Grace shook her head firmly. “Zoo!”

  “What my princess wants, she shall have,” Liam said. “What do you say, Amelia? Shall we go back to the zoo?”

  “Let’s do it.” The thought of another day with Liam and Grace at the zoo was deeply appealing. Amelia could hardly wait.

  Just then, Liam’s phone began to ring. He shot Amelia an apologetic look.

  “Sorry, I need to take this. It shouldn’t be long.”

  He answered the phone as he left the kitchen. Amelia could hear that he was annoyed. She turned back to Grace and smiled, determined not to let one little hiccup ruin their Sunday.

  “Daddy?” Grace asked.

  “He has a call,” Amelia told her. “But he’ll be right back for the zoo.”

  But Liam didn’t come back. Amelia cleaned up from breakfast and got Grace ready for the zoo, but still he didn’t come back. Amelia was starting to get worried.

  Finally, Liam did return. He looked beyond stressed, his handsome features bunched into an expression of worry.

  “Is everything okay?” Amelia asked, concerned.

  “No.” Liam shook his head. “I trusted one of my employees with an important deal, and he lost my company a lot of money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars gone in one mistake. I can’t believe I let that happen.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Amelia reached for Liam’s hand in comfort, but he didn’t seem to see her. His gaze was focused on his phone once again, as he typed something and pressed send. Amelia glanced over at Grace, who was entertained by her plastic water cup.

  “I need to go into the office,” Liam said. “I need to fix this myself.”

  “Oh.” Amelia felt his words like a shove in the chest, but took a deep breath and steadied herself. Of course, if something had gone wrong at work, Liam needed to go in — even on a Sunday. “When will you be back? Maybe we can go to the zoo later in the day.”

  “The zoo?” Liam looked confused for a split second, and the pressure in Amelia’s chest increased. “Right, the zoo. I’ll try to be back, but you two should go ahead and go. I wouldn’t want to ruin your day.”

  “Oh,” Amelia said again. She wished she were a little more eloquent. “Right. Well, I’ll see you later.”

  “See you later.” Liam looked up from his phone long enough to flash Amelia a distant smile. “Have a nice day.” And then he was gone.

  Grace looked up from the plastic cup she’d been playing with. “Where Daddy?”

  “Daddy had to go into work,” Amelia said gently. She saw tears well in Grace’s eyes, a mirror of her own feelings, and knew she had to take action, quickly. She couldn’t chase after Liam and ask him to reconsider his decisions, but she could make sure Grace had a nice day. Or as nice as it could be. “Are you ready to go to the zoo?”

  “No Daddy?” Grace asked mournfully. Over the last week, she’d gotten very accustomed to having her father around, at least for part of the day.

  “Not today,” Amelia said, a little too firmly. She swooped the child out of her high chair and gave her a hug. “Today is a girls’ day.”

  “Girls’ day?”

  “Exactly.” Amelia nodded with more enthusiasm than she felt. “A girls’ day. That means that we can do lots of fun things together, just us girls.”

  “Okay.” Grace gave a toothy smile and Amelia wished that she could cheer herself up as easily. “Daddy home soon?”

  “I’m sure he will be,” Amelia said. She took a deep, calming breath. Liam would be home soon. His disappearance brought up her insecurities from her first weeks here, but Liam wasn’t the same guy he’d been when Amelia first arrived. He’d shown over the last week that he was ready to put Grace — and her — first. One Sunday at work didn’t change that. Right?

  CHAPTER 18

  LIAM

  Liam was furious with himself.

  All the way to work, he was fuming. He had no idea how he could have let a mess like this happen. Since he’d become CEO several years ago, there’d never been a fumble like this in corporate history. Sure, the error was fixable enough — Liam had a few people to speak with and a few emails to send, and the company would lose some money, but the mistake could be fixed. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he had trusted someone to make decisions for him and he’d been let down.

  Over the last week, Liam had been so focused on Grace and Amelia that he hadn’t spared much time for work. Ryan had been right on Friday — the pile of things Liam needed to do was growing far too large. Even without this mistake, he needed to return to work. He couldn’t live in family make-believe land anymore.

  No matter how much he might want to.

  Ryan was already there when Liam arrived. He nodded.

  “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” Liam passed the reception desk and strode purposefully into his office, where he booted up his computer. Ryan followed. “What’s my agenda?”

  “First, we need to address the purchasing error,” Ryan said. “It looks like one of your department heads purchased the services of a consulting agency but failed to consider the taxes on the service — which is why we’re facing a significant loss.”

  “Understood. Do we want to work with that agency?” Liam felt out of the loop. Usually, he would have been brought in on a decision like this — no, he would have been the one making a decision like this. Now, after a week of light work, he had no idea why they had chosen this particular consultant.

  Perhaps that was where his annoyance came from — not because of the mistake or the lost money, but because he hadn’t been involved.

  “Yes, they’re a good agency, and we need them to do a review of our corporate policies for this year’s audit,” Ryan explained. Liam felt another pang of frustration. Even his assistant knew more about what was going on at the company than he did.

  “Okay, then. I’ll sort that out with accounting. What else?”

  “R&D wants to introduce a new product targeting preschoolers,” Ryan said. “They want to work with color-and-shape recognition, basic drawing and writing skills, numeracy, that kind of thing. But they need your approval to move forward.”

  “I’ll look over the proposal.”

  “It’s on your desk.”

  As Ryan continued, recapping the week, Liam felt more and more the burden of all the work he’d missed or put off or delegated. At the barbecue, Stanley had suggested that Liam should think about what could be delegated and that the answer was work, not family. Yet now Liam was realizing that his work couldn’t be delegated either. So many things needed his approval and oversight. When he wasn’t here to give it, mistakes happened.

  By the time Ryan was done explaining, Liam knew that he more than had his work cut out for him. He dove in, beginning with the consulting agency, then moving on to the new product, a stack of contracts, an inbox full of messages…

  The next time Liam looked up from his computer, it was late afternoon and the sun was streaming through his window. He glanced at his phone and saw several missed messages from Amelia. The first asked when he would be finished with work. The second was a picture of Grace posing with a statue of an elephant, grinning broadly. The third asked if Liam wanted to meet them for dinner.

  These were the kinds of texts they’d exchanged frequently over the last week, but now Liam could barely look at them. He felt pressure to be home with Grace and Amelia, but he felt equal pressure to stay at work and do everything he needed to do.

  Over the last week, he’d been so caught up in making sure his family looked real — and exploring his feelings for Amelia — that he’d completely dropped the ball in his day-to-day.

  He sent a quick message to Amelia saying he wouldn’t be home until late, then turned off his phone. He needed to focus. As much as he wanted to be present in Grace’s life, the child would have no future if Lilypad fell apart and he became destitute. And there was no point in exploring his feelings for Amelia further if he couldn’t navigate his job as well.

  Liam returned home late that night. Grace was already in bed, but Amelia was sitting up in the living room in her pajamas, sipping a mug of tea and reading. When Liam entered, she looked up. Her expression was pleasant, but Liam was sure he could detect a little annoyance behind her beautiful brown eyes.

  “It must have been a busy day,” she said lightly. “Would you like to sit with me for a bit? We can order dinner and talk things through.”

  Sitting with Amelia and ordering dinner sounded lovely, but Liam was in no mood to talk things through. He was sure that Amelia would be annoyed with him for missing the zoo day, but she couldn’t expect him to let his career go completely. So, Liam shook his head.

  “I’m just going to head to bed. I’m exhausted.”

  “Oh.” Her face fell. “Okay. Sleep well.”

  His heart aching, Liam nodded, wished her the same, and headed to his bedroom. He fell into bed, where the sheets were still tangled from the night he and Amelia had spent together. How different things had seemed last night, when they had made love and fallen asleep in each other’s arms. Life had seemed full of hope and promise.

  He should have known that was too good to be true.

  Over the next few days, Liam made an effort to be home, but his efforts weren’t enough. Now that he was tuned back in to the office, he was constantly receiving calls and urgent emails that needed his attention. Liam had no choice but to answer — and often rush back into the office for meetings. He could see how Amelia and Grace’s faces fell with each call and each abruptly ended meal. After a few days, it seemed easier just to stay away than to hurt them like this.

  Soon, Liam was back in his old patterns. He woke up before Amelia and was in the office early. He worked all day, stayed late into the night, and returned after she’d gone to sleep. A few days passed in which he saw neither Amelia nor Grace.

  Amelia seemed to recognize that things had changed. She no longer texted him as much, and she didn’t wait up for him anymore. If she was hurt or upset, she didn’t show it.

  Liam told himself that this was for the best. He and Amelia needed to maintain a safe distance so that he could prioritize his work, at least for now.

  Stanley’s advice about family repeated in Liam’s head, but he silenced that voice. Prioritizing his family had almost led him down a worrying path. He couldn’t let that happen again. No one would benefit from Lilypad Learning falling apart, except perhaps their competitors.

  Almost a week after the picnic at Stanley’s home, Liam came home late, as usual. This time, though, Amelia had waited up for him. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and an expression that went beyond annoyance.

  “We need to talk.”

  “I’m sorry, Amelia. I’m too tired.” Liam made a move towards his bedroom, but Amelia stood and stepped into his way. She looked determined.

  “No. We need to talk.”

  “Amelia.” Liam ran a hand through his hair. “I know we need to discuss our… arrangement… after what happened between us last week, but I need to⁠—”

  She cut him off. “That’s not what I want to talk about. Obviously, I would like to discuss that, but it’s clear that I’m not going to get much time with you, so we need to focus on what matters.”

  Liam had never heard Amelia speak like this. Her tone was cold and cutting, like a shard of ice.

  “We need to talk about Grace.”

  “Grace?” Liam blinked. “Is she all right?”

  “Hardly.” Amelia chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Liam, you spent a week winning her over. She began to think of you as someone she could count on, someone who would be there for her. And then you left. She hasn’t seen you in days. She asks about you all the time, and today she asked if you were ‘with mommy.’ She thinks you’re gone forever, Liam.”

  The words struck Liam hard, and he sank onto the couch. “I’m sorry if I’ve confused her,” he said, his tone flat. “But I’m doing this for her. Grace won’t benefit from me being around all the time if I’m in financial ruin.”

  “She won’t benefit from anything if you aren’t around at all. I’m not saying you need to be here all the time, but you do need to make time for her.”

  Liam’s temper was starting to grow. “Look. I know you care about her. I do, too. But I can’t put everything aside just because of that.”

  “No, you’ve done something much worse.” Amelia sighed. “I’m starting to wonder if you were just using her — and me. You needed to prove something to Stanley to keep his investment, and when that was over, you abandoned her.”

  Liam was back on his feet in a flash. “I didn’t abandon her. She has a roof over her head and food on the table. She has you to love her and care for her. I didn’t abandon her. And I didn’t use her!”

  “Yes, you did.” Amelia shook her head. “It doesn’t matter why you aren’t around anymore. It just matters that you aren’t. I get it; you’re terrified of having people who love you and rely on you. That makes a relationship between us impossible, and that’s fine. I won’t push you. But Grace is different. You’re her father, and she needs you.”

  “You have no right to talk to me like this.”

  “I do, because I’ve been around. You need to know what’s happening with your daughter. You’re being selfish, Liam. Your daughter isn’t a business tool. You need to be savoring these moments with her, not running off.”

  “Enough.” Liam didn’t raise his voice, but the ice in his tone made Amelia take a step back. “I know what’s best for Grace. You don’t. You seem to think you have a place in this family, but maybe you’ve forgotten our agreement. You aren’t really my wife or Grace’s mother. You would do well to remember that.”

  And with that, Liam stormed out of the room.

  CHAPTER 19

  AMELIA

  Amelia stood in shock for a long moment after Liam left. Then her knees gave out and she sank onto the sofa behind her, tears welling up in her eyes. One errant tear spilled down her cheek.

  How could she have been so misguided?

  Over the last week, she’d done everything she could to take care of Grace and keep her happy without her father around. She’d explained that Liam loved her and that he’d be back as soon as he could. She’d spent extra time reading to Grace and cuddling her and taking her on fun outings.

  Amelia had done all this with a broken heart. She had to, because Grace deserved all the love and care in the world — even though Liam had slept with Amelia and then promptly shown her that he didn’t care about her one bit.

  Yet what Grace had said today, about Liam being with her mommy, had been too much. Grace really seemed to think that Liam was never coming back, and Amelia couldn’t let that happen. So, she’d waited up. The whole time, as she’d sat on the couch or paced the living room, she’d repeated what she’d wanted to say. She’d wanted to be firm and clear and constructive. And she’d expected, hoped, that Liam would be ready to listen — after all, he’d listened to her about parenting before.

  Yet his reaction had been the opposite. His words, about how Amelia would do well to remember that she wasn’t his wife or Grace’s mother, hurt more than Amelia could admit, even to herself. They were true, of course. Amelia knew that she was neither Liam’s wife nor Grace’s mother. But she could hardly blame herself for imagining that she was, when Grace lifted her arms to be picked up, or Liam looked at her with a depth of expression in those blue eyes that he would never be able to put into words.

  In the end, though, it seemed Amelia had been nothing more than another of Liam’s flings — with a little childcare added in as well.

  There was a sound at the end of the hallway, and Amelia swiped her palms across her cheeks to wipe away her tears. She didn’t want to cry in front of either Liam or Grace.

  No one appeared in the hallway, but it was still a sign that she needed to go to bed. She got to her feet and tiptoed down the hall to her room. Over the last few weeks, she’d changed it from a soulless gray-and-white guest bedroom into a place that felt like home. Snapshots of her and Grace, sometimes with Liam, hung on the walls. The bed was made with Amelia’s comforter from her apartment, which she hadn’t returned to in over a month. There was a soft green carpet on the floor and floaty white curtains on the windows.

  The room felt like home. In fact, the whole penthouse had begun to feel like home. Amelia had grown used to cooking in the kitchen, sometimes running into Liam’s private chef, playing with Grace in the living room, and sharing meals and conversation with Liam in his study. And she’d fallen head over heels in love with Grace — and with her jerk of a dad, too.

  Amelia knew she should walk away. She’d made the mistake of staying at her last job too long and giving up too much for her work. And she knew now that Liam would never feel for her what she felt for him. Staying here was painful.

  Yet she couldn’t bring herself to leave. She didn’t want to hurt Grace like that. And deep inside, she held out hope for Liam, too.

  Some part of her thought that Liam would come to his senses and apologize, but he didn’t. A few days of no communication turned into a week, then two. Amelia cried more than once at night, which was strange for her, as she was usually quite levelheaded. Even her usual self-possession wasn’t enough to keep her tears in check in the face of a broken heart.

  The few times Amelia did see Liam, mostly arriving home from work or leaving, she didn’t try to talk to him. She was torturing herself enough by staying in his house without actually have to speak with the man who had broken her heart.

  Liam didn’t try to speak with her, either — not to apologize or to ask her to leave. Perhaps he understood, as Amelia did, that no matter how bad things were between them, it wouldn’t be fair to Grace for Amelia to go.

  Amelia thought they might continue like this forever, avoiding each other but coexisting. Until, that is, she woke early one morning and ran to the bathroom, her stomach in terrible knots. As Amelia knelt on the cold tile floor, feeling miserable, she realized that there was no way she could be a good parent to Grace in this condition. As well as what seemed like the stomach flu, Amelia was exhausted and at the end of her rope.