Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(11)

It means failing.

I spent the first twenty-one years of my life being underestimated to the point that I didn’t believe in myself. I need this job. I actually don’t suck at it, and while I know my success is more because I have the Carter family name behind me than because I’m actually good at negotiating with people, she hasn’t fired me yet.

Helping run a real estate empire? I can do that.

Raising Julienne’s baby?

I. Am. So. Fucked.

“If you want to have your lawyers go ahead and draw up paperwork for Ms. Carter-Kincaid to surrender custodial rights to me, I’m happy to wait,” Westley offers.

I straighten and shiver as a glop of frozen yogurt slides down my ass. “The hell she will. How do I know you’ll be a good guardian?”

He lifts a brow, then looks down at his arms, at the bundle of sleeping baby with a little milk dribbling out the corner of his mouth.

The utterly innocent bundle of orphan that I haven’t touched yet, even though realizing he’s completely alone in the world makes me want to smother him in my arms and hug him tight and promise him he’ll be okay.

Oh my god.

I don’t know if Julienne ever hugged him.

No wonder he’s so comfortable in a stranger’s arms. He just needs to be loved. That is all babies need, isn’t it?

Or is it?

Fuck. I don’t know the first thing about babies.

Fuckaroni.

I need Westley. I need him to teach me how to hold a baby and how to know when Remy’s hungry and how to put him to sleep. Yes, Remy, because he’s so tiny and innocent and a cute little name just fits him better.

Oh, double fuck with cheese and bacon on top.

I really am having maternal urges. And ridiculous notions about dark-eyed, overprotective strangers. I have a full staff who runs my house, and I’m positive any of them could teach me the same things this man holding the baby right now can.

Except those maternal urges to kiss Remy’s little cheeks are getting mixed up with the hello, hot single dad vibes thumping in my ovaries, which I do not appreciate.

Mostly.

“Granny-kins, it’s late, and tonight’s been a real shit-show. I think it’s time for you to hit the road.” I smile, but holy fucking shit, how the hell am I going to do this mothering thing? “I got this.”

I most definitely do not got this.

But I have to get my grandmother out of here before she catches on to how closely I might be veering into panic territory.

Imogen Carter, The Dame of the Carter family, knows things. And she’s scowling at me like my position at Carter International Properties isn’t the only thing in danger.

But it’s the one thing she can take away that I care about. I can’t lose my job.

I can’t. My job is the only thing that I’ve ever been successful at that matters.

“Go,” I repeat.

“Stay home tomorrow. Bond with the baby and get help lined up,” she orders me. “Mr. Jaeger, watch yourself.”

While my grandmother leaves, Westley turns away from me, but not all the way, and I catch the big bad construction guy’s face softening into a gentle smile.

Swoon.

No. No. Not swoon. Swoon is only for foreign hotties who believe me when I say my name is Melanie and that I get mistaken for Daisy Carter-Kincaid all the time. For men who know I’m a one-time deal. For men who can’t just drive down to Miami, and yes, there was that one who just drove down to Miami from California a few years back, so no, I don’t date Canadian or Mexican men either.

All of North America is out.

My security team agreed it was a good idea.

I knew when I found West in the pool house that he wasn’t a stripper, but I also knew that whoever he was, he was there because The Dame had ordered him to be, much like she’d had my security team find me and inform me she was headed over and needed to talk.

And I knew it would irritate the shit out of her to walk in on me making out with whoever he was.

And now I have to pay for my sins.

So, so much.





Five





West



It’s late. My head hurts the way it normally does after an adrenaline crash. There’s something orange dripping behind Daisy all over her marble floor and killing my curiosity about the wall of frozen yogurt in this bright, airy office—which I assume is her office because of the frozen yogurt wall and the distressed white desk at one end—and I don’t have a fucking clue where this baby needs to sleep tonight.

Me? I’ll be on the floor. Right next to him. For tonight, at least, while my temper cools and my injured pride heals. Nothing like being kicked with a dangled insta-family that’ll be taken away soon enough by those lawyers Imogen Carter was talking about.

But this little guy has bigger problems than my temper and pride.

He’s a fucking orphan. Without a bed. Probably have to sleep on—christ.

That round pink Persian-inspired rug in the center of the floor has a circle of penises woven into it. And the sunken white leather seating area around an indoor gas fireplace at the other end of the room has curved end tables decorated with jade stick figures doing each other in the butt.

My balls whimper. Tonight could’ve gone soooo differently. Are we sure all’s lost?

“So. You’re not a stripper,” Daisy says with an easy, friendly, trust me smile that puts an ache back in my shoulders.