fit the chains on the tires in readiness to leave. Was this Piers’s idea of a joke? His joy in the festive season saw him insist every year on giving her a gift, which every year she refused to open.

She moved a little closer and realized there were, in fact, two objects. One on her passenger seat, which looked like a large tote of some kind, the other a blanket-covered something-or-other shaped suspiciously like a baby’s car seat. A trickle of foreboding sent a shiver down Faye’s spine.

At the end of the garage, a door to the outside opened and then slammed shut, making her jump. What was going on? Then, from the back of the building, she heard a vehicle start up and drive away. Fast. She raced to the doorway in time to see a flicker of taillights as a small hatchback gunned it down the driveway. What? Who?

From her SUV she heard another sound. One she had no difficulty recognizing. If there was anything that made her more antsy than the festive season, it was miniature people. The sound came again, this time louder and with a great deal more distress.

Even though she’d seen the hatchback leaving, she still looked around, waiting for whomever it was who’d thought it funny to leave a child here to spring out and yell, “Surprise!” But she, and the baby, were alone. “This isn’t funny anymore,” she muttered.

It wasn’t funny to start with, she reminded herself. The blanket covering the car seat began to move as if tiny fists and feet were waving beneath it. A slip of paper pinned to the blanket crackled with the movement. With her heart hammering in her chest, Faye gently tugged the blanket down.

The baby—a boy, she guessed by the blue knitted-woolen hat he wore and the tiny, puffy blue jacket that enveloped him—looked at her with startled eyes. He was completely silent for the length of about a split second before his little face scrunched up and he let loose a giant wail.

Nausea threatened to swamp her. No, no, no! This couldn’t be happening. Every natural instinct in her body urged her to comfort the child, but fear held her back. The very thought of holding that small body to hers, of cupping that small head with the palm of her hand, of inhaling that sweet baby scent—no, she couldn’t do that again.

Faye thought quickly. She had to get the baby inside where it was warm. Babysitting might not be the holiday break Piers had been looking forward to, but he would just have to cope with it. She reached out to jiggle the car seat, hoping the movement might calm the baby down, but he wasn’t having it.

“Sorry, little man,” she said, flipping the blanket back over him to protect him from the elements outside. “But you’re going to have to go undercover until I can get you to the house.”

The paper on the blanket rustled and Faye took a second to rip it free and shove it in her pocket. She could read it later. Right now she had to get the baby where the temperature was not approaching subzero.

Again she wondered who had left the baby there. What kind of homicidal idiot did something like that? In these temperatures, he’d have died all too quickly. Another futile loss in a world full of losses, she thought bleakly. Whoever it was had waited until she’d showed, though, hadn’t they? What would they have done if she’d chosen to stay an extra night? Leave the child at the door and ring the doorbell before hightailing it down the driveway? Who would do something like that?

Whoever it was didn’t matter right now, she reminded herself. She had to get the baby to the house.

Swallowing back the queasiness that assailed her, Faye hooked the tote bag over one shoulder and then hugged the car seat close to her body, her arms wrapped firmly around the edges of the blanket so it wouldn’t fly away in the wind. She scurried across to the house, slipping a little on the driveway in shoes that were better suited to strolling the Santa Monica pier than battling winter in Wyoming, and staggered up the front stairs.

The baby didn’t let up his screaming for one darn second. She didn’t blame him. By the time she reached the front door, she felt like weeping herself. She dropped the tote at her feet and hammered on the thick wooden surface, relieved when the door swung open almost immediately.

“Car trouble?” Piers asked, filling the doorway before stepping aside and gesturing for her to enter.

“No,” she answered. “Baby trouble.”

Two

“Baby trouble?” he repeated, looked stunned.

“That’s what I said. Someone left this in the garage. Here, take it.”

Faye thrust the car seat into his arms and pulled the door closed behind them. Damn his eyes, he’d already started the Christmas carols collection. One thousand, two hundred and forty-seven versions of every carol known to modern man and in six different languages. She knew because she’d had the torturous task of creating the compilation for him. Seriously, could her day get any worse?

Piers looked in horror at the screaming object in his arms. “What is it?”

Faye sighed and rolled her eyes. “I told you. A baby. A boy, I’d guess.”

She reached over and flipped down the blanket, exposing the baby’s red, unhappy face.

Piers looked from the baby to her in bewilderment. “But who...? What...?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Faye replied. “I don’t know who, or what, left him behind. Although I suspect it was possibly the person I caught a glimpse of speeding away in a car down the driveway. For the record, no, I did not get the license plate number. Look, I have to leave him with you, I’m running late. Oh, by the way, he came with a note.” She reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out the crumpled paper and squinted at the handwriting before putting the note on top of the blanket. “Looks like it’s addressed to you. Have fun,” she said firmly and turned to leave.

“You can’t leave me with this,” Piers protested.

“I can and I will. I’m off the clock, remember. Seriously, if you can’t cope, just call up someone from Jackson Hole. I’m sure there’ll be any number of people willing to assist you. I can’t miss my flight. I have to go.”

“I’ll double your salary. Triple it!”

Faye shook her head and resolutely turned to the door. There wasn’t enough money in the world to make her stay. With the baby’s wails ringing in her ears and a look of abject horror on her playboy boss’s face firmly embedded in her mind, she went outside.

Faye hadn’t realized she was shaking until the door closed at her back. The baby’s cries even made it through the heavy wood. Faye blinked away her own tears. She. Would. Not. Cry. Ignoring her need to provide comfort might rank up there with the hardest things she’d ever done, but at least this way no one would get hurt—especially not her. Piers had resources at his disposal; there were people constantly ready to jump at his beck and call. And if all else failed, there was always Google.

Stiffening her spine, she headed to the garage, got into her SUV and started down the drive. It might only be four in the afternoon, but with the storm it was already gloomy out. Despite the snow tires and the chains, nothing could get her used to the sensation of driving on a snow-and-ice-covered road. Nothing quite overcame that sickening, all-encompassing sense of dread that struck her every time the tires began to lose purchase—nothing quite managed to hold off the memories that came flooding back in that moment. Nothing, except perhaps the overpowering sense of reprieve when the all-wheel-drive kicked in and she knew she wasn’t going to suffer a repeat of that night.

And then, as always, came the guilt. Survivor’s guilt they called it. Thirteen years later and it still felt a lot more like punishment. It was part of why she’d chosen to live in Southern California rather than her hometown in Michigan or anyplace that got snow and ice in winter. It didn’t make the memories go away, but sunshine had a way of blurring them over time.

The sturdy SUV rocked under the onslaught of the wind and Faye’s fingers wrapped tight around the steering wheel. She should have left ages ago. Waiting a couple extra hours at the airport would have been infinitely preferable to this.

“Relax,” she told herself. “You’ve got this.”

Another gust rocked the vehicle and it slid a little in the icy conditions. Faye’s heart rate picked up a few notches and beneath her coat she felt perspiration begin to form in her armpits and under her breasts. Damn snow. Damn Piers. Damn Christmas.

And then it happened. A pine tree on the side of the road just ahead toppled across the road in front of her. Faye jammed on the brakes and tried to steer to the side, but it was too late—there was no way she could avoid the impact. The airbag deployed in her face with a shotgun-like boom, shoving her back into her seat. The air around her filled with fine dust that almost looked like smoke, making her cough, and an acrid scent like gunpowder filled her nostrils.

Memories flooded into her mind. Of screams, of the scent of blood and gasoline, of the heat and flare of flames and then of pain and loss and the end of everything she’d ever known. Faye shook uncontrollably and struggled to get out of the SUV. It took her a while to realize she still had her seat belt on.

“I’m okay,” she said shakily, willing it to be true. “I’m okay.”

She took a swift inventory of her limbs, her face. A quick glance in the rearview mirror confirmed she had what looked like gravel rash on her face from the airbag. It was minor in the grand scheme of things, she told herself. It could have been so much worse. At least this time she was alone.

Faye searched the foot well for her handbag and pulled out her cell phone. She needed to call for help, but the lack of bars on her screen made it clear there was no reception—not even enough for an emergency call.

With a groan of frustration, she hitched her bag crosswise over her body and pushed the door open. It took some effort as one of the front panels had jammed up against the door frame, but eventually she got it open wide enough to squeeze through.

She surveyed the damage. There was no way this vehicle was going anywhere anytime soon, and unless she could climb over the fallen tree and make it down the rest of the driveway and somehow hail a cab at the bottom of the mountain, she was very definitely going to miss her flight.

She weighed her options and looked toward the house, not so terribly far away, where light blazed from the downstairs’ windows and the trees outside twinkled with Christmas lights. Then she looked back down—over the tree with its massive girth, the snowdrifts on one side of the driveway and the sheer drop on the other.

She had only one choice.

* * *

Piers stared incredulously at the closed front door. She’d actually done it. She’d left him with a screaming baby and no idea of what to do. He’d fire her on the spot, if he didn’t need her so damn much. Faye basically ran his life with Swiss precision. On the rare occasions something went off the rails, she was always there to right things. Except for now.

Piers looked at the squalling baby in the car seat and set it on the floor. Darn kid was loud.

He figured out how to extricate the little human from his bindings and picked him up, instinctively resting the baby against his chest and patting him on the bottom. To his amazement, the little tyke began to settle. And nuzzle, as if he was seeking something Piers was pretty sure he was incapable of providing.

Before the little guy could work himself up to more tears, Piers bent, lifted the tote his traitorous PA had dropped on the floor and carried it and the baby through to the kitchen.

Sure enough, when he managed to one-handedly wrangle the thing open, he found a premixed baby bottle in a cooler sleeve.

“Right, now what?” he asked the infant in his arms. “You guys like this stuff warm, don’t you?”

He vaguely remembered hearing somewhere that heating formula in a microwave was a no-no and right now he knew that standing the bottle in a pot of warm water and waiting for it to heat wouldn’t be quick enough for him or for the baby. On cue, the baby began to fret. His little hands curled into tight fists that clutched at Piers’s sweater impatiently and he banged his little face against Piers’ neck.

“Okay, okay. I’m new at this. You’re just going to have to be patient a while longer.”

With an air of desperation, Piers continued to check the voluminous tote—taking everything out and laying it on the broad slab of granite that was his kitchen counter.

The tote reminded him of Mary Poppins’s magical bag with the amount of stuff it held—a tin of formula along with a massive stash of disposable diapers and a couple of sets of clothing. In the bottom of the bag he found a contraption that looked like it would hold a baby bottle. He checked the side and huffed a massive sigh of relief on discovering it was a bottle warmer. Four to six minutes, according to the directions, and the demanding tyrant in his arms could be fed.

“Okay, buddy, here we go. Let’s get this warmed up for you,” Piers muttered to his ungrateful audience, who’d had enough of waiting and screwed up his face again before letting out a massive wail.

Piers frantically jiggled the baby while following the directions to warm the bottle. It was undoubtedly the longest four minutes of his life. The baby banged his forehead against Piers’s neck again. Oh, hell, he was hot. Did he have a fever? Piers felt the child’s forehead with one of his big hands. A bit too warm, yes, but not feverish. He hoped. Maybe he just needed to get out of that jacket. But how on earth was Piers going to manage that? Feeling about as clumsy as if attempting to disrobe the baby while wearing oven gloves, Piers carefully wrestled the baby out of the jacket.

“There we go, buddy. Mission accomplished.”

The baby rewarded him with a demanding bellow of frustration, reminding Piers that the time had to be up for warming the bottle. He lifted the bottle, gave it a good shake, tested it on his wrist and then offered it to the baby. Poor mite must have been starving; he took to the bottle as if his life depended on it. And it did, Piers realized. And right now this little life depended on him, too.

So where on earth had he come from?

Remembering the note Faye had left with him, Piers walked to the entrance of the house and shifted the blanket until he found the crumpled piece of paper. Carefully balancing the baby and bottle with one hand, he went to sit in the main room and read the note.

Dear Mr. Luckman,

It’s time you took responsibility for your actions. You’ve ignored all my attempts to contact you so far. Maybe this will make you sit up and take notice. His name is Casey, he was born on September 10 and he’s your son. I relinquish all rights to him. I never wanted him in the first place, but he deserves to know his father. Do not try to find me.

There was an indecipherable signature scrawled along the bottom. Piers read the note again and flipped the single sheet over to see if the author had left a name on the other side. There was nothing.

His son? Impossible. Well, perhaps not completely impossible, but about as highly unlikely as growing a market garden on the moon. He was meticulous about protection in all his relationships. Accidents like this did not happen to him. Or at least they hadn’t, until now.

Piers did the mental math and figured, if he was the child’s father, he had to have met the baby’s mother around the New Year. He was always in Jackson Hole from before Christmas until early January and hosted his usual festivities around the twenty-fourth and on the thirty-first. But he’d been between girlfriends at the time and he certainly didn’t remember sleeping with anyone.

The baby had slowed down on the bottle and he stared up at Piers with very solemn brown eyes. Eyes that were very much like Piers’s own. His son? Could it somehow be true? Even as he mentally rejected the idea, he began to feel a connection to the infant in his arms. A connection that was surely as unfeasible as the idea that he was responsible for this tiny life.

The bottle was empty and Piers removed it from the baby’s mouth. So now what?

Casey looked blissed out on the formula, the expression on his face making Piers smile as the baby blew a milky bubble. In seconds the infant was asleep. Piers laid the kid down on the couch and packed some pillows around him like a soft fortress. Then he got to his feet and reached for his phone. Someone in town had to know where the baby belonged. Because as cute as Casey was, he surely didn’t belong to him.

He dialed the number for one of the café and bar joints in town, a place where the locals gathered to gossip by day and party and occasionally fight by night. If anyone knew anything about a new baby in town, it would be these guys. Except the call didn’t go through. He checked the screen—no reception. He reached for the landline only to discover it was out of action, too.

“Damn,” Piers cursed on a heavy sigh.

The storm had clearly grown a lot worse while he was occupied with his unexpected guest. Maybe he should go and check on the backup generator. He was just about to do so when he heard a knocking at the front door. Puzzled, as he wasn’t expecting any of his guests for a few more days yet, he went across to open it.

“Faye? What happened to you?”

His eyes roamed her face as he took her arm and led her inside toward the warmth of the fireplace. She was pale and she had a large red mark on her face, like a mild gravel rash or something, and she shivered uncontrollably. Her jacket, which was fine for show but obviously useless in actual snowy conditions, was sodden, as were the jeans she wore, and her sneakers made a squelching sound on the floor tiles.

“A t-t-tree came d-d-down on the driveway,” she managed through chattering teeth.

“You’re going to have to get out of these wet clothes before you get hypothermic,” he said.

“T-too late,” she said with a wry grin. “I think I’m already th-there.”

“Come on,” he said leading the way to a downstairs bathroom. “Get in a hot shower and I’ll get you something dry to put on. Where’s your suitcase?”

“St-still in the b-b-back of the SUV,” she said through lips tinged with blue.

“And the SUV?”

“It’s stuck against the tree that came down across the drive about halfway down.”

“Are you hurt anywhere other than your face?”

“A f-few bruises, maybe, b-but mostly just c-cold.”

No wonder she looked so shocky. A crash and then walking back up the drive in this weather? It was a miracle she’d made it.

“Let’s get you out of these wet things.”

He reached for her jacket and tugged the zipper down. Chilled fingers closed around his hands.

“I-I can m-manage,” she said weakly.

“You can barely speak,” he answered firmly, brushing her hands away and tugging the jacket off her. “I’ll help you get out of your clothes, that’s all. Okay?”

Faye nodded, her hair dripping. Beneath her jacket, Faye’s fine wool sweater was also soaked through and her nipples peaked against the fabric through her bra. He bent to undo the laces on her sneakers and yanked them off, then peeled away her wet socks. She had pretty feet, even though they were currently blue with cold and, to his surprise, she had tiny daisies painted on each of her big toes. Cute and whimsical, he thought, and nothing like the automaton he was used to in the office. Near her ankle he caught sight of some scar tissue that appeared to be snaking out from beneath her sodden jeans.

“We’ve got two options,” Piers said as he reached for the button fly of her jeans. “The best way to warm you up is skin-to-skin contact, or a nice hot shower.”

“S-shower,” Faye said emphatically.

Piers smiled a little. So, she wasn’t so far gone she couldn’t make a decision. For that he could be thankful, even if the prospect of skin-to-skin contact with her held greater appeal than it ought to. At least the under-floor heating would help to restore some warmth to her frigid feet. He peeled the wet denim down her legs. He always knew she was slightly built but there was lean muscle there, too. As if she did distance running or something like that.

He’d always been a leg man and a twitch in his groin inconveniently reminded him of that fact. Now wasn’t the time for those kinds of thoughts, he reminded himself firmly. But then he noticed her lower legs and the ropey scar tissue. Faye’s hands had been on his shoulder, to help her keep her balance as he removed her jeans. Her fingers tightened against his muscles when he exposed her damaged skin.

“I can take it from h-here,” she said, her voice still shaking with the effect of the cold.

“No, don’t worry, I’ve got it,” he insisted and finished pulling her jeans off for her.

No wonder she always wore trousers in the office. Those were some serious scars and she was obviously self-conscious about them. Still, they were the least of their worries right now. First priority was getting her warm again.

“Okay.” He stepped away. “Can you manage the sweater and your underwear on your own? I’ll get the shower running.”

Faye nodded and began to pull her sweater up and over her head. For all that she lived in Los Angeles, she had the fairest skin of anyone he’d ever seen. And were those freckles scattering down her chest and over the swell of her perfect breasts? Suddenly disgusted with himself for sneaking a peek, Piers snapped his attention back to his task before she caught him staring, but he knew he’d never be able to see her in her usual buttoned-up office wear without seeing those freckles in the back of his mind.

The bathroom soon began to fill with steam and he turned to see Faye had wrapped a towel around herself, protecting her modesty. Even so, he couldn’t quite rid himself of the vision of her as she’d pulled her sweater off. Of the slenderness of her hips and thighs and how very tiny her waist was. Of the scar across her abdomen that had told of a major surgery at some time. Of that intriguing dusting of freckles that invited closer exploration—

No, stop it! he castigated himself. She’s your PA, not your plaything.

“Shower’s all ready. Stay in there as long as you need. I’ll be back with some clothes, then I’ll warm up something to eat.”

For a second he considered trekking down the drive to retrieve her suitcase, but that wasn’t a practical consideration with both her and the baby needing his supervision. Which left him with the task of finding her something out of his wardrobe. An imp of mischief tugged his lips into a grin. Oh, yes, he knew exactly what he’d get her.

* * *

“You can’t be serious!” Faye exclaimed as she came through the bathroom door. “Surely you could have found me something better than this to wear!”

Now that she was warm again she was well and truly back to her usual self.

Piers fought the urge to laugh out loud. She was swamped in the Christmas sweater he’d chosen for her out of his collection and the track pants ballooned around her slender legs. At least the knitted socks he favored while he stayed here didn’t look too ridiculous, even if the heel part was probably up around her ankles. It was a relief to see her with some natural color back in her cheeks, though.

“You needed something warm.” He shrugged. “I didn’t have time to be picky. Besides, you look adorable.”

Faye snorted. “I don’t do adorable.”

“Not normally, no,” he agreed amicably. “But you have to admit you’re warmer in those clothes than you would be in your own.”

“Speaking of my own... Where are they?”

“In the dryer—except for your coat, which is hanging up in the mudroom.”

Faye nodded in approval and looked around. “What have you done with the baby?”

As if on cue, a squawk arose from the sofa. A squawk that soon rose to a high-pitched scream that was enough to raise the hairs on the back of Piers’s neck. He groaned inwardly. One problem solved and another just popped right back up. It was like playing Whac-A-Mole except a whole lot less satisfying.

“Well, aren’t you going to do something?” Faye asked with a pained expression on her face.

“I was going to get you something to eat. Perhaps you could see to Casey.”

“That’s his name?”

Piers winced as the baby screamed again and he rushed over to the sofa to pick him up. The little tyke’s knees were pulled up against his chest and his fists flailed angrily in the air. For a wee thing, he sure had bushels full of temper.

“According to the note, yes.” He held the baby up against him, but Casey wouldn’t be consoled. “What do I do now?”

“Why would you expect me to know?” his currently very unhelpful PA responded.

“Because...” His voice trailed off. He’d been about to say “because you’re a woman,” but saved himself in time. It was an unfair assumption to make. “Because you seem to know everything else,” he hastily blurted.

“You deal with him. I’ll go find us something to eat.”

“Faye, please. What should I do?” he implored, jiggling Casey up and down and swaying on the spot. All things he’d seen other people do with babies with far greater success than he was currently experiencing. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the child was in pain, but how could that be so?

Faye gestured to the empty bottle he’d left on the coffee table. “Did you burp him after you fed him?”

“Burp him?”

“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

“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.”

“I am relaxed.”

“No, you’re not. You know, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you relaxed.”

“Of course you have. I’m always relaxed at work.”

His brows lifted in incredulity. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she affirmed, averting her gaze from his perfectly symmetrical face with its quizzical expression and the similar expression on the infant so comfortable in his arms. For a man who had no experience with babies, he certainly looked very natural with this one.

Fay willed her heart rate back to normal. Right, so they had no external communication. It wasn’t her worst nightmare, but with a baby on hand it came pretty darn close. What if something went wrong and they needed medical assistance? What if—

The lights flickered.

“What was that?” she demanded.

“Just a flicker, that’s all. It’s perfectly normal, considering the weather. How about you show me how to do this diaper thing?”

“Diaper. Yes. Okay. Fine.” Faye looked around the room, searching for the tote bag. “Where’s the bag with his things?”

“It’s in the kitchen,” Piers said.

“Great.”

Faye marched in the direction of the kitchen and retrieved what she—correction, what Piers—would need, and detoured past the massive linen closet near the housekeeper’s quarters for a thick towel to lay the baby on. She wondered what Meredith, Piers’s housekeeper, would think of the situation when she arrived. When she actually could arrive, that was. Faye felt a flutter of panic in her chest again. She thought she’d overcome her anxiety issues years ago, but it was a little daunting to realize that all it took was being stranded with her boss and a baby and they all came flooding back.

“Okay,” she said on her return to the main room. “Pick a nice, flat spot and lay the towel down, double thickness.”

Piers took the towel from her and did as she instructed, spreading it with one hand on the sofa where he’d put Casey to sleep earlier.

“Good,” Faye said from her safe distance at the end of the couch. “Open the wipes container and put it next to where you’ll be working, then lay him down on the towel and undo the snaps that run along the inside of the legs of his onesie.”

“Okay, that’s not so bad so far,” Piers said.

“Keep one hand on his tummy. It’s a good habit to get into so when he starts to wriggle more, or roll over, he’s less likely to fall and hurt himself.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Piers asked, doing what he was told and looking up at her. “Jokes aside, I didn’t see anything about baby wrangling in your résumé.”

Faye ignored the question. Of course she did. She wasn’t about to launch into the bleeding heart story of her tragic past. The last thing she wanted from Piers was pity.

The last thing? What about the first? a tiny voice tickled at the back of her mind.

There was no first, she told herself firmly.

“Now, do you see the tapes on the sides of his diaper? Undo them carefully and pull the front of the diaper down and check for—”

A string of expletives poured from Piers’s lips. “What on earth? Is that normal?”

Faye couldn’t help it. She laughed out loud. As if he knew exactly what she found so funny—and he probably did—Casey gurgled happily under Piers’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said, getting herself back under control. “I shouldn’t laugh. Yes, it’s entirely normal when a child is on a liquid-only diet. His gut is still very immature and doesn’t process stuff like an older child begins to. Watch out, though, don’t let his feet kick into it.”

She continued with her instructions, stifling more laughter as Piers gagged when it came to wiping Casey’s little bottom clean. But that was nothing compared to his reaction to the water fountain the baby spouted right before he got the clean diaper on.

Faye couldn’t quite remember when she had last enjoyed herself so much. Her usually suave and capable boss—the lady slayer, as they called him in the office—was all fingers and thumbs when it came to changing a baby.

Eventually the job was done and Piers sat back on his heels with a look of accomplishment on his face.

“You do realize you’re probably going to have to do this about eight to ten times a day, don’t you?” Faye said with a wicked sense of glee. “Including at night if he doesn’t sleep through yet.”

“You’re kidding me, aren’t you? That took me, how long?”

“Fifteen minutes. But then, you’re a newbie at this. You’ll get faster as you get used to it.”

“No way. There aren’t enough hours in a day.”

“What else were you planning to do with your time? It’s not like you were planning to work this week.”

“Entertain my guests, maybe?”

“If we can’t get out, they can’t get in,” Faye reminded him, ignoring the little clench in her gut at the thought.

She hated the idea of being trapped anywhere, even if it was in a luxury ten-bedroom lodge in the mountains.

“True, but I expect once the storm blows through we’ll have the phones back, mobiles if not the landline, and we can call someone to come and clear the road and retrieve your car.”

“And then I can head back home,” she said with a heartfelt sigh.

“And then you can head home,” Piers agreed. He balanced Casey standing on his thighs, smiling at him as Casey locked his knees and bore his weight for a few seconds before his legs buckled and he sagged back down again.

“Why do you hate Christmas so much, Faye?”

“I don’t hate it,” she said defensively.

“Oh, you do.”

Piers looked her square in the eye and Faye shifted a little under his penetrating gaze. Against the well-washed wool of the snowman sweater her bare nipples tightened and she felt her breath hitch in her chest.

No, she wasn’t attracted to him. He wasn’t at all appealing as he sat there wearing a mutant Rudolph sweater and cuddling a tiny baby on his lap as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The lights flickered again.

“I’d better find some flashlights. Where do you keep them?”

“In the kitchen, I suppose. Usually, Meredith takes care of all that,” he answered, referring to the housekeeper who’d been due to arrive this evening.

Overhead, the lights dimmed again before going right out. Faye shot to her feet.

“It’s dark!” she blurted unnecessarily.

“Let your eyes adjust. With the fire going we’ll be able to see okay in a minute,” Piers soothed her.

Faye felt inexplicably helpless and that was something she generally avoided at all cost. Not being in control or being able to direct the outcome of what was going on around her was the tenth circle of hell as far as she was concerned. Where was her mobile? She had a flashlight app she could use. Better yet, she could use Piers’s. His was undoubtedly closer.

“Give me your phone,” she demanded.

“No reception, remember?” he drawled.

She could just make out that he was still playing with the baby, who remained completely unfazed by this new development. Mind you, after being abandoned by your mother, facing a power outage was nothing by comparison in his little world.

“It has a flashlight function, remember?” she sniped in return.

Piers stood, reached into his pocket and handed her the phone.

It held the warmth of his body and she felt that warmth seep into the palm of her hand, almost as intensely as if he’d touched her. She swapped the phone into her other hand and rubbed her palm over the soft cotton of the track pants, but it did little to alleviate the little tingle that warmth had left behind. The realization made her exhale impatiently.

“Faye, they’ll get the power back on soon, don’t worry. Besides, I have a backup generator. I’ll get that going in a moment or two. In the meantime, relax—enjoy the ambience.”

Ambience? On the bright side, at least the Christmas lights were also out and the carols were no longer playing. Okay, she could do ambience if she had to.

“I’m not worrying, I’m making contingency plans. It’s what I do,” she replied.

After selecting the right app on his phone, she made her way into the kitchen and searched the drawers for flashlights. Uttering a small prayer of thanks that Meredith was such an organized soul that she not only had several bright flashlights but spare bulbs and batteries, as well, Faye returned to the main room. Piers was right, with the firelight it didn’t take long for her eyes to adjust to the cozy glow that limned the furnishings. But the flickering light reminded her all too quickly of another time, another night, another fire—and the screams that had come with it.

Forcing down the quiver juddering through her, Faye methodically lined up the flashlights on the coffee table, then sat.

“I guess you’re not a fan of the dark, either, then?” Piers commented casually, as if they’d been discussing her likes and dislikes already.

“I never said that. I just like to be prepared for all eventualities.”

In the gloom she saw Piers shrug a little. “Sometimes it pays to live dangerously. To roll with the unexpected.”

“Not on my watch,” she said firmly.

The unexpected had always delivered the worst stages of her life, and she’d made it her goal to never be that vulnerable to circumstances again. So far, she’d aced it.

Across from her, Piers chuckled and the baby made a similar sound in response.

“He seems happy enough,” Faye observed. What would it be to have a life so simple? A full tummy, a nap and clean diaper, and all was well with the world. But the helplessness? Faye cringed internally. No, she was better off the way she was. An island. “What are you going to do with him?” she asked.

“Aside from keep him?” Piers asked with a laconic grin. “Raise him to be a Luckman, I guess. According to the note, he’s mine.”

Faye shot to her feet again. “We both know that’s impossible. You weren’t even going out with anyone around the time he was conceived. You’d broken up with Adele and hadn’t met Lydia yet. Unless you had a casual hookup over the Christmas break?”

Piers snorted. “I can’t believe you know exactly who and when I was going out with someone.”

“Of course I keep track of those details. For the most part I’ve had a closer relationship with any of those women than you have, remember?”

“I do remember, and you’re right. I wasn’t with anyone, in any sense, that holiday.”

“Then why would his mother say he’s yours? Surely she knew who she slept with that holiday?”

Or had she known?

Piers’s twin had been at the lodge since before that New Year’s Eve when Piers had flown to LA for two days to countersign a new deal he’d been waiting on. While Quin had always been charming enough, he’d very clearly lacked the moral fiber and work ethic of his slightly older twin. Faye privately thought part of Quin’s problem was that everything in his life had come too easily to him—especially women—and that had left him jaded and often cynical. Not for the first time she wondered if he’d masqueraded as his brother sometimes, purely for the nuisance factor. And this baby development was nothing if not a nuisance.

“If we ever track her down, I’ll make sure to ask her,” Piers said with a wry twist to his mouth. “We don’t have much to go on, do we?”

No, they didn’t. Faye made a mental note to add speaking to their private investigators to her to-do list the moment she returned to civilization.

Piers shifted Casey into the crook of his arm and the baby snuggled against him, his little eyes drifting closed again. The picture of the two of them was so poignantly sweet it made Faye want to head straight out into the nearest snowdrift and freeze away any sense of longing that dared spark deep inside her.

She moved toward the fireplace and put her hands out to the flames.

“Still cold?” Piers asked.

“Not really.”

“I should get that food I promised you.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll get it. You hold the baby,” she said firmly and grabbed a flashlight from the table. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

* * *

Piers watched her scurry away as if the hounds of hell were after her. Why was his super-efficient PA so afraid of babies? It was more than fear, though, he mused. On the surface, it appeared as if she couldn’t bear to be around the child, but Piers wasn’t fooled by that. He hadn’t doubled the family’s billion-dollar empire by being deceived by what lay on the surface. His ability to delve into the heart of matters was one of his greatest strengths, and the idea of delving into Faye’s closely held secrets definitely held a great deal of appeal.

Casey was now fast asleep in his arms. He settled the baby down inside the cushion fort he’d created earlier and covered him with his blanket. As Piers fingered the covering—hand-knitted in the softest of yarns—he wondered if the baby had other family who cared about him. Family who might be wondering where he was and who was caring for him.

While Piers projected the image of a lazy playboy, beneath the surface he had a quick mind that never stopped working. It frustrated him that there was nothing further he could do to solve the question of how Casey had come to be delivered to his door.

But he could certainly delve a little deeper into Faye’s apparent phobia when it came to infants. She intrigued him on many levels. Always had. He’d always sensed she bore scars, emotional if not physical, because she was so locked down. But now he knew she had scars on her body, too, and suddenly he wanted to know why. Were the two linked? And how did she know her way around a diaper bag so well?

Satisfied the baby was safe where he was placed, Piers rose and made his way through to the kitchen, where he could hear Faye clattering around. From the scent that tweaked his nostrils, she’d found one of Meredith’s signature rich tomato soups in the freezer and was reheating it on the stove top, tiny blue flames dancing merrily beneath the pot. Ever resourceful, she’d lit some candles and placed them in mason jars to give more light.

Faye was in the middle of slicing a loaf of ciabatta and sprinkling grated cheese onto the slices when she became aware of his presence.

“Bored with the baby already?”

“He’s asleep, so I thought I’d come and annoy you instead.”

“It takes a lot to annoy me.”

“Casey seemed to manage it,” Piers said succinctly, determined to get to the root of her aversion to the infant.

“He doesn’t annoy me. I’m just not a baby person,” she said lightly, turning her attention back to putting the tray of sliced bread and cheese under the broiler. “Not every woman is, you know.”

“Most have a reason,” he pressed. “What’s yours?”

Sometimes it was best to go directly to the issue, he’d found. With Faye, it was fifty-fifty that he’d get a response. Tonight, it seemed, he was out of luck.

“Did you want a glass of wine with the meal?” she asked, moving to the tall wine fridge against the wall.

“No, thanks, but go ahead if you want one.”

She shook her head. Piers watched her move around the kitchen, finding everything she needed to set up trays for them to eat from. He’d always appreciated her competence and reliability, but right now he wished there was a little less polished professionalism and little more about her that was forthcoming. Like, who was she really? How did she get to be so competent around babies and yet seem to detest them at the same time? No, detest was too strong a word. It had been fear in her eyes, together with a genuine need to create distance between her and little Casey.

“Are you scared of him?” Piers asked conversationally. “I can understand if you are. I was always terrified that I’d drop a baby if I ever had to hold one.”

“You? Terrified?” she asked, raising a skeptical brow at him as she turned from checking the bread under the broiler.

Under the candle glow, he could see the hot air had flushed her cheeks and was reminded again that Faye was a very attractive woman. Not that he was into her or anything. Liar, said the small voice at the back of his head. Half of her appeal had always been her looks, the other half had been her apparent immunity to his charms. It didn’t matter what he said, did or wore—or didn’t wear—she remained impervious to him. She also wasn’t in the least sycophantic—and not at all hesitant to bluntly tell him when his ideas or demands were outrageous or unreasonable.

He realized she’d managed to deflect the question away from herself again.

“You’re very good at that, you know,” he commented with a wry grin.

“What, cheese on toast?” she answered flippantly, presenting her back to him as she bent to lift the tray of toasted golden goodness from the oven. Faye began piling the cheese toast slices onto a plate on his tray, taking only two small bits for herself.

No wonder she was so slender. She barely ate enough to keep a bird alive.

“I meant your ability to avoid answering my questions.”

“Did you want cream in your soup?”

And there she went again. She was so much better at this than him, but he was nothing if not tenacious.

“Faye, tell me. Are you scared of babies?”

She sighed heavily and looked up from ladling out the steaming, hot soup into bowls.

“No. Did you want cream or not?”

He acceded. “Fine, whatever.”

As with everything Faye did, she paid meticulous attention to presentation, and he watched with amusement as she swirled cream into his bowl and then, using a skewer like some kind of soup barista, created a snowflake pattern in the cream before sprinkling a little chopped parsley on top and setting the bowl on his tray.

“That’s cute. Where did you learn to do that?”

“Nowhere special,” she said softly. But then a stricken expression crossed her face and she seemed to draw herself together even tighter. Her voice, when she spoke, held a slight tremor. “Actually, that’s not true. I learned it as a kid.”

She bit her lower lip, as if she’d realized she’d suddenly said too much.

Piers pressed home with another more pointed question. “From your mom?”

She gave a brief, jerky nod of her head.

Piers sensed the memory had pained her and regretted having pushed her for a response. But he knew, better than most people realized, that sometimes you had to endure the pain before you could reap the rewards. Oh, sure, he’d been born into a life of entitlement and with more money at his disposal while he was growing up than any child should ever have. Most people thought he had no idea as to the meaning of suffering or being without—and maybe, on their scale, he didn’t. Yet, despite all of the advantages his life had afforded him, he knew what emptiness felt like, and right now he could see a yawning emptiness in his PA’s eyes that urged him to do something to fill it.

But how could a man who had everything, and yet nothing at the same time, offer help to someone who kept everyone beyond arms’ length?

Something hanging from the light fitting above Faye’s head caught his eye. Mistletoe. Before he knew it, Piers was rising and taking her in his arms. Then he did the one thing he knew he did better than any man on earth. He kissed her.

Four

Shock rippled through her mind, followed very closely by something else. Something that offered a thrill of enticement, a promise of pleasure. Piers’s lips were warm and firm, and the pressure of them against hers was gentle, coaxing.

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