Page 4 of The Daddy’s Girl

But I digress.

Instead of having an office upstairs like the rest of the team, I have a large studio at the end of the hall. It’s not the most inspiring room in the world. With white plaster walls and ancient hardwood floors, I find it to be a little drab. However, it has the best view in the building, so I stare out of it a lot, watching the sunset and trying to gain inspiration from the City of Lights itself.

City.

Spring.

Floral.

Jardin du Luxembourg…

“What about palm trees?” I whisper to myself as I drop the pastel-pink pencil and grab a more muted green instead. “Is that too summery?”

My knee bounces as I bite my lip and deliberate over the new color palette scribbled onto the white paper. Practically leaping over the table, I grab the color swatches of fabric on their metal ring and play with some new ideas.

Before long, I’m second-guessing my vision and going right back to the boring but safe floral designs. It feels so cheap and soulless, but floral designs work. Floral designs sell.

I hate floral.

Practically lying across my desk and sketching on a pad of paper like a kid, I hear a pair of heavy footsteps coming down the hall. At first, I don’t think anything of it. It’s probably my brother or Jack.

But then that husky French accent greets someone in a distant office and I tense.

Matis Moreau only has two sides—charming and more charming.

One is reserved for his day-to-day encounters with friends, his dentist, and nuns, probably. He smiles, laughs, flirts, compliments.

The other is when I see him in the club late at night, wooing some lucky patron, man or woman, to a room in the back.

And sometimes not in a room at all. I’ve walked into the club before to find him with his arms stretched across the back of a booth and a pair of eager lips wrapped around his dick.

On more than one occasion.

And he’s my godfather.

Again…I digress.

The point is that Matis is irresistible. And he’s aware of it.

I’ve known him my whole life, but he spent much of it out of my presence. When he wasn’t working at the club, he was touring Europe, spending entire years in Monaco and Ibiza. He wanted nothing to do with his best friend’s young, bratty kids.

But then, at some point, I started to see Matis differently. He was no longer some elusive and flighty family friend. When compared to every bumbling, self-centered, immature guy I dated, Matis was worldly and sophisticated and funny and kind.

And so handsome it hurts to look at him.

For seven years now, I’ve been—and I don’t use this word lightly—obsessed. I would never act on this crush or expect him to ever see me as more than the hyperactive, disorganized, grown-up version of the girl he once knew.

But I’m twenty-five, for God’s sake. If I’m still daydreaming about my godfather at thirty, someone better drag me to a convent. Or an orgy to get it out of my system.

Whichever works faster.

“Bonjour, Amelia.”

I scramble down from the table, fabric swatches and colored pencils falling to the floor. My heart pitter-patters in my chest, mostly from his presence, his voice, and the natural way he says bonjour with a smile, only emphasizing the second half of the word.

So goddamn charming.

“Oh, hey,” I say awkwardly as I try to tuck my blond hair behind my ear, but it’s too short and falls right back out of place. I got this chin-length bob and bangs in an attempt to keep my hair out of my eyes, but most days I just look like a wild mess. “Bonjour, I mean.”