A Baby In His In-Tray. Michelle Douglas
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I’m disturbing your neighbours.’
‘Don’t you dare wake the baby!’ she whisper-hissed at him. ‘Don’t make another sound on threat of...of something dire!’
She leapt out of bed and shot to the front door of Liz’s flat, reefing it open as quietly as she could. Her finger halted halfway to her lips when she took in the man that stood on the other side. Six feet two inches of solid-muscled man stood there, bristling with square-jawed arrogance and wide-legged impatience. Dark chestnut hair, lighter on the ends, stood up at odd angles as if he’d repeatedly run his hand through it. She had to fight the impulse to reach out and smooth it down.
She swallowed. Liz had never mentioned how handsome Sebastian Tyrell was. Why not? A pulse started up in her throat, making her breath choppy and uneven. Sebastian Tyrell wasn’t merely handsome—the man was hot with a capital H!
‘I know I look a mess,’ he growled. ‘But you could have the manners to pretend to not notice. I’ve come directly from the airport, and it’s taken me more than fifty hours to get here, so what do you expect? And, I might add, you don’t look much better.’
Dear God, she was standing in the open doorway in her pyjamas. They were perfectly respectable. They covered everything adequately. Some would argue more than adequately.
He continued to stare at her. ‘What have you done to your hair?’
She tried to smooth it down. It probably looked like a rat’s nest, though she knew that wasn’t what he referred to. ‘A...a change is as good as a holiday,’ she mumbled.
He looked as if he were going to say something more, but then blinked and shook himself. ‘Are you going to let me in?’
‘You cannot wake the baby.’
* * *
Sebastian took in the martial light in his office manager’s eyes and raised both hands. ‘Understood.’
He’d never seen Ms Gilmour so...undone, if that was the correct term. He could barely discern a trace of his cool, efficient office manager in the woman in front of him. Granted, he’d never knocked on her door at the crack of dawn and dragged her from her bed either.
And then there was her hair!
It took all his strength not to reach out and touch it, to track a strand’s length to see if it contained some kind of magic.
He rolled his shoulders—jet lag.
To be fair, he’d never contemplated Ms Gilmour’s life outside of the office before now either. To be brutally honest, he’d barely considered her at all beyond appreciating her myriad business skills and her efficiency...and feeling guilty about refusing her leave request a fortnight ago.
Damn it all to hell! She’d had no leave left. He’d needed her in the office overseeing things while he was overseas. He wasn’t a tyrant, he was far from unreasonable, but he hadn’t been able to shake off the memory of the desperation that had momentarily threaded through her voice. When the London office number had flashed up on his phone three days ago, he’d thought she’d rung to hand in her notice.
Had her hair been a response to her disappointment at having her leave declined?
He dragged both hands back through his hair. For heaven’s sake, he’d not seen her in...what? Two months? She could’ve been wearing her hair like this the entire time.
He fought back a frown. He’d have sworn she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d ever dye her hair like that. Evidently he’d misjudged her.
But then he had form for misjudging women.
He glanced at her again.
And tried to ease the knots in his shoulders. Her hair looked great—really great. He hoped it’d given her some solace.
He dragged his gaze from her hair to her face. She was staring at his chest as if hypnotised. ‘Ms Gilmour?’
She didn’t move.
‘Ms Gilmour,’ he repeated, a little louder.
She gave a violent start before pressing her finger to her lips. ‘Shh.’
She looked as jet-lagged as he felt. A frown built through him. ‘How much sleep did you get last night?’
She held up two fingers.
He stiffened, but managed to keep his voice low. ‘Two hours?’ No wonder she looked so wrecked. For a crazy moment he had to fight an impulse to pull her into his arms and hug her, tell her to rest. He didn’t, of course. It was a crazy notion. She’d probably slap him. And he’d deserve it. ‘And the night before?’
Two fingers again.
He planted his hands on his hips. ‘And the same the night before that?’
She nodded. ‘Baby Jemima is a creature of the night. A demon. We—as in you and I—are not going to talk as we walk through the living room, because talking wakes her. We’re not even going to look at her, because looking at her wakes her. You’re going to follow me through to the kitchen and you’re going to keep your eyes firmly forward the whole time. Got it?’
‘Got it.’
Unfortunately eyes straight ahead meant his gaze was firmly fixed on her. Hips shouldn’t move with such a provocative sway when encased in such ridiculously baggy garments. But apparently they could...and they did.
A pulse started up deep inside him and spread out until he throbbed with it. He wanted to dismiss it as jet lag, but he knew what it was—desire. And it had no place in his relationship with this woman. None whatsoever.
She gestured for him to take a seat at a small kitchen table, collapsing into the one opposite. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, ‘but I can’t offer you coffee. The coffee machine is too loud. Apparently the kettle is too loud too, so I can’t even offer you instant.’
He was dying for a coffee, aching for it. He now rued his decision to skip it at the airport to make his way here as quickly as he could instead. He wanted to sleep for a week, and yet he’d managed more sleep on the plane than she’d had in three days! ‘I don’t need coffee.’
‘I do.’ The words left her on a whimper. ‘It’s unfortunate on several counts. The primary one being that I don’t function as a halfway decent person in the morning until after a shower and a mug of strong coffee.’
She dropped her head to her folded arms, every line of her etched in exhaustion. An answering exhaustion rose through him. He tried to smother a yawn. ‘How much longer will the baby sleep for?’
She lifted her head to stare blearily at the clock on the wall. ‘Probably another two hours...but it’s one of those toss-a-coin things.’
Another yawn took him off guard. ‘Maybe we should take advantage of that? Follow suit?’
She stared at him. ‘Wow, you must be really tired.’
‘Really tired,’ he agreed. ‘Spent.’ But what he wanted was for her to jump back into bed and sleep until the lines around her eyes eased. ‘Why don’t you go back to bed and I’ll stretch out on your sofa?’
‘Reverse that and you have yourself a deal.’ She shook her head when he went to argue. ‘This is a one-bedroom flat. I can’t offer you a spare bed, and I don’t want to think what Jemima’s reaction will be if the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes is a strange man.’
Ah. Right.
He insisted she take her duvet. He stretched out on top of her covers. He only meant to lie there for a minute—just to help straighten out the kinks in his spine—before checking his emails. While he caught up on his emails he could try and think of a practicable way forward where Jemima was concerned.
What on earth was he going to do with her? He closed his eyes and Ms Gilmour’s autumn-hued hair filled his mind.