An Unexpected Christmas Baby. Tara Taylor Quinn

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