No Stranger to Scandal. Rachel Bailey

dropping that line of inquiry just because you’re helping.”

      “Noted.” As soon as she found the person behind Troy and Brandon’s crimes, Hayden’s theory about Graham would be moot.

      There was a sharp knock at the door. Hayden glanced down at his watch. “Excuse me,” he said, closing his laptop and striding across the room.

      A neatly dressed woman in her thirties stood in the doorway behind a stroller containing a squirming Josh. Lucy felt her mouth curve into an unstoppable grin at the sight of the boy. He was gorgeous—Hayden’s mini-me—and his expression was full of joy and delight.

      “Daddy!” Josh squealed and reached out to his father.

      “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I didn’t realize you were still busy. Would you like me to keep him longer?”

      Hayden reached down and lifted his son high, planting a kiss on top of his head. “No, we’re almost done. I’ll take him.”

      “Okay.” The nanny leaned forward and said goodbye to her charge. The image of the three of them was so beautiful in that moment that Lucy felt an aching hollowness spread through her middle. They looked like a family.

      After closing the door behind the nanny, Hayden wheeled the empty stroller across the room with Josh in one arm. When Josh saw Lucy, his face lit up, then he looked frantically around the room. “Goggie!” he demanded.

      “Hello, Josh,” she said on a laugh. “Rosebud is asleep in her basket at home.”

      Josh’s little bottom lip pushed out for a split second—until he noticed how close his father’s face was, and began to pat his cheeks. Despite flinching at one of the pats that hit his eye, Hayden pushed the stroller into a corner. “If you can give me five minutes, I’ll set Josh up in his playpen with a few toys and we can continue,” he called over his shoulder.

      “Sure,” she said. He opened the door to one of the suite’s bedrooms and Lucy slipped out of her chair to follow—partly because it was a great chance to look for more clues for the assignment Graham had given her on Hayden, and partly out of curiosity.

      At the park yesterday, she’d carried Josh most of the time and played with him, so she hadn’t had much of a chance to observe father and son together. This evening, with Hayden setting his son up in the playpen, asking him which toys he’d like, she could see more clearly. And there was something a little … awkward about the interaction. Her gaze drifted around the room. Sitting on top of an end table was a haphazard pile of baby manuals, one thick tome perched on the top, open and spine up, its pages dog-eared. Perhaps Hayden was floundering now that he was a single father? She glanced back to man and son, her heart clenching tight for them both, for all they’d lost. For all they were dealing with now.

      “He’s a beautiful boy, Hayden.” An acknowledgment of that truth wasn’t much, but it was all she could offer him. “So precious.”

      Hayden looked down at Josh, who chose that moment to give a wide, toothless grin. “Yeah, he is,” he said softly.

      A bright, sparkling idea formed in her mind—a way to get more time with Hayden and his son. She squeezed her hands together and told herself she needed that time because Hayden had his guard down more when his son was there, so her subtle digging for information for the exposé was easier. But she was uneasily aware that she wanted to spend more time with the males in the Black family. She just hoped to high heaven that it wouldn’t influence her professional judgment.