Possessive Baby Daddy

Klara glares at her dad. “You’ll drink yourself to death if you take that cash.”

He snorts. “Oh, maybe. I’m not so sure about that, though. It hasn’t happened yet.”

She doesn’t argue.

“But here’s the thing. I want that money, I won’t lie.” He looks at me. “But I still love my daughter. I want her to be happy. I want her to have everything she wants, including this company. If you buy it, can you guarantee she’ll run the place?”

“No,” she says. “Absolutely not. I won’t work for him.”

“You won’t be working for me,” I say. “I mean, I’ll own the company, but—”

“No,” she says again, rage in her eyes. “Absolutely not.”

Aldo sighs and sips his drink. “That’s a problem.”

“Dad. This is mine. You know it. Don’t do this.”

“Okay, I hear you. I also hear his offer and all those zeroes.” He gestures with his drink and some spills onto the table. “I just had an amazing idea.”

Klara looks worried and I have the good sense to feel the same. I suspect this man has a lot of ideas, and very few of them are good.

“You two want control of a reality television production company, right?” he asks. “Well, what does reality television do better than anyone else?”

“Pump out trashy, entertaining content,” I say.

He gives me an approving nod. “Right. But more specifically.”

“Dad,” Klara says, her voice warning.

He grins. “Reality TV does contests. It does adventures. So here’s what I’m thinking. You two will compete, and I’ll choose the winner.”

“No,” we both say at the same time. She looks at me with murder in her eyes and I smile back.

“Yes,” Aldo says. “Or I’ll just keep running the company. You two think I want to retire?” He barks a laugh. “I planned on working here until the day that I die.”

Klara looks horrified and I give her a sad smile. That’s exactly what I thought, and exactly why I want to buy this place out.

A guy like Aldo won’t retire. Not when there’s booze and fun meetings. He can keep working until he’s too old and decrepit to leave his house, or until his heart gives out. Probably the latter, but who knows.

I want to tell her my reasoning. If I buy this company, she can run it tomorrow. She can have everything she wants and more. I’ll build a daycare just for her, I’ll make sure she can have all the time off she wants. I’ll never replace her.

But she’s too angry, and her father’s right there. I can’t say all this right now. I don’t think she’ll believe me, even if I did.

So I sit back and I say nothing.

“What do you say?” he asks. “Compete for it. That’s fair, right? I’ll come up with some contests and you two will duke it out. Winner gets the company.”

“Why, Dad?” she asks, and I hate the hurt in her voice.

“Because,” he says, and shrugs. “What else are we going to do?”

She stands up and shakes her head. “This is insane. You’re insane, Dad. And you’re a bastard.” She glares at me before storming out of the room.

“Give her time,” Aldo says, “she’ll come around.”

I look at him and shake my head. “Just sell to me. She’ll be happy in the end.”

“I don’t think so,” he says, leaning forward. “Thing is, I know about you and your family. I know how much you’re worth. I think you could buy this place for double what you offered. I won’t try and milk more money from you, but I am going to get some fucking entertainment before you both roll me off into retirement.”

I meet his gaze and slowly smile. “Okay then.” I push my chair back and stand. “I’ll compete. And when I win, you retire. No hanging around the offices. No consulting. You’re gone.”

“Fine by me.” He shrugs. “Wouldn’t want to hang around anyway.”

“Good.”

I turn and leave the conference room. I hesitate, looking around. I want to find Klara and try to explain, but I don’t want to make a scene, and I’m afraid she can’t listen right now.

I’ll talk to her later.

Right now, I should get out of here before Aldo decides our first little contest starts today.7Klara“How the fuck could you, Dad?” I stare at him and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so angry in my life. He smiles back at me and tilts his head like he doesn’t understand my fury.

“I don’t get why you’re so mad. You were born for this, honey. All you gotta do is win.”

“All I gotta do is… Are you listening to yourself?”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

“You’re entrusting the future of your company, the empire you built from the ground up, to some fucking game show. Do you have any idea how insane that is?”

“First of all, it’s not a game show. Nobody’s filming. And second, I know that.” He leans back in his chair and kicks his feet up on the desk. He’s smoking a cigar at eight in the morning and looks happier than I’ve seen him in years. “I’ve learned something in my life, honey. Do you want to know it?”