The Tycoon's Toddler Surprise (7 page)

“Is it true?”
Missy asked without preamble. 

“Yes,” she replied, not even pretending that she didn’t know what her sister was asking.  “He’s in Victoria’s room right now.”

There was a long pause before
Missy asked
, “
Are
you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay,” Kristen replied
, lying to her sister before tossing
the sippy cup back into the refrigerator after realizing she was about to drink out of that instead of the half finished soda she’d put in there earlier.  “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“
Possibly b
ecause your estranged husband, the man you fell head over heels
with in love with
in less than a week who
then
abandoned
you
when you needed him the most,
has finally shown up after three years.  Of course you shouldn’t be okay.  Do you need me to come over?  What was his excuse for not being there for the birth?  And for all the other years in between then and now?  And why didn’t he even support you when he has so many billions of dollars a few hundred grand wouldn’t have even caused his banker to blink?”

Kristen laughed, amazed that her sister could say all those questions without taking a breath.  “I’ll have to get back to you on all those answers.”

“Why?  Is he in the room?  Do you need support?  I can be there in five minutes.  I just need to call
Tony
to watch the kids but he’s just doing paperwork at the office so he can be here in no time so I can be there with you.”

It warmed Kristen that her family was ready to help her if she needed it.  That kind of support couldn’t be bought, she knew from the past three years. 
“I’m fine.  No need to interrupt your whole day.  Just relax.  I’ll call you when I have more information.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me,”
Missy commanded
, but Kristen only smiled slightly as she hung up the phone. 
She couldn’t
talk to her sister right at the moment. 
Missy
was wonderful and supportive, but she was really angry with Mikhail for abandoning them. 
Kristen
didn’t need that kind of anger right now.  She needed to get through the next few
moments
.  And then she’d work on the next five minutes. 

Step by step, she promised herself as she lifted the grilled cheese off the pan and sliced it into triangles on the plate.  For Mikhail’s grilled cheese, she simply plopped it on the plate and left it there, not bothering to cut it up.  Her daughter’s needed to cool.  His, he could figure it out for himself.

“Lunch is ready, Victoria!” she called down the hallway.

Kristen waited for a moment but when she didn’t hear anything, no eager footsteps running down the hallway as she normally would hear or excited whispers if her cousins or friends were around, she went down the short hallway to investigate.

What she saw made a lump form in her throat and Kristen had to quickly blink to stop the tears from filling her eyes. 

Sitting on her daughter’s toddler bed which was about a foot off of the floor and surrounded by stuffed animals, was Mikhail with her daughter sitting on his lap as they flipped through her “Daddy” book.  It was a photo album filled with newspaper clippings, photos from the internet and pictures from their wedding.  Her daughter wasn’t showing her father what she’d done over the past year or any of her accomplishments.  She was bragging to her father about his own accomplishments.  She wanted to prove to him that she had been following him, that she knew about him and was impressed with his accomplishments. 

He must have known she was there because he turned around to look at her over Victoria’s head.  If she were to put a name to the emotion she saw on his handsome features, she would say he was almost desperate for help, but that couldn’t be possible.  Mikhail never needed help from anyone.  He was so overwhelmingly powerful and knowledgeable about every subject that he was the man others came to for advice, not the other way around. 

She pushed away from the doorframe and cleared her throat, blinking rapidly as she tried
to
control her emotions.  “Victoria, your soup is on the table.  I made your favorite too.”

“Grilled cheese?” she asked with renewed interest
, peering at her mother over Mikhail’s shoulder
.

“Yep!”

She turned back to her father, leaning into his arm that was wrapped around her back.  “She makes me eat the tomato soup first though.”

Kristen hid her laughter and walked back to her bright kitchen, trying to see her home through Mikhail’s eyes.  He’d always demanded the best of everything but she hadn’t been able to afford that with Victoria’s coming.  She made do with second hand furniture, she’d made the curtains for all the rooms and some of the cabinets could use a fresh coat of paint.  But it was warm and homey and she loved it.  And it was affordable enough th
at she could put money away for
Victoria’s college savings fund each month. 

Kristen sighed and shook her head in amazement that she was actually hoping to impress Mikhail.  He was rarely impressed and her house was so far below his standards she couldn’t hope to come close to competing. 

Chapter
4

Mikhail tucked the light blanket around Victoria’s shoulders and sat on the edge of the bed, watching her sleep for several more minutes.  He wasn’t sure what he was feeling inside, but it was almost painful. 

As he looked around the cheerful pink room filled with stuffed animals and
homemade
butterflies, a cozy toddler bed to keep their daughter safe in the middle of the night, he realized that this was what he’d missed when he was a kid.  Even when his mother had been
alive
, s
he’d either been drunk or passed out  Or not even home, he remembered
.  She’d never made a home for him, had never bothered to color anything to make their dingy, horrible, cold apartment by the frozen river more livable. 

He’d never really had  a mother, he realized now.  He’d had a woman who had given birth to him and kept a roof over his head while she could.  Other than that, she’d had no maternal inclinations or accomplishments. 

He h
ad residences in various cities across the world and was instantly recognized when he walked into most hotels in the world
.  None of them could compare to the warmth and comfort of this tiny little cottage, even with the
wintry
snow falling outside the window. 

Kristen had done a wonderful job of caring for their daughter and providing her with security and confidence.  All his thoughts over the past twenty-four hours had been about getting his daughter and punishing Kristen for her lies. 

Seeing all this now, nothing added up.  His plans made no sense and his thoughts were scattered and confused.  This was a puzzle that he needed to piece together carefully.  Making a mistake could be disastrous and he wasn’t going to suffer a fool again. 

With determination, he stood up and walked out of the pink and yellow room, ready to confront the woman he had
previously
trusted more than anyone in his life, and who had
possibly
betrayed him more deeply than he could have imagined.

He found her in the kitchen loading the ancient dishwasher with the
ir
lunch dishes.  As he rounded the corner and watched her, he cursed under his breath and walked into the tiny den area.  Just a brief glimpse of the woman had him hard and aching for her again.  He couldn’t figure it out, but there was something about Kristen that had gotten to him from the first. 

He’d initially thought it was her honesty combined with a killer figure and gorgeous smile.  But now he knew it wasn’t her honesty since he couldn’t trust her.  And he could barely stand to be in the same room with the woman, but he wanted to drag her down onto the floor and plunge into her heat.  No woman had ever satisfied him like she had.  Not before and definitely not after she’d left.  Not that he’d tried very hard.  After her departure, he’d looked around for another woman but no one had appealed to him.  He’d had sex with a few women, but since they were sloppy seconds, he didn’t even try
after a while
, pushing himself in business so he couldn’t even think about Kristen or remember how soft she was, how her moans and gasps of pleasure had turned him on so much he could barely control himself in bed with her. 

He’d never gotten enough of her, the need for her body and her gentle hands touching hi
m
driving him crazy so he couldn’t sleep until he’d made love to her every night.  There had been too many sleepless nights after she’d gone and he’d cursed her so many times as he tried to find solace in other outlets, but it was only Kristen who had been able to give him what he needed.

And now he found out that they had a child! 

Damn her for this kind of betrayal. 

He stared out the window for a long time, trying to get his body and his fury under control enough to turn around and confront her for this
perfidy
.  When he could see straight once again, he turned to search her out, only to find her sitting quietly on the small, beaten looking chair behind him.

“What in that last letter changed your mind about meeting your daughter?” she asked quietly.

Kristen had watched the emotions as he worked to get them under control although she didn’t fully understand what he was going throug
h.  She’d never really understoo
d him, she
realized
.  But now, with his color high and his shoulders tense, she was almost frightened of him. 

“You mean the letter where a picture of my daughter fell out?”

She looked at him, confused.  “
But
I’ve sent other pictures before.  Many of them.  This was only her school picture and wasn’t even the best, in my opinion.”

He stared at her hard.  “You’ve never sent me any word of this child Kristen and you damn well know it!”

She looked at him aghast.  “Are you saying the letter I sent last week was the first time you knew about Victoria?””

“Yes!”

She stood up and took a step closer, the idea of him not knowing about Victoria hadn’t even occurred to her before. 
“
But
that’s impossible!  I sent letters almost every day in the beginning, thinking that, since you wouldn’t take my phone calls, at least you’d have my letters telling about the progression of the pregnancy.”

He could barely look at her. 
“You never called, you never sent letters!”

She
put her hands on her hips
, shaking with anger at the accusations he was throwing at her.  “Let’s just ignore the fact that I couldn’t even get time with you when I first discovered I was pregnant and move on to the fact that you never called me to find out where I’d gone or how I was doing!  Don’t you dare stand there and accuse me of leaving you when you completely abandoned me at a time when I desperately needed help.  This wasn’t an easy pregnancy and living with my sister since you were too cheap to send any money was difficult.   Although definitely not as difficult as living with you and the stressful lifestyle we had while we were together.
  But I couldn’t work any longer and was on bed rest the last five months of Victoria’s pregnancy so I was without any kind of support except for my family who helped me the whole way.
”

He ignored her comments about her pregnancy for the moment, concentrating on the one thing he could deal with. 
“I didn’t hear you complaining
about my lifestyle
all that much when I asked you to marry me!”

“I loved you!  I couldn’t believe someone like you would even be interested in me!”

“What the hell are you talking about? 
You know you’re every man’s dream woman with your bedroom eyes and a figure any many would die to have in his bed!”

“Sex!  That’s all it ever was with you, wasn’t it?” She huffed and turned around, crossing her arms over her stomach to protect herself somehow.  “Well it wasn’t enough!  I needed you and you ignored all of my pleas for help!”

“I never denied you anything!”

“I never asked for anything until I found out I was pregnant.”

“And you didn’t ask for anything then either!”

“I called!  I left so many messages and every time, I was told you were in a meeting, or catching a flight to
Zurich
, or Paris or some other country.  That bitchy secretary of yours told me so many excuses she was grasping at straws in the end.  So I gave up trying to reach you through her and started writing letters.  But even that didn’t work.”

“There were no letters!
  And there definitely weren’t any phone calls.  Ellen knew to put you through to me directly from the moment I started pursuing you.  She had strict instructions and she’s never ignored them before so don’t try and tell me she blatantly disobeyed a direct order now.
”