Читать книгу The Diaper Diaries - Abby Gaines - Страница 10

BETHANY PAUSED on the threshold of Olivia’s office. Tyler’s secretary was locked in a death glare with a bum in a dirty coat. Should she fetch help? She tightened her grip on Ben’s car seat in case she had to run and said, “Olivia?”

The bum didn’t acknowledge her arrival. He said to Olivia, “I’ll be back,” with about as much menace as a low-on-batteries Terminator. He swung around, loped past Bethany with his coat flapping.

Before Bethany could ask Olivia what that was about, Tyler opened the door of his office. “Olivia, have you seen my silver pen? I can’t think where I—” He stopped, distracted by the disheveled appearance of the departing visitor, now out of earshot but still visible. “Who’s that?”

Olivia cleared her throat. “Silas Grant, the guy who’s saving the red-spotted tree frog. He wanted to see you.”

“Was he bothering you?” Tyler took a step forward as if he might head down the corridor and grab hold of the man.

Olivia shook her head. “He’s all right. Just…odd. I told him I’d find out if you’re willing to meet with him.”

Tyler cast another look at the guy, then turned to Bethany. He scanned her outfit—black leggings and a taupe crochet sweater, a by-product of the stress-relief technique that had preceded knitting, worn over a black slip. A taupe cardigan completed her layered look.

Bethany liked to think of it as Bohemian.

“Why is it that most do-gooders dress so badly?” he demanded. “It’s like a badge of honor with some of you.” He glanced down at his own clothing, which Bethany observed was unusually casual, yet as crisp and new looking as if he had a Calvin Klein store tucked in his office. “Nope,” Tyler said complacently. “I don’t see any reason why you can’t look good and do good.”

Bethany gaped. “You call yourself a do-gooder?”

He rubbed his chin. “Let me see…my job involves giving millions of dollars away to people in need, I’m an acknowledged expert on philanthropy, and now I’m fostering an abandoned baby.” He nodded at Ben in his car seat but made no move to take him. “You’re right, I’m evil.”

“You spend money,” she said, “but you don’t care.”

He groaned. “If you mean I don’t respond emotionally to every problem, you’re right. But if you mean providing practical assistance that makes a difference…”

“I mean,” she said, “giving something of yourself, caring in a way that changes you as well as the other person.”

He looked mystified. “Why would I want to change, when everyone loves me the way I am?”

Bethany was about to deliver a few choice words on that topic, when she saw laughter lurking beneath the innocent inquiry in his eyes. Tempted though she was to laugh—something she felt surprisingly often around Tyler—she chose not to indulge him. “That pen you’re looking for,” she said, referring to the question that had brought him out of his lair. “Would that be the one I borrowed the other day to write out a list of baby equipment?”

“So you did,” he said.

“I took it,” she admitted. “By accident.”

He held out a hand. “May I have it back?”

“I haven’t seen it in a couple of days.” She frowned. “I know I used it to sign a check at the supermarket. I’m not sure if I put it back in my purse…”

“Could you think a little harder?” Tyler said. “It’s my favorite.”

Oops. Bethany grimaced. “I think I left it in the store.”

“You’re kidding, right?” His shock sounded out of all proportion to the loss of a pen.

“Keep your hair on,” she said. “I’ll buy you another one.”

He folded his arms. “You’re going to buy me another twelve-hundred-dollar Michel Perchin pen?”

She clattered Ben’s car seat onto Olivia’s desk before she dropped it. Olivia leaned back in her chair, looking askance.

“You didn’t say twelve hundred dollars, did you?” Bethany pleaded. “You said twelve dollars.”

Tyler glared at her.

She felt sick.

“That money’s coming straight off your next research grant,” he said. “Or it would, if I had any intention of giving you more cash.”

In an instant, her fighting spirit was resurrected.

She planted her hands on her hips. “Twelve hundred dollars is an obscene amount to pay for a pen. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“You have an attitude problem.” Tyler’s effortless urbanity had vanished, and he spoke with the fulminating tension of a man goaded beyond endurance. “You’ve lost my handmade pen, which for all you know could be of great sentimental value, and somehow you’ve made this all about my flaws.”

“Could be of sentimental value,” she mocked. “But it’s not, is it, because for that, you’d have to have a heart.”

Into the seething pause, Olivia said, “What shall I tell Silas Grant? Will you see him?”

Bethany saw Tyler grapple to regain his control as he turned to his secretary. “I’m a family guy, not a frog guy,” he said to Olivia with a passable replica of his normal ease, though Bethany’s snort had his fists clenching at his sides. “I’m not interested.”

Olivia looked relieved. “I’ll let him know.” She pulled a file out of her drawer. “In fact, I’ll call and leave a message on his voice mail before he gets home.”

Tyler frowned. “If you’re worried about dealing with him, I’ll do it.”

His offer surprised Bethany. As far as she knew, Tyler didn’t do anything for other people.

Olivia’s face flushed. “It’s no problem.”

“Don’t say I didn’t care enough to offer,” he said, with a pointed glance at Bethany. So that’s what his sudden consideration was about. Then he said to her, “You’ll be pleased to know I’ll be caring for Ben personally tonight. I’m taking him out with me.”

“Taking him where?” Bethany picked up Ben’s car seat again. Somewhere that didn’t involve Tyler’s usual suit and tie, obviously. He wore designer-faded jeans, a long-sleeved fine-knit polo shirt, casual shoes. He looked like…like…Bethany struggled to define the annoyingly alluring blend of preppy and rugged. She failed.