The Billionaire's Christmas Wish Read online

  She froze. “What?”

  “The board you’ve worked up about Ivy.”

  Suddenly she was backtracking like crazy. “It’s just a mishmash of symptoms.” The idea of having Theo in her home threw her into a panic, and she wasn’t sure why. She’d had other visitors and it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. Hadn’t she just wondered about what that closure would look like? If she complicated it by allowing him to walk around her home...

  “I know, but I’ve seen the rest of the team’s thoughts and ideas. But not yours.”

  Yes, he had. “I’ve talked you through them.”

  “I’d like to see what you’ve written down. The order and placement.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s important to me. Is it a problem?”

  Yes. It was. But there was no way she was going to say that to him.

  “If you really think it will help.” She was not stupid enough to keep the list from him if he insisted on seeing it. And she could understand being so desperate for any clue that you would do anything to find one.

  She’d done that with her birth mom, gone through all kinds of hoops and verbal gymnastics with bureaucrats until she’d discovered a truth she hadn’t wanted to find.

  But find it she had. And once she’d opened that box, there had been no closing it. She would have preferred to think her mom was out there somewhere, maybe even looking for the child she’d abandoned all those years ago.

  She took a deep breath and threw out one more feeble attempt at self-preservation. “I could always take a picture of the board and send it to you.”

  “If you don’t want me in your house, I’ll understand.”

  “It’s not that...” It was that. Exactly that. Only there was no way she was going to admit it. “I just didn’t want you to drive all that way to look at something that won’t make sense to anyone except me.”

  “I would like a picture for the team, if that’s okay, but I’d also like to see it in person, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course.” Now that she’d admitted to having the board at home, she was a little embarrassed for anyone but her to see it in all its chaotic glory. “But I’m warning you, they’ve already mentioned almost everything that’s on there.”

  He nodded at the notebook as he finished the last bite of his omelet. “Not things like that.”

  “My brain doesn’t always work in an orderly fashion. It could just as easily be erased by tomorrow morning.”

  “Understood. I actually came by to see when to meet you in Ivy’s room.”

  “I’m just going to play cards with her. Are you sure you want to be roped into that?”

  “I’m not being ‘roped’ into it. Anything that can give insight into what’s happening to her will be welcomed with open arms.”

  “Okay, then let’s plan on dinnertime. Unless you need to go home before that.”

  “I’ve been sleeping in her room to stay close to her, so that’s fine. My housekeeper’s bringing me fresh clothes periodically.”

  Housekeeper. Okay. She knew he was wealthy, since he’d been the one to open the hospital, but evidently he had a lot more money than she’d realized. That explained his comment about the lack of luxurious chairs in her office. Well, she’d grown up at the opposite end of the spectrum and tended to be pretty frugal in a lot of ways. So those metal chairs were just her style. She wasn’t poor anymore, per se, but she still didn’t like to waste money. So her apartment here was spartan. Just like her apartment back in the States.

  Oh, well, he could take it or leave it. She certainly wasn’t going to apologize for her taste in decor.

  And now that the decision had been made, she was kind of anxious to see his reaction to the space she’d carved out for herself. Would he turn his nose up like some kind of aristocrat?

  That didn’t seem to match the man she was learning more and more about. But you never could tell. Actions could be deceiving.

  Like her own actions yesterday in front of Ivy’s room? She’d said it had meant nothing but in her heart of hearts she knew she was deceiving not only him but herself. She was attracted to him.

  Only like the anesthesia that had been administered to Meghan before her surgery, she’d better find a way to reverse it. And fast. Or she was setting herself up for a whole lot of heartache.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “MUMMY DIED AND went to heaven.”

  The bald words floating from his daughter’s room stopped Theo in his tracks. Delayed almost an hour by an emergency meeting of the board, he could hear the sound of cards being shuffled. There was a pause before it resumed.

  “I know she did. But she would be awfully proud of the big girl you’ve grown into.”

  A hard lump formed in Theo’s throat and his fingers curled into his palms, biting deep. Ivy hadn’t mentioned her mother in over a year. It had been last year at Christmas, actually, when she’d asked him if Hope was opening up presents in heaven and if God was like Santa Claus. He’d been hard-pressed to answer those questions so he’d redirected her the best he could and had buried his own heartache deep inside his chest, hoping she couldn’t see it.

  “Daddy still gets sad sometimes.”

  “We all get sad sometimes.” Another ruffle of cards being shuffled hard. “My mommy is in heaven too.”

  Madison’s mother had died as well? Something about the matter-of-fact way she’d said that made the hair lift on the back of his neck.

  He realized he actually knew very little about the diagnostician other than her professional credits. She liked to work alone—as she herself had admitted—and she’d sometimes run into trouble with the hospital administrators back in the States because of the bullheaded way she went about her work. But she got the job done. And since she avoided being involved in treatment meetings, she circumvented some of the bureaucracy hospitals—even Hope Hospital—were known for.

  “Did your mum die at Christmas?”

  His daughter’s young voice asking such hard questions caused a prickling sensation behind his eyes. One he quickly forced back. He knew he shouldn’t be standing here eavesdropping on their conversation, but since they so rarely talked about Hope, he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt them.

  “She didn’t die at Christmas. I don’t know when she died, actually. I just know she did.”

  “That’s sad. What about your daddy? Is he in heaven too?”

  He wasn’t sure why Madison hadn’t cut off this topic before it got this far, but she’d offered up the information about her mother without his daughter asking about it.

  “I never knew my father, so I don’t know if he’s in heaven or not.”

  Hell.

  “How did Santa find you to give you your presents, then?”

  That was his cue to put a stop to the prying. He knocked on the door a little louder than necessary and went on in to find the pair of them on Ivy’s bed. There was no sign of giggling this time, though.

  Madison was seated at the foot, across from his daughter, her legs drawn up and tucked beneath her thighs, her shoes on the floor beneath the bed. It was an incredibly casual and intimate scene. He could picture Hope doing exactly the same thing.

  Only this wasn’t Hope and he would do well to remember that. Madison was a temporary fixture in his daughter’s life. He needed to remember that too, and he needed to find a way to let Ivy know she would be leaving eventually.

  But that could wait until later. When she was better.

  “Santa knows where everyone is.” By bringing the conversation back around, and forcing a lightness to his voice that he did not feel, he hoped that Madison would think he’d just come in on the tail end of their conversation. When she tilted her head to glance up at him, her eyes said she knew exactly what he’d heard. But she didn’t seem angry that he’d been standing there
. If anything, she seemed relieved.

  “Hi, Daddy!”

  “Hi, sweetheart.” He came in the rest of the way and gave his daughter a kiss on the head, frowning slightly. Did her brown hair seem a little less lustrous than it used to? Or was that his crazy thoughts leading him down dark paths again?

  The little notebook Madison seemed to like so well was half-tucked under her left thigh. Writing down ideas? Or measuring Ivy’s reflexes and drawing an arrow that was slowly angling down and gaining speed?

  He was killing himself here. Ivy seemed in fairly good spirits, even after talking about her mother being in heaven. Of course she was too young to really remember Hope, even though photos of her peppered his apartment and office as a reminder.

  The pack of cards was back in its box. Theo frowned. “Aren’t we playing cards?”

  “Sorry,” Madison said. “I wasn’t sure when you were going to be free, so we played without you, and we just finished up, actually.”

  “And I won, Daddy!”

  “You did?” He smiled a question at the diagnostician he hoped she could decipher.

  “She did very well.” Madison gave a slight nod of her head. “Naomi was in earlier to do her therapy. Tomorrow good old Doodle will be coming in.”

  The therapy dog. Ivy seemed enamored with the dog already. Just like she was enamored with Madison. The thing was, neither of them would be sticking around in her life, and Theo wasn’t sure it was a good idea for his daughter to get attached to either of them. He didn’t want another scenario where something that was a constant in her life was suddenly snatched away.

  Maybe it was time for him to set a few boundaries, much as he disliked doing so. “Can I speak to you outside for a moment?”

  Madison frowned, but she uncurled her legs and stood, tucking her notebook into her pocket. His eyes lingered on the book. His curiosity about it was getting out of hand. As were a lot of other things.

  Like noticing how her bare feet were pink from being tucked underneath her, with the little toe on her right foot having a small crook to it. And nail polish. Glittery silver that seemed so out of character compared to the short plain nails on her hands. As if realizing she’d revealed something she preferred no one see, she hurriedly shoved her feet back into her low-heeled black pumps and tweaked a strand of Ivy’s hair before preceding him out of the room and heading for the waiting area. He half expected her to go to his office, but maybe it was just as well that he address this in a public setting. Especially after being caught staring at her toes.

  She dropped into one of the plush leather chairs, a luxury, yes, but Theo figured if parents were going to have to sit for hours and wait for potentially devastating news, they deserved something other than hard plastic. The leather could still be disinfected, with nooks and crannies kept to a minimum, while still being comfortable with supportive cushioning on the back. He moved to sit in the one across from her, leaning to prop his elbows on his knees.

  Fortunately, no one else was there at the moment, since the bulk of the procedures would have been done earlier in the day. Most of the family suites had two rooms, one with a pull-out couch where parents could sleep near their children. There was also a playroom down the hallway with educational toys and movies for parents who had other children with them.

  But none of that was important right now, and Madison was sitting with tightly clasped hands, waiting for him to get on with whatever he wanted to say to her.

  “She’s doing okay?”

  “Yes. She hasn’t gotten any worse over the last couple of days, so that’s a good thing.”

  Yes, it was. At least the arrow he’d pictured taking a plunge wasn’t a reality. But that wasn’t why he’d asked to speak with her.

  He decided to start with what he’d heard of their conversation. “I hope Ivy didn’t ask a lot of personal questions in there. If so, I apologize. She doesn’t always understand the concept of boundaries.”

  “About my parents? No, it’s okay. And after she’d shared about her mom, I thought it might help her to not feel like she was the only child in the world who’d lost someone. I’m sorry if you’d rather I hadn’t said anything.”

  “No, not at all.” And he hadn’t even thought about that being her reason for sharing. His reasons for asking her to come out here now seemed petty and mean. The woman was trying to figure out what was wrong with his daughter, for God’s sake, and he wanted her to back off? Yes, Ivy was getting attached, but did he really want her growing up in a world that didn’t form connections? Would he have rather never loved her mother?

  Madison didn’t know when her mother had died, or even who her father was. How was that for not having a good foundation?

  The words came out before he was aware they’d formed. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

  “Thank you. But I didn’t grow up with her. At least, not my whole life.”

  “You were adopted.” Talk about prying questions.

  “No, I wasn’t that lucky.” She sat there for a few seconds and then continued. “My mom overdosed on Christmas Eve when I was ten. I didn’t realize it until I got up the next morning and there were no presents under the tree. We were poor, but there was normally a gift or two.”

  Damn. “You said you didn’t know when she died.”

  “That overdose wasn’t fatal, but it was the last one I experienced with her. I found her on the floor in the kitchen. There was a needle on the counter and a roll of wrapping paper where she’d evidently been trying to wrap a Christmas gift for me. It was a bracelet-making kit.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what happened to that. It didn’t come with me.”

  “To the hospital?”

  “No. I was put in foster care. I remember sitting in a police car for a long time while they tried to find a place for me—not an easy task on a holiday, when gifts had already been purchased. The female officer was really nice, though. She bought me a fast-food meal and hugged me as I cried and asked a million times about my mom.

  “My mom lived. That time. And I saw her periodically for about a year as I went from one set of foster parents to another, until it was finally a group home for me.” She smiled. “Believe it or not, I was a little difficult to deal with as a child. I bet if you ask anyone at my other hospital, they’ll tell you I still am.”

  She may have been trying to make light of a difficult situation, but it didn’t work. “I have a feeling it made you tenacious—not difficult.”

  “A nice way of saying the same thing.” Her smile faded. “Anyway, Christmas doesn’t hold the best memories for that reason. I actually have the perfect career imaginable for someone like me, since most doctors have to work at least some Christmases. I simply choose to work them all.”

  Christmas was hard for him too, but he did the opposite because of Ivy. He would have liked to work his way through that particular holiday as well, but he wanted his daughter to have good memories, even if he didn’t. “I understand that completely. My late wife died at Christmastime.”

  “Ivy said you were sad this time of year.”

  “My daughter is far too wise for her years.”

  “Children like us don’t have a choice.” She stopped suddenly. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. You’re a great dad. Ivy is very lucky.”

  Right now it didn’t feel like either of those things was true. As much as he tried to make time for his daughter, he still worked long hours. His housekeeper had stepped in to help time and time again. And as far as being lucky, looking at Ivy and her condition, it didn’t feel like she was very lucky.

  “I can’t be with her as much as I’d like to, but Judy helps fill in some of those gaps.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “Judy?”

  “Sorry. She’s our housekeeper. She also plays nanny more often than I would like.”

  “Is she the older lady who has been in
to visit? I assumed she was Ivy’s grandmother.”

  That was another way Madison and Ivy were connected. Neither of them had grandparents. Well, he assumed Madison didn’t since she’d been in foster care and had only mentioned visits from her mother and not grandparents. “No, my folks passed away when I was in medical school, and Hope’s mom has Alzheimer’s and is in a care home.”

  “I’m sorry.” She hesitated. “You mentioned having a housekeeper. I never associated that with having someone to watch Ivy while you work.”

  “It’s not an ideal situation, and I will be the first to admit it. I don’t have time to cook and clean like some fathers do.”

  “I wasn’t criticizing you. I just...” She let her voice trail off.

  She sounded almost apologetic, although he had no idea what she had to be sorry for.

  “I didn’t take it as criticism.” His elbows were still planted on his knees, but somehow he had leaned in, the long curtain of Madison’s hair close enough to touch. And hell if he didn’t want to.

  To keep from acting on that impulse, he twined his fingers together and used the resulting fist to rest his chin on.

  He’d brought her here to ask her to be careful of how attached she was letting Ivy get, and here he was thinking about toying with strands of that silky hair.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.” Even as he gave her permission, something in him tensed up.

  “It’s personal. And hard.”

  The tension turned into rigid muscles and a frozen brain. “What is it?”

  “Your wife’s name was Hope?”

  Damn, the last thing he wanted to talk to her about was his late wife. “Yes.”

  “Is there any way I can get a copy of Hope’s medical records? And yours?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “That came out badly. I want to see if there’s anything in there I can spot. Maybe a genetic component that’s been overlooked.”

  She thought he or Hope had passed something to Ivy that was making her sick? “Didn’t they do that when they were looking for muscular dystrophy?”