An Unexpected Christmas Baby. Tara Taylor Quinn

asking you to support me here. I’m prepared to plead my case to Howard. Just back me up on it. I don’t know who started spreading the rumors or how far they’ve reached, but I’m fairly certain they made it to Howard’s office...”

      On her way to knock on the door of one Flint Collins, Tamara stopped in her tracks. Standing in a deserted private hallway in two-and-a-half-inch heels and her short black skirt with its matching short jacket, plus the lacy camisole her mother had bought to go with the ensemble, she felt conspicuous. But something told her not to move. She’d dressed for a “professional” lunch with her father, not for real business. But business was at hand.

      “You’re telling me you didn’t file paperwork to open your own investment firm?”

      She recognized Bill’s voice coming from the office with his name on the door. Based on what her father had told her, she figured Bill had to be speaking with Flint Collins. Did her father know Bill was intending to handle the matter?

      “No. I’m not saying that. I’m telling you I no longer have plans to do that and would like to do whatever I need to, to ensure my job security here.”

      “Your plans to hurt this company by soliciting our customers didn’t work out, so now I should trust that you’re here to stay?”

      Bill was in the process of firing the guy? He couldn’t! Not yet! She needed time to investigate him while his files were all still in his office at the company. While he didn’t know he was being watched.

      “I did not, nor did I intend, to solicit anyone. I intended to have a meeting with Howard and do things the right way.”

      “And now you don’t plan to leave anymore.”

      “Now, in light of the rumors that went around last week, I’d like to guarantee that I have job security here and I was hoping for your cooperation. You know the money I make for this firm, Bill.”

      “You know how important trust is to this firm.”

      Tamara took a step forward. She couldn’t let Bill fire the man, but wasn’t sure how to prevent that from happening without exposing more than she could if she was going to be effective in her task.

      “I’m willing to sign a noncompete clause to prove my trustworthiness.”

      “Wow, I like the sound of that!” Tamara burst into the room with a smile that she hoped Bill would accept at face value. She and her father had decided that even his top people shouldn’t be told her true reason for being there. At the moment, they could only trust each other.

      But he’d called all three of them before she’d left his office, telling them she was going to be doing an efficiency study and that he’d like their cooperation in keeping her relationship to him quiet. Howard wanted to make sure that as she moved about the company, she’d have their full support. She was working under her married name of Frost. Howard had explained that he’d thought people would be less nervous around her if they didn’t know she was his daughter.

      “Tamara? So good to see you!” Bill turned to her, an odd combination of welcoming smile and bewildered frown warring on his face.

      “As you know, Bill, I’m here to study operations on all levels and find ways for Owens Investments to show a higher profit by running more efficiently,” she said, holding out her hand to shake his.

      Luckily she had her professional spiel down pat. Normally, though, the words weren’t accompanied by a pounding heart. Or the sudden flash of heat that had surfaced as she’d looked from Bill to his conversation mate and met the brown-eyed gaze of the compelling blond man she’d been predisposed to dislike on sight.

      * * *

      At first Flint had absolutely no idea who the beautiful, auburn-haired woman with the gold-rimmed green eyes was as she interrupted the meeting upon which his future security could very well rest.

      Bill quickly filled him in as he introduced the efficiency expert Howard Owens had hired. Apparently a memo had been sent to Flint and all Owens employees in the past hour. He, of course, had been busy burying his mother and becoming a guardian/father/brother and hadn’t gotten to the morning’s email yet.

      Thinking of the baby girl he’d left sleeping in his office, he reached for the monitor in his pocket, thumb moving along the side to check that the volume was all the way up. He’d been gone almost five minutes. Didn’t feel good about that.

      “It seems to me, Bill, that if we have a broker on staff who’s willing to sign a noncompete clause, then we should give him that opportunity. If he doesn’t produce, we can still let him go. If he does, our bottom line has more security. We don’t lose either way. Efficient. I like it.”

      Flint wasn’t sure he liked her. But he liked what she was saying, since it meant Diamond Rose would have security.

      “Unless you know of some reason we shouldn’t keep him on?” she asked. “Other than what I just overheard, that he’d been thinking about opening his own firm?”

      She looked at him. He didn’t deny the charge. But he wasn’t going to elaborate. Other than Bill, Howard Owens was the only one to whom Flint would report.

      It seemed odd that this outside expert happened to be in the hall just as he’d been speaking with Bill. As though some kind of fate had put her there.

      Or a mother in heaven looking out for her children?

      The idea was so fanciful, Flint had a second’s very serious concern regarding his state of mind. But another completely real concern cut that one short. His pocket made a tiny coughing sound.

      All three adults in the room froze. Staring at each other.

      And Flint’s brand-new little girl made another, half-crying sound. In a pitch without weight. Or strength.

      The woman—Tamara Frost, as Bill had introduced her—stared at his pocket. For a second there she looked...horrified. Or maybe sick.

      “Not that it’s any of my business but...do you have a newborn baby cry as your ringtone?” Her voice, as she looked up at him, sounded professionally nonjudgmental—although definitely taken aback.

      Probably didn’t happen often... Guys with the sound of crying babies in their pockets during business meetings.

      Diamond Rose released another small outburst. Twenty minutes ahead of schedule. He had to get back to her. His first real duty and he was already letting her down. He’d had no time to prepare the bottle, as he’d expected to.

      “I’m sorry,” he said, looking from Bill to their expert and then heading to the door. “I have to get this.”

      Let them think it was his phone. And that the call was more important at that moment than they were.

      Just until he had things under control.

       Chapter Four

      She was coming down with something. Wouldn’t you know it? First day of the most important job of her life to date—because it was for her father, her family—and she was experiencing hot flashes followed by cold shivers.

      That could only mean the flu.

      Crap.

      “So...you’re good with keeping him on?” She looked at Bill and then back to the doorway they’d both been staring at. She’d been listening for Mr. Collins’s “hello” as he took the call that was important enough for him to leave a meeting during which he’d been begging for his job. She’d wanted to hear his tone of his voice as he addressed such an important caller.

      Business or pleasure?

      “Your father said you’re the boss.” Bill’s words didn’t seem to have any edge to them.

      “Well, he’s wrong, of course.” She was smiling,