The Diaper Diaries. Abby Gaines

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СКАЧАТЬ him and would have amazed his family, who would doubtless say he was more suited to a think tank on how to get more fun into people’s lives.

      Tyler flipped his hand-forged-silver Michel Perchin pen between his fingers as he contemplated his possibly irredeemable reputation. Every news report about his work at the foundation was countered by a juicy piece in the gossip pages about “playboy bachelor Tyler Warrington.” He’d made a major lifestyle adjustment—dating the same woman every night the past two weeks—but he wasn’t sure that act of heroism was enough. Correction: after the headline in this morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he knew it wasn’t.

      He smoothed out the paper plane, slapped the two letters together, handed them to Olivia. “The frog’s a no go. Invite the preschool to pitch at the next committee meeting.”

      What could be more ordinary and American than preschool?

      Maybe his PR team could write an opinion piece about early-childhood education and submit it to the Journal-Constitution in Tyler’s name.

      Olivia tucked the letters into her folder. “I’ll deal with these right after I go downstairs. Joe called to say there’s a delivery for you. He sounded pretty excited.”

      “Just as well our security guy doesn’t make the allocations.” Unlike Tyler, Joe was a sucker for the attentiongetting ploys to which some people resorted when they asked for money. “If it’s balloons, cake or cigars, tell him to take them home to his kids.” He raised his hands in selfdefense against Olivia’s daggered look. “Okay, okay, hold the cigars.”

      OLIVIA RETURNED carrying a faded green duffel bag in a fierce grip, the straps wrapped around one hand, her other arm underneath the bag. She cradled it with a delicacy that suggested its contents were at least as valuable as the Venetianglass sculpture she’d spent hundreds on last week.

      Tyler shoved his chair back from the desk, got to his feet. “What is it?”

      Very gently, she slid the bag across the surface of the desk; Tyler saw the zipper was open. “Take a look,” she invited, her voice curiously high.

      He parted the top of the bag, peered in. And met the unblinking blue gaze of a baby.

      Wrapped in a whitish blanket and wearing a soft yellow hat so that only a little round face showed…but definitely a baby.

      “What the—” Tyler leaped backward, glared at his secretary. “Is this a joke?”

      Olivia blew out a breath as she shook her head. “A young woman came in, told Joe she had a delivery for you. She excused herself to go to the bathroom and left the bag on Joe’s desk. After a couple of minutes, the baby sneezed—gave Joe a heck of a fright. That’s when he called me.”

      Tyler raked a hand through his hair. “For Pete’s sake, the woman’s probably still in the bathroom. Or by now, back out with Joe and wondering where her kid’s gone. Take it back down.”

      Olivia handed Tyler an envelope, his name written on it in blue ink. “This was in the bag.”

      It had already been opened—Olivia read all Tyler’s correspondence. The paper crackled: thin, cheap, almost weightless. Yet it felt far heavier than those requests he’d been reading a few minutes ago. Tyler unfolded the page.

      The handwriting was young, or maybe just uneducated, and the message brief.

       Dear Mr. Warrington,

       I know you are kind and generous and you help lots of people. Please can you adopt my baby? I just can’t do this. Thank you very very very much for caring.

      No signature.

      So much for the she’s-still-in-the-bathroom theory. Tyler read the letter again. Damn.

      With a caution that would have amazed the college buddies he played football with every month, he advanced on the duffel. The infant was still there, still staring. It had worked one little hand loose and was clenching and unclenching a tiny fist against the blanket.

      Hey, kid, if you’re frustrated, how do you think I feel? “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?” he said, the words rougher than he’d intended.

      The baby blinked, and its mouth moved. If it cried now Tyler would be screwed. He patted the small hand as gently as he could, while he tried to think of words that might soothe. Snatches of nursery rhymes flitted through his head but were gone before he could catch them. “I meant heck,” he said at last.

      The kid still looked worried, so Tyler moved out of its line of vision. He looked out the window, over Peachtree Street, where courier bikes scraped between cars and vans with no margin for error, and the crosswalks thronged with businesspeople. No place for a baby.

      “We have to find the mother,” he told Olivia. “Ask Joe to send up the security-camera footage.”

      “I already did, but he doesn’t think it’ll help,” she said, cheerful now she’d handed the problem to Tyler. “The woman wore a woolen hat pulled right down, and she had a scarf wrapped around her face. It’s cold out, so Joe didn’t think anything of it.”

      “Someone has to know who she is,” Tyler persisted. “We’ll give the tape to the police. And you’d better call social services—they can take the baby until the mom turns up.”

      “And they say you’re just a pretty face,” Olivia marveled. “I don’t know why that young woman didn’t go to social services in the first place.” She chuckled. “I mean, do you know anyone less suited to looking after a baby than you?”

      “You,” Tyler returned sharply. Stupid to let her “pretty face” comment needle him. He might not be an expert on diapers and drool, but he knew he could do whatever he set his mind to. And that made him good for a whole lot more than simply doling out the money his brother Max made in the family’s “real” business. Which he was about to prove by winning the job in Washington, D.C.

      Olivia, who’d never married, never had kids, and as far as Tyler knew, was having too much fun to regret either omission, laughed at his insult.

      She didn’t know about Washington. She and Tyler’s mom were close enough that there was no chance she wouldn’t spill the beans. No one knew, not even Tyler, officially. The news that he was under consideration had come from his cousin Jake, who had reliable political connections. But the whole thing was so sensitive, so confidential, there was no way Tyler could do what he knew would work best—jump on a plane to D.C. and talk them into giving him the job.

      All he could do was continue his strategy of raising his profile in the media—his political profile, not his social profile. He glared at the duffel from his safe distance.

      “The press will be all over this,” he told Olivia, “no matter how fast we palm the kid off to social services.”

      “It can’t be as bad as today’s story.” She ruined the comforting effect by snickering.

      Two women Tyler had dated in the past had gotten into a tipsy argument at a nightclub a couple of evenings ago, apparently over which of the two he’d liked best—he barely recalled either of them. In a misguided attempt to emphasize her point, one had slugged the other with her purse.

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