Page 25 of The Billionaire's Promise

"If she eats every few hours—"

"We're going to be up all night," Vance finished for me.

"How do people do this?" I asked.

"Were going to find out," Vance said. He sat back in his chair and studied me, his blue eyes serious and warm. “I owe you for this. Big time. Bigger than anything."

I shook my head. Vance didn't owe me anything.

"No, I do," he said. "I couldn't do this without you, Magnolia. If I were on my own, I'd be scared shitless right now."

"You're not? Because I am," I said, only half-kidding.

"I am," he admitted. "Of course I am. But we can do this. I know we can do this. If you stick with me, I know we can handle everything, anything. I just want you to know what it means to me to have you with me."

I shifted in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable. Avoiding Vance's eyes, I got up and started to clear the table.

"I mean it, Magnolia."

"I'm not going anywhere, Vance," I said. I didn't know exactly what he was getting at. He sounded like a friend thanking another friend, but it also sounded like he was trying to say something more. I didn't know if that was the truth or just wishful thinking on my part.

We were friends. He was also my boss, but that wasn't the conflict of interest as it might have been in a different situation. I liked working for Vance. I liked being in on the deals and helping organize the business aspects of his art career, but I could take care of myself if I decided I needed to pursue a new direction, professionally speaking. No, the boss-employee aspect of our relationship wasn't complicated.

But friendship . . . friendship was all complication. You weren't supposed to lust after your friends. It was easier when I had Brayden as a shield, asshole and awful fiancée though he was. Now that I was single, there was nothing between us, nothing keeping us apart.

Back when he was drinking and sleeping with half the women in town, I could tell myself I didn't want to be one more notch on his bedpost. But the last woman I knew for a fact he'd slept with had been Amy, probably the night Rosalie was conceived. I doubt he'd been completely celibate since then, but he had definitely been far more circumspect in his sex life.

Now I had no reason at all to tell myself I didn't want him. Only the looming specter of heartbreak far worse than anything Brayden had dealt me. If I let myself get involved with Vance, I'd be setting myself up for a huge fall.

I'm not going to read anything into this, I told myself.I'm helping a friend, that's all.

I kept telling myself that for the rest of the night. The very long night. Brief periods of sleep interrupted by Rosie's crying and a seemingly endless stream of bottles. Next on my shopping list? A mini fridge for the sitting room and a bottle warmer. No more mixing formula in the middle of the night.

As I fell asleep, again, the faded light of dawn creeping through my curtains, I wondered how long it was going to take to get used to dealing with an infant. I had a feeling that by the time I got my bearings, things would change and I'd have to start all over again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MAGNOLIA

I was going to kill Vance. I was pretty sure the judge would rule it as justifiable homicide. He left me alone with Rosalie, the coward. Okay, we both had work to do, and Vance's timelinewasmore urgent than my own. The centerpiece of his upcoming show, an enormous sculpture twice as tall as he was, was still not finished.

It looked finished to me. It looked finished to Sloane, his agent and the owner of the gallery hosting the show, but Vance insisted it wasn't done. Sloane had ordered him to have it completed by the end of the day.

Not that Vance paid any mind to Sloane's orders. We were used to that. She tried to boss him around. Vance ignored her. She ordered me to get results. Vance ignored me. Sloane yelled at me. Then the whole cycle repeated all over again. She'd already called me three times.

I was ignoring her.

I wasn't answering the phone. Not yet. Sloane wanted to talk about the layout for the brochures we use for Vance's show, and they weren't finished. At this rate, they were never going to be finished. On a normal day, I had a pretty full schedule. It was flexible, but I still had to get the work done.

I did not have an open slot on my to-do list for a three-month-old. Apparently, infants were a full-time job unto themselves. With Vance downstairs, armed with a blow torch, I was on my own, just me and Rosalie.

For a while, I thought I had it made. Rosie was happily lying on her back in the floor gym we'd picked out for her, batting at the toys, bells, and rattles overhead, making cute baby sounds, and even falling asleep for a blissfully quiet half hour. Sitting at my desk, a mug of steaming coffee at my side, the sleeping Rosie on the floor, I thought I could do this. I could take care of Rosie and get my work done.

Then she woke up. A diaper change, a bottle—mostly spit up on me—and endless tracks around the loft with me bouncing her and singing to her and begging her. I was ready to scream. Or cry. We'd gotten another one of those musical swing chairs for the loft and had even put it together, but Rosalie was not a fan. To be honest, neither was I. It came with eleven different songs, and every one was annoying.

What she liked best was being held tightly against my chest while I spun in a circle and sang to her. I was glad I'd found something that stopped her crying, but much like bouncing her on my hip, I couldn't spin in circles all day. I tried tucking her into my arms like a football, as Vance did, and offering the bottle again.

No luck. Rosie didn't like this position with me, maybe because my arms were a third the size of Vance's. Maybe she just preferred her daddy. I could sympathize. I tended to prefer her daddy too. Even when I wanted to kill him.