Employed by the Boss (Managing the Bosses 7)

She slid her thumb across the screen to answer the phone, and lifted it to her ear. “Hey, Christine.” Jamie made sure the words sounded cheerful. She didn’t want Christine thinking that she wasn’t happy to hear from her. They’d had their differences in the past, but after the stay in the mental hospital Jamie’s sister had become almost an entirely different person. She was quieter now, and easier to upset. The hostile tension that had always been present between them had dissipated, though, and there were no more insults from Christine. No more teasing about Jamie’s weight or insisting that Stephen was being persecuted by the legal system. She’d stopped asking if Jamie had let Stephen film them having sex. In fact, she almost never mentioned Stephen at all.

“Hi, Jamie,” the quiet reply came through the phone.

“How are you?” Jamie asked, shifting the phone so that it sat between her shoulder and chin and she could rest her hands on the laptop keyboard again.

“I’m doing really well,” Christine replied. “I mean, not… great. But I guess as well as I could be.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jamie said, tapping out a brief, formulaic reply to the email in front of her. “I’m really glad that you’re feeling better, Christine.”

There was a pause, like her sister was trying to figure out what to say. Jamie felt that way sometimes when they were talking. The pieces of their old conversations didn’t fit into the new ones they had now, but sometimes it felt like she didn’t know what to put in the place of the insults and fighting that had gone before.

“Thank you,” Christine said finally. Another pause, this one shorter. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know,” Jamie said, opening one of the spreadsheets instead of an email because it was easier to look at numbers and talk than try to read during a conversation. “Busy, mostly. The twins are keeping me on my toes.”

There was a hesitant laugh from Christine. “That’s actually what I was calling about,” she said. “I mean, I know that maybe I’m not your first choice, with everything that happened, but… I’ve started to get kind of bored just sitting at home and I thought maybe I could do something that—”

The quiet on the baby monitor abruptly gave way to crying, and Jamie sighed and stood. “Hold that thought a minute, Christine. I’ll be right back.”

She wondered as she made her way down the hall to the nursery again if the twins were getting sick. Maybe that was why they were so fussy today. Their getting sick would be just what she needed, something to make her day even more hectic.

Both babies were awake and crying by the time she walked over to the cribs. Jamie laid a hand in each one, smoothing them soothingly over the babies’ bellies.

“Hey, little one,” she crooned, looking down at both of them. “Don’t cry. I’m here.”

There was no decrease in the volume of the crying. Jamie hadn’t really expected one. She reached down and picked up Lillianna. Usually once she stopped crying, if they were both crying, Benton settled down, too.

The reason for Lillianna’s distress became obvious as soon as Jamie picked her up. She needed her diaper changed. Wondering if Christine would hang up on her if she didn’t come back soon enough, Jamie lay Lillianna out on the changing table and took care of the diaper swap.

She was getting good at it. Not quite as good as Alex, who seemed to have the same natural knack for baby care as he had for anything else that he set his mind to. It made her laugh sometimes, to think about the multi-billionaire CEO of Reid Enterprises changing a diaper with his own two hands, but it also made her feel warm, and in love. No matter how rich he got, Alex didn’t let it turn him into someone who only cared about money, or who felt like he was above anyone else. It was one of the many reasons that Jamie was so in love with him. And why, even through the roughest early days of new parenthood, she found herself falling more in love with him every day.

As she had predicted, Benton settled down again as soon as Lillianna stopped screaming. He’d been born a few minutes before her, but Jamie could already tell she was going to be the ringleader. Alex had wanted a little girl who was always talking back. He was probably going to get his wish.

With both the babies laid down again, Jamie jogged back toward the office and picked up her phone. “Christine?”

“I’m still here.”

“Oh, good.” Jamie smiled into the phone. She was a little impressed that her sister hadn’t just hung up and gone to do something else. “I’m sorry. The twins were crying.”

“Yeah. I could hear them actually.” Christine was silent for a moment, and Jamie wondered if she should say something, but then her sister spoke again. “What I was saying earlier… I wanted to talk to you about maybe helping out with the babies. If you were okay with that? I’d just

really like something to do, and I know that you’ve got work on top of the kids, and they’re my nephew and niece, so… I guess I was just thinking that maybe I could help you take care of them sometimes. Watch them for you. Stuff like that.”

On paper, it was the perfect solution. They already had Mark helping them out sometimes. And family members weren’t nannies. They were people that the twins should bond with, and have relationships with. But Jamie was a little worried about Christine watching the kids alone. What if something happened? What if she had a bad night?

Or, she didn’t have to be alone with them. She could come in sometimes while Jamie was working. That way there would be someone to make sure the twins were taken care of and Jamie could get her work done, but Christine wouldn’t be alone in the house with them while she was still recovering.

“That’s actually a really amazing offer,” Jamie said. “I could definitely use a little help. Thank you so much, Christine.”

“Oh,” Christine said. “You’re welcome. I should have offered sooner, honestly.”

“No. That’s okay. You’re offering now.” Jamie leaned back a little in her chair. “Actually, it would be really great to have someone who could watch the kids while I’m trying to work. Make sure they have someone right there if they’re crying or anything.”

“I could do that,” Christine said, voice soft.

“Okay,” Jamie said, learning to love her sister more every day. “What if we start with sometime later this week? Let me know what time works best for you.”

Christine offered a few different times, and Jamie nodded. “I think Thursday would be just fine. Why don’t we do that?”