by Claire Adams
“I will get to know her,” I said. “I'm already trying to get to know her, at least a little. I brought her back a stuffed animal from London, a sloth.”
Katherine laughed, no doubt remembering her own stuffed sloth, which she had refused to part with for the better part of her childhood. She smiled warmly at me. “You did a good job raising me,” she said. “I'm sure you'll do a great job with Emma as well.”
I smiled at her, trying not to let my inner turmoil show. I was feeling more confused than I had even before this lunch. What was Katherine really suggesting; that I keep Lexi and Emma at my house with no end date in sight? I couldn't do that, especially not with Renée in the picture. Katherine had to realize that.
But I also knew that my sister was right. While Lexi and Emma were there in my house, I had to make a point of getting to know my daughter. Otherwise, when they left, it would be all too easy for Lexi to refuse to let me see the girl.
If Emma didn't remember who I was, if she didn't care to see me, it would be easy for her mother to refuse to let me see her. And even though I had threatened Lexi with litigation when she first showed up on my porch asking for money, I didn't actually want to take her to court. Things would only get messy that way.
My phone buzzed with a text, and I looked at it, hoping it wasn't something from work. Instead, it was almost worse than that: it was a message from Renée, asking to meet up with me for dinner that evening.
I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. “Just a minute,” I muttered to Katherine. I typed out a quick, curt reply to Renée, telling her that I was still exhausted and jetlagged but that I'd see her sometime that weekend.
“Who was that?” Katherine asked as I pocketed my phone again.
“Just Renée,” I said, shrugging as nonchalantly as I could. We'd already had one difficult conversation over lunch. I wasn't prepared to have another.
Fortunately, Katherine seemed to read my mood, and she didn't press it. Instead, she reached out and put her hand on my arm again. “Hey, by the way, I forgot to say this before,” she said. “Congratulations on being a dad.”
I couldn't help but smile at that.
Chapter Seventeen
Lexi
I frowned dubiously at the directions, wondering if this was really a suitable game for a three-year-old like the box said.
“Trust me,” Janice said. “I've used it with young kids before, and they all loved it. I'm sure Emma will as well.”
“If you say so,” I said, shaking my head. I unfolded myself from the carpet, where Janice and I had been laying out the game and getting it all set up. I found Emma in the bedroom, standing up in her newly-assembled crib. She reached towards me with grabby hands, still looking sleepy.
I smiled at her and hoisted her into my arms. “Hello, sweetie,” I said, smoothing down her hair. “Did you have a nice nap?”
“Nuh uh,” Emma said, shaking her head. “I don't like naps.”
“I know you don't, but naps are good for you,” I said. “They'll make you grow up big and strong.”
“You don't have to take naps,” she said, frowning at me.
I laughed. “If I got any bigger than I am, I'd be taller than Daddy!” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted saying them, but Emma latched onto them faster than I could backpedal.
Her whole face scrunched up in confusion as she thought that through. “Who's Daddy?” she asked.
I frantically cast around for some way to deflect that. “I am not your Daddy,” I finally settled on. “And neither is Janice. But you know what? Janice brought a really fun game with her today, and we were hoping that you would play it with us.”
“A game, a game!” Emma cheered, wriggling so that I would put her down. Then she raced into the living room where Janice was patiently waiting for her. I followed more sedately after her and listened as Janice explained the rules.
We had eaten dinner and played more than a few rounds of the game when Andrew arrived home from work. I could hear him stomping around in the front hall for a couple minutes, and then he came into the living room, leaning against the wall and watching us play.
“I'm winning!” Emma announced proudly when she saw his eyes on us. “I'm the best at games.”
I shook my head fondly at her and rolled the dice.
“Can I play?” Andrew asked, coming hesitantly closer to us and crouching down next to Emma.
“Of course, you can,” Janice said quickly. “Why don't you take my spot, and I'll go start cleaning the dishes from dinner? There's a whole mess going in the kitchen at the moment, and I'd like to get it sorted out before I go home for the night, rather than leaving it for the morning.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Andrew said. “But I'm afraid you're going to have to teach me how to play, Emma.”
“First, you roll the dices, like this. And then...”
I listened to her rattle off rules to her father, and I couldn't help smiling as I watched the two of them. But I couldn't stop wondering what Andrew's ploy was. Did he think he could sweeten me up and then dump more horrible news on me?
The worst thing that I could think of was that he was trying to get Emma to trust him so that he could then take me to court and win sole custody of the girl. I knew that was ridiculous. From everything that Andrew had said so far, he didn't want to have responsibility for the girl, let alone have sole responsibility for her. But I couldn't help thinking about what he'd said that first night that we'd spent together, about how his father had groomed him from a young age to take over the family business.
Maybe Andrew, after a long business trip, was starting to think about the future of Orinoco. And maybe he envisioned Emma as the future of that company.
I swallowed hard, trying to get myself to relax a little as we continued to play.
“I am horrible at this game,” Andrew commented a little while later.
“Yes,” Emma agreed solemnly, nodding her head and causing both of us adults to laugh.
“Your mother seems to have all the luck,” Andrew continued, smiling stiffly over at me. “She's winning!”
“That's cause Mama's the best!” Emma said. She abandoned the game and crawled into my lap, giving me a big hug that I just had to return.
“Hey sweetie,” I said down to her. “Want to go see if Janice needs help in the kitchen?”
“Okay!” Emma cried, and then she was off, racing towards the kitchen. I was sure she would be in the way more than she would actually be helpful, but I knew Janice wouldn't mind. And my curiosity was killing me. I needed to know what card Andrew had up his sleeve. It was strange for him to be so suddenly cheerful.
Andrew laughed and started to pick up the game. “That was fun,” he said.
“Yeah, it was,” I agreed slowly, still wondering what the catch was. But whatever he was thinking, whatever he was planning, it wasn't forthcoming just yet. “How was work today?” I finally asked, when the silence became unbearable.
“It was work,” Andrew said, shrugging his shoulders. “Busy. It's my first day back after being gone for all of last week, so of course there was plenty to talk about with a million different people.”
“Sounds interesting,” I said lamely, even though it sounded like nothing of the sort.
Andrew hummed. “I snuck away for lunch with my sister, though.”
“Oh, really?” I asked. “How did that go?”
I practically buzzed with nervousness, waiting to hear about lunch with his sister. From the casual way that he had brought it up, I could tell that this whole game-playing thing stemmed from that. But I didn't know what she could have said to him to make him change so drastically.
He had been avoiding me when he had left for the office that morning, and now he was being positively friendly towards me. He was still a bit stiff, maybe, but the fact that he had played the game with us definitely scored him some brownie points in my book.
For the first time, I could see the hint of some
thing beneath the stern businessman that he usually projected.
“I told Katherine about you and Emma,” Andrew said, drawing me back to our current conversation. “I figured I owed it to her to let her know that she was an aunt.” He cleared his throat. “To be honest, I wasn't planning on telling her, but she could tell that I was stressed out about something, and she also seemed to know that it wasn't just work things, so eventually, I had no choice but to fess up. We haven't set a date for her to meet Emma, but I was hoping that that could happen. At some point.”
I frowned, trying to sort out how I felt about that little bombshell. “Emma doesn't even know that you're her father yet,” I pointed out.
I felt irrationally disappointed to find out that his playing the game with us that night really was just because he wanted to sweeten me up for something. And furthermore, as much as I wanted to like this sister of his, if she was anything like her brother, the last thing that I needed was two cold Goldwrights hanging around Emma.
Then again, it was still a nice evening, all things considered. Maybe I should just be happy with that, and stop, as Misty had told me, looking for trouble where there was none. Anyway, Emma was his daughter, too, and Katherine's niece, just as Andrew had reminded me. It wouldn't be fair for me to say that Emma couldn't meet her aunt, no matter what my personal feelings were on the matter.
That was why we were there, in Andrew's house. It was all for Emma's sake. I had to do what was best for her, and giving her the biggest, most loving family that I could muster was what was best for her.
I nodded at Andrew, but before I could respond verbally, Emma came back out into the living room, dragging her feet and her head hanging down. “Janice said I had to come say goodnight,” she said, pouting cutely.
“That Janice,” Andrew said, his grin a mile wide as he shook his head. He held open his arms to the girl, and Emma rushed at him, flinging herself at him. He caught her easily, holding her close and peppering her face with noisy kisses. “Good night,” he told her eventually.
She couldn't stop giggling for almost a full minute. “Good night,” she finally managed to say. She solemnly came over to me. “Mama, are you sure I have to go to bed now?” she asked. “Big girls get to stay up later.”
“That they do,” I agreed, just as solemnly. “How about this? If you're a good girl all week, maybe you can stay up late one night this weekend. We'll watch a movie and have some popcorn. How does that sound?”
“Yay!” Emma said delightedly, clapping her hands together. She gave me a big kiss and then waited for me to pick her up.
I carried her upstairs to our room so that I could put her down in her crib. To my surprise, Andrew followed after me.
“This big girl is almost too big for a crib, isn't she?” he asked.
Emma nodded her head, but as soon as she saw her crib, I could tell that she started to get sleepy. I hid a smile as I lay her down and tucked her in.
“Can I have a bedtime story, Mr. Goldwright?” Emma asked sleepily.
Andrew gave me a worried look but then took a step forwards. “Uh, sure,” he said. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was a princess. There was a little princess. And she had a pet penguin...”
Fortunately, Andrew had only made it a couple paragraphs into whatever strange story he was telling before Emma was soundly asleep, snoring softly, her breathing heavy.
I smiled at her and put a hand on Andrew's shoulder, steering him out of the room, flicking the lights off as we went.
Chapter Eighteen
Andrew
As I followed Lexi back down into the living room, I couldn't help but reflect on how much fun it had been to play the game with her and Emma that night. It was just a simple child's game, but somehow, it had kept me entertained for nearly an hour. Even though, as Emma had pointed out, I hadn't been doing so well at it.
It was a weird feeling to have, knowing that I'd been so engrossed in that game and in spending time with my three-year-old daughter and the girl's mother. I didn't think I'd ever had such a warm, fuzzy feeling before. Maybe a couple times when I was doing some holiday things with my sister, growing up. But even then, I didn't think that the feelings had been quite so intense. And I wasn't sure what to do with these feelings, now that I was having them.
I laughed a little to myself, wondering if I was starting to grow soft. Maybe it had something to do with settling down and getting myself into a steady relationship.
A steady relationship. Renée.
I pulled out my phone, grimacing when I saw that I had three unread messages from her over the course of the evening. I'd been so busy with the game that I hadn't even noticed the thing going off each time. I'd been focused on something better.
“Work messages?” Lexi asked, having seen the look on my face change.
“Nah, it's my girlfriend actually,” I told her. “She wants to meet up at some point, but I'm trying to keep her from coming back to the house while you and Emma are here. She doesn't know about the two of you.”
“Why not?” Lexi asked curiously. “Is there some reason you're hiding us from her?”
“I just think it would be better for everyone involved if she didn't know about you,” I told her sternly. But seeing the look on her face, I sighed and relented. “I like Renée. A lot. But I also just don't trust her.”
Lexi snorted derisively, as I might have expected she would. “She's been your girlfriend for how long now?” she asked. “And you don't trust her? I know every relationship is different, but if you can't trust your girlfriend, she shouldn't be your girlfriend.”
I groaned. “It's not that simple,” I insisted. “You know that I'm rich, and you know that members of the press are always on the hunt for a scandal. Finding out that Seattle's ‘Hottest Young Billionaire,’ or whatever they're calling me these days, has a three-year-old daughter, and that his baby-momma is currently living with him? That would give them a field day. One that I'm eager to avoid, even if you're not.”
“What does that have to do with Renée?” I asked.
“Renée and I don't see eye to eye when it comes to the press,” I admitted. “She likes to be in the spotlight. And I sometimes think that she'll do anything to get in the spotlight. If she knew that I had a daughter, I wouldn't put it past her to spill the beans on that one. Or at least to use that as leverage against me.”
“Hmm,” was all Lexi said.
I didn't want to phrase it in so many words to Lexi, but I was trying to keep her safe. I didn't want to compromise her anonymity.
I was a good judge of character. You couldn't work in business like I did without being a good judge of character, I didn't think. Renée had a predatory spirit. I had known that since the day we met. It was one of the things that attracted me to her, to be honest. But I wasn't a fool, and I wasn't about to leave an opening for her. I shuddered to think of the kind of stunts she could pull, with knowledge of Lexi and Emma as ammunition.
“Well, I guess if you have a hard time trusting your girlfriends and find that lying to them is the best solution, then maybe it's no surprise that you have a difficult time holding down a steady relationship,” Lexi said, surprising me with how snide she was.
I drew myself up to my full height. “At least I can keep a job and—”
“Wait,” Lexi interrupted before I could go any further with my indignation. She ducked her head, biting her lower lip. “I'm sorry,” she said, sounding sincere. “We just had a really nice night, and now I'm ruining it by escalating things. How you want to handle your relationships is none of my business. If you don't want to tell Renée about me, if you don't think it's a good idea for Renée to know about me, then I'll do my best to make sure that Renée doesn't find out about me.” She paused, and I could tell that there was something else on the tip of her tongue.
“Go on, say whatever it is,” I said.
“She came over here this afternoon. Renée. I answered the door. She wanted to know who I was, a
nd Janice lied and said I was her niece, and that Emma and I had come to stay with you for a little while because of some family troubles back home.”
I frowned at her, mulling over that new bit of information. Finally, I shook my head. It would do no good to dwell on that now. If there was any damage done, it was already done. “I always appreciate Janice's quick thinking,” I said.
“Yeah,” Lexi said. She paused. “Seriously, thank you for spending some time with Emma. I can tell that she really likes you.”
“But?” I asked, wondering what she was holding back on now.
She shook her head, though. “There is no 'but,’” she said. “While you were on your business trip, I had a lot of time to think things over. For the past couple years, I've been just reacting. All I could do was worry about keeping a roof over our heads and food on our table. Once those worries were taken care of, for at least a little while, I was able to think of something else. And I think it would be really good for Emma to know her father. I only hope that you want to get to know her as well.”
I frowned, wondering where this was coming from. “So, you just woke up one morning and were like, hey, I think Emma should get to know her dad?” I asked dubiously.
She took a deep breath, rubbing her palms nervously against her jeans. “I had a difficult relationship with my father,” she finally admitted. “Things were strained. It wasn't the best situation to be raised in. I've cut him out of my life at this point, but I still have all those feelings inside me. And when I look at Emma, I can only imagine what things might be like for her, if she has a father who is just like mine was.”
“And you think I'm just like he was,” I surmised, feeling surprisingly bitter about that.
“I don't, actually,” Lexi said softly. “That's the thing. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I'm only projecting my fears onto you. And that's not very fair.”
I ruminated on that for a moment. “I didn't have the best relationship with my own father,” I admitted at last. “Or with my mother, for that matter. Both cold, but in their different ways. The closest thing I had to family, growing up, was my sister Katherine.” I cleared my throat. “But I don't want to be that guy, Lexi. I want to be better than them. I really want to try.”
