CHAPTER SEVEN
ALYSSA
“Your ex? Like the one you were with before you came here to me.” Bode asks as he squeezes my hand back as tight as I’m squeezing his. He is much better at masking his anger and frustration than I am. Thank god one of us seems to have their shit in order because I am livid.
“The very same.” I nod as I turn my head to glare at the piece of cheating trash. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Christopher, but you need to go.”
“Go where?”
“Take a long walk off a short pier for all I care.” I shrug. “Anywhere but anywhere near here.”
“I was on my way to your friend’s house to talk to you.” I know he has a hard time listening to directions unless they fit his narrative, but he doesn’t stop. “The thing with Felicia—”
“The thing?” I gasp. “You mean the six months you were fucking my friend while supposedly being my boyfriend? That thing?”
“I need you to come back home.” His words are flat, but this is him begging. His lack of showing emotion is what makes him a damn good lawyer, but it also makes him a really shitty partner. God, what did I ever see in this man?
“I am home now.” I can’t help but smile as I lock eyes with Bode. Seeing his anger for me, and thinking about his daughter in the other room, all of my worries about moving from one relationship to another so quickly vanish in a flash. I don’t know what the future holds for me here, but I’m ready to figure it out.
Tomorrow I’ll have known Bode for a week, but I feel like I know more about him than I did about Christopher even after our four years together. How sad is that—rhetorically of course.
“Felicia isn’t pregnant,” Christopher says, still with no expression. I can tell he thinks his news is going to change things and that he wants me to rush back into his arms, but I won’t.
“And I’m supposed to care?”
“That means you can come back to work and we can be together again.”
“That’s enough,” Bode interrupts. “She has said that she wants you to leave a few times now, so you need to leave.”
“But—”
“NO!” he growls low enough to rattle my chest. Fuck, that is sexy.
“My car is still in your shop.” Christopher waves to the side, toward the area behind the door where the work is done.
“I’ll get it for you and you’ll be on your way.” Bode tugs my hand and pulls me toward his office. “Stay in here with Hazel until I get him gone. Then we’re heading home.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” I tiptoe up and kiss him on his whiskered cheek.
Leaning in, he whispers low in my ear, making me shiver with desire, “Tonight, you’re mine.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
BODE
“Can we have ice cream for dessert every night, daddy?” Hazel blinks up at me with the sweetest smile on her face. Sleep is closing in quick, so I grab Monkey from the floor and set him beside her head on the pillow. When I first agreed to let her get a cat, I said he wouldn’t be sleeping in her room, but my ruling didn’t last long. Damn thing meowed for hours outside her doorthat first night until I caved and let him in. I may be the oldest person in this house, but I definitely am not always the one in charge.
“Maybe not every night, princess,” I kiss her forehead, stand up, then fix her blanket all smooth again. “How about we make it special and have ice cream on Fridays?”
“Can Lyssa be here next Friday too?”
Knowing she’s standing in the doorway behind me, I hold my hand out and invite her into the conversation that now includes her. Once she’s at my side, I wrap my arm around her waist and hold her close. I press a quick kiss to her temple, “What do you say? Next Friday, ice cream with me and the princess?”
Alyssa’s happiness glows from within. I can feel the joy she radiates, knowing she’s wanted. “I’ll be here every Friday until you’re sick of me.”
“So, never?” I can’t help but joke.
“Forever!” Hazel has one last jolt of energy, but just as quick as it comes, her eyes close and she’s out like a light.
