Page 32 of Passion and Deception

He shifted slightly and Nadia’s hands bobbed with the movement.

“Levi was in Ditar a few days ago. He mentioned that you were still on maternity leave.” He looked up at her. “I put two and two together and realized that you’d given birth to our child.”

Maggie shrugged, feeling a slight bit of panic. “Levi has been good to me and Nadia over the past few months. Emily and Ann come by pretty often to help me as well.”

“I ordered my staff to start interviewing for a nanny. And we’ll begin the process of hiring tutors as well.”

Maggie didn’t like the sound of that. “A nanny? And why is Nadia going to need tutors? First of all, she’ll be perfectly fine in public schools. The school district here is excellent. The high school in my neighborhood has a very high graduation rate and a high college acceptance rate.”

His large fingers touched Nadia’s tiny ones. The contrast was shocking. So were the similarities. Nadia definitely had Ramit’s dark eyes and his darker hair. Her skin was also a little darker than Maggie’s. It was a stark reminder that Nadia was no longer her daughter alone. Now that Ramit was in the picture, she’d have to share her tiny daughter with Nadia’s father.

The big question was how they’d accomplish the sharing.

“She will attend boarding school,” he announced.

Maggie’s eyes widened. “Um…no! She won’t!” Maggie announced and stood up, stepping away from the ottoman.

Chapter 24

Ramit looked up at Maggie, noticing the panic and determination in her eyes. He suddenly realized that, again, he’d gone about this the wrong way. Instead of working with Maggie, proposing to her and convincing her to come back to Ditar with him, he’d acted in his usual brusque manner and issued edicts and commands.

Time to soften his words and approach this situation differently.

“Maggie,” he soothed, starting to stand up, but then heard a squawk and looked down at his daughter. His daughter! Those words still stunned him.

“Don’t you dare ‘Maggie’ me!” she hissed, careful not to raise her voice. She was aware that any startling sounds would alarm Nadia all over again.

“You know that we can’t stay here.”

Maggie huffed. “I don’t know anything of the sort!” she replied back, folding her arms under her breasts. The movement pushed her breasts higher and he was suddenly very aware of the more voluptuous silhouette. His mouth went dry at the sight of those soft, full mounds.

Maggie snapped her fingers in his face. “Eyes up, big boy!” she snapped. “They aren’t for you any longer. These,” she said, waving her hand in front of her breasts, “are for the exclusive use of our daughter.”

He almost laughed out loud at that assertion, but decided it was probably better to not argue that point.

Yet.

“Maggie, you don’t understand the situation.”

She rolled her eyes. “Right. Like I haven’t had to figure out every part of being a single mom over the past twelve months!”

He stood up, cradling his daughter carefully, but he was angry now. “You know damn well that all you had to do was call me and let me know that you were pregnant and I would have helped you!” He reigned in his anger. “But you chose not to tell me I had a daughter.” He tried to suppress the fury and anger at that, but it was difficult.

Unfortunately, his anger sparked her own. She stepped forward, poking him in the shoulder. “I might have informed you if I’d trusted you! But apparently, you decided to lie to me. To fool me into believing that you were just regular guy! That we could have a real future together!” She took a deep breath and waved him off as he opened his mouth. “I fell for you, Ramit! I fell for all the sweet, wonderful words that you spewed in my direction. I believed you when you pretended to be a normal guy! It wasn’t until you walked into TBC that I realized what you really were! That you’d lied to me!”

“I never lied, Maggie,” he assured her.

“Oh yeah?” she challenged. “What were you doing at the museum a year ago?”

“The museum?” he echoed, not sure what she meant.

“The day we met?”

Oh, right! He decided to be honest with her. “On the day we met, I was pretending to be in Philadelphia to offer the museum several pieces of art from my collection. Pieces that have been in my family’s private collection for decades. The museum director was very interested in winning the right to display those pieces. It was all a ruse so that I could slip into the country without alerting your government.”

That stopped her cold. She stared at him, her mouth opening and closing. “Why?”

“I needed an excuse to come here to deal with someone who was trying to blackmail me.”

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