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Because babies were perceptive, and if she was going to start moping around the place then it wasn’t exactly going to do Simon any good! Or herself, come to that.
She went about her normal routine with a resolutely cheerful air.
She changed Simon and then brought him into her bed with her for his early-morning feed, unbuttoning her scarlet satin pyjamas and latching him onto her breast. It was a moment of pure peace, and she loved this quiet time alone with her son, with just the sound of the birds trilling outside her window in the spring sunshine.
He was glugging away quite contentedly when a slight movement caught her attention, and she glanced up to find Cormack watching them, a look of rapt preoccupation on his face.
He was dressed in nothing but a pair of black silk boxer shorts which left very little to the imagination. From a distance she could observe him almost neutrally in this partially clothed state, in a way which she had been unable to yesterday, when they were in bed together.
Physically, he was as close to perfection as you could get. Broad shoulders and a finely muscled torso with narrow hips and strong, long legs. His chin was darkly shadowed, as it always was first thing in the morning, and it gave him a devilishly sexy look.
His eyes were narrowed, and there was such a look of wonderment on his face that Triss knew she did not have the heart to exclude him from this most intimate part of motherhood. She had excluded him from enough already.
‘Come in,’ she coaxed softly, marvelling at the transformation in him. Normally, just the merest glimpse of her breasts would have had his gaze raking over her with hungry anticipation. But now the expression in his eyes was soft, admiring and full of frank regard—though Triss would have bet her last dollar that if she were to put Simon back down in his crib then the look of hunger would be back in force!
He came to sit on the edge of the bed, looking gloriously unselfconscious in nothing but the silk boxer shorts, and Triss found herself wishing that she had asked him to get dressed before inviting him in!
‘I didn’t realise you were still feeding him,’ he murmured questioningly.
‘Only last thing at night and first thing in the morning.’ She sighed, then said fervently, ‘I hate giving it up.’
‘Then why do it?’
She gave him a long look as she unhooked the baby and transferred him to the opposite breast. ‘Because I’ll probably go back to work soon—in some capacity—’
‘Work?’ he interrupted in a
horrified voice, as if she had just broached the idea of opening up a brothel! ‘Do you want to go back to work?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really, no. I seem to have got modelling right out of my system.’
‘Then why even think of it?’
‘Because I need to support us,’ she told him evenly. ‘I need—’
‘I’ll give you all the money you need to stop you from having to go out to work,’ he told her, his mouth tightening with suppressed anger. He shrugged broad, tense shoulders. “Though maybe that was your sole reason for introducing me to my son, Triss? So that I could slip into the role of financial provider?’
‘I don’t want your rotten, stinking money, Cormack Casey!’ she spat back at him proudly, and Simon lifted his head up, momentarily startled, before resuming his blissful glugging.
‘It might not be what you want, sweetheart,’ he declared, a half-smile threatening to curve his mouth as he took in her furious expression, ‘but maybe it’s what you need if it stops you farming out Simon to some child-minder!’
‘Oh!’ Simon had dozed off, so Triss gently eased him away from her, winded him, then put him into Cormack’s arms. ‘Only a man would have the nerve to use such an emotive phrase as “farming out” in connection with childcare! Millions of women go out to work every day and leave their babies—and those babies are thriving! And do you really think I would have someone sub-standard looking after my own son?’
He grimaced, and had the grace to look repentant. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Point taken and noted.’
Triss, who had been ready to launch into another animated defence of working mothers, quickly shut her mouth, the wind completely taken out of her sails by his apology.
‘What shall I do with him now?’ asked Cormack softly, glancing down at the warm, sleeping bundle in his arms.
‘You could put him down to sleep while I shower and dress,’ she suggested. ‘Then we can all have breakfast together, if you like.’
‘Do I have to put him down?’ he queried. ‘Couldn’t he sleep like this for a while?’
Triss looked taken aback. ‘Of course he can—that’s if you don’t mind?’
‘Mind? I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.’ Then he grinned. ‘We—ll, on second thoughts...’
And Triss found herself blushing as their eyes met.
