Chapter Two
The door to Senna’s bedroom flew open wresting her from a deep sleep and bolting her upright. She grabbed the startled baby next to her and brought him close to her chest.
“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry to wake you. I was just worried. You’re usually at the kitchen table mainlining coffee by now, and when I didn’t see you…”
Senna took a moment to process the fact that it had actually scared her roommate that she was in bed asleep at what a quick glance at her bedside clock told her was seven a.m.
“I can’t believe I fell asleep.” The baby at her chest started rooting for breakfast. She unbuttoned her sleep shirt, and he latched on quickly, much to the relief of her aching breasts. “No, Abby, don’t be sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep last night. I’ve got so much to do.” She leaned back against her headboard willing her heart rate to return to normal.
Abby sat at the edge of Senna’s bed. “I just was checking on him; he’d been so quiet all night. No wonder the little man was sleeping in. He had you all to himself.”
Senna was thankful Abby had wandered into her life when she was pregnant and couldn’t afford to see a regular doctor. Abby’s bright smile and general cheerfulness made the university’s somber free clinic much more bearable. She was studying for her nurse practitioner degree, and her postgrad specialty was obstetrics. The two hit it off at Senna’s first prenatal visit and became friends.
When Senna’s grandmother became ill last winter and had to be moved to long-term care, Abby was looking for a room to rent. The timing was perfect.
And when Max was born, Senna knew Abby was almost as in love with the chubby little baby as she was. Abby’s schedule allowed her to watch him while Senna worked. There was no way she could afford quality childcare with her paltry bar tips and the occasional freelance accounting job. He was a good baby and rarely had fussy nights, so Abby got to study all she wanted; Senna gave her a huge break on rent, and everyone was happy.
Plus, living together had fast-tracked their friendship, and Senna didn’t have many friends these days. She had never really fit in with the typical college kid sorority crowd, mostly because she had too many responsibilities with working and supporting her grandmother.
It had taken her an extra two years to graduate simply because she wasn’t able to hold down multiple part-time jobs and do school full-time. Throw in an ailing grandmother whose descent into Alzheimer’s had been terrifyingly brutal and quick and she felt lucky to have graduated at all.
Using her free hand, Senna reached up and rubbed her eyes. “I can’t believe I fell asleep. I was just going to feed him real quick.”
“Yeah, crazy. You got in bed, snuggled with your baby, and fell asleep. That’s grounds for institutionalization.” Abby said dryly.
“No, I mean I need to finish Mrs. Conseulo’s business taxes. She already asked the IRS for one extension; I’m not sure she’ll get another.”
“So tell me, Senna, did someone at some point tell you that you were super human or did you just decide you were all on your own?”
The reprimand in Abby’s voice was thick. She imagined it came in handy when dealing with her patients.
“I know, I know, but it’s only for a little while. I just need to get Nonna’s deposit paid in full and then I can drop the bookkeeping jobs and try to find something in the real world where I can actually use my degree.”
That had been the plan all along—finding a good job in the corporate world that had benefits and job stability. But then the damn stick turned blue and plans changed.
Max finished his breakfast and Senna situated herself, grabbing Max’s favorite receiving blanket and deftly wrapping it around his little body. His head lolled back and a thin line of milk ran from the corner of his lips down to his chin. His eyes rolled back in his head and he was back in dreamland almost instantly. She loved how babies had so few concerns in the world. Give them food, clean diapers, and arms to hold them, and they were golden. Anything else was just a bonus.
“Speaking of payments, I need to deposit my tips from last night so I can call in a payment to the electric company. I assume you’d like to study by lamplight and not candles.”
“Senna, you didn’t tell me we were that tight—”
“I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it either. The month just got away from me and then Max was sick and needed that antibiotic…” It was always something.
“Look, you already don’t charge me enough for rent and utilities. Let me pitch in more.”
“But you take care of Max. Here, in our home. I don’t have to schlep him to a germy daycare or interview endless babysitters to watch after him. That’s totally priceless, you know that, right?”
Abby reached over to Max’s co-sleeper attached to the bed and grabbed a clean diaper from the stack. “He’s such an easy baby. It’s really no problem at all. Let me pay the electric bill this month. That’s one fewer bill you have to worry about.”
Senna laid Max down on the comforter and quickly changed his diaper. She reached over and deposited the soiled one in the diaper pail next to her nightstand. “Abby, it’s over a hundred dollars, are you sure?” She grabbed a quick squirt of hand sanitizer and rubbed it in before bundling Max lightly and setting him in his bed.
“It’s not a problem. My parents sent me some money last week as an early birthday present. Let me do this.” Senna saw the concern in Abby’s eyes. Her friend desperately wanted to help her. Why was it so hard to let her?
Senna’s head dropped to her hands. What a relief it would be for that bill to be taken care of. But Abby really shouldn’t have to do it.
Suddenly the fury she felt toward Marco was resurrected. He had to know about Max. She had spent months trying to reach him with no response, only stony silence. She had finally come to the ugly conclusion that he knew about the baby, but just didn’t care. And since he was hiding away behind the walls of his family’s compound halfway around the world, there wasn’t much she could do about it. So she’d stopped trying to get in touch with him. If he was going to ignore her, she’d just raise Max on her own.
She wasn’t looking to use Max as some sort of meal ticket or as access to the Medina billions. She just wanted basic child support. The baby didn’t need diamond-studded bibs, but he did need the basics: diapers, medicine, and electricity that wasn’t constantly in jeopardy of being shut off. The fact that he let her struggle to provide his own son with those basics was infuriating.
At first she’d simply pledged to do this all on her own. What other choice did she have? She wasn’t about to chase a man who had made it clear she wasn’t wanted. Nor was she going to declare her life over as her own mother had done years ago when placed in the same situation.
From her grandmother’s accounts, her father was a businessman who drifted into town occasionally, calling her mother, Camila, to fill his lonely nights. She had to have known he had a family and that she was just a pleasant distraction. But like any twenty-year-old in love, none of that mattered.
Once she announced her pregnancy, he left and never looked back. Camila was devastated and fell into a depression. She delivered Senna but was never much of a mother to her. Her grandmother took over as Camila spiraled deeper into her own personal prison of pain and grief.
Camila never recovered from her heartbreak. One morning, after seven-year-old Senna had left for school, Camila went for a walk on the beach. She never came back. Her body washed ashore a few days later.
Senna had witnessed the folly of chasing after a man who wanted nothing to do with you. She wouldn’t do that to herself, and she certainly wouldn’t do that to Max. But the thought of him growing up feeling unloved and unwanted by his father made her nauseous. Nauseous and furious at Marco. It was one thing to ignore her; but Marco was deliberately ignoring their son. It broke Senna’s heart to think of her perfect little boy wondering, as she had, what was wrong with him. What was it that made his own father stay away?
Her mother had let rejection kill her. But Senna had no plans to carry on that legacy. She wasn’t weak. She was angry. And for him to come waltzing into her bar last night, criticizing her clothes, her job, her ambition? That took cojones. Big ones.
Abby stood, jarring Senna from her thoughts. “So, it’s a deal? I’ll pay this month’s electricity, and you can take it easy being Superwoman this once. Okay?”
“Okay, Abby, just this month. Next month will be easier, I promise.” She wasn’t going to let Marco slip away this time. “Let me get dressed and I’ll tell you all about my night last night. It was…interesting.”
“Sounds juicy. I’ll make the coffee.”
Fifteen minutes later they were on the couch clutching their mugs.
“So he didn’t say a single word to you about Max? Not one?”
“Nope. He acted like we were just old acquaintances.” Was he really wrong? Their relationship had been all business up until the end of her internship. She had spent most of her time with the other mentors. It wasn’t until the last six weeks or so that Marco had begun to include her in more of his appointments and meetings.
They’d never, say, gone to happy hour or discussed what was happening on Game of Thrones, but he definitely had been friendly toward her, more so than the other interns at least. He’d often invited her to stay for lunch in his office after conference calls. And there’d been more than a few instances of physical flirting: a hand that lingered on her lower back, a whisper that put his lips millimeters from her skin, his tall body brushing her side in an empty elevator.
Then there was the dinner party before graduation attended by all of the executive staff and the intern group. Senna had never seen him so charming, so openly flirtatious with her. Suddenly he had a palpable lightness in him and that, coupled with his physical perfection, drove Senna wild. That night, the champagne flowed, and she found herself alone in his office, his arms holding her securely to his hard, rippled chest, his lips laving kisses up and down her jaw line, his soft lilting voice melting her further and further into raw desire.
She hadn’t stopped him when he led her into his private elevator that took them to his secluded rooftop terrace. He’d kissed her, stroked her, worked her body into a maelstrom of seething want. Their clothes had disappeared, and he’d made love to her with frantic passion at first, then again and again through the night with tenderness and reverence.
They’d used protection, of course. When her period was late, she didn’t think about the possibility of pregnancy. But as the weeks dragged on and she began to have problems keeping even the blandest food in her stomach, she knew what was happening. Taking the test while on a quick break at work had been only a scientific confirmation of what she knew in her heart to be true.
It took her a minute to realize Abby was talking. “What are you going to do?”
Senna sighed a deep and weary sigh. “I don’t know, but I need to do it quickly.”
“Do you think that’s why he showed up last night? To talk to you about Max?”
“He sure didn’t act like that’s what he wanted to talk about. He was…casual. And to be honest, I’m not even sure he came there to see me. It seemed like, I don’t know, like a coincidence.”
“I don’t think a guy like Marco Medina has a lot of ‘coincidences’ in his life.”
“All I know is that I need to see him. Today. He caught me off guard last night, and we have to talk before he disappears again.”
“Well, I’m just studying today, so let me know if you need me to watch Max.”
“You’re the best. But first I need to bust through Mrs. Conseulo’s taxes.”
The sharp raps on the door startled both of them. Senna realized it was probably the courier service with the rest of Mrs. Consuelo’s tax records. I hope he doesn’t expect a tip. She jumped up and threw open the door, but left the chain lock in place.
In front of her stood a large man in an imposing black suit, complete with blackout Ray-Ban sunglasses. He quickly removed the sunglasses and peered inside her apartment. “Good morning, Ms. Callas. I’ve been sent to collect you.”
Now she recognized him. It was Jean-Paul, Marco’s driver and sometimes bodyguard. He’d driven them to the occasional client meeting last year. Despite his bald head and bulging muscles, he actually had a gift for blending in, and Senna had always felt safe in his presence.
“JP?” Senna said. “You’ve come to what?”
“Collect you. Mr. Medina would like to see you at his office. As soon as possible.”
Senna felt her jaw tighten and fought the urge to slam the door in JP’s face, regardless of how polite he was being. He wants to collect me? What, like a stamp?
“Hold on.” Senna shut the door, to unhook the door chain.
From the couch Abby hissed, “Who is it?”
“Marco’s bodyguard.” She swung the door back open. “And what makes you think I’m going anywhere with you, JP? I’m certainly not on the Medina payroll anymore. I don’t think your boss gets any say on when or where he can summon me.”
But as the words left her lips she realized the irony. She’d been trying to contact Marco since the previous summer and nothing—no response, no contact. Now she was faced with her second opportunity to talk to him in the last twenty-four hours. She needed to see him. To make him understand just what a giant asshole he was for abandoning their child. He had surprised her last night with his unexpected visit to the bar. She hadn’t been able to gather her thoughts and have the conversation with him that she needed to.
Suddenly she no longer cared why Marco was summoning her. What she did care about was getting him to admit his despicable behavior and to acknowledge their child.
Just then Max began to stir from his brief morning nap.
“Ms. Callas, I’m simply doing what I was told.” JP’s hard facade seemed to soften almost imperceptibly as he continued. “Mr. Medina has also requested that you bring the child.”
Her heart stopped. I knew it! Marco was aware of Max and had been ignoring her pleas for him to contact her. That meant he knew when he walked into her bar last night. So much for coincidences. But then, a man like Marco didn’t really do coincidences, did he? Cold fingers of pure fury gripped her.
“Give me twenty minutes to get ready.” With that she marched back to her room, Abby close behind her. JP stood rooted in the doorway like a statue.
Abby grabbed a fresh diaper to change Max. “Senna, you’re not really going to go with him, are you? He looks like he’s Russian mafia or something.”
“Or something, that’s true.” Senna grabbed the bag that doubled as a purse and diaper bag when she went anywhere with Max and began filling it with miscellaneous items they’d need for a day out.
“It’s okay Abby, really. JP is Marco’s bodyguard and one of his drivers. I know him from my internship days. I feel safer with him than I do with almost anyone else associated with Medina Enterprises.”
The executive staff had always been, at best, pleasantly aloof with the interns. Marco’s icy communications liaison and the intern coordinator, Brynn Vandermere, had never seemed to like her and prevented as much direct contact with him as possible. His CFO and brother, Marcellus, had always eyed her coolly, like he saw her as a threat. A threat to what, she wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t ever going to get any birthday cards from him, she knew that.
“Are you really going to take Max?”
“Yes, I am. I want Marco to see him, see how much he resembles him, and see exactly who he abandoned.” Senna was angry, and the hot tears of frustration and hurt that always seemed to be simmering just below the surface threatened to fall.
“And if this meeting is all about some sort of kiss-off, see you later, leave me alone, well, then I want him to see exactly what he’s throwing in the garbage.”
Senna shuddered. If that were the case, she wasn’t going to go until she had a college fund set up for Max and some sort of trust for medical insurance and educational expenses. Medina Enterprises boasted some of the best negotiators in the business, and she’d sat in on many meetings soaking in all of those skills. She wasn’t going to let that knowledge go to waste. Securing her son’s future, even if his father was an arrogant jerk, was the only thing that mattered.
Twenty minutes later she’d managed to feed Max and get them both ready to go. She didn’t have time for much preparation, but she twisted her long hair back into a low chignon at the base of her neck and found an only slightly wrinkled gray blouse that she paired with a dark blue pencil skirt. Her work clothes were a little snugger than they were when she wore them last year, but she hadn’t had time to do much about it. She added mascara and lip gloss, and she was good to go.
She dressed Max in a cute polo and shorts outfit she’d received at her baby shower. He smiled and cooed at her as she dressed him. She knew she had lucked out in the temperament department with Max. He was easygoing and had smiles for everyone he saw. Abby always joked that he was the type of baby who made you want more. But as far as Senna was concerned, her baby factory was closed. Max was it, and she would do anything to ensure he had the best life possible, including all the security and love he could handle. It would be a starkly different upbringing than hers.
She emerged from the bedroom with her bag on one shoulder and Max on her other hip. She looked down to confirm she was wearing matching shoes. That didn’t always happen when she was trying to get out the door in a hurry.
“Okay, JP, you’ve collected us. Let’s go.” She moved to put Max in his infant carrier. “We’ll have to get my car seat base out of my car.”
“No need, in fact you don’t need that carrier at all. Mr. Medina had one installed in his private car this morning.”
Senna stared at him. “He what?”
“He wanted to make sure the baby was safely transported to his offices.”
This shouldn’t make her angry. He was thinking of Max’s safety. But she couldn’t help but feel like it was to show her that he had resources at his disposal that were beyond anything Senna could provide.
“I see.” She wanted to say more. A lot more.
Abby stepped forward. “Promise you’ll call if you need anything.” Her eyes moved to the solid slab that was JP still standing in the doorway. “Anything.”
“I will.” She leaned in for a quick hug, and Max immediately reached out to grab Abby’s ear. She laughed, “It’ll be fine.”
Will it?
…
Marco paced the floor of his expansive office suite. He wore his custom-tailored Italian blazer like a suit of armor. To him business was battle. Sometimes bloody, on some occasions painful, but always thrilling. But the win, the conquering, made everything worth it.
He ran his fingers through his dark brown hair. It was too long, but living in the Catalan borderlands, the thin region spanning the Spanish and French border, for the last year didn’t lend itself to regular haircuts. And his hair wasn’t top priority. But it was a nervous tic, and he had to do something with all of his frustration.
Senna. A baby. His baby. How did they get to this point? How had this happened?
Well, he knew the mechanics of how it happened. He’d relived that stolen night with Senna over and over, terrified to lose any details to the sands of time. He hadn’t intended on seducing her that night, but in reality, he’d had to have her and, with the intern program ending, he’d been running out of opportunities. He wasn’t proud of it, but it was the truth.
He’d left the intern selection process entirely to his executive team, especially Brynn. He knew Brynn would evaluate the substantial list of possible candidates with a razor-sharp eye honed and eager to pare down the list to only the best.
Senna’s grades were stellar, of course, a basic prerequisite for the position. Her professor recommendations were also first-rate. But it was her interview with the leadership team that had tipped the scales.
They had filled four of the five positions and had it narrowed down to three candidates for the last slot. The team had asked the finalists to present a case for a potential business venture or to examine a weakness in their corporate structure that needed shoring up and detailed recommendations on how to do so.
The first two presentations had been competent but not remarkable. Senna entered the room and owned it and its inhabitants instantly. She had chosen the philanthropic arm of Medina Enterprises and worked up a self-funding model that was revolutionary. Not only had she outlined a complete reworking of their charity efforts, she’d also used data from the previous year’s annual reports to make a case for expanding charitable efforts to enhance their corporate neighbor reputation in the Miami communities. It was a brilliant PR campaign that cost him nothing but would enhance the company’s reputation and revenues. He’d hired her on the spot.
She was beautiful, but that had no bearing on her selection, and Marco knew he could find female companionship elsewhere. He wouldn’t be pursuing Ms. Callas socially.
But, as is sure to happen when the best of intentions have been announced, circumstances change. It wasn’t until the spring that they began spending more time together. Marco was doing some much-needed client management when he realized he needed a smart, organized, fully capable associate. Senna, eager to learn, would be perfect.
Her close proximity during client meetings and late-night strategy sessions fostered a most damnable consequence. He wanted her. He shouldn’t. He didn’t sleep with employees, and certainly not young doe-eyed college interns. But it didn’t mean he didn’t want to. And if he was being honest, she was less doe-eyed innocent and more burgeoning professional.
Every brushed shoulder or whispered comment during a meeting was exquisite foreplay. It got so intense he would feel himself thicken and harden any time she entered a room. He had no control over his body in her presence. None. And it was maddening.
But that last night. The private dinner in the executive dining room with all the interns and his executives was the easiest of seductions, the kind neither party saw coming. He’d taken her up to his private rooftop that was attached to a small loft apartment he used only when he was too tired to actually leave work and go home. He never brought women there. That was what hotels were for. And since he didn’t sleep with employees, he’d never had to test that unspoken rule.
But he took Senna there. He peeled off her sexy black cocktail dress, divested her of her lacy black barely there lingerie, and finally gave in to his aching desire. They both did. He worshiped her curves and sampled all the delights her body held for him. He took her quickly that night, at first, unable to restrain himself. But after the first time, he’d spent the rest of the night enjoying her slowly, savoring her scent, her softness, again and again.
The memories of that night were always easy to recall. Something had shifted in him after that. Something that made him question his current course. And that feeling haunted him.
“Mr. Medina, your appointment is here.” A voice announced.
“Send her in, Cora.”
The double doors to his suite opened, and Senna appeared pushing a small baby carriage. She looked fairly put together, and Marco appreciated her efforts to look businesslike. What they were embarking on was a business arrangement, after all, wasn’t it? Plus, he’d seen enough of her assets last night to know her body was as lush as it was before.
“Hello, Marco. I assume you want to meet your son…finally?” Her voice was brittle and laced with angry undertones.
He wrenched his gaze from Senna’s turbulent face and settled on the dark-haired baby nestled in the stroller.
That’s my son. His mouth was suddenly dry like he’d swallowed a mouthful of fine Florida sand.
He’d seen pictures. His security team had sent him several different shots. But seeing them while sitting in his family’s ancestral estate in Spain with an entire ocean between them was one thing. Watching his son now as he absently reached for his toes and babbled softly to himself was an emotional punch he wasn’t quite prepared for.
“Princesa, how kind of you to come. We have much to discuss.”
“Don’t call me that.” Her voice was low, and her body tensed like an animal waiting to pounce.
“I don’t remember you being so…disagreeable.” He kept his tone light at first, but darkness won out. He took a step toward her. “Are you really that surprised that I would come for him?”
She blanched but stood her ground. She clutched the handles of the stroller tighter. “You have no right—”
“No right? You hide your pregnancy and keep my son from me and I have no rights? Senna, you’re smarter than that.”
“What do you mean I kept him from you?” Her eyes clouded with confusion. It threw him off, but he kept going.
“Just what I said. I had to find out from people who work for me, that I fathered a child. Were you purposely trying to make me look foolish or was that just a bonus?”
“You need to stop with the accusations, Marco.” She maneuvered the stroller so it rested by his large leather couch. Then she turned to face him. “You went to Spain. You were off the grid. It’s not like I could come to your office with a positive pregnancy test and announce it.”
Senna continued. “But I sent emails, texts, voicemails. I tried social media, snail mail. Begging you to call me. That I had very important news and I needed to reach you immediately.” Her words dripped with sincerity, and her face was heated.
“Nice try, Senna, but I’m not the pope. I’m easier to get a hold of than that.” But a seed of doubt landed in his belly and began to take root. Could she be telling the truth? Would it change the course of things if she was? No. His family had set these plans in motion before he’d been old enough to understand them. There would be no going back now.
She shook her head back and forth with so much vigor he thought she might hurt herself. “No, no, NO! You don’t get to play the ‘I didn’t know’ card. Uh-uh, not possible.”
She inched closer to him with small measured steps. Marco had never seen the look on her face. It was controlled rage, the face of a woman scorned, and it was genuine. There was no guile there, no grandstanding, just pure emotion. She was hurt. She was enraged.
“Did you even ask your staff? I left a dozen messages with Cora. I left messages with Brynn.”
She was pacing back and forth, shooting him withering looks each time she changed direction. “I came here in person to find you. Did Marcellus, your own brother, mention running into me here? How I begged for your contact information so we could talk? I was five months pregnant at the time; he had to have known.”
Marco’s mind was reeling. If she was telling the truth, and her emphatic and earnest retelling of events grudgingly led him to believe she was, how could his staff not follow through with him? He did remember Marcellus noting that he had run into Senna later that summer but that was it, no more details than that.
Brynn never mentioned anything. That fact rankled him. He had a feeling he knew why she had been silent.
“Senna, I had no idea.” He wracked his brain reliving the previous year at his family home.
The large compound in the country at times felt like another world. He’d had plenty to keep him busy. The life of a Medina son, especially a firstborn son, was not truly his alone. Business demands, social gatherings, political meetings were all priorities, and he had little time of his own.
Plus, family duties required his presence at the estate. A surprise stroke relegated his formerly healthy and robust father to bed and essentially turned him into a child. He had to be fed, cared for in every way. Marco and his mother had hired the best nurses, but Massimo was a proud man; he wanted his sons close, and Marco had been happy to oblige him.
Marco’s life was completely consumed with helping nurse his father back to health while trying to keep Medina Enterprises growing and profitable. It was possible that he’d been completely blind to everything else—like a communication attempt from a former lover.
When he was done with a woman, well, he was done. He sent them on their way with a trinket or a bauble and that was it. He never gave women the impression he was available in any way other than sexually. His future bride had been chosen for him when he was still a toddler. He took advantage of his freedom now, but his arranged marriage was looming, along with his thirtieth birthday.
His night with Senna, while exquisite, could never have yielded any type of a long-term commitment. Even if he had wanted more. None of that matters now.
“Marco,” Senna’s voice was low but imploring. “I put your name on his birth certificate for a reason. I never wanted to hide from you or keep you from him in any way. I want his father present in his life.”
They were closer now, no more than arms’ length. He could smell her clean scent, coupled with her slightly floral musk, that was pure Senna. The fight seemed to have gone out of her, or at least enough pressure had been siphoned off to allow her to be civil. He’d forgotten how her mercurial moods could be so charming.
“Do you want to meet him?”
It took a moment for the irony to hit him. Here they were arguing over the baby like he was a prize to be won, a trophy to display, and the real issue was that his son was six months old, and he had yet to hold him.
Hoarsely he managed, “Yes. Yes, please.” The gravity of the moment threatened to overwhelm him.
Senna walked over to the stroller and unbuckled the baby. Marco was clueless when it came to the equipment a baby needed. He’d asked JP to have a car seat installed before he picked them up, and he was proud of himself for even thinking of that. Marco’s stomach did a slow, rolling flip as he watched her lift the baby to her shoulder.
“Sit.”
Marco obeyed the soft command automatically and sat on the couch. Gone was the aggressive magnate looking to catch Senna in a lie. In his place was a man, a man completely terrified of the squirming bundle Senna was getting ready to hand over to him.
“This is Max.” She kissed the baby’s cheek softly then handed him over to Marco’s open arms. He took him and froze. He looked at the baby’s chubby face and saw his own honey brown eyes looking right at him. His connection to him was instant, pure. “You can sit him on your lap if you like. His head is strong enough.” Currently he was holding him at arms’ length, the same way you’d hold a bag of particularly odiferous garbage. He couldn’t quite seem to move.
“Here, let me help.” Senna settled Max onto Marco’s lap and then arranged Marco’s embrace so he was holding the baby securely. He just sat there and stared into the baby’s eyes. His eyes.
Max stared back, looking at Marco like he wasn’t entirely sure he was comfortable on his lap. Instinctually Marco reached down and kissed Max gently on the head. The baby perked up, looked up directly into Marco’s gaze and giggled.
“Oh you liked that, eh guapa? Well, get used to it. My father kissed me all the time. Kisses aren’t reserved just for Mami, reyecito.”
Max laughed again, this time clapping his hands in approval.
“Senna, he’s so beautiful.” He tore his gaze from his son’s face and looked at Senna once more.
She smiled, completely softening her features and lighting up her beautiful green eyes. “I know, he’s perfect, isn’t he? And he’s such a good baby. He’s rarely fussy, he’s just…happy. This would have been so much harder if he had been a difficult baby.”
Marco winced. He couldn’t imagine what it had been like for Senna going through all of this alone. He still couldn’t quite let go of the idea that she had kept him from his child, but now that Max was here, sitting on his lap and happily sucking on his tie, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had gotten things wrong.
“I’m sorry you have been doing this all on your own. I wish I had found out sooner.”
“Thank you, Marco,” She reached into the stroller and produced a small stuffed lamb. Squealing with delight, Max grabbed it and brought it right to his mouth.
“Marco, meet Lambie. I know, I know, not the most creative name. But he’s Max’s most prized possession, so you need to make his acquaintance.”
He took the small stuffed toy and bussed Max’s face with it, eliciting the most precious laugh. “I suppose there are a lot of things I need to get familiar with.”
Happy baby gurgling and cooing was the only sound echoing through the sterile office space. It was musical light, completely innocent and genuine. It felt right to be sitting there, just the three of them, like a timeless, holy trinity. He didn’t want to break the spell, but he needed to, he needed to tell Senna what was happening next. He’d already put the wheels in motion, and there was no going back.