Page 2 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

I’ve planned every executive event this company has thrown for a year and a half. The board, the major clients, the investors, and every plus-one with a food restriction, there’s not one detail I don’t know about these people.

But I’ve never seen this man in my life. He’s not on my list, and my list is perfect. So, who the hell is this intruder?

Then again, uninvited guests are officially Klaus’s problem. Last spring, a crypto founder wandered in off the street mid-gala, and Klaus shook his hand for a photo while I called security. The division of labor here is well established.

Across the ballroom, my boss has gone still with a champagne flute halfway to his mouth. The looseness that lives in his shoulders is gone. Sofiya says something to him, and he doesn’t answer her, which I’ve never once seen him do to a beautiful woman in the presence of an audience. He’s staring at the silver-haired man by the terrace doors, and there’s a word for what has come into his posture.

Bristle.

Klaus mutters something, but his date doesn’t react, so I assume it’s to himself. A curse, perhaps. He sets the flute down, scans the room, and finds me.

He crosses to the bar at a pace meant to look unhurried, and by the time he arrives, he has his public face back on, warm and easy. But up close, the warmth has a crack in it. There’s sweat at his temple that the ballroom’s climate control cannot explain, because I set it myself.

“Thea.” He angles his body so his back is to the terrace doors. “Party’s a hit. Great work.”

“Thank you. Who is that?”

“Who’s who?”

“The man you just saw come in. Silver hair, black suit, not on my list. You made a face.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He glances over his shoulder anyway, quick, and the crack in the warmth widens. “He’s nobody. A crasher. Probably smelled free liquor.”

“Why, exactly, do you think I’ll buy that?”

He ignores me. “Handle him.”

“Handle him how, exactly?”

“Figure out what he wants and keep him away from me. Get him a drink, give him a tour, walk him to a cab, whatever works. You’re good at this.” He straightens his lapels and dials the smile back up for the room. “I’d do it myself, but I’m hosting.”

“You think I’m an idiot, don’t you? Klaus, just tell me who he is⁠—”

“Thea.” His voice drops one more notch. There’s something under it I haven’t heard from him before. “Please.”

Klaus does not say please. Instead, he says ‘you’re the best’ after the fact. And only when someone else is watching.

I study his face for another second, and the fear looks back at me before he can dress it in anything else. “Fine. Go host.”

Ten steps away, the champagne’s back in his hand, the laugh’s back in his throat, and the show resumes as if it never stopped. Sofiya folds under his arm again. Whatever the silver-haired man means to Klaus, it’s been filed behind the smile with everything else he doesn’t intend to deal with tonight, because now there’s a person assigned to it.

That person tops off her cabernet.

I look across the ballroom at my assignment. He’s accepted a glass of something from a passing tray and sets it down untouched on a cocktail table. He checks his watch. Even from here, the gesture looks disciplined and allotted, like a man giving the evening a deadline.

He then surveys the room, his gaze methodically shifting across the crowd. I would confidently wager this month’s rent on what he’s doing—because I do the same. He’s counting. Whether it’s exits, faces, or dollars, I can’t decide, but he’s definitely taking stock of my ballroom.

And I don’t like it.

His gaze crosses the champagne fountain, where Klaus is performing a toast for his corner of the crowd. It stops there. From fifty feet away, I watch a stranger look at my boss, and his expression does not change, but something in it sinks, becoming the bleakest thing I’ve seen all night.

A chill runs down my spine.

I drink the rest of my wine faster than a good cabernet deserves and set the glass down before I can think better of any of this. I have a job to do.

Another mess for me to clean up.

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