“Um, hi.”

The sweet, quiet voice made me look up. Penny was standing in the doorway from the side room. Even after almost two weeks of this arrangement, she still seemed to be hesitant about interrupting me. If I really didn’t want to be interrupted, I wouldn’t have left the door open. Prior to her using it, I’d never left it open before, but I liked seeing her several times a day. Exchanging a few words before and after she retreated and closed the door. It was rare to see such a beautiful young woman be so bashful and shy. And extremely easy to make blush. Not that I tried. I’d been good. A saint even. I expected to hear from the pope any day now.

Besides, if I didn’t talk to her when she came to use the room, I’d never see her. Vera was in charge of my personal staff, and she kept them—and me—and the entire office running smoothly. Penny had only worked directly with me a time or two since she’d joined the department. I’d found her to be as competent as she was gorgeous, and I was already planning ways I could work more closely with her in the future.

Plus, if she worked more on projects directly for me, then I could find out more about her. Like where her baby’s father was, and how big of an asshole he was for leaving her alone.

Huh. Look at me, getting all protective.

That wasn’t like me—with one notable exception. Not-Sarah. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to protect her—if I’d been able to find her again. Even a year and a half later, that was a slap in the face. That a man like me, with all his wealth and privilege, hadn’t been able to find one young woman. Even if she hadn’t wanted to be found, it felt like I’d failed her.

Disgusted with myself, I cut off that line of thinking. It was hard, but lately I’d been trying not to let myself think of her. To wonder where she was and how she was doing. It wasn’t like my thoughts did her any good. I had a business to run, and my father had drilled into me the value of focus. Of putting business before everything else. But clearly I was a slow study, because now there was another woman I was curious about.

A woman who was taking an awfully long time, I realized, looking at my watch. She’d been in there for almost half an hour. That wasn’t like her. Had she skipped out the back door without saying good-bye?

A thin strip of light lined the bottom of the door frame. If she’d left, she hadn’t turned off the light, which also didn’t seem like her.

I knocked on the door, quietly at first, then a little louder when I didn’t get a response.

Cautiously, I opened the door, prepared to avert my eyes if she was still pumping. All my old girlfriends had been wrong—I could be a gentleman, but apparently only with young mothers. Oh well… it was a start.

I rapped my knuckles softly against the open door. “Penny?”

Suddenly feeling like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, I abandoned the tentative knocking and stepped into the room. Her bag was all packed up and on the table. But she was on the bed. On her side with her knees bent—fast asleep.

For a moment, I just stared at her. She’d appeared on my bed like Sleeping Beauty. Too bad it wasn’t my job to kiss her awake. She looked so peaceful, lying there, but she must be exhausted. I only had the sketchiest grasp on parenthood, but I knew that people with infants weren’t known for getting quality sleep.

I picked up a chair from the table, spun it around and deposited it next to the bed. Then I sat down and just watched her for a minute. The steady way she breathed. How her cute lips were parted slightly. The way a lock of blonde hair fell across her forehead.

My mind and my body warred with each other. My body liked this image… a lot. Usually seeing a beautiful woman asleep meant that we’d had sex already and likely would again. But this was my employee. Sure, I’d been tempted by women who worked here before, but this was a single mother. Even I wasn’t a big enough ass to jerk someone like that around.

“Penny? You’ve got to wake up.”

She stirred, her blouse gaping open slightly, exposing rather remarkable cleavage, which made a part of me stir, as well. Great, now I was a goddamn Peeping Tom.

“Penny.” I tried again. “Wake up.” This time, I reached out and smoothed a lock of tawny blonde hair back from her face.

She moaned slightly at my touch, and her hand rose to mine, pressing my fingers against her cheek and holding them there.

Was she awake? Her eyes were still closed, so maybe that was a reflex? Her cheek was warm under my palm, and her fingers clung to my wrist. Involuntarily, I thought about having other body parts entrapped by her.

Time to rouse her before I fully morphed into dirty old man territory.

“Penny, come on, you have to get up,” I said, and I rubbed my fingers over her cheek, feeling her smooth, supple skin.

She flinched as her eyes flew open, and now both her hands were clutching mine as she blinked, looking around in surprise. “What happened?”

“You fell asleep.”

“With you?” she said confusedly, and then awareness of where she was—and what she’d just said—seeped into her expression. With a blush on her face, she released my hand and pushed herself up to a sitting position. “I—I just thought I’d sit here for a moment. I guess I must have rested my head.”

“It’s not a federal crime. You must have needed to.”

“But I shouldn’t,” she said, her voice louder now. She hadn’t bothered to smooth her hair back when she sat up, and her golden strands were in bed-head mode.

Shit, she wore that look well. Too well… I needed the blood to keep flowing to my brain, not my—

“I’m at work. I should have been professional.”

It was a damn good thing she didn’t know the unprofessional thoughts I often had about her. “You were tired. Again, not a crime. And from what I’ve heard, not uncommon for parents of young children.”

“But I have to.” Her eyes were still a bit wild. I wasn’t sure she was completely awake yet.

“Have to what?”

“Be professional. I have to earn a living. For me. For Zoe. I’m all she has.”

Sympathy had me picking up her hand and squeezing it, even though there was triumph in my mind. She was doing this by herself. Which meant no man in the picture. Which meant whoever abandoned her was a total shit, but still… I had to admit that I was glad to hear she was unattached. That made me a selfish ass, but I already knew that. “I’m sure you’re doing the best you can.”

“But I’m not,” she said, and she pushed my hand away without even seeming to notice that she was doing it. “I just—I never knew it would be so hard.”

Really? She found the work hard? Challenging was okay, but it wasn’t supposed to be hard for a bright young woman like her. “I’ll talk to Vera, and she can—”

“Not the job,” she said, sitting up straighter, and I registered the moment she remembered that I was her boss. “The job is great, I’m really glad to work here.”

“But…” I prompted, wanting her to go back to thinking she could confide in me. And perhaps to thinking that I was a pretty great guy to wake up next to.

“But… it’s so hard being away from Zoe. My little girl.”

“How old is she?” I knew nothing about babies, but at least I knew that was an expected question.

“Six months,” she said. “I get so tired at the end of the day. She wakes me up a few times during the night, then I come here and work all day, and by the time I pick her up and go home, I’m exhausted.”

“That sounds normal.”

“But it shouldn’t be. I’m her mother. I can’t afford to be in a brain fog around her. The other day, I turned my back just for a moment at the changing table, and she almost wiggled off.”

“But she didn’t,” I said, briefly wondering what a changing table changed into. “That’s what matters.”

“No, it’s not,” The fact that she was arguing meant she was thinking of me as a guy and not her boss. Not sure why that pleased me so much, but it did.

Then that pleasure turned to alarm as the floodgates opened, tears pouring down her face and words spilling out of her mouth. And I didn’t have a fucking clue what to do about either.

“She could have been badly hurt, or…or …” She wiped the back of her arm across her eyes, trying to stem the tears. “I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. If she’s getting enough milk. If she’s gaining enough weight. How much screen time is too much.”

That startled me. “She’s old enough to watch TV?” Was there some sort of Baby Netflix I didn’t know about?

“No,” she said, the tears still falling at an alarming rate. “When she gets older. There are all these articles and books and online forums about how much time kids should be able to use tablets per day, and every place says something different, and how will I know? What if she uses electronics too much and her brain turns to mush? What if she uses them too little and she lacks key tech skills? She’ll never get a scholarship and go to college, and then how will she get a decent job?”

Penny slumped forward, resting her forehead in her palms.

Not knowing what else to do, I patted her on the back, casting around for something to say. “All that because you took a nap?”

There was a long pause, and then her shoulders shook. Fuck, when was I going to learn that I didn’t possess the skills to deal with an upset female? I should have called Vera in here to deal with this the minute I saw her asleep in my bed. In my home, in a hotel room, in some random redhead’s apartment, I knew exactly what to do with a woman in bed. Yet now, when I was trying to be a good man, I didn’t have a fucking clue. And now I’d made her cry harder.

Except her crying sounded weird, coming out in little bursts of air. Almost like—

I peeled one hand away from her face and tilted her chin upward. The tear tracks down her face did nothing to detract from her beauty, but to my great relief, no new moisture was forming on her lashes. In fact, one corner of her pale pink mouth tilted upward. “Are you laughing?”

“Well… it was funny.”

“It was a stupid thing to say.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “But a funny stupid thing to say.”

“I can live with that,” I slid my hand across her back to her shoulder, pulling her against me. She leaned into me willingly, her head resting against my chest. Gently, I stroked up and down her arm. When had I last held a woman like this? With no ulterior motive? With no impure thoughts? Well… okay, my thoughts were never 100 percent pure, but this young woman had a lot going on. Juggling the responsibilities of motherhood had been a tough task for my own mother, and she’d had full-time staff to help her. Penny had none of that.

The feeling of Penny’s soft blonde hair under my arm was tempting. I wanted to run my fingers through it, but I knew I should at least attempt not to make this any more personal than it already was. We were at work, she was my employee. More importantly, she was still upset.

I wished I could help her, but I knew nothing about parenthood. Nothing about babies keeping you up all night. Nothing about being solely responsible for a tiny human being.

But I did know when someone needed to give themselves a break, and Penny clearly needed to. And if she wasn’t prepared to do that herself, then I’d have to make her.

It was time for Penny to take a night off.