Page 30 of The Billionaire's Secret Heir

Chapter Nine

Beckett waited with a nervousness he could never have imagined. The back of his neck was hot, and his feet suddenly felt like they were too big for his Italian leather shoes. His hands weren’t shaking—he had checked—but he felt a trembling sensation from inside his chest. He couldn’t sit and so paced the small room, noting small details to distract himself. Madi drinks coffee. Her Bible looks well-worn and frequently read. That fact alone made Beckett resolve to want to pick back up that morning routine, which had been so important at one time and been slowly forgotten.

Down the hall, small sounds reached him from what must be Becka’s room. He couldn’t distinguish Madi’s words, but the tone of her voice was soft and lilting, like music, as she spoke to Becka. Nothing like the baby talk parents sometimes used with babies or small children. As he listened to the sounds of Becka’s small voice, he realized that he wasn’t just nervous to meet his daughter. Beckett was excited. Wholly nervous, but excited.

Children often seemed drawn to him, which he didn’t understand. He wasn’t particularly warm or approachable. In fact, children almost frightened him. There was no pretense. They liked or didn’t like you. If he held a baby and it cried, this seemed somehow like the most profound judgment of his character. Adults could be won by his power or his money or even by looks, but that didn’t work with children. He had never said this out loud to anyone. Even in his head these thoughts sounded more than a little ridiculous, but there it was.

Despite his hesitation, Selena and Logan always rushed to greet him with big smiles and hugs. Maybe it was like cats. Beckett heard that they always knew the person in the room who didn’t like cats and sought out that person’s lap. Children might sense that he wasn’t fully comfortable around them and were drawn to that.

What if Becka hated him?

“Beckett?”

He had stopped pacing to stare out the front window. When he turned, his stomach plummeted down to his feet. Madi hesitated just inside the room. Balanced on her hip, Becka blinked at Beckett with wide blue eyes, the same color as his. Her blond hair was messy and several lengths, the longest reaching her shoulders, a few strands curlier than the rest. Her cheeks were round and flushed, a crease marking one, probably where she had slept on a blanket or pillow.

His breath caught. There was his daughter.

When Beckett had considered meeting her, he not once thought that he would feel some surge of fatherly emotion. Yet there it was, warm and solid in his chest.

People talked about love at first sight in the romantic way, and Beckett had never believed in that. Or even felt romantic love for another woman. He had felt the solid love for his family, like a tug on his heart that never left. Not when Graham got on his nerves or when his father made stupid decisions about the future of the company based on sentiment.

This instant love for Becka did not tug at his heart. It blew him over like a hurricane-force wind. This little girl who looked so much like him now owned him, completely. Just seeing her across the room had done that to him. Beckett had heard of this kind of thing when it came to mothers and new babies, but knew also that it was sometimes different for fathers. Graham had confessed when Selena was born that it took him a few days to feel comfortable around her, to really feel like she was his.

Never would he have believed in this kind of love happening in an instant. He had never even seriously thought about having children of his own. But it didn’t really matter whether or not he believed it or whether it was something he wanted. It simply was.

He was completely overwhelmed with a sense of adoration and love for this small person he had never met before. The world shifted and everything changed for him. Just like that. It brought him back to the moment where he had finally let Graham drag him to church and found himself actually listening to the message. He knew then that his life would never be the same. Meeting Becka had the same kind of impact. He couldn’t go back.

“Becka, this is Mr. Beckett,” Madi said. Her voice brought Beckett back into the reality of the moment.

“No,” Becka said. “I Becka.”

“Not Becka, his name is Mr. Beckett.”

Her tiny brow furrowed and it was the most adorable thing Beckett had ever seen. She was two. And he would do anything she asked of him. “No. I Becka.”

Madi looked nervously at Beckett and then blinked in surprise. He realized that he had a huge grin on his face. He stepped toward them. Madi stiffened, looking almost like she was afraid of what he might do or say next.

“I’m not going to take your name,” he said. “It’s just similar to yours. I’m Beckett. You’re Becka.”

“It. You It. I Becka.”

Madi began to giggle. “No, Becka, this is Mr. Beckett.”

“It.” Becka spoke like she was giving the final word on this conversation. She wiggled in Madi’s arms until Madi set her on the floor. Then she grabbed Beckett’s pant leg in her fist. “It play with me.”

Madi touched his arm briefly. “You don’t have to—”

“It play. Sit.” Becka tugged insistently on his pants.

Beckett had never been bossed around by anyone in his life. But he sat down on the rug cross-legged the moment she asked. “What do you want to play, Becka?”

Becka dragged over some toy trains that had been scattered along the floor. She shoved a train in his hand and then squatted down across from him.

“It play train.”

Becka didn’t want him to play so much as sit near her, holding a train, occasionally trading whatever train she had for what Beckett held. Though he had spent time with Selena and Logan, Beckett couldn’t remember ever taking the time to simply sit and play with them. Definitely never down on the floor with them. He hadn’t spent a lot of time at Graham’s house when they were this small. He couldn’t remember this stage very well. Watching Becka, he could almost visibly see the way wheels turned in her head as she thought about where trains should line up or move next on an imaginary track.

She created and moved a small world right in front of her, one that she had invited Beckett to be a part of. He would never have imagined himself in this moment, but being with her filled him with a sense of wonder and joy that he had ever experienced before.

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