The Only Way is Up

Part Sixty One

A/N The end of the Chertovs, but am about to upload the first chapter in a new story. Hope you enjoy that too peeps, :)

Chapter Sixty One

Epilogue/The End

"You are really going to see your father NOW?" Max looked at his wife as though she had lost every ounce of common sense.

Nicole rolled her eyes, "who knew you'd become such a control freak Mr Chertov?"

It was his turn to roll his eyes, "she who usually calls me Master now changes her approach."

That made her chuckle, and any sense of this pseudo anger in him disappeared as Bella ran into the room and threw herself onto him, clinging furiously.

Laughing, he reached under her arms and hoisted his daughter up into his arms properly; at almost three she was a wild child, appropriately named after his mother, who had well and truly stolen his heart. She'd arrived a few weeks early, seemingly impatient to arrive and meet them both and had been nothing but life changing ever since. With her mother's lighter hair, but his dark eyes, she was the perfect combination of the two of them.

"Hey little lady, are you girls ganging up on me?"

She merely giggled wrapping her arms around his neck, by the time he'd hugged her back in the way she deserved, Nicole was at the front door. Scooting Bella around him so that she clung to his back, he marched in her direction.

"Was this some sort of distraction plan?"

She stared at him, "Maxim please. You never say one cross word to her; I am always bad cop, so of course she constantly drapes herself all over you."

He rolled his eyes at her, "so unfair. Will you please reconsider this? You are about to have a baby...like ANY second, you've been having contractions for two days."

"Braxton Hicks!" She cut in, "not real ones. Stop being so dramatic. You know that things are precarious with my father."

It was true; her father hadn't coped well with his mother leaving and his lawyers extracting thousands from his businesses. His slack attitude had been his downfall and now he was paying for that. Her older brother David was working hard to secure a future for his family, but her father and Simon, whose wives had both left them, were in a mess.

Nicole had had long chats to Maxim about them, his investments with Mike, and more recently the oil drilling off Siberia had started to pay off, handsomely, and she wanted to find something to give her family members self worth again, though ironically neither would accept what they saw as a charity donation.

She had a few weeks until her baby was due, and Nicole wanted to get this sorted before then. She knew that her father and brother didn't really deserve it, they hadn't been supportive to her in any way, but now, she was a mother, and with Maxim having no family, she appreciated that they were important to her. And Bella. Regardless of what had happened.

Maxim wasn't as supportive; hence his resistance, but she and David had worked hard to set up something that was workable for her father and brother. Today they were convincing the two to run an investment scheme on behalf of Nicole, her pregnancy and very imminently due birth meant that she couldn't stay involved with a project her and David had built up. A complex of businesses just outside Brighton, perfect for the two men, if only they weren't so stubborn.

In fact, it hadn't been anything that interested Nicole, but she knew that her brothers, and ultimately her father would love it, and that if they just got their interest, their joie de vivre back, then they could use it to move on to other things. Rebuild. A developing entertainment complex on the south coast that had the scope to be SO much. David was about to relocate to the area, but he did need the others to join him for success.