Daddy 101 (American Romance) (11 page)

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Authors: Jo Leigh

BOOK: Daddy 101 (American Romance)
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She joined Chloe and Mimi, and watched the men at her table in silence. It was fascinating. The talk was fast and furious. The two men with Alex kept standing up and sitting down again. She couldn’t keep up with the conversations, all simultaneous, one in French. But mostly she just stared at Alex.
Seeing him like this was a revelation. Of course she’d known he was a powerful man. She’d read the articles and seen the television shows. But seeing him in action made it all too real. Imagine, this man doing her laundry. She felt embarrassed to have ever entertained the idea. He was so far above that kind of thing it was laughable. But then she remembered him with Pete. Getting down on his hands and knees to crawl into the cage with his buddy. That’s the Alex she had been attracted to. This Alex was, well, scary.
Only then did she realize he’d stopped talking. Not just that. He was staring at her, even though his young associate was talking to him. Alex didn’t pay attention, though. He stood, keeping his gaze on her, and walked toward her. She heard the young man say, “Alex!” in a very surprised and none too happy tone. But still he kept coming.
He reached her the next moment. His smile almost made her forget who he was again. Almost.
“I’m sorry about this. I didn’t know Ted was going to come in person. I would have stopped him if I had.”
She swallowed, then mustered a smile. “It’s okay. Really.”
“What about Chloe’s dinner?”
“I’ve ordered some pizza. I hope they don’t mind.”
His brow furrowed. “Who?”
“Your friends.”
“Them? You don’t have to feed them. Honest. I’m going to chase them out anyway.”
“Don’t. Not on my account. I can see they need you. It looks like it’s important.”
He shrugged. “The fate of the world doesn’t hang in the balance, Dani. It’s just business.”
“I’ll bet.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“How can I when he keeps looking at me like that.”
Alex turned to see. His assistant was staring at her, not too kindly. He seemed frustrated and anxious, and she wondered how his blood pressure was.
Alex turned back. “Ignore Ted. Worry is his natural state. If he doesn’t have a crisis once a day he goes into withdrawals.”
“You should go back, anyway. I’ve got to change, and I want to go over Chloe’s homework. It’s not a problem.”
“Sure? I can have them cleared out in five.”
“No, thanks. But I appreciate the offer. You go. We’ll talk when you’re through.”
He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips. It was enough to make her skin tingle, even though she knew his heart was only half engaged. Despite his reassurance, she could sense his impatience to get back to work. She had a premonition that a life with Alex would always include a battle between business and a personal life. One, she feared, where business would win hands down.
He left her with a smile, and she decided right then that she would go take a shower. She needed time to think. Seeing Alex in his world was as unsettling as it was confusing.
“Mimi, would you mind staying for a little bit longer?”
“Why?” Chloe asked. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. I’m just going to take a quick shower.” She saw Mimi smile and nod, then turned back to Chloe. “Will you help her serve Alex and his friends some pizza?”
“Okay. Can I have soda?”
Dani nodded. “But only if you eat some salad, too.”
Chloe made a face, but she didn’t say no. Dani quickly found her purse and gave Mimi the money for the pizzas, and then she left the room. Alex’s commanding voice was the last thing she heard before she closed the door to her bedroom.
As she undressed, she caught her image in the mirror. It stopped her. This was not the body of a supermodel. Or even a less than supermodel. While she was reasonably fit and trim, there was no mistaking that hers was a real woman’s figure. Her breasts were beginning to lose their fight with gravity. Her stomach was a bit poochy and the stretch marks from having Chloe had faded, but not disappeared. She didn’t even want to think about her butt. When she thought about the other women Alex had undoubtedly seen naked, she realized that there was no way, no how, that he was ever, ever going to see her without clothes.
How had she thought that this little fairy tale could have a happy ending? He was the prince, she was the frog, and no amount of kissing was going to transform her into his kind of princess.
At least her struggle was over. There were no more doubts, no more “what-ifs.” Alex, with his charm and his looks and his sweet kisses, was going to leave her house and her life in two days. She wished it could be tonight. Getting over him was going to take a long time. She might as well start now.
Chapter Eleven
“W
e can have you back in New York tonight. There’s a vet standing by to take care of Pete. I’ve got a driver here to take your car. Face it, Alex, you’re letting the ball drop. People are starting to wonder.”
Alex listened to Ted’s words carefully. He knew his assistant was looking out for his welfare, and that it would be wise to do exactly as Ted suggested. “Sorry, Ted. No can do.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Ted got up from the dining-room table and paced the small room. “Some charming colloquialism you picked up here in Hooterville?”
“Hey. Knock it off, Ted. It just means I’m not going. Not yet. I’ve made a commitment, and I’m going to honor it.”
“What about your commitment to Trump? To Lysander and Colfax? What about the Toronto deal?”
“I can take care of all of that from here.”
Ted shook his head. “What the hell’s happened to you? Is it the woman?”
“Her name is Dani, and yes, since you asked so nicely, it is.”
Ted stopped, then moved to the chair next to Alex’s. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but why? What’s she got that you can’t find in New York?”
“Oh, Ted. You really need some time off.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Then stop being a jackass. I’m not talking about moving in here. It’s just a few more days.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’ll come home. And if things go the way I want them to, Dani will come home with me.”
“You want to marry her? You’re kidding.”
Alex cringed at Ted’s shocked expression, and his words. But it wasn’t anything he hadn’t thought himself.
“What am I saying,” Ted said, smiling cautiously. “You’re smarter than that. You want to set her up in Manhattan? A nice penthouse for the mistress, close but not too close?”
Alex felt extremely uncomfortable discussing this with Ted, although he wasn’t sure why. They’d always been open about his women before. But with Dani it was different. “We don’t need to go into that now. Let’s finish this business up, huh? Fallon isn’t going to be happy you’ve made him wait so long in the car.”
“Fallon is probably sound asleep. Besides, I’m more concerned with you than him.” Ted looked him squarely in the eye. “Tell me you won’t do anything stupid. You’ve done nothing but preach the gospel of the right woman since the day I met you. Are you seriously going to screw that all up? A mistress is one thing, but the way you’re talking...”
Alex pushed his chair back and stood up. He didn’t want to discuss this anymore. Not with Ted. He just wanted his assistant out. “I’m not marrying anyone. I’m not screwing anything up. I just need a few days, that’s all. So get going, huh?”
Ted shook his head, but he also started to put all his folders into his briefcase. Alex folded the empty pizza boxes and picked up the used napkins. By the time he walked Ted to the front door, it was eight-fifteen. He’d blown his dinner with Dani, and he wanted to find her to apologize. She’d said it didn’t matter, but he didn’t believe her.
Ted hesitated just as Alex was swinging the door shut“ All I ask,” he said, “is that you think things through. Don’t do anything rash.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Alex closed the door firmly, but he didn’t move for a moment. He couldn’t deny that Ted had shaken him up. Things had seemed much clearer this afternoon. But still, there was no way he was going to walk away from Dani. There had to be a workable solution that didn’t throw both of their lives into chaos. Wasn’t he supposed to be a master at problem-solving?
He might not be able to fix everything right now, but he sure could do some fence-mending when it came to Dani and their dinner plans. She was with Chloe now, and he headed toward the little girl’s bedroom.
Chloe’s door was open, and he saw Dani sitting on the edge of the twin bed. One soft light was on, and it bathed Dani in a hazy glow. He could only see her profile, and Chloe, tucked in with the covers up snugly against her chest. Dani was in a sweatshirt and jeans.
Chloe saw him and waved, using just her fingers. Dani turned at the movement, and smiled. He’d expected her to be upset, but she didn’t appear to be.
“Come in,” she said. “It seems Chloe has a question for you.”
He walked into the little girl’s room, curious. “A question for me?”
Dani nodded. “Yep. She won’t tell me what it is, either.”
“Hmm,” Alex said, hoping like crazy the question was about NASDAQ prices or interest rates. Something he could answer.
“You have to sit on the bed,” Chloe said. Then she turned to Dani. “And you can’t listen.”
Dani stood up and gave him a little shrug that told him she was to be held harmless. He nodded.
“I’m going to make some cocoa. You want some?”
“Sounds good. I’ll meet you at the table.”
She smiled at him, leaned down and kissed Chloe, then left the room. He wanted to join her, to tell her how sorry he was for changing their plans. Hell, he just wanted to look at her. Okay, so he wanted to kiss her. Maybe get in a touch or two. But first, there was Chloe.
Her room was just as unexpected as the girl herself. There were no dolls on shelves, no plush animal toys, except for one rather ratty looking stuffed pony sitting next to a computer on the desk. He did see a telescope, a microscope, a picture of Einstein and that picture of the Earth he liked so much. The one taken by the shuttle astronauts. Chloe certainly wasn’t a typical eight-year-old.
“So what’s this burning question?” he asked, hoping like hell it wasn’t about physics.
“I heard you and Ted talking about my mom,” she said. “And I was wondering. What’s a mistress?”
On second thought, a physics question was just fine.
“Well?” Chloe prompted.
“Yes, well, let’s see.” He stood up. Walked away from the bed, casually, not running or anything, while he scrambled for an answer. The silence in the room was deafening. Weren’t children supposed to be seen and not heard?
“A mistress is someone who runs her household,” he said, praying he could get away with this interpretation. “It doesn’t even have to be a household. It can be a business or even a group she’s in charge of. Like, say, in England, they would call a landlady the mistress of the house. Or a school principal would be the headmistress.”
“So you want Mommy to run your household?”
He blinked. Where were earthquakes when you needed them? “I’ve thought about that, yes. But we’re just at the talking stage. I do like the idea of you and your mom coming to New York, though.”
“Yeah, I do, too,” Chloe said, lifting herself up on her elbows. “I’ve been looking up all this stuff on the internet about New York. It’s so cool. They’ve got about a hundred museums, and there’s this really huge park called Central Park where they have boats on the lake and you can skate there in the winter. And everything’s open really, really late. And you can ride in carriages around the park, with real horses.”
He sighed with relief. That had been a close one. Thank God Dani hadn’t stuck around to hear. She’d have been plenty upset. He wasn’t too thrilled himself. If he’d had a clue Chloe was anywhere near the dining room, he’d have kept his mouth shut, and Ted’s, too.
He moved back over to Chloe’s bed. “So you think you’d like it there, huh?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes. I’m not very crazy about living here. But Mom has her clinic, and all the relatives and everything. She’d probably be sad to leave Grandma and Grandpa.”
“You wouldn’t?”
She thought for a moment. “Yeah, I would. But we’d come back to visit. And they could come to visit us. Grandpa would love the lake with the boats. He really likes boats.”
“Central Park is pretty neat. In the daytime, that is.”
“So can we go?”
“That’s up to your mother.”
“Yes, it is.”
Dani’s voice made them both turn to look at the door. Alex had no idea how long she’d been standing there, or what she’d heard.
“Right now, it’s time for someone to go to sleep.”
“But, Mom. Alex knows all about New York. He can tell us everything.”
“We’ll talk about it another time, Chloe. Right now, it’s lights out.”
“Okay,” she said, letting her head fall back on her pillow. “Only one more thing.”
“What?” Dani asked, her voice full of suspicion.
Chloe turned to Alex. She crooked her finger for him to come closer. He leaned toward her.
“Closer,” Chloe said.
He was already flush against the bed, so she must mean to lean down even more. He did.
“Closer.”
He bent further. Now he was just inches from the little girl. She must want to whisper something in his ear. Something she didn’t want Dani to know. He bent a last inch.
Chloe kissed him. On the cheek. Then she lay back down, turned to her side and closed her eyes.
It took Alex a while to get what had just happened. It was so unexpected, especially from Chloe. He liked it, though. More than he had any reason to. He bent down just that inch more and kissed her on her small soft cheek. “Sweet dreams, little one.”
Then he straightened up, smiling, and after she turned off the light, he followed Dani.
She walked him down the hall until they were once again in the dining room. His computer was still open, and his files were stacked neatly next to it. “I’m sorry about tonight.”
“It’s all right. I know you’re a busy man.”
“I didn’t ask them to come here.”
“I know.”
“And I never intended to miss our dinner.”
“Please don’t apologize. It’s perfectly okay.”
There was something in her tone he didn’t like. A distance, a formality. Either she was angry, or worse, she’d changed her mind about him. That wouldn’t do at all.
He walked toward her, determined to get his Dani back. To pick up where they’d left off at the clinic this afternoon. Damn Ted for showing up like that. Sure he’d needed to get his work done, but there was nothing that couldn’t have waited, despite Ted’s hysteria. Business was simply business. Dani was something else altogether.
Dani kept herself still. Even though she wanted to back away from Alex, she didn’t. She had to be strong now, make her stand. She’d awakened tonight. Seen him clearly for the first time. Seen the different universe he occupied when he wasn’t trapped in a one-horse town like Carlson’s Gap.
The urge to run increased as he took the last few steps that brought him within touching distance. This wasn’t going to be easy. He intoxicated her when he was this close. Her pulse speeded up, her heart pounded in her chest. She even felt her nipples harden, and she was grateful she’d put on this sweatshirt. She couldn’t let him know how he affected her; it would give him too much ammunition.
“What’s wrong, Dani?” He reached out and brushed the side of her cheek, gently.
Dani’s eyes fluttered closed of their own volition. She struggled to gain her composure as she took hold of his hand and brought it down. “Nothing,” she said, even though she knew he’d never accept the single statement.
“Please don’t lock me out,” he said. “Not now. Not when we’re just getting started.”
“There’s nowhere to go, Alex. Nowhere but down.”
His brows came together and the hurt in his face made her swallow hard. “What happened? Was it Ted? Did he say something to you?”
She shook her head. “No, he was perfectly nice. So was your attorney. But it was pretty clear that neither one of them understood why you haven’t gone back.” She took a step away from him. There was no choice. If she stayed too close she would buckle. “I think you should have gone back, too.”
“Why? Just tell me.”
“Because you’re you. And I’m me.”
“Now what in hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t get angry. I’m just trying to be honest here.”
She saw him inhale deeply, then let the air out slowly. Why was the urge to comfort him so strong? It was utter foolishness to want to make him feel better just as she was trying to sever their tenuous bonds. It would have been much easier if she didn’t like him so much. But that didn’t matter. Not for what he had in mind.
“Honest? Are you going to tell me you don’t feel anything toward me? Because I won’t believe that. Not for a minute.”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t tell you that. If I didn’t feel anything, maybe I’d really think about joining you in New York. The problem here is that I do. I like you, Alex. And I’m not ashamed to admit I’m attracted to you. But that’s neither here nor there. The truth I’m talking about is that there’s no hope for a future for us. Not the kind of future I want for myself. Or for Chloe.”
“If it’s that mistress business—”

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