Page 5

I closed the security panel and pulled up the acquisition documents. I needed a distraction, but I read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a single word. This deal was worth four hundred million dollars. My legal team had been working on it for six months. The due diligence alone had taken eleven weeks, and now the board was getting cold feet because some analyst had flagged a discrepancy in Mark’s portfolio that was almost certainly a clerical error, but still needed to be investigated.

I had a call with the investors in twenty minutes. This call was going to determine whether we moved forward, or if we walked away from the biggest acquisition my company would make. I needed to focus.

Laughter echoed from down the hallway.

It wasn’t only Sophie’s laughter. They were both laughing. The sound was bright and tangled together, bouncing off the walls. I reached over, grabbed my earbuds, and shoved them into my ears, and then read the same damn paragraph again.

“We’re comfortable with a QI closing,” Carl said, “provided the IP review comes back clean. Everett, your team’s assessment?”

“We will have preliminary findings by Friday. I’ve got outside counsel running a parallel…”

I lifted my head and listened. Singing.

The sound was faint at first and distant enough that I thought I was imagining it, but then it got louder.

He did the mash…

“Everett? You’re breaking up.”

He did the monster mash…

“I’m here. As I was saying. I have outside counsel running a parallel review, and we expect…”

The monster mash…

I could hear two voices now. One was getting louder and closer to my office.

It was a graveyard smash…

I muted my mic.

“I need two minutes,” I said, unmuting my mic just long enough to get the words out. I stood up so fast my chair shot out from under me and hit the bookshelf behind me.

I opened my office door. The singing was coming from the living room. It was much clearer now, plus there was something else. Stomping, as if someone were dancing. I stormed down the hallway, controlled and focused, and turned the corner.

I stopped in my tracks. Sophie was standing on the coffee table. The coffee table, which was made from a single slab of Italian walnut and had cost me four thousand dollars. She had a wooden spoon in her hand, which she was using as a microphone and was belting out “Monster Mash” with complete confidence.

Ember was next to the table, doing some sort of dance that involved pointing at Sophie on every “it was a graveyard smash”, then she’d spin around with her arms out. At least a dozen paper bats were taped to the windows behind them. Glitter had migrated from Sophie’s hands to her face and sweater and was now spreading to the table and floor.

“It was a graveyard smash…” Sophie sang, stamping her feet on the table.

“Sophie!” I shouted.

My daughter froze, the wooden spoon in the air, her mouth open, and one foot lifted mid-stomp. She looked at me with an expression I knew well. She was trying to decide how much trouble she was in and whether she should keep going.

Ember stopped spinning. She was slightly out of breath, her cheeks were flushed, and the ridiculous sweater and leggings she wore had glitter dusted on them. She looked at me with wide brown eyes and an expression caught between guilt and defiance.

“Mr. Stone, we were just…”

“I heard exactly what you were doing. My investors also heard it.”

I watched as her cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink. “I am sorry, I didn’t realize you were on a call.”

“I’d closed my office door, correct? I’d think that should have suggested it.”

She stopped and took a breath. “You are right. I should have been more careful about the volume we were using. I’m sorry.”

At least she didn’t use excuses and didn’t deflect the situation. The last nanny, the one who’d lasted eleven days, cried every time I corrected her. The one before her had done nothing but argue. Ember Wilde stood there, met my eyes, and apologized. Which seemed to piss me off more than the singing had.