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  “Good.”

  He was silent for a moment. He had worked hard to establish and maintain a reputation for diligence, high standards, and impeccable ethics, and the story he had to share with her made him look irresponsible at best and like a downright asshole at worst. But none of what he would be asking her to do would make sense if she didn’t know at least the outline of what had happened. He braced himself and began.

  “All right, here’s the story behind the baby. It’s a secret, remember.” He gave her a stern look, and she returned it with an overly innocent expression that he didn’t quite buy. “About a year ago, I met a woman at a conference. We had a very brief affair. Neither of us wanted more than that, and she lived in Boston, so afterward, we went our separate ways and never saw each other again. A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by an attorney acting on behalf of her parents. Apparently, she’d gotten pregnant as a result of our relationship and had given birth, but died shortly afterward. Her parents had initially wanted to keep the baby, but they’re elderly, and the grandmother has had some health problems, so they contacted me. A paternity test confirmed that she is, indeed, mine. I picked her up on Friday.”

  His story seemed to have dented some of Rachel’s cockiness. Her bright eyes grew wide, and the expression on her pretty face made it clear she had no idea what to make of this.

  He knew how she felt.

  “Wow …” she said.

  “Yes, wow,” he continued, his voice dry. “I’m not married, and I never intended to have children, so to have a baby land in my lap has been a shock, to say the least. I managed to keep her alive over the weekend, but I need to sort out better arrangements for the long term. I’ve already consulted a friend who specializes in family law so I can place her for adoption. Per his instructions, I’m going to have you contact a social worker and start putting that into motion.”

  Rachel sat back in her seat, her brow puckering and her lips falling into a pout. She didn’t say anything, but the brightness in her eyes dulled to something sad and wounded-looking.

  Annoyance sliced through his chest as defensiveness rose. “I’m planning to place her with a loving, responsible, well-vetted family who wants children and will be delighted to have a healthy infant to raise as their own.”

  Rachel still looked … crushed. “Of course.” As annoying as the cheeky banter had been, her suddenly subdued tone was worse.

  He stared at her, almost daring her to argue, but she didn’t say anything more. “From what I understand from my friend, the process could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Until she’s placed with a family, I need you to arrange temporary childcare. A good nanny, a good daycare—I don’t really care as long as she’s well taken care of. I’d like you to find full-time care for her starting no later than the beginning of next week.”

  Rachel turned her enormous brown eyes on him and said nothing.

  He leaned forward, fixing her with his I mean business stare. “Do you think you can handle that?”

  The rosy confidence that she’d walked in with seemed to have faded along with her smile, but she nodded. “Yes, I can do that.”

  “Until we get childcare sorted out, I’ll need you on hand when necessary to look after her yourself. I apologize for reducing you to babysitter; I know it’s not the job you applied for, but I need to be able to focus on my client work, and it will only be until we’ve found a good home for her.”

  “For Nora.” Rachel was looking at him intently. As if she was expecting something.

  He frowned at her again. He felt like he was being judged and found wanting, but he couldn’t honestly say if it was Rachel judging him or his own uneasy conscience. Anyway, he hoped he wouldn’t regret hiring her. His previous receptionist, Mrs. Willoughby, had been twice her age, and she had had vastly more experience, office-wise at least. Rachel’s resume was a patchwork of odd jobs, and although she seemed nice enough, she struck him as flighty.

  Under other circumstances, he would have held out for someone more mature, but … desperate times and all that.

  “Exactly,” he replied. “Can I rely on you?”

  She glanced over at the stroller where the baby was making gurgling noises and waving her tiny fists, then looked back at him.

  Some of the brightness sparked again in her eyes, and she gave him a single, decisive nod.

  “Yes.”

  4

  Two days later, as soon as Nora fell asleep, Bryce called Rachel into his office.

  “Updates?” he grumbled as Rachel slid into the seat across from him. He didn’t mean to be rude, but the office had already started to slide into chaos after Mrs. Willoughby’s abrupt departure, and Nora’s arrival had only made things worse. Now he was sleeping just a few hours a night, and the office work was continuing to pile up. Rachel was doing her best, but in her first forty-eight hours on the job, she’d spent more time warming bottles, changing diapers, and taking Nora out for walks when he was busy with clients to do much in the way of filing or returning calls or learning his billing system.

  Rachel sat primly in the seat on the other side of his desk and studied her notebook. “Okay, so I got in touch with a social worker, but she told me that as long as the baby is safe, they’d really rather deal with sorting out an adoption after the holidays, especially since you want to check out potential families first. She said this is absolutely the worst time of year for them because a lot of families don’t deal well with the stress, which is saying something because child services is always really swamped—”

  He swore under his breath. There had to be dozens of families who’d gone through the process and were ready to adopt. Couldn’t they just send him some files and let him pick one?

  “Call Chuck again and ask him how we can expedite the process.”

  Chuck was his family law friend. Rachel had already talked to him once, but she diligently scribbled a note to call him again.

  “What about daycare?” Bryce asked.

  “So, all the full-time daycares either don’t have space at the moment for an infant, or they’re only interested in families that can commit to at least six months of care. I found a drop-in daycare, but they’re really for situations like when a parent needs to go to the doctor or has an emergency. They’re not licensed to look after the same child for more than two eight-hour days in a row—”

  He was biting his tongue to keep from barking at her to get to the point. She was new, she was doing her best, and right now, she was all he had.

  “What about au pairs and nannies?” he interrupted. “There have to be agencies that hire out childcare providers.”

  “There are,” she assured him. “The thing is, this time of year, there just aren’t that many. They said they do most of their hiring in the spring and late summer, and most of the people they have are looking for long-term assignments, so—”

  He made an impatient gesture with his hand. “Rachel, I know you’re trying, but we need to move on this. I don’t need the details about why you can’t find a nanny. I just need you to Find. Me. Childcare.”

  “Just settle down. I’m not done yet.” She waved her pen impatiently at him.

  He narrowed his eyes. Had she just given him an order?

  Rachel continued, oblivious to his disapproval. “Where was I? Right, I checked Craigslist—”

  He snorted impatiently. “Forget it. I may not want to keep her myself, but I’m not going to hand her off to some stranger I meet off the internet.”

  Rachel slapped her notebook on his desk and rolled her eyes, looking for all the world like an impatient teenager. “You already did that, remember? When you handed her over to me on Monday? Just be quiet for a moment and let me finish.”

  Bryce stared. Mrs. Willoughby had certainly never told him to just be quiet. He favored Rachel with the cold stare he generally reserved for opposing attorneys. Ordinarily, that kind of disrespect would have earned a severe reprimand, but he couldn’t afford to alienate her, so he
settled for an exaggerated “go on” motion with his hand that dripped with irony.

  Rachel at least had the good sense to look somewhat abashed before continuing in a more reserved tone. “I checked on Craigslist, and there’s a new home daycare opening only about a mile from here. It’s licensed by the state, and the owner’s bio says she used to be a kindergarten teacher until she decided to stay home with her own kids. She has a degree in early childhood education and references on demand. She’s not technically opening until the new year, but I called her, and she’s willing to take Nora starting on Monday through this month, and on a temporary basis after that, because she doesn’t have a lot of kids signed up yet. If she fills up, and someone who needs long-term placement comes along, then she might bump Nora, but she’s good through December.”

  “Oh.” Bryce looked at her, some of his frustration melting away. “Sounds like that might work, then. I’d like you to arrange a time for me to go check it out.”

  “You have an appointment on Monday morning at eight-thirty. You and Nora can go check it out on your way into work. Her name’s Leslie. She has some forms for you to fill out, but if you’re happy, you can just leave Nora there. She gave me five references. I can give them to you, or I can call them myself this afternoon.”

  Rachel stuck her chin out at him, daring him to find fault with her plan.

  He didn’t. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, reluctantly impressed. “Well done, Rachel. Email me everything you have on this Leslie person and her daycare. I’ll call as many references as I can before the Hancocks come in at two. Anyone I can’t get to by then, I’d like you to call.”

  She nodded. “Great. I can call when I take Nora out.”

  “You going back to the coffee shop?”

  Rachel’s face brightened. “I was thinking about taking her to the library. They do a book babies story time at two-thirty. Never too early to learn to love books, right?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. She really was nothing like Mrs. Willoughby. “Right.” She flashed him a smile and stood up. “Good work today, Rachel,” he added. “Thank you.”

  The rest of her first week at Davidson & Davidson went by quickly.

  Rachel was kept busy, but considering their desks were all of about fifteen feet apart from each other, she didn’t actually see that much of her boss. She and Nora were banished from the office for two to three hours each day, usually when Bryce had client meetings, but also sometimes when Nora was fussy and Bryce needed to focus.

  Rachel was diligent enough that she tried to keep up with at least some of the office work at the coffee shop and the library, but she was limited by not having files and calendars at her fingertips. She considered asking Bryce for a laptop, but given that Nora wouldn’t be with them for very long, decided it probably wouldn’t be worth it, even if he was willing to get one for the office. So she did as much as she could at the office and spent most of her out-of-office time focused on Nora, who could be more or less counted on for a short morning nap and a longer afternoon one.

  The arrangement suited Rachel just fine. She liked getting out into the fresh air, chatting with the moms and au pairs at the library, and having an excuse to read at the coffee shop when Nora was cooperative enough to sleep. And she liked Nora, who made up for long stretches of fussiness by looking out at the world through wide, astonished eyes that made Rachel laugh with delight.

  “There’s so much to see, isn’t there, Nora?” she said, holding the baby on her lap at the coffee shop. “You’re like me, aren’t you? You don’t want to be stuck in some stuffy old office all the time. You want to get out in the world and meet people!”

  Nora blinked in agreement.

  In the office, Rachel quickly learned that Bryce had high standards, could be abrupt to the point of rudeness, and didn’t waste time on friendly chit-chat. On the plus side, he was fair-minded, he said thank you, and he paid her well … And he was certainly easy on the eyes, so that was kind of a bonus.

  By the end of the week, she’d fallen into a comfortable kind of crush. Nothing serious, just a happy fizz of anticipation when she walked into the office in the morning. She was pretty sure an actual relationship with the stuffy lawyer would be disastrous, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy a rush of hormones when she brushed past him in the doorway or edged around him in the little kitchenette.

  It was a perk of the job, she decided. Some people got drivers or expense accounts; she got to feel all warm and tingly because her boss looked like a young George Clooney.

  She kept hoping Nora would spit up on him again, necessitating another change of shirt. Unfortunately, Bryce had learned his lesson and was diligent about using spit-up cloths whenever he picked Nora up. Still, the sight of the gorgeous man holding the tiny baby never failed to elicit a funny warmth in the pit of her stomach, even if he usually looked grumpy about it.

  She wasn’t any closer to knowing what she wanted to do with her life, but for now, being a receptionist at Davidson & Davidson wasn’t bad at all.

  How the hell did people with infants continue to function?

  By Thursday, Bryce had had Nora a mere eight days, but he felt like a bomb had gone off, reducing his well-ordered life to charred and smoking rubble.

  He’d shut the door to his office, telling Rachel he needed to work, but he’d given up when the words on his computer screen had begun swimming in front of his eyes. Now he leaned back in his comfortable leather chair and stared blankly at the ceiling.

  In retrospect, the smart thing to do would have been to tell his clients he had a family emergency and simply close the office until he could get Nora settled with a new family. But since his father had died, he had been scrambling to keep the old clients, many of whom viewed him as young and inexperienced, while finding new ones. He couldn’t afford to simply close up shop while he dealt with his personal life.

  The sound of his phone buzzing pierced the sleepy fog. He picked it up, wishing he’d told Rachel not to disturb him.

  “Yes, Rachel?” He was unable to keep the grouchiness out of his tone.

  “Hi, Bryce!” He still hadn’t decided whether her incessant cheeriness was cute or annoying. “I have your friend Chuck on the line.”

  “Thanks. Put him through.” He suppressed a yawn and forced some energy into his voice. “Chuck, how goes it? Any thoughts on how we can speed things up?”

  “Sorry, buddy, not a lot more I can do. It’s up to the social workers now. Rachel filled me in, sounds like you’re going to be playing daddy through Christmas.”

  Bryce ran a hand through his hair. “I was afraid of that.”

  “But that’s not actually what I’m calling about,” Chuck continued. “Are you remembering you’re supposed to be going out with me, Cathy, and Alyssa Friday night?”

  Bryce slumped forward. “Shit, no. Sorry, I completely forgot.”

  Chuck chuckled. “No worries. I know you’ve had your hands full. That’s why I called to remind you.”

  “You haven’t said anything to Cathy, have you, about the baby?”

  “Of course not,” Chuck assured him. “I’m treating you just like I would a regular client.”

  “I appreciate that. Let me know if I can ever return the favor.”

  “We’ll know where to go when we need to get our wills done.”

  “Of course,” Bryce replied. “Can you give my apologies to Alyssa? I’d love to meet her another time.”

  “Oh, come on! You’re all work and no play. Cath’s been talking you up, and Alyssa’s really looking forward to meeting you.”

  “I’m not work or play,” he grumbled. “I’ve got a baby to look after.”

  There was a soft knock at the door, and Rachel popped her head in. She mouthed something that looked like, I’m going to lunch, and made elaborate miming motions to indicate that the baby was asleep in the reception area. He gave her a wave of acknowledgment, and she left, leaving the office door slightly cracked so he could hear
if the baby woke up.

  “So find a sitter,” Chuck was saying. “Come into the city tomorrow night. You deserve a little fun after the week you’ve had.”

  It was tempting. Already, the days of adult conversation and fine dining seemed like part of a dim, distant past.

  “I don’t have anyone to look after her. I have no idea where to even find babysitters.”

  “How about asking Rachel? She’s saving up to move out of her parents’ house. She could probably use a little extra cash.”

  Bryce frowned at the wall. “How do you know that?”

  “She’s very chatty,” Chuck explained with a laugh. “We’ve had a couple good conversations. She seems like a nice kid. Just ask her. I bet she’ll do it.”

  “I don’t know, Chuck.” Bryce shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “She’s an employee.”

  “She’s a temp. What is she, in college or something? Come on, man, give yourself a break. Cathy’s made reservations at a new Vietnamese place that’s supposed to be really good, and Alyssa’s stoked to meet you. We’ll have dinner, maybe some drinks afterward, and we won’t keep you out all night. At least ask Rachel. If she can’t do it, let me know, and we’ll reschedule.”

  The idea of asking Rachel to babysit sat strangely with him. It felt like crossing a boundary that was there for a good reason. But the thought of recapturing some of his old life, one that had included intelligent conversation, high-end restaurants, and sophisticated women, was tempting. And if Rachel could use some extra money anyway …

  “I’ll ask her,” he said. “If she can’t do it, maybe we can reschedule sometime in the New Year.”

  “Sounds good. Try to get some rest before tomorrow night.” Chuck laughed again. “You sound like you haven’t slept in a week.”