Page 91 of Pink

NINETEEN

“THIS IS … more public than I expected it to be for this,” Gigi admitted at Lev’s left.

“Oh?”

“I keep expecting someone to pop out with a fucking camera.”

Lev laughed and muffled it by pressing a quick kiss to the top of Gigi’s head. “Nobody is popping out of anywhere with anything, I promise. Not today.”

He grinned and stroked her lower back where his hand had been resting from the moment she stepped out of the black SUV and greeted him at his daughter’s daycare. The one place that, so far, had yet to be picked up by the paps. Or maybe they did know about it, but bylaws kept them at a distance where their presence was made pointless.

Either way, it worked. He promised Gigi she could meet his daughter, and he made sure that happened—or would, soon. Today.

She had been right that day in her hotel suite a week earlier when she called him out on everything he wasn’t saying. They were doing something together even if they hadn’t put labels on it.

It didn’t matter.

Gigi could become someone important in his life. They were already working on it, after all. His daughter was the most important thing in his life. It felt right to, at the very least, allow those two things to meet in a way that was safe and appropriate.

Plus, Lev called in reinforcements for the day. After all, what good was being an enforcer for someone like Andino Marcello if he didn’t occasionally pull some weight of his own? Currently, another enforcer of his boss’s that he trusted—and liked well enough—was posted to watch his daughter during the day. An extra man came along for today, too, just because Lev asked.

The men would make sure anyone who even looked funny wasn’t getting anywhere near close enough to take a picture or ask a question. Never mind someone causing a scene. While he had been concerned about keeping his private life away from the mob, when he—and his kid—got splashed across the tabloids, the guys he worked alongside within the Marcello organization didn’t even act bothered. Not that he had a kid, or that she’d been kept quiet.

If anything, the guys seemed to understand.

Besides the enforcers, Gigi was accompanied by a bodyguard who didn’t even speak to Lev. Not that he gave a fuck. The guy stayed out of the way and that was really all Lev cared about at this point.

Other parents had started to gather at the front walkway of the daycare—that also acted as a pre-k program for kids like Lev’s daughter that would be starting school soon—but none of them paid him or Gigi any mind.

Maybe they didn’t recognize her given the large, opaque sunglasses she had arrived wearing, alongside a matching black sunhat that kept her face shaded. She kept it simple with skinny jeans, a large tote bag that hung off her bare shoulder, and a strapless top that showed off just a touch of her tummy and gave him access to the soft skin of her lower back.

Beautiful, of course.

He expected nothing less.

Gigi glanced his way. “This is … okay, right? Like you don’t mind—”

“Gigi, we wouldn’t be here if I did.”

That was that.

She nodded once and smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, babe. No worries.”

A lot of shit around their current circumstances might not be normal or average, but some of it still was. Like the fact that they were humans navigating … whatever this was. Together. They both had lives, and she wanted to see his. So, he was showing her.

Or a part of it, anyway.

Happy yells, stomping feet, and childish laughter had Lev dropping his hand from Gigi’s lower back as the older kids started to flood out of the daycare’s front doors. He stepped forward, sweeping the crowd of kids that were allowed to leave to meet their waiting guardians ahead of the younger children who had to be checked out inside. Soon enough, the bright yellow headband with the large sunflower that Arely chose that morning to go with her matching dress and leggings caught his eye.

She was already coming his way.

Arms wide open.

Smile huge.

“Daddy!”