Page 88 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

Maxim leans back, cutting him off. “I have questions, primarily regarding why I was unaware. I’ve pondered your personal life for years, Pasha. Upon your initial arrival, I speculated that you might be a eunuch. It’s the sole reason I did not concern myself about you and Thea in that garden. Though I did wonder when it came to your obvious affection for her.”

Pasha’s mouth opens. He must not know what to say—he says nothing.

“Upon that affection, I revised my theory, and I was wrong in a new direction.”

The man in the bed laughs, then winces and clutches his side. “Ow. Ow, sir, do not mistake me, oh, it hurts to laugh⁠—”

“Good. It should hurt. You took forty years off my life tonight. Consider this payback.” But Maxim’s voice has gone gentle under the gruffness. “Pasha, why did you not tell me? Do you think me some neanderthal?”

Pasha’s grin softens into something young and shy. “Because you’re the pakhan. And the stories about the old ways, about what happens to men like me—I thought you were traditional. You always complained that Alexei was untraditional, a rogue. You hated him for it. So, I believed that if you found out, I would lose everything. The house. The work. Your respect. All of it.”

“I’m traditional about many things,” Maxim says with a sigh. “Loyalty. Hospitality. I’m not traditional about this, and it bothers me that you did not know that. I didn’t make it clearer, and I should’ve.” He puts a hand on Pasha’s blanketed arm. “No more secrets about the important, personal things. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Pasha says, and his eyes are wet. So are mine.

That’s when the nurse puts her head in to tell us Klaus is awake. We say our goodbyes, then scurry there.

His room’s dimmer, quieter somehow, despite more machines. They’ve taken the tube out of his throat. He’s propped at a slight angle, and he’s the color of the sheets. Not gray anymore. I suppose sheet white is progress.

His eyes track to us, slow and heavy. Must still be drugged to high heaven. He looks a hundred years old, and he looks nine. This is Klaus. Not the showman. Not the fool. The real person beneath the bullshit.

The man who saved my child’s life.

“Dad.” His voice is a wrecked scratch. “I’m sorry. For all of it. The company. Sokolov. The map, I gave them the—you know what I did. There’s no—I’m not asking you to⁠—“

“Breathe,” Maxim says, standing on the other side of the bed where I join him.

Only then, Klaus realizes he’s run out of air. They warned us that he’d get winded easily. I didn’t expect it would be this bad.

His eyes close and open again with effort. “I’m just sorry. That’s all. I needed to say it.”

Maxim gently holds his son’s pale hand with both of his, being careful around the taped line. “I’m sorry, too. For every time I wasn’t the father you needed. You were a boy in an empty house, and I should have been your father and your mother, and I was neither. So, we are both sorry. The question is how we handle the remorse of two men.”

Klaus whispers, “I don’t know. I don’t know how to be your son. I never learned.”

“We learn together. Badly, probably. With a great deal of arguing.” Maxim’s mouth twitches, and Klaus’s does the same. “I’m willing to try if you are, on one condition.” He looks back at me.

I don’t understand. “What’re you saying?”

This family now has a third vote, and she has her reasons to want you gone. If she can’t have you in our lives after everything that transpired at the mansion, or your history, or both, that’s the end, and I won’t blame her. Neither will you.”

Klaus blinks in understanding. “That’s fair.”

They both look at me—father and son, a broken pair—and it should be a difficult decision, but it isn’t. Not even a little bit.

I meet Klaus’s warped gaze. “You stepped in front of that gun for my baby. That’s all I know. That’s all that matters to me. You might have been the worst boyfriend that the East Coast ever produced, but that’s water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned. As long as I get to tease you about it sometimes.”

Klaus smiles at me as best he can. It’s not a good smile—it’s twisted from too many drugs and pain. But it’s the first real thing he’s ever given me, and I adore it.

“Then,” Maxim says, voice raw, “we’ll be a family. One day at a time. A family that fucks up. A family that keeps trying for each other. With honesty and with integrity.”

Klaus bobs his head. “As long as you’ll have me… I’m in.” He coughs, then sips ice water to simmer down again.

I sigh and smile at them both. “You know, they say you shouldn’t make big decisions when you’re under duress, and we’ve all been under a lot of duress for the past twenty-four hours, so this could be the worst choice we’ve ever made.”

Maxim’s eyes go wide, slightly aghast.

“But,” I drag out the word, as if I’m contemplating how this sentence will end, “I think this is a good first step for our family anyway.”