A Daddy By Christmas

Chloe Kent.

Mrs. Chloe Kent.

Her face went hot. “We don’t. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

“Oh.”

Chloe sneaked a glance at his paperwork, still sitting on the counter where he’d left it. “Anders Kent” was printed neatly in the name box.

“He just upped and asked me to marry him, and then he took it back.” Chloe huffed out a sigh.

Of course this would happen to her. The hits just kept on coming. Instead of getting a normal proposal from a normal man—her ex, Steven, for instance—she got one from a total crackpot who promptly changed his mind.

Except he hadn’t seemed like a crackpot. He actually seemed sort of charming, especially when he was holding the puppy. But come on, what handsome man didn’t seem charming with a cute dog in his arms?

“Not that I considered it for even a second. It seems exceedingly rude to withdraw a proposal, though. I’m just saying.” The puppy started to whine in her arms, so she bounced up and down a bit. Jingle, jingle, jingle. “Surely you agree.”

The shelter manager sighed. “Honestly, as long as the puppy goes to a good home, I don’t really care.”

“Right. Of course.” Why was she telling this woman about her almost-engagement to a perfect stranger?

More specifically, why couldn’t she let the stunning incident go? She shouldn’t be dwelling on it. It was a non-incident, as evidenced by the mysterious Anders Kent’s speedy retraction, followed by his hasty exit.

“Do you want the dog or not?” The exasperated woman slid a paper across the counter toward Chloe.

“Absolutely.” She scrawled her name on the designated line.

After all, she was here to adopt a puppy, not to get engaged.

Not now.

Not ever.

“Mr. Kent.” Edith Summers, Anders’s personal assistant, stood as he strode into the paneled entryway to his office. “We weren’t expecting you to come in today.”

Anders paused and nodded graciously at the older woman. He wasn’t typically one for small talk in the workplace, but he hadn’t seen Mrs. Summers since the funeral and her presence at that ghastly affair had been more comforting than he’d expected. Burying his brother and sister-in-law was by no means easy, but seeing his assistant sitting in the second pew, wearing her customary pearls and stoic, maternal expression, had made him feel a little less alone. A little less untethered.

“I changed my mind.” Anders smiled stiffly.

He should say something. He should thank her, or at the very minimum, acknowledge her presence on that darkest of days. But just over Mrs. Summers’s shoulder, Anders spotted his brother’s name on the smooth oak door to the office next to his own, and the words died on his tongue.

Mrs. Summers followed his gaze, then squared her shoulders and cleared her throat. She’d been Anders’s assistant long enough to know that what he needed now was normalcy. And normalcy meant work. It meant numbers and spreadsheets and meetings with investors. It meant being at his desk from sunup to sundown...

But that would have to change now, wouldn’t it?

“Very well. I’ll get you a cup of coffee and then we can go over your schedule,” Mrs. Summers said.

“Thank you.” He held her gaze long enough to impart all the things he couldn’t say—thank you for being there, thank you for not trying to make him talk about his feelings or force him to go home. The list was long.

“Of course.” Her eyes flashed with sympathy, and Anders’s chest wound itself into a hard, suffocating tangle as she bustled past him toward the executive break room.

How long would it be this way?

How long would it be before he could stand in this place where he once felt so capable, so impenetrable, and not feel like his heart had just been put through a paper shredder?

Months. Years, maybe.

Lolly’s sweet, innocent face rose to the forefront of his consciousness, and he knew with excruciating clarity that no amount of time would be sufficient. He’d feel this way for a lifetime. He’d carry the loss to his grave.

But he couldn’t think about that now. Lolly was depending on him. His niece was only five years old, too young to grasp the permanence of what had just happened to her...what had happened to them both. Anders, on the other hand, was all too aware.

He was even more aware of feeling that he wasn’t quite up to the task of raising a child. Anders didn’t know the first thing about being a father. Not that he would ever come close to replacing Grant and Olivia in Lolly’s life. But having lost his own parents at an early age, he knew that children as young as his niece didn’t understand words like guardian and custody. Even if Lolly continued calling him Uncle Anders, he’d become so much more than that. He’d be the one to teach her how to ride a bicycle and help her with her homework. He’d be the one cheering at her high school graduation and pulling his hair out when she learned how to drive. He’d be the one to walk her down the aisle at her wedding.

For all practical purposes, he’d be her father. He’d spend the rest of his life walking in his younger brother’s shoes.

If he was lucky.

“Shall I set up a meeting between you and the estate lawyer?” Mrs. Summers placed a double cappuccino with perfect foam on the desk in front of Anders and took a seat in one of the leather wingback guest chairs facing him. As usual, she held the tablet she used to keep track of his calendar in one hand and a pair of reading glasses in the other.

“Already done. I saw him this morning.” Anders stared into his coffee. It was going to take a lot more than caffeine to get him through the next few weeks.

“Oh.” His secretary blinked. “Everything all right, then?”

Anders took a deep breath and considered how much, exactly, he should share with his secretary. On one hand, she was his employee. On the other, she might be the closest thing he had to a friend now that his brother—who also happened to be his business partner—was gone. Such was the life of a workaholic.

“Not really,” he said quietly.

The phone on Mrs. Summers’s desk began to ring, but when she popped out of her chair to go answer it, Anders motioned for her to stay put.

“Leave it. Just let it roll to voice mail.” He took a sip of his cappuccino. She’d gone easy on the foam this time, and it slid down his throat, hot and bitter. Just like his mood.

Mrs. Summers frowned. “You’re beginning to worry me, Mr. Kent. Is something wrong?”

Nothing that a wife wouldn’t fix.

He closed his eyes and saw the puzzled face of the woman from the animal shelter—her wide brown eyes and lush pink lips, arranged in a perfect O of surprise.

Marry me.

God, he’d actually said that, hadn’t he? The past week had been rough, no doubt about it. It was astounding how much a single phone call could change things, could eviscerate your life so cleanly as if it were a blade of some sort. A knife to the gut.

But until this morning, Anders had been hanging on. He’d had to, for Lolly’s sake and for the sake of the business. Grief was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Not now, not yet. Besides, if he let himself bend beneath the crushing weight of loss, he wouldn’t be able to get back up—not after the things he’d said to Grant the night before the accident.

Anders and his brother rarely argued, and when they did, it was typically about the business. As two of the name partners in one of the most influential investment banking firms on Wall Street, they always had one another’s back, but that didn’t mean blind support. They challenged each other. They made each other better.

Their last argument had been different, though. Anders had gone too far—he’d made it personal. There’d been raised voices and slammed doors, and then nothing but an uncomfortable silence after Grant stormed out of the building. It had been their most heated exchange to date, but that was okay. They were brothers, for crying out loud. Grant would get over it.

But he couldn’t get over it, because now he was gone. And Anders couldn’t even bring himself to set foot in his dead brother’s empty office.