Fortune's Christmas Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “No.” Lizzie’s tone was so sharp Stella stirred, started to cry. Her eyes blinked open and shut again almost immediately as Lizzie rocked and crooned to her. When the baby was sleeping soundly again, Lizzie looked over at Nolan.

  “I’m not taking your money,” she told him. “If you want to set up something for Stella for later, a college fund or something, I can’t stop you. But I will not be beholden to you financially.”

  He wasn’t going to “own” her, he translated, feeling stupid standing there holding his wad of cash.

  And because of all the talks they’d had the year before, her lack of desire to ever even play the lottery because she didn’t want to take a chance on winning money and having it change her life, he understood.

  No one else would believe him, though. They’d think she was working him. That the amount he’d named hadn’t been enough.

  He put his cash away, but he was still opening the account as soon as he got home. It was the right thing to do. All money wasn’t dirty. And all people with it weren’t ruled by it. His big, boisterous, argumentative and inarguably loving family was proof of that.

  “I can’t just walk away, Lizzie.”

  Her shrug, the way she pulled the baby even closer, prepared him for her response. “You did it once, Nolan, I’m sure you can manage a second time. I have your number now. I can call if I run into some kind of world-ending financial emergency.”

  Cruelty wasn’t her way.

  Which told him she was scared.

  Thing was, he completely understood. Commiserated.

  He was pretty terrified himself.

  He just couldn’t give her what she wanted. He couldn’t walk out of her life and leave her alone with Stella.

  Whether she deserved it or not.

  Chapter Ten

  She was going to have to do something. Come up with a plan. Short of changing her identity and leaving the country. The only way she’d have the means to do that would be if she actually took some of the money Nolan Fortune was throwing around.

  He’d offered her more, for starters, liquid in an account immediately, than she’d make in a year of teaching full-time. More than she’d probably ever manage to save, let alone be able to give away like he was, while Stella was growing up.

  I can’t just walk away, Lizzie...

  She wanted him out of her living room and her snarky comment hadn’t worked to that end. He was still sitting there, watching her and Stella like they were the last meal on earth.

  Didn’t he have enough already? His family. His fortune. His Fortune family... The thought struck her almost hysterically.

  Until she remembered that, technically, biologically, Stella was a Fortune, too.

  And they were all about family.

  With enough money to get whatever and whoever they wanted. He’d already been throwing it around. Should she take it so she’d have the resources to fight him with?

  Could she use his money to hire a lawyer?

  But she was pretty sure one payment wouldn’t be enough. They’d just keep coming at her until she was destitute.

  Feeling like she had the entire world of moneyed people pressing at her back, she started to panic, and knew she had to find a way to stave them off. To find a safe place for her and Stella.

  At least until she could figure out the sane thing to do. What was best for Stella.

  “I want to give you everything you want and need,” Nolan said after several minutes of silence. “I just can’t give you this, Lizzie. I can’t walk away.”

  He was going to leave her apartment, though. Sooner or later. And when he did, would he be on the phone to his people before he even left her block? Would he be calling out the guards?

  Did he have a bodyguard outside even now?

  Wealthy people traveled with them, didn’t they? Not that she’d seen any the previous year. Of course, they could have been disguised as—

  No!

  She had to stop these crazy thoughts. She had to take control. To buy herself some time to figure this out. If only she could hold him hostage in the apartment long enough for her to get some divine intervention.

  No, she didn’t want that—him hostage there with her. She couldn’t afford to keep Nolan close.

  He kept giving her glimpses of Forte and they were messing with her. Making her weak. Making her want him as badly as she wanted him gone.

  But...

  “You really mean that about giving me whatever I want?” she asked, looking him straight in the eye.

  “Except for walking out on the two of you again? Absolutely.”

  “Then this is the deal I’ve got for you.” She rushed on ahead before she could second-guess herself. “You’re here for ten more days, right?”

  “Give or take.”

  Did the man ever have a straight answer?

  “I’m expected home for Christmas Day, but in light of...this... I’m not sure I’m going...”

  He’d been expected home the year before, too, but she couldn’t dwell on the past.

  “Okay, so here’s what I want and what I’m prepared to give to get it.” Rich people were into deals, right? “I want you to refrain from telling anyone, and I mean anyone, about Stella being yours for the next ten days. I’ll agree to spend as much or as little time with you as you please—with Stella, of course. I’m not offering up myself. Let’s make that very clear. We’ll spend time together to see if we can work out some kind of amicable plan where the future is concerned. You’ll be able to get to know her if you want, to spend time with her. I’m on break from teaching until after the first of the year, so I’ll put no time limits on your exposure to us, and we can try to talk this all through. Slowly. With time on both sides for thinking.” Holy moly, divine intervention really existed? She’d sounded...mature. Best of all, she’d sounded in charge. In control. Like she was the one with the power to call the shots.

  Keeping her head high, her gaze on him, she felt a little bit like sticking her chin out. But she was shaking inside too much to give it a try. She didn’t want her facade to crumble in front of him. She was going to have to surrender Stella to a life of partial wealth, which made her feel as though her whole world was crumbling.

  And yet...having Nolan there, in their home, God, it felt good.

  “Deal.”

  He’d taken about three seconds to think about it.

  “You’re sure? No calls to anyone.”

  “No calls.” He smiled. “I think it’s a great plan, Lizzie. I’d welcome the time, to tell you the truth.”

  Time with her and Stella? Or time before he called home?

  Did it matter? She’d bought herself and Stella some time with Nolan Forte. Time to figure out how to deal with Nolan Fortune and the rest of his powerful people.

  “Okay, then,” she said as she stood. “Since I didn’t get to it yesterday, my agenda for today was to get this place decorated for Christmas. You up for that?”

  His grin just about knocked her back into her chair. She felt it flow through her body and puddle in her crotch.

  “Lead on,” he said, standing. And then, his gaze intently on Stella, he added, “If you want to take that shower I can sit and watch her. You know, call out to you if she wakes up or anything.”

  “You want to hold her?” She held her daughter close, not ready for that big of a step yet. Not ready to hand her over. Even for a second.

  “No. I was... You’d said you were going to bathe while she slept. I figured, if you didn’t mind, I’d watch her sleep.”

  Such a sweet, simple request. And yet, she hesitated.

  “Or, if you’d rather, I can wait outside...”

  “I was... I just... Her Pack ’n Play is in my room. That’s where she sleeps when I shower.”

  Unless she was in her swing. But she had t
o fall asleep there or it wouldn’t work.

  “Good, fine,” he said, backing toward the door. “How about if I walk down and get us some coffee and muffins?”

  He was letting her make the rules. For now. He was a smart man, though. She couldn’t afford to underestimate him. Couldn’t afford to get comfortable. Who knew what kind of tricks men like him had in their cache of power plays?

  “I, uh, don’t drink coffee right now,” she said. “I’m breastfeeding and the caffeine isn’t good for her. But...decaf tea would be nice.”

  “With cream and a hint of cinnamon like you ordered it yesterday,” he said, at the door now.

  “Yes.”

  “Be back in a few,” he said, letting himself out.

  He was gone before she remembered to thank him.

  * * *

  For the rest of that afternoon Nolan noticed the energy in his step—the sense of adventure alive and well inside of him. He was revved up. Ready to take on the world.

  He was falling back into the trap of the year before. Living for the moment. Knowing the end date before he even began. He saw it happening.

  Allowed it to happen.

  Ignoring the intense feeling Lizzie created within him hadn’t been the right choice. He most definitely should not have changed his number, or left her no way to contact him.

  She’d given them ten days to find the right choice. He was up for that.

  Ten days to figure out how they were going to be a family before he had to face his family. She’d acted like she was asking him for some great favor, keeping their secret until after Christmas. Truth was, he was dreading laying this one on the old man.

  Like it or not, his family meant everything to him. He had ten days to figure out how to make this all right. To find a way to provide for Lizzie and Stella and not lose the respect of his parents and siblings.

  Maybe if he just kept his new little family secret, as he had Nolan Forte all these years, at least until enough time had passed for him and Lizzie to test just how being in each other’s lives might look.

  His parents were still going to be disappointed in him. He knew better than to go around getting women pregnant. Fortunes had responsibilities and keeping track of one’s sperm was one of them.

  “You sure she’s going to be fine with a tree up?” Nolan asked Lizzie later that afternoon as she directed him to a four-by-six-foot storage area in the back of the front closet where she and Carmela stored their Christmas bins. In one of them was an artificial tree that needed to be put together.

  “Why wouldn’t she be?” she asked, rocking back and forth on her feet with a wide-awake baby in her arms. Stella was going to need to eat again soon, which meant she was going back to her bedroom. She wanted Nolan fully occupied with enough to keep him busy for the half hour it could take if their daughter chose to lollygag.

  “I don’t know...it might fall over,” he said, coming out with the largest of the green-lidded bins. The one with the tree.

  “I’m not planning to lay her under it,” she told his way too cute butt as he bent over to access the storage area again.

  Pushing a smaller bin out and placing another one on top of it, he paused to glance over at Lizzie and the baby.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Right.”

  “She’s little and fragile, Nolan, but at the same time, she’s a lot more durable than you’d think,” she told him, breaking into a smile that felt free. Natural.

  Better than she’d been in just about...a year.

  Just because she’d bought herself a week before she really had to worry. And because she’d always felt magic in the air when the Christmas bins came out. Like miracles were possible.

  She really wanted to believe that it had nothing to do with Nolan being back.

  The baby turned her head, opening her mouth over Lizzie’s T-shirted breast. Of course Nolan would look at them right then. And stand there and stare.

  “Um, I’ll just go back and feed her,” she said, figuring it would be best to get it started before Stella cried. “If you want, you can start on the tree. It goes under the window.” There was only one of them in the living area. A big, double window looking out at a lovely landscaped courtyard. Her bedroom, down the hall and on the other side of the apartment, looked at the parking lot.

  A good dose of reality for her, she figured as she turned her back abruptly and started down the hall.

  Should she close her door? She and Carmela never closed doors unless one or the other of them had a guy in the apartment. Which was pretty much never, other than Nolan the previous year, and Carmela had been gone for a lot of that time.

  She pushed it mostly closed. If he didn’t glance down the hall, he’d never know she’d deliberately shut him out. Nolan might be Stella’s father, but that didn’t mean Lizzie had to invite him into their intimacies. Neither did she trust him to stay in the living room if she didn’t make it clear he wasn’t wanted.

  Didn’t trust herself to set boundaries if he strayed...

  Taking her breast out, helping her daughter latch on, she couldn’t help a surge of completely confusing and unwanted emotion. Feeding Stella was private and beautiful. Precious to the two of them. Having the baby’s father in the house should make no difference to that.

  But it did.

  Ten minutes on one side and Stella was ready for the other breast. By that time Lizzie was ready to hide herself in the bathroom with the door locked.

  Nolan knew what she was doing. Was probably picturing her and Stella right now. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen her breasts before, she tried telling herself, to no avail.

  Five minutes into the second half of her lunch Stella put her hand on the side of Lizzie’s jaw. Of course Lizzie knew the action was purely accidental. The baby had no idea. And yet, the touch felt comforting. Like her daughter was reassuring her that all was well.

  That she was enough.

  “Liz?” Nolan’s voice sounded like a ghost, whispering from the past. Except he was right outside her door. Her gaze shot in that direction, but the door was still resting against the jamb. He probably had a Christmas question.

  “Yeah?”

  “May I come in?”

  “No!”

  He didn’t say anything else. She assumed he walked away. Maybe even out of the apartment.

  She’d done the right thing, she assured herself as she wiped away tears.

  Chapter Eleven

  Nolan was just plugging in the lights he’d strung on the tree when Lizzie, carrying a wide-awake Stella, came back out to the living room. Almost as though he’d planned it, the colorful lights popped on just as they entered and Stella’s gaze went immediately to the tree. The baby stared at it, while Nolan stared at them, the lights glistening in Stella’s eyes, and Lizzie’s, too.

  It was a sight he’d never forget. A picture in a mental frame, the beautiful, natural-looking dark-haired woman holding the little pink bundle with big brown eyes. They were his responsibility forevermore. Whether Lizzie kicked him out of their lives, remarried, moved to Antarctica, it didn’t matter. He owed her.

  And Stella. He was going to support her. One way or another.

  “I was thinking maybe we could go get some lunch,” he said, the idea just occurring to him as he fought the urge to cross to his girls and take them both in his arms, beg their forgiveness and promise to never leave them again.

  He couldn’t do that. His life was in New Orleans. And that family was vital to him, as well. He was going to leave Austin. “Maybe at that pita place...”

  Lizzie had loved it, even though she’d lamented, all three times they’d gone, that it was too expensive.

  Looking from him to the tree and back, she nodded.

  “Then, when we get back, I’ll help you with the rest of the decorations.” They’d done that the year before, too,
with her painting wonderfully cheerful mental images of memories of decorating the tree when she was a kid and her parents were still alive, down to the green and red candy-coated chocolate in the bowl on the coffee table.

  He wasn’t there to think about the past. Or to notice the lack of a candy-filled bowl in Lizzie’s present.

  She let him carry the oversize purse she used as a diaper bag out to her car. Everything else she handled herself, from strapping the baby into her car seat to driving to and from the restaurant. She held Stella the entire time they ate. And though she answered questions about feeding and sleeping schedules, about the babysitting arrangements she and Carmela had worked out, about the health insurance she carried on herself and the baby, provided in part by the school system, she gave him nothing unless he knew to ask for it.

  She didn’t offer to let him hold the baby. That first day, he didn’t ask. He wasn’t ready. He hung with them until he had to get back for a short rehearsal and the gig. He helped her finish her Christmas decorations, wanting to tell her about his own traditions at home—the way his siblings, every one of them, were home the day after Thanksgiving every year to help decorate the big tree in the living room of the family home. It was only one tree among many throughout the mansion, but that one big tree off the front foyer, that one they all did together. Still.

  He didn’t think Lizzie was open to stories about his family yet. She wasn’t open to him at all.

  Throughout that first afternoon he took photos of the baby on his phone, after asking permission and assuring Lizzie that they’d go nowhere but his own personal gallery.

  That night, after the last set, he grabbed a beer from the market by the hotel, then went straight back to his hotel room and started scrolling through the pictures on his phone.