The Billionaire's Baby Bargain novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Oma's Table

Oma Liesl tests Hanna with dumpling dough while Dieter sneers, and orders a church wedding; in the driveway Dieter slides a check across the car roof.

Ania took it better than I did.

She sat cross-legged on the hospital bed Wednesday afternoon, in her green knit hat, with her sketchbook open on her knees.

"So let me get this straight," she said. "You're marrying your boss for a baby."

"For the trial. The baby is in the paperwork."

"You're having a billionaire's baby for a trial."

"Say it quieter."

"I looked him up, Hanna. He's very large and very bald."

"He's shaved."

"You've looked at his head?"

"Everyone's looked at his head. It's a head."

She laughed so hard she coughed, and I held the basin until she stopped.

Then she wiped her mouth and went quiet.

"You don't have to do this," she said.

"It's already paid. He wired it this morning."

"That's not what I mean."

The door opened before I could answer.

Matthias stood in it with a flat cardboard box under his arm and his coat folded over the other.

He looked at the machines, the IV pole and Ania's hat, and I saw him decide to stop being nervous.

"Ania," he said. "I'm Matthias."

"The head," said my sister.

"Yes."

"Hanna says you're the reason I get a slot."

"Hanna's the reason. I only signed the check."

He held out the box.

It was a set of two dozen drawing pencils in a tin, the good kind, with a kneaded eraser tucked in the lid.

"I asked the nurse what you draw," he said. "She said comics."

Ania turned the tin over in her hands.

"These cost more than my car," she said.

"Your car costs more than these."

Her mouth twitched.

"If you hurt my sister," she said, "I will draw you as a ham."

"A ham."

"A very small ham, in a very sad hat."

"That seems fair," Matthias said gravely.

She looked at me over the pencil tin, and I knew exactly what she was thinking.

She was thinking, he's kind, and that's going to be a problem.

On Sunday I stood in a kitchen the size of my entire duplex.

Oma Liesl Reinhardt's house in Whitefish Bay had a stove with eight burners and a view of the lake.

She was eighty-one years old and about as tall as my shoulder.

She had a silver bob, pearl buttons on her cardigan, and a brass duck-head cane she pointed at things.

"You're the clerk," she said.

"Hanna Sobczak. Yes, ma'am."

"Sobczak. Polish."

"My grandmother came from Krakow. My mother cleaned hotels."

"Good." She jabbed the cane at the counter. "Can you make dumpling dough?"

"I can make pierogi dough in my sleep."

"Then make it."

She pointed at a bag of flour, a bowl and a block of butter, and sat down at the table to watch.

Matthias stood in the doorway in his shirtsleeves.

I washed my hands.

I measured the flour with my palm and cracked an egg, and I worked the dough the way my mother had.

Her hands were always the first thing I thought of when I smelled butter.

Oma watched my hands, not my face.

When I pushed the dough flat she got up, pinched a piece and rolled it between two fingers.

"Warm hands," she said. "Quick. You don't overwork it."

"My mother said overworked dough is angry dough."

"Your mother was right."

She sat down again, and I felt something in my chest loosen.

The front door banged.

Dieter walked in with a bottle of wine, his ring flashing on his hand, and kissed Oma on both cheeks.

"Mutti. I heard the happy news."

"You called me at four in the morning to tell me," said Oma. "Funny, that."

He turned to me with a smile.

"And this is the bride. The night clerk. How charming."

"Hanna," I said.

"Hanna. Do you scan the pallets yourself, or does a machine tell you where they go?"

"Dieter," Matthias said.

"I'm interested. My nephew picks a wife by the loading dock, and I want to understand the qualifications."

I wiped my hands on a dish towel.

"I'm very good with pallets," I said. "I notice what's missing."

His smile didn't move, but his eyes did.

Oma tapped her cane twice on the floor.

"Enough," she said. "Saturday, ten o'clock, the stone church on Prospect. Not a courthouse. Not a lawyer's office."

"Mutti, they've known each other a week."

"Your father married me in nine days, and I buried him after fifty-one years." She looked at me. "Can you stand in a church?"

"Yes."

"Can you stand in it and not lie to God?"

"I'll do my best."

"Your best is acceptable."

She went back to her tea.

My shoulders came down, relief flooding through me.

Dieter left before dessert.

When I walked out to the driveway at eight, he was leaning on his car with an envelope in two fingers.

"A word, Ms. Sobczak."

"I don't have one."

"Two hundred thousand dollars." He held the envelope out. "A cashier's check. You walk away today, and your sister's family never hears my name again."

"My sister is in a clinical trial. It's paid."

"Of course it is. By my nephew." He tilted his head, almost kindly. "And what does he get?"

"A wife."

"For how long?"

I took the envelope from his fingers.

I tucked it into his breast pocket and patted it flat.

"Thank you for the offer, Mr. Reinhardt. I'll see you Saturday."

He watched me with his hand over the pocket.

"Keep the number in your head, dear," he said. "You'll want it by Christmas."

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