Merger to Marriage (Boardrooms and Billi - By Addison Fox Page 0,52
than our family ten times over. He’s a business maven, and he gives Nathan a run for his money. However impoverished his childhood, those days are long gone, and I doubt Holt Turner has spent too many days worrying about it.”
“He’s afraid of something,” Camryn said. “And he’s trying to bluff his way through the fear.”
“Men like Holt don’t get afraid.” Mayson shook her head as she reached for another tissue.
Keira’s sudden burst of laughter was so unexpected, Mayson could only stare at her. “Why are you laughing?”
“He’s a human being, sweetie. And a powerful one at that. Of course he gets scared.”
“Nathan doesn’t get scared,” Camryn was quick to point out. “He’s tough, and frankly, if he wasn’t my brother-in-law, I’d very likely think he was scary.”
“Oh God, please do not tell him that. He’ll be insufferable.” Keira’s expression was serious. “Don’t take away Holt’s humanity. Just because he refuses to show fear, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any way down deep inside where we all keep ourselves hidden away.”
“I don’t know.” Mayson was prevented from saying anything by a knock on the door, and all three of them turned as their father’s voice boomed into the room.
“All my girls together.”
“Dad!” Mayson dragged the pads of her fingers over her tears, trying to hide the fact she’d been crying, but it was no use. He immediately zeroed in on the tears.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
Keira motioned Camryn with what appeared to be a “let’s get coffee” gesture, but Mayson knew it for what it was. The time had come to tell her dad about the baby.
Her father took the seat Camryn had vacated and leaned forward to wrap her in a hug. “What’s wrong?” For a moment, she simply allowed herself to be held. She took in the warmth and comfort of a parent and, without warning, the tears spilled out, like water over a dam. “There you go. Get it out.”
She tried to fill him in with fits and starts, before giving up and letting the tears flow until she was dry. He ran a fresh tissue over her cheeks before brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. A gentleness she’d seen rarely filled his eyes. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
So she did.
…
“A baby? You’re going to be a mother?”
Mayson nodded a few minutes later. “I know it’s not the way I’d have imagined it, but I’m so excited about this baby.”
“I’m going to be a grandfather? When?”
“In about six and a half more months.”
He pulled her close once more before wiping at the corner of his own eyes. “Wow. My baby. You’re going to make an incredible mother. Just like your mom.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
“You thought she was a good mom?”
“The best.”
While she didn’t want to ruin the moment, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ask the questions that had been hovering in her mind since the entire discussion of marriage had begun with Holt. “You and mom didn’t have a good marriage.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Yet you thought she was a great mother.”
“She was a great everything.” A hard slash of pain filled his features, and for the moment Mayson thought she’d overstepped. “I failed your mother, not the other way around.”
“Dad—” The truth of his words stopped her. They couldn’t go back. Couldn’t change what was. And in a very real sense, who she was as a person—and who she was professionally—was tied to his choices. “What if Holt and I end up in the same place?”
“That would be pretty hard to do since you’re different people than us. You see the world differently, you always have.”
“My eye in the sky.” He’d teased her with that moniker often enough in her youth Mayson had come to associate it with the dreamy state she often sunk into when she was designing something or focusing on a shoot.
“Don’t ever change it.” Her father leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I can’t rewrite the past, and I don’t deserve to. But I want you to think about what you want. What makes you happy. It took me a long time to realize what you girls created, and I’m so proud of what you’ve done. What you’ve built.”
“Thanks.”
“Now it’s time to focus on building your family. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. And don’t let anything stand in the way of your happiness.”
Of all the places she had expected to find wisdom, it wasn’t at the hands of her father.