But as soon as I got there, a glorified kiddy cake in one hand, she was there looking like everything I'd spent my entire life dreaming about, and wishing I had something better than a cheap birthday cake soaked in sugar and layered up with buttercream. I should have gotten her something classy, because she was classy, with her auburn hair in wavy curls, looking like some old Hollywood movie star back from when the world was glamourous. Curves in all the right places.
She made the dress she was wearing look a million bucks, even though I knew it had come straight from China, via Giacomo Rosetti's back yard.
I'm more than a friend of the family. Her father and I practically grew up together, and I was there for him with as many beers as he needed and the offer to whack his ex when she upped and left him holding the baby. I made sure he had no issues setting up shop, threw contracts his way whenever I could lean on people to give him business. It had always been about me and him, right up until courtesy had me swinging by, and there she was, eighteen and perfect, looking like everything I had been missing out on my whole life.
Lightning struck, and since that fateful day I've been obsessed.
Now my boss thinks I'm having some kind of carb-related midlife crisis because I keep showing up with bakery boxes, but it would take more than a dozen-a-day donut habit to make a dent in the body I've spent near-on two decades honing.
At thirty-eight, now I know that all the hours at the gym, all the time down in the boxing ring, are only for one purpose - to make sure I'm everything that Libby Brockman deserves.
The perfect set of muscles is worth nothing without her gripping onto my tricep or running her hands over my pecs and washboard abs. I want every sweet inch of her body, and I want her to have mine. And I'm going to make that happen.
But for now, going a couple rounds in the ring serves another purpose. I've never been so frustrated in my life, being so close to what I want but unable to get it. Around her, I'm permanently hard like some kind of teenager whose body keeps acting up.
Those kids are lucky they got away with their masculinity intact insulting her the way they did. I would have happily castrated the pair of them for less than that. But I didn't get the chance, and I didn't get the chance to make Libby see that was just the start of what I would do for her. The start of what she deserves.
I let out a grunt, swinging through to smack my bandaged fists against the hanging punch bag and my sparring partner is pushed back with the force of it as the bag fails to dissipate the full hit.
I strike the plasticated fabric again as hard as I can, knowing that without gloves my abraded knuckles feel more. Too hard and I could break my hand, but I don't care. The bruises are a good kind of pain, it sure is a whole lot better than the ache in my balls from always having to hold myself back. One thing is certain, no way can I keep denying the way I feel about Libby any more.
Kyle's going to have to deal with it. I'll make him see just how right for her I am. How right for her I'm going to be. Any father has to appreciate a man who wants to give his daughter everything, right?
I know her heart isn't in the bakery the way her father's is. So, I'll take her away from that, help her set up doing whatever she truly wants in life. I have the contacts and the income to make that happen, to give her whatever life she wants. Just as long as it's by my side.
CHAPTER FOUR
Libby
The buzz of the intercom makes me groan on instinct even before I glance towards it from the couch. It's the one day of the week when I don't have to be up at the crack of dawn to help Dad with the bread and in my usual style, I'm taking full advantage to slob about in my PJ’s until I have a real reason to get up properly.
The last thing I want to deal with is a visitor. Maybe if I ignore them, whoever it is will go away.
I hold my breath, as though being quiet when they can't even hear me up here from the street will make the slightest bit of difference, but the buzzer sounds again before I'm even gasping for the next lungful of air.
Maybe another kind of person would ignore it, and I'm sorely tempted, but I've always been too responsible for my own good. It could be one of the neighbors in trouble or something, though I have no idea why they wouldn't just go into the bakery and get a hold of Dad directly.
With a sigh, I pick up the intercom phone.
"Hello?" I say.
"Libby, it's Tony." My heart catches in my throat, on the way to going into overdrive. What's he doing here?
"Oh, hi Tony. Dad should be downstairs in the shop," I say. It's as much as I can do to play it cool.
"Yeah." There's a long pause and I realize I'm holding my breath again as I twirl the coiled cord around my fingers, waiting to see what he's going to say. "Actually I wanted to see you. Can I come up?"
My eyes
