Assignment: Baby. Jessica Hart

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      The suspicion in her voice made Gabriel grit his teeth. ‘Look, you wanted to know what the situation was, and I’m telling you,’ he said tautly. He didn’t really want to tell Tess about Greg, and give her yet another reason to look down her snooty little nose at him, but she was obviously going to go on asking questions until she had some satisfactory answers. Briefly, Gabriel let himself think longingly of Janette, his PA back in the States, who accepted everything he said unquestioningly.

      But Janette wasn’t here, and Tess was.

      ‘It turns out that Greg sometimes uses my name when it suits him to let people believe that the G in his name stands for Gabriel and not Gregory,’ he told her, resigned. ‘He says it gets him better tables in restaurants and seats on overbooked planes and, in the case of the cruise, he upgraded his cabin on the strength of my reputation. Having booked as Gabriel Stearne, he carried on using my name, and it was too late to change it when he met Leanne. Anyway, Greg didn’t think it would matter. He knew I would never go on a cruise and it was very unlikely that Leanne would ever read the business pages and see my picture.’

      ‘So it might not just be Leanne who thinks that she has had an affair with you? There could be girls all round the world who believe that you’re incredibly handsome, a fantastic lover and great fun to be with?’

      Gabriel shot Tess a suspicious look. Her face was quite straight, but there was glint in her eyes and a distinct undercurrent of sarcasm in her voice. Why didn’t she come right out and say that the idea of anyone associating him with fun or believing him to be a wonderful lover was absolutely hilarious?

      He scowled. ‘Right now, we’re only concerned with Leanne,’ he said quellingly. Not that Tess seemed very quelled.

      ‘And Leanne thinks that Greg is Harry’s father?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘That would make Harry your nephew,’ she said slowly, looking from one to the other as if looking for a resemblance.

      ‘It’s a possibility,’ Gabriel admitted grudgingly, evidently less than thrilled at the prospect of a new addition to the family.

      ‘Did Greg think that he might be Harry’s father?’

      Gabriel sat on the edge of her desk and rubbed the back of his neck a little wearily. ‘I didn’t tell him about Harry,’ he said after a moment.

      Tess was taken aback. Surely that had been the point of ringing Greg? ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because for once in his life, Greg is where he ought to be,’ said Gabriel flatly. ‘He’s in Florida, with my mother. His father—my stepfather—is having open-heart surgery and my mother can’t cope on her own. She’s not strong at the best of times, and I’d rather he stayed and supported her than came haring over here. It’s not as if he knows anything about babies.’

      ‘Oh, unlike us?’ said Tess, not even bothering to hide her sarcasm this time.

      Gabriel ignored her. Straightening from the desk, he began to pace around the office. ‘This is the last thing we need tonight,’ he said, muttering under his breath. ‘All the figures in our proposal are going to have to be checked, and I want to rewrite the section on our design policy. I haven’t got time to run around London looking for an unnamed grandmother who’s just dumped a baby here.’

      ‘Why don’t you ring the police?’

      ‘I can’t risk the story getting into the papers. If Greg does turn out to be the father, and my mother got to hear of it, she’d be devastated. She dotes on Greg and she’s got enough to deal with at the moment with Ray so ill.’

      Tess’s arm was aching and she decided to try putting Harry back in his pram. How odd, she thought, as she rocked the pram tentatively, terrified that the baby would start crying again. She wouldn’t have had Gabriel Stearne down as a devoted son, but he seemed to be making a lot of effort to spare his mother any trouble. Perhaps deep down he was human, after all? He certainly did a good job of hiding it most of the time!

      Oblivious to her thoughts, Gabriel was contemplating his options. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he hunched his shoulders and continued his pacing, up and down, up and down, until Tess longed to stick out a foot and trip him up.

      ‘I could hire private investigators to track down the baby’s mother,’ he decided after a little while, frowning at the floor. ‘There can’t be that many croupiers called Leanne. Make a note to get onto them first thing tomorrow morning,’ he added in an aside.

      Tess refrained from leaping for her notebook. ‘Even if they can find Leanne, she’s still got to get back to this country,’ she pointed out unhelpfully. ‘What are you going to do with him until then?’

      ‘That’s what nannies are for.’ Having made up his mind what needed to be done, Gabriel was already moving onto thinking about the proposal they had to submit the next day. His shoulders straightened. ‘You’d better get hold of an agency now. Say I’ll need a nanny for a week initially. With any luck, we’ll have been able to track down his mother by then.’

      Ready to dismiss the matter from his mind, he turned back towards his office. Tess looked at him in disbelief. ‘It’s almost seven o’clock,’ she said, speaking very slowly and clearly so that he would be sure to understand. ‘All the agencies will be closed. I won’t be able to contact anyone until tomorrow morning at the earliest.’

      Exasperated, Gabriel glowered at her, his jaw working in frustration. Logically, he knew that it wasn’t Tess’s fault, but her objections seemed designed to prevent him from getting on with more important things. He simply didn’t have the time to deal with all this.

      ‘What do you suggest, in that case?’ he asked her through gritted teeth.

      Tess smiled sweetly at him. ‘You’ll have to look after him yourself.’

      ‘Me?’

      ‘Yes, you!’ she said, savouring the expression on his face. He looked so aghast that she nearly laughed. ‘It seems that Harry is your responsibility, after all.’

      ‘But I don’t know one end of a baby from another!’

      ‘It’s only for a night,’ she told him briskly. ‘I’m sure it’s just a matter of common sense.’

      Gabriel eyed her with acute dislike. A matter of common sense, was it? She hadn’t looked quite so confident when she’d been holding the baby, had she? He set his jaw.

      ‘I can’t do it on my own,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to help me.’

      ‘Sorry,’ said Tess, not sounding the slightest bit apologetic. ‘I’m going out tonight.’

      ‘On a date?’

      He stared at her with unflattering surprise. It had obviously never occurred to him before that she might actually have a life outside the office, let alone be attractive enough to have a date.

      ‘Yes, a date,’ she said, peeved, although it wasn’t strictly true. She was only meeting some friends, but she didn’t feel like telling him that. She was tired of being treated like a cardboard cut-out who got propped in the corner of the office every night!

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