‘Oh, that’s hard,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘I’m sorry about your dad.’ But then her chin tilted again. ‘But your dad’s dead and this little one’s not, and it seems to me that someone’s got to go into bat for her. So you change her and feed her and then you can do what you like. I’ll go back to caring. My way. But it’s that or nothing, Mr Grayland.’
She met his gaze full-on, anger still brimming. She was flushed, indignant, defiant, and suddenly he thought... She’s beautiful.
Which was an entirely inappropriate thing to think and, as if she agreed with him, baby Phoebe opened her mouth and wailed again.
‘Fine,’ he said helplessly. ‘Show me how.’
‘It’d be my pleasure,’ she said and grinned and went to fetch a diaper.
* * *
She could have insisted that he take the baby back to his bedroom to feed her, but Max’s tension was tangible. She could almost reach out and touch it. According to the media, this man was one of the most powerful businessmen in the world, but right now he was simply a guy who’d been thrust a baby he didn’t know what to do with.
And didn’t she know what that felt like?
So she helped prepare the bottle, showed him the skin test for heat and agreed there should be some scientific way—there probably was but who had time to search for a thermometer at four in the morning? She watched as he did the diaper change, blessing herself that she’d asked the hotel shop to send up extras. It took him three tries to get it right without messing with the adhesive tapes.
Then she retreated to her settee and gave herself the luxury of leaning on pillows, while Max sat at the desk by the window and fed his little sister.
When she’d fed her last time it had been a desperate feed, a baby over-tired and over-hungry, relieved beyond measure that here was the milk she needed. She’d sucked with desperation.
This time, though, things had settled. Phoebe was warm and dry, and the bottle was being offered almost as soon as she’d let the world know she needed it. She seemed content to suck lazily, gazing upward at the world, at the man who was holding her.
They hadn’t turned on the main light. Sunny was watching by moonlight, seeing the tension slowly evaporate as Max realised he was doing things right. As Phoebe realised things were okay in her world.
It wouldn’t always be as easy as this, Sunny thought. What did this man have in store for him? Colic? Inexplicable crying jags? Teething? All the complications that went with babies. Would he cope with them?
Of course he wouldn’t. The thought was laughable. He’d been so desperate for help that he’d employed her, a cleaner. He’d employ someone more suitable the moment he could.
Still, she had to cut him some slack. He’d come to Australia for his father’s funeral. All the world knew that. Colin Grayland had been a colossus of the Australian mining scene. His son had taken over the less controversial part of a financial empire that was generations old. He must have kept his head down, because she knew little about him. He’d been an occasional guest in this hotel. There was always a buzz when he visited, but it was mostly among the female staff because a billionaire who looked so gorgeous...well, why wouldn’t there be a buzz? And there was also a buzz because his visits usually coincided with his father storming into the hotel, usually shouting.
Here in Australia, Colin Grayland had seemed to court controversy. He’d ripped into open cut mining, overriding environmental protections, refusing to restore land after it had been sucked of anything of any value. He had such power, such resources, that even legal channels seemed powerless to stop him.
His son, however, seemed to disagree with much of what the old man had done. The media gossip of clashes between the two was legion.
‘So what will you say about your father tomorrow?’ she asked into the silence and thought, Whoa, did I just ask that? Cleaner asking tycoon what his eulogy would be? But the man had said he’d woken to write the eulogy. Maybe she could be helpful.
She tucked her arms around her knees, looked interested and prepared to be helpful.
‘I don’t know,’ Max said shortly.
‘You don’t know.’ Phoebe was steadily sucking. The near dark lent a weird kind of intimacy to the setting. It was like a pyjama party, Sunny thought. But different. She watched him for a while, his big hands cradling his little sister, the bottle being slowly but steadily sucked. Okay, not a pyjama party, she conceded. Like...like...
Like two parents. Like the dad taking his share.
What did she know of either? Pyjama parties? Not in her world. And parents sharing?
Ha.
But now wasn’t the time for going there; indeed she hardly ever did. Now was the time to focus on the man before her and his immediate problems.
Actually, his immediate problem was sorted for now. But his dad... She’d read the newspapers. The funeral would be huge. Every cashed-up developer, every politician on the make, even the Honourables would be there, because even with the old man gone the Grayland influence was huge.
And this man was doing the eulogy. In less than seven hours.
‘I’d be so scared I’d be running a mile,’ she told him. ‘But then public speaking’s not my thing. Are you thinking you’ll wing it?’
‘What, decide what I’ll say in front of the microphone?’
‘The way you’re going, you’ll need to.’
‘Says the woman who won’t give me time to think, who won’t feed my baby.’
My baby. They were loaded words. She saw his shock when he realised he’d said them. She saw his horror.
‘Hey, I’m happy to help with the speech,’ she told him hurriedly. ‘How hard can it be?’
And she watched his face and saw...what? A determination to steer the conversation away from the baby he was holding? Because he couldn’t face what he was feeling? ‘To say my father and I didn’t get on is an understatement,’ he told her. ‘Look how little I knew of his personal life.’
‘Because?’ She said it tentatively. She had no right to ask, and no need, but he didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to, and something told her that he wanted to talk. About anything but the baby.
‘My parents were pretty much absent all my life,’ he told her. ‘I was an only child, with nannies from the start. My parents divorced when I was two and went their separate ways. I lived with whoever’s current partner didn’t mind a kid and a nanny tagging along, or the nanny and I had separate quarters if it didn’t suit. But I was raised to take over the financial empire. It was only when I developed a mind of my own—and a social conscience—that I saw my father often. Our meetings have never been pretty. Maybe I should have walked away but I’ve been given enough autonomy to realise I can eventually make a difference. As he’s grown older and more frail I’ve been able to stop the worst of his excesses. But now...to give a eulogy...’
She heard his bleakness and something inside her twisted. She thought of her own childhood, itself bleak. But she’d always had her siblings. She’d always felt part of a family.
But this was a man in charge of his destiny, as well as the destiny of the thousands of people he employed. She refused to feel sorry for him.
‘Hey, reality doesn’t matter at funerals,’ she told him. ‘No one’s there for a bare-all exposé. You want my advice? Tell them a funny story to start with, a personal touch, like how he wouldn’t buy you an ice cream when you were six because you hadn’t saved up for it. There must have been something you can think of, something like that’ll make them all laugh and put them onside with you. Then give his achievement spiel. Look him up on Mr Google. That’ll list all his glories. Finally, choke