Page 24 of The Billionaire's Promise

"Here, take her for second?" he asked, passing Rosie to me.

I didn't get a chance to protest. Vance dropped her into my arms and was gone. Rosie screeched louder when I squeezed her too tightly, but she was squirming like mad. I was juggling the bottle, plus the baby, and I didn't want to drop anything. I got us into the small sitting room off the kitchen, sat in the armchair, and tried to arrange her on my lap. When Vance had done it, it looked so easy and natural. With Rosie wiggling and the bottle falling over, I was mostly frustrated and a little freaked out.

I grabbed the couch pillow to prop her up and popped the bottle nipple in her mouth, watching in delight as she went to town. I felt an absurd sense of triumph. I'd figured out she was hungry, made her food, and now she was eating. Yay me. I only had to do this about a thousand more times. Surely, it got easier. This was only the first day.

I’d always wanted kids, wanted a family, but I'd never been one of those people who was instinctively good with children. Vance was. Not that his life intersected with small humans very often, but I'd seen him with kids before, and he was always easygoing and comfortable, which in turn set them at ease.

I, on the other hand, got nervous I wasn't doing the right thing and then felt awkward and out of sorts. I'd agreed to help Vance with Rosie, at least for the foreseeable future, so I was going to have to get over it.

I wanted to. Looking down at Rosie's face, a barely formed combination of her parents, with Amy's black hair and pale skin and Vance's vivid blue eyes, I was already half in love with her. She'd lost her mother. As troubled as Amy had been, she'd also been sweet, and funny, and kind.

I don't know if she would've been a good mother. It's hard to say since she was also an addict. If she'd kept doing drugs, she would've made little Rosie's life difficult, to say the least. I thought that if Amy had been clean, she could've been a great mom. I hated the idea that Rosie was so tiny and had already lost so much. She had me, for as long as she and Vance needed me.

As soon as Rosie finished the bottle, I propped her up on my shoulder and promptly learned what burp cloths were for when she vomited half the formula into my shirt. And on the chair. And in my hair.

Vance and I switched places. He popped her into a swinging chair while he tried to clean up the chair and I headed upstairs for a shower. I returned to find Vance in the middle of cooking dinner, Rosie crying in her swinging chair.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Vance stirred the sizzling vegetables on the stove and said, shaking his head, "I have no idea. Seriously. I tried to give her another bottle. She's not hungry. I tried picking her up. I tried putting her in the floor gym. I checked her diaper. I am fucking clueless."

So was I. Vance had already exhausted all the options I could think of. Leaving her in the swing didn't seem to be working, and the sound of her scream was drilling through my brain. The sight of the tears on her pink cheeks hurt my heart. I picked her up and bounced her on my hip.

Her crying stopped, and I felt like I'd won the lottery. For about a second.

The moment the bouncing stopped, the wailing started up again. Dammit. I switched her to the other hip and bounced her again. She stopped crying. For another second. Five minutes of bouncing her from one hip to the other, and my arms were aching. She wasn't that heavy, but the position was awkward and it only stopped her crying for moments at a time.

Vance stayed in the kitchen, working on dinner and eyeing us warily, probably afraid I was going to ask for his help. Finally, I looked down at Rosie's face and saw her mouth working again. Maybe this time, she was hungry. "Vance, can you make a bottle, or take Rosalie so I can do it?"

"Yeah, one sec." He was sliding dinner onto our plates when the phone rang.

"Don't answer that," I called out. I didn't care who it was. They could wait until we plugged Rosalie's mouth with a bottle. She was adorable, and I was half in love with her, but the sound of her scream was a bloody nightmare, and she showed no signs of stopping. The bottle was my only hope.

The phone stopped ringing, then started again.

"Don't answer it," I warned.

"I'm not. I'm making her bottle," Vance said, staring at the kettle, willing it to boil. We should have bought the ready-made formula. Or prepped bottles ahead of time. Anything so we weren't standing around with a starving, screaming baby and no food.

The phone started to ring again. Vance checked the screen and picked it up. I tried to shoot a death glare at him, but I must have missed. Maybe Rosie's screaming was causing interference. God knows, she was loud enough.

"This had better be an emergency," Vance growled into the phone, holding it between his ear and his shoulder as he tried to mix formula. Whoever was on the line said something. Vance answered, "I'm at home, and I can't talk right now, okay?"

Damn right, he couldn't. Rosie screamed louder, wiggling in my arms and pulling on the ends of my hair. I needed that bottle. Now. "Vance," I said, trying to get his attention without yelling in Rosalie's ear. He ignored me and spoke into the phone.

"It's a long story. I have to go. I'll call you tomorrow."

Rosie dripped a string of drool and snot on my arm, her sobbing face red and distraught. I'd had enough. I didn't care who was on the phone. I needed that bottle. Now. Covering Rosie's little ears, I yelled, "Vance Winters, you put down that phone and get that bottle over here right now, or so help me, I willendyou. Do you hear me?"

Vance said something else into the phone and dropped it onto the counter. "I've got it. Here." He shoved the bottle at me, and I snatched it, juggling Rosie in my arms with the nursing pillow. She didn't wait for me to get her arranged but tried to get the nipple in her mouth as soon as she saw the bottle. Our girl was starving.

I got her settled, and my heart rate slowed as she snuggled into my arms and went to work on her bottle. She was a little demon when she was hungry, but once her tummy was happy, she was too cute. I cleaned her tear-streaked face while she ate and managed to burp her without getting puked on. Victory.

Vance had purchased a bassinet we could roll around the house. Rosalie fell asleep after her bottle and stayed that way as I put her into the bassinet and sat down to my cold dinner. We ate with single-minded attention. We hadn't been that hungry at breakfast, both of us too nervous about the test results, and then we had been way too busy with shopping and moving and Rosalie to think about lunch. We'd fed the baby but forgotten to feed ourselves. Vance was a good cook, but I would've eaten anything to quiet the gnawing in my stomach.

Sitting back, I looked at Vance and said, "I'm exhausted."

"Yeah. So am I."