“I don’t know—”
“I do know. I know your family. It’s in your blood to help people.” Which was why he persisted. Her mother could never resist a person in need, but her mother was also the head of his household. Though she had staff, she and everybody on her staff worked set hours. He might be able to temporarily squeeze Joshua into their schedules during the day, but he couldn’t press them for night duty, too. And he most desperately needed someone for night duty. Not for himself but for the poor baby entrusted to his care. “Think of Joshua.”
She glanced at the baby in her arms. Wonderful Joshua picked that precise second to grin toothlessly at her. She groaned. Joshua was getting to her.
“I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars up front and fifty at end of the month. If it goes longer, I’ll pay you twenty-five thousand a week.” Holding her gaze steadily, he said, “Money’s never been an object for me. You need money, and Joshua needs you.”
CHAPTER TWO
THEY stepped into the enormous working kitchen of the Manelli mansion. Audra’s mom turned from the stainless-steel stove. As always her short brown hair and simple black dress were neat as a pin, and her blue eyes sparkled. Her gaze touched on Dominic then Audra then Joshua.
“I thought you were coming here to chat with me,” she said, shifting from the stove to one of three islands with beige-and-gold-flecked black granite countertops that sat on functional beige ceramic tile floors.
“We met in the driveway.”
“And found a baby under the big oak by the garage?”
“This is Peter’s son, Mary,” Dominic said. “I got a call from Marsha’s mom this morning. She’s ill and can’t raise Joshua as she’d wanted. We all agreed the smartest thing to do was have me take over.”
“Oh, Dominic, I’m so sorry,” Mary said, walking to them. “But this actually might work out better for Joshua.”
“Yeah,” Dominic chided. “He’s much better off in the hands of a guy with absolutely no baby experience.”
“You’ll get the hang of being a daddy,” Mary said, reaching for the baby. “And this baby needs to know his dad’s family, as well as his mom’s.”
Audra handed the squirming little boy to her mother, and he immediately began to cry.
“Oh-oh.” Mary chuckled, and then brushed her lips across the baby’s forehead. “Somebody’s sleepy.”
She made a move to hand him to Dominic, but Audra took him. She wasn’t ready to explain to her mother that she’d agreed to help Dominic for the next month, and decided that was Dominic’s job, anyway. She faced Dominic. “Do you have a crib ready for him to sleep?”
“Damn it!” He ran his hand over the top of his head in frustration. “No.”
“It’s okay.” She laid crying Joshua across her arm and began to rock him. “Did Marsha’s mom give you a baby carrier by any chance?”
“Yes.”
“He’s small enough that he can nap in that. Where is it?”
“In the trunk with two duffel bags of baby clothes and what seems like a hundred stuffed animals that Marsha’s mom said he couldn’t live without.”
“Mom, can you rock him while we bring those things inside?”
Her mother gave her an odd look, but smiled and said, “Sure,” as she took Joshua again. “Come on, little sweetie-pie. Aunt Mary will take off all these heavy clothes and tell you a story.”
Audra’s mom left the kitchen, and Audra and Dominic stepped out into the fat white snowflakes again. “So, I’m guessing you want me to tell your mom about our arrangement.”
“She’s your employee, not mine. Besides, you’re the one making her watch a baby for the next few weeks until you hire a real nanny. The honor falls to you.”
He laughed. “I just didn’t want to step on any toes.”
“When you tell her you’re paying me well to work nights for you, my mom won’t bat an eye. If there’s one thing she understands, it’s not going into debt when someone’s offering you money. It wasn’t easy raising three girls with no husband. She knows a smart person doesn’t turn down a good opportunity. I’ve already told her that Wedding Belles is in a bit of a financial bind.” She shrugged. “She’ll probably be proud of me.”
He chuckled again as he opened the trunk of his car, revealing two duffel bags, a baby carrier and at least twenty stuffed animals. “These are the toys and clothes Marsha’s mom said Joshua can’t do without. I’ll be getting the rest of his things this afternoon.”
“You don’t have somebody you can send to get them?”
He shrugged and bent into the trunk to gather the stuffed animals. As he handed an armload to Audra, he said, “It doesn’t seem right to send someone. Marsha’s mom is family. And she’s sick. I think it’s better for me to do it personally.”
She smiled. What a softie he was. “Yeah.”
Dominic hoisted the two duffel bags out and nodded to the back entrance. “You open the door for me. We’ll dump these in the kitchen and come out and get the rest.”
Leading the way, Audra said, “I think we should leave Joshua with my mom this morning, drive to Marsha’s mom’s for the remainder of the baby things and then hit a furniture store.”
“For a crib?”
“And high chair. Changing table. Dressers. Toy box.” She grinned at him. Having always had to watch her pennies, even talking about spending somebody else’s money was fun. Especially when he had so much. “Then we can go to a department store and get a swing, play yard, baby tub.”
He rolled his eyes. “Nothing else?”
“I thought money was no object.”
“Money might not be an object, but time is. I had four important meetings scheduled for this morning.”
Audra opened the kitchen door and walked to the first of the three islands in the huge room. She set the stuffed animals on it. “If you don’t mind risking my taste in baby furniture, I could do those things for you. I already told our assistant, Julie, that I’d be out most of the morning.”
His dark eyes brightened with hope. “I wouldn’t care if you bought a purple crib.”
Audra laughed. “Actually you would. But I’m thinking more in the line of white furniture.” Familiar with the Manelli home, she added, “I’ll need a suite of rooms for Joshua and his nanny. The nanny’s room can probably stay furnished as it already is. The sitting room will probably be good as is, too. But one bedroom of the suite should be emptied so I can set up the nursery.”
“I think I have just the suite. Come with me.”
As Dominic walked Audra through three long corridors to the opulent entrance hall that led to the stairway, memories flooded her. Every time she’d been in this house, the carved wood banister of the wide circular stairway had been decorated with red velvet bows and twinkling white lights. A ten-foot fir dressed with silver stars and gold ornaments had always filled the foyer.
But as they ascended the stairs, the strongest of Audra’s memories were of scrambling around, opening doors, going into rooms typically off-limits to the guests, trying to find Dominic’s hiding place.