Mother's Day Babies (Holiday Babies Series) by Mona Risk Read Free Book Online

bathroom.
    “Cutie pies, please stop crying,”
Lou begged. “I’ll give you a big check to buy many dolls. Please, please,...
shut up.” He groaned between gritted teeth. They didn’t care less about his
words. He shoved a hand in his pocket and extricated his keys. He jangled them
in front of the babies. They instantly stopped crying. One giggled and the
other followed suit.
    “Lou, what’s going on? They’re
too quiet.”
    “Don’t worry. I haven’t killed
them.” Yet , he added to himself. He settled the girls snuggly against
him and kept shaking the keys. Two pairs of chubby hands tried to reach them. He
moved the keys higher and laughed at their antics and grimaces. “Hey, but
you’re really cute.”
    He bounced them on his knees and
was rewarded with peals of laughter.
    “Wow, you’re so good with babies.”
A bottle of milk in each hand, Barbara smiled her approval.
    Him, good with babies? What a
joke. “Do you realize it’s the first time in my life I’ve held babies?”
    “You’re a natural, then. Can you
give them their milk?” She shoved a nipple in one tiny mouth. “Keep your arm wrapped
around Lucia and hold her bottle. Great,” she added as he obeyed without
comments. Just like his bulldog. Sit, hold, give. “Now give me your
keys.” Yes, just like his dog. He gave her the keys, and received a bottle.
    “Open your mouth, little girl.”
Julia latched on her bottle with the same eagerness he gulped his Scotch.
    “Bless you, Lou. My head was
about to burst from their screams.”
    “Really? I hadn’t even noticed
the noise.” They both burst out laughing.
    “If this is your first time, I
have to take a picture.” She opened her handbag and fetched her camera.
“Smile.” He obliged and gave her a tender smile. “How I wish I could be with
you in this picture.”
    “Me too.” Actually he’d rather
have her on his lap and the babies deep asleep.
    He had a feeling their
tête-à-tête visit to Paris was soon to be history.
    In fact a few hours later, they
strolled along the Champs-Elysées, each of them pushing a stroller . Lou
sent a quick prayer to his maker that no reporter would take a lunch break on
the famous avenue. The last thing he wanted was his picture pushing a stroller on
the news.
    Her Paris Tour guide in hand,
Barbara elaborated about the various shops, cafés, cinema , and even the
clipped horse-chestnut trees. At the Arc de Triomphe , she insisted on
reading about every one of Napoleon’s victories and gasped with shock at the
sight of a little boy peeing against the famous arch.
    “What you see here is a shame,”
she told her granddaughters. “Don’t ever desecrate a landmark monument, sweetie
pies. Even if you don’t have a weenie.”
    Grinning at her outrage, Lou
whisked her away before she chastised the boy’s mother.
    In the evening, Roxanne hired a
baby-sitter for her daughters. After dinner at a prestigious restaurant with
three TV executives and their wives, Barbara gave Lou his kiss on the cheek. He
managed to rain a few more on her temple and she left him with a quivering
smile and a puzzling look. But Lou had to soak his overheated and rigid body
under another cold shower.
    Their first week in Paris was
almost at an end after a string of visits to monuments and museums during the
day with the company of Julia and Lucia who now adored him and insisted on
hanging on his neck or bouncing on his knees. The delicious lunches at various
sidewalk cafés turned into bottle feeding time. At night, their succession of
business dinners was followed by Lou’s eagerly awaited reward. The kisses
turned hotter and his showers colder.

 
     
     
    Chapter Five
    “Tomorrow we’ll attend the opening
of the TV Network Conference,” Lou announced as they settled for their first tête-à-tête
dinner in a simple restaurant in the Quartier St-Michel , the students’
neighborhood around the Sorbonne .
    “It’s a fun place. Look at the
decorations. Like an old