Page 35 of The Duke's Surprise Heir

“Is that true for other single mothers?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know about other single moms. It wouldn’t surprise me though. It’s tough.”

“It isn’t difficult for men?”

She looked at him, one eyebrow lifted. “What would you do if one of your executives had an important meeting, but walked out of the office because his child needed to be picked up from school? What if that man then missed a deadline? You wouldn’t think that man was completely dedicated to his job?”

Macie watched, wondering if Edward was truly understanding the problem.

Then he nodded. “You’re right. I would think less of him. And of any woman who did that.” He rubbed Kyle’s back. “I hadn’t realized how difficult it is raising kids and having a career.” He looked down at her with a glare. “Did you change the subject just so that you didn’t have to discuss your daddy issues?”

Macie laughed and shrugged. “Probably.”

Edward’s response was a grunt. “We should turn around. Sanford is way out in the back pastures and I doubt that Kyle will sleep through the trip back.”

The walk back to Edward’s house was done in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. But about five minutes into the walk back, Edward moved closer, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.

Macie pretended the gesture, and the kiss he pressed to the top of her head, didn’t mean anything to her. However, she had to quickly blink back tears.

“What the hell have you done?”

Henry stiffened.“Ralph?”

“Of course it’s me, you idiot!” the Frankfurt Linx director hissed. “Who else calls you on this phone?”

Henry had to admit that the other man had a point. “What the hell is wrong?”

There was a long silence and Henry knew that something had gone horribly off-plan. What that could be, he hadn’t a clue.

“Del Campo is here,” Ralph hissed into the phone. “He’s here with the police and at this very moment, they are prying open the crates that were shipped this morning.”

Henry’s heart just about burst out of his chest. “What? How? Why?”

Ralph made an impatient sound. “That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?”

“But…my guy said that he’d put the crates on the plane personally. And I know that he changed the flight manifest. There should be no issues with the flight!”

Another grunt came through the phone. “Obviously, something went wrong! Otherwise, the German police wouldn’t be here, pulling out weapons!”

Henry’s stomach clenched. He felt like throwing up!

“I’ll fix this,” Henry told the man. “At a minimum, I’ll make sure that the person who did this is taken care of.”

Ralph sputtered. “That’s not good enough! We are the ones who oversee the cargo to and from our cities! It’s our careers on the line!”

Henry wasn’t sure what to do. So, he offered the only solution that occurred to him. “I’m calling Ricky.”

Another silence, then Ralph asked, “Ricky Palmero? He’s a thug!”

“Do you have a better solution? Ricky will find and deal with the person who messed up. The only person who will talk is my guy at the warehouse who loaded up the crates. If he’s not around for the police to interrogate, then there’s no one to link our names to the cargo manifests.” Henry waited. “Unless you have a better solution?”

“Palmero will only get rid of your guy. Obviously, someone alerted the police to the problem. How are you going to fix that issue?”

Macie! Henry realized that Macie should have been back in the office this week. Several weeks ago, Henry had called Ricky to deal with the problem of someone logging into the computer system. But Ricky had never come back to tell him who it had been. He’d just texted the “all fixed” message and Henry had gone about his business.

So, what had happened to Macie? If she wasn’t back in the office after her maternity leave, had that been the “fix” that Ricky had taken care of?

Rubbing a hand over his face, Henry tried to slow his rising panic. “I’ll call you back,” he said, then hung up, ignoring Ralph’s bellowed, “Do not hang up on me!”

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