Читать книгу An Unexpected Christmas Baby - Tara Taylor Quinn - Страница 13

Chapter Four

She was coming down with something. Wouldn’t you know it? First day of the most important job of her life to date—because it was for her father, her family—and she was experiencing hot flashes followed by cold shivers.

That could only mean the flu.

Crap.

“So...you’re good with keeping him on?” She looked at Bill and then back to the doorway they’d both been staring at. She’d been listening for Mr. Collins’s “hello” as he took the call that was important enough for him to leave a meeting during which he’d been begging for his job. She’d wanted to hear his tone of his voice as he addressed such an important caller.

Business or pleasure?

“Your father said you’re the boss.” Bill’s words didn’t seem to have any edge to them.

“Well, he’s wrong, of course.” She was smiling, glad to know she didn’t have to worry about stepping on at least one director’s toes. “But it makes sense, from an efficiency standpoint, to keep on a broker who’s willing to sign a noncompete clause. Unless you know of some reason he should go? I heard him say he makes the company money. Is that true?”

“He’s one of our top producers.”

She knew that already, but there was no reason, as an efficiency expert who hadn’t yet seen her first file, that she should.

“You have some hesitation about him?”

She’d asked Bill twice if there was a reason Flint Collins shouldn’t stay on. Bill hadn’t replied.

He gave a half shrug as he looked at her and crossed to his desk, straightening his tie. “None tops the offer he made a few minutes ago. Still, I don’t like having guys around that I can’t trust.”

He had her total focus. “He’s given you reason to mistrust him?”

Bill shook his head. “Just the whole ‘opening his own shop’ thing.”

“It’s what my dad did—left a firm to start Owens Investments. And you helped him do it.”

“We did it the right way,” Bill said. “The first person your father told, before taking any action, was his boss. None of this finding out from a friend in the recorder’s office. Makes me wonder what else he isn’t telling us...”

Made her wonder, too.

“I’m going over all the company files. He’ll know that as soon as he reads his email. Seems like if he’s untrustworthy, he’ll have a problem with that.”

“If he’s got anything to hide, you aren’t going to find it.”

Maybe not.

Ostensibly her job was to come up with ways for Owens to make more money. “He’s a top producer and wants to sign a noncompete agreement.”

“Right when he was getting ready to go into business for himself,” Bill said, frowning. “Like I said, kind of makes you wonder why, doesn’t it?”

“Is it possible that any of his applications for the various licenses were turned down for some reason?”

“From what I heard, he’d been fully approved.”

“Could you have heard wrong?”

Bill shrugged again. “Anything’s possible.”

She nodded. She needed to get hold of Flint Collins’s files.

“He came to you knowing he had to contend with trust issues and was armed with a plan that benefits Owens Investments,” she said. She wasn’t sure how to interpret that yet. Had he seen that he could make more siphoning off money from her father than he would on his own?

“He’s a smart businessman.”

“So, are you okay with keeping him on or will you be letting him go?” She couldn’t allow him to think it really mattered to her. Or that she intended to push her weight around, beyond efficiency expertise.

If Bill planned to fire Collins right away, she’d go to her father, have him handle the situation. She hoped it didn’t come to that.

“Of course I’m keeping him on,” Bill said. “He’s making us a boatload of money. But I don’t trust him and I’ll be watching him closely.”

Her father had a good man in his Director of Operations. Smiling, Tamara told him so, thanked him and promised to do all she could to stay out of his way.

Shouldn’t be hard. She had a feeling Flint Collins would be taking up most of her time.

Maybe an efficiency expert wouldn’t be able to find whatever he might be hiding, or anything he might be doing to rip off her family, but a daughter out to protect her father would.

By whatever means it took.

Tamara was certain of that.

* * *

For a man who liked to plan his life down to the number of squeezes left in his toothpaste tube, Flint figured he was doing pretty well to be at his desk, with his computer on, twenty minutes after leaving Bill Coniff’s office.

His “inheritance,” the tiny being who was now his responsibility for life, lay fed, dry and fast asleep in the car seat–carrier combination, her head securely cushioned by that last little gift from the caseworker. He’d placed her on the table across the room, but sitting at his desk, he wasn’t satisfied. The carrier was turned sideways. He couldn’t see her full face to know at a glance that her blanket hadn’t somehow interfered with her breathing, say if she happened to move in her sleep.

Clicking to open his client list, he crossed the room and adjusted the carrier, turning it to face his desk. Looked at the baby. Noticed her steady breathing.

She had the tiniest little nose. Probably the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

She was going to be a beauty.

Like their mother...

He planned to keep her under lock and key. Away from anyone who could attempt to hurt her...

Taken aback by the intensity of that thought, telling himself he wasn’t really losing his mind, he returned to work. Found the client file he wanted. Opened it.

On Friday, before his world had completely crumbled, he’d made an investment that was meant to be short-term. A weekend news announcement had caused the stock to plummet, but it would rise again, for a few days at least, before it either plummeted long-term or—as he hoped—held steady. He figured he’d have five days max. Preferably three. The risk was greater than Howard would want, but the potential return should be remarkable enough to secure his job, at least for now.

As long as the risk paid off.

Flint clicked on certain files, clicked some more. Looked at numbers. Studied market movement. It occurred to him that he should be nervous. If he’d invested at a loss, it could potentially mean his job. He knew Bill had been about to fire him when fate had sent in the consultant Howard had hired.

He wasn’t nervous. Flint took risks with the market. But only when his gut was at peace with them. His financial gift was about the only thing he trusted.

Glancing up, he checked his new responsibility. He could see movement as she breathed. Stared as a fist pushed its way out of the blanket. Who’d have thought hands came that small? Or that people did?

She looked far too insecure on that big table made for powerful business deals between grown men and women.

Market numbers scrolled on his screen. They were still going up. But they could take a second rapid dive; his guess was they would. And soon. They’d already climbed higher than he’d conservatively predicted, but not as high as he’d optimistically hoped.

Pushing back from his desk, he crossed the room again, lifted the carrier gently, loath to risk waking his charge. With his free hand, he pulled a chair back to his desk, positioning it next to his seat, along the wall to his left. Away from the door and any unseen drafts. Satisfied, he settled the carrier there, glanced at his computer screen and pushed the button to sell.

At a price higher than he’d hoped.

Five minutes later, the stock started to drop.

He still had his touch. And a fairly good chance of securing his job. Even Bill couldn’t argue with the kind of money he’d just made.

* * *

As was her way, Tamara studied before she went into action. She didn’t take the time she would later spend going over individual accounts, one by one, account by account, figure by figure. But when she approached Flint Collins’s office late Monday afternoon, she not only knew every piece of information in his employee file, but she was familiar with every account he’d handled in the nearly eight years he’d been working for her father.

Aside from the part about suspecting that he was stealing from them, she was impressed. And more convinced than ever that if anyone could succeed in taking money from Howard without his knowing, it could be Collins. The man was clearly brilliant.

He’d been a suspect in the drug production and distribution that had put his mother in prison; he’d also grown up with her criminal history. According to a pretty thorough background check, the only consistent influence in his life had been his mother—in between her various stints in jail.

The first of which had come when he was only six. She’d been sentenced to three months. Tamara had seen a list of his mother’s public criminal record in his file. Probably there because of Flint’s ties to her latest arrest. She’d also seen that the woman was only fifteen years older than her son. A child raising a child.

Funny how life worked. A young girl who, judging by the facts, had been ill-equipped to have the responsibility of a child and yet she’d had one. While Tamara...

No. She wasn’t going backward.

Passing Bill’s open door, she waved at the director who was on the phone but waved back. Smiled at her. And her heart lifted a notch. She’d managed to get her way and not make an enemy. It was always good to have a “friend” among the people she was studying.

A couple of steps from Flint Collins’s closed door, she stopped. That damned baby cry was going off again. She didn’t want to interrupt his call. Nor did she want to wait around while he talked on the phone.

And really, what kind of guy had a crying newborn as his ringtone?

Not one she’d ever want to associate with, that was for sure.

However she didn’t want to get on the guy’s bad side. Not yet, anyway. She needed him to like her. To trust her.

She might even need to learn about his life if she hoped to help her father. According to Bill, anyway. The director was pretty certain that Collins wouldn’t have hidden anything he was doing in files to which she’d have access.

The crying had stopped. She didn’t hear any voices. Had whoever was calling hung up?

Deciding to wait a couple of seconds, just in case he was listening to a caller on the other end, Tamara cringed as the baby cry started back up. Sounding painfully realistic. How could he stand that?

Apparently he’d let the call go to voice mail. And whoever had been at the other end was phoning back. Was Collins ignoring the call? Unless he wasn’t there? Had he left his cell in his office?

A man like Flint Collins didn’t leave his cell phone behind.

Tamara knocked. And when there was no answer, tried the door. Surprisingly the knob turned. The office was impressive. Neat. Classy. Elegant.

And had nothing on the spread of male shoulders she saw bending over something to the side of his desk. Or the backside beneath them.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” she blurted. The crying had to stop. It was making her crazy. She had business to do with him and—

The way those shoulders jerked and his glance swung in her direction clearly indicated that he hadn’t heard her enter. Making her uncomfortably aware that she should probably have knocked a second time.

How hadn’t he heard her first knock?

The thought fled as soon as she realized that the crying was coming from closer to him. There by the window. Not from the cell phone she noticed on his desk as she approached.

And then she saw it...the carrier...on the chair next to him. He’d been rocking it.

“What on earth are you doing to that baby?” she exclaimed, nothing in mind but to rescue the child in obvious distress. To stop the noise that was going to send her spiraling if she wasn’t careful.

“Damned if I know,” he said loudly enough to be heard over the noise. “I fed her, burped her, changed her. I’ve done everything they said to do, but she won’t stop crying.”

Tamara was already unbuckling the strap that held the crying infant in her seat. She was so tiny! Couldn’t have been more than a few days old. Her skin was still wrinkled and so, so red. There were no tears on her cheeks.

“There’s nothing poking her. I checked,” Collins said, not interfering as she lifted the baby from the seat, careful to support the little head.

It wasn’t until that warm weight settled against her that Tamara realized what she’d done. She was holding a baby. Something she couldn’t do.

She was going to pay. With a hellacious nightmare at the very least.

The baby’s cries had stopped as soon as Tamara picked her up.

“What did you do?” Collins was there, practically touching her, he was standing so close.

“Nothing. I picked her up.”

“There must’ve been some problem with the seat, after all...” He’d tossed the infant head support on the desk and was removing the washable cover.

“I’m guessing she just wanted to be held,” Tamara said. What the hell was she doing?

Tearless crying generally meant anger, not physical distress.

And why did Flint Collins have a baby in his office?

She had to put the child down. But couldn’t until he put the seat back together. The newborn’s eyes were closed and she hiccuped and then sighed.

Clenching her lips for a second, Tamara looked away. “Babies need to be held almost as much as they need to be fed,” she told him while she tried to understand what was going on. “The skin-to-skin contact, the cuddling, is vitally important not only to their current emotional well-being but to future emotional, developmental and social behavior.”

She was quoting books she’d memorized—long ago—in another life. He was checking the foam beneath the seat cover and the straps, too. Her initial analysis indicated that he was fairly distraught himself.

Not what she would’ve predicted from a hard-core businessman possibly stealing from her father.

“Who is she?” she asked, figuring it was best to start at the bottom and work her way up to exposing him for the thief he probably was.

He straightened. Stared at the baby in her arms, his brown eyes softening and yet giving away a hint of what looked like fear at the same time. In that second she wished like hell that her father was wrong and Collins wouldn’t turn out to be the one who was stealing from Owens Investments.

She didn’t move. Just stood frozen with her arms holding a baby against her.

“Her name’s Diamond Rose.” His tone soft, he continued to watch the baby, as though he couldn’t look away. But he had to get that seat dealt with. Fast. The lump in her throat grew.

“Whose is she?” She was going to have to put the baby down. Sooner rather than later. Her permanently broken heart couldn’t take much more. The tears were already starting to build. Dammit! She’d gone almost two months without them.

“Mine...sort of.”

Her head shot up. “Yours?” She glanced at the cell phone on his desk and then noticed the portable baby monitor. “You don’t have a baby crying ringtone?”

“No.”

“You have a baby?”

There’d been nothing in his file. According to her father, he’d only been dating his current girlfriend—some high-powered attorney—for the past six months. He’d brought her to a dinner Howard had hosted for top producers and their significant others. And had explained where and how they’d met. Which was pertinent because soon after he’d taken the first full vacation he’d had in eight years.

“She’s not mine,” he said then frowned, glancing at Tamara hesitantly before holding her gaze. “Legally, she is. But I’m not her father.”

“Who is?” His personnel records hadn’t listed any next of kin other than an incarcerated mother.

He shrugged. “That’s the six-million-dollar question. No idea. Biologically she’s my sister.”

Tamara flooded with emotion. She couldn’t swallow. Standing completely still, concentrating on distancing herself from the deluge, focusing on him, she waited for her skin to cool. With a warm baby snuggled against her chest.

She had to get rid of that warmth.

Get away from the baby.

“Your mother had a baby?” she heard herself ask, sounding only a little squeaky.

He nodded.

“I thought she was in prison...” She suddenly realized she might have revealed too much. She was being too invasive for a first business meeting. “Um, Bill told me. He said you’d overcome a...difficult past.”

He nodded. “She was. And the fact that she was a convict makes the question about Diamond’s father that much harder to answer. Who’s going to admit to fathering a child illegally?”

Her nerves were quaking. “She gave birth in prison?”

“Three days ago.”

She’d been right. The child was only days old...

Days older than any of hers had lived to be.

“And she gave her to you?” She wasn’t going to be able to keep it together much longer.

He’d agreed to take a baby. That said something about him. He needed to take her from Tamara.

He’d taken on a child. But then, his mother, a criminal, had agreed to take him on, too. By birthing him. Keeping him.

“My mother died in childbirth.”

Flint’s shocking words hit her harder than they would have if she’d been on the other side of the room. Or in another room. Speaking to him on the phone.

Knees starting to feel weak, she knew she was out of time. “And just like that, you become a father?”

“Just like that.”

There were things she should say. More questions to ask. But Tamara simply stood there, staring at him.

Unable to move.

To speak.

She was shaking visibly.

And had to get rid of the bundle she held.

Pronto.