Baby Before Business (Silhouette Romance) (8 page)

“Seth, is there something you want to tell me?”

“No.”

“Really? Because it seems like something is wrong.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Seth laughed. “Madelyn, there’s nothing about my past that’s going to pop up and hurt my brother. Trust me. Anything I did that might potentially be embarrassing—and that’s all it would be is embarrassing—has been so tidily buried by real pros that you don’t need to worry about it.”

After he was gone, Madelyn sat Sabrina in the play
yard, then stared at her closed office door with her arms crossed over her chest. She had been at Bryant Development long enough, and had spent enough time interacting with Seth that if there had been a real problem Seth would have told her. She cringed for a minute over his statement that his situation had been “buried by real pros” but kept coming back to his assertion that his past was only “embarrassing” and she could handle embarrassing.

Unfortunately, talking with Seth hadn’t sufficiently eased her mind about Cooper, and she decided she was done mollycoddling Ty. Seth’s problem might only be embarrassing, but it caused him to be moody and emotional, and Madelyn couldn’t risk him leaking something about the story of Ty’s fight with Cooper that could potentially come back to haunt them. So, tonight, whether Ty liked it or not, he was telling her the entire story.

Not wanting to rile Ty before they had the discussion about Cooper, Madelyn only stayed at the office until noon. When she opened the door to the kitchen, she found a note from her mother sitting on the table.

She slid Sabrina into the high chair and slipped out of her pink pumps as she read the missive, which told her about a slow-roasting chicken that was in the oven.

“It’s too bad you can’t eat this,” she told the baby who gurgled her response. “My mother makes the best stuffed chicken.”

“Lucky for us.”

At the sound of Ty’s voice, Madelyn spun around. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you brought the baby to work again, so I came
home to call nannies. Almost shot Captain Bunny as an intruder.”

Madelyn dropped her head to her head. “Oh, no!”

Ty brushed off her concern. “Don’t worry. We handled it. Your mother is actually a very nice person.”

Madelyn breathed a sigh of relief. “I take it she didn’t have my dad with her.”

“No. Thank God. The Sarge must have stayed home.” He walked to the high chair and looked down at Sabrina, as if not sure what to do.

“Pick her up. Give her a hug. Kiss her cheek.”

Ty took a deep breath.

“Ty, you have to kiss her, hug her, touch her. You and Seth are her only family. If you don’t show her affection, no one will.”

Ty nodded, then raised the baby from the seat and into his arms. “Hey, kid.”

Looking into Ty’s face, Sabrina twisted her head as if examining him.

“She’s growing accustomed to you.”

“At least it doesn’t seem like she misses her
M-O-M
anymore.”

Madelyn laughed at the way he spelled rather than said mom, but her expression quickly sobered. “That isn’t just lucky for us. It’s kind of lucky for Sabrina, too.”

“Yeah,” Ty said, then rubbed his nose against Sabrina’s cheek. “It’s sad, though.”

“Yes, it is,” Madelyn agreed. Seeing her perfect opportunity to ask him about Cooper, she added, “You and Seth and your brother Cooper know firsthand how hard it is to lose parents.”

Ty stiffened. “We’re fine.”

Right.
Madelyn disagreed with that, but she also saw that having Ty defensive was ruining his time with Sabrina. So she changed the subject, knowing she could bring this up later. “Tell me what happened with the nannies.”

“I start interviewing tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Don’t pack your bags yet. I’ll probably have to do second interviews then once I choose somebody, it will take at least a week to do a background search.”

A strange whirlwind of conflicting emotions swirled through Madelyn as she stared at Ty. With the sleeves of his white shirt rolled to the elbows and his tie loosened as he very sweetly nuzzled Sabrina, he was the most adorable, sexy man on the face of the earth. But she didn’t like her attraction to him. Heck, she just plain didn’t like
him
sometimes. On the other hand, she wasn’t so stupid that she didn’t see that Ty’s employees believed her when she made observations about his private life because everyone knew she was living in his house, getting the inside scoop, seeing him with the baby. She didn’t merely appreciate that edge. She needed it.

But even if her heart caught at the thought of leaving Ty, she couldn’t stay here forever. Having any kind of feelings for him was foolish. His difficult life might justify his bad disposition, but that didn’t make it any easier to live with. She didn’t want to get involved with a grouch.

“Did she have a nap this morning?”

Madelyn glanced over at Ty, surprised that he was beginning to think ahead about Sabrina’s needs. In two
days he had gone from ignoring his baby to considering her comfort. If Madeline didn’t so desperately want to stay here for her PR purposes, Ty’s rapid signs of improvement with the baby would be confirmation that it was time to go. But she did need to stay here for the PR. At least until the
Wall Street Journal
reporter was gone.

“Yes. She napped this morning in the play yard in my office. She slept right through two meetings.”

Ty shifted the baby to his right arm and peered at Madelyn, giving her such a confused look that she frowned.

“What?”

“I’m puzzled about whom you meet with.”

He really had no clue about how public relations worked. “Your employees,” she said in an attempt to enlighten him about her job. “Department heads mostly. I need to gauge how your employees will respond to the reporter about you and your company. That way I can steer him to the appropriate people.”

Ty said, “I see.”

“And you should speak kindly about
them
when the reporter asks
you
questions about the people who work for you.”

Ty laughed. “Really? I have to say nice things about a bunch of people who hate me?”

“You don’t have to say nice things to them, but it won’t be a lie for you to say you think they’re hardworking, honest people.”

Tickling Sabrina, Ty didn’t reply.

Madelyn’s instincts perked up. “You do think they’re honest, hardworking people, don’t you?”

Ty shook his head. “Yes, but for the past fifteen years
they’ve been allowed to bad-mouth me—even though I’ve kept most of them employed. And I…” He sighed. “Never mind. I see what you mean and I’ll say what you need me to say. Though it might give an interesting slant to the article if I told the truth and admitted their perpetual dislike makes it very easy for me to make tough choices.” With that he walked to the kitchen door, Sabrina still on his arm. “I’m taking her into the family room to play for a few minutes. This will be our quality time for the day.”

He left and an odd thought tiptoed into Madelyn’s brain. He had a point. A very interesting point. He
had
employed virtually everyone in this town and no one appreciated it. Smart employees would have erected a statue in his honor, or at the very least made him man of the year. These employees went out of their way to persecute him.

Of course, he invited it. And now she realized why. His horrible reputation clearly kept his employees in line and made difficult decisions much easier to make. Everyone knew he was hard and cold, so no one disobeyed him. No one confronted him. No one challenged him. His word was law. His reputation allowed him to run the company the way he wanted to run it—without interference, without a boatload of questions, without having to explain himself—so he let his employees fear him to their hearts’ content.

But living with him gave her a different view of his life and things didn’t add up the way they did when she just looked at the surface. Ty supported nearly everyone in town. He had raised a very thoughtful brother in Seth. And he’d taken in an orphaned cousin. True, he was reluctant
at first, but he had stepped in and was doing his duty with love and affection for Sabrina. Yet, his employees, the very people who counted on him for their paychecks, treated him abysmally, as if they didn’t see the good he did.

Because they probably didn’t see the good he did, or not enough of the good he did.

Madelyn suddenly got it.
This
was why Ty worked so hard to keep everyone out of his personal life. In two short weeks of living with him, seeing the quiet decisions and private choices, she was coming to the conclusion everybody else missed. Deep down inside, Tyrant Ty was a nice guy.

But he couldn’t let anybody know that. If he got too chummy with his employees then he might not be able to make the hard choices he felt he needed to keep his company successful—and to continue employing the very people who disliked him.

So he never let anybody get close to him. But Madelyn was close. Albeit accidentally. That was why her feelings for him were so odd, unmanageable and sometimes even insane. She liked the side of him that no one else knew existed. But if she tried to tell anybody in this town there was another side to Tyrant Ty, a good side, no one would believe her.

That night Ty
volunteered
to learn how to bathe Sabrina. Madelyn explained the football hold that allowed the baby to be dipped in the water, while held securely on his arm. She showed him how to wash her gently with the baby products her mom had picked up. Then she taught him how to wrap Sabrina in her yellow
terry-cloth robe and had him carry her to the changing table.

“Special soap, special shampoo, special ways to hold her. God, I’m glad my brothers were older when I inherited them.”

“They might have been older but I’m sure they came with their own problems.”

Ty sighed. “Ms. Gentry, you are not supposed to agree with me.”

“Yeah, well,” Madelyn said, rummaging through the drawer for an undershirt and sleepers. “I guess I’m just not in the mood to spar.”

“Too bad.”

The day before she would have guessed he thought it “too bad” that she didn’t feel like bantering because he enjoyed the fight. Tonight she knew he was annoying her on purpose. Not because he wanted to protect them from another kiss, but because he was enforcing the idea that his life was easier when his employees disliked him.

She drew a quick breath. “Yeah, too bad,” she said watching Ty towel dry the baby. “Look, I know you have work to do so I’ll read to her and feed her her last bottle.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know. But technically I’m supposed to be doing this. It’s good that you’re learning, but when you hire a nanny she will do all these routine tasks.”

Holding Sabrina on the changing table, he studied Madelyn. “You’re not getting soft on me, are you?”

She wasn’t getting soft, Madelyn thought as she motioned Ty aside so she could begin dressing the baby, but
she was finally seeing the light. When she took her analysis of Ty Bryant to its logical conclusion she realized he had sacrificed having friendships, relationships, even the ability to take a walk down Main Street, because he believed having everyone dislike him was a small price to pay to be able to keep everyone employed.

Still, he would hate it if he knew she had begun to figure all this out. “No, I’m not getting soft.”

“Good.”

Madelyn said nothing as she returned her attention to dressing the baby.

Ty stared at her. Something wasn’t right. Madelyn should either be applauding his efforts, acting like a cheerleader, or pushing him to change so he could give a good interview to the
Wall Street Journal
reporter. Yet she remained quiet.

“Who did you talk to today?”

“Aaron Ringwald in accounting. Megan Fontain in marketing.”

He tried to think of something nice either of those employees might have said that would cause Madelyn to give up her mission to reform him and couldn’t. He’d made Megan cry twice the month before. Aaron had been passed over for a promotion. If anything, talking to them should have increased her determination to change him.

Madelyn rolled Sabrina into a one-piece sleeper and Ty felt a tug on his heart. In a little over a week, he had grown to really like the little girl. He liked the way she smelled, the way she felt, even the sound of her voice. So if the tug on his heart trickled over into feelings for the baby’s caregiver, he wasn’t surprised. Now that he
knew everything that went into baby care, he appreciated Madelyn’s help. He even understood her reluctance to get involved.

That was why he counted on Madelyn disliking him. Why he barked orders and continued to treat her as a servant instead of a friend. They had to be adversaries. It was the easiest way to keep them both in line. And if she suddenly got quiet or quit defending herself, their attraction was likely to spring up again.

“I want to see you in my study when she’s asleep.” He would get to the bottom of whatever nice thing she’d thought he’d done and he would get her hating him again if it killed him.

Madelyn showed up in his study door about ten minutes later. Ty tossed his pencil to his desk blotter. “Baby asleep?”

She nodded.

He sighed. “Come in. Let’s get this discussion over with. What did you hear today or figure out that has you acting so strangely?”

For a minute, Ty thought she wasn’t going to tell him, but she sighed and said, “That you’re a nice guy.”

He laughed. This would be easy to counter. “Who told you that?”

“No one. I figured it out for myself. You raised your brothers, then when they were grown you shifted your focus to taking care of the town by making sure your company stayed successful.”

“Not hardly. I built this company so I would be rich.”

“That might be part of it, but you’re proud that you employ almost everybody in town.”

“Madelyn, I fire people. I yell at people. I can make vice presidents cry and not have a single regret.”

“You have no qualms about pushing people because the company you’re running supports them.
You
even said having your employees dislike you makes it easy for you to make tough decisions. It’s pretty clear to me you’re giving up friends and even a comfortable place in the community so you can ensure most of the people in this town have a job.”