Page 16 of The Billionaire Dating Dad

“I’ll take Maddison back to Wheelcaster as you wish, but this conversation isn’t over, May,” he said instead. She had that faraway look in her eyes that was filled with so much anguish his heart ached. As much as he wanted to abide by her wishes, he couldn’t sit back and do nothing. “Once she’s settled I’m coming back.”

“Dimitri.” She shook her head.

She looked frail standing next to him and he hardened his resolve. “I don’t care whether you want my money or not. I’ll get you the best treatment if it means you’ll have even a sliver of a chance at surviving.” He’d spare no expense in flying in experts from around the world because he wouldn't be able to look Maddie in the eye if anything happened to May.

CHAPTER SIX

Dimitri

Six months later

Dimitri rolled onto his back and groaned. Fatherhood wasn’t for the timid.

Any moment he expected Maddie to launch herself into his room. He’d take her happy cheer any day to the understandable sadness that had clouded her mood when she’d first arrived at his home.

Maddie had spent the first week rebelling against any attempt to get to know her. But when it sank in that her mother wasn’t coming back, the next two weeks Dimitri shared his home with a quiet and watchful shell of the spontaneous child he’d met months before. And it had taken him and his siblings another three weeks to convince her that her new family wasn’t going anywhere. Not the devil himself could drag him from his daughter.

There were moments he’d been afraid that May’s abrupt departure had broken something in the child that no amount of explaining that May needed to get better would fix. At least he hoped May would get better. Then Maddie had asked an impossible task — that he would find her mother. Dimitri swallowed. How could he tell Maddie that May didn’t want to be found, or that she didn’t want Maddie to witness her frail state or the moment she took her last breath? Yet, he’d promised.

He rubbed his bare chest as the promise he made vibrated against his ribs. Dimitri hadn’t been a father long, but he had no intention of breaking the first promise his daughter asked of him.

Dimitri threw off his comforter and was about to get out of bed when Maddie’s voice reached him.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

He stumbled to his knees, overcome with emotion at hearing his baby girl acknowledge him as her daddy for the first time.Get it together, Dimitri. You can’t let her see you this shaken.

He heard her little feet hit the floor the moment she jumped off the bed, followed by her dead run to his room. Dimitri wondered what percentage of her need to see him the moment she opened her eyes was due to excitement and how much was due to believing he would vanish. Daddy was here to stay and nothing on earth could make him leave.

To cover up his weakened state, he slipped back into bed.

“Daddy! Are you awake?”

“No.” He stared at her to make sure she knew he was joking before slamming his eyes shut. “It’s too early to rise.”

Maddie climbed onto the bed. “No Daddy, I have to go to school and you can’t be late for work.” She leaned over him. Her hair tickled his nose as she stared into his face. Dimitri dared not laugh at her persistence. “Are you sure you’re asleep, Daddy?”

“Positive.”

She giggled. Maddie pried his right eye open with her little fingers.

Dimitri roared. Flipping her onto her back, he unleashed the tickle monster until she hiccupped. “Come on young lady, time to get ready for school.” He took Maddie’s hand.

After running a gauntlet where he signed Maddie up for every activity under the sun, his sister stepped in and unsigned her up for all but two activities because apparently, Maddie wasn’t a future decathlon athlete. Now their mornings had turned into a routine only being disrupted on weekends, while their evenings consisted of dinner, watching his daughter practice her ballet, followed by a bedtime story.

Being a father couldn’t be that easy.

He waited in limbo for more bad days than good. For sadness to cloud her eyes. Or the moment his daughter realized he had no clue what he was doing, that he spent a great deal of time praying he wasn’t going to screw up her life.

But when she looked at him as she did now, full of trust, his heart melted.

Dimitri lifted her onto the stool in front of her bathroom sink. Wordlessly, he dabbed her bubblegum-flavored toothpaste onto his spare toothbrush before handing the tube to Maddie. It wasn’t planting flowers on the front lawn or creating drawings to hang on the wall, but sharing their morning was their thing and with time, he hoped it would mean as much.

The buzz from their electronic toothbrushes filled the silence. For the briefest moment, they didn’t need words. Her quiet questions…the ones she wanted to ask about her mother reflected in her eyes through the mirror. Just beneath those questions were ones about him — would he leave too? Would she have to move again?

No amount of denying would wipe away Maddie’s doubts. Those reassurances could only be given with time.

He preheated the shower for her. “The water is warm. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

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