giving in to Drew’s demands to be put down.
The baby crawled to the couch and stood up. He required very little help to stay standing. She’d already observed how confidently he walked as long as he had something to hold on to. In no time at all, he’d be walking on his own. Then running. Bella sighed.
“Hello?” a female voice called from the entry. “Anybody home?”
While Blake headed to the front door to greet his stepsister, Drew began working his way along the couch. Bella wished Blake had mentioned that Jeanne would be staying with them this weekend. She would have appreciated the opportunity to prepare herself for the other woman’s chilly dislike.
Bella raced forward and caught Drew’s hand before it snagged a heavy crystal bowl on the end table.
“Where’s my darling nephew?” Jeanne called, sweeping into the living room with great style. She wore a melon-hued linen dress that drew attention to her perfect complexion and played up the reddish highlights in her dark brown hair. A diamond tennis bracelet glittered at her wrist as she descended on her nephew, hands outstretched.
Bella backed away from Drew as his aunt reached him. Jeanne had a knack for making Bella feel like an employee—necessary when the socialite needed something, forgotten otherwise.
“You are going to love it in the Hamptons,” she crooned to Drew, snuggling him close despite his incoherent protests. “We are going to have so much fun this summer.”
Dismayed to hear that Jeanne would be around so much, Bella glanced in Blake’s direction and discovered he was directing the man who’d picked them up at the East Hampton airport on where to put their luggage. The caretaker—Blake had introduced him as Woody—had already brought in several bags belonging to Drew and Blake and had fetched her single suitcase. Alarm stirred as he headed upstairs with it.
“Wait,” Bella called after him. “That’s mine. It belongs in the pool house.”
Blake stopped her. “You’ll be staying in the house. I thought it best if you slept across the hall from Drew.”
She’d expected Blake would assign her the same accommodations as last summer and was distressed by the idea that she would be sleeping a short distance from him. “Why?” she blurted out.
“He’s been waking up in the middle of the night lately. I’ve been having a hard time getting him back to sleep. I thought you’d have better luck.”
“Oh, sure,” she said, failing to keep the dismay out of her voice.
“Problem?”
She couldn’t help but feel as if the walls were closing in on her. This was how it began with her family, too. She’d agree to a simple request to adjust a hemline and the next thing she knew she was sewing a brand-new dress.
“You did mention that I could have my evenings off.”
“Is it your plan to be out all night?” Blake glowered at her.
She steeled herself against a sudden thrill, reminding herself that his concern about her going out—and staying out—was because he expected her to be at Drew’s beck and call. Not because he wanted her company himself.
“Of course not.” She’d much rather spend her nights with Blake and Drew, but he couldn’t know that. He’d start wondering why. “It’s just that I was hoping to have a little fun this summer and I really enjoyed the pool house.” She’d appreciated the privacy. If not the solitude.
“And I’d like you to be close by.”
“Blake, let the girl stay in the pool house if that’s what she wants,” Jeanne broke in, her exasperation plain. “I really don’t see why she’s here at all. I’m perfectly capable of watching Drew this summer.”
Jeanne’s negative attitude toward her had never been this overt and Bella wondered what she’d done to turn the woman against her.
Blake’s stepsister gave up the battle with the squirmy Drew and set him down on the foyer’s cool marble. Immediately he began crawling toward the open door. Bella chased after him, deciding it would be easier to wear out the adventurous infant than to try to contain him. Glad to escape the stare-down between siblings, Bella scooped up Drew and marched him outside.
“You will be far too busy lunching with friends and shopping to be a full-time babysitter,” Blake countered, his voice calm but steely. “Bella will give him her full attention.”
To keep him out of trouble, she’d have to. Bella steered Drew away from roses that flanked the sidewalk and aimed for the large expanse of smooth, green lawn. As soon as she’d gauged Drew was a safe distance from the flowerbeds that enclosed the mansion in graceful, bright waves, she plopped onto the grass with a heavy sigh and began tickling Drew’s round belly.
His hearty giggles made her smile. She lost herself in his darling grin and ran her fingers through his soft hair. Sighing, she snuggled him close and imprinted his scent in her memories. He endured it all with good humor and took his own turn investigating her nose and mouth with his chubby fingers.
The late-afternoon sunlight cast long shadows across the lawn and Bella knew she couldn’t hide out here with Drew much longer. The wind coming off the ocean was growing cooler by the minute. She was psyching herself up to return to the house when she heard the slam of a car door and an engine starting.
Glancing over her shoulder, she spied Jeanne’s silver Lexus heading away from the house and Blake striding across the lawn toward them. Her pulse jerked erratically at his somber expression and she wondered if he was going to send her back to the city.
“Where’s Jeanne going?” she asked, startled when he sat beside her.
Hoisting Drew onto his lap, Blake stared after his sister. “She’s heading home.”
“Back to New York?” It distressed Bella to think she’d come between the siblings.
“She and Peter have a rental just down the beach.”
“Then she’s not staying here?” She couldn’t stop relief from overwhelming her voice.
“No.” Blake’s eyebrow lifted. “I take it you’re glad.”
Bella plucked at the lawn. “Your sister doesn’t like me.”
“It’s not that she doesn’t like you,” he explained, weariness twisting his mouth into an unhappy line.
“You could have fooled me.”
“She doesn’t want us spending the summer together.” Blake was watching Drew crawl toward a butterfly that had flitted across his path and spoke almost absently.
“Why not?”
“She thinks you have feelings for me.”
Bella couldn’t have been more shocked. “What?” she sputtered, sounding anything but amused or incredulous. She sounded guilty. “That’s crazy.”
Blake’s gaze sharpened as it swung in her direction. “I don’t know. She was pretty convinced. It was something about the way you looked at me last year.”
Sucking in a breath, intending further protest, Bella was silenced by the heat in his eyes. The chilly afternoon suddenly seemed like a midsummer scorcher.
“She’s making that up.” Bella quivered. “I’ve never thought of you as anything more than a friend. You were married.”
“I’m not married anymore.” His fingers grazed her cheek and slipped beneath her hair.
Her nape tingled as he stroked her skin.
“Sure. But that doesn’t mean anything has changed.”
“Hasn’t it?”
Transfixed by the intent glowing in the blue-gray depths of his eyes, she forgot to breathe. The desire that