Billionaire's Bargain. Maureen Child

it and waited for me to pay it. It wasn’t a negotiation. It was extortion.”

      Watching him quieted her own anger in sympathy for his. He’d lost his brother and then six months later, his brother’s only son had been held hostage by a mercenary woman with her own agenda. Sienna was almost too stunned to speak. Almost. The reality was hard to get past. “She sold her child. Her own child.”

      A tiny ripple of pain washed through her. When she’d married, she’d assumed that she and Devon would have a family eventually. But that was one of the things that had driven them apart. He’d flatly refused, saying he didn’t want kids slowing down the “fun.” He hadn’t cared how Sienna felt about it. His dismissal of her told her more than anything that their marriage was doomed.

      Now he’d made a child with a woman who clearly didn’t deserve or want the baby.

      “Fifty thousand dollars.” Adam snorted again, but there was no humor there. Through gritted teeth, he added, “Apparently motherhood was getting in the way of her career.”

      “You shouldn’t have paid her a dime.” What kind of woman would sell her own child? And what kind of man would pay her price?

      His head snapped up and his gaze pinned hers. For a split second, Sienna felt a jolt of white-hot fury sizzle in the air between them. His expression was thunderous and maybe she should have been intimidated. But she wasn’t. Maybe that expression worked on his employees, but not her. A second or two later, he seemed to understand that.

      “What the hell else was I supposed to do?”

      She threw her hands up. “Oh, I don’t know. Have her arrested for trying to sell a baby? Take her to court? You’ve got legions of lawyers at your beck and call, and instead you wrote her a check.”

      He scrubbed both hands over his face and she could feel his frustration. “All I was thinking about was getting Devon’s son away from her. This was the fastest solution.”

      Okay, she could see that, but her insides were still fisted and her heart pounding. “And what keeps her from coming back for more? For haunting that poor baby’s life, constantly letting him know that he’s nothing more to her than a bargaining chip?”

      “I’m not an idiot,” he snapped, firing a look at her that was designed to silence her arguments. “My lawyers wrote up a contract. She signed away her parental rights to me. I’m Jack’s legal guardian now. God help us both.”

      Sienna blew out a breath. “Jack?”

      “Yeah.” He pushed one hand through his hair again and it occurred to Sienna she’d never seen Adam this unsettled before.

      “Apparently,” he continued, “Devon named his son for our father. And now the boy will never know either of them.”

      A twinge of sympathy for Devon, for Adam and mostly for the baby tugged at Sienna’s heart. She’d thought when she left Devon that she was finished with the Quinn family. She’d made it a point to stay out of Adam’s way over the last two years and that wasn’t always easy. She and Adam didn’t move in the same circles, of course. He was rich, powerful and she wasn’t.

      But she did take photos of the wealthy and famous. She did do photo spreads of some of the buildings he’d designed and built. But somehow, for two years, Sienna had managed to avoid him. Yet now, here he was, standing right in front of her.

      She took a steadying breath that didn’t really do the trick. “Fine. So the Mother of the Year took the money and ran, I’m guessing?”

      “She was nothing but a blur when she hit the office door and she probably didn’t stop until she got to the airport.”

      Disgusted, she muttered, “That’s something, anyway.”

      Slanting her a look, he agreed. “Exactly how I feel about it.”

      She watched him as he wandered the room, looking at the props on the shelf, reaching out to pick up the wooden framed slate.

      “So now what?” she asked.

      He took a piece of chalk and scribbled something on the chalkboard while he talked. “That’s why I’m here.”

      “Uh-huh. That doesn’t tell me anything, Adam,” she pointed out.

      He flipped the slate around to her and Sienna read what he’d written.

       I NEED A TEMPORARY NANNY.

      She read it again, then lifted her gaze to his. “And you’re telling me, why?”

      “Because I need you.”

      “Me?” Her brain was racing and her thoughts flew scattershot through her mind. Her? A nanny? For Devon’s baby? What the hell? Shaking her head, she said, “I’m not a nanny, Adam. I’m a photographer with a growing business.”

      “I’m not asking you to give up your business.”

      “Sounds like you are.”

      “Look.” He tossed the slate back onto the shelf, and then faced her. “I know this is weird, but damn it, Sienna, you’re the only woman I know I can ask to do this.”

      “Oh come on.” She laughed shortly and perched on the edge of a table. “You’re hardly a monk, Adam. You know plenty of women.”

      “I know plenty of women who are great in my bed. Not so much with a small, defenseless human.”

      “I’m not quite sure how to take that,” she admitted, even as her mind tried to settle down enough to figure it out. Naturally though, her brain went instead to images of Adam in bed. Naked. Not that she’d ever seen him naked, but Sienna had an excellent imagination.

      “Take it as a compliment,” he said tightly. He pushed one hand through his hair again and Sienna noted that the excellent cut meant his hair fell neatly back into place. She wondered if that idle gesture was done deliberately.

      “Sienna,” he said, releasing a long breath, “I know Devon treated you like crap and you have no reason to do any Quinn a favor—”

      “Devon wasn’t that bad, Adam,” she interrupted him. “And I have nothing against you...”

      To put it mildly. She had already been married to Devon when she met his older brother for the first time and Sienna hadn’t been able to deny she felt a flash of something tantalizing the minute Adam had shaken her hand. And as her marriage crumbled, she’d often wondered what might have happened if she’d only met Adam first. But that was not the point at the moment.

      “Good to know,” he said, nodding. “I need you. That baby needs you.”

      She sucked in a gulp of air. “That was low.”

      “Yeah,” he smiled briefly. “I know. But I learned a long time ago that you use whatever weapons you have to win the day.”

      He’d picked a good one to use on her was all Sienna could think. There was a reason most of her work centered around images of babies and children. “Great. That poor baby’s a bargaining chip to his mother and a weapon to you.”

      “You know what I meant,” he argued.

      “Yes, I do.” And she could see that he was really trying to do his best by his brother’s child. Most men, she thought, would probably be trying to slip out of caring for the baby entirely. But that fact didn’t make this any easier.

      “Temporary, you said.”

      He nodded. “Just until we find someone permanent. You could help me with that. Pick out the right person.”

      “I don’t know...” She looked around the room, at her equipment, the business she’d built from the ground up. If she did this, she’d be taking time away from the very thing that was most important to her. But how could she not help care for a baby who’d really been given a lemon from the