It was only a few minutes later before I saw Chelsea take a seat at her desk in the center of the office floor. Within a few seconds, she’d already looked toward my office about five times.
I watched her with templed fingers. I hadn’t handled anything on my agenda for the day, and as another half hour ticked by, I didn’t so much as open my email.
I was a father. At least that was her side of the story.
To tell the truth, hearing what she said had brought out the worst in me. It made me wonder if this was her angle the whole time. Get her foot in the door at Rose Athletic. Then claim her kid was mine to extort me.
It was exactly the sort of thing I’d been avoiding relationships for, and the moment I slipped up, here it was.
But she hadn’t come to me with any demands. If anything, she looked nervous. Scared, even. Chelsea Cross didn’t get scared, as far as I’d seen. She only seemed to exist somewhere on a scale of stubbornness.
I groaned, then left my office to head for her desk.
Daria stopped me before I got there. “Sir,” she said. As usual, Daria looked like she was either about to take a nap or she’d just woken from one. “There’s… Something interesting waiting for you in the break room.”
I frowned. “What is it?”
Daria gave a disinterested shrug. “Wouldn’t be very interesting if I told you. Would it?”
I looked to Chelsea, who had been watching me. She jerked her head back to her computer.
I moved past Daria to the break room. I tried the door, but it was locked. “What’s going on?” I demanded. A couple heads popped up over partitions at the sound of my voice.
There was a click of the lock being released. I turned the handle and pushed the door open. Inside, I was greeted by Tia Klein. She was wearing a tight-fitting dress that was shockingly short. She met my eyes, then gave a sly smile.
“You’ve been playing hard to get with me, Damon. I figured I’d play hard, too.” She reached for the hem of her dress and I could tell she was about to rip it off. I moved forward, putting my hand on hers. “Don’t—”
Tia looked unbothered. She fluttered her eyelashes, then kissed me without warning.
I pulled back just in time to see Chelsea standing in the doorway.
“Oh,” Chelsea said quietly.
30
Chelsea
Stupid.
I rushed down the stairs of the building thinking how stupid I’d been.
I heard the door at the top of the stairwell swing open and bang against the wall. “Chelsea!” A deep voice called. “Wait.”
I thought about all the times I’d watched in agony as some dumb heroine in a movie ran off instead of standing still for ten seconds to listen. As much as I wanted to be exactly that sort of dumb, I waited with my hand on the knob of the door. Damon came down a few seconds later.
He turned me gently to face him, but I pushed off his hands.
“Hey,” he said softly. “She surprised me in there. I had no idea she was going to try to kiss me. I was only standing that close to get her to stop from pulling her dress over her head.”
“Is that the truth?”
“Unfortunately.”
I frowned. “Why is it unfortunate?”
“Because my life would be a hell of a lot simpler if I wanted to fuck a woman like Tia Klein. Instead, my dumbass only seems to want you.”
“Did you just try to romance me while leading with the fact that it’d be better if you wanted to sleep with another woman?”
Damon lifted my chin with his knuckle. “Words were never my strong suit.”
“What is your specialty, then?”
He took a half step closer. A faint grin curved his lips on one side. “Making you come seems to be a strength of mine.”
The man had a point. “How are you with forgiveness?” I asked.
Damon was stroking my hair, and it felt like heaven. “Normally? I’m shit. But once again, you’re a pain in my ass. I can’t seem to stay mad. Even if you should’ve told me I got you pregnant. Even if you should’ve let me help you with money. Even if you made me wait five years to meet my daughter.”
“If it makes you feel any better, she was in my stomach for nine months of that. So…”
“Smartass.”
I smiled. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Apologize for bailing on you in Savannah. And maybe if you give me a chance, I could give you another demonstration of my strong suit.”
“Wait, which one? The one where you make me come, or the one where you are a grumpy asshole?”
“It’ll be a surprise.”
31
Damon
Dick swung by the office to take us to Chelsea’s apartment. Grant would be there with Luna, and it’d be my first time meeting her as my daughter—not just the kid of the woman I was infatuated with.
Chelsea and I sat in the back seat.
She was watching me extra closely, I noticed. She was also constantly fidgeting with her hands in her lap.
I’d learned a lot about Chelsea lately, and one of those things was how well she hid her real emotions. She was nervous as hell, and she couldn’t hide that from me.
She was likely worried I’d disappoint Luna somehow. I could only imagine how nervous she was to see how I’d be around her daughter—our daughter. She’d been through hell to protect Luna from me all this time, and now she was putting mountains of trust in me not to fuck it up.
Dick whistled. “The sexual tension back there is through the roof. Smells like prom night at a middle school. Hormones so thick my nose hairs are gonna get singed off.”
Chelsea cleared her throat and shifted.
“Richard, I pay you to drive, not for commentary.”
“Richard, Richard, Richard,” Dick groaned. “What is it, anyway, boss? You afraid to let a little dick touch those lips?”
Chelsea choked on something.
I sighed. “He thinks
