Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death Episode 4

📖 The Story Continues

Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 04

Scarlett’s palm itched with the desire to slap Connor Reed, but words had been waiting four years and reached him first. She called him an arrogant coward who took what he wanted and disappeared before sunrise. Every failed search, every sleepless night with a crying infant, and every insult Summer had suffered sharpened her accusation. Connor stood before her in stunned silence, looking less like a heartless deserter than a man struck by an impossible truth.

Summer tugged on his hand before he could answer. Other children said she did not have a daddy, she explained, and the confession stripped the heat from Scarlett’s anger. The little girl asked if Connor intended to leave her now that she had finally found him. Hope and fear shared equal space in her eyes.

Connor lowered himself until they were nearly face-to-face. He could not offer a promise while doubt still crowded his mind, yet the pain in Summer’s voice was already cutting through him. He looked at Scarlett and asked the question that mattered. Was the child truly his?

Scarlett had anticipated denial. She opened her bag and placed a DNA report in his hands, informing him that the test was official, legal, and conclusive. Connor scanned the document until the probability burned into his vision: 99.9998 percent. The number left almost no space for doubt, but it opened an abyss beneath the life he believed he knew.

Fay peered over his shoulder and asked again whether Summer was really his child. Connor barely heard her. He studied Summer’s face, suddenly recognizing echoes of himself in expressions he had dismissed moments earlier. Four years of her existence had passed without his knowledge.

Shock shifted into defensive anger. Connor demanded to know why Scarlett had not found him sooner, as though the question might lessen his guilt. She stared at him in disbelief. If the answer had not been so painful, she might have laughed.

“Find you?” she repeated, her voice sharpening. She asked whether he imagined she could search for “mysterious deadbeat baby daddy” online and receive a convenient location. Connor had left her with almost nothing, and every trail disappeared as quickly as it began. She had spent years chasing a man who never stayed anywhere longer than a day.

The accusation rearranged Connor’s memories. He had changed routes, vehicles, phones, and identities whenever reports suggested someone was following him. More than once, he had vanished minutes before Scarlett’s people arrived, believing terrorists had traced his location. The ruthless enemy he had evaded so carefully might have been the mother of his child.

He muttered a curse as the absurdity settled over him. All that time, he had been hiding from Scarlett while she tried to give Summer a father. His caution had protected him from threats that no longer existed and punished two people who had never meant him harm. For a man who prided himself on superior intelligence, the mistake was devastating.

Connor attempted to explain that he never thought their one night together would lead to this. Scarlett’s eyebrows rose. She corrected him with merciless precision: it had not been one time, but three, each encounter following the last before exhaustion overtook them. The distinction left Connor with no graceful reply.

The blunt reminder drew an astonished sound from Fay. Connor remembered every heated moment and had the decency to look unsettled. Scarlett did not blush or retreat. He had enjoyed the night, and she had borne every consequence alone.

Summer watched the adults without understanding their meaning, only sensing the tension between her parents. She pressed closer to Connor, as if physical contact could stop him from disappearing. The trusting gesture made his throat tighten. He had never believed he could have something so innocent connected to him.

Connor’s entire life had been built around the certainty that family was impossible. His empire attracted predators, his history was written in violence, and his enemies never forgot a weakness. A daughter would be more than a weakness; she would be the center of his world. Even thinking it made him afraid.

Scarlett saw hesitation and mistook its source. She believed he was calculating how quickly he could escape his obligations, unaware that he was already imagining guards, safe houses, and every weapon required to protect Summer. Connor’s silence felt unbearable after four years of searching. She had not come for child support or an apology; she had come to force a permanent choice.

She told him that if he possessed any honor, he would stop running and act like a man. Summer needed a father who could not vanish when the road called. Scarlett needed legal certainty that he could not enter their daughter’s life only to abandon her again. There was one immediate way to secure both.

“You will marry me right now,” Scarlett said. No softness diluted the demand, and no romantic illusion accompanied it. She spoke like a chief executive delivering final terms to an unreliable partner. Even Summer went quiet at the force of it.

Connor stared at her, certain he had misunderstood. Minutes ago, he had been beneath a truck worrying about rent in front of Fay. Now a woman from his past had appeared with a daughter, a DNA report, and an order to become her husband. For once, the leader of Dominion Tech had no contingency plan.

Fay’s expression darkened as she realized Connor might leave with them. Summer, however, began to smile, already seeing the family she had wanted. Scarlett remained rigid, hiding how much rested on his answer. If Connor rejected them, she would survive it, but she could not bear to watch Summer’s hope break.

Connor looked down at the report again. The evidence said he was a father; Summer’s hand said it more powerfully. Scarlett’s furious presence reminded him of everything he had missed and everything he might still lose. Marriage should have been impossible, but the word “no” refused to come.

Scarlett took one last step toward him, daring him to run while his truck sat useless behind them. Connor’s legendary nerve deserted him under the combined gaze of mother and daughter. “I’m sorry,” he said slowly. “What?”