“I know you’re hungry,” he said, unconsciously echoing what he’d heard Tanja saying to her when she’d been waiting for Illi’s bottle to warm on the trimaran. “We’re going to get you something right away.” He picked up the phone by the elevator and asked the chef to prepare a bottle, requesting it be sent to the main saloon.
“I could have sworn we were kindred spirits when it came to kids, but look at you,” Kyrkos snorted as they went down the elevator. “What’s it like? Being a father?”
Leon wanted to choke out a laugh and say, Ask me when I’ve been doing it longer than five minutes. At the same time, he grew self-conscious with the knowledge he wasn’t one. Not really. Which bothered him for some reason.
He couldn’t explain that twinge any more than he could explain this well of concern for a baby he’d met barely twenty-four hours ago. He wasn’t a sentimental person and certainly hadn’t had much role modeling when it came to nurturing. Illi was very small and helpless, though. Everything Tanja had told him about her plight, losing the mother who had essentially sacrificed her own life to give her daughter hers, sat heavily on him, prompting an empathy at her loss despite the fact his own mother was alive and well.
Besides, who wouldn’t want to calm an agitated baby? Any decent person would want to feed a helpless, hungry baby whether it was a kitten or puppy or infant. As far as magnanimity went, it wasn’t a huge effort to pat her back and speak reassurances. It certainly didn’t deserve all this cogitation and remarking upon.
“You didn’t want kids?” he asked as a diversion from Kyrkos’s question.
“It’s the reason my first marriage fell apart. My time off is precious. When I get a break, I want to spend it on the water or the slopes, not... Well, I guess you’re not inconvenienced, are you? Still enjoying life, sailing with a baby.” Kyrkos flickered his gaze around the atrium as they came off the elevator. “If you call this ‘sailing.’” The curl of his lip was a silent must be nice.
Thankfully, a steward forestalled further comments as he hurried toward them with the baby bottle on a tray as if he was serving a flute of champagne.
“The chef made it himself. He said the temperature should be perfect.”
Leon shook a drop onto the inside of his wrist to be sure, then offered the bottle to Illi.
She took it greedily, smiling around it, which made his mouth twitch. Didn’t take much to be a hero in her eyes, did it? He smiled back.
Kyrkos noticed the baby’s effect on him. He snorted again, which made Leon defensive of his growing connection with Illi. Something aggressive rose in him, a protectiveness that bordered on irrational since he had a vision of throwing Kyrkos off his yacht.
Leon dragged his attention to the steward. “Where can we find the doctor’s wife?”
“The pub, sir.”
The bar in the stern was one deck down and meant for casual gatherings and cocktails before dinner. There was abundant seating and it offered potpies and burgers with its vast selection of beer. The three screens of satellite television were invariably tuned to sports.
“Oh. My. Gawd. You have a baby?” Cameron rushed toward them as they appeared. She quickly snapped a photo of Leon before he’d realized she was turning her phone on him.
“If you want to take my photo, ask,” he said, barely keeping his temper.
“Cammy, don’t post anything unless Leon says he doesn’t mind,” Kyrkos hurried to caution her.
“Oops.” She winced a sorry-not-sorry. “I already posted, like, a million of the boat.”
“The yacht is fine. Delete the one of me and Illi.” Leon managed to keep a civil tone. Barely. Tanja hadn’t approved such a thing, and he was genuinely incensed by the young woman’s utter disregard of their privacy.
“Do I have to?” Cameron batted her lashes. “It’s really cute.”
“I was planning to thank your husband for the house call by arranging for you both to spend a week aboard Poseidon’s Crown later this year.” He let the threat of that rug being pulled hang in the balance.
“That’s more than generous compensation for my time,” Dr. Kyrkos said, giving his wife’s phone a stern nod. “Delete the photo, Cammy.”
“If you insist, Kiki.” She pouted and tapped her phone. Thankfully, they departed moments later.
Tanja tried to go back to sleep, but when an hour had passed and Leon hadn’t returned with Illi, she rose grumpily and put on a robe to go looking for them.
She got lost twice, mostly because there were two dining rooms and she confused them on the map. When she bumped into a steward, he made a call, then offered to make her a fruit smoothie before giving her directions up one deck and forward.
She sipped as she walked to the music salon, contemplating suitably cutting remarks about the yacht having a live concert stage for pop stars. She walked in to find Leon with Illi on his lap, sitting on the bench before the grand piano.
“You have to push harder,” he coaxed. “Can you do it?” He stuck his finger against the key she slapped, depressing it enough to make a soft plink. “Hear that? You try.”
Both of Tanja’s ovaries burst into song, throwing sunshine and confetti into the air while her bones softened in a giant, melting, Awww.
“They said you were giving her piano lessons.” Her rueful voice wasn’t quite as nonchalant as she was striving for. “I didn’t believe it.”
Leon glanced up, looking tired, but he’d cleaned up around his beard and wore a fresh shirt. “She was losing at roulette. I had to get her out of the casino.”
“You do not have a casino.” As she said it, she silently went all in that he did.
“I’d show you, but it’s black-tie.” He gave her robe a flickering once-over, gaze lingering an extra second on her bare ankles, just long enough to make her very aware that she wore only his T-shirt beneath the warm velour.
And that he’d always been a fan of her long legs.
Illi squawked with excitement at the sight of Tanja, little arms waving, making Tanja smile.
“That’s quite a greeting.” She set aside her smoothie and came forward to take her.
Her robe loosened and gaped. She fiddled with it before she gathered her daughter and nuzzled Illi’s cheek, using the baby as a shield against whatever vibes Leon was throwing off that she was picking up so acutely.
Seriously, any virile man with a baby was going to be a straight shot of pair-bonding chemicals to a woman’s inner cave girl. She shouldn’t let this affect her so deeply.
“You’re wearing fresh clothes,” she noted of Illi’s onesie. “Who changed you?” She glanced at Leon, expecting him to mention a maid or the doctor’s wife.