The Numbers That Brought Our Fates Together 319 A Naughty Little Lady.

Amelia gazed steadily at the man, Marcus noticed how the girl's eyes narrowed, her nose wrinkled, and the next second the room was filled with the loud baby crying.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!!!"

"Shhh, shhh, j-just calm down," Marcus began to wave his hands in panic before the baby, not knowing what to do. The cry of the child was becoming stronger and stronger. He grabbed her armpits and lifted her from the crib, his arms were extended like strings, he himself became tense, like a tin soldier.

The bedroom door opened and a woman rushed into the room, her hair was disheveled, her robe was b.u.t.toned in a hurry. She opened her mouth in surprise and stood stone-still.

"This is not me, I swear! It's all h-her!" Marcus began to make excuses, stammering, but his arguments sounded strange even to the man himself. How could he have nothing to do with it if he dragged himself into this house without an invitation at two in the morning?

"Ahaha, Marcus, just look at you! I didn't expect a small child to scare you like that. You are as pale as a ghost," a woman walked over to a man who was frozen with outstretched arms and took her child from him. "Well, you quite surprised me. Have you met already?"

"Y-yes, sort of," the man answered with a little embarra.s.sment.

Initially, he wanted to look at the child with one eye and evaporate, so he did not expect to be caught at such a delicate moment.

But his friend did not attach any importance to this. On the contrary, in her eyes he saw genuine joy from the meeting. This woman was always like that, accepted him as he was, and gave him a smile like the warm sun on a summer day.

"Lucia, congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I'm sorry I didn't stop by before."

"Everything is fine, your secretary told me that you were busy and you were not in the city," the woman replied and patted Marcus on the shoulder while trying to calm the child. Marcus smiled guiltily and nodded, confirming her words. He could not admit that he deliberately avoided her.

"Well, common, hold Amelia al little. I'll quickly prepare a warm diaper, she probably has a stomach ache," Lucia stuck her daughter back in the man's hand and was about to turn on the iron as the child fell silent. "Oh, she likes you! It usually takes me at least half an hour to calm her down. This baby is so moody."

"Like me?" Marcus looked in surprise at the girl in his arms and smiled, he liked the idea that she liked him. The baby, with the inherent interest of children, began to examine the man from a new angle, frowned, mumbled something incomprehensible and in an instance... slap!

Lucia covered her mouth with her hands, Marcus was dumbfounded.

"What, did she just... hit me?"

Slap!

The little girl's hand slapped the man's cheek for the second time, Amelia, with her little plumpy pouting lips, looked like she was scolding him for something.

Lucia came closer to Marcus and the next second laughed, "Ahaha, now I see what's going on. It smells a bit of feminine perfume from you. This capricious little lady does not like the smell of perfume, even I stopped using it. "

Marcus bowed his head and sniffed the shoulder next to which Amelia was sitting. A barely noticeable trail of female perfumes remained on the fabric after visiting that night club. "Why do I feel like a husband, on whose s.h.i.+rt his wife found a trace from someone else's lipstick?" Amelia was looking at him as if he were the biggest traitor on earth.

"Never mind, she even looks at me like that if she notices that it smells of Martin's cologne from me," Lucia rea.s.sured the man.

"Hmm, your daughter has quite a character, a hot little thing," grinned Marcus. Such warmth emanated from the girl, and every second it became hotter and hotter... Stop!

He pushed the child away from him and found a large wet spot on his s.h.i.+rt, and after the spot a thin stream of hot water flowed down his arm.

"Ahh, sorry, please! I just changed her recently!" Lucia grabbed Amelia, but it was too late. The girl managed to mark the territory very thoroughly.

"I'll bring a clean s.h.i.+rt now!"

"Dress up this wayward princess first, I can wait," Marcus laughed. He looked at his spoiled s.h.i.+rt, but that made him smile, although this had happened for the first time in his life.

The children never aroused much interest in him. Even when he found Lucia many years ago to avenge the fact that her father had a hand in that cruel experiment, Marcus did not feel for her what he felt when he was looking at Amelia.

The man knew this child for no more than an hour, but he was ready to forgive her anything.

Lucia quickly changed her daughter, put her in a crib, gathered her wet clothes and went for a clean s.h.i.+rt for Marcus. The man leisurely unfastened the b.u.t.tons on the cuffs and thought about something of his own until he was attracted by a warlike squeak which was coming from the crib.

He went to the bed and looked at the child, Amelia, fascinated, watched his every move. When the man unb.u.t.toned all the b.u.t.tons and took off his wet s.h.i.+rt from his shoulders, the girl's face lit up with a satisfied smile, she laughed out loud, and pulled her arms to him.

"Tsk, what a naughty little lady we have here," Marcus chuckled, "Do you want me to pick you up? Well, no, what if suddenly you decide to pee on me a second time?"

Amelia grunted something in response, and then smiled and innocently batted her eyelashes, her tiny hands still stretched out in his direction. She looked so charming that the man could not resist and took her. The baby pressed against his bare chest, closed her eyes and sweetly sniffed her nose.