To Have It All(19)

“Oh my goodness,” Hel gushed, clasping her hands in front of her. Twisting her neck, she looked back at me. “She’s gorgeous.”

“This is Pimberly,” I acknowledged.

Taking a few steps, Hel bent and picked up Pim. “Come see your Auntie Helen,” she cooed.

“Okay Helen,” I intervened, holding my hand up as if to stop her. “Don’t go getting attached and telling this kid you’re her aunt. Because you’re not. This is Max’s kid, and he doesn’t even want her.”

Helen scowled at me as she pressed Pim’s head to her chest, covering her other ear with her free hand. “Shh,” she hissed. “Don’t say that in front of her.”

I drew my eyebrows together. My sister was losing it. It was only yesterday she was bashing my head in with a hospital phone and barely believing I was her brother in another man’s body, now she was trying to be this little girl’s aunt. “She’s a baby,” I said, dryly. “She doesn’t know what the hell I’m saying.”

Helen lifted Pim up so she could get a better look at her. Then in a squeaky baby voice she said, “That’s not true, is it Pim? You’re a smart girl. Auntie Helen can tell.”

“Hel,” I groaned. “Easy with the Auntie stuff, okay?”

“Oh, Liam,” she hushed me with a dramatic eye roll. “So what if I’m not technically her aunt.”

“Not just technically, Hel,” I interjected. “Not at all. You literally just laid eyes on her two minutes ago.”

“So what?” she tsked. “No baby ever got hurt from a little extra love in their life.”

I let out a growl as I ran a hand through my hair. “What happens if we switch back, Hel? What happens if we get her attached to us and then we just disappear and she’s left with the real Max, the asshole that doesn’t want her?

Helen frowned, but didn’t say anything. She knew I had a point. Even if I didn’t, I could tell she didn’t want to discuss the unknown—the what if. For now, at this moment, all she wanted was to gush over this cute baby girl and forget the elephant in the room. Pim giggled at my phone as Hel took it out of her chubby hands.

“Motorcycle racing?” she questioned, arching one eyebrow. “Really Liam?”

“She likes the speed and the sound,” I defended. “Been watching ’em for twenty minutes. It was the only thing I could find to get her to stop crying.”

Hel shook her head with the faintest of a smile as she spun around and took in the apartment. “You weren’t kidding. He’s loaded. Look at that view,” she gasped when she finally noticed the windows.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Question is how does he have money? I can’t seem to figure out what he does for a living. If he’s not showing up to work, he might get fired.”

“Did you Google him?”

“Uh . . . no,” I admitted feeling stupid for not having done that already. “Just looked through his file cabinet and desk, but that’s a good idea.”

Tossing me the cell, she directed, “Look him up. I’m going to change this little princess.” Grabbing the diaper bag, she scurried off into the bedroom with Pim in tow. Pulling up the web browser, I entered his name and found a few links. From what I could tell, Max wasn’t employed. There wasn’t much to be found on him at all except for an obituary where he was named as a survivor of his father. Apparently, his father had been one of the first men to invest in natural gas, and he’d made a fortune. That explained Max’s wealth—he’d inherited it.

“What did you find?” Helen asked when she brought Pim back in.

“Seems to be unemployed at the moment. His father passed away a year ago and left him a fortune.”

“Must be nice,” Helen snorted. “What’d we get? A collector’s set of Miller Lite glasses and a living room set with five thousand cigarette burns.”

“Don’t forget the funeral expenses,” I added. No, no one would ever call Hel and me heir or heiress. Our father had passed away from cancer when we were teenagers; a product of Agent Orange and Vietnam. Our mother died from a broken heart a year later. That’s what we called it. In reality, she’d basically drank herself to death. Our parents didn’t leave us much, but our Grams tried to fill in as much as she could. Somehow, on her piddly social security income, she’d managed to leave us each a CD with a thousand bucks and a few sentimental things. It was more than she should have ever done, she’d given us so much before she’d passed.

“Oh, before I forget,” Helen interrupted my thoughts. Grabbing her purse, she yanked out some papers. “You need to fill these out for the hospital since you . . .” she paused and rephrased, “since Max is assuming responsibility for your hospital bills.”

“Great,” I huffed. “More papers.”

“What does that mean?” she inquired.

I explained the situation with Waverly wanting Max to sign over parental rights and Waverly pushing hard for it. “That’s why she brought Pim here today. She’s trying to overwhelm Max into submission and make him sign.”

“From what you’ve told me, I can understand why,” Helen voiced. “What are you going to do?”

Shaking my head, I sighed. “I don’t know. I’m still reeling from waking up as Max, and trying to figure out how to navigate in another man’s body. Now, I’ve got his estranged child and pissed-off ex on top of it.”