Single Dad on Top: A Baby and Clueless Billionaire Romantic Comedy Read online

  Still, I must be professional.

  “Who is this?” I ask brightly, peeling back the blanket.

  The smell hits me first. “Oh!” I say. “You need a change!” I glance up at the man. “Did you need to borrow our diaper room?”

  His lips — oh, wow, those lips — press together into a deep frown. “I haven’t the slightest idea what to do about the stench.” His voice has a low sexy rumble, edged with annoyance.

  At the sound of his irritation, the baby puckers up her face and lets out a howl.

  “And how do you make it stop?” he asks. “I tried the mouth plug that was in the carriage, but she keeps spitting it out.”

  Behind the desk, Taylor’s eyes get big and she has to cough to hide her laugh.

  I’m not rattled. He isn’t the first father to walk in completely clueless about the basics of baby care. Most of the men of his stature have a nanny for these things.

  I lean down and scoop up the baby. “Sweet girl,” I say. “What is her name?”

  The man fumbles for a moment, then admits, “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  Now my alarm bells go off. “Did you find her somewhere? Was she abandoned?” I pat her back and turn to Taylor. “Please buzz Penelope to come up.”

  “No, no,” the man says. “The baby is mine, allegedly.” He mumbles something else.

  Now I’m angry. “Is she yours or not?” I’m about to have Taylor call the police when the man holds up his hands.

  “Look, her mother left her with me. I guess she doesn’t want her. She did not tell me the child’s name, only that I’m supposedly the father. I will do a DNA test to be sure.”

  Penelope bursts through the security door. “Is everything okay?”

  I pass her the baby, my mind racing. “Can you change her diaper?” I ask her. I rummage through the carriage. Sure enough, there is a canister of formula and a baby bottle in a side pocket. Several disposable diapers in another. I pass her it all. “And prepare a bottle?”

  “Let me get a bag,” Taylor says, tugging a Child Spa tote from our swag drawer. She drops the items in it to make it easier for Penelope to carry everything.

  “Thank you, Taylor,” I say.

  When Penelope is through the door again, I turn back to the man. “What are you going to do?” I ask him. “You obviously have no idea how to manage a baby.”

  “But you guys do,” he says. He looks around. “This place looks perfect.” He pulls out his wallet. “Just tell me what I owe you and you can keep her all day.”

  “I’m sorry. That just isn’t possible,” I say. “I have a six-month waiting list and the baby rooms are full. Taylor might be able to make you some referrals.”

  I don’t mention that without a birth certificate, paperwork, and a pediatrician, he isn’t going to get in anywhere I know of.

  He glances at his watch, and it’s my turn to lift an eyebrow. He’s not going to bully me into keeping her, even if, technically, state licensing standards say I’m allowed four babies per caregiver. Del Gato Child Spa is not about minimum standards.

  “This is a huge inconvenience already,” he says. “I have a meeting in ten minutes.” He pulls out his cell phone and holds it up as if that should convince me he is important.

  Now I’m really angry. I snatch the phone from his hand. “This is not an inconvenience,” I say. “It’s a child.”

  “It may not even be my child,” he says. “I need to find out how to schedule a test.”

  “Then why don’t you call Child Protective Services and let them handle it?” I say. I don’t add that I’m pretty sure he isn’t fit to be a father anyway, trying to dump the baby wherever he can.

  “Foster care? What if she is mine? I won’t have my child in foster care.”

  I let out a long sigh to avoid punching him in the gut.

  Chapter 3: Dell

  This woman cannot be reasoned with. I extend my hand so that she will return my phone. I’d rather stab myself in the eye than work with her, but I’m out of options.

  Bernard threatened to quit if I tried to leave the infant even for five minutes. And that I can’t handle. I need to frame this is a way she understands.

  “I’m sorry, what is your name?” I ask. I’ll backtrack, bring on the trademark Dell Brant charm, the sort that got my real estate agent naked on my newly acquired kitchen island.

  “Arianna,” she says. Her hand is a fist on a curvy jutted-out hip, a stretchy mauve skirt smoothed over it just so. She is a pain, but definitely an attractive one.

  Her white silk shirt is sheer enough to show a hint of the line between the edge of her bra and her skin. I spot the rectangular outline of her phone lodged in that sweet, sweet space.

  Her honey-brown hair is short and spun into curls that frame her face. She’s gorgeous and looks like a spitfire. Despite her maneuver with the phone, I feel my cock stir a little.

  Then I remember the child, and it’s like a splash of cold water.

  “Okay, Arianna,” I say. “I can see you run a great business here. I’m sure there is a dollar figure that will convince you that this baby can remain temporarily. Until the test proves she isn’t mine and CPS can be called.”

  One arched eyebrow lifts. Damn, that’s sexy. The cold water evaporates.

  I turn to the girl behind the counter. “What is the fee for an infant? I’m sure she won’t be here long, but I’ll compensate you for whatever is necessary.”

  The young woman, her hair pulled back in a sloppy twist, fumbles for an answer. I get the distinct impression she’s been staring at my ass. “Twelve thousand per month,” she says.

  I turn back to Arianna. “Can’t I get my own babysitter for that?”

  The two of them gasp.

  “What?” I ask. “You guys are seriously difficult.”

  “Babysitters are teen girls,” Arianna says carefully, as if I’m some sort of idiot. “You are looking for a professional nanny. A good one is hard to find. It’s not as easy as placing a want ad and Mary Poppins showing up.”

  Smart-ass.

  I’m about to retort when the other woman returns with the baby.

  “Here she is,” she says. “All clean. And her bottle is prepared.”

  She approaches, holding the child out toward me.

  An unfamiliar heat rises in me. Panic? I haven’t felt that emotion in a decade. I take a step back. “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll want to feed her,” she says.

  Despite my efforts to avoid it, the woman places the baby awkwardly in my arms. I’m not sure where my hand should go, or my elbows. The child isn’t screaming, at least, and looks up at me with solemn eyes.

  The woman, Penelope, judging from the name stitched on her smock, adjusts the infant until she rests more securely in the crook of my arm.

  “Here you go,” she says, holding up the bottle.

  I’m not sure how to free up one of my hands to accept it. After a bit of shifting, I manage to take the plastic bottle, startled to feel that it is warm. Shouldn’t milk be refrigerated?

  Still, these are the experts. I stick the nubby part of the bottle in the infant’s mouth and am surprised to see her suckle on it greedily. This isn’t so hard.

  The women all look at me, their expressions softened. Suddenly I’m father of the year.

  But my problem is far from solved.

  “So that’s it, then?” I ask. “I pay a month in advance and she can stay?”

  Arianna’s mouth opens in an “o” and I flash with an image of what those lips could wrap around. A quick glance at her ring finger assures me she is not married. Surely she can be charmed.

  “Not possible,” she says. “I have several babies waiting already.”

  But as hard as her words are, I sense a tenderness as she steps forward and presses down on the collar of the infant's dress. “You need a bib,” she says. “Taylor, is there one back there?”

  The girl produces a small cotton garment with a neck hol
e and passes it to Arianna. It bears a logo of a cat with its tail shaped in a heart surrounding an infant, the same as the one on the smocks. This woman has her brand well established, certainly.

  I haven’t gotten where I am in this world without being bold. I’m about to anger them, strategically this time. I will get a spot here. I will get to my meetings.

  I pluck the bottle from the infant’s mouth and tuck it in the carriage. “That should be enough,” I say and set her down on the blanket inside. “Don’t want you getting fat already.”

  The child howls. I figured this would be the case.

  “Oh, hush now,” I tell her. “I’ll find a mouth plug that suits you. You can sit in my office. I’ll have the receptionist look after you.” I glance up at the horror on the three women’s faces. “She has a headset,” I tell them. “She can push the carriage with her foot while she takes calls.”

  I demonstrate with a perfectly polished shoe pressed against the wheel. I didn’t plan this part, but the carriage rushes forward and winds up rolling across the tile floor.

  “Oh my gosh!” Arianna cries, hurrying after it.

  I actually feel a bit of chagrin as she flies across the room, her luscious breasts bouncing from the effort, to grasp the handle before the carriage bumps into the wall.

  She plucks the wailing infant from inside and holds her high on her shoulder. “I should call CPS myself, Mr. — what is your name?” Her cheeks are scarlet and her eyes flash with anger.

  This is when I know I have her. That trump card I’ve been holding.

  I extend a hand. “Dell,” I say. “Dell Brant.”

  Arianna pales. “The Dell Brant?”

  From behind me, I hear the young woman at the counter breathe the word “Shit.”

  Penelope, who has gone for the bottle, is the one who actually states the problem aloud. “You mean the Dell Brant who renamed this building Dell Brant?”

  “That would be the one.” It was the publicist’s idea. For establishing my brand. Thirteen buildings in Manhattan were now Dell Brants.

  Arianna takes the milk from her employee and expertly shifts the baby in her arms to finish the feeding. “Nice to meet you in person, Mr. Brant,” she says. “I’m sure you will understand that I must fulfill my obligations to my current clients.”

  “What about this one?” I ask, pointing at Penelope. “Can you spare her for a few days?”

  Arianna bites her lip. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh no,” Penelope says. “I’m not going to work for no bossy rich man. I like you. I work for you.” And with that, she heads through a secure door.

  Arianna looks down at the infant. “Taylor, call all the usual places and ask for a preferential spot. Also call our subs and see if anyone wants a temporary nanny position.” She looks up at me. “I assume you will pay well.”

  I nod.

  After a moment, she sets the bottle back in the carriage and shifts the baby to her shoulder. With a few pats, the child lets out a belch more likely to come from a drunk sailor.

  Both the women laugh.

  “Is that normal?” I ask them. “Is the child ill?”

  “Perfectly normal,” Arianna says. “Come on. Let’s get you some supplies so you can handle her until we find you a place to keep her.”

  “But I can’t handle her at all!” I protest.

  “I’m not going to ditch you with her until you can handle it,” she assures me.

  I let out a long sigh. I can call the office and reschedule today’s meetings. Probably both companies will assume I’m playing hardball. Who knows, it might even get me a better deal in the end.

  Hopefully by the end of this wretched day, I will have someone to take this child off my hands until I can figure out if she’s mine. And make some inroads on who her mother might be. I haven’t even given that matter any thought. Which one of those vixens was heartless enough to abandon a child at my door?

  Chapter 4: Arianna

  I lead Dell to the supply closet. Surely someone like Dell has a staff member who can pick up some necessities this afternoon. Until then, I load up the storage net beneath the bed with whatever I can spare. I guess I'll be babysitting for a billionaire today. I can't leave her.

  Only when we exit the child spa and turn right back into the main entrance of the building do I realize he lives upstairs. He nods at the doorman, who keys in his floor automatically. I know this because I live here too.

  “There’s a back way into our facility from the inside,” I tell him.

  “You mean I could enter from the rear?” he asks, his eyebrow raised, his intention clear. He thinks he can rattle me with a sexual innuendo.

  “Only if you pull my hair,” I shoot back.

  His startled expression is priceless. He didn’t expect that from me.

  My heart hammers for saying this to him, but I don’t run a facility like I do without having a comeback for most things. A lot of the wealthy fathers are used to scouting for their next ex-wife. I’ve been propositioned a lot of ways.

  It’s jaded the hell out of me, truth be told. Their wives have just had a baby and they’re already bored. There is no bond. No cuddles in bed with the three of them. Just another line item on their tax return. One more dependent. And eventually, another divorce decree.

  We ride the elevator in silence. We pass my floor. I don’t think I’ll let him know I live downstairs. The child spa will run fine without me for a few hours. Surely by then, Taylor will have come up with some options for Dell.

  Dell Brant. Right here in this elevator with me.

  I peer into the carriage. The baby is sleeping now, her hand curled against her cheek. She’s beautiful, every perfect feature you’d expect. Fat cheeks. Nubby nose. Fine down hair.

  Dell looks down at her too. “How old do you think she is?” he asks. “I have no experience in these matters.”

  “I’d say about three months,” I tell him. “She’s filled out. Newborns tend to be scrawny. And she has some muscle tone in her neck.”

  He nods. “So almost exactly a year ago.”

  I assume he’s trying to figure out the mother. “She didn’t leave a note?” I ask.

  “Just one that said to do the DNA.”

  “You have any ideas?”

  Those perfect lips purse together, and my heart skips. I’m annoyed by this feeling and squash it immediately. Here is a man in a ridiculous predicament, no doubt caused by his own crappy behavior.

  But there’s an unexpected intimacy in the moment. It’s just the three of us in the elevator. We’re gazing on one of the sweetest sights there is. A sleeping baby.

  “I’ll have to refer to my message history,” he says. “What are the parameters? The margin of error?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If it was born prematurely, would it still look like this at three months?”

  “She’s not an it!”

  The elevator glides to a stop. “Never mind,” he says. “I’ll hire an expert. I suppose I will need to find a child doctor for her.”

  I don’t even respond to this, still angry that he called the baby an “it.” I push the carriage into the hall.

  There is only one door. As we approach, it opens. An elderly man stands to one side. “Welcome back, sir,” he says. Then his eyes fall on the carriage. He frowns. Then they lift to me. “I see you found some assistance for your problem.”

  “She’s a baby, not a problem,” I say. Seriously, what is wrong with these men?

  I’m instantly blown away by the size and elegance of Dell’s home. I grew up with the rich and famous myself, but this is right up there. The entire back wall is filled with bay windows looking out on Central Park.

  I have a trust fund that is nothing to sneeze at, but my apartment’s view is to one side, with another building just feet away from the glass.

  Everything gleams in variations of black and gray. Marble floors. Black leather furniture. An occasional red accent breaks the monotony.
A rose in a vase. A small pillow.

  A woof sounds from farther back.

  I turn to Dell. “You have a dog?” He doesn’t seem like a pet person.

  “Yes, a greyhound,” he says.

  “Greyhounds aren’t good with small children,” I say. “You’ll have to monitor them carefully until you know how he will behave.”

  “She’s not going to be here that long,” Dell says.

  “The dog or the baby?” I spit out.

  He sighs. “The child.”

  “What if she’s yours?”

  The man who opened the door looks horrified.

  There’s another woof.

  Dell turns to the man. “Maximillion is out of control. Can you please quiet him?”

  The man heads out of the room.

  “Out of control? Two woofs to let you know he’d like to see you?” My anxiety is rising by the minute. How will he manage a crying baby if two woofs by a dog is “out of control”?

  I look down at the sleeping child. Her arms fly out, startled by her own dreams. Poor little bub. She really has nobody.

  “She has to have a name,” I say. “Every hospital requires all the paperwork to be filled out. Name, parents, application for a social security number.”

  He pulls out his phone and scrolls through screens.

  I wait for an answer, but he provides none. I don’t even know what he’s looking at. Probably work.

  I’m out of patience, but I can’t leave. He won’t have the least idea of what to do with her when she wakes up. I push the carriage close to the windows and settle on an armchair next to it.

  “I’m trying to get a time of conception,” he says. “I need to narrow down the possibilities.”

  My gaze stays on the beautiful view outside. It’s the height of summer, and hundreds of people mill around the park. I can see the pond and one of the arching bridges.

  “Are there that many possibilities?” I ask.

  "Can we assume there are legitimate papers somewhere but the mother didn’t want me to see them because I’d know who she was?”

  “Probably. But she won’t file the baby as missing.”