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“You had a ring, huh?” he asked now that things had calmed down.
I scrubbed my hand over my cheek and nodded.
“I was planning on finding a moment over the holiday to discuss it with you. As it turns out, I shouldn’t have worried about waiting for your approval and should have proposed before coming out.”
He chuffed.
“Yeah, well, you’re making an honest woman out of her, and you’ve got a successful career, isn’t that right?”
I nodded.
“She’ll never want for anything,” I swore. “I will protect her and treasure her, heart, mind, and soul. As a father, I hope that brings you some peace of mind. I know it would comfort me.”
“It does,” he said, but lifted weary eyes to me. “But your presence in my daughter’s life makes me wonder about her future. Are you going to give us grandbabies?”
I chuffed right back at him.
“Actually, you’d get two automatically.”
“You know what I mean. No offense to you all, but I want a grandbaby my daughter carried.”
“That’s up to your daughter,” I said finally. “If that’s what she wants, then I’m with her, one hundred percent.”
“And why do you think that she’d want a man like you, anyway? I mean, if it were me, I wouldn’t give a young thing like her a second glance. Why did you?”
That was a difficult question.
I blew out a breath and shook my head.
“Honestly? I don’t know either.”
He gave me that look that said he thought I was full of shit.
Lifting a hand, I shook my head again and met his eyes.
“I get it. Believe me, I get it. I’ve never dated a woman that young except when I was that age myself. I married my wife relatively young and we were together for close to fifteen years. The thing is, I’m not attracted to Mia’s looks.”
That bullshit alarm went off on his face again, so I hurried on.
“She’s a beautiful girl, don’t get me wrong. But her beauty doesn’t mean that much to me. Ask my ex-wife. She’s still a sex bomb.”
“Then why did you get divorced if you’re still attracted to her?” he asked, eyes narrowing on me.
“Because looks don’t mean shit to me. It’s about what’s here, and here,” I told him, pointing to my temple, then to my heart. “And where my ex lacked, Mia has an abundance. She’s the most intelligent, kind, naïve, creative woman I’ve ever met. Those are the things that matter to me.”
Patrick didn’t seem offended by my profanity, which I appreciated, because I struggled to speak from my heart without adding the idiotic words. Maybe it was the New Yorker in me that did it. Or maybe it was my time spent in England.
Sinking to the couch across from the man, I waited for him to say something.
“So this is all because she worked for you,” he mumbled.
I shrugged.
“I never would have been able to get to know her if it weren’t for the time we spent talking in my office while we graded papers. And I tell you, I fought it, Patrick. I know how fucked up this is. God, I get it. If it were my daughter, I’d want to pull off the guy’s dick and stuff it up his asshole.”
I winced at the phrasing and hoped he wouldn’t be offended by my words.
In juxtaposition, he smirked at me.
