Her Little Secret, His Hidden Heir(18)
She twisted in her seat to face him, noticing the frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. “What do you mean?”
“How do you not pick up your own child?”
Vanessa blinked, wondering if she’d heard him correctly. Oh, she heard the words clearly enough, but was that a hint of guilt stealing through his tone? Guilt from a man she hadn’t thought understood the concept? Who’d let her walk away without a fight, with barely an explanation?
“Marc.” Shaking her head, she ducked her chin to keep him from seeing the amusement tugging at her lips. “I know this is all new to you. I know finding out about Danny was quite a shock, but you have nothing to feel guilty about. He’s a baby. As long as all of his needs are met, he doesn’t care who’s feeding him, who’s holding him, who’s changing his diaper.”
If anything, Marc’s frown deepened. “That isn’t true. Infants know the difference between their parents and simply a babysitter, between their mother and their father.”
“All right,” she acquiesced, “but rest assured that there are plenty of times I don’t pick him up right after he’s eaten because I don’t want him to get food on my clothes. Or worse yet, yurk on me.”
“Yurk?”
“It’s what Aunt Helen and I call a ‘yucky burp,’” she explained, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “Believe me, once you’ve had soured milk or formula spit up all over you, you learn fast not to wear nice clothes around a baby and to keep a towel handy.”
Without a thought of what she was doing, she reached across the console and patted his thigh. “If you’re going to be in town for a while to spend time with him, get yourself some nice, cheap jeans and T-shirts, and expect them to get dirty on a regular basis. But don’t worry about tonight. I didn’t hold him this morning, either, because I was dressed up for my meeting with you. That’s one of the great things about having Aunt Helen around. I can’t do everything all by myself and she helps to pick up the slack.”
Meeting her gaze, Marc wrapped his fingers around hers, holding her hand in place, even when she tried to pull it away. “I should be the one helping you with Danny, not your aunt. But don’t worry, we’re going to talk about that over dinner. Among other things.”
Despite the threat of The Big Talk and being pinned to her chair like a bug under Marc’s intense scrutiny and personal version of the Spanish Inquisition, dinner was actually quite enjoyable. He took her to the hotel’s dining room, which was actually one of the more moderately upscale restaurants in town and attempted to ply her with wine and crab cakes. Of course, since she was breast-feeding, the wine was a no-no, but the crab cakes were delicious. Maybe because he let her eat them in peace.
As soon as the waitress topped off their coffees and they’d made their dessert selections, however, she knew the stay of execution was over. Marc cupped his hands around the ceramic mug and leaned forward in his seat, causing her to tense slightly in her own.
“What was the pregnancy like?” he asked, getting straight to the point, as usual.
Vanessa blew out a small breath, relieved that he was at least starting out with an easy question instead of immediately launching into demands and ugly accusations.
“It was pretty typical, I think,” she told him. “Bearing in mind I’d never been pregnant before and didn’t really know what to expect. But there were no complications and even the morning sickness wasn’t too bad. It didn’t always limit itself to mornings, which made getting the bakery open and working twelve-hour days a bit of an adventure,” she added with a chuckle, “but it wasn’t as terrible as I’d expected.”
From there he wanted to know every detail of Danny’s birth. Date, time, length, weight, how long her labor had lasted—all facts that she’d taken for granted. In his shoes, though, she could imagine how desperate she would be to learn and memorize every one of them.
“I should have been there,” he said softly, staring down at the table. Then he lifted his gaze to hers. “I deserved to be there. For all of it.”
Her heart lurched and she braced herself for the onslaught, for every bit of anger and resentment she knew he had to be feeling…and that she probably deserved. But instead of lashing out, his voice remained level.
“As much as it bothers me, there’s no going back, we can only move forward. So here’s the deal, Vanessa.”
His green eyes bore into her, the same look she suspected he gave rival business associates during mergers and tricky acquisitions.
“Now that I know about Danny, I want in on everything. I’ll stick around here for a while, until you get used to that idea. Until I get the hang of being a father and he starts to recognize me that way. But after that, I’m going to want to take him home.”
At that, at the mention of his home, not hers, Vanessa went still, her shoulders stiffening and her fingers tightening on the handle of her coffee cup.
“That’s not a threat,” he added quickly, obviously noticing how tense her body had gone. “I’m not saying I want to take him back to Pittsburgh forever. I honestly don’t know yet how we’re going to work out the logistics of that, but we can discuss it later. I’m only talking about a visit so I can introduce him to my family, let my mother know she has another grandchild.”