Employed by the Boss (Managing the Bosses 7)

Jamie’s hand went slack around the phone, and she realized just in time to catch it before it slipped from her fingers and hit the floor. She fumbled it back into its proper position at her ear. “Mom’s back?” she asked, just to be sure that she’d heard right.

“She got in sometime last week, I guess,” her dad said. “She hasn’t contacted me except to let me know that she’s here, and she’d like to pick up a few of her things that I still have in storage.”

Her mom was back. Jamie had told herself over and over again that she wouldn’t care if her mom did come back to New York. She didn’t care what her mom did. But she did care. Knowing that her mother was back in the city stirred up an uneasy twist in her stomach. What if she tried to come to the house? What if she bothered Christine? She shook herself when she realized she’d been silent for far too long, and spoke into the phone again.

“When is she coming to get them?”

“I’m not sure, honestly,” her father answered. “She didn’t say. I’m assuming that she’ll call me and let me know when she’s decided. But I just wanted to let you know that she’s here. I figured having her show up with no warning would be an unpleasant shock. It certainly shocked me to hear from her.”

“You’ve got to keep her away from Christine, Dad,” Jamie said.

“She and Christine always got along well,” her dad pointed out. “If Christine wants to see her, I can’t stop that.”

“You could,” Jamie said. “She’s too fragile to deal with Mom right now. She’s just starting to recover. And just because Mom pretended to be nice to her in the past doesn’t mean she will now. Just promise me that you’ll keep an eye on her.”

“I will,” her father promised. “And Jamie, you be careful, too. I don’t want you getting hurt either.”

“I will be, Dad. I’m sure that she won’t want to see me anyway. It’ll be fine.” She sighed, and closed the email she had been working on; she wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on it now. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, Peanut. I don’t want you to worry, just be aware.”

“And sleep with one eye open,” she joked. “Thanks, Dad.” The phone call ended, and Jamie sat staring at the phone in her hand for a long moment. It didn’t matter that her mom was back in town, she told herself. She would get her stuff and go, and that would be the end of it. Everything was going to be fine.

Over the baby monitor, she heard the sounds of one of the twins starting to wake, and she got up and went to the nursery, leaving all worries about her mother behind.

Alex, when she told him that night as they got ready for bed, wasn’t quite as sure as she had been that her mother wasn’t going to try to bother them.

“She likes making other people miserable, Jamie,” he said, sliding under the blankets. “That’s what she does. How do you know that she won’t decide this is prime time to try to get at you?”

“She’s just here for her stuff,” Jamie said as she hit the light and crossed the room to crawl into bed with him. “I’m sure that she’ll just get it and go. She might like making me miserable, but not at the expense of making herself miserable by having to be in my unworthy presence.”

In the dark, Alex’s arm curled around her, drawing her close against the heat of his body. “You’re not unworthy,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re everything that’s good about this world.”

“I think that might be taking it a little bit far,” Jamie laughed, but the words curled up warm behind her ribs all the same.

“I’ll stand by it either way,” Alex said, and this time his fingers under her chin tipped it up for a kiss.

Jamie felt heat rush through her. It had already been days since dinner and sex in the car, and she was ready for more. More than ready. She glanced over at the unblinking green light of the baby monitor. There was no sound. “What do you say,” she breathed, wrapping one of her legs over Alex’s and rocking her hips against his thigh, “we see how much trouble we can get up to in the next fifteen minutes before someone inevitably demands our attention?”

“Is that a challenge?” Alex demanded.

“You know it,” Jamie shot back.

“Oh,” Alex growled, “you’re on.”

There was no more talking after that.

***

“You know,” Jamie said the next morning, dipping a spoon into the jar of mashed banana and holding it out to Benton, “there’s this thing you’re supposed to do with food which is called eating it.”

Benton giggled, and made no move to eat the food. Jamie sighed, but she couldn’t quite help the smile his laughter brought to her face.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” She offered the spoon to Lillianna, who eagerly leaned forward to take a bite, and made a happy little ‘mmm’ sound as she tasted the banana. “See? Your sister’s got the hang of it. Now your turn.” She offered another bite.

Benton smacked his chubby little hand against the tray of his highchair and laughed at the sound it made. There was a knock on the door, heralded by the sound of Jake barking.

Who could that be, Jamie wondered as she stuck the spoon back into the jar and stood, leaving the twins to their own devices for a moment while she went to answer it. Mark would already be at work with Alex, or out at the club. And if it was him, he’d probably figure that she was busy with the twins and let himself in anyway. Maybe it was FedEx; she did have a package on the way. Jake danced around her feet as she headed for the door, and she caught him by the collar to hold him back as she opened it.