On Thursday, I called had Vera send Penny into my office.

“Have a seat,” I said, sounding calm and professional even though the sight of Penny always put unprofessional thoughts in my head. She walked toward the chair in front of my desk, and I tried not to be obvious about staring. She dressed simply, straight skirts and button-down blouses, but she managed to look classy. Like a classy fantasy, actually. Because every time I saw her, my fingers ached to unbutton her shirt. To unzip that skirt.

Which was not what I was supposed to be thinking about right now. But one of the many regrets I had about my long lost Not-Sarah was that I’d never seen her completely unclothed. She’d been buried under layers of that dress, and I’d only seen glimpses of her smooth, creamy skin.

Penny reminded me of her. They were about the same height—at least I thought they were. Not-Sarah had been wearing very high heels so it had been hard to tell.

Sometimes, in my wildest dreams, I imagined that it had been Penny I’d met that night. But that was impossible. For one thing, she could barely afford childcare, and only the wealthiest members of society had attended that ball. Besides, she must have still been with her ass of an ex-husband then since she had a baby now.

The thought of any man leaving Penny pissed me off, so I forced myself to smile, betraying none of my thoughts. “How are you?”

“Great,” she said, but her smile didn’t look a whole lot more genuine than mine felt. What was bothering her? “Vera said you needed my help?”

“Yes. I want to iron out some more details for that meeting I’m hosting for the CEO group.”

“How can I help?”

I looked her over. She had a notebook out, but she perched on the edge of the seat across from my desk, ready to jump up at any moment.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Her body language contradicted her. She squirmed in her seat under my direct gaze.

Shit, maybe she was uncomfortable. “Do you need to… pump?” I jerked my head to the side, indicating the private suite.

“No. I don’t have to do that anymore. I can just go breast feed directly now.”

Oh. Of course. I felt like an idiot. How could I know so little about the processes involved in the continuation of the human species? If it were up to men—at least men like me—we would have died out centuries ago.

“That must make things easier,” I said, though the caveman part of my brain realized that setting up the daycare, I’d deprived myself of seeing her several times a day when she came in to use the private suite. Shit. Definitely hadn’t thought that one through.

“It does,” Penny said, and she sounded sincere. “It’s amazing being able to see Zoe anytime I want.”

“I’m glad.” The gentleman side of my brain—a side that had felt fairly non-existent the past few years—was overruling the caveman component.

“I don’t mean all the time.” She looked at me anxiously. Was I really that much of an ogre? That was definitely not how I wanted her to think of me.

“Relax, Penny. No one’s expecting you to punch in and out every time you check on your child.”

“Okay. I mean thanks.” A blush stole across her face. “I’m just so grateful that you built the nursery. I don’t want to repay that kindness by being bad employee.”

“I doubt you could be a bad employee even if you tried.”

Somehow, over the course of the next half hour, Penny came close to proving me wrong. Well, she wasn’t a bad employee—more like a distracted one. She took notes on my ideas for the meeting and even contributed one or two of her own, but it was obvious her mind wasn’t on the task. And twice she got something wrong when repeating things back to me.

True, my ego could probably use a little deflating—certainly some of my friends were fond of telling me so—but I wasn’t used to having employees seem so distracted around me.

But the bigger bruise to my pride wasn’t because of my position at the company. At dinner the other night, Penny had seemed to like being with me. I’d caught her watching me when she thought I wasn’t looking. She’d been paying plenty of attention then. But not now.

That thought made me sound a little gruffer than I meant to. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” She looked wide-eyed and innocent, which made me want to pull her into my arms, claim her mouth with a devouring kiss, and put her mind firmly in the gutter where mine was. But there was something in her voice that sounded like she knew what I was talking about.

“Just tell me what the problem is.”

She let out a little breath of air, a small sound of defeat, and put her notebook on the edge of my desk. “It’s lunchtime.”

“You’re hungry?”

“No. I just—for the past few days since you put in the nursery, I’ve been spending my lunch hour with Zoe. It’s silly, I see her at other times during the day. I can definite go without a day. I just… miss her.”

“Don’t you get to eat?”

“I bring my lunch and eat with Pat. Afterwards, I feed her.”

Pat. The caveman part of my brain was back—this time pissed at the casual way she’d said the name of another man. But that was stupid. Of course she spoke with Pat. He was the only one back there besides the assistant and Zoe. Several more children would be attending starting next week.

Somehow, though, I hadn’t thought that every time Penny was going to visit Zoe, she was also visiting Pat. So as part of my brilliant plan to provide the childcare Penny desperately needed, I’d made it so she talked to him several times a day instead of me. And did he stay when she nursed? Did he ever catch a glimpse of those perfect breasts I’d seen the first time I met her?

That thought had me seething. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out to be a nice guy. Time to go back to what I knew best—how to give orders and get my way. “Go get her.”

“What?”

“Go get Zoe, and we’ll have a working lunch.”

“With a baby? She can get awfully loud.”

“So can I,” I growled, rather nonsensically. But I’d moved heaven and earth to get that nursery finished to help Penny with her childcare, not to help Pat meet women. “Go get her, and I’ll order some food. We can eat at the table in the suite.”

“Okay. Umm… thank you,” Penny said, standing up and looking at me like I’d lost my mind. But she was calmer. Amazing how the thought that she’s soon see her little girl did that to her.

Hitting a button, I had Vera on the phone almost before Penny left the room. “Order lunch. For two. And get whatever Penny might need to nurse the baby in the suite.”

“Like what?” Vera sounded amused.

How the hell should I know? “A special pillow? A bib? You know I don’t know anything about that kind of thing. For all I know, the kid uses a straw.”

“Penny’s a lactating mom, not a juice box.”

“Just get everything here ASAP,” I ordered. Vera’s chuckle as she hung up proved she knew me too well to be bothered when I snapped at her.

Thank god for that.

* * *

Lunch had gone well. Penny was so good with the baby, bouncing her on her knee, kissing her cheek, talking to her in the cutest little voice. Had my mother ever talked to me in such a silly, light-hearted way? Probably not. Likely some nanny along the way had, but I didn’t remember any specific one. They’d never lasted long.

It was easier to look at Penny and not get caught when she was focused on her baby. Watching my personal assistant act natural and carefree filled me with longing. Our dinner the other night ended abruptly, and I knew it was hard for Penny to get away in the evening.

Not that I could ask her out again. She was my employee. That was reason enough to tread carefully. Sure, I’d been attracted to women who worked for me before, but I’d resisted and taken my pleasure elsewhere. It was a bad idea to date an employee. And if that employee was a single mother? That made the situation even more complicated.

It frustrated the hell out of me. I should stay away, but I didn’t want to. But I also didn’t know how to get any closer. It’s not like I could invite Penny out in the evening—it would be pretty difficult to claim I needed her to take notes at a dance club. And I doubt she’d believe that I checked out new restaurants for official work purposes every week.

This was new territory for me, not knowing how to approach a woman. Not knowing how to make her mine. Hell, I didn’t even know if she wanted to be with me. Though every once in a while, I caught a look from her that made me think maybe she did.

Or maybe she wanted this jerk, I thought, as I knocked on the open door of the nursery and went inside. Pat was standing in the middle of the room, holding Zoe on his hip and reading to her from a small book he held out in front of them. He saw me and grinned. “Our little Zoe’s not a rocking chair kind of gal.”

Nice to know the daughter was as hard to figure out as the mother. Nodding at him to go on, I leaned against a bookcase and listened for a minute as Pat finished reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Fairy tales. Those never worked out well. I thought of my Not-Sarah disappearing like Cinderella after the ball and grimaced.

“Wanna hold her?”

Pat was at my side, holding the baby out to me. To me. And the little girl had her hands raised and was leaning toward me. What was the point of reading a child fairy tales if said child didn’t recognize a Big Bad Wolf when she saw one? “I’m good.”

“She’s a sweetie, but she keeps me hopping. It’s good practice for when the other little ones come along.” Pat rubbed Zoe’s back, answering her smile with his own. He was so good with her. So natural. If I tried to bounce her around the room like that, I’d drop her, and Penny would never speak to me again.

“How many have signed up?”

“Four so far. We’re good for twelve—more when the expansion is ready.”

“They’re gonna be in to work on that next week. I figured we’d give Zoe some peace and quiet for a while.”

“I’m sure she appreciates it. Though it won’t do her any harm to be around other babies. She never saw any when Penny’s friend was watching her, the woman who broke her hip. How’s she’s doing anyway?”

“No clue.”

“Oh,” Pat said. “I thought you are Penny were friends.”

“We are,” I said, almost growling it. Yet I hadn’t thought to ask about Hazel. Some friend I was.

Pat shrugged and then spun the baby around, making her laugh. He really was good with her. I had to give him that even if I didn’t like the casual way he referred to Penny.

We chatted for a few more minutes about the expansion, and I made some mental notes of some of Pat’s ideas.

On the way back to my office, I stopped to talk to Vera. And I did talk to her, but my eyes were on my newest personal assistant’s empty desk. A minute or two later, Penny returned to it holding a stack of files. She saw me and smiled.

It was a beautiful smile that I wanted to see more often.

And she was a beautiful woman that I wanted to see more of. It wasn’t a good idea. It wasn’t particularly easy.

But neither of those things were going to stop me.