“Oh, come on. We’re celebrating! You kicked ass in there, Mr. Blake!”

Anyone who actually calls me “Mr. Blake,” when not in a work setting doesn’t actually know me well enough to party with me. It is how I distinguish between who I can trust and who I can’t: people who call me ‘Derek’ I trust; people who I don’t, but have to play nice with call me “Mr. Blake.”

Having money means anyone will hang out with me anywhere, but it’s what I’m called that helps to keep me in line, even when I’m drinking.

“Been a long day,” I sighed. I stood up to button my suit jacket before I reached and grabbed for my coat. The rain was coming down thick, watering the glass of the windows, and all I could think about was how soothing it would sound on the full-length windows as I sat on the couch and sipped a glass of fine whiskey.

“Congratulations, Mr. Blake,” my secretary cooed at me as I walked by her desk. I tapped my knuckles on the corner of the cherry mahogany desk she had been calling home for four months before I flashed a grand smile. That was my weakness: women working for me that couldn’t resist my charm. I knew I had it, and I knew I could wield it, and it made me feel powerful…

…Especially after a win like this morning.

Things had gone very well with the conference call. I was frazzled going down the elevator this morning, but once I hopped into the back of the limo, the worries of early that morning melted to the back of my mind. The air horn squeal of a foreign child soon faded to the back of my brain as I prepared my mind for the long call ahead, and when I walked into the boardroom and sat at the head of the table, the entire world seemed to fold at my feet. Those who had been bucking against a company merger with mine easily gave way when I showed them statistical analyses of their profit losses over the next ten years; then I offered them twice what they would have lost.

It was enough to severance everyone out of the company minus the few I wanted to keep.

I had garnered the company another overseas headquarters with valuable Intel that could be used to our advantage. I then skyrocketed the company’s stock, made many people very rich, given other people a year’s worth of severance they would spend frivolously or invest, and in return I could take three weeks off that I was desperately looking forward to because I needed it.

On the ride home I dreamed of all the things I would do: take a cruise, fly to Bora Bora, and book a two-week spa vacation with one of the hot, young, up-and-coming Hollywood actresses. All I had to do was make a few phone calls and any woman I could conjure would be on my arm in a heartbeat.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d spoil them just as they deserved: fine wines, fine foods, fine massages, and mind-blowing orgasms… whatever their hearts desired would be theirs.

They just couldn’t have mine.

My heart, that is.

That shriveled into its dark corner when Gracie left.

And that’s when it hit me…

“Home, sir,” the driver said after he had rolled down the window. “Unless you have somewhere else you need to be.”

I looked up towards the top of the tower where my home beckoned to me: the penthouse every mogul vied for but none would have but me. Rich men and dastardly women tried to bribe me out of that home. It housed the best view of the city, boasted of the finest service in the state, and had its own secrets kept under lock and key.

“No, no,” I groaned before I swung my door open into the rain. “I’m fine. Have a good night.”

“Night, sir,” the driver waved as I slammed the door behind me.

I pulled my coat closed tight around me before I strode underneath the overhang. The calming rain suddenly chilled me to my bones and the glass of whiskey that had my mouth salivating suddenly turned my stomach.

There was a child in that penthouse.

A child that was supposedly mine in the arms of a babysitter I had hardly glimpsed before I dumped her and left.

“Shit,” I murmured.

“Welcome home, Derek,” Franz smiled warmly.

My eyes must have betrayed what I was thinking.

“I’d be quiet if I were you. I checked on them a little while ago, and they were both fast asleep.”

The idea of a quiet home sent relief charging through my system. In a way, this must have been what Gracie felt: cooped up and alone with a child who never stopped crying. Maybe the child wouldn’t unlatch from her breast, or maybe the child woke up too many times in the middle of the night. I headed for the elevator and slid my green and gold key into the slot in order to activate it for the penthouse suite, and I wondered where Gracie was.

What she was doing.

If she was safe…

Before I knew it, the elevator doors slowly peeled open and I stepped gingerly out into the hallway. My coat was dripping on the floor as my Ferragamo shoes clicked along the hallway floor. I reached for the doorknob and turned it, and my brow furrowed deeply when I found the door to be unlocked.

I was going to have to talk with this babysitter about being more careful.

I opened the door into darkness. The rain smashed against the full-length windows while the splattered water trickled down the remaining glass, and the fuzzy stars and the silent moon illuminated the darkened hardwood floors as I darted my eyes around. I shut the door behind me with a quiet thud before quickly removing my coat. It wasn’t until I heard a slight murmur come from the couch that I began looking around the room.

I mean really looking.

Nothing seemed out of place: there weren’t any dirty diapers strewn everywhere or unwanted baby vomit in the corners. There were no cardboard packages or crumpled clothes or lingering smells of disgusting baby poop.

There was nothing.

It was a bit… unnerving.

And then it happened again – that same little groan.

I kicked off my shoes and padded lightly across the floor before my eyes crested the edge of the couch, and the sight I saw before me caused a confusion that ricocheted throughout my system: there she was, the woman from early this morning, with her dark brown hair twisting around her head. The moonlight drenched her sun-kissed skin in a silken glow, and a small head sat on top of her prominent chest. This babysitter, with her even breaths and her wild hair, cradled this little girl who had been dumped in front of my door thirteen hours ago.

I felt the strong urge to smile, but bit my lip in order to fight the urge.

I walked down the hallway to my room before an open door caught my eye, and as I began removing my suit coat I turned my body towards the door. The colors of the room drew me in, pinks and yellows and light greens peppered the walls and the newly-established furniture: a crib by the window and a changing table by its side. The closet had containers of diapers at the bottom of it while a leather rocker recliner sat cock-eyed in the corner, facing the beautiful view the window shared with the room.

I was shocked at what she was able to put together in just this one day.

There was a stroller folded in the corner and an unopened car seat in the middle of the floor. There was a toy box next to the dresser at my right as I stood in the room, gawking at its contents.

Everything was so… small.

But then, when I backed out of the room to go finally fall in my own bed, I stumbled over something that caused my back to hit the hallway wall.

The ratty, dirty suitcase from this morning she had flopped onto the floor in order to run after the screaming child –

–My screaming child.

She had put together my daughter’s entire room and never once gave a thought as to where she would sleep.

“Jesus, this is actually happening,” I breathed to myself.

So, I did the absolute least I could do: I picked up her suitcase without grimacing at its state and walked it into the empty room right across the hall from the baby’s–

–From my daughter’s room.

Because something told me she wouldn’t want it any other way.