Regarding The Tycoon's Toddler.... Mary Wilson Anne

stared hard at the city of Houston, twenty stories below his office at LynTech Corporation in downtown Houston. The question held the very real annoyance and impatience he felt over this interruption to his schedule.

      He turned to Edward Stiller, an attorney from Florida, and watched the slender, gray-suited man shrug. “Sir, your wife is dead—at least, I mean, your ex-wife.”

      Zane was still trying to grasp the idea that Suzanne was gone. That she and her new husband had died in a multiple-car crash in southern Florida. The man sat in one of two leather chairs that faced the huge executive desk cluttered with paperwork. “You already said that,” he said. “And I am very sorry that Suzanne and Weaver were killed two days ago. But we haven’t been married for more than two years. I haven’t even talked to her in all that time. Now you’re here. Explain it to me so I can get a grip on this.”

      “I told you, I’m only here because I’m executing her wishes.”

      Zane moved back to his chair and sank down into the high-backed chair. “That’s what I don’t get at all.” He ran a hand over his face, as impatient with the man as he was with the odd mixture of feelings he was experiencing. Suzanne was dead. It didn’t seem real somehow. No more unreal, though, than this man babbling on about the child she had had with Dan Weaver. A child she had been carrying even before their divorce was final.

      Stiller set a slim briefcase on the desk, pressing perfectly manicured fingers on the expensive leather. “I thought of calling, but felt you needed to be told this in person. There is so much to decide.”

      Zane tried to focus on what the man was saying, instead of on Suzanne. He didn’t know if he’d ever loved her. Love was something he never gave much thought to. But he did know that now she was irrevocably gone, and that created a deep ache inside him. Then regret.

      All she’d wanted was a family. And that was what he hadn’t wanted. So, she found someone who did. Dan Weaver. A man Zane had seen only once, in their attorney’s offices when they signed the divorce papers. He couldn’t even hate the man then. Weaver hadn’t broken up their marriage. By then Zane had realized there had never been a real marriage to break up.

      “Before we decide anything, Mr. Stiller, explain to me how I ended up as the executor of the estate. You’re telling me that Suzanne never changed her will? She never thought it was important enough, even with the child involved, to change it?”

      The man snapped open the briefcase. “Mr. Holden, I don’t know what was in her mind, or what her intent was, but she didn’t change it.” He took out a thick sheaf of papers and glanced at them. “I checked it very carefully.” He closed his briefcase and dropped the papers on top of it. “You can have it checked yourself—but I can tell you, it’s valid.”

      Zane ran a hand roughly over his face and tried to push away that feeling of regret. It didn’t have a place in his life. He wouldn’t regret their marriage, or their divorce. He wouldn’t waste time on regret. And he wouldn’t waste time putting off what had to be done.

      “This child of hers—?”

      “A boy, Walker Scott Weaver. Almost two years old. Lovely child, from what I’ve heard. He luckily was with a sitter when…” He coughed slightly. “Well, he’s safe, still with the sitter, until he can be resituated.”

      Zane never thought about children. They didn’t have a part in his life. But today was very different. First, there was another request for more money to fund programs at the day care center run by the company. He glanced at the yellow paper on his desk. The last request for funding from the director of the day care center, L. Atherton. The third request. And the third rejection.

      He looked back at Stiller. The day care decision was cut-and-dried. But this child that Stiller was talking about—Suzanne’s son…he knew this wasn’t going to be as simple.

      He looked at Stiller. “This is ludicrous,” he muttered, and reached for the phone. He punched in a two-digit extension, and, when Stiller was about to say something, he held up his hand. His secretary answered the phone.

      “Marlene, get a hold of Mr. Terrel and ask him to come to my office as soon as he can. It’s urgent.”

      As he put the phone back on the cradle, he looked at Stiller and asked, “What about grandparents?”

      “There are none.”

      “Aunts or uncles?”

      “We don’t really know, but we don’t believe so.”

      Suzanne had been an only child, like him, and her parents had been gone for years, but Zane would have thought Weaver had family somewhere. “No distant cousin?”

      “It’s a matter of form to look for any living relatives in a case like this, and my office staff is on it. But right now, it’s up to you to make arrangements for the child. The wording of Suzanne’s will is not exact, but the intent is clear.”

      “Wording?”

      He motioned to the stack of papers. “I’ll paraphrase, but there is a clause that the executor, you, will have full control over all matters of her life. The child is certainly a ‘matter,’ and as such, you are in charge of him, or at least his fate.” He spread his hand on the will. “What do you want to do?”

      There was a sharp knock on the door, the barrier opened immediately and Matthew Terrel was there. The man was built like a linebacker, all muscles and lean strength, and looked nothing like the corporate lawyer and co-C.E.O. of LynTech. He was dressed all in black, his blond hair the only lightness about him at that moment. His face was grim.

      Matt was the closest thing to a good friend that Zane had had for the past seven years, and Zane trusted him completely. He’d know what to do about this. “Matt—” Zane motioned to Mr. Stiller. “Edward Stiller, he just got here from Florida.”

      Matt crossed the room, his dark eyes narrowed, his hand held out to the attorney. “Mr. Stiller,” he said in his deep voice. “Matthew Terrel.” He shook hands with the man, then looked at Zane. “What’s the emergency?”

      “Listen to what Mr. Stiller has to say, then we’ll get to work.”

      Matt moved closer, sank down in the other leather chair and sat forward, leaning toward Mr. Stiller. “Okay, bring me up to speed.”

      While Stiller and Matt talked, Zane stood and went back to the windows. He listened to the two men as he frowned at his image bouncing back at him in the floor-to-ceiling windows. He saw a tall, lean man who’d stripped off his gray suit coat, unbuttoned his dark vest and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt—his maroon tie having been discarded two minutes after he’d arrived at work this morning. He looked tense, with eyes that were shadowed and unreadable. A cold man, Suzanne had called him. He hadn’t argued the point. To think she wanted him anywhere near a child was ludicrous. It’s the last thing she would have wanted.

      If you don’t want children, then we don’t have a future. Her words that last day rang in his memory.

      Then his words, the bare truth. No games. No empty promises or lies. “I’ve never wanted children. I don’t want them now.”

      Suzanne had backed away from him—the memory was a blur now, but her words remained. “You’re self-centered and obsessed. And I made a terrible mistake marrying you.” Then, as she was leaving, she’d added, “God help the child if you ever slip up and one appears in your life. You’re as cold as stone.”

      Now her child had appeared in his life. It was wrong, very wrong—as wrong as his thinking he could be married.

      Suzanne had never guessed at the anger that had been there in flashes when they broke up, the bitterness over the fact that he’d done something so badly that she’d had to leave. He hated failure. He hated admitting defeat. But he’d learned a long time ago to cut his losses. So he had. She’d found Weaver, and Zane had gone back to work—

      “Zane?”

      Matt’s