Page 1 of Not the Bodyguard's Baby
1
— Office.NOW!!
Adam didn’t bother returning the text from Hastings Security’s new secretary as he wove through the parking garage. By the time he answered, he could be in the office. Since she hadn’t used any of the alert codes, texting her back could prove fatal. Chunks of ice and snow brought in by the various vehicles had created puddles that awaited unsuspecting business men. He dodged the water traps, attempting to keep his pants clean. Tuesdays were suit days, and the new dark-gray one had replaced the one he’d ruined two weeks ago taking down a pepper-spray-wielding threat. More puddles awaited on the sidewalk between the garage and Ogilvie Tower. After a lifetime in Chicago, he knew better than to trust his good shoes to the weather.
A few people sat in the lobby sipping from steaming cups and trading gossip. Others crowded the hallway in front of the elevator bays with the intent of getting to their desks in the dozens of businesses housed in the tower. Adam bypassed the elevator for the stairs, the fastest route to the third floor.
Sprinting up the empty stairway, he double-checked his holster. No telling what awaited him in the office. Elle’s lack of emergency code troubled him—although she’d only been training for a week and might not remember them. At the door to the third floor, he paused, listening for anything out of the ordinary as he noiselessly opened the door.
A muffled cry came from the west side of the building where the Hastings Security office resided. The cry didn’t sound like an adult’s. Adam used the dome mirror across from the elevator to look at the reception desk through the open doorway.
No one sat at the desk.
Adam unholstered his gun and inched down the hallway in search of danger. Closer to the doorway, he could see that Elle stood in the hallway, her back to the main door, swaying back and forth in time to a song only she could hear. He sighed. Part of her duty included never leaving the desk unmanned.
The angle of the hallway offered a tactical disadvantage to someone entering the office, as it had been designed, and Adam watched for a moment to determine the threat. Elle conversed with someone beyond his view yet remained calm. Friend or foe he couldn’t tell from this angle. She continued swaying and bouncing. Adam slipped into the office knowing he would trigger the pressure pad under the carpet, lighting a display behind the reception desk and back in the dispatch area. He wondered if Elle had managed to push the alert button before she got up. If so, his brothers should be here soon. Keeping close to the wall, he craned his neck to get a better view down the hallway.
Just beyond Elle stood a man with cropped gray hair, arms crossed, brow furrowed and disapproving. Jethro Hastings. Adam holstered his gun. The last time he had seen that look on his father’s face was fifteen years ago, when he was a sophomore at the university and had come home to help his brothers sabotage his sister’s prom date. Poor Elle. He liked the new secretary and hoped whatever she had done to cause his father’s ire, she wouldn’t lose her job.
Jethro Hastings jerked his chin toward Adam, and as Elle spun around, a small tiny wail filled the air. She patted a bundle in her arms. No wonder his father was glaring. Babies didn’t belong in the office.
“Where did the baby come from?”
Jethro Hastings stepped around the receptionist. “I was about to ask you the same thing. She is yours.”
“Me? I don’t have a baby!” He hadn’t even had a girlfriend the past year.
“According to the letter tucked in the car seat, you do.” He handed Adam a folded paper.
Adam,
Our daughter’s name is Harmony. She is six weeks old. I’m not in a good place.
I need you to keep her safe for a while.
September
After five years as the singer’s head of security, he would recognize her rounded scrawl anywhere. Six weeks. That meant the baby had been born the first week of January, so nine months before... Why bother calculating? He’d kissed September once, and that had been a year ago last December. He had never been the type for one-night stands or to sleep around. No way, no how could he be the child’s father.
Jethro turned to Elle and the crying baby, and for a moment, his face softened. “Give her to him, and thanks.” Jethro returned down the hallway to the office and firmly shut the door.
“She isn’t mine.” Couldn’t be. Impossible. If this was one of his brothers’ jokes... Even Andrew was smart enough not to get Dad this upset. He blinked, trying to wake himself up from this nightmare, but nothing changed.
Elle held the baby out to him. “Isn’t any of my business. I need to get back to work. I’m not supposed to leave the desk unattended.”
Adam tucked the baby into his arm like he would a football. She stopped crying for a moment, then blinked at him. Why would September leave her child with him? Perhaps she had been in drug rehab like the tabloids claimed. But the sweet woman he remembered...
When the baby cried again and spit up on his suit, Adam hurried back to his office, wondering if this suit would survive the day.
* * *
September held the pen over the patient-signature line on the admitting forms. If she didn’t sign, she could leave now, go get Harmony, and disappear. Maybe last night wouldn’t replay and she could just sing a song and be happy. Things were not that bad. Were they? She closed her eyes and saw her baby’s sweet face and signed the first paper.
A woman joined the admitting nurse. “Miss Platt, I’m Maria, one of the social workers assigned to the behavioral-health unit. We are unclear on part of your story. Where is your baby now?”
“She is safe. I left her at Adam’s office with plenty of diapers and formula. I tried to pump, but I couldn’t get the bottle to fill up. I know—” September burst into tears. If only the tears and sadness would leave. She’d thought she would be happy when the baby arrived. At first she had been, but then, one day, Harmony had stopped sleeping and cried for hours. And September had started thinking the unthinkable. The nurse passed over a new box of tissues.
“So where is your husband’s office?”
