The thought gave her comfort. Knowing she wasn’t going to do it gave her determination.
Focus gave her peace.
Damn Flint Collins. Bringing his newborn baby sister to work. She wasn’t going to think about him, other than to dissect his dealings with Owens Investments down to the last cent. Every investment. Every sale. Every client. Every expense report. Every report he ever wrote, period.
How his first night with a brand-new baby was going was not her concern.
The vulnerable look in those dark brown eyes didn’t mean he wasn’t guilty of theft.
The baby resting against that gorgeous, suited torso had no bearing on his business dealings.
Tamara was not going to have a relapse.
She was going to focus.
* * *
Setting his phone to wake him every two hours, knowing he was going to be up several times during the night, Flint had considered himself fully prepared for his first night as a brother/father. Or at least his first night as the sole responsible person for his “inheritance.”
When at 1:52 a.m. he was up for the fourth time, holding a bottle to a sleeping baby’s mouth, he didn’t feel capable of anything more. She’d cry. He’d feed her. She’d fall asleep sucking on the nipple. He’d put her back to bed and within half an hour her cry would sound on the monitor again, waking him.
At a little after one, he’d let her cry. She wasn’t due for another feeding until two thirty. She was dry. Surely she’d fall back asleep.
She hadn’t.
He’d changed her Pack ’n Play sheet.
He’d changed her diaper, even though she’d been completely dry.
He’d checked the stump of her umbilical cord.
And used the axillary thermometer under her arm. It had registered perfectly normal.
So he’d put the bottle back in her mouth and she’d sucked and swallowed for a few minutes before going back to sleep.
He hadn’t heard from Howard Owens. Had Tamara put in a good word for him? Or broken her promise and told his CEO that Flint had a crying baby in his office?
Even if he heard from Howard first thing, inviting him up, how sharp was he going to be in the morning on less than two hours’ sleep?
He had to get some rest. Parents didn’t stop requiring sleep the second they had a kid. His mom had slept.
Not that his mother was the greatest role model but, in this case, the thought made sense.
Settling the baby in her Pack ’n Play, double-checking the monitor, he quietly crossed the hall to his room, slid between the sheets and closed his eyes.
A vision of Tamara Frost was there. Her fiery hair, a cross between brown and red, curling and long, framing the gold-rimmed green eyes...
His eyes open, he stared at the ceiling for a couple of seconds before closing them again. He was supposed to be resting, not getting turned on.
Memories of the gravesite that morning assailed him. And then Bill Coniff’s distrusting face when Flint had asked for job security.
The sale he’d made had been a success. He had a client for life on that one. And earned his job security, as it had turned out.
He’d signed the noncompete. Financially he was sound.
Careerwise, he’d still be doing what he was good at.
Tamara Frost wanted a sit-down with him—