LITMIR.BIZ

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      He managed to get the blanket out from around the baby, who turned out to be encased from head to toe in yellow terry. “We’ll use your office,” he told Olivia.

      “My floor has slate tiles.” With the unnaturally pointed toe of her shoe—and with undisguised triumph—she nudged the plush rust-colored carpet that enhanced Tyler’s luxurious work space. “Yours is much more suitable.”

      Too bad she was right. He spread out the blanket, smoothed it confidently—because looking after a kid wasn’t rocket science—then nodded at Olivia, who knelt down to lay the baby on its back. She rubbed her own back as she got to her feet. “Now what?” she said.

      Tyler looked down at the infant. Two short, pudgy arms waved at him, but there was still no crying. Thoughtful of the mom to give me a well-behaved kid. “You’d better organize a crib or whatever it is babies hang out in.”

      “You can’t be thinking about keeping this child,” Olivia said, shocked.

      “Of course not. Just until we find the mom.” At least a few days, he guessed, even if he put a private investigator onto it today. Maybe as much as a week or two. He would call his PR manager, tell her to arrange some media opportunities for him right away—just as soon as she found someone to get him up to speed about kid-parent issues.

      “But—” Olivia shook her head, nonplussed “—you don’t know the first thing about looking after a baby.”

      “That’s what sitters are for. Call an agency, see if you can get someone immediately.”

      “I didn’t even know you liked children.” She was practically wringing her hands with worry, which Tyler considered an overreaction.

      “I only have to like this one.” He didn’t even have to do that, but he was willing to try.

      Olivia picked up a pad and pen off the desk. “Then I guess we need to think about food. Special baby formula.” She jotted that down. “And diapers. They go through those pretty fast.” She shuddered.

      The baby hiccuped, its face contorted. Hell, was it about to puke? They did that all the time, didn’t they?

      “We should call a doctor,” Tyler said. “Find out if the kid’s okay before I make any plans.” He pulled out his handkerchief in case of an emergency wipe-up situation. “Call that woman we gave money to last year. The pediatrician doing the kidney research.”

      “Great idea.” Olivia’s voice warmed. “She’s a real peach.”

      Tyler frowned. “Are we talking about the same woman?”

      “Dr. Bethany Hart.”

      “That’s her.” He would have described Bethany Hart as more frosty than peachy. And she was quite possibly the most ungrateful woman he’d ever met. The Warrington Foundation had granted her a generous sum for her research into childhood kidney disease which was part of a wider research project at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, attached to Emory University. Instead of the thank-you letter most people wrote, she’d sent Tyler a curtly worded missive to the effect that if he was at all serious about helping young kidney patients he would give a lot more money.

      Unlike everyone else, she’d accused him of not caring. Tyler had found her ingratitude refreshing.

      Just a couple of weeks ago she’d written to him again. The money, intended to cover her salary, along with admin support and the use of lab facilities and equipment, was almost gone: she’d asked him to renew her funding. She’d enclosed a comprehensive—in his opinion, boring—report on her work to date, and had invited him, rather insistently, to visit a bunch of sick kids in the hospital.

      “She may not be your biggest fan,” Olivia said with rare diplomacy. She’d read the pediatrician’s letters, too. “But she sure loves kids.”

      Tyler had noticed the way Dr. Hart’s blue eyes lit up when she talked about the children she worked with. “Then she’ll want to check out this baby.”

      He didn’t plan to give her a choice. Bethany Hart might have complained about the amount of money she’d received, but no one else had offered her a dime. The foundation had given more than her presentation to the Philanthropic Strategy Committee had merited.

      Tyler had swayed the PhilStrat Committee in her favor. Not because she’d wowed him with her presentation—despite her obviously high intelligence, she’d been inarticulate to the point where he’d been embarrassed for her. Definitely not because of that spark of attraction that had flared between them, despite her frostiness—he never let that kind of thing get in the way of business.

      When she’d bumbled to the end of her appalling pitch, she’d shot Tyler a look of angry resignation that said she might have messed up, but it was his fault.

      He shook her hand as she left, and couldn’t help smiling at the furious quiver in her otherwise stiff fingers. Which enraged her further. She looked down her nose at him as she said, “You haven’t heard the last of me.”

      He sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

      She reeked of do-gooder earnestness, coupled with the kind of instinctive, misguided courage that led people to pursue hopeless causes without, unfortunately, actually losing hope.

      So Tyler had believed Bethany when she said he hadn’t heard the last of her. During the PhilStrat Committee’s deliberations, he’d cast his vote in her support largely to shut her up.

      Now, as it turned out, that might have been a smart move. He needed her discreet cooperation over this baby and he expected her to give it, however reluctantly.

      Because Bethany Hart owed him.

       CHAPTER TWO

      BETHANY WAS IN THE SHOWER sloughing off the fatigue of three straight shifts in the E.R. at Emory University Hospital when the phone rang in the studio apartment she rented near the campus.

      It was Olivia Payne, Tyler Warrington’s secretary, asking if Bethany could come to the Warrington Foundation offices right away. “Tyler would like to meet with you.” Olivia paused. “At this stage I can’t tell you why.”

      He wants to give me more money. Jubilation surged through Bethany; adrenaline transformed her exhaustion into energy. She punched the air with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone, then had to clutch the towel she’d wrapped around herself before it slipped to the floor.

      After she’d hung up, she celebrated with an impromptu dance around her living room singing, “I aaaaam a reeesearch geeenius” to the tune of Billy Joel’s “Innocent Man.” But the room was too small for her to burn off this much excitement: as she danced, she grabbed the phone again and dialed her parents.

      “Mom, it’s me. Bethany.” She slowed down, suddenly breathless. Crazy that she still felt compelled to identify herself—it was fourteen years since her sister’s death, there was no chance of confusion. Without waiting for a reply, she said, “Looks like the Warrington Foundation plans to extend my research grant.”

      Her mom squawked with delight, none of her usual listlessness evident. “Darling, that’s wonderful. Just wonderful.”

      “I’m seeing Tyler Warrington this morning. The foundation can extend the grant for a second twelve months at its discretion, without me having to pitch again.”

      “That’s the best news—let me tell your dad.”

      Bethany heard her mom calling out to her father, heard his whoop of excitement. Then a muffled question she didn’t catch, and an “I’ll ask her” from her mom.

      “Uh, honey,” her mother said into the phone, “is there any chance they’ll give you more money than last year? You always say you could get so much more done if you could afford to pay your assistant for more hours.”

      The

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