Page 13 of Contracted and Claimed By The Boss

She tilted her head to the side, regarding him thoughtfully, then changed the subject abruptly. ‘Tell me about Amanda’s mother.’

The question hit him right in the solar plexus, coming so soon after Amanda’s grumpy departure. He hesitated, midway through stacking a plate into the dishwasher.

‘Because you’re curious, or because you knowing about Lauren will help you with Amanda?’

She was quiet a moment. ‘Both.’

He appreciated her honesty. It was only natural that she would have questions. He’d invited her into his domestic sphere. He’d asked for her help. Now that she was here, he had to work with her. He returned to stacking the plates, one after the other, finding it easier to talk when his hands were occupied.

‘Lauren died when Amanda was five.’

Paige nodded sympathetically but Max didn’t notice. He was sinking back in time, to those memories, those dark days. ‘Our life was different then. We lived in Sydney—that was Lauren’s idea.’

‘Whereas you wanted to be here?’

He braced his palms on the bench, turned towards the windows. The moon shimmered over the ocean and his heart stilled, as it always did when he soaked in that outlook. ‘She liked it there.’ He didn’t answer the question. ‘The shops. The nightlife.’ He cleared his throat. ‘We had a place on the harbour, and a lot of live-in staff. Two nannies,’ he said, careful to keep emotion from his voice. ‘Lauren...’ But he faltered there.

Even this many years later, even with all the evidence of his wife’s failings, loyalty made it hard to face her faults head-on. He sought refuge in frustration and anger, rather than letting his own failings, and the abysmal failure of his marriage, resonate too deeply.

‘She died in a car accident. She wasn’t driving but the driver was drunk. He lost control coming around a corner—too fast—and rammed into a building. The car burst into flames. Lauren died immediately.’ His voice was gruff. Regardless of their differences, of the fact their marriage had most likely been heading towards divorce, he couldn’t think of the waste of Lauren’s life without a searing sense of shock and sadness. She had grown and birthed his daughter.

When he flicked a glance in Paige’s direction, she was expressionless, a mask she was doing her best to keep in place, he guessed, because her eyes had the slightest sheen of tears.

‘Amanda was so little.’

Silence fell. Max finished stacking the dishwasher, wiped the bench then dried his hands, coming to stand at the table, lost for words and strangely, despite the heaviness of the conversation, not wanting the night to end just yet.

‘And they were close?’

‘Lauren was her mother and so she was her world,’ he said quietly. ‘But in the day-to-day sense, Amanda spent considerably more time with her nannies. And I—’ He gripped the back of the chair tightly. ‘I was busy with work.’ He tried to flatten the defensiveness from his tone. ‘I didn’t realise at first—’

He shook his head. He wasn’t going to discuss his failings. Not with Paige.

As if sensing his reticence, she leaned forward slightly. ‘It must have been a very hard time for you.’

She meant Lauren’s death. But the truth was, it had all been hard. Their marriage had been a disaster zone, almost from the first.

‘You can’t do it, bro. I know why you want to, but she’s not right for you.’

Luca’s warning had been accurate, but Max hadn’t had a choice. Lauren had been pregnant with his baby, and there had been no way he was going to fail to meet his responsibilities. He wasn’t his father.

‘Amanda was devastated,’ he said, honestly. ‘Lauren was—’ He tried to find the right words. ‘She was larger than life. Everything she felt, she felt to the nth degree, and she loved baby Amanda. She doted on her, spoiled her. Even though she didn’t spend that much time with her, the time she did spend left a huge impression on Amanda.’

‘And her death a huge absence.’

‘It’s become worse as Amanda’s grown older. She’s turned Lauren into some kind of god.’ He lifted his shoulders, at a loss. ‘She idolises her.’

Paige nodded sympathetically, then stood, the slim curves of her body shown by the soft cotton of her shirt and shorts. ‘What are her hobbies?’

Something spasmed in his chest. A feeling of failure. ‘Hobbies,’ he repeated, as though he hadn’t heard.

‘Sure. Things she likes to do for fun, outside school. Does she swim? Surf? Read?’

‘She reads.’ He latched onto the last one, though he couldn’t think when he’d last seen her actually finish a book. ‘She loves Harry Potter.’ But did she? She’d watched the films on repeat the year before, but since then? Flashes of his own childhood, his absent father, rammed into him and Max felt the inexorable pull towards defeat. Maybe you couldn’t alter genetic predispositions after all. His father had lacked any kind of parenting gene; Max probably did too.

‘Okay.’ Paige nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s a start.’ She hesitated a moment, her lips parted, her eyes round, and he had the now familiar desire to reach out and touch her. To kiss her. To feel those soft lips beneath his. He wanted, more than anything, to kiss her because if he kissed her, maybe he could drown out everything else. Maybe the sheer urgency of their desire would silence the steady drumbeat of the inevitability of his shortcomings as a parent and for a while, a small while, he might even be happy.

‘Thank you for dinner,’ she said with a smile that had him pausing, because it was somehow familiar. Somehow, and that question jolted him out of his reverie.

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