I snort and he flashes me a scowl before turning back to Tate.
“A great coffee?” She frowns.
The burning urge to storm back to my office and vent about Fabienne to Legal is momentarily paused as I watch the loser who thinks asking out a woman surrounded by coffee all day—with the added brilliance of telling herheknows a place that makes a great one, while holding the very drinkshejust made him—is too epic a fuck-up not to witness.
This is exactly the sort of shit my brother would have eaten up hearing about when he was alive.
“What time do you finish?” the guy continues, unaware he’s on a sinking ship.
“She’s here until lunch, but she’s on a thirty-minute break starting now,” the other barista pipes up from where she’s justwalked out from a back room. She gives Tate an encouraging smile like she’s doing her a favor.
“Great,” Douchebag says. “Shall we leave?”
“He wants to take me to a place he knows that makes great coffee around the corner,” Tate tells her colleague.
“Great coffee?” The other woman recoils, her face screwing up as she shoots the guy a look that could freeze Hell. I glance down at Molly who’s watching the whole exchange.
“I like it here, Daddy,” she says, tugging on my hand and gazing at me with innocent eyes.
“I know you do, Sweetheart.”
I glow with smug pride as I throw the guy a look that says, ‘my almost three-year-old is smarter than you, jackass’.
“I meant bagels. The place makes great bagels.” The guy backtracks furiously.
Tate looks at him the way I imagine someone looking at an injured dog would. Pity laced with a desperate need to say or do something to make them feel better before she speaks.
“Well, I?—”
“She’s spending her break with my daughter,” I say. “They’ve got coloring to do.”
“Yay!” Molly squeals, vibrating with excitement in her furry lion onesie next to me.
“Coloring?” This time, it’s the douchebag snorting.
His smirk dies as I level him with a stare.
“That’s right, I forgot. Have her back in thirty,” the other barista chimes in with a giant grin.
Tate stumbles forward like she’s been shoved, then shoots a warning look at her friend.
“We go now?” Molly questions.
Tate’s mouth opens but nothing comes out as my daughter slips her hand inside hers and beams.
“Yes, we can go now, Sweetheart,” I tell her as my gaze meets shocked, light blue eyes.
6
TATE
I fumblewith the tie at the back of my apron as little fingers grip happily onto my other hand. I sneak a sideways glance at the little girl’s father who’s holding her other hand as he leads us along the sidewalk toward the building next door.
Sullivan Beaufort.
His dark hair is swept back from his penetrating cool blue eyes, and his face is set firm. I don’t know whether to be afraid or not. He looks like he crushes business opponents beneath his Italian leather shoes before breakfast without even breaking a sweat. Judging by the part of his phone call I overheard and the pulsing vein in his tense neck, I’d say he has his sights on his next target.
The little girl grins at me and I smile back.
