I blink fast and put a hand to my chest, as if wounded that he would think so little of me. “No, sir. I would never do something so unprofessional.”
Forest lets loose a harsh exhale, his eyes drifting to my chest, his jaw slack.
I was right. This is fun.
“Get back to work, Ms. Fischer,” Forest says quietly.
“Yes, sir.” I don’t even have to look back to know he’s watching me as I cross the office. I’m aware of how good I look, and I’m not afraid to admit it.
By the end of the workday, the office is nauseatingly scented by artificial cinnamon and brown sugar. I’m almost out the door, needing fresh air, when Forest stands and clears his throat. He rolls the cuffs of his sleeves up his surprisingly corded forearms.
“For the record, I am a damn good father,” he says, his brows creasing briefly. “Or at least, I try to be, and I raised Josephine on my own, since her mother gave up her rights.”
My stomach drops when I think of the way Josephine ducked her head when I asked if her mommy was at the grocery store. She grew up without hers, and my heart aches for the sweet girl. It pains me to imagine growing up without my mom.
“Josephine’s little brothers—they aren’t mine. They’re my ex’s. I took the boys in when she and her husband died.”
“Oh…That’s…kind of you.”A wildly inadequate understatement. “How did they pass?”
“Helicopter crash,” he says quietly. “They were celebrating their anniversary with an aerial tour of the Ozarks.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I tell him genuinely. Those poor kids.
Forest clicks his tongue and shoves his large hands in his pockets. “Do you have kids?”
Shaking off the heavy atmosphere, I snort. “Definitely not, and I don’t plan to for at least another five to ten years.”
“That’s what I thought,” he says with his slow approach. “So, until you become a single parent and have to take custody of two more kids you didn’t even know existed last month, all in the middle of uprooting your whole life to move to a new city where you don’t know a single person, you can take your holier-than-thou attitude about my parenting and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”
He said it softly enough, but it knocks the air out of me all the same—rightly so, after the way I tore into him last night. Shayla and James were both single parents when they met. I saw how hard it was on them. I have a million questions for Forest after that bombshell revelation, but Dad knocks once on the door, pushing it open wider. Forest and I snap our heads to the side, jumping back as if Dad caught us tearing each other’s clothes off.
Dad shrugs his jacket on over his waistcoat. “How was your first day? I trust everything went smoothly, yes?” he asks Forest, the skin around his eyes tightening.
I face Forest, holding my breath. Yes, I might go a little too far sometimes with my teasing, but I am serious about my job, and I don’t want to give Dad any reason to be disappointed in me or my performance. I wince at the thought of him having run into Megan and what she might have told him. Did Forest really lodge a complaint against me?
“It was great,” Forest lies, avoiding looking at me. “Ms. Fischer was just telling me how happy she would be to babysit the kids for a few hours this Friday while I get some more things unpacked. A little ‘welcome to the firm’ gift.”
Dad misses Forest’s smirk because he’s too busy clocking my scowl instead. “She did?”
“Mmhmm. Really thoughtful gesture,” Forest says, lifting his jacket from the coat hanger, pressing his lips together to suppress his glee when Dad returns his attention. “You have a real angel on your hands, sir.”
My mouth falls open.
“An angel, huh? Strange,” Dad says, narrowing his eyes further.
It’s only because I still feel a wee bit sorry for the way I’ve repeatedly insulted Forest that I don’t contradict him. Oh, but I do give him the kind of look that says he’s going to pay for that. I just have to figure out how.
At home, having moved back in with my parents after graduation, I stop just short of slamming my bedroom door, irritation building. I kick off my heels and flop on my recently upgraded queen-sized bed. No more sharing a room with my sisters, each of us sleeping on the tiniest of single beds after Brady was born. With the house only having three bedrooms, he got a room to himself since none of us wanted to share with a newborn, waking up to him screaming his head off at all hours. Been there, done that, and we didn’t want to do it again after Shayla had her daughter, Lainey, when she was seventeen.
I pull my phone from my purse to call my best friend. She owes me a good, long ranting session after all the times I listened to her obsess about one boy—well, a man—for so many years.
“What’s up?” Bailey asks when she answers the phone.
“My new boss is a giant jackass who, by the way, just moved in across the street, which is just my rotten luck,” I gripe.
“Oh no. What did he do?”
“He told Dad that I offered to babysit for him!”
