Page 12 of Cinderella's Secret Baby

He wouldn’t pretend the last hour hadn’t been an exercise in endurance. Talking had become impossible. Peyton didn’t like the car seat. She said so. Denis had put in his earbuds while Amelia had tried a dozen ways to soothe her. She had rubbed the silky border of the blanket on the baby’s cheek and given her a snuggle toy and a pacifier, put socks on her feet and kissed her waving fists, but the infant had craned her neck and squirmed against her restraints and bellyached the whole way.

Hunter sympathized, strapped into his own inescapable situation.

The wedding had been off the minute Amelia appeared. He had resisted admitting it right up until he was walking into the Honeymoon Suite where Eden had waited for him, still in her gown. “It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” she had reminded him through semi-hysterical tears.

She had been prepared to go through with the wedding. They both needed their marriage and probably could have rescued the day. The interruption could have been spun into a farce and his surprise baby sold as a blessing. But after that?

After that, his daughter would have had a stepmother. As much as Hunter respected Eden and had been prepared to share parenting with her of whatever family they might have made together, he couldn’t start Peyton’s life that way. He couldn’t start his own relationship with his child by bringing in another stranger, not that he spelled all of that out to Eden.

He had said the words. “We can’t get married.”

She had suggested postponing the wedding, but he rejected that, too. It had felt too much like postponing the inevitable, because there had been that other, shameful relief under his skin that he barely wanted to acknowledge.

It had become unpleasant at that point. “Quinn warned me not to marry you,” Eden had spat hotly. “She said your family is addicted to scandal. She said you would take my ship down with yours. I chose to believe Vienna. I believed in you, Hunter.”

That last remark had lashed deep across the place where he believed in himself. Where he knew himself to be a decent human being. Honorable. Not given to selfishness or callous behaviors that harmed others.I’m doing this for my child, he had wanted to assert, but to his chagrin, there was a grim gratification sitting in the pit of his belly. Amelia was back in his life and couldn’t slip away so easily this time.

He loathed himself for being pleased by that. It was too much like his father. However, marrying Eden at the expense of what was right for Peyton would also be too much like Frank Waverly.

It was an untenable situation with no easy answer, making Peyton’s screams of protest kind of cathartic while he brooded on the mistakes he’d made.

As if she understood that the shift of the carrier and the glimpse of blue sky between the skyscrapers meant freedom was imminent, she quieted, but her baby breaths were still catching.

God, she was tiny. If she didn’t have this protective shell of a car seat and a handle that Hunter could grasp in a strong fist, he’d be terrified to hold her at all.

He waved off Denis and slipped the doorman a bill, asking him to order a late lunch for him and Amelia.

“You’ll eat sushi?” he asked Amelia.

She nodded, slowing as they entered the lobby. She glanced from the security desk to the chandelier suspended three stories above, then to the spacious visitors’ lounge with its silk rug and fresh floral arrangements and colorful aquarium built into the back wall.

When the elevator dinged, she hugged herself and ducked her head, hurrying to enter with him.

“Don’t be like that,” he said as he used his thumbprint to access his floor. “You knew who I was when we met.” But it was hitting him that she wasn’t someone like Eden or Vienna who took this level of comfort for granted.

“Is this, like, a company building or something?”

“I am the company.” It was an exhausting truth and a reality that couldn’t be changed. Especially not after he’d fought so hard for the privilege.

He felt her gaze lift to touch the side of his face. “What about Vienna?”

“She prefers that I vote her share.” Neal had been after Vi to give him her proxy. Their stepmother had soured both of them on spousal involvement in the company, and Vi had always had other interests. She left the company to Hunter and always backed up his decisions, but the fact that she didn’t trust her husband told Hunter all was not well with her marriage. Between their father’s death, the court case and the wedding, however, Hunter hadn’t had a chance to dig into it with her.

Now he had this—he looked at the baby—circumstance.

The doors slid open and Amelia said with great cheer, “Guess what, Peyton? You get to come out of your car seat!”

Hunter set the seat on the wide bench in the foyer and watched as Amelia released Peyton. If anything, some of her tension seemed to dissipate as she gathered up the baby and kissed her cheek. She closed her eyes and made a contented noise as she nuzzled the baby, behaving as though she had missed her daughter when the kid hadn’t been out of her sight for a second.

It was cute, though, especially when Peyton let her head snuggle into Amelia’s shoulder and opened her mouth against her own fist. All seemed right in her little world now, too.

Through a vague sense of being shut out, Hunter still had to acknowledge how beautiful they were, like a Renaissance painting with the baby’s lashes drooping and light stealing in to frost the wisps of hair framing Amelia’s face. She was wan, but her skin was clear and smooth, her mouth pink and somber. Angelic.

He had the urge to kiss her. Not in foreplay, but in greeting. Maybe foreplay, too. Despite only knowing her the one night, she had stayed in his thoughts along with a near constant ache of want. He wanted the right to touch her and kiss her when her eyes were closed and open his mouth across hers with more purpose—

Amelia’s lashes lifted, and she caught him staring.

He looked away, annoyed with himself. This was battle conditions, not a time to let his libido cloud his judgment.

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