Chapter 28: Arianna
“Men are pigs,” I tell Grace as I change her into the lion sleeper. I fluff the mane on her hood. “This outfit is perfect. You can eat them alive.”
I pick her up from the bed. “You ready for bottle and sleepytimes?”
Her slate blue eyes watch me with wonder. It’s probably just the sloppy topknot I stuck my hair in after Dell left.
“My hair looks like a poodle, doesn’t it?” I ask her, pressing on the errant curls popping out all over. “Well, it’s not like it matters. Nobody is going to notice.”
We move to the dining chair still sitting near the white carriage. I half expected Dell to order a proper rocking chair. But it’s still not Monday. He’s obviously still planning to send Grace away if she turns out not to be his.
I guess he has to. She belongs to somebody. No telling who the real father is. The mother doesn’t want her. Social services will have to figure it all out.
Grace settles in my arms with the bottle. My heart squeezes for her. How could anybody not want this sweet girl? She’s no trouble, really, at least not any more than any baby. Once you learn to burp her properly, anyway.
“You do belch like an old man,” I say.
She smiles around her bottle, then resumes sucking.
“I wonder if I could take you,” I say.
I know it’s a ridiculous thought. There’s a lot to it. Approval to foster. Classes to take. Inspections. Certifications. By the time I would be eligible, Grace would be settled with some other family.
Unless Dell just gave her to me.
The idea takes hold. I could move Maria. Open a third baby room. Gosh, where? I’d have to rearrange.
My head starts buzzing. I could do this.
Screw men. Screw Dell. I could be her mom right now.
Why does my life have to revolve around some traditional structure? Screw marriage. Screw nuclear families. None of the families at my spa are set up the old-fashioned way. Every kid is a half-step-something.
By the time Grace has finished the bottle and I’ve turned her on my thighs for a good burp, I’ve come up with a little speech for Dell. The last thing I want is for him to call CPS before I can let him know I want her.
I mentally rearrange my house, moving things out of the extra bedroom for a nursery.
For the first time in a long time, I feel energized, excited. Like there’s a reason I’m here.
“It’s for you,” I tell Grace. “Everything I’ve gone through so far has brought me to you. My parents. The nannies. Opening a day care.” My throat chokes up with emotion.
Grace responds by falling asleep in my lap. I kiss her fuzzy head. At first I think I’ll just hold her until Dell gets home, but my energy is too much. I want to pace, think, plan. I lay her in the carriage.
Maximillion, who has planted himself at my feet, walks with me in circles around the room.
“What do you think, Max?” I ask. “Is this a good idea? Do you think Dell will do it?”
“Will I do what?”
I halt. Dell is at the door!
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “It’s too early for you to be back.”
He tugs at his bow tie and slides it out of his collar. “This gala was more lame than most.”
“Think of the children!” I say.
He laughs, a low throaty sound. “They got their money.”
I want to ask if his date was lame too, but I don’t. I can’t needle him. I have a bigger purpose now. A more important one.
“So what are you asking my dog if I will do?”
His eyes take me in, jeans, shirt, resting on my tank top. Crap. My “seduce Dell” outfit is the totally wrong thing now that I’ve switched to “prove I’m mother material.”
I take a step back. “It’s about Grace,” I say.
“What about her?” His eyes flicker to my face briefly, but he can’t hold it. They go back to the flimsy bra and too-tight shirt combo that took me a half hour of changing clothes to get right.
I resist the urge to cross my arms over my chest and turn to my bag. “This might not be the best time to discuss it. Grace is down. You handled her fine the other night. Carrie can cover things again in the morning.” I pick up my leather duffel.
“That looks like you were planning to stay the night,” Dell says.
“More like I was planning on having to go to sleep while waiting up on you,” I shoot back. “And I didn’t. So good night!”
“Arianna, drop the bag.” His voice is so authoritative that my arms actually set it down.
Then I’m annoyed with myself for falling for whatever voice wizardry he just pulled and bend over for it again.
“Just…come,” he says. “Let’s talk away from the baby.”
Well, he has a point about that. I straighten and cast a glance back at the carriage. Max has set up his guard on the floor beside it.
“All right,” I say. Maybe it is time to discuss it, pokey nipples or not. Maybe he’ll be distracted enough by them to just say yes.
We walk to the living room. Bernard is by the bar. “Shall I make drinks or will you mix them yourself?” he asks.
“Two brandies,” Dell says to him.
A few hours ago, I would be disappointed not to already be in his bedroom. But I imagine he’s already gotten his jollies on one woman tonight. I’m not interested in making it a double.
Dell settles on the sofa, unbuttoning his tux shirt. Then he stands up again, stripping off the jacket. “Not a fan of this designer,” he says. “This feels like a straitjacket.”
Bernard sets the drinks on the coffee table and takes the jacket from Dell.
“Anything else, sir?”
Dell waves him off. He picks up the glasses and passes one to me.
I decide to avoid the nearness of the sofa and return to the chair I sat on before.
His gaze flickers, but he lets it go. “So what is this about Grace?”
I gulp a mouthful of brandy as I figure out my first words.
The fire, followed by a warm calm feeling, is so wonderful, I take another.
Now Dell’s face is full of amusement. “Was she that tough tonight?” He seems to decide that this conversation will be frivolous, and relaxes back on the cushions.
After my second gulp of liquor, I just blurt it out.
“I want her.”
Now Dell’s head snaps around. “What do you mean?”
“Grace. I want to be her mother. I know I’m not kin or official and I don’t have a home study or approval to adopt, but I’m sure we can work something out between us. Your lawyers and my lawyers.”
He sets his glass on the table. “And you decided this when?”
“A little while ago.” My voice is less steady now. “I missed her yesterday. And today. And last night. When I saw her again, I just knew.” I hold the glass in my lap. “We’re right for each other. She came to me for a reason.”
Dell leans forward, his elbows on his knees. When he speaks again, his tone sends a chill through me. “She came to you because I brought her. Me. She is mine. She will remain mine until I decide that she is not.”
My belly quakes a little but I won’t let him intimidate me. “But you were so put out by her. She inconvenienced you.”
“It’s all settled now. Carrie is a great nanny. We have three days until the test results. Just leave it be.”
The timbre of his voice rattles the crystals in a bowl on the coffee table.
But it doesn’t rattle me.
“You should think of her future if she’s not yours.” And maybe even if she is, I think, but I don’t dare say it. “I can care for her.”
“You work full-time and you live alone.” He barks this out like an accusation.
“So do you,” I shoot back. “At least when I work, she’ll be with me. I’ll open a new baby room. Make sure she has the best teacher in the city. She won’t be stuck with a nanny.”
“She won’t have a father.”
“I’ll get married eventually.” I assume. I haven’t exactly had many prospects.
Dell stands up and walks to the huge windows looking out over the park.
I sit, gripping the glass. The air conditioner kicks on and I shiver in my tank top. Or maybe it’s just the chill coming off Dell. I didn’t think he’d put up this much of a fight.
“There is the issue of her mother,” he says finally. “Once we know who she is, we can move forward.”
There was that we again. My heart hammers. It sounds like he’s including me in his plans.
I set the drink down and head over to stand beside him at the window. “Did you make any progress these past two days?”
“Not on the footage. She’s like a ghost. She appears in the foyer, never comes out anywhere, and we never see her again.”
I think for a minute. “So she comes up wearing one outfit, drops off the carriage, and then changes so she isn’t recognized when she leaves.”
“Or goes to work,” he says. “I haven’t ruled out that it was someone on staff.”
“Has someone reviewed the employment records? Was anyone pregnant?”
“Only two maternity leaves, and both are happy moms showing their babies off on social media,” he says. “With terrible privacy settings, I might add.”
“Well, it could be that someone who works here dropped off a baby who belongs to someone else.” This prospect excites me. We have abandonment. A case to adopt. I could get her!
“And that is almost impossible to follow up on,” Dell says. “There are three hundred employees here. They each know dozens, if not hundreds, of people.”
I see what he means. A rabbit hole. A wild goose chase.
“So what’s next?” I ask.
“Wait for the test.”
This makes sense. He seems calmer now, so I take the risk of touching his arm. His dress shirt is soft and well made, the muscle beneath it hard and unyielding. He continues looking out on the darkened park.
“So why did you come home so early?” I ask. He wasn’t gone even two hours.
“Wasn’t up for it,” he says. “Too much going on at home.”
“It wasn’t that woman from the other day, was it?” I ask. “The one who broke her shoe?”
He snorts. “No. Although she did visit me yesterday.” He shakes his head. “That was unpleasant.”
“Did she confront you about the baby?” I was worried about that.
“She did, actually.”
“Well, what did she say?” My anger rises. I won’t have some society tart tramping around talking about Grace!
“Just wanted to go out again. Said she’d keep quiet about the baby if I was seen with her again.” He turns to me. “She kept going on and on about some group that wouldn’t accept her.”
I inhale sharply. “The list? The one you only get on if they are seen out with you?”
His eyes search mine as if seeking an answer there. “You know about this?”
Now I stutter. I only heard about it from Red Dress, when I stopped her from coming up to Dell. “I’ve heard.”
“Don’t tell me you want on it too.”
“No!” I say, my voice shrill. “I barely know anything. It’s just a silly rumor.” I think fast. “You own the building. People talked about you when the deal first went through.”
Dell sighs and turns back to the bar. “I sent her on her way. I’m not going to worry about it.”
I stay by the window as he pulls a fresh glass and pours another drink. “Damn, this night was something,” he says.
“You want to talk about it?” I don’t really want to hear about some woman who didn’t work out for him, but I want him to trust me. To feel like I’m the right person to take care of Grace.
He perches on the arm of the sofa. “It’s nothing. Tell me how it went with our wayward daughter.”
The phrase, and the way he says it, warms me to the core. I can almost imagine the impossible. Dell, me, and Grace, having a cozy evening. Spoon-feeding her baby cereal. Laughing as it dribbles out of her mouth. Dell and I kissing over the high chair.
“Arianna?”
I manage to recover. “She was great. She’s a perfect baby. We played a little. Sang some songs. She got a bottle and went right to sleep.”
Dell takes a sip. “You make it sound so easy.”
“Well, I’m around a lot of babies,” I say. “It’s what I do.”
“It is,” he says. Then he tips his head to the side. “And why does Arianna Hart tend to babies?” he asks. “What in her upbringing led her to this profession?”
He scrutinizes me for a moment.
This sounds like an interview, and he told me it was an important skill, critical to success in anything.
So I treat it that way.
“I was raised by nannies,” I say. “My parents wanted me to major in prelaw, but while I was at Brown, I just didn’t feel called to that sort of work. I felt around a little, then just settled on a liberal arts degree.”
He frowns at this. “Not business?”
I shake my head. “I would have had to totally regroup and start again to go that direction. It was easy just to build on my core classes and graduate.”
“Grad school?”
“No, I had capital. A trust fund. When I graduated, I cashed it in and hired a financial manager to help me formulate a business plan for the child spa.”
“Is it turning a profit?”
This makes me smile. “Since year two. It’s easy if you charge as much as I do. I just had to impress parents with a facility like none other. They assume that if you can do that, you’ll hire the proper help. In reality, it’s the other way around. Spaces are easy. People are the real asset.”
He raises his eyebrow at that. “So you trained them to be what you wanted.”
“It’s like you said. The interview tells you everything. Even if they botch it.” I walk over to an armchair and sit down. “I don’t look for the same qualities you do. But I can spot what I need.”
“Fascinating.” He stands up, considering this. “So it doesn’t matter if they put on a good front when you bring them in. You care more about their interior lives. Their motives, not their ability to impress.”
“Something like that,” I say. I turn to watch him walk around the room, looking at his own walls and fireplace and art as if he’s never seen them before.
“All right,” he says. “I think we can form a partnership on this. I provide the stability and proper upbringing for Grace, and you do the nurturing.”
My heart beats in my throat. “So you think I can adopt her?”
He turns suddenly. “I don’t know about that. We should wait on Monday before discussing legalities.”
Right. The DNA test.
“Are you saying there is a different plan if she’s yours than if she’s not? Because I’m here either way.”
“Just for the paperwork,” he says. His eyes fall back on my chest, lingering. “Need a refill?”
My heart races for a different reason now. Dell is acting differently. Like we’re on the same level. I’m no longer just a babysitter.
And he finds that really hot.
But I’m not so sure anymore. If I can get Grace, maybe I should hold back from Dell. I can’t be a drunk hookup.
“Actually, I’m good,” I say. “Should I check on her? I can just sleep on the bed in her room. The other one is Carrie’s now.”
But he’s closed in already. “I can think of a better place for you to sleep.”