An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,73

to any of his comments and Mark was starting to feel as if he would never get through to her.

“I heard her play once,” Ben said now. “She has a spectacular gift. You didn’t say anything about that when you mentioned you came back for her.”

“I’m still coming to grips with simply being a father, let alone the whole prodigy thing.”

“You understand you need to give it time. A father-daughter relationship can’t happen instantly. At least, I would imagine that it can’t. I might have better advice for you if the baby is a girl.”

Mark nodded. It didn’t matter that Ben didn’t have a child yet, his advice made sense. Of course Mark needed to give it time. That’s what he was doing. Inch by inch. He accepted every invitation the Warrens offered for dinner or lunch. He took every opportunity to be with Sophie alone when her grandparents didn’t give her a choice to refuse his company.

He tried to be funny, he tried to be open-minded. He tried to be a cool dad. What teenager didn’t want the cool dad?

His apparently.

“Of course, if you push her too fast, it will only make her dig her heels in harder.”

Mark listened to the words he’d said to Ben only a few weeks ago and knew Ben repeated them intentionally. “You think you’re being funny, don’t you?”

“I’m not attempting to be humorous...although I won’t lie and say it didn’t feel damn good to give you some of your own medicine. Because while you weren’t wrong, now you know how I felt.” Ben seemed to lose the icelike facade he’d always maintained around Mark. It was as if he acknowledged their common bond. And they were finally talking to each other, man-to-man. “Patience used to be our strong point, you know.”

“Tell me about it. I could sit for hours in an unventilated room with temperatures outside spiking over a hundred degrees and simply watch a window across an alleyway on the off chance someone would show up for a meeting. Now I feel like I can’t stand being in my own skin for five minutes at a time. When I’m with Sophie I have this ridiculous urge to pick her up and start running without having any idea where we’re going. God, I can’t believe I said that out loud.”

And that he’d told Ben, of all people, how crazy he was feeling was the total kicker. Mark could only imagine how uncomfortable his former superior was right now with what had been a healthy dump of too much information.

Except when Mark looked at him, Ben didn’t look uncomfortable. Instead he looked...sympathetic.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I want to do most days with Anna. It’s...unnerving. Unfortunately, we find ourselves with two people who wouldn’t particularly appreciate that experience.”

Mark could see that, maybe for the first time, Ben understood what drove Mark to compete with him. They were more alike than they were different.

“It was ridiculous to use Anna’s past as some kind of wager between us.”

“It was.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“No. You weren’t trying to be insensitive. You’re simply having trouble adjusting to civilian life. And the reason why you’re making this adjustment doesn’t seem to be giving you a break.”

“A break? Try not a crack. She hasn’t given a smile or word freely. I don’t know what the hell to do because I don’t think she understands that this is about more than only letting me into her life. This is about us making a life together.”

“What are you saying? You want that room you’re making for her in your home to be permanent?”

Mark could hear the surprise in Ben’s voice. Because it was one thing to have a relationship with his daughter. It was a completely different thing to want to finish raising her. Did he want that? Had Dom and Marie been fifteen years younger and in better health, would he have been okay with letting Sophie stay with them while he continued to watch her life from the sidelines? He’d like to think he wouldn’t have. He’d like to think that no matter what, now that Helen was gone, it was time for Sophie to be with him.

“She might not have a choice. You haven’t met her grandparents. They’re in their seventies and not in very good health. I might be the best option for Sophie at this point.”

“Then you’ll figure it out. If you want it to work as badly as I can see you do, then you’ll make