The Perfect Father
Elizabeth Bevarly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Elias David Beard, the new man in my life. I love you, buckaroo.

Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Epilogue

Prologue

“Okay, Simon. Now do as Auntie Sylvie says, and everything will be just fine.”

Sylvie Venner widened her eyes and nodded with encouragement, then guided a spoonful of strained carrots toward her eight-month-old nephew’s mouth. She fingered a length of her blond blunt-cut hair away from her eyes and felt something gloppy sticking to the jaw-length tresses. When she pulled away her hand, she saw that her fingertips were covered with orange. Smiling indulgently, she placed the spoon back into Simon’s bowl and reached for a napkin to wipe what she could of the carrots from her hair.

“You nailed Auntie Sylvie pretty well with that last handful, didn’t you, buckaroo?”

Simon squealed with laughter and squirmed with delight in his high chair.

Olivia McGuane, Sylvie’s sister and Simon’s mother, glanced up from tossing a salad and smiled. “I told you he was an adventurous eater, and I told you not to feed him when you’re dressed for work. But nooooooo. You had to be the one to do the honors.”

Zoey Holland, a co-worker of Olivia’s who completed the trio of very close friends enjoying their monthly Sunday-afternoon brunch, laughed. “Nice sweater,” she said of Sylvie’s thick, bright red, hand-crocheted cardigan. “How much did you pay for it?”

Sylvie sighed as she inspected the garment in question. In addition to her sweater, her bartender’s uniform of white dress shirt, multicolored silk necktie and black, man-style trousers was also decorated by a number of other colors—beet purple, string-bean green, tapioca off-white and squash yellow. Each had been a course she’d been certain the baby would love, but Simon had sent them all back, deeming them—in his own unique way—unsuitable fare.

“I got this sweater on sale, all right?” she replied. “Besides, baby food is organic. The dry cleaner can get it out. Right, Livy?”

Olivia’s expression was not reassuring. “Actually, I’m not sure what they make baby food out of. Whatever it is, it bears absolutely no resemblance to real food.”

Zoey nodded her agreement. “I think there’s some hush-hush, top secret lab somewhere in a place like Spongemop, South Dakota, that biochemically engineers baby food to be as offensively tasting and eternally staining as possible.”

“I’ve read that, too,” Olivia confirmed with a nod.

Sylvie eyed her friend and her sister warily. Both women worked as R.N.’s in a hospital maternity ward—Zoey in the nursery and Olivia in obstetrics. They probably knew what they were talking about. She threw Simon a suspicious look. He threw a suspicious look of his own right back at her. Then he smiled a two-tooth smile, revealing his dimples, and Sylvie forgave him his transgressions.

“Do you think he’ll ever grow any hair?” she asked, noting the bald scalp with which the little guy had been born.

Olivia shook her head, her own long dark curls flying. “Who knows? By this time I’m so used to him bald, I’m not sure I’d recognize him with hair.”

Zoey shoved a fat, auburn braid over her shoulder and snatched a deviled egg from a plate full of them on the table. “He’s getting cuter every day, Liv. You should list him with a talent agent. If nothing else, he could be a ‘before’ shot on one of those late-night commercials for that men’s hair-growing club.”

Sylvie chuckled. “Well, all I know is that it looks like Auntie Sylvie’s going to have to try a new tactic if she’s going to get the little buckaroo fed.” She lifted the spoon into her hand once more, then vibrated her lips together to simulate the sound of an engine.

Simon smiled at her, looking intrigued.

Sylvie smiled back. Maybe she was on to something here. “Cooperation, buddy. That’s today’s word. Now, open your mouth and let Mr. Airplane fly right inside.”

The baby did as requested until Sylvie’s hand was within millimeters of completing the task. Then Simon shut his mouth tight, crossed his pudgy arms over his stomach and turned his head to the side. Sylvie couldn’t help but laugh at his expression.

“Oh, boy, Simon. You’re definitely Venner through and through. Neither your mama nor your auntie ever does anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“And when your aunt does want something,” Olivia added, “watch out. Because nothing—and I mean nothing—is ever going to make her change her mind about going after it.”

“Must be some genetic thing,” Zoey said.

Simon cooed and gurgled his agreement.

Sylvie set the bowl of carrots on the kitchen table beside her. Simon had eaten almost as much as he’d thrown on her, she decided, which meant he’d eaten quite a bit. She pulled him out of his high chair, told the others she was going upstairs to clean up both herself and the baby, and departed with the little guy in tow.

Simon was such a wonderful baby, Sylvie thought as she fastened the Velcro closures on his diaper some time later. He stared up at her from his changing table, his ridiculously long lashes making his wide brown eyes appear even darker. He kicked his legs and circled her index finger with one hand. Then he blew a bubble and smiled at her again.

“He’s pretty cute, huh?” Zoey asked as she entered the nursery and looked over Sylvie’s shoulder.

“The cutest baby in the world,” Sylvie agreed.

“And the smartest,” Olivia added as she joined the other two.

For a long moment all three women stared down at Simon, and his gaze wandered intently over each face. When he refused to release Sylvie’s finger, she lifted her other hand to his cheek, stroking the warm, delicate skin softly with the pad of her thumb.

“I need to tell you guys something,” she said suddenly. She hadn’t intended to break the news to her friends just yet, but for some reason the moment seemed right. “I’m going to have a baby.”

She looked up to find Olivia and Zoey gazing back at her with identical expressions of undeniable surprise. Or shock, maybe, Sylvie amended. Shock was probably a more accurate assessment of their reactions.

“A baby?” Olivia asked.

“When?” Zoey demanded.

“Soon,” Sylvie told them. “Christmas, I think. That would be a nice time to have a baby, don’t you think?”

“But Christmas is more than eleven months off,” Zoey pointed out. “I think your math might be just a little skewed here, Sylvie. Or else you’re dumber than you look.”

Sylvie made a face at her.

“Uh, not as smart as you look?” Zoey amended.

Still Sylvie stared.

“Well, you do realize it only takes about nine months to make a baby, don’t you?”

“I know that,” Sylvie assured her.

“But you’re not...there’s no one...I mean...” Olivia drew a deep breath and tried again. “Okay, little sister, if you’re going to have a baby, then who’s the father? Although you certainly go out often enough that you’ve got a passel of guys to choose from, I know for a fact that you’ve almost never found one interesting enough to...you know. Don’t tell me there’s someone special after all this time.”

Sylvie smiled cryptically. “I haven’t quite decided who the father is yet.”

Her two companions turned to look at each other, then back at Sylvie. Olivia lifted a hand and cupped it gently over her sister’s forehead.

“No fever that I can detect,” she told Zoey. “So it must be some kind of psychological trauma.”

“It’s neither,” Sylvie assured them, pushing her sister’s hand away. “I am going to have a baby. In late December. And I don’t know yet who the father is.”

“I’ll get Dr. Clifferman on the phone,” Zoey said as she turned her attention to Olivia. “He’s the best shrink in town. You get the straitjacket. Just don’t make any sudden moves around her.”

“Will you guys knock it off?” Sylvie said. “I’m not crazy. I’m not pregnant yet, either. But I will be soon.”

The other women looked at her again, but this time their commentary was a bit more subdued.

“Why on earth would you want to get pregnant?” Olivia asked. “Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. Those nine months are no picnic in the best of circumstances—let alone when you’re single and have no idea what to expect.”

Sylvie shrugged. “But I want to have a baby.”

“Don’t you think it might help to find a father for this baby first?” Zoey suggested. “And fall in love with him first? And marry him first? That’s the way things traditionally happen, even in this, the very late twentieth century.”

“I’m not a traditional person,” Sylvie said.

“Well, that’s certainly true,” her sister agreed.

“And I have no interest in attaching myself permanently to a guy. They bring nothing but trouble. You, Livy, above anyone, should know that.”

“Hey, what I know is that I’m now married to the most wonderful man in the world and can’t wait to make his children Simon’s siblings,” Olivia told her. She held up a hand to ward off her sister’s objection as she added, “Oh, I won’t deny I made more than a few mistakes before Daniel entered the picture, but... That’s all the more reason to be reassured there’s some perfect guy out there for you, too. Just give it time, Sylvie.”

Sylvie shook her head. “Daniel’s one in a gazillion. There aren’t any others like him in the world. And there certainly isn’t a man in the world who could make me change my mind about staying single. I like being single. But I’d also like to be a mother. Being around Simon has stirred up something inside of me I’ve never felt before. It’s a wonderful feeling, Livy. I know—way down deep in my heart I’m absolutely certain—that I’m destined to be a mother. And I’ll be a good mom, too. I just know I will.”

“We’re not disputing that,” Zoey said, her voice softer now. “You’ll be terrific with kids of your own. It’s this father business we’re worried about.”

Olivia nodded her agreement. “You know how I feel about this, Sylvie. Mine and Daniel’s situation after Simon was born could have filled a book. You have to be careful. Having a child isn’t something you can go into without considering all the repercussions in advance.”

Sylvie lifted her chin defensively. “You did.”

“Yeah, and look how much grief it caused me.”

“But everything turned out with a ‘happily ever after,’ didn’t it?”

She knew Olivia couldn’t dispute that. She and her husband were two of the happiest people Sylvie knew. But there was another, stronger reason she was in such a hurry to become a mother. And, she decided as she thought about it, she supposed Livy and Zoey deserved to know.

“There’s something else,” she finally said quietly. “Something more that makes me eager to have a baby now, as soon as possible. I really don’t have much choice.”

Olivia and Zoey eyed her warily. “Why not?” they asked as one.

Sylvie sighed. She still hadn’t quite come to terms with it herself. “I don’t have much time left to make a baby,” she said.

“Why not?” the other two women repeated.

“I went to the gynecologist last week, and she verified something that she’s suspected for a long time. Evidently I’ve been having some problems with my reproductive plumbing. Dr. Madison seems to think that I’ve only got about a year left that I can truly count on being fertile. After that, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for me to get pregnant. If I’m going to have a baby, I have to do it now. Otherwise, there’s a chance I might never be able to conceive.”

“Sylvie, we need to talk more about this,” her sister said. “And you need to think more about this. Think long and hard before you make a final decision.”

“I’ve already thought about it long and hard,” Sylvie assured the other women. “And I’ve already made my final decision. My baby will arrive just in time for Christmas.”

“And the father?” Zoey asked in a tone of voice that indicated she was no more enthusiastic about Sylvie’s decision than Olivia was.

Sylvie smiled. “I have two whole months to decide who among the men I know will make the best father.”

“Two months,” Zoey repeated, her expression illustrating how crazy she thought the whole idea was.

“Two months,” Sylvie echoed with a decisive nod. “That’s all the time I’ll need to find the perfect father for my child.”

One

Cosmo’s Bar and Grille had been a downtown Philadelphia fixture for decades, a five-star restaurant known for its continental fare, its soothing peach-and-gray art deco atmosphere and its continual showcase of good jazz music. But those weren’t the only reasons Chase Buchanan liked to frequent the place. As he made himself comfortable at his usual spot at the bar, he caught the bartender’s eye. Without even asking him what he was drinking, she reached for a bottle of expensive single-malt Scotch and splashed a generous portion over ice in a crystal tumbler.

“Hi, Mr. Buchanan,” she said as she placed the glass before him with a cheerful smile.

“Hello, Sylvie,” he replied.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show up tonight. I should have known you were just working late. Again.”

“Sometimes that’s what it takes to get the job done.”

She shook her head slowly, chin-length blond tresses shimmering with the motion. “You work too hard,” she told him bluntly. “People should work to live, not live to work. You ought to stop and count your blessings sometime.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather stop and count my change.”

Sylvie shook her head at him again and simply repeated, “You work too hard.”

Chase could hardly contradict her, not that he wanted to. Ever since he’d left his position as a junior architect of Bulwar-Melton-Jones Associates to start his own firm, he couldn’t recall a moment when he hadn’t had some major project commanding virtually every scrap of his time. BMJ had been a company without foresight, a bunch of old men with absolutely no imagination. He’d joined them immediately after receiving his college degrees and left them less than five years later. In the fifteen years that had followed, he’d made an excellent name for himself in the field of architectural design. His own company was known for its savvy, its cutting-edge timing and its farsighted vision. He had enough going on at any given moment to demand his complete and utter attention.

Buchanan Designs, Inc. meant everything to Chase. He gave 110 percent to his company. And dammit, he didn’t expect any less from anyone who worked for him.

“Yes, well, that’s easy for you to say,” he finally told Sylvie after an idle sip of his drink. “You don’t have to run this place.”

Her smile broadened. “You couldn’t pay me enough to run this place,” she countered. “You couldn’t pay me enough to run any place. I don’t want to be in charge of anything. I don’t want that kind of responsibility. Too much stress. That’ll send you to an early grave faster than anything else will, you mark my words.” She slung a linen towel over her shoulder and reached into the garnish bin to pop an olive into her mouth. “Not only that,” she added carelessly, “but it eats up way too much of your time. There’s a lot more to life than working, you know. And I intend to enjoy every moment of it I can.”

Although he wanted to disagree with her, Chase didn’t dispute her words. He was quite certain that what Sylvie said rang absolutely true—for Sylvie. But he thrived on being in charge of his own company. For him, working was living. And he was perfectly happy with things that way.

“Living means something different for everyone,” he told her. “For me, and for everyone who comes to work for me, business has to come first. It has to be the one thing in life that’s important. Hell, it has to be life, period.”

She surveyed him intently. “If you ask me, that’s nuts.”

“I don’t recall asking you,” he said with a smile.

Normally, no one—absolutely no one—spoke to Chase so frankly and dogmatically. They didn’t dare. But the attitude was perfectly normal coming from Sylvie. He expected it, and he more than tolerated it—he welcomed it. On more than one occasion she had been his devil’s advocate, and the byplay he enjoyed with her was something he shared with no one else.

What was odd was that Chase really didn’t know Sylvie all that well—hell, he didn’t even know her last name. But he’d been coming into Cosmo’s after work three or four times a week ever since he’d moved his office into the building across the street. That had been two years ago, and at that time, Sylvie had just been starting her own stint at the restaurant.

Somewhere along the way he had altered his schedule to match hers, stopping by for dinner at the restaurant before heading home only on those evenings when he knew she would be working behind the bar. Why he’d done this he didn’t know. But Chase liked Sylvie. He liked her a lot. She was funny and spirited and a welcome change of pace after a long day of stress and high pressure. She was cute in her man’s white dress shirt that always appeared to be two sizes too big, and the neckties she wore with her uniform were always something interesting. She had a nice smile. And somehow she always made him feel better before he went home at night. Already he sensed the day’s tension and irritation easing from every corner of his mind.

He’d even come close to asking her out a couple of times. But he never had. Because he just didn’t date women for very long, and he hadn’t wanted to put an end to the easy camaraderie he shared with Sylvie.

When he looked up from his drink she was eyeing him thoughtfully, and he wondered what was going on in that beautiful blond head of hers.

As if she sensed his inquisitiveness, she asked, “Are you telling me you’d rather work fifteen or sixteen hours a day than go home after the usual nine-to-five to a wife and family?”

Chase grimaced, running a big hand through coal black hair liberally threaded with silver. “God forbid. What a nightmare. Look, I’m forty years old and rabidly single. What does that tell you?”

She shrugged, still smiling. “Maybe that you’re not such a great catch after all?”

He gaped at her before chuckling. “Oh, thanks a lot. I’ll have you know there have been plenty of women who have tried to wrestle me to the ground and have their way with me—their way usually culminating in a leisurely stroll down the bridal path.”

“But you want none of it, is that it?”

He shook his head vehemently. “Absolutely not.”

“Not even the pitter-patter of little feet? You’re not one of those guys who wants to make sure he leaves his mark on the world in the form of a little Mr. Buchanan, Junior?”

He shuddered for effect. “God, no. I can’t stand children.”

Her brows arched in surprise. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. I mean, think about it. When they’re babies, all they do is lie there and look at you, commanding that you do everything for them. When they’re children, they’re constantly into things they shouldn’t be into—you have to watch them every moment of the day. When they’re adolescents...hell, forget about that. And when they’re adults, they’re completely ungrateful for everything you ever did for them, for every sacrifice you ever made.”

He sipped his drink again before continuing, “Don’t tell me you’re surprised by the way I feel. You don’t exactly seem like the kind of woman who wants to be dragged down by a passel of kids. You seem to enjoy being single.”

“Oh, I love being single. But I also love kids.” She bent beneath the bar and appeared to be searching for something, then rose again with a wallet in her hand. She flipped it open and thumbed through a bulging collection of photographs housed in the plastic sheets contained within. “This is my nephew, Simon,” she said as she opened her wallet on the bar before Chase. “He’s the most wonderful baby in the world. Look at that smile. You can’t tell me you don’t think he’s adorable.”

Chase offered the photo a perfunctory scan, pretended to be interested and replied dryly, “Adorable. Look, I’m starving. What’s good tonight?”

Sylvie sighed and shook her head at him again. She seemed to be doing that a lot this evening, he thought. As if she were considering him for some major project only to find him lacking in some way. Or maybe not lacking, he amended when she continued to study him as she put her wallet away. That look in her eye was distinctly...interested.

He pushed the supposition away. Probably he was working too hard lately. No doubt he was thoroughly misreading the signals Sylvie was sending his way. She had never once offered him any indication that she wanted to get to know him better, and having heard her bemoan the shortcomings of some of the men in her life, he knew he was in no way her type.

And even if he was, even if she ever did come on to him, Chase knew he would never succumb. It was nothing personal, he reflected. If he were to get intimately involved with a woman right now, he supposed Sylvie was a likely enough candidate to fit the bill. But involvements led to entanglements, and entanglements led to relationships. And relationships, he thought, simply commanded too much time to keep them running properly. Time was a precious commodity. He had very little of it to spare. Therefore a relationship with a woman was the last thing he could afford.

Watching Sylvie as she strode to the end of the bar for a menu, he sighed wistfully. But maybe he had gone too long without the intimate aspects of a relationship, he conceded. When was the last time he’d made love to a woman, anyway? he asked himself now. And who was the last woman he’d made love to? He thought back, trying to recall the details.... His eyes widened when he remembered. No, surely it couldn’t have been that long ago, he told himself. Could it? He shook his head in disbelief. Obviously he really didn’t have time for a relationship.

If only he could find a nice woman with whom he could share a brief, one- or two-time interlude and call it quits. Unfortunately, most of the women who could provide such an encounter did it for a living, and that wasn’t exactly the kind of woman Chase had in mind. He couldn’t make love to a stranger, nor to someone who chose sex for her occupation. For his fantasy fling, he wanted a woman he cared for to at least some degree—and who cared for him in return—but who wouldn’t demand all of his attention after it was over.

“Yeah, right,” he muttered to himself. And what self-respecting woman would concede to an arrangement like that? No one of his acquaintance, that was for sure.

He looked up from his drink and saw Sylvie standing before him, holding a menu out for his inspection.

“Sounds wonderful to me,” she said. “Want to give it a try?”

For one wild moment Chase thought she was offering herself up for just the kind of hit-and-run encounter he had just been imagining. Then he realized she must have been talking to him for several moments without his listening, and that he’d only heard the conclusion of her speech.

“What?” he asked. “I’m sorry, I was thinking about something else. Could you go over that again?”

She gazed back at him with much interest, and he just couldn’t shake the feeling that she was evaluating him in some way. However, when she spoke, her voice held its usual careless timbre, and the choices she offered him were anything but erotic in nature.

“I was telling you that Cosmo is really pushing the free-range chicken tonight, and having had it for dinner myself, I can tell you it’s delicious. But the shrimp étouffée also sounds wonderful to me. I know you love seafood. You want to give that a try instead?”

Chase gazed at her for a moment before replying, noting for the first time that Sylvie really did have the most beautiful blue eyes he’d ever seen. Not a pale, glassy blue, but a deep, midnight blue that bordered on violet. He didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed before.

“Uh, surprise me,” he finally said, not altogether certain he was talking exclusively about his dinner selection. “I’m not really sure what I want.”

“Okay.”

As she turned to ring up his order, he observed with much interest the efficiency of her actions. He liked to watch Sylvie. She moved freely and easily, completely unconscious of her own gestures, utterly comfortable in her surroundings and with herself. That was something Chase had never quite been able to master in himself. There was still a lingering essence of self-consciousness within him, a quiet little voice that would never quite let him forget the meagerness of his beginnings or the fear that he might end up a nobody.

Yet he never tried to completely quell his fears. Because he knew they were what caused him to be so driven. Success and wealth had come to him earlier than he had anticipated, and now that he’d had a taste of how good life could be, he’d be damned if he’d ever do anything to jeopardize his position.

Even if that meant spending the rest of his life alone, he thought. In the long run, he knew he’d be a happier man because of it.

* * *

After ringing in Mr. Buchanan’s order, Sylvie handed it off to one of the waiters headed back to the kitchen, almost hitting her co-worker in the face with it as he passed. She apologized sheepishly as she spun back around. Business at Cosmo’s that evening had been slow, even for a Tuesday night, but her timing had been off completely since coming in to work several hours ago. As she frequently did at times like this, she couldn’t help wondering yet again why she hadn’t put her degree in humanities to better use than tending bar.

Maybe, she decided as she ran a blue grease pencil under the last of the drinks orders at the service bar, it was because no matter how hard she looked, there was never, ever a listing in the classified ads under the heading Humanities.

“Order up, Sylvie.”

She spun around to find one of the waiters scooting a plate of oysters Rockefeller precariously close to the edge of the bar, and she snatched it up just as it was about to go over the side.

“Keith!” she called out to the swiftly departing server after she’d placed the appetizer in front of a well-dressed couple seated at the bar.

Keith turned. “What is it? I’m in the weeds big time.”

She threw him what she knew was her most beguiling smile. “Got a minute?”

He smiled back as he returned to the bar. “Sure. But just one. And just because it’s you who’s asking.”

She tried to feign a more intimate interest in him. “Mind a personal question?”

His smile broadened. “How personal?”

“You, uh, you graduated from Princeton, right?”

He nodded.

“And you’re going to Villanova now? Law school?”

Another nod. “What’s this leading up to, Sylvie?”

She extended her index finger onto the bar, coyly drawing a few idle circles in the remnants of a spilled beer. “What, um...what’s your G.P.A?”

“Three point ninety-eight. Why?”

Sylvie looked at him, taking in his blond hair, blue eyes and slender build. Nice genes, she thought. And his coloring was identical to hers, so if she asked him to father her child, the baby would resemble her no matter what. “Oh, I was just thinking,” she began again. “I need to ask you about some—”

Her words ceased when Keith cried out, bent over suddenly and cupped a hand over his left eye.

“What?” she asked, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he muttered as he straightened. He manipulated his left eyelid gently over a red, watery eye. “I just got something in my contact. It’s okay now.”

Sylvie studied him more closely. “You wear contact lenses?”

“Yeah, I’m blind as a bat without them.”

“Oh.”

“Now, then,” Keith continued, wiping away the last of the tears. His eye was still quite red and puffy. “What was this personal question you wanted to ask?”

“Your eyesight is really bad?” Sylvie asked.

“The worst. Everyone in my family has lousy eyesight. I don’t think any of us made it out of childhood without getting a pair of glasses. Mine have lenses as thick as Coke bottles.”

She nodded. “I see.”

“And this personal question?” he asked again, clearly interested in getting as personal as possible with Sylvie.

“Uh,” she hedged. “Never mind. I forgot what I was going to say.”

His expression fell. “Oh. Well, if you remember...”

“I’ll let you know.”

When Keith was out of sight, Sylvie pulled a well-worn scrap of paper from inside her shirt pocket and unfolded it. Keith’s name was midway down the list, beneath a half dozen or so others that had been crossed out. Leonard had been her first choice as the ideal candidate to father her child, but she’d learned he had recently become engaged. William, the second of her male acquaintances on the list, had just returned from a skiing trip with both arms and one leg in a cast. Jack, whose wavy brown hair she had loved, also had a brother in prison, and Sylvie simply didn’t want to risk the felony gene turning up in any child of hers. Donnie, she’d discovered, had worn braces all through junior high and high school.

So far, none of the candidates Sylvie had considered with good genetic potential for fatherhood was working out at all. There always seemed to be something that just didn’t quite set well. Edgar had been close, she recalled, but there was that big bump on the bridge of his nose that, despite his assurances to the contrary, she wasn’t quite convinced he’d suffered in a fight. It might just be a congenital condition. And Michael...well, he had been just this side of perfect. But he’d confessed to having absolutely no musical inclination whatsoever. And Sylvie wasn’t about to give birth to a no-talent child.

Yet there was still that question of the second set of chromosomes she would need to make a baby. There must be someone, she thought, looking down at the list again. Someone who would enjoy a little intimate rendezvous with her—maybe two, depending on how well it went the first time—and then get the heck out of her life. But who?

She glanced discreetly over her shoulder at Mr. Buchanan, the one person who frequented the bar whose nightly appearances she genuinely welcomed. Most of her regular customers were jerks, which was why she hadn’t explored that group of men when considering potentially perfect fathers. But Mr. Buchanan, she thought now...

That little conversation the two of them had just enjoyed had pretty much reinforced everything she already knew about him. He had absolutely no desire to encumber himself with a family, because his work was his life. Therefore, should he be the one to father her baby, she wouldn’t have to worry about him becoming all sappy and sentimental, wanting to play a role in the raising of that child. He was handsome, too, she noted, not for the first time, and he seemed the result of a better-than-average set of genes. She liked him. An intimate rendezvous with Mr. Buchanan wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Of course, it would help if she knew his first name.

She scanned the list in her hand once again. There were five names left, all of them men Sylvie didn’t know particularly well. She wasn’t sure she could make love with a man she scarcely knew, especially when she hadn’t made love that often with men she knew extremely well. But time was running out. It was already the last week of February. She’d be ovulating again in two weeks. If she wanted a Christmas baby—and she did very much want a Christmas baby—she was going to have to find the perfect father for her child quickly.

“Order up, Sylvie. Shrimp étouffée.”

Her gaze traveled slowly from the plate of food a passing waiter placed on the bar to the man who had asked her to surprise him. And as she made her way slowly down the bar toward Mr. Buchanan, she began to study him in a way she never had before. When she set the plate before him, he looked up to murmur his thanks, and she found herself staring into clear green eyes full of intelligence.

She moved slightly away as he began to eat, but continued to observe him closely, noting with interest the expensively cut, jet black hair, the high cheekbones and perfectly sculpted jaw, the finely formed lips beneath a near-perfect nose that claimed not a chink. She had always thought Mr. Buchanan was very attractive. She considered him smart and ambitious. She also knew that although he was scarcely forty, he headed up one of Philadelphia’s most prominent architectural firms.

When he turned to lift a hand in greeting to another regular at the bar, Sylvie studied his eyes in profile. No contacts, she noted. When he turned back to her, he caught her watching him and smiled, and she noticed that one of his front teeth was bent just the tiniest bit over the other. Not enough to mar his appearance in any way, but enough to let her know he’d never had orthodontic work done.

She pulled the pencil from behind her ear and added another name to the bottom of her list, drawing an arrow from the words Mr. Buchanan to the space immediately beneath Keith’s name. Then she tucked the list back into her shirt pocket.

“Hey, Mr. Buchanan,” she said thoughtfully as she reached for his empty glass to refill it for his usual second drink. “You know, there’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Do you play any musical instruments?”

Two

Chase was stumped. “Musical instruments?” he asked.

Sylvie nodded as she reached for a bottle of Laphroig from the mirrored shelves behind her. Had he become such a regular at Cosmo’s that she didn’t even bother to ask what he was drinking anymore, or if he even wanted a second? he wondered. Come to think of it, he couldn’t in fact remember the last time she had asked him what had once been the lead-in to all their encounters. However, the question she was asking now was a new one.

“Yeah,” she replied. “You seem like the musical type.”

“Well, I played saxophone in my high school pep band,” he confessed. “And I was part of a little jazz combo in college.”

She smiled, and Chase felt ridiculously happy that he had said something to please her. “Really?” she asked. “Saxophone?” She seemed to consider something for a moment, then nodded in what he could only liken to approval. “Saxophone’s cool.”

“Well, I haven’t played in years, of course—”

“But you were pretty good, right?”

He nodded, all modesty aside. “I was very good.”

Sylvie’s smile broadened as she placed his drink before him. “So tell me something else,” she said.

“Yes?”

“How have you been feeling lately?”

He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. “I’ve been feeling fine lately,” he told her. “Why? Do I look bad? Do you know something I don’t?”

She shook her head. “Just wanted to make sure you’re in good health.”

“By my physician’s latest account, my health is excellent, thanks.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Why so many questions?”

She studied him intently for a long time before answering, and suddenly Chase wasn’t sure he wanted to hear her reply.

“Can I be honest with you?” she asked him.

“Of course.”

She glanced around at their surroundings, at the two other bartenders and six or seven customers seated at the bar, at the flurry of waiters and waitresses who hustled around the service bar. His own gaze followed hers, and he wondered again what she was up to.

“I don’t think we should talk about it here,” she said. “But I’ll be getting off at eleven if we don’t get slammed any harder than this before then. Could I...could I maybe buy you a cup of coffee after my shift?”

Chase didn’t know what to say. He’d never seen Sylvie in a social situation before. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure he’d ever seen what she looked like from the waist down. Her invitation had come out of nowhere, completely unexpected. It unnerved him for some reason. He glanced down at his watch to find that it was just past ten. He’d have to wait an hour for her to finish up. Not that he had anything better lined up for the evening, he thought, but he probably ought to decline her invitation.

“Sure,” he heard himself reply, wondering when he’d made the decision to accept her invitation instead.

She released a long breath and looked very relieved for some reason. “Great. I appreciate it. So, what do you think of the étouffée...?”

* * *

A little over an hour later Sylvie sat opposite Mr. Buchanan at a tiny cocktail table in the corner of Cosmo’s bar, clutching a cup of coffee as if it were a lifeline and feeling a little sick to her stomach. Was she crazy? she asked herself, studying the man opposite her as unobtrusively as possible from beneath her lashes. For the past hour she had completed her work behind the bar on automatic pilot, her thoughts instead whirling around one customer in particular.

What did she really know about Mr. Buchanan, anyway? she wondered. Not his first name, that was for sure. But he was handsome, intelligent and successful, had impeccable taste and knew how to play the saxophone. There didn’t appear to be any one particular romantic interest in his life to prevent him from fathering her child. Although he’d come into Cosmo’s a couple of times with a date, he’d never seemed to be with the same woman twice. As he himself had said, he was rabidly single.

He was older than her thirty years, she reminded herself further, by a full decade. And he was too much a workaholic to enjoy any kind of social or family life, something else that was a definite factor in Sylvie’s favor. At his age, and with his occupation, he had no desire to be saddled by the responsibilities of fatherhood. If she had a child by him, there was no doubt in her mind that the baby would be hers alone.

But could she really ask him to do what she was thinking of asking him to do? Would she be able to go through with it herself if he agreed? Her stomach knotted painfully again. She tried to find reassurance by reminding herself how often she had thought her plan through, and how well she had everything under control. Unfortunately, when she looked into the cool green eyes of the big man seated across from her, she suddenly wondered if she really understood at all exactly what she was getting herself into.

“So, Sylvie,” Chase began, uncomfortable in his realization that the two of them had been sitting at the table for more than five minutes without exchanging a single word. “What’s on your mind?”

She was staring down into her coffee cup as if it held the answers to the secrets of the universe, her long blond bangs falling in a silky sheath over her forehead. A stray tress she had tucked behind one ear fell forward, too, and Chase suddenly wanted nothing more than to reach across the tiny table and push it back into place. He’d never really noticed how soft her hair appeared to be. But in the dim glow of the candle flickering on the table between them, everything about Sylvie suddenly seemed soft.

“I, uh,” she began quietly. She inhaled deeply, and Chase waited to hear the rest. “I sort of have something I’d like to ask you.”

“Another question?” he said, smiling when she continued to avoid looking at him. “You’ve had quite a few of those tonight.”

She nodded. “I, uh...” She paused, inhaled deeply, released her breath slowly and tried again. “I, uh, I have an older sister,” she began, finally glancing up, her gaze settling on his.

Good God, her eyes were blue, he thought again before the significance of her words struck him. Then he began to understand where all this was going. Oh, no. He’d heard that “I-have-a-sister/niece/cousin/dog groomer/hairdresser/whatever” speech before. Too many times. If Sylvie thought she was going to fix him up with her sister, she had another think coming. He’d had his fill of blind dates. Not only did they always backfire, he didn’t have the time.

“A sister,” he repeated blandly.

She nodded again. “She had a baby last year—that would be my nephew whose picture I showed you earlier this evening, and—”

“A baby?” Chase asked incredulously. Sylvie wanted to saddle him with a wife and a kid? What was she trying to do, wreck his life completely? What had he ever done to her? Hadn’t he just told her a short time ago that a family was the last thing he needed messing up his happiness?

He held up a hand to halt any other big plans she might be hatching. “Hold it right there, kid,” he instructed her, ignoring her frown at his use of the word kid. She probably wasn’t that much younger than him, but Chase was suddenly feeling like an antique beside her. “I’m not interested in being fixed up with your sister. Or her baby.”

Sylvie looked confused for a moment, but quickly recovered. She began to giggle, then the giggle became a chuckle, and the chuckle became full-fledged laughter. Chase couldn’t help but smile, too. Clearly he had misunderstood what she was going to say. She had no intention of getting him involved with her sister. He felt much better knowing that.

“Livy’s already happily married—I’m not trying to fix you up with her and her baby,” she said, confirming his suspicions and allowing him to breathe much more easily and laugh a little himself. “I’m trying to fix you up with me and my baby.”

Chase stopped laughing immediately. “What?”

Sylvie suddenly stopped laughing, too. She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. Somehow the words had just jumped from her mouth. But now that they’d been spoken, she had nowhere to go but forward.

“I didn’t know you had a baby,” Mr. Buchanan said.

“I don’t,” she told him. “But ever since Livy had Simon, I’ve been thinking that I’d like to have a baby, too.”

“Just like that?”

She shook her head. “Simon’s nine months old now. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought ever since he was born. And according to my doctor, despite the fact that I’m only thirty, I don’t have a lot of time left to have a baby. If I’m going to become a mother—and I do want very much to become a mother—I don’t have time to sit around waiting for some potential husband who might not ever show up.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

Sylvie looked up to find her companion staring at her with frank curiosity. He hadn’t figured it out yet, she realized. She supposed what she was planning was rather unusual—asking a man to make love to her specifically so that she could become pregnant, and then get out of her life for good. There were probably a number of men who would say yes in an instant. The irony was, men like that were generally jerks. She wouldn’t want a jerk for her baby’s father, would she? Of course not. In an ideal world, she wouldn’t have to worry about all this. But this wasn’t an ideal world, was it?

“Because,” she said, feeling the words getting stuck in her throat, “because you’re nice looking, intelligent and talented, and...” She stared down at her hands, spread open on the table, then licked her lips nervously before concluding, “And I’d like my baby’s father to pass all those qualities along to him or her.”

His expression never changed, and she wasn’t sure whether or not she’d made herself clear.

“Meaning?” he asked.

His eyes were speculative, and the corner of his mouth twitched only the slightest bit. Oh, he knew what she meant, Sylvie thought. He just wanted her to spell it out for him.

“Meaning,” she tried to explain again, “that I’d like for you to be the father of my baby. I mean...if you’d consider it.”

For a long time Chase said nothing, only continued to stare at Sylvie as if she were speaking a foreign language. Finally he began again, “Are you actually saying you want me to donate my...” He glanced quickly around, cleared his throat and tried once more, his voice noticeably lower when he continued. “You want me to donate my sperm so you can be artificially inseminated with it?”

“Oh, heavens, no,” she assured him.

The fire that had flared to life in his midsection subsided some. Obviously he was misunderstanding whatever it was Sylvie was trying to say. Clearly she meant something else entirely. He only wished he could figure out what it was.

“I want you to make love to me,” she said.

“You what?”

“In two weeks. That’s when I’ll be ovulating again.”

The words didn’t register immediately with Chase. He knew what he thought he’d heard her say, of course, but he couldn’t quite believe she was saying what he thought she was saying. This time he was the one to stare down into his coffee without speaking. But his silence only seemed to inspire Sylvie, because she continued to prattle on nervously.

“Um, look, I know what you’re probably thinking about me right now. I know you must be...you know, wondering what kind of woman would ask a virtual stranger to make love to her just to get her pregnant, but—”

“Oh, we’re not really strangers,” Chase interrupted her, looking up. He fixed his gaze with hers. “Are we, Sylvie?”

She lifted one shoulder in an odd kind of shrug, but said nothing. He had never noticed how small she was, he thought. How delicate looking. She’d always seemed so strong to him, so straightforward, so unwilling to back down. He wondered how long she’d been considering him for the task at hand. And he wondered why what she was suggesting, something that should be no more than an indecent proposal, was in fact so utterly appealing.

“After all the conversations we’ve had over the last two years,” he continued, “how can you think of us as strangers? You talked me through that hostile takeover bid last summer, remember? I would have gone nuts if I hadn’t had you to confide in. And I think your advice helped me ward the bastards off better than any other I received.”

She smiled nervously. “Really?”

He nodded. “You were there for me when my dad died, too.”

“And you helped get me through the loss of my mom,” she added. “But you know what’s weird? I don’t even know your first name.”

“And I don’t know your last.”

“Venner,” she said immediately. “Sylvie Venner.”

“Chase,” he replied, extending his hand toward her. “Chase Buchanan.”

Sylvie placed her hand gingerly in his and smiled. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the two of them might just be making a deal.

* * *

It was after 2:00 a.m. when the closing bartender finally routed them from Cosmo’s. Chase walked Sylvie to her car, both of them moving slowly in spite of the below-freezing temperature, as if they had nowhere in particular to go. Downtown Philly was deserted this time of night, its chrome-and-glass high rises dark and vacant. She inhaled deeply, the scent of winter mingling with a hint of lingering bus fumes. The city seemed quieter than she knew it really was.

They had settled nothing for certain, she thought as she strode alongside him. Although she had spent much of the evening arguing her case eloquently and with forthright honesty, Chase hadn’t agreed to her request. But he hadn’t turned her down, either, she reminded herself. And he had seemed to enjoy their time together as much as she had.

When they reached her car she unlocked it, then tossed her purse into the passenger seat. She was about to pitch the book she’d been reading in her spare time in behind it, but he stayed her hand by circling her wrist with warm fingers.

“The Portable Emerson?” he asked when he saw the title, seeming not at all surprised by her choice of reading material.

Sylvie nodded. “I think Nature is one of the most wonderful series of essays ever written. I like to go back and reread it every now and then.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “I love it, too.”

She smiled. “I didn’t know you were familiar with Emerson.”

“He was part of my required reading in college. I was surprised by how much I liked him.”

He released her hand, but not before skimming his fingertips lightly over the ridges of her bare knuckles. Sylvie shivered, uncertain whether it was because of his touch or the cold breeze rushing by.

“How come you never put your humanities degree to use?” he asked out of the blue.

She tossed the book in beside her purse, settled her arms on the open car door and rested her head on her overlapped hands. “I don’t know. I always meant to go for my master’s and then my Ph.D., thinking I would teach at a college level, but I just never got around to it. By the time I got my B.A., I was so sick of school I never wanted to go back. Now I’d love to go back, but I just don’t have the time. Or the funds,” she added with a philosophical shrug. “Maybe someday.”

He nodded, but his mind seemed to be on something else.

“You know, you never really gave me a definite yes or no,” she pointed out.

“No, I didn’t.”

Her heart fell. He wasn’t going to do it, she thought, surprised at the depth of her disappointment. There were others on her list, she reminded herself. She still had a good chance of finding someone. But suddenly no one else seemed suitable. Chase Buchanan was it, she decided. The perfect candidate to father her child. If he said no, she didn’t know what she would do.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand about this,” he said further.

“What’s that?”

“Why does the father of your child have to be someone you know? If you’re so determined to have a baby, then why don’t you just go the artificial insemination route? It’s worked out fine for other women.”

She nodded. “I know. And I did think about that as an alternative. I’ve heard you can virtually fill out an order form of what you expect from a donor and everything, but...”

“But what?”

She shrugged and looked away. His intense scrutiny was making her feel a little anxious. “That’s not for me. I mean, I consider myself to be a thoroughly modern woman with thoroughly modern beliefs, and I certainly wouldn’t fault any woman who chose that option. But... It’s not for me,” she repeated simply.

“Why not?”

She paused before elaborating, trying to think of the best way to make him understand. “It’s just that... I guess I’m old-fashioned in a way, too. I don’t have it in me to become impregnated while I’m lying on a metal table with my feet in stirrups and no one to share the experience but a team of experts in white coats, you know?”

He grimaced at her graphic description but said nothing.

“A baby should be conceived in a moment of affection,” she went on softly. “Even if that moment only lasts...well, a moment. There should be some kind of positive emotion shared by the two parents, even if it’s only temporary. At least, that’s how I feel about it.”

“Most people would say that the emotion involved should be a deep and abiding love that would last forever and unite the family as one,” Chase said.

“I know that,” Sylvie agreed, glancing away once more. “But I’m not convinced such an emotion exists.”

When Chase said nothing, she looked at him again and could see that he was mulling over her statement. “Not that I disagree with you, but how come you feel that way?” he finally asked.

She shook her head resolutely. “I know there are those people who believe in love forever after,” she continued. “Heck, my sister is one of the leading proponents. In fact, Livy being such a profound believer in the powers of love is probably why I’m so anxious to avoid it.”

“Why’s that?”

Sylvie hesitated before replying. Although it was true that Livy had finally found happiness with Daniel McGuane, it was also true that there was no other man in the universe like Daniel. Sylvie was certain anyway that she’d never find someone so utterly compatible with her own needs.

“Before Livy’s husband came into her life, I watched her become involved with one guy after another—one loser after another—and she always ended up with a broken heart. I decided a long time ago that I would never let some bogus guy treat me the way men used to treat her. Uh-uh, no way, no how.”

“But you yourself said she’s happily married now,” Chase observed. “Why don’t you think the same thing will happen to you?”

“There’s a big difference between me and Livy,” Sylvie told him. “She’s always wanted to be married. She’s always wanted to have a man in her life. Me, I’m more independent. I don’t want to be attached to anyone forever after. I don’t want to find myself under any man’s thumb.”

“But having a baby would attach you to someone forever after. You’ll be responsible for that child the moment it’s conceived.”

“That’s different,” Sylvie said with a smile. “Babies and children need you. They love you unconditionally, no matter what kind of minor character flaws you might have. They don’t try to change you, they don’t put restrictions on your emotions and they don’t play mind games with you. That’s not true of the men I’ve known.”

Chase nodded thoughtfully, thinking her description of men fit perfectly what he’d always considered true of women. Interesting that they should share such identical philosophies about the opposite sex.

“Give me some time, Sylvie, okay?” he asked. “What you’re suggesting is a little unorthodox, to say the least.”

“I need to know within two weeks,” she reminded him.

“Why the rush?”

“I want a baby for Christmas,” she said, grinning.

She could see that there was still something troubling Chase, still something he didn’t quite understand about her grand plan. “What is it?” she asked him.

“There’s one thing we haven’t discussed,” he said, confirming her suspicion.

“And that is?”

He lifted a hand to brush her bangs back from her forehead, a surprisingly intimate gesture that she hadn’t expected at all. His fingers were warm against her skin, his eyes revealing how unexpectedly the action had come to him, too.

His voice was soft when he said, “Where precisely will I fit in to the picture after my initial assignment is completed?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her own voice sounding thinner than usual.

“After...after I make love to you, Sylvie...” He swallowed hard before he continued. “After you become pregnant, then what happens between me and you?”

“I guess we just go back to the way things were before.”

“And do you honestly think we’ll be able to do that?”

She sighed and stood straight, meeting his gaze as levelly as she could. “I don’t know. I...I guess so. I mean, we probably can. You don’t seem to want a woman in your life any more than I want a man in mine.”

“That’s true....”

“Which is all the more reason why this would be such a perfect arrangement. We’ve known each other for two years now and never put obligations on each other. There’s no reason to think that has to change just because we happened to...to...make love...one time. Lots of people have brief sexual encounters and still remain friends.” At least, Sylvie thought they did. It happened on television and in the movies all the time. Didn’t it?

“That’s true, too, but...”

Before Sylvie realized what was happening, Chase leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers, his lips cool and confident at the initial contact. At first Sylvie was too startled to react, but when he tangled his fingers in the hair at her nape and pulled her more fully into the kiss, she couldn’t help but respond. He was a good kisser, she decided immediately as she threaded her fingers through his hair, still not feeling as if they were close enough. Quite thorough at what he set out to do...

He pulled her away from the car door and more completely into his arms, plying her lips with his almost as if he were trying to devour her. He circled his other arm around her waist and splayed his hand open over the small of her back, urging her forward until she could almost feel the heat of him seeping through her clothes. She wasn’t sure how long they stayed locked in their embrace, but one thing was certain—Sylvie never wanted it to end.

But it did end, as abruptly as it had begun. Chase pulled away and gazed at her, clearly confused, his ragged breathing mingling with hers to become a thin silver fog between them.

“I need a few days to think about it,” he told her as he reluctantly released her. He set her away from him and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth before adding, “And I think you need a few days to think about it, too.” And with that he turned and walked away, without another word, and without a backward glance.

Sylvie watched him go, trying to understand the tumultuous emotions rocking her. Until a few moments ago she had been in complete control of the situation. She had planned every aspect down to the last detail and knew exactly how everything would turn out. Then Chase had kissed her, and her plans had dissolved, like the steam rising into the air with every uneven breath she took.

She had been so sure of herself before, she thought. But now she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

Three

Nearly one week after Sylvie Venner had asked him to act as her stud, Chase sat in his office actually mulling over the possibilities. He’d been able to think about little else in the past six days, after all. In fact, so focused had his thoughts been on the blond bartender that he’d scarcely given a single serious consideration to his business obligations, something that was in no way like him. He had deliberately avoided Cosmo’s since that fateful conversation, uncertain how he would react the next time he saw Sylvie. And, to be honest, as surprised as he was to realize it, he sincerely didn’t know what his answer to her should be when he did encounter her again.

A substantial segment of his psyche recoiled at the thought of being little more to a woman than the means to an end. The knowledge that there was only one part of him that Sylvie wanted, and only temporarily—and quite an intimate part at that—was startling, to say the least. There were moral and ethical considerations to ponder, as well. What was the world coming to, after all, when a woman sat across from a man she didn’t know especially well and asked him to make love to her for the sole purpose of producing a child in whose life he would thereafter play no part? There was no question that he should decline her request, no question at all.

However...

Another part of Chase was more than a little intrigued by the idea. Hadn’t he been sitting at the bar at Cosmo’s that very night less than a week ago, wishing there was some way he could share a brief sexual encounter with a woman about whom he cared somewhat, then call the relationship quits with no harm done, no feelings hurt? And didn’t what Sylvie had requested of him provide just the perfect opportunity for exactly that?

And deep down inside, he had to admit that there was something...oh, arousing...about the prospect of producing a child with Sylvie. A son, he thought, never questioning for a moment his conviction that the child he helped produce would be of the masculine persuasion. A strapping young boy rushing headlong into the world, whom he had been partly responsible for creating, but was in no way responsible for raising. Despite his belief that children were more trouble than they were worth, the possibility of creating one was understandably alluring for any man.

Of course, the child he and Sylvie produced would be a child with whom he would have no other contact, he mused further. He wasn’t altogether certain he liked that idea. Then again, there were thousands of men out there who anonymously fathered children through donations to sperm banks without a second thought about it. On the other hand, Chase Buchanan wasn’t one of them.

He rose from his chair, paced to the windows on the other side of the room and stared down at the busy street below. Why had Sylvie chosen him? he wondered for perhaps the hundredth time since hearing her suggestion. And why couldn’t he just tell her he wanted no part of her plan, the way he knew he should, and be done with it once and for all?

Because deep down inside he couldn’t quite rid himself of a sudden, shuddering desire to make love to Sylvie Venner. And not just because she wanted a child, he realized. And, he admitted further reluctantly, maybe not just because he felt a little lonely sometimes, either.

His mind still addled by all the implications of the situation before him, Chase straightened his tie, reached for his jacket and coat and, for the first time in his entire life, left work early.

* * *

Sylvie was baby-sitting her nephew, as she did every Monday in her downtown Philadelphia apartment, and had just finished feeding and cleaning up Simon after his nap when she heard the quick series of raps at her front door. She lifted the baby into her arms, adjusting his bright red playsuit and tugging at the yellow socks that refused to stay on completely, then went to greet her unexpected visitor. It was still a couple of hours too early for Daniel to be picking up Simon, but every now and then her brother-in-law left a construction site before the end of the day to retrieve his son on his way home.

To say she was surprised to view Chase Buchanan’s face through the peephole would have been an understatement. She hadn’t even told him where she lived. She wished he had given her some kind of warning, hated the fact that she was dressed in her most ragged jeans and a faded Princeton sweatshirt, now spattered with Simon’s lunch, and wore neither makeup nor shoes. Dammit, she thought, why did men have to be so freaking difficult?

Just as she was tugging the front door open, Simon buried both fists in her hair and yanked hard in an effort to attempt what had become his latest quest—trying to pull himself up over her face toward the top of her head, presumably to sit atop her. Why a baby would want to sit on the top of her head, Sylvie had no idea. But as a result of his maneuvering, she was unable to greet Chase cordially, because her face was full of baby belly.

“Sylvie?” she heard his deep, resonant voice say.

Very gingerly she pushed Simon to the side and peeked around him. Sure enough, it was Chase Buchanan standing at her front door, dressed in all his power-suited glory and looking like a man who ruled the world. Immediately feeling self-conscious in her baby-sitting attire, not to mention the added accessory of said baby still fastened to her head, she stammered out something in greeting and tried to pull Simon away from her face.

“Uh, come on in,” she said, stepping backward as she struggled to free the baby and lower him to her shoulder. “Long time, no see.”

She had begun to wonder if she had scared Chase off forever after their little tête-à-tête last week. Although she’d searched for him every night, he hadn’t returned to Cosmo’s, and she’d been surprised to discover how much she missed seeing him on a regular basis at the restaurant.

With one final yank she managed to pry the baby from her head and lower him into her arms, pushing at her disarrayed hair with her free hand and hoping she didn’t look too ridiculous. Then, unable to halt the question that formed so quickly in her brain, she added a little breathlessly, “What are you doing here?”

Chase strode past her and into the apartment, his eyes never leaving the baby who clung to her shoulders. Simon stared back, tucking his head warily into the curve of Sylvie’s neck and chin, studying the stranger with a combination of curiosity and suspicion.

“I went to Cosmo’s to see you, but then I remembered you have Mondays off,” Chase said.

His gaze finally lifted to lock with hers, and Sylvie was once again struck by how clear and beautiful his green eyes were. She couldn’t help but wonder why she’d never noticed them before.

“Mondays and Wednesdays,” she said softly, unsure why she was bothering to remind him. “I sit for Simon on those days. It gives him a day off from day care. Plus, I just love doing it. Um, how did you find out where I live?”

“Well, no one at the restaurant was willing to part with the information, that’s for sure,” he said stiffly, as if insulted that he was in no way trusted by the wait staff of an establishment into which he’d pumped a considerable portion of his income over the past two years. “So I looked in the phone book. There was only one S. Venner listed. I took a chance that it was you.”

She nodded. “Very resourceful.”

“Not really.”

Chase took a step toward her and studied the baby again. “So this is your nephew, the one who’s made you completely rethink the issue of motherhood.”

Sylvie smiled. “Chase, meet Simon McGuane. Simon, this is Chase Buchanan. He’s a friend of mine, so you can trust him.”

Chase glanced up when she introduced him as her friend, and she wished she could tell what he was thinking. He had a funny expression on his face, one she was in no way able to decipher. So she smiled experimentally, only to become more confused at the brief twitching of his own mouth in return.

The baby in her arms broke the tension of the moment by reaching a chubby hand out toward Chase. “Bob?” he said quietly.

Chase frowned, glaring at Sylvie. “Bob?” he repeated. “Who the he—” He stopped abruptly in deference to the little ears. “Who’s Bob?” he asked.

She laughed. “No one. ‘Bob’ is Simon’s favorite thing to say. He can make other sounds—dada, mama, gigga, babba, abba...all that important baby conversation—but ‘bob’ is by far his favorite.”

“Bob,” Simon said again as if to reinforce her explanation. He wiggled restlessly, and Sylvie bent to sit him on the floor. Immediately he maneuvered himself onto all fours. “Bob-bob-bob-bob-bob,” he sang out merrily as with quick, deft movements he crawled toward a quilt spread open on the other side of the living room that housed a variety of brightly colored plastic toys.

Chase watched the baby go, marveling at what a splash of colorful incongruence Simon’s play area was in the otherwise sleek, neutral, sophisticated furnishings of Sylvie’s high-rise apartment. Along with that, he took in the padded corner protectors on the coffee and end tables, and the complete absence of knickknacks from the bottom three shelves of her bookcases—items that had been mingled haphazardly elsewhere in the room on higher ground. More toys were scattered about the floor—on the sofa, under tables, poking out from beneath chairs—and a cardboard book with a puppy on the front, whose corners looked suspiciously gummed, lay neglected near his feet.

He was surprised that a woman who clearly preferred clean lines and minimal furnishings would allow such a clutter in her home. Then he turned to see Sylvie staring after the baby with such obvious love and devotion etched on her face that he ceased to wonder at all.

When Simon plopped himself down on the quilt and contented himself with a fistful of something that resembled a green plastic doughnut, Sylvie turned to Chase again, and he was chagrined that she caught him staring at her. A rush of pink stained her cheeks as she hastily looked away and jabbed a thumb over her shoulder toward the kitchen.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked, sounding nervous for some reason. “It wouldn’t take but a minute. I have some of those International kinds if you like. You know, the kind you use to celebrate the moments of your life? Or is that Kodak film that does that?” she prattled on nervously. “Or AT&T? Gosh, all those advertisements run together sometimes, don’t they? Maybe it’s Hallmark or Coca-Co—”

“Sylvie,” Chase interrupted her quietly.

She shoved a hand anxiously through her bangs as she looked at some point over his shoulder. “What?”

All at once Chase was at a complete loss. He had no idea what he’d intended to tell her, why he’d come over to her apartment or why he suddenly never wanted to leave. “I...is it all right if I stay for a little while? I think we need to talk some more about this...this...this proposal you offered me.”

He could see that she was surprised to discover he was still considering it. Surprised and clearly delighted.

“Of course you can stay for a while. Stay for dinner if you’d like. I think I have a couple of steaks in the freezer that I could thaw in the microwave. And there’s stuff for a salad. A couple of potatoes. I’m not a gourmet chef by any stretch of the imagination—I usually eat at Cosmo’s before I start work—but I can whip up the basics when hard-pressed.”

Chase knew he should decline, knew he should discourage any further contact with Sylvie Venner that was anything other than casual, especially since he’d come to tell her that he couldn’t possibly be the man who would father her child. Instead, he found himself shrugging out of his coat and suit jacket, tossing them with much familiarity over a nearby chair and loosening his tie to unbutton his collar.

“Only if you let me help you with dinner,” he also heard himself say agreeably. “I, on the other hand, am a more than fair cook.”

“You got it,” she told him with a smile.

“And coffee sounds good for a start. But just the regular stuff is fine.”

As Sylvie busied herself in the kitchen, Chase made himself comfortable on the end of the sofa nearest Simon. The baby seemed oblivious to his presence, however, so intent was he on the workings of a round toy filled with clear liquid and a variety of multicolored floating animals. Chase couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this close to a baby. Perhaps he never had. And he was frankly surprised to find himself so captivated by the little guy after such a short exposure to him.

“How old is Simon?” he called out to Sylvie.

“Almost ten months,” she replied. “He’ll be one in May. He’s pretty cute, huh?”

Chase nodded absently. “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, he is.”

As if he knew he was the subject of the conversation, Simon glanced up and made a noise with his lips that sounded like a minuscule boat, then squealed with laughter at his own success. He waved his toy heartily at Chase before sticking it into his mouth, then sat perfectly still as he considered the bigger man. There was something about the baby’s expression, something about his clear, guileless, uninhibited gaze, that thoroughly unsettled Chase. But not in a way that made him anxious or uncomfortable, he realized. Instead, the baby’s obvious acceptance of him made Chase feel inexplicably good. Just...good. Good in a way he’d never felt before. It was an odd sensation.

“Coffee should be ready soon,” Sylvie said as she seated herself in a chair opposite Chase on the other side of Simon. With a resolute sigh she leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, propping her chin in one hand as she dangled the other between her legs. “Now,” she continued, “back to what we discussed last week.”

Her plunge right to the point made Chase squirm involuntarily in his seat, and he tried to settle himself back against the overstuffed cushions in feigned comfort. Had he actually been the one to suggest they discuss this matter? he wondered. But before he could say a word, Sylvie began to talk again.

“I know you probably still have a lot of questions,” she said, “not the least of which is making certain you’ll be protected in this matter.”

“Protected?” he asked, confused. He sat forward again, his attention wandering once more to the baby playing on the floor.

“From legal liabilities,” she said in a matter-of-fact way that didn’t sit well with Chase. “I realize you don’t know me that well, and you’re probably scared I’m going to hunt you down in fifteen or twenty years and demand thousands of dollars from you to pay for college or a wedding or some such thing.”

She scooted forward to the edge of her chair, as if trying to emphasize what she had to say next. “I just want to reassure you right now that I have no intention of ever tapping into your financial resources for this baby. I make great money at Cosmo’s, and he has a wonderful insurance plan. My finances are in order, and I’m fully prepared and capable of raising a child on my own. Once I’m pregnant, that will be the end of any obligation you have to me or the baby. I’ll never bother you again for any reason. And I’m perfectly willing to sign any kind of document that would free you from all responsibility, financial or otherwise.”

Chase stared at her in amazement. He honestly hadn’t given that aspect of their arrangement a single thought. It made sense, of course. Naturally a man would want to be sure he didn’t get taken for a ride in a case like this, especially when it was the woman who wanted the child and not him. But as surprised as he was to realize it, something in him balked at the idea of relinquishing all responsibility for the baby he would help Sylvie create. It didn’t seem proper somehow, in spite of the way things had come about. It just didn’t seem right.

“But—” he began to object.

“And of course, I’ll expect the same courtesy of you,” Sylvie went on. “I’d like you to grant me the same assurance that you won’t come looking for me ten or fifteen years from now because you’re going through some midlife crisis and feeling your mortality and wanting to share in my child’s life. I think that’s only fair, don’t you?”

“I suppose. But—”

“We really do have to think of the child’s best interests in this case, don’t we? It wouldn’t be fair to her, or him, to disrupt her, or his, routine so late in life, would it?”

“No, I guess not. But...”

She inhaled deeply and met his gaze levelly, looking to Chase as if she were terribly uncertain and more than a little scared. Somehow, he got the feeling that she wasn’t nearly as confident of the things she was telling him as she was letting on.

“Then...then you’ll do it?” she asked quietly.

The tone of her voice when she uttered the question gave Chase the feeling that Sylvie still wasn’t sure she wanted to go through with it. He knew what he should do. He knew what he should tell her. He knew it would be a colossal mistake, not to mention a violation of ethical human behavior, to do what she was asking him to do.

But instead of looking at Sylvie when he responded, Chase’s gaze fell to the baby boy sitting on the floor, who was busily stuffing a red cloth building block into his mouth. When he saw that Chase was looking at him, Simon pulled the toy away and curled his lips into a huge smile. For the first time, Chase noted the four tiny teeth jutting from the baby’s gums, two on the top and two on the bottom. Then Simon laughed, a rough, cooing, joyous sound, his pale brown eyes and tiny nose crinkling with the action. That expression transformed the baby’s face, turning it into one of the most delightful sights Chase had ever seen, and he couldn’t help himself when he smiled in return.

Then, much to his amazement, he heard himself tell Sylvie, “All right. I’ll do it.”

* * *

“Okay, I think that takes care of most of the particulars,” Sylvie said some time later as Chase topped off their glasses with the last of the cabernet.

They sat at her kitchen table, all remnants of dinner either stowed in the fridge or ready for a spin in the dishwasher. Daniel McGuane had come for his son and gone hours ago, and now the couple was alone. A legal pad and two pencils lay between them on the table, several of the yellow pages filled with two vastly different types of penmanship where either Sylvie or Chase had remembered something that should go into the legal document they intended to have drawn up. A legal document they would both sign, and which would formally seal the deal they had made only hours before.

Sylvie felt strange as she skimmed over the finer points of the contract. She had wanted for so long to find the perfect father for her child, had spent so many weeks searching for just the right candidate. Now that she had him, she was suddenly uncertain what to do next.

“Can you think of anything else?” she asked, indicating the legal pad as she reached for her glass.

Chase shook his head. “No, I think this about covers everything. I’ll have my attorney draw up the contract, and you can have your attorney look it over before you sign.”

Sylvie was reluctant to tell him that she didn’t have an attorney, so matter-of-fact was Chase in his announcement—as if everybody in the world kept a lawyer on retainer all the time. It occurred to her again what vastly differing life-styles they led. He was a man who was wildly successful in the cutthroat world of business, a man who seemed to have limitless funds and opportunities, a man who was completely in command of his destiny. His was a definite A-type personality, displaying all the characteristics of someone who took charge of a situation without being asked, who never questioned his own judgment, who worked from sunup to sundown to make sure the job was done right.

She, on the other hand, acted compulsively and spontaneously much of the time—her reasoning often based on nothing more than whimsy or intuition at that—and until deciding she wanted a baby, had seldom given much thought to where the future might take her. Certainly she was responsible enough—she was actively cultivating a decent savings account, lived within a monthly budget and had modest needs—but she didn’t want to be the kind of person whose responsibilities extended beyond her own immediate experience. And having untold, very heavy responsibilities was something upon which Chase clearly thrived.

They simply came from and existed in two entirely different worlds. It was something that should comfort her, she tried to tell herself, something that should reinforce the fact that Chase would want no part of her life once he had completed the task she’d asked him to perform. Unfortunately, faced with their obvious differences and incompatibility, Sylvie found herself suddenly wondering if her maternity plan was such a good one after all.

“Sylvie?” she heard him ask, the mention of her name bringing her out of her reverie.

“What?” she replied, realizing he had been speaking at length and she had heard not a word of what he’d said. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about something else.”

She wasn’t sure, but she thought he paused for just the tiniest moment before asking, “What were you thinking about?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing important. What was it you were saying?”

He seemed to want to hedge. “I was talking about... What I was leading up to was... We haven’t really...”

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