Page 51 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

MAXIM

A do-over.

Every wrong turn I took with Niklaus sits in me with its own weight on my chest. The boarding school. Birthdays handled by courier. The silence I called protection until the protection became the wound. It’s a weight I shove to the back of my mind most days.

But not today.

Today, it’s lighter than ever. A man does not get the past back. But now there is a heartbeat the size of a grain of rice that argues that fact.

I have a second chance to get fatherhood right. And I mean to.

I didn’t sleep last night. I lay in the dark making promises I’ll do my damnedest to keep. This child will know my face before they know my absence. This child will be watched at recitals by their parents, not by nannies.

There’ll be family suppers. Not arranged dinners in restaurants with gifts chosen by an assistant, but real meals designed around their preferences and proper nutrition. Just because I get a do-over doesn’t mean I intend to spoil them. Vegetables and fruit, not sweets.

Klaus has a sweet tooth that’s his entire modus operandi. I will not allow that to happen again.

Whatever the business requires of me, I will change it. I built an empire in the years I should have built a son, and I will not repeat that mistake.

Smart men learn from the mistakes of others, and I failed that test. I’ll pass the next one by learning from my own mistakes.

These thoughts haunt my every step from the elevator to my office. I’ve to make changes here, so the business does not suffer in my future absence. It will be yet another change for the business, but so be it. We have weathered worse.

I swing my office door open, and movement at my desk chair catches my eye. My hand is inside my jacket before the door finishes opening. Then the details argue me down.

Her heels are off, her feet tucked under her, as though my desk chair is her usual perch. Blonde, dark blue eyes. A little red dress. The same knowing smirk as her father.

“Maxim.” Anya Sokolov. Geneva-polished English, spectacularly beautiful, twenty-four. “Your building is lovely. Your security is lovelier. Not one of them touched me.”

“Miss Sokolov, you’re in my chair.”

“Yes, I am. I wanted to see the view from it. Delightful.” She takes her time rising, smoothing the dress into place. She steps into her heels one at a time while holding my gaze. “Everyone discusses this office. My father discusses it more than he discusses me. I understand the fascination now. You can see three of your own buildings and one of ours.”

“Two of yours,” I say. “The Fulton property closed in March, or don’t you remember?”

Something flickers through her expression, quick and delighted, and there’s the difference between her and her father in one instant. Alexei would have scowled at the correction. She enjoys it, adjusts, all inside a second.

The reports undersold her. The daughter is smarter than the father.

“Oh, that’s right.” Her smirk grows into a teasing smile. “Seems like we’re encroaching on your territory, doesn’t it?” She wanders the office’s perimeter, trailing a fingertip along the credenza, swinging her hips to garner my attention. “You know why I came.”

“You came to make a show of the fact that you got in here. I’m sure your father will be delighted by my lack of security. Off you go.”

“How dull, when you say it plainly like that.” She stops at the window with the morning behind her, and she has chosen the spot for the light, I’m sure of it. “There’s a version of the future, Maxim, where our families stop this expensive circling. We could keep buying up buildings in your territory. We could leave your cute little ports alone. You are a man with options.”

“Get to the point, Anya.” I can’t hide the irritation in my voice.

“We’ll go somewhere good. Somewhere with tablecloths. You can correct my property records all night long, or we can find something else more entertaining to occupy our time.”

A seduction play from his own daughter? Has Alexei grown desperate? I’ll make her spell it out. See how she worms out of the humiliation of it. “And why would I do that, exactly?”

No flicker of annoyance. Her smile broadens again. “Because I like to have a good time, and I think you do, too. Why else would you play games with my father?”

She’s toying with me, and if I were a lesser man, I might let her. After all, I’m fifty-six, not dead. But I feel nothing. No stirring of lust, no interest whatsoever. All my interest is in my mansion, probably digging in files I’d rather she didn’t, and learning more about me than I want her to know.

I adore that about Thea. She challenged me to share my secrets, share my world, and I’ve never accepted a more frightening assignment. I did so gladly. If honesty is the cost of building a new family, I’ll happily pay it.

I open my office door and hold it. “You are your father’s daughter, Anya, which means you already know how this visit ends. I’m not interested in whatever this is, so you are free to go. Give Alexei my regards.”