The Baby Bargain

by Layla Valentine

  “In any case,” he continued, “the conference is happening at a hotel just down the road, so I should be back within the hour. Will you be all right until I return?”

  “Yeah, of course. I’ll take a shower and get the two of us ready for the beach.”

  “Good plan—we’ll head there as soon as I’m done with this…thing.”

  He walked to the door, then stopped, turned around, and strode back towards me. He planted a kiss on my cheek; I was disappointed he didn’t go for the full lips, but perhaps he’d turned cautious over the past few days. I’d need to show him later that there was no reason to be.

  “See you later,” he said with a wave, and exited.

  I sighed contentedly, allowing myself to be bathed in happiness.

  The flight had refreshed me, so I spent the next hour or so unpacking my bags, playing with Levi, and freshening up. I knew I hadn’t looked my cutest on the flight earlier, so I took special care to scrub my face, put on some light, beach-appropriate makeup, and fuss with my hair. By the end of it all, I looked like a new woman.

  Chapter 12

  Harley

  Levi and I were playing on the floor with his teddy bear when Ashton returned.

  “Hey,” I called from the ground, “how’d it go?”

  Ashton strode in and immediately began removing his tie.

  “A symposium of morons,” he sighed. His tie came off, and he unbuttoned the top of his shirt. “They have no idea how to run a company, and are more interested in golfing and boozing than doing actual, honest-to-God work.” A pause, then he continued, “But let’s not talk about that now. Beach time?”

  I nodded and enthusiastically agreed. “Definitely beach time.”

  When Ashton returned from changing in the other room, I did an actual double take. Had Ashton been replaced by his beach-bum twin?

  This wasn’t the buttoned-up, suit-wearing guy I knew. Instead, he’d thrown on a casual tee with a rock band logo on the front, and a pair of loose board shorts. He looked about five years younger, and far less intimidating.

  “I like the new digs,” I joked, gesturing to his clothes. “Gonna go chase some waves and hang ten?”

  He spread his fingers in a shaka sign, and replied, “Totally, bro.”

  I snorted. “Well, this is a new side to Ashton Swann.”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “Or maybe you’re just getting to see my totally tubular inner surfer.”

  What could I do but smile?

  “All right, let’s go find that sun and sand.”

  I agreed, and he came around the sofa, approaching me and Levi. Without speaking, he grabbed the baby, and I swooned. Every time he lifted Levi without me having to ask, my heart swelled a little bit more. Admittedly, Kyle had set an astonishingly low bar for all men, but I couldn’t help it—I loved that Ashton cared for my son.

  Together, we left the room and walked down the smooth, winding paths towards the beach. Everything about the hotel seemed to be designed to lead visitors to the surf; the smells, the sounds—they all led back to the ocean.

  Soon enough, we were walking down a small, sandy dune and onto the playa. I’d suspected earlier that the hotel was small and exclusive, but seeing the few lounge chairs confirmed it; there couldn’t be more than thirty guests in the hotel at any given time. A beach boy jogged towards our little group, his tanned heels kicking up sand in his wake.

  He offered to grab us a nearby cabana, and confused, I questioned, “Where? I only see lounges.”

  With a grin, he shook his head. “That’s because the cabanas are on the private beach.”

  I looked at Ashton, who didn’t seem even mildly phased by the awesome words “private” and “beach” smacked together into one dauntingly cool expression.

  “Private beach it is,” I replied on both of our behalves.

  He led us across the sand, and behind a natural outcrop of rocks. Sure enough, there was a tiny beach beyond, just big enough for one or two cabanas. At the moment, a single cabana, decked out in tan and cappuccino fabric, stood alone. It faced the sea, its drapes blowing in the wind. Inside, two lounges with cream-colored pillows stood in an L-formation. On one wall (the only actual wall in the otherwise freestanding structure) was a bar—with an ice bucket and champagne and everything—and on top of that bar was a buffet of fresh island fruit.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed. “This is…nice.”

  I was running out of words to describe how grateful I was to Ashton. I grinned idly, thinking that If I’d known that a gorgeous billionaire would one day whisk me away to the Bahamas, I would’ve studied the SAT word list a bit harder.

  The beach boy bid us farewell, leaving Ashton, Levi, and me alone on the private beach.

  “Well,” began Ashton, “what should we do first?”

  Eyeballing the fruit, I said, “Eat. Definitely eat.”

  He laughed, and passing Levi to me, went to fetch a selection. I plopped into the sand with my son, who immediately began to smack the ground with his tiny fist. He’d been to the beach before, over summer—hence his extensive baby beach wardrobe—but at the time, he’d been so frightened of the waves, he hadn’t appeared to really appreciate the experience.

  But now, he was shouting with delight. Maybe he’d just needed time to get used to the idea…or maybe he liked being here with me and Ashton. I knew I certainly did.

  Soon, Ashton returned with a tray of fruit, loaded with delicious mangos, papayas, and pineapple. My mouth watered at the sight. I looked at my hands and saw that they were covered with sand from trying to stop Levi eating it; my dear son hadn’t yet put together that sand was inedible.

  “Er,” I said, motioning to my hands. “I’m a bit out of commission.”

  “No worries.” He hovered his middle finger and thumb over the tray, and asked, “Which would you like?”

  Oh my God, now he was going feed me fruit? Things beside my mouth were becoming wet with desire, but I forced myself to focus—it wouldn’t do to be turned on in the presence of my eleven-month-old son.

  “Uh, pineapple, I guess.” My voice was uneven, the words strained.

  “You okay?” he questioned, not missing my tone.

  “Oh, I’m…a lot more than okay,” I replied honestly. “It’s just that, um, well, a man hasn’t really treated me like this since…since…ever, actually.”

  His brows drew together like storm clouds over a horizon. “Any man would be lucky to feed you. I’m sorry none have offered before.”

  I gulped down a wave of desire. Where did Ashton come from that men still talked like that? For a moment, I fervently wished to be transported back to an age of manners and gentlemanly conduct.

  Ashton held a piece of pineapple aloft, and I opened my mouth in anticipation. His fingers guided the fruit into my mouth and I closed my lips around them, sucking briefly on the strong, tender tips of his digits. His breath noticeably hitched, and I applauded myself for throwing him off-balance the same way he’d thrown me. All’s fair in love and fruit.

  We ate and talked for the next half hour, hour—who’s to say? Time lost meaning; we were governed by the sun alone. As we reclined on the sand, Ashton began to question me, as though he were trying to sort out exactly who I was.

  “What’s your favorite book?” he asked.

  “Nuh-uh,” I responded, shaking my head. “I saw the shelves in your room; I know you have a more ready answer than I do. So, you go first.”

  A small smile spread across his face. “You’re observant.”

  “Hardly. It would be stranger if I’d missed them—there were so many, I couldn’t even begin to count.”

  He shoved a pile of sand to and fro, at last answering my question. “Honestly? Hamlet.”

  I couldn’t help myself—I let out a laugh.

  “What, what’s so funny?” he queried intently. “Is that a bad answer?”

  “No, not at all! It’s just that…it’s such a you answer.”

  Lines appea
red in his forehead. “What does that mean?”

  I wiped a tear of laughter away, and tried to sort out my thoughts on the subject.

  “Um, how do I put this,” I faltered. “It’s just that…well, Hamlet is such a perfect book for you to love.”

  Ashton’s face stayed furrowed, so I plowed ahead in my response, attempting to shed light on my answer.

  “So, like, Hamlet,” I began. “He’s unknowable, right? Like, the whole reason the play works, the reason it’s been famous for four hundred years, is that no matter how many audiences see the play and the man within it, nobody can pin him down. Everyone has a different interpretation of what makes Hamlet tick. Is it extreme narcissism? Extreme introversion? Extreme insanity? He’s more human than people make him out to be, but he’s also steeped in this real mysticism.”

  I broke off, realizing that I was rambling. Ashton had turned his face to the sun and closed his eyes. Had I said something wrong?

  Trying to finalize my point, I lowered my voice, and finished, “Nobody sees Hamlet the way Hamlet wants to be seen. And that’s because he has no idea how he wants to be seen. His parents convinced him that life was better one way, and Horatio and Wittenberg convinced him it was better another. He’s pulled apart at the seams by these different visions of himself.” I paused, and added, “Kind of like you.”

  Ashton slowly turned his head from the sky and leveled his gaze upon me, brown eyes burning with something primal.

  “But, unlike Hamlet, I know which vision of me I like best.”

  Surprised, I asked, “Which one?”

  In a deep voice, rumbling through a fountain of emotion, he replied, “Your vision of me.”

  A small, almost imperceptible gasp escaped my throat at the weight of his words. Could we really be talking this openly about something so deep, so personal? Could he already care so much about what I thought of him? No, I didn’t dare assume that far.

  “Harley, every moment I spend with you, I understand better what makes a man, and what makes me.”

  I might have pressed further, regardless of how much I feared the depths of his feeling, but at that moment, Levi began to pick up balls of sand and chuck them at us. We both broke down into fits of laughter; I suspect we were glad to move away from such a tender subject and on to simpler things.

  We laid off the intense conversation, and instead decided to help Levi build sandcastles on the beach. He wasn’t any good—he’d obviously inherited my meager art skills—but Ashton was really quite clever with sand construction, his fingers working the piles of dust into intricate structures.

  “Where’d you learn to do that?” I asked as he put the finishing touches to a miniature castle, complete with turrets.

  He shrugged off the compliment. “I love design. After all, I did draw up the original plans for the Swann carriers and wraps. I’ve always been pretty good with my hands.”

  I giggled at his accidental innuendo, and he shot me a knowing look.

  The sun had dropped low in the sky, and hung like a ripe pomegranate on the horizon, the beads of its light dripping like the red seeds of the fruit.

  “Dinner?” I asked, stretching my back down on the sand.

  Ashton agreed, “Definitely.”

  He got up, brushing the sand off his shorts, and said, “I’ll be right back.” With that, he jogged off our private beach, and over to the public area. I messed around with Levi for several minutes, talking to him and pointing out various objects, then giving them names. In no time, Ashton had returned.

  “Where’d you go?” I questioned.

  “Just ordering us food.”

  I began to move from my perch on the sand, saying, “You mean making us reservations?”

  He shook his head. “No, I ordered it down to the beach.”

  My eyes went wide; I still hadn’t learned how the rich did things. “For real?”

  “Yeah, it’ll be here in about an hour, if that sounds all right.”

  “Okay…wow. That sounds perfect.”

  We moved from the sand to inside of the cabana, as the night air was growing chilly. I wrapped Levi in a light jacket, and threw on my cover-up as well as a nearby Turkish blanket that served to safeguard me from the wind. Ashton remained blessedly shirtless.

  As we were lazing about inside of the cabana, he turned to me and said, “You never told me what your favorite book was.”

  I blushed. “It’s a lot lamer than Hamlet.”

  “Please, my answer was pretty pompous. I’m sure yours will be better, regardless of what it is.”

  I sighed. “All right, don’t say I didn’t warn you. And it’s not one book—if they’re even books, I guess—per se. But, ugh, this is stupid…I’m a total comic book nerd.”

  His mouth split open in delight, and a beautiful laugh escaped his throat. “That’s awesome.”

  “Hey, don’t mock me; I was trying to be honest about my hobby!”

  He waved a hand. “I’m not mocking you at all. It’s just that you remain, as ever, intimidatingly cool.”

  “What?” I asked skeptically. “Which part of that is intimidatingly cool?”

  “You’re kidding, right? Men can be such dicks about women liking comic books; liking something even when people say you shouldn’t is a badass move.”

  “Oh, pssh,” I replied, shooing away his compliment. “You’re just being nice.”

  “You know I don’t say things to be nice.”

  I threw a knowing glance in his direction. “That’s not true. You can try and pretend otherwise, but sometimes, you’re just a straight-up good guy.”

  Now it was his turn to blush. “We were talking about you.”

  “Do we have to?”

  “I want to know more about you, Harley.”

  Drop your walls, my inner voice instructed. Let someone in for a change.

  I took a deep breath and replied, “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  So, while we waited for the food to arrive, Ashton set to quizzing me about my interests—we’d covered books, so he moved on to movies, television shows, podcasts, music. He barely gave me time to catch my breath. If it had been coming from any other person, I would’ve derided it as some sort of interview, but I sensed that this was just how Ashton interacted with others; he boiled them down to the things they held dear, and built his impression of them back up from there.

  In other words, he made an effort to see people as they wanted to be seen. It was clear that this was a reaction to how he himself was perceived by the general public, and the realization made my heart ache—Ashton was desperately trying to do unto others as he would have done unto himself.

  What a misunderstood man Ashton Swann was. A man I was falling for with every passing minute we spent together.

  Chapter 13

  Harley

  About half an hour after we’d ordered, our dinner arrived, causing Ashton to break off his stream of inquiries. The waiters, dressed in white cotton shorts and polos, laid out the dinner on a woven tray atop a folding stand.

  The spread was immense; Ashton seemed to never do things halfway. There was fresh fish and seafood a plenty, as well as various vegetables and rice in coconut bowls. A platter of fresh fruit and cheese stood to one side, along with a decanter of red wine.

  It was an elaborate meal, and fresher than anything I’d ever been served before; everything pulled straight from the ground or the sea, and served the same day. Candles were erected along the length of the makeshift table, and pillows were strewn upon the sandy ground. Despite taking place on the shores of Barbados, the meal would be equally at home in the deserts of Morocco. The bus boys bowed, then drifted back out into the night, leaving us in peace.

  Ashton immediately set to cutting up pieces of food for Levi, playing the airplane game to encourage him.

  “Incoming!” he called out, before landing a small tendril of broccoli on Levi’s tongue.

  Levi gurgled gleefully, and slammed his hands on the ground for
more. Ashton continued to feed him as I looked on with bliss; the easiness of the domestic scene showed me what I could’ve had, in another life.

  The meal, simmered as it was in joy, passed quickly, and soon enough, the three of us were laying down our forks—or in Levi’s case, his hands—and preparing to leave the beach. We packed up our things and trod over the sand, back to civilization. Our first night seemed to be all over too soon.

  Ashton must have had a similar thought, because no sooner had we left the candlelit meal behind, he asked, “Would you like to drop Levi off with the hotel’s specialist childcare staff? I spoke with the concierge on the way back from the conference, and she said they’re the best on the island.”

  I hesitated, unsure about leaving my son with hotel staff, no matter how well-respected they were, and Ashton quickly added, “Of course, we don’t have to. I just thought you might like…” his voice strained, “…some alone time,” he finished.

  After the anticipation built up by an entire day together, I had had to admit—he was right.

  So, I set aside my worries, and replied, “Yeah, that’d be perfect.”

  He smiled, evidently pleased by my answer, and we made our way over to the childcare center. Sure enough, the place was small but well-equipped—I even noticed a Swann Innovations product or two. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ashton pick up on the same thing, and the pride on his face was priceless; he earnestly loved his work, and sharing it with others.

  We spoke with the man at the front desk, who ran over all of the facilities of the center, pointing out various details, services, hours of operation, so on and so forth. After Ashton had ascertained that I was comfortable with the situation, he told the man that we’d be leaving Levi there for the next couple of hours.

  “Take your time,” the man insisted. “We’re open 24/7.”

  Sounded like a good deal to me. We thanked the man for his time, and after I gave Levi a kiss on the forehead, we exited the facility.

  “He’ll be okay in there, right?” I asked Ashton, still a little nervous.