them. I was being polite.”
Just when Bethany had thought she’d reached the pinnacle of embarrassment, he’d thrown this at her. Why didn’t he just come out and say he thought she was an all-round loser, and sex-starved to boot?
“I was pitching for the most important thing in my life,” she said in a tight, strained voice. If she hadn’t been holding the baby, she would have yelled.
The baby whimpered. Through his hat, she nuzzled the top of his sweet little head with her chin, a caress intended to soothe herself as much as him.
No wonder Tyler hadn’t taken her pitch seriously, if his rampant ego had decided she was making a pass at him.
“If you weren’t giving me any signals—”
“I wasn’t,” she snapped.
“Then my…wink was out of order. I apologize.”
Bethany saw the opening and dived for it. “You need to let me pitch again, right away.”
He grinned. “Nice try.”
The baby wriggled against her, and automatically she noted his good neck control—he had to be at least a couple of months old. “You can’t have made an objective decision, if you thought I was flirting.”
“Women flirt with me all the time. I don’t take it seriously,” he said, half laughing, half irritated. “Look, Bethany, I promise the reason you only got fifty thousand dollars was because that’s the maximum the team thought your work deserved. I didn’t underpay you because I thought you were flirting.”
“And you’re certain you weren’t—” it sounded stupid, but she had to say it “—so distracted by your attraction to me that you failed to grasp all aspects of my presentation?” Because that happened to her all the time. Not.
“I swear I wasn’t.” His face was so grave she just knew he was laughing hysterically inside. “It wasn’t even an attraction. It was an awareness, a spark. Not that you’re not very attractive,” he added hastily, as if she was about to take offense on a whole new scale. “But…you must know your presentation didn’t do you any favors.”
The fire left Bethany, and suddenly she was cold. “No,” she agreed quietly. And now that she’d accused him of being in the thrall of an overwhelming attraction to her, how likely was it he’d give her more money when they met next week?
She’d blown it again.
“Can we start over?” he said, evidently deciding he’d neutralized her.
Start over. That’s what she’d have to do with her research funding. Nausea churned in her stomach.
“I asked you in here to examine the baby, to check if he’s healthy,” Tyler said.
“Of course.” She could at least do something for this child, get that right.
“There’s a meeting room that adjoins this office.” Tyler pointed to a door halfway along the far wall. “You can use the table in there.” He looked at the baby, now dozing against her shoulder. “I’ll carry your bag.”
She followed him into a room that, like his office, had expansive views over midtown. Instead of a desk, it held a long table flanked by leather-upholstered chairs.
“How about you hold this little fellow while I set up?” Bethany said.
Tyler took the infant from her, held him at arm’s length, like a puppy that had rolled in something nasty and needed a good hose-down.
“He won’t bite,” she said.
“It’s more the barfing I’m worried about.” He glanced down at the fine wool of his jacket, which fitted his shoulders snugly enough to reveal their breadth, while still allowing fluidity of movement.
“That’s why I don’t buy custom-made suits,” she sympathized. “I don’t mind dropping a thousand dollars on a new suit, it’s the twenty bucks for the dry cleaning that kills me.”
He gave her a hard look, but he took the hint, held the baby closer. The little boy’s head flopped against Tyler’s chest, a tiny thumb went into his mouth. Then a fist curled around Tyler’s lapel. Tyler looked less than thrilled.
Bethany tore open a plastic pack and pulled out a sterile mat. “I hope you’ve baby-proofed your house, because these critters get into everything.” The baby was several months away from that stage, but why not give Tyler a scare?
“Luckily I had that done last year, on the off chance someone abandoned a baby on me.”
She frowned so she wouldn’t smile.
“But even if I hadn’t,” he continued, “this guy looks too young for me to worry about him digging out the magazines from under my bed.”
Her head jerked up.
“Car magazines,” he said blandly. “I only buy them for the pictures.”
From her bag, Bethany took out the items she’d need for her examination. She rescued the baby from Tyler, laid him on the mat. Instantly wide-awake, he gurgled up at her. “Can you imagine how desperate his mom must have been,” she mused aloud, “to abandon a cutie like this?”
“Why do you think she did it?” Tyler perked up.
“It’s more common to abandon babies at birth if the pregnancy was a secret or if the mom had no support. At this age…possibly if he had a birth defect or a serious illness she couldn’t handle…” She unsnapped the yellow sleeper and began to remove the garment. “But there’s nothing obviously wrong with this guy.” She appreciated the healthy pink tone of the baby’s skin. Too often the youngsters she saw in the E.R. were either pale or flushed from illness. “I’m wondering if there’ll be some clue to his name, maybe a wristband or ankle band under these clothes.”
“Uh-huh.” Tyler was looking at the baby, but the tapping of one black loafer on the carpet told her his thoughts were elsewhere.
A thought struck Bethany. “You don’t know his name, do you?”
That brought his gaze back to her. “It wasn’t in the note, so how could I?”
She waited before she replied, listening through her stethoscope to the baby’s heart. He’d flinched when the cold metal touched his chest, but he didn’t cry. Heart rate of one-fifty, perfectly normal.
“It occurs to me,” she said carefully as she coiled her stethoscope, “that this might be your son.”
He jerked backward. “Mine?”
“I mean—” she put a thermometer to the baby’s ear, relieved she didn’t have to meet Tyler’s gaze as she elaborated “—your…love child.”
She didn’t expect the silence. It was unnerving, so much so that even after the thermometer beeped a normal reading, she kept looking at the display.
“Tell me that’s a joke,” he said.
She swallowed. “I have to ask. I’m a doctor, I have my patient’s best interests in mind.”
“You’re not just a gossip with a juicy story to spread?” he asked silkily.
“Certainly not.” She put the thermometer away.
“Because if a rumor like that got around, it could do me a lot of damage.”
Bewildered, she said, “Tyler, according to the newspapers, you’ve dated half the women in Atlanta and the other half are eagerly awaiting their turn. Miss Georgia must know she’s the latest in a long line.”
“Professional damage,” he elaborated. “And for your information, dating a lot of women doesn’t mean I’m siring love children—” he embellished her euphemism with sarcasm “—all over town, then neglecting