Page 23 of The Billionaire's Promise

Rosalie drained the bottle, and Vance tried to burp her by leaning her against his shoulder and patting her back. Nothing happened. Hmm. We could figure out burping later. First, we had to get her changed. Together, we lay her on the changing pad and confronted the dreaded diaper.

I don't want to talk about it. Let's just say that Rosie was capable of creating a mess that smelled like it had died a week ago. Yuck. It's safe to say we used way too many baby wipes and complained excessively. I found a diaper disposal bag, sealed away the toxic waste bomb, and threw it out on our way into the store.

By that time, Rosie was fussing again, and we had no clue what to do about it. She'd been fed, she'd been changed, and she wasn't tired. I was out of options, and so was Vance.

We pushed the cart down the aisles of the store, trying to ignore Rosie screaming inside her carrier. We had no idea exactly what we needed. Vance's answer to that problem was to buy everything. I meaneverything. A nursing pillow—to hold her on while we bottle-fed her—and bottles, nipples, formula, diaper cream, diapers, wipes, a baby bathtub, baby bath gel, and lotion. We pretty much cleaned out the first-aid aisle, Rosalie wailing all the while. That was only the first third of the store.

By the time we hit the back of the store, I'd gone in search of a second cart. I returned to find Vance standing in front of the baby carriers. Was he going towearthe baby? He answered that question pretty quickly, opening a box with an olive-green baby carrier. Of course, he chose the most expensive one there, though I have to admit it looked pretty comfortable, though a little more hippie than Vance's usual style.

I checked the directions while he unpacked it. Between the two of us, we got it strapped around his waist and over one shoulder. Carefully, I unsnapped Rosalie from the car seat and picked her up. She immediately stopped crying, blinking up at me with blue eyes identical to her father's.

"Oh," I said. "Hi."

She smiled at me. I've heard people say babies couldn't smile, but they were wrong because Rosie smiled at me. "She just wanted someone to pick her up," I said.

"Hand over my kid," Vance said, and I turned to tuck her against his chest, pulling the other shoulder strap of the carrier into place and securing it behind Vance's back. Rosalie squirmed against his chest, gave him a long, measuring look, then settled her head against his T-shirt and promptly fell asleep.

"I feel like we just brokered world peace," Vance whispered. "Did we get to the book section yet? We need books about babies."

"We're getting there," I said. "But at least we figured out the formula, the diapers, and one way to make her stop crying."

Vance cradled her bottom in his strong hand, holding her secure even though the carrier was more than enough to keep her safe. I have to admit, I was surprised at how well he was taking all of this. Vance was a good man. I knew that already, despite some of his earlier behavior. Still, I would've expected a bit more resistance to having a baby suddenly disrupt his life.

Maybe, once the shock had worn off, he'd be resentful. Watching him walk through each aisle of the baby store, his daughter nestled against his chest, I doubted it. He couldn't stop touching her. Stroking a finger down her soft cheek, pink and flushed with sleep and the warmth of his body. Tucking her wisps of black hair, so like her mother's, behind her shell of an ear.

He evaluated each purchase seriously. It took us thirty minutes to choose a baby monitor before he ended up just grabbing the top-of-the-line video option, muttering under his breath, “This is just for now. I'll get Evers to wire everything up. One monitor isn't enough."

I shook my head. I was going to have to keep an eye on him. At the rate we were going, Vance was going to buy the whole city for his daughter, and she couldn't even sit up by herself. I didn't think. By the time we read all the books we'd thrown in the cart, I was sure I'd know exactly what stage of development she was supposed to be in.

I didn't miss the glances Vance got from the other women in the store. I couldn't help the stab of jealousy. It was ridiculous. He was my boss, not my boyfriend. But I knew what he looked like; tall, broad-shouldered, his Viking's face, the roguish blond ponytail, the muscles and tattoos, tenderly cradling an infant. I would've bet every pair of panties in the store was wet at the sight.

By the time we were done, we had two associates trailing us and six shopping carts. There was no way we could fit all of that in the Range Rover, but for an absurd additional fee, the store was willing to deliver on the spot. It took almost two hours to drop half of our loot off at the loft and then the other half at my house.

A part of me was deeply uneasy at playing house with Vance and the baby in my own home. Logistically, it made sense. If I was going to help Vance with Rosalie twenty-four seven, the loft would not work. We needed privacy. I needed privacy, and the loft was too open. Not only was my house huge, but I had the perfect setup to handle both Vance and Rosalie.

My bedroom, the bedroom I'd claimed as an eight-year-old on summer vacation from my English boarding school, was tucked in the back of the house, over the kitchen. I'd stayed there after my grandmother died, unable to face changing bedrooms, despite Brayden's complaints that we were wasting a perfectly good master suite.

A few months before, I'd finally cleaned out my grandmother's bedroom, donating what I didn't want to keep and packing away what I did. It had been painful, and I'd resented every second of it. I was still angry that she'd died on me. Sometimes, I think grief is the least rational emotion. Now, with Vance and Rosie moving in, I was grateful the task was behind me.

The master suite consisted of six rooms in total—separate his and hers bedrooms, a connecting sitting room with a fireplace, a couch, and an enormous bay window that looked out over the gardens, plus a dressing room-slash-closet for each bedroom and an expansive shared bathroom.

The two deliverymen from the baby store set up the crib in the sitting room while I moved my things from my bedroom to my grandmother's. It was easier than I expected. When I'd cleaned out her room, I'd redecorated. Not enough to erase her presence—her favorite quilt was still on the bed, family pictures on the dresser—but I'd switched out one of the armchairs and some of the paintings. Just enough so that I didn't expect my grandmother to come walking back in.

I finished up and entered the sitting room to see the crib fully assembled, the mattress covered with a pink sheet, and a mobile with dancing teddy bears spinning cheerfully overhead. Vance and Rosalie were nowhere to be seen. I found them in the bedroom that had been my grandfather’s, Vance stretched out on the king-size bed, Rosie tucked in beside him, her head resting on his chest as he read to her fromWhat to Expect the First Year. At the sight of me, she squirmed restlessly, her rosebud of a mouth working, lips pursing and falling open.

She was hungry. I thought that was it. It had been a while since we'd fed her, and her little mouth was making the exact motions as when she had her bottle earlier.

"I think she's hungry," I said. "I'm going to go try to figure out the bottle thing. I'll be back."

CHAPTER TEN

MAGNOLIA

I felt like an explorer venturing into the jungle, hoping to return with berries and nuts. Just because we'd bought everything in the store related to feeding a baby, it didn't mean I had any idea what to do with it. I had a vague notion that you mixed the formula with something—water?—and put it in the bottle.

I read the side of the formula canister. Then I read it again. It only took a few minutes to boil water in the electric kettle and wait for it to cool enough for Rosie. I mixed in the right amount of powdered mix, wrinkling my nose at the smell. It didn't smell awful, but it wasn't appetizing either. As long as Rosie was willing to eat it, that was all that mattered.

Vance met me in the kitchen just as I was headed upstairs, a squalling Rosie in his arms.