The Billionaire's Unexpected Baby(20)

Oh, sure. Now she cries.

Leah hurried over and took her from him, handing him a towel.

"Would now be a bad time to say I told you so?" she asked, blinking at him with her best angelic face.

"Yep," he said. "Going to have to take a rain check on that, if it's all the same to you."

"Gotcha. I'll pencil that in for later. Though, to avoid a repeat, it's  good to be a little careful when the baby has just eaten. Kiersten fed  her right before they left."

"Ah," he said, dabbing at his face. "Good to know. Though really … how  does something so tiny produce such a large volume of something so  disgusting?"

Leah laughed and the baby followed along with her.

"Oh sure," he said. "I bet you two are getting a kick out of this, aren't you?" he said, the baby voice popping out again.

Leah pulled out her phone and took a quick snapshot. Brooks held out his hands to block his face, but it was too late.

"Oh, this is so going to be my new profile picture," she said.

"Don't you dare. I'm more than happy to share it with you." He took a  threatening step toward her and she flung out a hand to keep him away.

"No, no, okay, you win!" She nodded him in the direction of the bathroom. "Go get cleaned up. I'll take care of the baby."

"Okay. Just be careful of that," he said, pointing at the baby's little  mouth, "and that." He pointed to the diaper region. "I've heard things  can get pretty bad down there too."

Leah laughed again and shooed him away. "Don't worry, I can handle it."

He walked out, glancing back once to watch her as she cradled the baby.  The scene was so domestic, something he had never expected to see in his  living room. Not in his lifetime. But somehow it felt incredibly right.  Surreal beyond a doubt. But right. For the first time, a profound sense  of regret filled him that the happy little scene couldn't last. A small  part of him whispered why can't it? He shook his head and pushed that  back into the deep, dark box from which it had crawled. He and Leah  hadn't known each other very long, not long enough for him to screw it  up, but he had no doubt he would remedy that soon enough.       

   





He always did.

 …

Leah finished burping the baby and looked over at Brooks who sat in an  armchair scrolling through his tablet. It was crazy how normal it all  felt, how much like a family they seemed. For a few hours, she'd  forgotten that everything was fake and had even allowed herself to  imagine that they were home with their own baby. She needed to nip that  kind of thinking in the bud. It would only make things harder down the  road.

"Can you take Piper for a minute?" she asked, bringing her over. "I need to get dinner started."

He blinked up at her in surprise. "We could order something."

She smiled. He couldn't fool her. His desire for takeout had more to do  with his fear of being left alone with the baby again than it did with  any culinary preferences.

"Hold her for a minute. She's almost asleep."

Brooks reluctantly held out his arms and she laid the sleepy baby in them, leaning down to give Piper's head a kiss.

"There, see," she said. "She likes you." Brooks glanced down at the baby  uncertainly, but nodded at Leah when she gave him a questioning look.

"Don't go too far."

"I'll be in the kitchen right behind you."

She busied herself in the kitchen getting things ready, quickly chopping  vegetables and dicing chicken for a stir-fry. Every now and then she  glanced up to make sure Brooks hadn't exploded in a shower of  baby-induced panic. He seemed to be handling things okay.

She got everything ready and dished out, and turned to call him to the  table, but the sight that met her stopped her in her tracks. Quiet  fussing noises came from the baby. Brooks had her tucked against his  chest while he gently rocked her and the faint sound of his singing  floated to her. The sight of him singing about sunshine and rainbows,  the tiny bundle cradled in his muscular arms, sent a wave of emotion  through Leah so strong she had to grip the chair. She didn't even know  how to process the chaos tumbling around inside her. It was beyond  adorable, incredibly sweet, and if she wasn't already pregnant this  probably would have knocked her up on the spot.

What was it about a big strong man cradling a tiny baby that was so damn sexy?

He glanced up at her and saw her watching him, but instead of getting  embarrassed like she thought he would, he smiled. Not his usual  over-the-top goofy grin, but a tender, happy smile that, at once, looked  so out of place and yet right at home on his face.

"Dinner's ready," she said to him, speaking quietly so as not to disturb the newly settled baby.

He glanced down. "What do I do with her?"

Leah waved him over to where she'd set up a playpen.

"Set her down in there so she can nap while we eat."

He gently deposited the precious bundle into the playpen and then stood  at the side, gazing down. "They're really cute when they're sleeping,  aren't they?"

She laughed quietly. "Pretty cute when they're awake, too."

Brooks nodded. "Well, except for when she's doing her Exorcist imitation. But other than that, yeah, sure."

They laughed again and she took his hand to draw him into the kitchen. "Sit. Eat."

He picked up a fork and stared down at the food.

"What's the matter?" she asked, putting a napkin in her lap. "You don't like stir-fry?"

"No, I love it. It's not that. It's … I don't think I've had an actual home-cooked meal since the last time my mom came to visit."

"Don't you cook?"

He snorted. "I've attempted it a few times. It didn't go well."

"Oh, come on. I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"Freshman year of college. I wanted to impress this girl I liked. So I invited her to my dorm room for a home-cooked meal."

"To your dorm room?"

He nodded. "I had one of those hot plate things. And a microwave. I figured I was set."

"And?"

"Well, I had her in bed by nine."

Leah raised her eyebrows, waiting for the punch line.

"Except it wasn't the bed I'd covered in black silk sheets, it was a bed  in the ER and she was puking her guts out with food poisoning. The ER  doc said it was the worst case he'd ever seen."       

   





He shook his head, his eyes focused on the long-ago past. "I'd never  felt so bad about anything in my life. I'd tried really hard, too. Found  some fancy recipe in one of those Martha Stewart magazines. Blew a  whole paycheck and an entire day sweating over that stupid little hot  plate. I don't think it got quite hot enough, though."

"I'm sure she appreciated the effort."

He laughed, though there was no amusement in the sound. "Naw, she'd  wanted me to take her to some fancy restaurant that had just opened  because that's where her roommate's boyfriend had taken her. But that  guy had a rich daddy and a big allowance. I had a hard-working dad who  was barely making ends meet himself and a job delivering pizzas at night  to help pay for college. So I borrowed some of those little white  Christmas lights from a friend in the Theater Club and strung them all  over my room, cleaned it up real nice. You know, tried to make it all  romantic."

"It sounds wonderful," Leah said, her heart aching for him. He told the  story with a smile, but his eyes held a lingering pain that she wished  she could erase.

"You'd have thought I'd taken her to some back alley and tried to feed  her dumpster drippings. She choked down a couple bites and finally spit  it out and asked what kind of a cheapskate moron would try to cook an  edible meal in a dorm room."

"That's horrible!"

He shrugged. "She wasn't wrong. I mean, she did end up in the ER."

Leah's heart cracked a little more. She had half a mind to find out who  that girl was so she could go defend his honor or something. What a  despicable way to treat someone.

"She was wrong. Whether it met her expectations or not, you went to a lot of trouble and she was nothing but a … a … bitch."

That startled a genuine laugh out of him. "I didn't know you had such a potty mouth, Little Miss Schoolteacher."

"I only use it on special occasions."

"Good to know you have a naughty side," he said with a wink.

Oh, she had a very naughty side. But letting it out to play would be  incredibly ill-advised so she ignored that remark. "If it's any  consolation, I know how you must have felt."

"You've given someone food poisoning, too?"

She laughed. "No. But I've gone to extreme effort only to have it thrown  back in my face. A guy I'd been dating for over a year ended up moving  so we tried the long-distance thing for a while. He had to fly into a  city that was about an hour or so from me for a business meeting. We  were supposed to meet up when he was done, but I knew the meeting wasn't  going well and I wanted to surprise him. I went and bought all his  favorite candies, wrote out a bunch of notes about the things I loved  about him, and placed them all around his hotel room so he'd find them  when he got out of his meeting."