to make sure the girls are okay. If I can’t do that as their mother, I can at least do it as their nanny.”
And if that meant sacrificing her freedom and working for Cooper Landon until the girls no longer needed her, that was what she was prepared to do.
Two
The next afternoon at six minutes after one, Sierra knocked on the door of Cooper’s penthouse apartment, brimming with nervous excitement, her heart in her throat. She had barely slept last night in anticipation of this very moment. Though she had known that when she signed away her parental rights she might never see the girls again, she had still hoped. She just hadn’t expected it to happen until they were teenagers and old enough to make the decision to meet their birth mother. But here she was, barely five months later, just seconds away from the big moment.
The door was opened by a woman. Sierra assumed it was the housekeeper, judging by the maid’s uniform. She was tall and lanky with a pinched face and steel-gray hair that was pulled back severely and twisted into a bun. Sierra placed her in her mid to late sixties.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked in a gravely clipped tone.
“I have an appointment with Mr. Landon.”
“Are you Miss Evans?”
“Yes, I am.” Which she must have already known, considering the doorman had called up to announce her about a minute ago.
She looked Sierra up and down with scrutiny, pursed her lips and said, “I’m Ms. Densmore, Mr. Landon’s housekeeper. You’re late.”
“Sorry. I had trouble getting a cab.”
“I should warn you that if you do get the job, tardiness will not be tolerated.”
Sierra failed to see how she could be tardy for a job she was at 24/7, but she didn’t push the issue. “It won’t happen again.”
Ms. Densmore gave a resentful sniff and said, “Follow me.”
Even the housekeeper’s chilly greeting wasn’t enough to smother Sierra’s excitement. Her hands trembled as she followed her through the foyer into an ultra-modern, open-concept living space. Near a row of ceiling-high windows that boasted a panoramic view of Central Park, with the afternoon sunshine washing over them like gold dust, were the twins. They sat side by side in identical ExerSaucers, babbling and swatting at the colorful toys.
They were so big! And they had changed more than she could have imagined possible. If she had seen them on the street, she probably wouldn’t have recognized them. She was hit by a sense of longing so keen she had to bite down on her lip to keep from bursting into tears. She forced her feet to remain rooted to the deeply polished mahogany floor while she was announced, when what she wanted to do was fling herself into the room, drop down to her knees and gather her children in her arms.
“The one on the left is Fern,” Ms. Densmore said, with not a hint of affection in her tone. “She’s the loud, demanding one. The other is Ivy. She’s the quiet, sneaky one.”
Sneaky? At five months old? It sounded as if Ms. Densmore just didn’t like children. She was probably a spinster. She sure looked like one.
Not only would Sierra have to deal with a partying, egomaniac athlete, but also an overbearing and critical housekeeper. How fun. And it frosted her that Cooper let this pinched, frigid, nasty old bat who clearly didn’t like children anywhere near the girls.
“I’ll go get Mr. Landon,” she said, striding down a hall that Sierra assumed led to the bedrooms.
Alone with her girls for the first time since their birth, she crossed the room and knelt down in front of them. “Look how big you are, and how beautiful,” she whispered.
They gazed back at her with wide, inquisitive blue eyes. Though they weren’t identical, they looked very much alike. They both had her thick, pin-straight black hair and high cheekbones, but any other traces of the Chinese traits that had come from her great-grandmother on her mother’s side had skipped them. They had eyes just like their father and his long, slender fingers.
Fern let out a squeal and reached for her. Sierra wanted so badly to hold her, but she wasn’t sure if she should wait for Cooper. Tears stinging her eyes, she took one of Fern’s chubby little hands in hers and held it. She had missed them so much, and the guilt she felt for leaving them, for putting them in this situation, sat like a stone in her belly. But she was here now, and she would never leave them again. She would see that they were raised properly.
“She wants you to pick her up.”
Sierra turned to see Cooper standing several feet behind her, big and burly, in bare feet with his slightly wrinkled shirt untucked and his hands wedged in the pockets of a pair of threadbare jeans. His dirty-blond hair was damp and a little messy, as if he’d towel-dried it and hadn’t bothered with a brush. No one could deny that he was attractive with his pale blue eyes and dimpled smile. The slightly crooked nose was even a little charming. Maybe it was his total lack of self-consciousness that was so appealing right now, but athletes had never been her thing. She preferred studious men. Professional types. The kind who didn’t make a living swinging a big stick and beating the crap out of other people.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
“Of course not. That’s what this interview is about.”
Sierra lifted Fern out of the seat and set the infant in her lap. She smelled like baby shampoo and powder. Fern fixated on the gold chain hanging down the front of her blouse and grabbed for it, so Sierra tucked it under her collar. “She’s so big.”
“Around fifteen pounds I think. I remember my sister-in-law saying that they were average size for their age. I’m not sure what they weighed when they were born. I think there’s a baby book still packed away somewhere with all that information in it.”
They had been just over six pounds each, but she couldn’t tell him that or that the baby book he referred to had been started by her and given to Ash and Susan as a gift when they took the girls home. She had documented her entire pregnancy—when she felt the first kick, when she had her sonogram—so the adoptive parents would feel more involved and they could show the girls when they got older. And although she had included photos of her belly in various stages of development, there were no shots of her face. There was nothing anywhere that identified her as being the birth mother.
Ivy began to fuss—probably jealous that her sister was getting all the attention. Sierra was debating the logistics of how to extract her from the seat while still holding Fern when, without prompting, Cooper reached for Ivy and plucked her out. He lifted her high over his head, making her gasp and giggle, and plunked her down in his arms.
Sierra must have looked concerned because he laughed and said, “Don’t let her mild manner fool you. She’s a mini daredevil.”
As he sat on the floor across from her and set Ivy in his lap, Sierra caught the scent of some sort of masculine soap. Fern reached for him and tried to wiggle her way out of Sierra’s arms. She hadn’t expected the girls to be so at ease with him, so attached. Not this quickly. And she expected him to be much more inept and disinterested.
“You work with younger babies?” Cooper asked.
“Newborns usually. But before the NICU I worked in the pediatric ward.”
“I’m going to the market,” Ms. Densmore announced from the kitchen. Sierra had been so focused on the girls she hadn’t noticed that it was big and open with natural wood and frosted glass cupboard doors and yards of glossy granite countertops. Modern, yet functional—not that she ever spent much time in one. Cooking—or at least, cooking well—had never been one of her great accomplishments.
Ms. Densmore wore a light spring jacket, which was totally unnecessary considering it was at least seventy-five degrees outside, and clutched an old-lady-style black handbag. “Do you need anything?” she asked Cooper.
“Diapers