Page 36 of Contracted and Claimed By The Boss

Paige dipped her head to hide a smile at that. It was an honest admission that from anyone else might have smacked of arrogance but from Max was just accurate.

‘But the thing with Luc, that’s complicated. He found it a lot harder to move on with Dad.’

‘Why, do you think?’

‘He saw his mother suffer. She raised him alone, money was tight, she was shunned by her very traditional family, had to move to Sicily to get any kind of support. And then he was thrust into the lap of luxury and made to think of himself not as a Cavallaro but as a Stone. He was bitter about it for a long time.’

‘And now?’

‘They reconciled, shortly before Dad died. It brought the old man a lot of peace.’

Someone at the bar laughed loudly and it pierced the solemn air that had surrounded them.

Paige sat a little straighter, took a drink of her wine, then reached for an olive. It was plump and juicy, and she savoured the flavour, until she became aware of the way Max was staring at her lips. His hand on her thigh moved higher and, unconsciously, she shifted further forward in her seat, bringing them closer together.

‘So...’ he picked up his train of thought anew ‘...when Lauren told me she was pregnant with my baby, I wasn’t going to let her raise Amanda without me. Marriage made sense to me. I wanted to be in my child’s life all the time, not just sometimes.’

Paige had almost completely forgotten what had started his conversation. ‘And did she want to get married?’

‘Yes. She didn’t hesitate.’

Paige frowned. ‘Did you know—?’ But she stopped herself in time, realising how insensitive the question she’d been about to ask might appear.

‘I didn’t know Amanda was mine for sure,’ Max said quietly. ‘Not until she was born and she opened her eyes, so like my own, and I felt this instant, powerful connection. I loved her. I knew I’d made the right decision. She was mine, and while Lauren and I weren’t in love, we were going to raise her together. Lauren loved her too. She was a good mother. Better than my own, at least,’ he said with a gruff laugh. ‘Better than yours, too, by the sound of it.’

Paige stroked the back of his hand without responding. She didn’t need to.

‘I didn’t do any testing. I didn’t need to.’

‘No,’ Paige agreed, but she couldn’t help admiring him for his commitment.

‘In every way, I wanted to be the opposite to my father. I had a front-row seat to how his choices had made our family implode, had destroyed, in many ways, Luca’s mother’s life, and Luca’s too. From the moment Lauren told me about Amanda, I was her father. It’s as simple as that.’

It was impossible not to feel something like love for the sentiment he was expressing. It was exactly what she wished someone had felt for her. What had always been missing in her life. An ache throbbed in the back of her throat and she blinked away, hating the quick sting of tears in her eyes.

‘Paige?’ His voice was deep and husky, probing. She turned back to him slowly, her smile ambivalent, apologetic.

‘I just never experienced that kind of love,’ she said wistfully. ‘I can’t imagine what it must be like for Amanda to know that she has you.’

He was quiet, considered that. ‘I’m the last person she seems to want to be around right now.’

Paige lifted her shoulders. ‘Being a good dad isn’t always about having the answers, it’s about knowing how to get them. Your instincts were bang on: Amanda needs more right now. She needs a fresh perspective, and you’re giving her that. Recognising that you have some shortcomings, that you can’t fix everything, makes you brave and responsible. You’re not letting her down.’

He hadn’t said anything like it, but somehow, Paige just knew he needed to hear that. Perhaps it was a relic of the man Max had once been, the man who’d always needed to win.

Their meals arrived and they ate in between bursts of companionable conversation about the area, Max’s family history here, and how much he loved this part of the world. He explained how it was his great-great-grandfather who’d moved to the north of Australia and opened a pearl-farming operation, that he’d been both lucky and canny, finding enormous pearls within his first five years of operation, some of which had been sold to the royal family for coronation jewels, and which quickly garnered a reputation as some of the most prestigious pearls in the world. From there, the operation had grown and successive generations had invested into other industries, had expanded their luxury holdings, so the Stone family was worth billions before being a billionaire was even a thing. But always, Wattle Bay and nearby Mamili had been special to them, because here it had all begun.

He painted such a picture and Paige was so pleasantly full of delicious prawns and lovely wine that she found herself relaxing back in the seat, listening and letting herself be pulled away by the richness of his history.

‘I always wanted to live here. After Lauren died, I knew I needed to go back to basics. Lauren had loved the finer things in life, the fast pace, the luxury and glamour of Sydney, and our frequent trips overseas—whenever I suggested moving to Wattle Bay, she refused, told me I could come but not with her and not with our daughter.’

Paige gasped.

Max continued, ‘She died because she went to some concert, got loaded backstage with the band, then let some equally drunk guy get behind the wheel of her ridiculous sports car. He wrapped the car around a pole. And suddenly I realised: my daughter can’t grow up with any of this stuff. I don’t want her going to schools with other rich kids, thinking it’s normal to have an army of servants in the house, like I used to live, like Lauren lived. I didn’t want her being chauffeur-driven in a Mercedes from one birthday party to the next, doing drugs at fifteen, in rehab by seventeen. It’s as though Lauren’s death forced me to grapple with the scaffolding of the world I was providing for Amanda. She was only five, so it wasn’t too hard to strip away those luxuries, to bring her here, to the middle of nowhere, a home where she has to make her own bed and clear the table, where very few of those creature comforts infiltrate our world.’

‘You don’t take her away with you, if you travel for work?’ Paige asked over the now cleared table. ‘I presume your job requires you to leave the property?’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Sometimes she comes with me, but most of the time, Amanda stays home, with Reg and his wife, Cass. They’re great with her.’

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