Page 5 of Marrying the Nanny

“No,” Dennis asserted strongly.

“Here, then.” Emma snugged the baby onto her shoulder with one arm and yanked a folded pad from her bag. She flipped it flat on the table, then set a clean diaper and a tub of wet wipes beside it. The baby went onto the mat.

“No,” Reid said in the tone that halted engineers and marketing executives and union reps and bean counters.

“You want to do it? That’d be great ’cause I haven’t had a minute to myself since your father and Tiffany left Raven’s Cove.” She sounded Australian. Maybe South African. “If you’re ready to take her, I’ll book into a hotel and catch up on my beauty sleep.”

Kiwi, he decided, as her anger accentuated the vowels. Kitch up on moy beauty slip.

“Emma has agreed to stay on as Storm’s au pair,” Harpreet said, voice pitched to a defusing tone. “Perhaps we should start with custody arrangements?”

Reid snapped a look at her. “The email said the government is taking her.”

“We ensure her needs are met, yes, but I don’t physically take her into my home. Someone else has to do that. We’re here to decide who that someone is.” Harpreet sounded reasonable, but her message was outrageous.

He looked with disbelief at the baby.

The kid rolled onto her tummy and stuck her toes into the ends of her pink pajamas. The green stain spread farther up her back. She had finally quit bawling and looked down the table at the startled faces, then dropped her head to chew her fist, moaning snottily around it.

That noise was also like nails on a chalkboard, grating inside Reid’s ears.

“Am I going for coffee?” Emma asked him, one hand on the baby to keep her from rolling off both mat and table.

It was a bluff. Otherwise, she would be out the door, not standing here with her chin thrust out in belligerence.

Reid always called a bluff, especially when he was in his natural environment—a boardroom. This was where he prevailed. He did his best work when he had a half dozen pairs of eyes watching to see if he’d flinch.

But his mind was still reeling. Custody? Really?

“Your sister’s name is Storm, by the way,” Emma prodded.

She was trying to instill him with a sense of obligation, but emotional blackmail didn’t work on him. He’d been inoculated back when he’d been filling his own pants.

“Be sure to restock the formula and nappies,” she goaded. “The spit-up towel is there.”

Lay it on thick, sweetheart. He refused to blink, even though—Dear God what had that child eaten?

He never backed down from a power struggle. He waited for her to break, confident he wouldn’t have to risk letting that excrement machine near this bespoke Italian suit.

“For Christ’s sake,” Logan muttered. “Point taken, lady. Neutralize that aroma. My eyes are watering.”

“Wow.” She shot Logan an infuriated look and moved in front of Reid. Her surprisingly round and very cute ass was suddenly right in front of his fly.

He flicked the switch on that and moved to the side. It was hardly the time for fantasies, but the Neanderthal in him hit save to revisit the image later.

“Don’t express concern for her all at once.” Emma’s accent gave her sarcasm a musical lilt. “You’ll frighten the poor wee thing.” She began unsnapping the baby’s clothes to reveal a striped undershirt that snapped in the crotch and was stained by the blowout.

“This is a trying time for everyone,” Harpreet said in a tone that attempted to soothe riled nerves. “I’m sure you’re all in shock. I didn’t know your father, but it sounds as though he’ll be deeply missed.”

Was that how it sounded? Reid took a few more steps to remove himself from the noxious fumes. He didn’t like giving up the power position at the head of the table. Was it symbolic his dad’s latest kid had taken it by taking a crap?

It was par for the course that Wilf Fraser’s last act was a migraine-inducing custody mess. How had Reid not seen this coming?

“I agree with Harpreet,” Dennis said. “Once guardianship is decided, Storm and Emma can excuse themselves from the rest of the meeting.”

Emma was busy stripping the baby with deft movements. She dragged a blanket across the kid’s pale torso to keep her warm. The baby grabbed handfuls of it and shoved it in her mouth. Her chubby legs kicked every which way and she tried to roll again.

Emma caught her, grabbing her ankles in one hand and lifting her bottom so only the baby’s shoulders touched the table, like a chicken being plucked. Emma ran one wet wipe after another over and around, into crevices and halfway up the kid’s stained back, discarding everything into the plastic bag she had set out to catch it all.

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