This had to be his sister, Faith. The architect he talked about with such pride and fondness. A woman who was Danielle’s age and yet so much more successful they might be completely different species.
“This is Joshua’s fiancée,” Todd Grayson said. “He’s engaged.”
“Shut the front door,” Faith said. “Are you really?”
“Yes,” Joshua said, the lie rolling easily off his tongue.
Danielle bit back a comment about his PR skills. She was supposed to be hard to deal with, but they weren’t supposed to call attention to the fact this was a ruse.
“That’s great?” Faith took a step forward and hugged her brother, then leaned in to grab hold of Danielle, as well.
“Is nobody going to ask about the baby?” Isaiah asked.
“Obviously you are,” Devlin said.
“Well, it’s kind of the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. Or the ten-pound infant.”
“It’s my baby,” Danielle said, feeling color mount in her cheeks.
She noticed a slight shift in Joshua’s father’s expression. Which was the general idea. To make him suspicious of her. To make him think he had gone and caught his son a gold digger.
“Well, that’s...” She could see Joshua’s mother searching for words. “It’s definitely unexpected.” She looked apologetically at Danielle the moment the words left her mouth. “It’s just that Joshua hasn’t shown much interest in marriage or family.”
Danielle had a feeling that was an understatement. If Joshua was willing to go to such lengths to get his father out of his business, then he must be about as anti-marriage as you could get.
“Well,” Joshua said, “Danielle and I met because of Dad.”
His mother’s blue gaze sharpened. “How?”
His father looked guilty. “Well, I thought he could use a little help,” he said finally.
“What kind of help?”
“It’s not good for a man to be alone, especially not our boys,” he said insistently.
“Some of us like to be alone,” Isaiah pointed out.
“You wouldn’t feel that way if you didn’t have a woman who cooked for you and ran your errands,” his father responded, looking pointedly at Poppy.
“She’s an employee,” Isaiah said.
Poppy looked more irritated and distressed by Isaiah’s comment than she did by the Grayson family patriarch’s statement. But she didn’t say anything.
“You were right,” Joshua said. “I just needed to find the right woman. You placed that ad, listing all of my assets, and the right woman responded.”
This was so ridiculous. Danielle felt her face heating. The assets Joshua’s father had listed were his bank account, and there was no way in the world that wasn’t exactly what everyone in his family was thinking.
She knew this was her chance to confirm her gold-digging motives. But right then, Riley started to cry.
“Oh,” she said, feeling flustered. “Just let me... I need to...”
She fumbled around with the new diaper bag, digging around for a bottle, and then went over to the car seat, taking the baby out of it.
“Let me help,” Joshua’s mother said.
She was being so kind. Danielle felt terrible.
But before Danielle could protest, the other woman was taking Riley from her arms. Riley wiggled and fussed, but then she efficiently plucked the bottle from Danielle’s hand and stuck it right in his mouth. He quieted immediately.
“What a good baby,” she said. “Does he usually go to strangers?”
Danielle honestly didn’t know. “Other than a neighbor whose known him since he was born, I’m the only one who takes care of him,” she said.
“Don’t you have any family?”
Danielle shook her head, feeling every inch the curiosity she undoubtedly was. Every single eye in the room was trained on her, and she knew they were all waiting for her to make a mistake. She was supposed to make a mistake, dammit. That was what Joshua was paying her to do.
“I don’t have any family,” she said decisively. “It’s just been me and Riley from the beginning.”
“It must be nice to have some help now,” Faith said, not unkindly, but definitely probing.
“It is,” Danielle said. “I mean, it’s really hard taking care of a baby by yourself. And I didn’t make enough money to...well, anything. So meeting Joshua has been great. Because he’s so...helpful.”
A timer went off in the other room and Joshua’s mother blinked. “Oh, I have to get dinner.” She turned to her son. “Since you’re so helpful, Joshua.” And before Danielle could protest, before Joshua could protest, Nancy dumped Riley right into his arms.
He looked like he’d been handed a bomb. And frankly, Danielle felt a little bit like a bomb might detonate at any moment. It had not escaped her notice that Joshua had never touched Riley. Yes, he had carried his car seat, but he had never voluntarily touched the baby. Which, now that she thought about it, must have been purposeful. But then, not everybody liked babies. She had never been particularly drawn to them before Riley. Maybe Joshua felt the same way.
She could tell by his awkward posture, and the way Riley’s small frame was engulfed by Joshua’s large, muscular one, that any contact with babies was not something he was used to.
She imagined Joshua’s reaction would go a long way in proving how unsuitable she was. Maybe not in the way he had hoped, but it definitely made his point.
He took a seat on the couch, still holding on to Riley, still clearly committed to the farce.
“So you met through an ad,” Isaiah said, his voice full of disbelief. “An ad that Dad put in the paper.”
Everyone’s head swiveled, and they looked at Todd. “I did what any concerned father would do for his son.”
Devlin snorted. “Thank God I found a wife on my own.”
“You found a wife by pilfering from my friendship pool,” Faith said, her tone disapproving. “Isaiah and Joshua have too much class to go picking out women that young.”
“Actually,” Danielle said, deciding this was the perfect opportunity to highlight another of the many ways in which she was unsuitable, “I’m only twenty-two.”
Joshua’s father looked at him, his gaze sharp. “Really?”
“Really,” Danielle said.
“That’s unexpected,” Todd said to his son.
“That’s what’s so
