12. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
Caroline
Caroline stared at Hayden from where she was tucked in bed. Her right ankle throbbed between the two pillows he’d arranged under it, and the rest of her felt heavy after hours under bright hospital lights.
“There’s food in the kitchen,” she said. “I can manage until Mom gets home.”
“You can’t stand,” he said.
“I have crutches.”
His dark eyes moved to her stomach.
“I can use them carefully,” she added.
“When did you last eat properly?” he asked.
She tried to remember. She’d had a cup of tea while reading job listings. Then toast, perhaps. No, she’d planned to make toast after laying out the crib parts.
“I had a banana this morning,” she finally said.
“Caroline.” His tone was reproachful.
“It was a large banana.” She gave him a feeble smile.
He closed his eyes for a second. She expected an argument, or the firm voice he used when he thought a decision had already been made. Instead, he walked out of the bedroom.
“Hayden?”
“I’m making you something.”
“You don’t know where anything is.”
“That seems like a problem I can solve.”
Cupboard doors opened and closed in the kitchen. A drawer slid shut. She listened for his phone and the low murmur of a food order, but heard paper rustle, a knife against a plate, then the lever of the secondhand toaster Jemma had bought after the old one had mysteriously vanished.
“There’s peanut butter above the sink,” Caroline called.
“I found it.”
“The bread lives on top of the refrigerator because Hank eats half a loaf at once.”
There was a pause.
“I found that too.”
“Are you standing on something?” she asked.
“I’m tall.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
The toaster clicked. A few minutes later, Hayden returned with a plate of peanut-butter toast cut into triangles and an apple sliced beside it. He’d found one of Jemma’s chipped glasses and filled it with water.
“That’s more than a banana,” he said.
“You cut my toast.”
“You’re injured.”
“It’s my ankle, not my teeth.”
“Eat.”
The word should’ve annoyed her. It did, a little, but he didn’t stand over her to make sure she obeyed. He gathered the empty cardboard from the crib instead, folding each piece flat and carrying it out of the room. By the time he returned, she’d finished one triangle and several apple slices.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
“Checking what’s here for dinner.”
“My mother and Jemma will cook.”
“After they’ve both worked all day?”
“You’ve worked too.”
“Not on a sprained ankle.”
He disappeared again. Caroline ate the rest of the toast while listening to jars shifting in the cupboard and the refrigerator opening and closing a few times.
This time, she did hear his phone. He spoke briefly, listing groceries in the same efficient tone he might’ve used to move a meeting.
Hayden didn’t know how to place a grocery order, but he did have an assistant back in New York who could do it for him.
Caroline heard him give her the address and tell her to add anything else she might think was necessary.
When he came back into the bedroom, he’d taken off his tie.
“What did you order?” Caroline asked.
“What was missing,” he said.
“That answer would get you thrown out of a budget meeting.” She chuckled.
“Ground beef, salad, garlic bread, and a few other things. I’m making pasta.”
She looked at him. “You can cook?”
“I can cook a few things reliably.”
“Do your chefs know?”
“They’ve managed to keep the scandal quiet.”
“Is one of them going to talk you through it on the phone?”
His mouth shifted into the restrained smile she remembered from the first night at her bar, when he’d been trying not to let her know how much she amused him.
“I learned at university,” he said. “Pasta, omelets, roast chicken. Enough to avoid starving. I still enjoy it occasionally.”
“Occasionally meaning… what? Once a decade?”
“There hasn’t been much reason to cook in a staffed house.”
The smile left her before she could stop it. A staffed house. A kitchen where she’d once had to ask permission for grilled cheese.
Hayden’s expression sobered, but he didn’t defend the house or the people he’d hired.
“It will be ready when your mother and Jemma get home,” he said. “If you’re willing to risk it.”
“I’ve eaten diner food with my mother for years. I’m prepared for danger.”
“I heard that.”
“You were meant to.”
He picked up her empty plate. “Do you need anything before I finish building the crib?”
Caroline looked past him at the pale wooden rails leaning against the wall. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
The simple answer left her with nothing to push against.
She explained where she’d stopped and showed him the instruction sheet from the bed.
Hayden rolled his shirtsleeves to his forearms, knelt among the sorted hardware, and studied the drawing.
He didn’t pretend to understand it faster than she did.
When he selected the wrong bolt, she corrected him, and he put it back without argument.
“The shorter one goes through the mattress support,” she said.
“This one?”
“No, that’s the same long one you just put down.”
He held both up. “They’re nearly identical.”
“One is half an inch shorter.”
“A brutal test of character,” he sighed.
“This is why they shouldn’t let billionaires build furniture.” She gave him a small smile.
“Who should?”
“Women with rulers.”
He glanced at the tape measure beside her. “Naturally.”
The metal key turned with soft scrapes as he tightened each corner. Caroline guided him through attaching the support and warned him before he put the final rail on backward. Soon, the separate pieces became a crib – plain, compact, and real.
It wasn’t like the nursery in Southampton.
Hayden had commissioned that room by speaking to other people.
Beautiful furniture had appeared while he was in Manhattan, placed in a design Caroline barely touched.
Here, he sat on Jemma’s carpet with one knee bent and his sleeves rolled, tightening the last bolt with his own hands.
“Finished,” he said.
“Not quite. It has to go against that wall.”
He lifted one end and eased the crib into the narrow space between the bed and the dresser. Caroline watched him line it up, then shook her head.
“The other way.”
“It fits here.”
“Open the bottom dresser drawer.”
Hayden tried. The drawer struck the crib rail after coming out only three inches.
“Right,” he said.
“If you turn it and leave six inches at the foot, the drawers open, Mom can still get into bed, and the bedroom door won’t hit the corner.”
He looked at the bed, the closet, and the door, measuring the paths with his eyes.
“You worked all that out before you started,” he said, sounding impressed.
“That’s generally how design works.”
“I deserved that.”
He turned the crib exactly as she directed. When he tested the drawer again, it opened fully. So did the closet door. There wasn’t an inch to spare, but everything worked.
“There,” Caroline said.
Hayden rested a hand on the rail and looked at her. “You were right.”
Pleasure slipped through her before caution could stop it. Not because he’d said the words. Because he’d listened, adjusted, and made her plan work without treating the smaller room as a problem only money could solve.
“It needs the mattress,” she said.
“Where is it?”
“Still in Jemma’s car.”
“Then I’m finished for now.”
He carried the remaining packaging away. Soon, water ran in the kitchen sink, plates clicked against one another, and a trash bag snapped open. Cupboard doors opened and closed, and the scrape of a chair crossed the floor.
Caroline meant to tell him he didn’t need to clean. Instead, she settled deeper into the pillow. Her hip ached from the fall, her ankle pulsed, and the hospital had left her exhausted. With one hand over the steady curve of her daughter, she listened to Hayden moving through the apartment.
Later, she woke to the smell of garlic and tomatoes. She had no idea when she’d fallen asleep. For a few seconds, she didn’t know why her foot felt heavy or why Hayden’s voice came from Jemma’s kitchen. Then Jemma laughed, and her mother said:
“I’m grateful, but I’m still allowed to ask what you’re doing in my sister’s apron.”
Caroline opened her eyes.
“It was the only one available,” Hayden said.
“It has lemons on it.”
“I’m aware.”
Caroline called his name. His footsteps padded quickly toward the bedroom. He appeared in the doorway without the apron, though a streak of tomato sauce marked one rolled cuff.
“How do you feel?” he asked, his eyes taking her in from head to toe.
“Like I fell over a crib.”
“Any pain in your stomach?”
“No. She’s moving.”
His shoulders eased. “Dinner’s ready.”
He helped her out of bed. Caroline used one crutch while his arm stayed firm around her waist, keeping weight off her right foot. The short trip to the main room took longer than it should have. He matched each awkward step without hurrying her.
The table had been cleared of Caroline’s laptop, mail, and Jemma’s collection of mugs. Four places were set. A bowl of pasta with meat sauce filled the center beside salad and garlic bread. The counters were clean, the sink was empty, and the scents of tomato, garlic, and beef mixed in the air.
Her mother guided her into a chair and immediately raised Caroline’s foot onto another.
“You’re sure the doctor said everything was all right?” she asked.
“I’m sure.”
“And the baby?” Jemma asked.
“Strong heartbeat. She’s fine.”
Jemma pressed a hand to her chest. “You took ten years off my life.”
“I called Mom, not you.”
“She called me. The damage traveled.”
Hayden set a glass in front of Caroline.
“She needs to stay off the ankle until she can put weight on it comfortably,” he said.
Her mother looked from him to the finished crib visible through the bedroom door.
“You did all this?” she asked.
“Caroline told me where everything went.”
Jemma lifted the lid from the sauce and breathed in. “I can take over. You’ve been here long enough.”
“It’s ready,” Hayden said. “Both of you sit down. You’ve just finished your shifts.”