Page 179 of The Duke Who Saved Christmas
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I leant against the doorway and folded my arms across my chest, taking in the sight before me. “Is that my nephew?”
“Technically, it’s our nephew,” Tom said, gently rubbing the baby’s back.
“And why is he here?”
“Your sister called me.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Tom, I told her no.”
He peeked open one eye and looked over at me. “She didn’t tell me that.”
“Of course, she didn’t!”
“Shh, you’ll wake him.”
I pushed off the doorframe and glared. “Call Hazel and tell her to retrieve her child.”
“She’s going to yell at me again,” he muttered, slowly sitting up while cradling baby Jack.
“Good,” I said firmly. “Let me know when you’re done on the phone so I can yell at her for going behind my back. Again.”
“Hold on. Let me put him down, and I’ll call Julian.”
I rolled my eyes and turned, taking myself to the kitchen. This was his problem, and he could deal with it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my nephew, because I did, I just didn’t want to finish work only to have to look after a baby.
A bit rich to say that while I was literally growing my own, but that was different. That wasmybaby. I chose this.
I did not agree to be my sister’s on-call babysitter whenever the whim took her.
She’d learnt many things since her wedding, but clearly, we still needed a crash course on boundaries.
“All right,” Tom said, walking into my office ten minutes later. “Julian is coming to get him now. He was under the impression you were all right with it, and I quickly set that record straight.”
“Thank you.” I shoved a fizzy peach ring gummy sweet into my mouth. “She’s taking the piss. We only looked after him last week. She’s still on maternity leave, for God’s sake.”
He sat down next to me and pulled me into him, resting my head on his shoulder. “Bad meeting?”
“No, it was a perfect meeting. He’s a walking chequebook whose only mission in life is to make her happy.”
“Ah, the hallmark of all good men.”
I pulled back, eyeing him. “Just because you’re a vastly wealthy simp for your wife doesn’t mean everyone is.”
“True. I have found it easier to just give you whatever you want, though.”
“I don’t think wealth has anything to do with that. That’s probably a universal experience for men.” I popped another sweet in my mouth and sucked off more of the sugar. “Do we have more of these?”
“I can have more in an hour.”
“That might be a good idea.”
“Noted.” He pulled out his phone. “Zara will get some.”
“Zara is working! She has a meeting with the gin distillery and—”
