Page 14 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

“Say it,” I grind out. “Just say it so I can stop waiting for you to say it.”

“Luca is happy here with you.” He’s still facing the drawings. “He has a settled life. It isn’t the life I would have chosen for him.”

“Of course he’s happy.” I fold my arms to stop my hands from shaking. “He’s loved.”

“I spoke to three child psychologists last night.”

Of course he did. If I could find lawyers after midnight, he could find psychologists. He turns his head. “Separating him from the only parent he’s known would do him harm.”

Hope rears its head, and for a brief moment, I let it. “So you won’t take him.”

“I will take him.” He turns around to face me, and the amber of hope I had let flicker extinguishes in an instant. “But I’m willing to make you an offer.”

“What offer?”

“You’re welcome to come with us.”

The tap is still dripping behind me, and I count four drops before I get a word out. “What?”

“Under my roof, he’ll have tutors, an academy, physicians, security. Everything he needs.” His head tilts very slightly. “I can give him all of it. The one thing I can’t provide is a mother. He’s attached to you, and I need him stable.”

My mouth has gone completely dry. “Really.” It comes out as a whisper. “So I can still be his mother?”

“The adoption isn’t legal, though challenging it in a court is possible.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “It would take you years and money you don’t have. You want to be near the boy. I want my son settled. There’s no difficulty in one more person under my roof.”

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

“You’ll function as his mother. That doesn’t change in any respect.” He takes something from his inside pocket and sets it down on the table beside the envelope. “In return, the payment plan you’ve been servicing is finished.”

It’s a check. I don’t move toward it.

He turns it around with two fingers so it’s facing me. “That’s the balance outstanding on the debt you have been paying for six years. Forty-three thousand, two hundred and sixteen dollars. One word and I can have my assistant take this to the bank, and you will be debt-free.”

I look at the number, then at his signature going across the bottom of it in black ink. It’s a staggering amount. I’ve always tried not to think of the money I would still be paying for years to come. He’s tossing this aside like loose change. “Beyond that, there’ll be a monthly allowance. You’ll have your own portion of the house.” He straightens up. “Those are the terms.”

I look up at his face. “That’s it?” My lower lip has started trembling, and I can’t stop it. “You won’t take him from me, then?”

His eyes drop to the check and come back up, then his mouth goes tight at one corner. “No.” He picks up the envelope off the table and puts it back inside his coat. “I’ll be his father now, on paper and in law. That part isn’t negotiable.”

“And if I said no?”

“You won’t.” He’s already turning. “One hour. Bring what’s necessary. Everything else will be provided.”

He’s at the door before I’ve got my mouth open. “I’ll be waiting downstairs,” he adds without looking back. “I’m taking you both with me today.”

The door closes, leaving me standing in the middle of my kitchen, reeling. My legs give way, and I slump to the floor with my back against the sink, in front of a plate of pancakes nobody’s eaten.

❦ ❦ ❦

The house comes into view about forty minutes out of the city. It’s stone, three floors of it, with a frontage that goes on past what I can see through the window. The car swings around a gravel turn slowly enough for me to count the windows on one wing before I lose track. There are people working on the hedges and a fountain that isn’t running. I’ve been in theaters smaller than the building I’m looking at.

Luca is pressed into my side with his seatbelt cutting across his chest. “I don’t get why we have to live here,” he says.

“I told you, bug.” I keep my arm around him. “We’re going to live with your dad for a while.”

He goes quiet, then leans out around me to look at the man sitting on the other side of the seat, who has been working on a tablet since we pulled away from Garrick Street and hasn’t said six words the entire drive. “Are you really my father?”

Callum puts the tablet face down on his knee. “Yes.”