She’s searching for the man defrauding her father.

Not for the love of her life.

It’s not such a merry Christmas for Tamara Owens, tapped to discover who’s been stealing from her family business. Suspect number one: tantalizing top trader Flint Collins, who’s suddenly thrust into fatherhood when his orphaned baby sister arrives. Tamara’s sworn off babies forever, but she has the magic touch with infant Diamond. And Flint, too, is soon under her spell...at least until he finds out the truth.

Having written over eighty-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for deliver-ing intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a seven-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or some-one you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

Also by Tara Taylor Quinn

Her Lost and Found Baby

Her Secret Life

The Fireman’s Son

For Joy’s Sake

A Family for Christmas

Falling for the Brother

For Love or Money

Her Soldier’s Baby

The Cowboy’s Twins

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

An Unexpected Christmas Baby

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07837-5

AN UNEXPECTED CHRISTMAS BABY

© 2018 TTQ Books LLC

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my mom, Penny Gumser, who is

still showing me the meaning of the word mother.

And who still reads every word I publish. I love you!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

“Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today—”

The ceremony had been a dumb idea.

“—Alana Gold Collins to rest. The Father tells us—”

Hands together at his belt buckle, Flint Collins stared down past the crease in his black pants to the tips of his shiny black shoes. Alana Gold. Such a lofty name. Like a movie star or something.

Alana Gold. Not much about his mother’s life had been golden. Except her hair, he supposed. Back when she’d been young and pretty. Before the hard life, the drugs and prison had had their way with her.

“—all will be changed at the last sounding of the bell...”

The Father might have imparted that message. The Bible surely did, according to the preacher he’d hired to give his mother a funeral. Dearly Beloved, he’d said. That would be Flint. The dearly beloved. All one of him.

He’d never known any other family. Didn’t even know who his father was.

Footsteps sounded behind him and he stiffened. He’d asked her to come—the caseworker he’d only met two days before. To do the...exchange.

Dearly Beloved. In her own way Alana had loved Flint deeply. Just as, he was absolutely certain, she’d loved the “inheritance” she’d left him. One he hadn’t known about. One he hadn’t yet seen. One that had arrived behind him.

“So take comfort...” That was the preacher again. For the life of him, Flint drew a blank on his name as he glanced up and met the older man’s compassionate gaze.

He almost burst out with a humorless chuckle. Comfort? Was the man serious? Flint’s whole life had imploded in the space of a week. Would never, ever, be the same or be what he’d planned it to be. Comfort was a pipe dream at best.

As the footsteps in the grass behind him slowed, as he felt the warmth of a body close to him, Flint stood still. Respectful.

He’d lost his business before it had even opened. He’d lost the woman he’d expected to marry, to grow old beside.

Alana Gold had lost her life.

And in her death had taken part of his.

The preacher spoke about angels of mercy. The woman half a step behind him rocked slightly, not announcing herself in any way other than her quiet presence. Flint fought to contain his grief. And his anger.

His entire life he’d had to work longer, fight harder. At first to avoid getting beaten up. And then to make a place for himself in the various families with whom he’d been temporarily settled. He’d had a paper route at twelve and delivered weekly grocery ads to neighborhoods for pennies, just to keep food on the table during the times he’d been with Alana.

The preacher spoke of heaven.

Flint remembered when he’d been a junior in high school, studying for finals, and had had to spend the night before his test getting his mother out of jail. She’d been prostituting that time. Those were the charges. She’d claimed differently.

But then, Alana’s troubles had always been someone else’s fault.

In the beginning they probably had been. She’d once claimed that she’d gotten on the wrong track because she’d been looking for a way to escape an abusive father. That was the one part of her story Flint fully believed. He’d met the guy once. Had opted, when given the chance in court, to never have to see him again. Sometimes it worked in a guy’s favor to have a caseworker.

After Alana’s prostitution arrest during his finals week, he’d expected to be seeing his caseworker again, to have her come to pick him up and take him back to foster care. Instead his mother had been sitting in the living room when he’d gotten home from school the next day, completely sober, her fingernails bitten to the quick, with a plate of homemade chocolate-chip cookies on her lap, worried sick that she’d made him fail his exam.

Tears had dripped down her face as he’d told her of course not, he’d aced it. Because he’d skipped lunch to cram. She’d apologized. Again and again. She’d always said he was the only good thing about her. That he was going to grow up to be something great, for both of them. She’d waited on him hand and foot for a few weeks. Had stayed sober and made it to work at the hair salon—where she’d qualified for men’s basic cuts only—for most of that summer.

Until one of her clients had talked her into going out for a good time...

“Let us pray.”

Flint’s head was already bowed. The brief ceremony was almost over. The closed casket holding his mother’s body would remain on the stand, waiting over the hole in the ground until after Flint was gone and the groundskeeper came to lower her to her final rest.

Moisture pricked the backs of his eyelids. For a second, he started to panic like he had the first day he’d gone out to catch the bus for school—a puny five-year-old in a trailer park filled with older kids—and been shoved to the back of the line by every one of them. He could have turned and run home. No one would have stopped him. Alana hadn’t been sober enough to know, or care, whether he’d made it to his first day of school. But he hadn’t run. He’d faced that open bus door, climbed those steps that had seemed like mountains to him and walked halfway to the back of the bus before sitting.

He was Alana Gold’s precious baby boy and he was going to be someone.

“Amen.” The preacher laid a Bible on top of the coffin.

Amen to that. He was Alana’s son and he was going to be someone all right.

“Mr. Collins?”

The voice, a woman’s voice, was close to him.

“Mr. Collins? I’ve got her things in the car, as you asked.”

Her things. Things for the inheritance Alana had left him. More scared than he could ever remember being, Flint raised his head and turned it to see the brunette standing behind him, a concerned look on her face. A pink bundle in her arms.

Staring at that bundle, he swallowed the lump in his throat. He wasn’t prepared. No way could he pass this test. In her death, Alana had finally set him up for failure. She’d unintentionally done it in the past but had never succeeded. This time, though...

He reminded himself that he had to be someone.

Brother? Father? Neither fit. He’d never had either.

A breeze blew across the San Diego cemetery. The cemetery close to where he’d grown up, where he’d once seen his mother score dope. And now he was putting her here permanently. Nothing about this day was right.

“Prison records show that your mother had already chosen a name for her. But as I told you, since she died giving birth, no official name has been given. You’re free to name her whatever you’d like...”

Prison records and legal documents showed that his forty-five-year-old mother had appointed him, her thirty-year-old son, as guardian of her unborn child. A child Alana had conceived while serving year eight of her ten-year sentence for cooking and dealing methamphetamine in the trailer Flint had purchased for her.

The child’s father was listed as “unknown.”

He and the inherited baby had that in common. And the fact that their mother had stayed clean the entire time she’d carried them. Birthing them without addiction.

“What did she call her?” he asked, unable to lift his gaze from the pink bundle or to peer further, to seek out the little human inside it.

He’d been bequeathed a little human.

After thirty years of having his mother as his only family, he had a sister.

“Diamond Rose,” the caseworker said.

Flint didn’t hear any derogatory tone in the voice.

Alana had been gold. A softer metal. He was Flint, a hard rock. And this new member of the family was diamond. Strong enough to cut glass. Valuable and cherished. And Rose... Expensive, beautiful, sweet.

He got Alana’s message, even if the world wouldn’t. “Then Diamond Rose it is,” he said, turning more fully to face the caseworker.

The woman was on the job, had other duties to tend to. She’d already done a preliminary background check but, as family, he had a right to the child even if the woman didn’t want to give her to him. Unless the caseworker had found some reason that suggested the baby might be unsafe with him.

Like the fact that he knew nothing whatsoever about infants? Had never changed a diaper in his life? At least not on a real baby. He’d put about thirty of them on a doll he’d purchased the day before—immediately after watching a load of new parenting videos.

He reached for the bundle. Diamond Rose. She’d weighed six pounds, one ounce at birth, he’d been told. He’d put a pound of butter on a five-pound bag of flour the night before, wrapped it in one of the new blankets he’d purchased and walked around the house with it while going about his routine. Figured he could do pretty much anything he might want or need to do while holding it.

Or wearing it. The body-pack sling thing had been a real find. Not that different from the backpacks he’d used all through school, although this one was meant to be worn in front. Put the baby in that, he’d be hands free.

The caseworker, Ms. Bailey, rather than handing him Diamond Rose, took a step back. “Do you have the car seat?”

“I have two,” he told her. “In case she has a babysitter and there’s an emergency and she needs to be transported when I’m not there.” He also had a crib set up in a room that used to be designated as a spare bedroom. Stella, his ex-fiancée, had eyed the unfurnished room as her temporary office until they purchased a home more in line with her wants and needs.

In an even more upscale neighborhood, in other words.

Ms. Bailey held the bundle against her. Flint didn’t take offense. Didn’t really blame the woman at all. If he were her, he wouldn’t want to hand a two-day-old baby over to him, either. But during her two days in the hospital the baby had been fully tested, examined and then released that morning. Released to him. Her family. Via Ms. Bailey. At his request, because he had a funeral to attend. And had wanted Alana’s daughter there, too.

“As I said earlier, I strongly recommend a Pack ’n Play. They’re less expensive than cribs, double as playpens with a changing table attachment and are easily portable.”

Already had that, too. Although he hadn’t set it up in his bedroom as the videos he’d watched had recommended. No way was he having a baby sleep with him. Didn’t seem... He didn’t know what.

He had the monitors. If she woke, he’d have to get up anyway. Walking across the hall only took a few more steps.

“And the bottles and formula?”

“Three scoops of the powder per six ounces of water, slightly warm.” He’d done a dozen run-throughs on that. And was opting for boiling all nipples in water just to be safe in his method of cleansing.

He noticed the preacher hovering in the distance. The man of God probably needed to get on to other matters, as well. Flint nodded his thanks and received the older man’s nod in return. As he watched him walk away, he couldn’t help wondering if Alana Gold would be more than a momentary blip in his memory.

She would be far more than that to her daughter.

Ms. Bailey interrupted his thoughts. “What about child care? Have you made arrangements for when you go back to work?”

Go back to work? As in, an hour from now? Taking Monday morning off had been difficult enough. With the market closed over the weekend, Mondays were always busy.

And he had some serious backtracking to do at the firm.

In the financial world, things had to be done discreetly and he’d been taking action—confidentially until he knew for sure it was a go—to move out on his own. Somehow his plans had become known and rumors had begun to spread with a bad spin. In the past week there’d been talk that he’d contacted his clients, trying to steal their business away from the firm. A person he trusted had heard something and confided that to him. And then he’d had an oddly formal exchange about the weather with Howard Owens, CEO and, prior to the past week, a man who’d seemed proud to have him around. A man who’d never wasted weather words on Flint. They talked business. All the time. Until the past week.

There was no way he could afford to take time off work now.

“I’m taking her with me.” He faced Ms. Bailey, feet apart and firmly grounded. He had to work. Period. “I have a Pack ’n Play already set up in the office.”

The woman frowned. “They’ll let you have a baby with you at work?”

“My office is private. I’ll keep the door closed if it’s a problem.” The plan was short-term. Eventually he’d have to make other arrangements. He’d only had a weekend to prepare. Had gotten himself trained and the house set up. He figured he’d done a damned impressive job.

Besides, that time Campbell’s dog had had surgery, the guy had brought it to the office every day for a week. Kept it in his office. As long as you were a money-maker and didn’t get in the way of others making money, you were pretty much untouched at Owens Investments. They were like independent businesses under one roof.

Or so he’d been telling himself repeatedly in the couple of days since he’d realized he couldn’t open his own business as planned. Not and have sole responsibility for a newborn. Running a business took a lot more than simply making smart investments. Especially when it was just getting off the ground.

He’d already shut down the entire process. Withdrawn his applications for the licenses required to be an investment adviser to more than five clients and regulated by the SEC in the State of California. Lost his deposit for a proposed suite in a new office building.

If she thought she was going to keep his sister from him now...

Another breeze blew across his face, riffling the edge of the blanket long enough that he caught a flash of skin. A tiny cheek? A forehead?

Panic flared. And then dissipated. That bundle was his sister. His family. Only he could give her that. Only he could tell her about her mother. The good stuff.

Like the times she’d look in on him late at night, thinking he was asleep. Whisper her apologies. And tell him how very, very much she loved him. How much he mattered. How he was the one thing she’d done right. How he was going to make his mark on the world for both of them.

The way she’d throw herself a thousand percent into his school projects, encouraging him, making suggestions, applauding him. How talented she was at crafty things. How she loved to watch sappy movies and made the best popcorn. How she’d want to watch scary movies with him and he’d catch her looking away during the best parts. How she’d never made a big deal out of his mistakes. From spills to a broken window, she’d let him know it was okay. How she’d played cards with him, taught him to cook. How she’d laugh until tears ran down her face. How pretty she used to be when she smiled.

The images flying swiftly through his mind halted abruptly as Ms. Bailey began to close in on him, her arms outstretched.

Hoping to God she didn’t notice his sudden trembling, he moved instinctively, settled the weight at the tip of the blanket in the crook of his elbow and took the rest of it on his arm, just as he’d practiced with the flour-and-butter wrap the night before. She was warm. And she squirmed. Shock rippled through him. Ms. Bailey adjusted the blanket, fully exposing the tiniest face he’d ever seen up close. Doll-like nose and chin. Eyelids tightly closed. Puckered little lips. A hint of a frown on a forehead that was smaller than the palm of his hand.

“From what I’ve seen in pictures, she has your mother’s eyes,” Ms. Bailey said, a catch in her voice. Because she could hear the tears threatening in his? A grown man who hadn’t cried since the first time they’d carted his mother off to prison. He’d been six then.

She has your mother’s eyes.

He had his mother’s eyes. Deep, dark brown. It was fitting that this baby did, too. “We’ll be getting on with it, then,” he said, holding his inheritance securely against him as he moved toward his SUV, all but dismissing Ms. Bailey from their lives.

Having a caseworker was a part of his legacy that he wasn’t going to pass on to his sister.

Reaching the new blue Lincoln Navigator he’d purchased five months before and hadn’t visited the prison in even once, he felt a sharp pang of guilt as he realized once again that he’d let almost half a year pass since seeing his mother.

Before he’d met Stella Wainwright—a lawyer in her father’s high-powered firm, whose advice he’d come to rely on as he’d made preparations to open his own investment firm—he’d seen Alana at least twice a month. But once he and Stella had hooked up on a personal level, he’d been distracted. Incredibly busy. And...

He’d been loath to lie to Stella about where he’d been—in the event he’d visited the prison—but had been equally unsure about telling her about his convict mother.

As it turned out, his reticence hadn’t been off the mark. As soon as he’d told Stella about his mother’s death, and the child who’d been bequeathed to him, she’d balked. She’d assumed he’d give the baby up for adoption. And had made it clear that if he didn’t, she was moving on. She’d said from the beginning that she didn’t want children, at least not for a while, but he’d also seen the extreme distaste in her expression when he’d mentioned where his mother had been when she died, and why he’d never introduced them.

Her reaction hadn’t surprised him.

Eight years had passed since he’d been under investigation and nearly lost his career, but the effects were long-lasting. He’d done nothing more than provide his destitute mother with a place to live, but when his name came up as owner of a drug factory, the truth hadn’t mattered.

Stella had done a little research and he’d been cooked.

Opening the back passenger door of the vehicle, he gently laid his sleeping bundle in the car seat, unprepared when the bundle slumped forward. Repositioning her, he pulled her slightly forward, allowing her body weight to lean back—and slouch over to the side of the seat.

Who the hell had thought the design of that seat appropriate?

“This might help.”

Straightening, he saw the caseworker holding out a brightly covered, U-shaped piece of foam. He took it from her and arranged it at the top of the car seat as instructed. He was pleased with the result. Until he realized he’d placed the sleeping bundle on top of the straps that were supposed to hold the baby in place.

Expecting Ms. Bailey to interrupt, to push him aside to show him how it was done—half hoping she would so she wasn’t standing there watching his big fumbling fingers—he set to righting his mistake. The caseworker must be thinking he was incapable of handling the responsibility. However, she didn’t butt in and he managed, after a long minute, to get the baby harnessed. He’d practiced that, too. The hooking and unhooking of those straps. Plastic pieces that slid over metal for the shoulder part, metal into metal over the bottom half.

He stood. Waited for a critique of his first task as a...guardian.

Handing him her card, reminding him of legalities he’d have to complete, Ms. Bailey took one last look at the baby and told him to call her if he had any questions or problems.

He took the card, assuring her he’d call if the need arose. Pretty certain he wouldn’t. He’d be like any normal...guardian; he’d call the pediatrician. As soon as he had one. Another item he had to add to the list of immediate things to do.

“And for what it’s worth...” Ms. Bailey stood there, looking between him and the little sister he was suddenly starting to feel quite proprietary about. “I think she’s a very lucky little girl.”

Wow. He hadn’t seen that coming. Wasn’t sure the words were true. But they rang loudly in his ears as the woman walked away.

Standing in the open space of the back passenger door, he glanced down at the sleeping baby, only her face visible to him, and didn’t want to shut the door. Didn’t want to leave her in the big back seat all alone.

Which was ridiculous.

He had to get to work. And hope to God he could mend whatever damage had been done by his previous plans to leave. He had some ideas there—a way to redeem himself, to rebuild trust. But he had to be at the office to present them.

Closing the door as softly as he could, he hurried to the driver’s seat, adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see enough of the baby to know she was there and started the engine. Not ready to go anywhere. To begin this new life.

He glanced in the mirror again. Sitting forward so he could see the child more clearly. Other than the little chest rising and falling with each breath, she hadn’t moved.

But was moving him to the point of panic. And tears, too. He wasn’t alone anymore.

“Welcome home, Diamond Rose,” he whispered.

And put the car in Drive.

Chapter Two

“Dad, seriously, tell me what’s going on.” Tamara Owens faced her father, not the least bit intimidated by the massive cherry desk separating him from her. Or the elegantly imposing décor throughout her father’s office.

She’d seen him at home, unshaved, walking around their equally elegant five-thousand-square-foot home in boxers and a T-shirt. In a bathrobe, sick with the flu. And, also in a bathrobe, holding her hair while she’d thrown up, sick with the same flu. Her mom, the doctor in the family, had been at the hospital that night.

“You didn’t put pressure on me to move home just because you and Mom are getting older and I’m your only child.” It was the story they’d given her when they’d bombarded her with their “do what you need to do, but at least think about it” requests. Then her father, in a conversation alone with her, had given Tamara a second choice, an “at least take a month off and stay for a real visit” that had made the final decision for her. She’d gotten the feeling that he needed her home. She’d already been contemplating leaving the East Coast, where she’d fled two years earlier after having lived in San Diego her entire life. Her reputation as an efficiency consultant was solid enough to allow her to branch out independently, rather than work through a firm without fear of going backward. Truth be told, in those two years, she’d missed her folks as much as they’d missed her, in spite of their frequent trips across the country to see each other.

She’d lived by the ocean in Boston, but she missed Southern California. The sunshine and year-round warmth. The two-year lease renting out her place by the beach, not far from the home she’d grown up in, had ended and the time seemed right to make the move back home.

“And you didn’t ask me down here to have lunch with you just to catch up, either,” she told him. Though his thick hair was mostly gray, her father, at six-two, with football shoulders that had absolutely no slump to them, was a commanding figure. She respected him. But he’d never, ever, made her feel afraid of him.

Or afraid to speak up to him, either.

Her parents, both remarkably successful, independent career people, had raised her to be just as independent.

“I wanted to check in—you know, just the two of us—to see how you’re really doing.”

Watching him, she tried to decide whether she could take him at face value. There’d been times, during her growing-up years, when she’d asked him for private conversations because her mother’s ability to jump too completely into her skin had bothered her. And times when he’d wanted the same. This didn’t feel like one of those times.

But...

“I’m totally over Steve, if that’s what you want to know,” she told him. “We’ve been talking for about six months now. Ever since he called to tell me he was getting married. I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago to tell him I was moving home. I care about him as a friend, but there are truly no regrets about our decision to divorce.”

The passion between them had died long before the marriage had.

“I was wondering more about the...other areas of your life.”

Some of those were permanently broken. She had an “inhospitable” uterus. Nothing anyone could do about that.

“I’ve come to terms with never having a baby, if that’s what you mean.” After she’d lost the fourth one, she’d known she couldn’t let herself try again. What she’d felt for those babies, even when they’d been little more than blips in an ultrasound, had been the most incredible thing ever. But the devastation when she’d lost them...that had almost killed her. Every single time.

She couldn’t do that again.

“There are other ways, Tam.”

She shook her head.

“Adoption, for instance.”

Another vigorous shake of her head was meant to stop his words.

“Down the road, I mean. When you meet someone, want to have a family...”

She was still shaking her head.

“Just give it some time.”

She’d given it two years. Her feelings hadn’t changed. Not in the slightest. “Knowing how badly it hurts to lose a child... It’s not something I’m going to risk again. Not just because I’m afraid I’d miscarry if I got pregnant again, although it’s pretty much assured that I would. But even without that, I can’t have children. Whether I lost a child through miscarriage or some other way, just knowing it could happen... I can’t take that chance. The last time, I hit a wall. I just don’t—I’ve made my peace with life and I’m happy.”

A lot of days she was getting there. Had moments when she was there. And felt fully confident she’d be completely there. Soon.

“But you aren’t dating.”

Leaning forward, she said, “I just got back to town a week ago! Give me time!”

He didn’t even blink. “What about Boston? Didn’t you meet anyone there?”

“I was hardly ever home long enough to meet anyone,” she reminded him. “Traveling all over the country, making a name for myself, took practically every second I had.”

The move to Boston had been prompted by an offer she’d had to join a nationally reputed efficiency company. She’d been given the opportunity to build a reputation for herself. To collect an impressive database of statistical proof from more than two dozen assignments that showed she could save a company far more money per year, in many departments, than they’d pay for her one-time services. Her father had seen the results. He’d been keeping his own running tally of her successes.

“You did an incredible job, Tam, I’m not disputing that. I’m impressed. And proud of you, too.”

The warmth in those blue eyes comforted her as much now as when she’d been a little kid and fallen off her bike the first time he’d taken off the training wheels. She hadn’t even skinned her knee, but she’d been scared and he’d scooped her up, made her look him in the eye and see that she was just fine.

“I guess it’s a little hard for me to believe that emotionally you’re really doing as well as you say, because I don’t see how you do it. I can’t imagine ever losing you... I don’t know how I’d have survived losing four.”

“But you did lose four, Daddy. You were as excited as anyone when you found out I was pregnant. Heck, you’d already bought Ryan his first fishing rod...”

She still had it, in the back of the shed on her small property. She’d carried Ryan the longest. Almost five months. They’d just found out he was a boy. Everything had looked good. And then...

Through sheer force of will, she stopped the shudder before it rippled through her. Remembering the sharp stabs of debilitating physical pain was nothing compared to the morose emptiness she’d been left with afterward.

“I’m not as strong as you are.” Howard Owens’s voice sounded...different. She hardly recognized it. Tamara stared at him, truly frightened. Was her father sick? Did her mother know? Was that why they’d needed her home?

Frustrated, she wanted to demand that he tell her what was going on, but knew better. The Owens and their damned independence. Asking for help was like an admission of defeat.

“Of course you are,” she told him, ready to hold him up, support him, for whatever length of time it took to get him healthy again. If, indeed, he was sick. She slowed herself down. She’d just been thinking how healthy, robust, strong he looked. His skin as tanned as always, that tiny hint of a belly at his waist... Everything was as it should be. He’d been talking about his golf scores at dinner the night before—until her mother had changed the subject in the charming manner she had that let him know he was going on and on.

Tamara had been warmed by the way her mother had smiled at her father as the words left her mouth—and the way, as usual, he’d smiled back at her.

She and Steve had never had that; they’d never been able to communicate as much or more with a look as they had with words. In the final couple of years, not even words had worked for them...

“Anyway,” she continued, pulling her mind out of the abyss, “you’re the one who taught me how to do it,” she said, mimicking him. “It’s all about focus, exactly like you taught me. If I wanted to get good grades, I had to focus and study. If I wanted to have a good life, I had to focus on what I wanted. If I wanted to overcome the fear, I had to keep my thoughts on things other than being afraid. And if I want to be a success, I just have to focus on doing the best job I can do. Focus, Dad. That’s what you’ve always taught me and what I’ve always done. In everything I do.”

It was almost like she was telling him how to make it through whatever was bothering him.

He’d always been her greatest example.

Howard’s eyes closed for longer than a blink. When he opened them again, he didn’t meet her gaze. And for the second time fear struck a cold blow inside her. Focus on the problem, she told herself. Not on how she was feeling.

To do that, she had to know the problem.

“What’s going on, Dad?” There was no doubt that his call to her asking her to come home had to do with more than missing her. How much more, she had to find out.

“Owens Investments was audited this past spring.”

Her relief was so heady she almost saw stars. It was business. Not health. “You’ve got some misplaced files?” she asked him. “You need me to do a paper trail to satisfy them?” Her Master’s in Business Administration had been a formal acknowledgment of her ability, but Tamara’s true skills, organization and thoroughness, were what had catapulted her to success in her field. If a paper trail existed, she’d find it. And then know how to better organize the process by which documents were collated so nothing got lost again.

Her father’s chin jutted out as he shook his head. “I wish it was missing files. Turns out that someone’s been siphoning money from the company for over a year. And I’m not sure it’s stopped. If it continues, I could lose everything.”

Okay. So, not good news. Also not imminent death. Anything that wasn’t death was fixable.

“I need your help, Tam,” Howard said, folding his hands on the desk as he faced her. “Money is a vulnerable business. A lucrative one, but vulnerable. If our investors hear there’s money missing, they’ll get nervous. There could be a massive move out...”

She could see that. Was more or less a novice about the ins and outs of what he did, but she knew how companies worked. And the importance of consumer trust.

“I was hoping I’d be able to figure out what’s going on myself, no need to alarm you or bring you home, but I haven’t been able to find the leak. I need you to come in and do what you do. To give us a once-over, presumably to see if you can save us money. In reality, I’m hoping that you can give everything more of a thorough study without raising suspicions the way it would if I was taking a deeper look.”

She nodded, recognizing how hard it was for her father to have to ask for help. Thinking ahead. Focusing on the job.

“People are going to know I’m your daughter. They might be less comfortable speaking with me.”

He shook his head again. “I’ve thought of that. A few will know, of course. Roger. Emily. And Bill. For the rest, it works in our favor that you kept your married name because it was the name you became known under in the business world. People will have no reason to suspect.”

Roger Standish, Emily Porter and Bill Coniff. CFO, VP and Director of Operations, respectively. Her father’s very first employees when he’d first started out. She’d met them all but it wasn’t as if he’d been close friends with his business associates. He was closer to his clients. Many of those she knew better than her own aunts and uncle. Still, none of his top three people would rat her out to the employees. Unless...

“What if the problem rests with one of those three?”

“I guess we’ll find that out,” he said, raising a hand and then running it over his face. Clearly he’d been dealing with the problem for a while. Longer than he should have without saying anything. She was thirty-two, not thirteen.

“Does Mom know?”

“Of course. She wanted me to call you home immediately.”

“You should have.”

“Your happiness and emotional health mean more to me than going bankrupt.”

Feeling her skin go cold again, she stared at him. Was it that bad?

“Your well-being is one of the top factors that affects my emotional health,” she couldn’t help pointing out to him.

With a nod, he conceded that.

He was asking for her help. Nothing else mattered.

“How soon can I start?” she asked.

“That was going to be my question.”

“When you finally got around to telling me you needed something...” The slight dig didn’t escape him.

“I was going to tell you today. I was just having a bit of trouble getting to it. You’ve been through so much and I don’t like putting more on you...”

“I make my living by having companies put more on me. It’s what I do, what I strive for.” She grinned at him. He grinned back.

Her world felt right again.

“So...is now too soon?”

“Now would be great. But...there’s one other thing.”

The knot was back in her stomach. Please, not his health. Had he waited until the stress had taken a physical toll before calling her? “What?”

“I don’t want to prejudice or influence your findings, but there’s one employee in particular who I think could be the one we’re after. Although I wasn’t able to find anything concrete that says it’s him.”

Pulling the tablet she always kept in her bag onto her lap, she turned it on. Opened a new file. “Who is he? And why do you suspect him?”

“His name’s Flint Collins. I took him on eight years ago when he was let go by his firm and no one else would hire him. He’d only been in the business a year, but had good instincts. He was up-front about the issues facing him and looked me straight in the eye as we talked. He was... He kind of reminded me of myself. I liked him.”

Enough to have been blinded by him? “Have I ever met him? Flint Collins?”

“No.” Her father didn’t have office parties at home. And rarely ever attended the ones he financed at the office.

“So what were his issues eight years ago?”

Not really an efficiency matter, she knew, unless, of course, he was wasteful to the point of being a detriment to the company. But then, this wasn’t just an efficiency case.

This was her father. And she was out for more than saving his firm a few dollars.

“His mother was indicted on multiple drug charges. She’d been running a fairly sophisticated meth lab from her home and was dealing on a large enough scale to get her ten years in prison.”

Had to be tough. But... “What did that have to do with him, specifically?”

“The trailer she lived in was in his name. As were all the utilities. Paid by him every month. He had regular contact with his mother. He’d already begun to make decent money and was investing it, so he was worth far more than average for a twenty-two-year-old just out of college. Investigators assumed that part of his wealth came from his cut of his mother’s business and named him as a suspect. They froze his assets. Any investors he had at the firm where he worked got scared and moved their accounts. It was a bad deal all the way around.”

“Was he ever formally charged?” She figured she knew the answer to that. He wouldn’t be working for her father as an investment broker if he had been. But she had to ask.

“No. He says he had no idea what his mother had been doing. Seemed to be in shock about the whole thing, to tell you the truth. A warrant for all his accounts and assets turned up no proof at all that he’d ever taken a dime from anyone for anything. All deposits were easily corroborated with legitimate earnings.”

“How’d he do for you?”

“Phenomenal. As well as I thought he might. He’s one of our top producers. Until recently, I never suspected him of anything but being one of the best business decisions I’d ever made.”

“What happened recently?”

“He hooked up with a fancy lawyer. His spending habits changed. He bought a luxury SUV, started taking exotic vacations, generally living high. I’m not saying he couldn’t afford it, just that a guy who’s always appeared to be conservative with his own spending was suddenly flashing his wealth.”

As in...he’d come into new wealth? Or felt like he’d tapped into a bottomless well? Or was running with a faster crowd and needed more than he was making?

“There’s more,” her father said. “Last week Bill told me he’d heard from Jane in Accounting that she’d heard from a friend of hers in the office of the Commissioner of Business Oversight that Collins was planning to leave. That he was filing paperwork to open his own firm. Bill says he heard that Collins was planning to take his book of business with him.”

She disliked the guy. Thoroughly.

“He can’t do that, can he? Solicit his clients away from you?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean he won’t drop a word in an ear here and there.” Howard slowly tapped a finger on the edge of his desk, seeming to concentrate on the movement. “As I said, money is a vulnerable business. His clients trust him. They’ll follow him of their own accord.”

“So he’s going to be direct competition to the man who took a chance on him?” Hate was such a strong word. She didn’t want it in her vocabulary. Anger, on the other hand...

“I left another firm to start Owens Investments.” Her father’s words calmed her for the immediate moment. “He was doing what I did. Following in my footsteps, so to speak. I just didn’t see it coming from him. I thought he was happy here.”

“Unless he’s leaving because he knows someone is on to the fact that money is being misplaced.”

“That’s occurred to me, too. About a hundred times over the past week. A guy who’s opening his own business doesn’t usually start spending lavishly. And if he was the decent guy I thought he was, he would at least have let me know his plans to leave. Which is what I did when I was branching out.

“And, like I said, he’s the only one here who’s made any obvious changes in routine or lifestyle over the past year. I did some checking into health-care claims and asked around as much as I could, and no one seems to be going through any medical crisis that would require extra funding. I’m not aware of any rancorous divorces, either.”

“So... I start now and my first visit is to Mr. Flint Collins.”

Howard nodded. “We need to get a look at every file he has while everything is still here.”

Which might take some time. “Do you know how soon he’s planning to leave?”

“Technically, I don’t actually know that he’s going. Like I said, this is all still rumor. He’s given me no indication or made any official announcement about his plans.”

“But it could be soon?”

Howard shrugged. “Could be any day. I just hope to God it’s not. Even if he’s not the one who’s been stealing from me, he’s going to do it indirectly unless I can get to his clients first. I’ve already started reaching out—making sure everyone’s happy, letting them know that if there’s any question or discomfort at all, to contact me. I’ll take on more accounts myself rather than lose them.”

Even then, her dad would have to be careful. He couldn’t appear to be stabbing a fellow broker in the back just to keep more profits for himself. She did know some things about his business. She also remembered a time when she’d been in high school and another broker had left the firm. Her dad had talked to her mother about a party for the investors who’d be affected, which they’d had and then he’d acted on her advice as to how to deliver his news. She just couldn’t remember what that advice had been. What stuck in her mind was that her father had taken it.

Which had given a teenage Tamara respect for, and faith in, both of them.

Standing, she asked her dad for a private space with a locking door that she could use as an office. Told him she’d need passwords and security clearance to access all files. And suggested he send out a memo, or however they normally did such things within the company, to let everyone know, from janitorial on up, that she’d be around and why, giving him wording suggestions. Everything that came with her introductory speech on every new job she took. She had a lot of work to do.

But first she was going to introduce herself to Flint Collins.

While her heart hurt for the young man who, from the sound of things, had a much more difficult upbringing than many—certainly far more difficult than she’d had—that didn’t give him the right to screw over her family. Karma didn’t work that way.

Chapter Three

Flint took the back way into his office. Leaving the base of the car seat strapped into the back of his SUV, he unlatched the baby carrier, carefully laid a blanket over the top and hightailed it to his private space.

Lunchtime at Owens Investments meant that almost everyone in Flint’s wing would be out wining and dining clients, or holed up in his or her office getting work done. His door was the second from the end by the private entrance—because he’d requested the space when it became available. He wasn’t big on socializing at work and hadn’t liked being close to the door on the opposite end of the hall, which led to reception.

He’d never expected to be thankful that he could sneak something inside without being seen. That Monday he was.

Everyone was going to know. He just needed time to see Bill. His boss, Bill Coniff, was Director of Operations and, he was pretty sure, the person who’d ratted him out before he was ready to go to Howard Owens with his plan to open his own firm. Jane in Accounting had told him about the rumor going around, and said she’d interrupted Bill telling Howard. According to Jane, Bill had twisted the news to make it sound like Flint had been soliciting his current clients to jump ship with him.

Flint would get out of the business altogether before he’d do that.

Business was business. Howard had taught him that. Flint was good at what he did and could earn a lot more money over the course of his career by having his own firm. Could make choices he wasn’t currently permitted to make regarding certain investments because Howard wasn’t willing to take the same risks.

He felt that to live up to his full potential, he had to go, but he’d been planning to do it ethically. With Howard fully involved in the process—once there was a solid process in which to involve him.

But in less than a week his life had irrevocably changed. Forever. His focus now had to be on making enough money to support a child, not taking risks. To provide a safe, loving home. And to have time to be in that home with the child as much as possible.

How the hell he was supposed to go about that, he had no real idea. First step had been watching all the videos. Buying out the baby store.

And the next was to humble himself, visit Bill Coniff and ensure his current job security. To beg if it came to that.

He spent a few minutes setting up the monitor system he’d purchased for his office, putting the remote receiver in his pocket and taking one last glance at the baby carrier he’d placed on the work table opposite his desk. The floor was too drafty, the couch too narrow. What if she cried and moved her arms and legs a lot and the carrier fell off?

Ms. Bailey had said that the infant had been fed before she’d brought her to the gravesite. Apparently she ate every two hours and slept most of the rest of the time. By his math, that gave him half an hour to get his situation resolved before she’d need him.

Testing the monitor by talking into it and making sure he heard his own voice coming out of his pocket, he left the room, closing the door behind him. Should he lock it? Somehow, locking a baby in a place alone seemed dangerous. Neglectful. But he couldn’t leave the door unlocked. Anyone could walk down that hallway and steal her away.

Was he wrong to vacate the room at all?

People left babies in nurseries at home and even went downstairs. Bill’s office was two doors away from his. He’d see anyone who walked by. Unless whoever it was came in through the private door. Only employees had access to that hall.

There were security cameras at either end.

If there was a fire and he was hurt, a locked door would prevent firefighters from getting to Diamond Rose.

Decision made, he left the door unlocked.

* * *

“Please, Bill, I’m asking you to support me here. I’m prepared to plead my case to Howard. Just back me up on it. I don’t know who started spreading the rumors or how far they’ve reached, but I’m fairly certain they made it to Howard’s office...”

On her way to knock on the door of one Flint Collins, Tamara stopped in her tracks. Standing in a deserted private hallway in two-and-a-half-inch heels and her short black skirt with its matching short jacket, plus the lacy camisole her mother had bought to go with the ensemble, she felt conspicuous. But something told her not to move. She’d dressed for a “professional” lunch with her father, not for real business. But business was at hand.

“You’re telling me you didn’t file paperwork to open your own investment firm?”

She recognized Bill’s voice coming from the office with his name on the door. Based on what her father had told her, she figured Bill had to be speaking with Flint Collins. Did her father know Bill was intending to handle the matter?

“No. I’m not saying that. I’m telling you I no longer have plans to do that and would like to do whatever I need to, to ensure my job security here.”

“Your plans to hurt this company by soliciting our customers didn’t work out, so now I should trust that you’re here to stay?”

Bill was in the process of firing the guy? He couldn’t! Not yet! She needed time to investigate him while his files were all still in his office at the company. While he didn’t know he was being watched.

“I did not, nor did I intend, to solicit anyone. I intended to have a meeting with Howard and do things the right way.”

“And now you don’t plan to leave anymore.”

“Now, in light of the rumors that went around last week, I’d like to guarantee that I have job security here and I was hoping for your cooperation. You know the money I make for this firm, Bill.”

“You know how important trust is to this firm.”

Tamara took a step forward. She couldn’t let Bill fire the man, but wasn’t sure how to prevent that from happening without exposing more than she could if she was going to be effective in her task.

“I’m willing to sign a noncompete clause to prove my trustworthiness.”

“Wow, I like the sound of that!” Tamara burst into the room with a smile that she hoped Bill would accept at face value. She and her father had decided that even his top people shouldn’t be told her true reason for being there. At the moment, they could only trust each other.

But he’d called all three of them before she’d left his office, telling them she was going to be doing an efficiency study and that he’d like their cooperation in keeping her relationship to him quiet. Howard wanted to make sure that as she moved about the company, she’d have their full support. She was working under her married name of Frost. Howard had explained that he’d thought people would be less nervous around her if they didn’t know she was his daughter.

“Tamara? So good to see you!” Bill turned to her, an odd combination of welcoming smile and bewildered frown warring on his face.

“As you know, Bill, I’m here to study operations on all levels and find ways for Owens Investments to show a higher profit by running more efficiently,” she said, holding out her hand to shake his.

Luckily she had her professional spiel down pat. Normally, though, the words weren’t accompanied by a pounding heart. Or the sudden flash of heat that had surfaced as she’d looked from Bill to his conversation mate and met the brown-eyed gaze of the compelling blond man she’d been predisposed to dislike on sight.

* * *

At first Flint had absolutely no idea who the beautiful, auburn-haired woman with the gold-rimmed green eyes was as she interrupted the meeting upon which his future security could very well rest.

Bill quickly filled him in as he introduced the efficiency expert Howard Owens had hired. Apparently a memo had been sent to Flint and all Owens employees in the past hour. He, of course, had been busy burying his mother and becoming a guardian/father/brother and hadn’t gotten to the morning’s email yet.

Thinking of the baby girl he’d left sleeping in his office, he reached for the monitor in his pocket, thumb moving along the side to check that the volume was all the way up. He’d been gone almost five minutes. Didn’t feel good about that.

“It seems to me, Bill, that if we have a broker on staff who’s willing to sign a noncompete clause, then we should give him that opportunity. If he doesn’t produce, we can still let him go. If he does, our bottom line has more security. We don’t lose either way. Efficient. I like it.”

Flint wasn’t sure he liked her. But he liked what she was saying, since it meant Diamond Rose would have security.

“Unless you know of some reason we shouldn’t keep him on?” she asked. “Other than what I just overheard, that he’d been thinking about opening his own firm?”

She looked at him. He didn’t deny the charge. But he wasn’t going to elaborate. Other than Bill, Howard Owens was the only one to whom Flint would report.

It seemed odd that this outside expert happened to be in the hall just as he’d been speaking with Bill. As though some kind of fate had put her there.

Or a mother in heaven looking out for her children?

The idea was so fanciful, Flint had a second’s very serious concern regarding his state of mind. But another completely real concern cut that one short. His pocket made a tiny coughing sound.

All three adults in the room froze. Staring at each other.

And Flint’s brand-new little girl made another, half-crying sound. In a pitch without weight. Or strength.

The woman—Tamara Frost, as Bill had introduced her—stared at his pocket. For a second there she looked...horrified. Or maybe sick.

“Not that it’s any of my business but...do you have a newborn baby cry as your ringtone?” Her voice, as she looked up at him, sounded professionally nonjudgmental—although definitely taken aback.

Probably didn’t happen often... Guys with the sound of crying babies in their pockets during business meetings.

Diamond Rose released another small outburst. Twenty minutes ahead of schedule. He had to get back to her. His first real duty and he was already letting her down. He’d had no time to prepare the bottle, as he’d expected to.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking from Bill to their expert and then heading to the door. “I have to get this.”

Let them think it was his phone. And that the call was more important at that moment than they were.

Just until he had things under control.

Chapter Four

She was coming down with something. Wouldn’t you know it? First day of the most important job of her life to date—because it was for her father, her family—and she was experiencing hot flashes followed by cold shivers.

That could only mean the flu.

Crap.

“So...you’re good with keeping him on?” She looked at Bill and then back to the doorway they’d both been staring at. She’d been listening for Mr. Collins’s “hello” as he took the call that was important enough for him to leave a meeting during which he’d been begging for his job. She’d wanted to hear his tone of his voice as he addressed such an important caller.

Business or pleasure?

“Your father said you’re the boss.” Bill’s words didn’t seem to have any edge to them.

“Well, he’s wrong, of course.” She was smiling, glad to know she didn’t have to worry about stepping on at least one director’s toes. “But it makes sense, from an efficiency standpoint, to keep on a broker who’s willing to sign a noncompete clause. Unless you know of some reason he should go? I heard him say he makes the company money. Is that true?”

“He’s one of our top producers.”

She knew that already, but there was no reason, as an efficiency expert who hadn’t yet seen her first file, that she should.

“You have some hesitation about him?”

She’d asked Bill twice if there was a reason Flint Collins shouldn’t stay on. Bill hadn’t replied.

He gave a half shrug as he looked at her and crossed to his desk, straightening his tie. “None tops the offer he made a few minutes ago. Still, I don’t like having guys around that I can’t trust.”

He had her total focus. “He’s given you reason to mistrust him?”

Bill shook his head. “Just the whole ‘opening his own shop’ thing.”

“It’s what my dad did—left a firm to start Owens Investments. And you helped him do it.”

“We did it the right way,” Bill said. “The first person your father told, before taking any action, was his boss. None of this finding out from a friend in the recorder’s office. Makes me wonder what else he isn’t telling us...”

Made her wonder, too.

“I’m going over all the company files. He’ll know that as soon as he reads his email. Seems like if he’s untrustworthy, he’ll have a problem with that.”

“If he’s got anything to hide, you aren’t going to find it.”

Maybe not.

Ostensibly her job was to come up with ways for Owens to make more money. “He’s a top producer and wants to sign a noncompete agreement.”

“Right when he was getting ready to go into business for himself,” Bill said, frowning. “Like I said, kind of makes you wonder why, doesn’t it?”

“Is it possible that any of his applications for the various licenses were turned down for some reason?”

“From what I heard, he’d been fully approved.”

“Could you have heard wrong?”

Bill shrugged again. “Anything’s possible.”

She nodded. She needed to get hold of Flint Collins’s files.

“He came to you knowing he had to contend with trust issues and was armed with a plan that benefits Owens Investments,” she said. She wasn’t sure how to interpret that yet. Had he seen that he could make more siphoning off money from her father than he would on his own?

“He’s a smart businessman.”

“So, are you okay with keeping him on or will you be letting him go?” She couldn’t allow him to think it really mattered to her. Or that she intended to push her weight around, beyond efficiency expertise.

If Bill planned to fire Collins right away, she’d go to her father, have him handle the situation. She hoped it didn’t come to that.

“Of course I’m keeping him on,” Bill said. “He’s making us a boatload of money. But I don’t trust him and I’ll be watching him closely.”

Her father had a good man in his Director of Operations. Smiling, Tamara told him so, thanked him and promised to do all she could to stay out of his way.

Shouldn’t be hard. She had a feeling Flint Collins would be taking up most of her time.

Maybe an efficiency expert wouldn’t be able to find whatever he might be hiding, or anything he might be doing to rip off her family, but a daughter out to protect her father would.

By whatever means it took.

Tamara was certain of that.

* * *

For a man who liked to plan his life down to the number of squeezes left in his toothpaste tube, Flint figured he was doing pretty well to be at his desk, with his computer on, twenty minutes after leaving Bill Coniff’s office.

His “inheritance,” the tiny being who was now his responsibility for life, lay fed, dry and fast asleep in the car seat–carrier combination, her head securely cushioned by that last little gift from the caseworker. He’d placed her on the table across the room, but sitting at his desk, he wasn’t satisfied. The carrier was turned sideways. He couldn’t see her full face to know at a glance that her blanket hadn’t somehow interfered with her breathing, say if she happened to move in her sleep.

Clicking to open his client list, he crossed the room and adjusted the carrier, turning it to face his desk. Looked at the baby. Noticed her steady breathing.

She had the tiniest little nose. Probably the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

She was going to be a beauty.

Like their mother...

He planned to keep her under lock and key. Away from anyone who could attempt to hurt her...

Taken aback by the intensity of that thought, telling himself he wasn’t really losing his mind, he returned to work. Found the client file he wanted. Opened it.

On Friday, before his world had completely crumbled, he’d made an investment that was meant to be short-term. A weekend news announcement had caused the stock to plummet, but it would rise again, for a few days at least, before it either plummeted long-term or—as he hoped—held steady. He figured he’d have five days max. Preferably three. The risk was greater than Howard would want, but the potential return should be remarkable enough to secure his job, at least for now.

As long as the risk paid off.

Flint clicked on certain files, clicked some more. Looked at numbers. Studied market movement. It occurred to him that he should be nervous. If he’d invested at a loss, it could potentially mean his job. He knew Bill had been about to fire him when fate had sent in the consultant Howard had hired.

He wasn’t nervous. Flint took risks with the market. But only when his gut was at peace with them. His financial gift was about the only thing he trusted.

Glancing up, he checked his new responsibility. He could see movement as she breathed. Stared as a fist pushed its way out of the blanket. Who’d have thought hands came that small? Or that people did?

She looked far too insecure on that big table made for powerful business deals between grown men and women.

Market numbers scrolled on his screen. They were still going up. But they could take a second rapid dive; his guess was they would. And soon. They’d already climbed higher than he’d conservatively predicted, but not as high as he’d optimistically hoped.

Pushing back from his desk, he crossed the room again, lifted the carrier gently, loath to risk waking his charge. With his free hand, he pulled a chair back to his desk, positioning it next to his seat, along the wall to his left. Away from the door and any unseen drafts. Satisfied, he settled the carrier there, glanced at his computer screen and pushed the button to sell.

At a price higher than he’d hoped.

Five minutes later, the stock started to drop.

He still had his touch. And a fairly good chance of securing his job. Even Bill couldn’t argue with the kind of money he’d just made.

* * *

As was her way, Tamara studied before she went into action. She didn’t take the time she would later spend going over individual accounts, one by one, account by account, figure by figure. But when she approached Flint Collins’s office late Monday afternoon, she not only knew every piece of information in his employee file, but she was familiar with every account he’d handled in the nearly eight years he’d been working for her father.

Aside from the part about suspecting that he was stealing from them, she was impressed. And more convinced than ever that if anyone could succeed in taking money from Howard without his knowing, it could be Collins. The man was clearly brilliant.

He’d been a suspect in the drug production and distribution that had put his mother in prison; he’d also grown up with her criminal history. According to a pretty thorough background check, the only consistent influence in his life had been his mother—in between her various stints in jail.

The first of which had come when he was only six. She’d been sentenced to three months. Tamara had seen a list of his mother’s public criminal record in his file. Probably there because of Flint’s ties to her latest arrest. She’d also seen that the woman was only fifteen years older than her son. A child raising a child.

Funny how life worked. A young girl who, judging by the facts, had been ill-equipped to have the responsibility of a child and yet she’d had one. While Tamara...

No. She wasn’t going backward.

Passing Bill’s open door, she waved at the director who was on the phone but waved back. Smiled at her. And her heart lifted a notch. She’d managed to get her way and not make an enemy. It was always good to have a “friend” among the people she was studying.

A couple of steps from Flint Collins’s closed door, she stopped. That damned baby cry was going off again. She didn’t want to interrupt his call. Nor did she want to wait around while he talked on the phone.

And really, what kind of guy had a crying newborn as his ringtone?

Not one she’d ever want to associate with, that was for sure.

However she didn’t want to get on the guy’s bad side. Not yet, anyway. She needed him to like her. To trust her.

She might even need to learn about his life if she hoped to help her father. According to Bill, anyway. The director was pretty certain that Collins wouldn’t have hidden anything he was doing in files to which she’d have access.

The crying had stopped. She didn’t hear any voices. Had whoever was calling hung up?

Deciding to wait a couple of seconds, just in case he was listening to a caller on the other end, Tamara cringed as the baby cry started back up. Sounding painfully realistic. How could he stand that?

Apparently he’d let the call go to voice mail. And whoever had been at the other end was phoning back. Was Collins ignoring the call? Unless he wasn’t there? Had he left his cell in his office?

A man like Flint Collins didn’t leave his cell phone behind.

Tamara knocked. And when there was no answer, tried the door. Surprisingly the knob turned. The office was impressive. Neat. Classy. Elegant.

And had nothing on the spread of male shoulders she saw bending over something to the side of his desk. Or the backside beneath them.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” she blurted. The crying had to stop. It was making her crazy. She had business to do with him and—

The way those shoulders jerked and his glance swung in her direction clearly indicated that he hadn’t heard her enter. Making her uncomfortably aware that she should probably have knocked a second time.

How hadn’t he heard her first knock?

The thought fled as soon as she realized that the crying was coming from closer to him. There by the window. Not from the cell phone she noticed on his desk as she approached.

And then she saw it...the carrier...on the chair next to him. He’d been rocking it.

“What on earth are you doing to that baby?” she exclaimed, nothing in mind but to rescue the child in obvious distress. To stop the noise that was going to send her spiraling if she wasn’t careful.

“Damned if I know,” he said loudly enough to be heard over the noise. “I fed her, burped her, changed her. I’ve done everything they said to do, but she won’t stop crying.”

Tamara was already unbuckling the strap that held the crying infant in her seat. She was so tiny! Couldn’t have been more than a few days old. Her skin was still wrinkled and so, so red. There were no tears on her cheeks.

“There’s nothing poking her. I checked,” Collins said, not interfering as she lifted the baby from the seat, careful to support the little head.

It wasn’t until that warm weight settled against her that Tamara realized what she’d done. She was holding a baby. Something she couldn’t do.

She was going to pay. With a hellacious nightmare at the very least.

The baby’s cries had stopped as soon as Tamara picked her up.

“What did you do?” Collins was there, practically touching her, he was standing so close.

“Nothing. I picked her up.”

“There must’ve been some problem with the seat, after all...” He’d tossed the infant head support on the desk and was removing the washable cover.

“I’m guessing she just wanted to be held,” Tamara said. What the hell was she doing?

Tearless crying generally meant anger, not physical distress.

And why did Flint Collins have a baby in his office?

She had to put the child down. But couldn’t until he put the seat back together. The newborn’s eyes were closed and she hiccuped and then sighed.

Clenching her lips for a second, Tamara looked away. “Babies need to be held almost as much as they need to be fed,” she told him while she tried to understand what was going on. “The skin-to-skin contact, the cuddling, is vitally important not only to their current emotional well-being but to future emotional, developmental and social behavior.”

She was quoting books she’d memorized—long ago—in another life. He was checking the foam beneath the seat cover and the straps, too. Her initial analysis indicated that he was fairly distraught himself.

Not what she would’ve predicted from a hard-core businessman possibly stealing from her father.

“Who is she?” she asked, figuring it was best to start at the bottom and work her way up to exposing him for the thief he probably was.

He straightened. Stared at the baby in her arms, his brown eyes softening and yet giving away a hint of what looked like fear at the same time. In that second she wished like hell that her father was wrong and Collins wouldn’t turn out to be the one who was stealing from Owens Investments.

She didn’t move. Just stood frozen with her arms holding a baby against her.

“Her name’s Diamond Rose.” His tone soft, he continued to watch the baby, as though he couldn’t look away. But he had to get that seat dealt with. Fast. The lump in her throat grew.

“Whose is she?” She was going to have to put the baby down. Sooner rather than later. Her permanently broken heart couldn’t take much more. The tears were already starting to build. Dammit! She’d gone almost two months without them.

“Mine...sort of.”

Her head shot up. “Yours?” She glanced at the cell phone on his desk and then noticed the portable baby monitor. “You don’t have a baby crying ringtone?”

“No.”

“You have a baby?”

There’d been nothing in his file. According to her father, he’d only been dating his current girlfriend—some high-powered attorney—for the past six months. He’d brought her to a dinner Howard had hosted for top producers and their significant others. And had explained where and how they’d met. Which was pertinent because soon after he’d taken the first full vacation he’d had in eight years.

“She’s not mine,” he said then frowned, glancing at Tamara hesitantly before holding her gaze. “Legally, she is. But I’m not her father.”

“Who is?” His personnel records hadn’t listed any next of kin other than an incarcerated mother.

He shrugged. “That’s the six-million-dollar question. No idea. Biologically she’s my sister.”

Tamara flooded with emotion. She couldn’t swallow. Standing completely still, concentrating on distancing herself from the deluge, focusing on him, she waited for her skin to cool. With a warm baby snuggled against her chest.

She had to get rid of that warmth.

Get away from the baby.

“Your mother had a baby?” she heard herself ask, sounding only a little squeaky.

He nodded.

“I thought she was in prison...” She suddenly realized she might have revealed too much. She was being too invasive for a first business meeting. “Um, Bill told me. He said you’d overcome a...difficult past.”

He nodded. “She was. And the fact that she was a convict makes the question about Diamond’s father that much harder to answer. Who’s going to admit to fathering a child illegally?”

Her nerves were quaking. “She gave birth in prison?”

“Three days ago.”

She’d been right. The child was only days old...

Days older than any of hers had lived to be.

“And she gave her to you?” She wasn’t going to be able to keep it together much longer.

He’d agreed to take a baby. That said something about him. He needed to take her from Tamara.

He’d taken on a child. But then, his mother, a criminal, had agreed to take him on, too. By birthing him. Keeping him.

“My mother died in childbirth.”

Flint’s shocking words hit her harder than they would have if she’d been on the other side of the room. Or in another room. Speaking to him on the phone.

Knees starting to feel weak, she knew she was out of time. “And just like that, you become a father?”

“Just like that.”

There were things she should say. More questions to ask. But Tamara simply stood there, staring at him.

Unable to move.

To speak.

She was shaking visibly.

And had to get rid of the bundle she held.

Pronto.

Chapter Five

“Here, you need to take her.”

As the pink-wrapped bundle came toward him with more speed than he would’ve expected, Flint reached out automatically, allowing the baby’s head to glide up to his elbow, her body settling on his lower arm. While holding a baby was still foreign to him, he was beginning to notice a rhythm, a sense of having done it before.

“She needs to bond with you.” The woman was a stranger to him and yet she was sharing one of the most intimate experiences in his life. His coming to grips with a reality he had little idea how to deal with and a role he was unsure of. Burying his mother. Meeting his sister. Becoming for all intents and purposes, a father. All happening in one day. He’d been about to lose it—and she’d saved him.

Just like she’d saved him from almost certain job loss earlier.

Could she really be, somehow, heaven-sent? By his mother, not any divine source watching out for him. He’d long ago ceased hoping for that one.

Did he dare even think of his mother making it to an afterlife that would allow her to help her baby girl?

Was he losing his damned mind?

“Until two days ago, I didn’t know the first thing about children.” He hardly remembered being one. It seemed to him he’d grown up as an adult. “Babies in particular.”

“You’ve had her for two days?” The woman had backed up to the other side of the desk and was halfway to the door. A couple of times she’d rubbed her hands along shapely thighs covered by a deliciously short skirt and was now clasping them together as though, at any second, they might fly apart.

“I just got her today,” he said, calming a bit now as the baby settled against him as easily as she had with the efficiency expert. It was the first time he’d actually held the infant.

All he’d done so far was pick her up to lay her on a pad on the table. And to put her back in her carrier to feed her. That was it.

“So, how often does the holding thing need to happen?” How far behind was he?

“All the time.” She was nodding, as though following the beat of some song in her head. Rubbed her thighs again, then was wringing her hands. Then reached for the doorknob. “When you’re feeding her, certainly, and other times, too. Whenever you can. There are, um, books, classes and, you know, places you can go to learn everything...”

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