Beauty and Her Boss

‘I’m so, so sorry, Liv. If I’d thought for a moment that anything like this would happen, I’d have never asked you to fill in for me.’

‘I know. But don’t fear—I’ll muddle on through. You just focus on sorting things out at your end. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.’

Liv hung up fr

om her twin and tucked her phone back into her handbag. She stared again at the sleeping baby and bit her lip. It was usual for babies to sleep a lot, right? She touched her fingers to the baby’s forehead, but the baby didn’t feel hot or feverish.

What on earth was the poor little mite going to think when she woke up and found her mother gone? ‘Poor little chick.’

Right.

She planted herself in her office chair and pulled the phone towards her, punching in the contact number that Sebastian Tyrell had left...along with the instruction Only to be used in the direst of emergencies.

The phone rang three times before it was answered. ‘Ms Gilmour.’

‘Yes.’

‘I trust this is an emergency?’

The cold, clipped tones told her it had better be or there’d be hell to pay. She took an immediate dislike to the man. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’

‘My parents...?’

His tone didn’t change and she disliked him even more. ‘To the best of my knowledge they’re in excellent health. This has nothing to do with your parents. It’s to do with—’

Baby Jemima chose that moment to let loose with a loud wail.

Heavens! Who knew something so small could produce a sound so fierce? She stood up to peer into the carrier—still perched on her desk where it’d been left—but the sight of Liv seemed to startle the baby further. Baby Jemima’s face turned red as she started crying in earnest.

Oh, heck!

Sebastian Tyrell’s voice boomed down the line at her. ‘Is there a baby in my office?’

Technically, it was her office.

Actually, it was Liz’s office.

‘Hey, there, little one, hush.’ She ran her hand across the baby blanket—over the baby’s tummy—in an effort to impart some comfort. ‘Shh, it’s OK.’ She spied the dummy pinned to the blanket and popped it into the baby’s mouth. Baby Jemima immediately stopped crying and sucked on it greedily. Oh! She must be hungry.

‘What is a baby doing in my office?’

She hated that voice—the cutting ice of it. ‘That, Se—sir...’ She quickly caught herself. Liz had told her that first names weren’t used in the office. Ever.

She closed her eyes and pulled in a breath. She had to keep her wits about her. Slip-ups were not allowed. She couldn’t let Liz down. It was Sebastian Tyrell’s reserve, his distance—both physical and emotional—that had made them believe they could pull this deception off. They could still pull it off. She and Liz were identical twins—at least on the outside. He’d never be able to tell them apart. She could do this.

‘Continue, Ms Gilmour. Stopping partway through a sentence is not only unprofessional, but irritating.’

Her chin shot up and her nostrils flared. ‘I was hoping you could shed light on this particular emergency, sir. You see, the baby is the emergency. It was left on my desk during my lunch hour...along with a letter for you.’

‘What?’

She held the phone a little further away from her ear and refrained from pointing out that deafening one’s office manager wasn’t particularly professional either. Or that having her eardrums blasted was seriously irritating.

‘You’ll have to excuse me for having read your letter, but I deemed the situation warranted it.’ She feared, though, that her tone told him she didn’t give a flying fig what he thought about her having read his letter.

Air hissed down the line at her. ‘Read it out loud.’

She did. Word for word. As few as they were.