Baby Benefits (7 page)

She would get Isabella to bond with Derek if she had to paint him with Gorilla Glue first.

She looked down at the cooper-haired little imp in her arms and muttered, “Okay, kiddo, prepare to fall in love with your daddy.” Isabella’s gaze narrowed with doubt. “Trust me, you just have to look past that cold facade of his. Once you see that underneath he’s kindhearted and oddly vulnerable, you’ll be a goner.” Just like I was.

Before she could devise a more specific strategy than that, the door to Derek’s office swung open. He stood there in the doorway, hands tucked into his pants’ pockets, lips curved downward in a grim expression.

She met his gaze from across the room and for a moment wondered if he’d heard her comments to Isabella. That would certainly explain his forbidding expression. If there was one thing that made Derek uncomfortable it was having other people look past his exterior to see the man behind the executive.

However, when he spoke, she realized his unpleasant mood stemmed from something else entirely.

“We’ll know soon enough if you were right about telling her the truth. Kitty is coming to Texas.”

Five

He should have been thrilled with the news. The woman he’d spent years wooing, the woman who would guarantee the success of his company for years—if not generations—had finally been lured into visiting his home.

“You don’t look pleased.”

He brought his gaze up to meet Raina’s. If he didn’t look pleased, it was because he wasn’t. Inexplicably, he didn’t want to see Kitty. He didn’t want her here.

“I’m thrilled,” he said aloud.

“You don’t sound thrilled.”

“Trust me,” he said grimly. “I couldn’t be more excited.”

He didn’t bother to question why he was lying. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. Kitty was a beautiful, accomplished woman. The perfect complement to the life he’d built for himself. And less than two weeks after finally winning her, he’d found himself inexplicably attracted to Raina. A woman he’d known for nearly a decade and never before had a sexual thought about.

Obviously he wasn’t genuinely attracted to Raina. This was merely his libido’s stalling tactic. All the more reason to ignore every impulse he had about Raina. Especially the one stirred up by the image of her standing across the room, gently rocking his child in her arms.

She looked so natural holding his child, so right, that every instinct he had screamed at him to cross the room and pull her into his arms.

Instead he clenched his hands in his pockets and said, “In fact, the only thing that could please me more would be if by the time she arrived, Isabella was already comfortable with my company.”

Again, he was lying, of course. He could think of a great many things that could please him more. A great many of them of involved stripping off Raina’s T-shirt and exploring the delicate skin underneath it.

He spoke with such dry, humorless determination, she couldn’t help quirking an eyebrow in question. His response was just so…well, so like him.

“Nothing could please you more?” she prodded. If he were still her boss—that is, if she was trudging along, being the dutiful employee—she’d let his bald-faced lie slide. But things were different now.

He looked at her without so much as a twitch to his expression. “What do you mean?”

“Frankly I can’t tell what you’re less excited about: having Kitty arrive or spending time with your daughter.” Raina sauntered forward until she stood just before him, Isabella propped on her hip. “In nine years, I’ve never seen you approach a project with less enthusiasm. With less interest. With less pleasure. Therefore, you are most obviously not pleased about spending time with your daughter.”

“Your point?”

She shook her head with mock sympathy for his ignorance. “Oh, come now, Derek. Surely even you can see the point I’m trying to make. This is your daughter. How exactly do you think your lack of enthusiasm makes her feel?”

Almost as if she’d been coached on her part, Isabella clutched her tiny fists in Raina’s shirt and buried her face against her arm, as if desperate not to be passed over to Derek. Raina couldn’t have asked for a better performance to make her point.

“She’s five months old,” Derek deadpanned. “I don’t think she feels much of anything.”

“Well, there’s your problem.”

“My problem.”

She could tell from the complete lack of emotion in his voice that he was actually amused by their conversation. And furthermore, he was expecting her to share the joke. But the truth was, it all hit too close to home. So instead of amused, she just felt annoyed.

“Exactly. Your problem with Isabella. Is it any wonder she doesn’t want to go into your arms, when you treat her as if she doesn’t even have feelings?”

“She’s five months old.”

“And you don’t believe five-month-olds have feelings?” Suddenly, they weren’t just talking about Isabella anymore. Years of repressed feelings boiled up inside her. “Boy, that’s classic Derek.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but everything that popped into her mind sounded irrationally angry. After all, was it really his fault that she’d stupidly fallen in love with him? No.

And no one had forced her to entertain countless fantasies in which he suddenly realized she was everything he desired. It certainly wasn’t fair of her to blame him for not making her fantasies come true.

On the other hand, he may not have intended to, but he’d hurt her feelings. She felt his complete lack of awareness like a knife to the chest. How could she not be angry and frustrated by his ignorance?

Worse still, how could she explain any of this to him without revealing how vulnerable she was to him? How much she loved him?

So instead of responding, she snapped her mouth shut and clutched Isabella closer as she retreated into the kitchen.

For a moment, she simply stood there, relieved to be out from under his assessing gaze. When she heard him entering the kitchen behind her, she crossed to the cabinet and pulled out a glass. As she helped herself to water from the refrigerator door, she was all too aware of Derek behind her and the question hanging between them.

Suddenly the question felt much bigger than it should have. Which was her own damn fault. If she’d just answered him outright, he wouldn’t realize how much her answer revealed.

Since he was still watching her, waiting for her answer, she sucked it up and spoke.

“Here’s the thing, Derek. You put Messina Diamonds first.”

“I do.”

“Always. Without fail. Without question.”

His gaze narrowed slightly. “What’s your point?”

“You are so dedicated to Messina Diamonds, you never even consider what you might want. You completely suppress your own emotions because to you, they’re just not important. And therefore, neither are anyone else’s.”

She watched him carefully, looking for signs of dawning realization. For some glimmer of understanding that for years she’d been pouring not just her time and energy into her job, but her heart into it, as well.

But instead of the flash of insight she’d expected to see, his jaw clenched. She’d pissed him off.

In nine years, she’d seen just about every emotion flicker across his face only to be quickly repressed. For him, anger wasn’t yelling, ranting or—God forbid—anything as uncouth as throwing things. The maddest she’d ever seen him involved clenching his jaw, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and speaking in a very low voice. Which was exactly what he did now.

“I’m Messina Diamond’s CEO. More people depend on me than you can possibly imagine. Therefore, what I want and need isn’t important.”

“More than I can possibly imagine?” she asked. “Don’t think for a minute I don’t know exactly how many people you employ. I do know. And I know that they depend on you. I know that the job you do is important. And don’t get me wrong, your dedication is admirable.”

It was, without a doubt, one of the things she most admired about him. And probably—fool that she was—one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. But sadly, men completely devoted to their work did not make good objects of affection.

“The problem is,” she continued before he could interrupt, “you work so hard to repress your own emotions that you’re convinced no one else has emotions, either. But guess what, buddy, normal people—even five-month-olds—have emotions. In fact, they’re probably far more sensitive to moods than most adults you deal with.”

Derek looked unconvinced. “So you’re telling me that it’s my fault Isabella doesn’t like me.”

“I’m sorry to say it, but yes.”

“Again. She’s five months old. She can’t even speak. And if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say she doesn’t understand much, either.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “If she can’t understand what you’re saying, how do you think she knows how you feel?”

“I’m guessing she doesn’t.”

“And that’s where you’d be wrong. She knows what you’re feeling by watching your expressions, by listening to the tone of your voice. By looking in your eyes.”

Derek looked skeptical. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe she can do all of that.”

“You can believe whatever you want. I’m just telling you what’s been scientifically proven. One of the first skills infants learn is how to read moods and emotions. It’s something Isabella is good at, regardless of whether or not you believe she’s capable of it.”

“But—”

“Hey, we can argue about this all day, if you want, but keep in mind you hired me to help with this precisely because you don’t know anything about babies. So why not let me do the job you’ve hired me to do and teach you what I know?”

She infused as much confidence as possible into her voice and just prayed he wouldn’t press her for details. The truth was she was just making stuff up. She had no idea whether or not anyone had scientifically proven infants could read emotions. But Raina knew in her heart it was true. Surely anyone who’d ever held a baby in their arms and gazed into her eyes would agree with her.

“If you don’t believe me, just look at Isabella.”

Derek’s stony gaze dropped from Raina to his daughter. Isabella clung tightly to her shirt with her little face buried against Raina’s neck. “What about her?”

“Normally, she’s cheerful and charming. Because we’re fighting, she’s huddled against my chest. Clearly, she’s picked up on our mood and is nervous.”

“Okay,” he said finally with a stiff nod. “Babies have emotions and are experts at reading them. Tell me how that helps me.”

“Well, so far, it hasn’t helped you at all. It’s been working against you.”

His jaw clenched again and for the first time that day, she noticed the fine lines of exhaustion etched around his eyes. The sheer tension rolling off of him. She fought against the sympathy growing inside of her. This situation was his own damn fault. No one else would expect to bond emotionally with an infant in less than two weeks. No one else would expect their baby daughter to love them automatically. But Derek expected it. And he’d blame himself if it didn’t happen.

She sighed, suddenly feeling as if she were kicking him when he was down. Still, she pressed on. “It’s that emotion thing I was telling you about. You’re very closed off. Very emotionally distant.”

“Is this supposed to be helpful?”

She winced at the hint of pain in his voice. It wasn’t impossible that her criticism had hurt his feelings. It just seemed so unlikely.

“Ultimately, yes, it should be helpful. You want to know why Isabella bonded so quickly with Dex?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I want to know.”

She ignored the sarcasm in his voice. “She bonded with him so quickly because he fell in love with her right off the bat.”

Derek all but smirked. “Dex fell in love with a baby?”

“Scoff all you want, I’m just telling you what I saw. You haven’t seen it, because every time you’re in the room with the two of them, all you can see is that your daughter likes him better. It’s driving you crazy, so you don’t see what’s really going on there.”

“I’m not a child, Raina. I’m not jealous of Dex.”

Once again, it was all she could do not to bop him on the head, though this time the urge was tempered with amused exasperation. She shook her head ruefully. “Of course you’re jealous of Dex.”

He looked ready to argue with her, but she didn’t give him the opportunity. He was so hard on himself, always so determined to do the right thing. And apparently, no one had ever told him it was okay to experience jealously.

“It’s natural to feel jealous,” she explained. “After all, you’ve pretty much succeeded at every thing you’ve ever done. You’re simply not used to Dex excelling where you’ve failed.”

“I wouldn’t say he’s excelled.”

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I would. When he believed Isabella was his, he opened up to her. You should watch them together sometime. It’s like he’s a completely different person when he’s with her. Well, her and Lucy.”

She couldn’t hide the note of wistfulness that crept into her voice as she was talking. Before Lucy had come into his life, she’d always thought of Dex as a little cold and impersonal. Never in a million years would she have pegged him as a candidate for uncle of the year, but in those few weeks he’d thought he was Isabella’s dad, he’d been transformed.