I hold my breath, wondering if my little question is enough to pull her attention away from the loss of the only parent she has ever known. I can hear her sobs start to slow down, until there are a few seconds between each, and then a little longer each time. Eventually, she is tentatively calm, though whimpers strike every so often like aftershocks.
Her face is tear-stained, and those bright blue eyes are rimmed with red. Her bottom lip, stuck out like a caricature, is still wobbly. I clench my fist and pray that the worst has passed us by.
Tiana looks up at me expectantly. When I don’t say anything, I see the wobble in her lip start to speed up again. If I don’t intervene, another meltdown is imminent. She needs—fuck, I don’t know what she needs. Reassurance? Distraction? Neither? Both? She needs something, so I start rambling.
“I have an office in a tall building,” I say. “The tallest one in the city. With big windows. You can see the whole city from there. I can show you. You can see the clouds and the birds, too. Do you want to come see? We can take the elevator to the very top floor.”
I don’t know if I said the magic words or just got lucky, but either way, it seems to have done the trick. Her hands ease open from their balled fists; the bottom lip gets tucked away.
She presses her cheek against my chest and I hold her for a moment. Then she pulls away and tilts her head to the side again to look at me curiously. The sun catches the smeared moisture and she sparkles. “You talk pretty,” she says softly.
Her laughter is like music—soft, perfect music. “I’m from Russia,” I tell her.
“Where’s that?”
“Very far away,” I say. “Very far indeed.”
God knows that is the truth. And right now, it feels farther away than ever before. My homeland is a world of snow, of dark, silent forests, of grim faces. Sitting on this concrete curb beneath a beating sun and blaring highway din, with a giggling little girl at my side, I wonder what the hell I have gotten myself into.
Her smile is brighter than the sun shining overhead. “I want to talk like you.” She puts her finger against my nose and pushes, then giggles again.
I lift her up, strap her in the car, and sigh. I’ve survived my first crisis, and I don’t mind admitting it was far more treacherous than anything the Whelans could deal out.
The rest of the drive to the office is uneventful. At least there are no more tears.
I can’t concentrate on a single word. Little girl shrieks rebound around the office, accompanied by the whoomp of couch cushions wheezing as she lands on them and giggles madly.
I’m in my office, seated behind my desk with today’s reports in front of me, desperate to get some work done. But Tiana has found a second wind and my furniture has become her playhouse, her trampoline. She’s jumping from the sofa to the chair and back, giggling with each landing, good or bad. I’ve read the same page three times but have no idea what it says.
I need just one moment of silence.
I stand. “Tiana.”
She looks up at me, bouncing gently up and down on the couch.
“Just stay here, okay? And don’t touch anything on the desk.” I start to leave, then turn back. “Please,” I add.
I stride to the door, one eye still on Tiana, yank it open—
And run full-on into Charlotte.
I feel the splash of hot liquid hitting my front, and hear her yelp in surprise. She was on her way to deliver my afternoon coffee. Perfect. Fantastic fucking timing. Exactly what I needed.
I growl wordlessly and yank the door shut behind me. Tiana’s voice cuts off at once—the room is soundproofed, ostensibly to protect trade secrets and keep prying ears away from my business. But in this case, it is effective to keep my little girl’s happy noises from puncturing my eardrums any further.
Fatherhood has been a fucking dream so far.
I look down at Charlotte. She is splattered with coffee too, all down the front of her sheer white blouse. I note the swell of her cleavage, then lock my eyes on hers. “You should knock.”
“I was about to, before you came barging out.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Are you sure you weren’t just standing outside my door?”
She clicks her teeth in irritation and whirls away, stomping over to her desk in stilettos. I stay rooted where I am and watch as she leans over her desk to snatch up the box of tissues she keeps on the other side.
Her ass is a fucking temptation. She is wearing a long red skirt today, thin enough that I can just make out the edges of her panties pressed underneath it.
She spins back around to face me. I wonder if she notices my eyes on her body, because she blushes and doesn’t meet my gaze again as she dabs at the coffee stains on her shirt.
I start to say something else, then think better of it and stalk over to a closet in the corner. Yanking it open, I withdraw one of the pressed dress shirts I keep on hand for occasions just like this.
I turn to face Charlotte again as I unknot my tie, rip it off, and begin to unbutton the coffee-stained shirt I’m wearing. Charlotte’s eyes are locked on my fingers working the buttons open.
“Women are a handful,” I remark bitterly. The air between us is thick with tension.
“Only if their men aren’t man enough to do the handling,” she retorts. She bites her lip as soon as she says it, like it was more daring than she intended it to be.
It feels like we’re locked in a sudden dance that neither of us anticipated. But sweet Charlotte is far more out of her element
