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Graham
“Daddy. Dad. Dad. Daddy. Dad. DAD!”
“Heard you the first time, Collins,” I said, keeping my eyes carefully on the road. I didn’t often drive with my daughter. In fact, I would be lying if I said it had been a piece of cake to get the car seat into the back of the Tesla.
Honestly, it was a fucking nightmare—one made even worse since it was my driver’s day off.
I definitely could’ve used Carol’s help with all of this, but even that thought was laughable. There was no reason for my former nanny to install my four-year-old’s car seat—a booster seat, as she called it—in my car. I rarely traveled with Collins in the Tesla. If she needed to go somewhere, it was always with Carol. I was far too busy running my father’s company—well, my company, now—to go on many outings with my daughter.
Regrets? I had a few. But the biggest one at the moment? Agreeing to let my nanny retire.
“I have to go potty,” my daughter informed me. When I glanced into the rearview mirror, I could see her brow knitted in concentration.
“Collins.” I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “We went potty before we left home, remember?”
“Yes.” She squirmed against the restraints of the booster seat and plucked at the buckle. “But I have to go potty. Now.”
“Can you wait?” I downshifted and roared around an ambling station wagon. We were ahead of rush hour, thank God, but it didn’t exempt us from the rest of the traffic moving along the expressway. “We’ll be there soon.”
“How long?” Collins studied my reflection in the mirror, her green eyes calculating. Their color and expression matched mine, which is how I knew she was testing me. Not even a cartoon on her tablet could distract her from the boredom of the commute between our home and the office. Surprise, she was just like her father.
“I bet if you can count to a hundred, we’ll be there before then,” I said, executing a series of maneuvers with my car that I usually wouldn’t with my daughter inside.
Hell. I normally wouldn’t even have my daughter inside my car.
It wasn’t because I didn’t like to spend time with her—quite the opposite, actually. In fact, I love spending time with Collins, and I want to give her the world because she deserves it. She is sweet, intelligent, exacting, and demanding.
Precisely a Hilborne. Born for greatness.
If only I had picked a better mother for her.
“One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten,” Collins hollered in what had to be record time for her counting skills.
At that rate, we weren’t going to be at the office by one hundred.
“Good job, Collie,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell her to slow down. Why pull the reins on intellectual progress? “What’s next?”
When my daughter performed like this, rattling off the next dozen digits, I saw her mother. Josie. It was simply an expression, eyes wide and innocent, reciting from memory, golden locks falling around her face. I couldn’t fault Collins for it. I couldn’t fault my daughter for anything. How could anyone fault a four-year-old for acting like the people who had conceived her? Her stubbornness and green eyes were where my family resemblance ended. My dark hair contrasted my daughter’s dark blonde curls, and her face—especially when she was expressing displeasure—was Josie through and through.
Still, it was disconcerting to see a reflection or even a ripple—in my daughter—of the woman I thought I loved. The woman I thought I was going to marry. Sure, we made Collins together, but Josie hadn’t been who I thought she was. She didn’t love me for who I was. Just what I was.
And what exactly was I? A billionaire—the successor of my father’s business, chosen over my brother, who used to manage Hilborne Security in San Francisco. Granted, Noah found something he wanted to do more than our family business, but I suppose love did crazy things to people.
Josie had been thrilled to be a part of our family’s legacy, but then I discovered the only thing she ever wanted. Money.
“Fifty!” Collins declared, jolting me back to the present.
“What a liar!” I exclaimed, passing a series of slow-moving semi-trailers. “I didn’t hear you get through the forties.”
“I said them,” Collins insisted. “I just said them. You weren’t listening.”
“Sorry, baby.” I tried to throw her a smile through the mirror, but she rolled her eyes in a dramatic manner—she must have picked it up on TV—and glared out the window. That was a note to self: Figure out what she was watching and fix it.
Carol would know.
My fingers itched to call my former nanny’s number. It was my first on speed dial while the office was second. That’s how heavily I relied on Carol to parent my child when I was busy, and Josie was…well.
