Bound By A Baby. Maureen Child

if he’d be so boring that Tula could set her watch—if she had the organizational skills to wear one—by him. He was still fuming over her monologue the night before, ticking off his daily routine and making him sound as exciting as a moldy rock.

      In response, Simon had been shaking up his routine all day long. He had gone through the flagship of the Bradley department stores, stopping to chat with clerks. He’d personally talked to the managers of the departments, instead of sending Mick to do it. He had even helped out in the stockroom, walking a new employee through the inventory process.

      His employees had been surprised at his personal interest in what was happening with the store. But he had also noted that everyone he talked with that day was pleased that he’d taken the extra time to listen to them. To really pay attention to what was happening.

      Simon couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t done it years ago. He was so accustomed to running his empire from the sanctity of his office, he’d nearly forgotten about the thousands of employees who depended on him.

      Of course, Mick had ribbed him about his sudden aversion to routine.

      “This new outlook on life wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain children’s book author, would it?”

      Simon glared at him. “Butt out.”

      “Ha! It does.” Mick followed him out the door and down the hall to the elevator. “What did she say that got to you?”

      He was just aggravated enough by what Tula had had to say the night before that he told Mick everything. He finished by saying, “She ticked off my day hour by hour, on her fingers, damn it.”

      Mick laughed as the elevator doors swept closed and Simon stabbed the button for the ground floor of the department store. “Wish I’d seen your face.”

      “Thanks for the support.”

      “Well come on, Simon,” Mick said, still chuckling. “You’ve got to admit you’ve dug yourself a pretty deep rut over the years.”

      “There’s nothing wrong with a tight schedule.”

      Mick leaned against the wall. “As long as you allow yourself some room to breathe.”

      “You’re on her side?”

      Grinning, Mick said, “Absolutely.”

      Grumbling under his breath at the memory, Simon stalked up the stairs, haunted by the now unnatural silence. For years, he’d come home to the quiet and had relished it. Now after only a few days of having Tula and the baby in residence…the silence was claustrophobic. Made him feel as if the walls were closing in on him.

      “Ridiculous. Just enjoy the quiet while you’ve got it,” he muttered. At the head of the stairs, he headed down the hall toward his room, but paused in front of the nursery. The baby wasn’t there, but the echo of him remained in the smell of powder and some indefinable scent that was pure baby.

      He stepped inside and let his gaze slide across the stacked shelves filled with neatly arranged diapers, toys and stuffed animals. He smiled to himself and inspected the closet as well. Inside hung shirts and jackets, clustered by color. Tiny shoes were lined up like toy soldiers on the floor below.

      In the dresser, he knew he would find pajamas, shorts, pants, socks and extra bedding. A colorful quilt lay across the end of the crib and a small set of bookshelves boasted alphabetically arranged children’s books.

      Tula might thrive in chaos herself, he mused, but here in the baby’s room, peace reigned. Everything was tidy. Everything was calm and safe and…perfect. He’d had a crew in to paint the room a neutral beige with cream-colored trim, but Tula had pronounced it too boring to spark the baby’s inner creativity. It hadn’t taken her long to have pictures of unicorns and rainbows on the walls, or to hang a mobile of primary-colored stars and planets over the crib.

      Shaking his head, Simon sat down in the cushioned rocker and idly reached to pull one of the books off the shelves. Lonely Bunny Finds a Garden.

      “Lonely Bunny,” he read aloud with a sigh. Now that he’d heard her story, he could imagine Tula as a lonely little girl with wide blue eyes, trying to make friends with a solitary rabbit. He frowned, thinking about how her mother had so callously treated her daughter’s fears.

      He was feeling for Tula. Too much.

      Opening the book, Simon read the copyright page and stopped. Her name was listed as Tula Barrons Hawthorne.

      He frowned as his memory clicked into high gear, shuffling back to when he was dating Nathan’s mother, Sherry. He remembered now. She had been living here in the city then and she’d told him that her uncle was in the same business as Simon.

      “Jacob Hawthorne.” Simon inhaled slowly, deeply, and felt old anger churn in the pit of his stomach.

      Jacob Hawthorne had been a thorn in his side for years. The man’s chain of discount department stores was forever vying for space that Simon wanted for his own company. Just three years ago, Jacob had cheated Simon out of a piece of prime property in the city that Simon had planned to use for expansion of his flagship store.

      That maneuver had cost Simon months in terms of finding another suitable property for expansion.

      Not to mention the fact that Jacob had bought up several of the Bradley department stores when Simon’s father was busily running the company into the ground. The old man had taken advantage of a bad situation and made it worse. Hell, he’d nearly succeeded in getting his hands on the Bradley home.

      By the time Simon had taken over the family business, it was in such bad shape he’d spent years rebuilding.

      Jacob Hawthorne was ruthless. The old pirate ran his company like a feudal lord and didn’t care who he had to steamroll to get his own way.

      At the time Simon had briefly dated Sherry, he’d enjoyed the thought of romancing a member of Hawthorne’s family, knowing the old coot would have been furious if he’d known. But Sherry’s own clingy instability had ended the relationship quickly. Now, though, he had a son with the woman—which made his child a relative of Jacob Hawthorne.

      There was a bitter pill to choke down. And he figured it would be even harder for the old pirate to swallow it. But there was more, too. If Sherry and Tula were cousins, then Tula was also a relative of Jacob Hawthorne. Interesting. But before his thoughts could go any further, his cell phone rang.

      “Bradley.”

      “Simon, it’s Dave over at the lab.”

      He tensed. This was the call he’d been waiting for for days. The results of the paternity test were in. He would finally know for sure, one way or the other.

      “And?” he asked, not wanting to waste a moment on small talk when something momentous was about to happen.

      “Congratulations,” his old friend said, a smile in his tone. “You’re a father.”

      Everything in Simon went still.

      There was a sense of rightness settling over him even as an unexpected set of nerves shook through him. He was a father. Nathan was really his.

      “You’re sure?” he asked, moving his gaze around the room, seeing it now with fresh eyes. His son lived here. “No mistakes?”

      “Trust me on this. I ran the test twice myself. Just to be sure. The baby’s yours.”

      “Thanks, Dave,” he said, tossing the book onto the nearby tabletop and standing up. “I appreciate it.”

      “No problem.”

      When his friend hung up, Simon just stared down at his phone. No problem?

      Oh, he could think of a few.

      Such as what to do about the woman who was making him insane. The very woman who stood between him and custody of his son.