The Maid, the Millionaire and the Baby

by Michelle Douglas

  ‘Jasper?’

  She could whisper his name in a way that made the surface of his skin come alive.

  She knelt back down to the blanket in front of him and the baby. ‘If you’re that uncomfortable with this, I’ll stay. I don’t have to go for a swim.’

  ‘No, you go for your swim.’ He didn’t want to deprive her of such an innocent pleasure. She’d been looking forward to it—had definitely earned it—and he’d do whatever he could to facilitate it. He made himself swallow, pulled his face into neat lines. ‘I’m just...out of practice at talking to people. Evidently I’ve been spending too much time in my own head.’

  He couldn’t believe he’d said that out loud. He wanted to check his words, choke them back, but it was too late. Gritting his teeth, he forced his mind back to her original question. ‘If the baby cries, I’ll make sure nothing is hurting him, and then I’ll check his nappy.’ Um... ‘I saw a bottle of something in your bag...?’

  ‘It’s just cold boiled water.’

  Right. ‘Well, I’ll see if he wants that.’

  ‘And if that doesn’t work?’

  He tried not to scowl—neither she nor the baby deserved his malcontent. ‘I’ll distract him by playing choo-choo trains or something equally inane.’

  The green flecks in her eyes shone bright and clear. She stared at him steadily now and he didn’t know if she was amused by him or concerned.

  Don’t be an idiot.

  If she was concerned about anyone it’d be the baby.

  ‘And if that doesn’t work,’ he added, doing his best not to frown, ‘I’ll sing to him.’

  Her lips parted. ‘What a lovely idea.’

  He stared at those parted lips and that monster he’d been trying to lull roared back to life—fierce, hungry and primal. Her eyes widened at whatever she saw in his face, and her tongue eased out to moisten her lips. They stared at each other, lost in some strange in-between world—but in between what he couldn’t say—and then the baby squealed, and she jerked back, and he could breathe again.

  She leapt to her feet. ‘If he cries, pick him up and give him a cuddle. That might be all he needs—a bit of reassurance that he’s safe.’ And with that, her sarong floated to the ground and she set off towards the water.

  He did his best not to notice her bare legs and arms or the curve of her hips. She wore a seriously sedate swimsuit, and a sun shirt. It shouldn’t make a man’s mouth dry with longing.

  It shouldn’t.

  Keep your head.

  He’d been on his own too long, that was all. This was just an...adjustment.

  A squeal at his elbow snagged his attention. He glanced down to find the baby pointing a wobbly arm after Imogen and frowning. ‘Immy’s going for a swim.’ He called her Immy to the baby because it was what she called herself. Come to Immy; Immy’s getting your bottle now.

  George looked as if he might cry. ‘She’ll be back soon. It’s not worth getting upset about, kid, believe me. Look—’ he held out his arm, shuffling closer ‘—we haven’t rubbed all of this goop in yet.’

  The baby gave a toothless grin and started patting Jasper’s arm with an enthusiasm that tugged at the older man’s heart. He was a clever little kid. Were all babies this smart? He’d bet they weren’t.

  They spent a leisurely few minutes making sure it was all rubbed in, and then George stared at him expectantly. Right... He cleared his throat. ‘Do you want to play the clapping game?’ He clapped his hands together a few times. Nothing. ‘What about your train?’ He seized the train. ‘Would you like to play with that?’ No way was he making choo-choo noises, though.

  The train was tossed across the blanket. Uh-huh...

  The hat! He pulled it from his pocket and set it on the kid’s head. The kid immediately sounded a protest and went to pull it off, but Jasper whipped out his own cap and waved it about.

  ‘Look, I have a hat too.’

  And he set it on his own head.

  The baby pointed to it and bounced. ‘Um! Um! Um!’

  He wanted Jasper’s hat? He handed it over. The kid pulled his own hat off and gave it to Jasper, and then tried to put Jasper’s cap on. He finally managed it, with a bit of help from his uncle, and did his best to look up at Jasper, but the brim covered his eyes. Fat hands lifted the brim, and when he finally made eye contact with Jasper, he laughed hysterically. Jasper couldn’t help but laugh too. The kid had a weird sense of humour. And that was the game they played for the next twenty minutes—swapping hats and laughing.

  Boring and mundane? Perhaps. But he’d attended board meetings that had dragged worse and achieved less. And at least he was sitting in the sun on a beautiful beach.

  The thought gave him pause. Since when did he care where he was or what the weather was like? Though a bit of sun was good for the baby. Imogen had said so. Personally, he didn’t care about either the beach or the sunshine. At least that was what he told himself.

  He glanced back at the baby. Okay, this whole ‘looking after a kid’ thing wasn’t rocket science. It was something he could learn. He could make sure all the kid’s physical needs were met, and be friendly with the little guy, and keep his distance. He didn’t need to engage his emotions towards the baby any more than he did towards his staff back in Sydney. He cared about their well-being, naturally, but it didn’t matter to him on a personal level if they decided to leave his employment or anything. Just as it wouldn’t matter when Emily demanded the return of her child.

  And as far as Jasper was concerned, that was the best-case scenario he could think of.

  ‘Look.’ He pointed down the beach. ‘Here comes Immy.’ She moved with an unconscious grace that had his chest drawing tight, making it hard to get air into his lungs. He swallowed and looked away. ‘I hope she enjoyed her swim, kid. She’s earned it.’ He had to do better where she was concerned. She’d gone above and beyond these last two days.

  George glanced up at Jasper, eyes wide, and then his face split into a grin and he clapped his hands. Jasper found himself smiling back and clapping his hands too.

  ‘How was the water?’ he asked when she reached them, doing his best to look—and feel—unaffected.

  ‘Freezing!’ she said with her usual irrepressible cheerfulness, grabbing her towel and drying her face. ‘Makes you tingle all over.’

  Tingling was the last thing he needed to think about, but she literally glowed from her swim. Something inside him responded to it. And there was nothing he could do about it. Other than try and ignore it.

  ‘Hey, Georgie, did you have fun?’ And then she squeezed a drop of water from her hair and let it fall to the baby’s foot.

  George squealed. And when she made as if to drip more water on him, he squealed louder, seized a handful of Jasper’s shirt and hauled himself upright on wobbly legs. He’d have fallen, would’ve pitched forward to smack his face against Jasper’s knees, if Jasper hadn’t caught him. The kid then stood balanced on Jasper’s lap, and he bounced and chortled and waved his arms in glee that he’d evaded Imogen and her antics.

  Jasper could barely draw breath. The baby had trusted him to catch him—to protect him and keep him safe.

  George laughed up at his uncle now as if they’d shared a joke. Jasper’s mouth dried. That...that was just fanciful, right? Nine-month-old babies couldn’t share a joke with you.

  The baby’s legs gave way, and he plopped down on Jasper’s knee, snuggling into him...and then he wrapped an arm across Jasper’s tummy and he cuddled him. Every hard thing inside Jasper’s heart melted to a puddle, and his arms went around little George of their own volition.

  He stared down at his nephew, his heart filling with too much emotion. He said the rudest word he knew. Very softly.

  He glanced up to find Imogen watching. She didn’t remonstrate with him for his bad language. Instead, she asked, ‘What just ha
ppened?’

  The soft warmth of her voice helped to soothe the ragged edges of the panic pounding through him.

  He didn’t bother trying to deny it. ‘I’m falling for him.’

  She wrapped her towel about herself and sat on the edge of the blanket. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  His chest ached. His throat ached. And his head pounded. ‘I have absolutely no jurisdiction over this child, Imogen. When one of his parents demands his return, I have to hand him over. I won’t be able to keep George here.’

  She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, her gaze never leaving his. ‘But you can visit him, can’t you? And he can come for holidays here to Tesoura, right?’ She searched his face. ‘I’m not getting something. What am I not getting?’

  A breath rattled out of him. ‘My sister is married to a man who beats her. I tried to help her break free of him, but she didn’t want that. Instead, she cut me from her life and said she never wanted to see me again.’

  Her hand flew to her mouth. When her gaze lowered to the babe in his arms, her eyes filled. He wanted to hug her for her concern, for the way she worried about George. For her kindness.

  ‘No matter how much I might want to, I can’t protect George. Not from his own parents.’ And yet how on earth could he abandon George to a lifetime of fear and abuse?

  Nausea churned through him. History was going to repeat, and he was powerless to stop it. The thought nearly broke him.

  ‘Despite all of that,’ Imogen said slowly, ‘your sister still sent the baby to you. That has to mean something, don’t you think? What did her letter say?’

  ‘Next to nothing!’ It hadn’t provided him with an ounce of reassurance. George jumped at his tone and started to fidget, Jasper soothed him the way he’d seen Imogen doing—holding him against his shoulder and rubbing his back. ‘“Dear Jasper,”’ he recited through gritted teeth, ‘“I know you’ve probably not forgiven me, but there are some things I need to take care of. In the meantime, I need someone to look after George. Please keep him safe until I can come for him. Emily.”’

  She hadn’t signed off with ‘love’ or ‘best wishes’ or ‘sincerely’ or anything else. And she hadn’t given him any further explanation. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected more. His lips twisted. Hope sprang eternal, he supposed.

  Imogen had stiffened. She stared straight at him as if expecting something more from him—in the same way he’d expected something more from Emily. ‘What?’

  ‘It sounds like she’s in trouble.’

  He hated the way her words made his gut clench. ‘What makes you think that?’

  Her hands lifted. ‘What makes you think there could be any other possible explanation?’

  ‘Experience.’

  She blinked and eased back. He was going to have to explain, and he didn’t want to. But George needed all the allies he could get, and Jasper had no intention of ostracising a potential ally as kind and generous as Imogen. She made his nephew smile and she made him feel safe. That was worth more than gold.

  He did what he could to find his equilibrium. ‘My father and brother-in-law are both shaped in the same mould.’

  Her bottom lip wobbled. ‘They’re both...violent?’

  ‘They’re both miserable excuses for human beings.’

  Her eyes filled again, and it made his chest twist. ‘I can’t stand either one of them,’ she said with quiet vehemence, and for some reason it warmed up parts of him that had started to chill.

  ‘My father wanted all of my mother’s attention. He resented Emily and me for taking up so much of her time. Sometimes, when it all got a bit too much for her, she’d farm us out to relatives for a couple of weeks or would send us off to some holiday camp.’

  He’d hated it, but at the same time he’d welcomed the reprieve from his father’s anger.

  Imogen worried at her lip. ‘She was probably trying to protect you.’

  His head felt too heavy for his shoulders. ‘Or saving her own skin.’ And he didn’t blame her. But when he’d offered her a chance to escape her husband—when he’d offered her refuge and a chance to start a new life—she’d spurned it, had rejected him. Just like Emily.

  ‘That’s what you think Emily is doing with George?’

  ‘I know that on the day she sent George here, she and Aaron attended a big charity ball in Sydney—one of the biggest events of the social calendar—filled with all of the powerful and well-to-do. I also know that in the coming week Aaron is going to the States. No doubt Emily will be going with him.’

  She pressed a hand to her brow. ‘What if you’re wrong? What if she’s in trouble and trying to break away from her husband? Him going to the States could provide her with the perfect opportunity to do that. Does she have anyone she can turn to? Would your parents take her in?’

  ‘My father would order her to return to Aaron.’ The two of them had always been as thick as thieves.

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Aaron vets all of her friends—in truth he’s probably isolated her from them all by now.’ In the same way his father had his mother.

  ‘So she has no one to turn to?’

  She had him! She had her brother. He broke out in a cold sweat. Despite everything she had to know that, didn’t she?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘I’VE BEEN THINKING about what you said.’

  Jasper came striding down the path towards her and Imogen halted in her pegging out of George’s tiny clothes, momentarily transfixed. The back garden was a riot of shrubs, palms and flowerbeds, but none of that could hold a candle to the man moving with such easy grace towards her.

  He carried George in his arms, completely at ease as if he’d been born to it. The image of a little baby held against a pair of broad, sigh-worthy shoulders—all of George’s small helplessness contrasted with Jasper’s power and strength—had the potential to do crazy things to a woman’s insides. Protectiveness and nurturance all wrapped up in a single glorious package. Was there anything more attractive—?

  She broke off, realising that Jasper was staring at her expectantly. She tried to click her mind into gear. ‘You’ve been thinking about what I said?’ she parroted, hoping she didn’t look completely at sea.

  ‘About Emily.’

  She eased back to survey him more fully. ‘About the possibility of her being in trouble?’

  He nodded.

  She glanced at George, currently fascinated by a bird singing in a nearby shrub, before turning back to Jasper with his serious grey eyes and mouth that was made for smiling but so rarely did. She was becoming too invested here, but how could she not? The way these two had bonded in the last couple of days amazed her. They adored each other. And it made her fear for them both.

  She swallowed. ‘And...?’

  ‘I have a favour to ask.’

  Her heart leapt. Which made no sense. She bent down to retrieve a tiny pair of shorts from the laundry basket. ‘Okay.’

  He took the shorts from her and handed her George. ‘I need your help.’

  ‘Okay.’ She focussed on the variety of romper suits, bibs and singlets that waved in the breeze like colourful bunting and tried to get her racing pulse under control.

  He pegged out the shorts and then reached into the basket for a bib and pegged it out too. She wanted to tell him that she was paid to do the laundry, but didn’t because...well, he was the boss and she guessed he was also paying her to hold the baby.

  ‘Does that mean you’ll help?’

  ‘Of course I will.’ A woman could be in trouble, and there was a baby involved. How could she refuse?

  And just maybe the warmth from a pair of grey eyes as they rested on her didn’t hurt either.

  That’s shallow, Imogen. Seriously shallow.

  But Jasper’s eyes weren’t shallow. They hinted at depths she found intrigui
ng...fascinating.

  He reached out and clasped her forearm in silent thanks. The heat of his touch penetrated through skin, muscle and sinew, making her want more. She sucked in a breath as the ground beneath her feet shifted. It took her so off guard she didn’t have time to hide her reaction. His gaze narrowed and his nostrils flared. She recognised the same need and hunger coursing through his eyes.

  Everything inside her clenched. She forgot to breathe.

  He stepped back, distancing himself behind a mask of stern calmness, and she gulped in a breath, reminding herself that he was her employer and she was his employee. And even if that weren’t the case she wasn’t getting involved with someone who’d marooned himself on a desert island.

  She had plans. Lauren was relying on her. She was relying on Lauren. As soon as she left here she was throwing herself wholeheartedly into those plans. If she didn’t she and Lauren would lose everything they’d worked and saved so hard for—it wasn’t just her money they were risking, but Lauren’s too. They’d made a solemn promise to give this new business of theirs every chance they could—to give it their very best efforts. She squared her shoulders. She wasn’t letting Lauren down, and she would prove the naysayers wrong.

  Tesoura was idyllic for some holiday R & R, but there was no way she’d ever live in a place like this.

  Not that he’d ever ask her to.

  Which was exactly as it should be.

  She retreated to a nearby stone bench and busied herself bouncing the baby. Tried to quieten the clamour flooding her veins.

  ‘I didn’t realise how much laundry a baby could generate.’

  Jasper surveyed George’s clothes flapping in the breeze, obviously not finding it difficult to move on from thoughts of touching her. Well, she could move on too—with the same super-duper ease. She pasted on a bright smile, which admittedly was a little difficult when she was gritting her teeth, and tickled George’s stomach. ‘Messy little tyke, aren’t you?’