do you mean, no one? I want a babysitter. Now. Find someone. An outside agency. I don’t care. Just do it.’
A babysitter at ten o’clock, the night before Christmas Eve? Christmas was on a Sunday this year, which meant today was Friday. The whole world—except the likes of hotel cleaners—would have started Christmas holidays today. Celebrations would be almost universal and every babysitting service would be stretched to the limit.
Good luck, she thought drily, but then she looked down into the baby’s face. Phoebe was tiny, her face creased in distress, her rosebud mouth working frantically. How long since she’d been fed?
This little one’s mother had handed her over without a backward glance. This man didn’t want her.
There were echoes of Sunny’s background all over the place here, and she didn’t like it one bit.
She needed to leave.
She could feel sogginess under her hand. And the baby...smelled?
‘Get someone up here. Get me the manager.’ Max was barking into the phone, but she tuned it out. How long since this little one had been changed?
A tentative examination made her shudder. Ugh. She gave up on the thought of a simple change and headed for the bathroom. She stripped off all the baby’s clothes, then used the washbasin to clean her. The wailing was starting to sound exhausted, but the baby had enough strength to flail her legs in objection to the warm water.
But Sunny was an old hand. Washing was brisk and efficient. She had a replacement nappy but no change of clothes. No matter—she was warmed and dry. Sunny wrapped her expertly in one of the hotel’s fluffy towels, carried her back to the living room, checked the bottle, settled down on the settee—had she ever sat on anything so luxurious in her life?—and popped one teat into one desperate mouth.
Then finally the world settled. The silence was almost overwhelming.
Even Sunny was tempted to smile.
Such little things. A clean bottom. A feed. Deal with the basics and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. That had been Sunny’s mantra all her life and it served her still.
But now she had time to think.
Next on her list was getting out of here.
She glanced across at Max, still barking orders into the phone. He looked like a man at the peak of his powers, a business magnate accustomed to ordering minions at will. He was trying to summon minions now.
But there weren’t many Australian minions who’d drop everything at this hour to be at his beck and call.
It’s not my problem, she told herself and turned her attention back to the bundle in her arms.
She was a real newborn. A week old at most, Sunny thought, suddenly remembering Tom. Sunny had been nine years old when Tom was born. She remembered weeks where she couldn’t go to school, where she’d struggled with a colicky newborn, where she’d felt more trapped than she ever wanted to feel again.
But she wasn’t trapped now. This little one had a family and that family wasn’t her. What was she—half-sister to the man on the phone? She even looked like him, Sunny thought. Same dark hair. Same skin tone—she looked as if she’d spent some of her time in utero under a sun lamp.
Did she have the same nose? It was difficult to say, she decided. It was a cute nose.
She was a cute baby. Wrapped in her white towel, she looked very new, and totally defenceless. She was still sucking her bottle but desperation had faded and tiredness was starting to take over. Sunny could feel the little body relax, drifting towards sleep.
Great. She could pop her back into the pram and leave.
‘She’s going to sleep?’
The deep voice, the hand on her shoulder made her start with shock. She hadn’t heard him leave the desk and walk over to her.
He was standing behind her, staring down at the baby.
‘She was well overdue for a feed,’ she managed. Why had he put his hand on her shoulder? To hold her down? To keep her here?
Or maybe he simply wanted contact, reassurance that he wasn’t alone.
He was alone, she thought. She was leaving.
‘Can I ask you to keep quiet about what’s happened?’ he asked.
‘Sorry?’ Her mind had been heading in all sorts of directions, one of them being the way she was reacting to this man’s touch. How inappropriate was that? Somehow she managed to focus.
‘I work on the staff here,’ she managed. ‘I signed a confidentiality agreement.’
‘And you’ll keep it? The media will pay for a story like this. If they make you an offer... I’ll meet it.’
‘I said I signed a confidentiality agreement,’ she retorted, flushing. ‘You think I’d break it for money?’
‘I have no idea what you’d do.’ He lifted a corner of the towel so he could see her name, embroidered discreetly under the hotel logo on her uniform. ‘Sunny Raye. What sort of name is that?’
‘Mine.’ She was starting to feel a bit glowery.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be personal.’
‘That’s good. There’s no need to be personal. I’m a cleaner and I need to go back to work.’
The bottle was finished and laid aside. Phoebe’s eyes were closed. Her tiny rosebud mouth was still making involuntary twitches, as if the bottle was still there.
She was beautiful, Sunny thought, but then she’d always been a sucker for a baby. A sucker for being needed?
Of course. Wasn’t that the story of her whole life?
‘I’ll pop her back in the pram,’ she suggested. She wanted to rise but the hand was still on her shoulder. The grip tightened.
Uh-oh. It was pressure.
‘You can’t leave.’
Watch me, she thought. And then she thought of the discreet little disc attached at her waist, like an extra button on her uniform. A security disc.
Even at exclusive hotels—and this was surely the most exclusive in Sydney—incidents happened. Guests drank too much. They were away from home. The normal rules often didn’t seem to apply.
Female staff were taught how to back away fast from situations, but as a last resort there was the disc. Three pushes and she’d have security guards here in moments.
Protecting her from this man?
He wasn’t harassing her for himself, though. He needed her for his baby.
Right, and she had chocolate cherry liqueurs to find and sleep to have and gifts to wrap before she returned here for her Christmas Eve shift tomorrow. Harden up, girl, she told herself. Even use the security disc if you must. You’re a cleaner. This is not your business.
She rose, despite the pressure of his hand. He released her—with real reluctance, it seemed—and stood back.
‘She’s fed and changed, sir,’ she told him, facing him head-on. ‘I’ll pop her back into the pram if you like, but I need to go. Though...’ A sudden pang of conscience made her add, ‘I’ll clean the bathroom before I go.’
‘You just cleaned the bathroom.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said woodenly and he frowned and opened the bathroom door. And recoiled.
‘My giddy aunt...’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said primly. She used his distraction to slip her sleeping bundle back in the pram. The pram was a mess too, filled with forms, baby clutter, a stupid elephant mobile strung across the top. But this wasn’t her concern either. She pulled out the loose stuff and