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Lucy rolled her eyes and went back to her textbook.
“I mean let’s be real. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since he left and you already miss him.”
“He hasn’t texted,” Lilith muttered, flipping over a plastic log over and over in her hands. “He usually texts.”
“Did you think maybe he’s trying to give you some space since you made it pretty clear he was coming on too strong?”
She scowled. Carey could be not so stupid for a big sister. “Maybe.”
“And have you texted him?”
“No.”
“So? You’ve got a lot of choices here, Lil, but from what you’ve said about him, Vance doesn’t sound anything like…” She waved her hand, indicating her unreliable husband who’d given her nothing except four beautiful kids and a whole lot of grief. “And is life really worth living without a few risks? I’ll drive down there in my piece of poop minivan and kill the guy myself if he so much as raises his voice at you, and you know you can call me anytime day or night and I’ll be banging on the front door of his mansion—”
“Townhouse,” Lilith muttered into the hand she’d slapped over her face. Yes, Vance had money but not like mansion money. She didn’t think.
“Whatever. I’ll show up and give him what for and then we’ll come back here, get shit-faced on whatever beer Doug’s hidden in the garage that week and complain about men forever. But maybe…just maybe, you ought to give this guy a shot. Come on.”
Carey elbowed her in the ribs and gave her a resigned smile.
“Do it for your big sis who didn’t get a Prince Charming,” she said quietly.
And what was Lilith supposed to say to that except “okay”?
* * *
Vance had just wrapped up a state-of-the-firm meeting with Nikolina and Arthur—a meeting during which Nikki had called him a grumpy motherfucker more than once—when his phone rang. Nikki calling him irritable was rich, coming from Queen Cantankerous herself, but she wasn’t entirely wrong. Which was annoying.
He fished his phone out of his pocket and almost tripped when he saw Lilith’s name on the screen. There was a beat of excitement—he’d missed her so much all fucking day and had been wanting to call her to fix shit because he didn’t like how they’d left things last night but he also didn’t want to be all up in her face after she’d told him he’d overstepped—followed quickly by panic. That little millennial never called him, always texted.
“Lil? Y’okay? What’s wrong?”
He bit down hard on the “poppet” he wanted to say. Partly because he was in the hallway of his firm and while he didn’t honestly give a shit if the people who worked for him knew he had an adorable pet name for his little girl, he didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, and also, given how they’d left things last night, he wasn’t sure ifLilwould want that from him.
He hoped it would just be a blip and they’d move past it but sometimes a blip turned into something a lot bigger and it signaled the beginning of the end. He really didn’t want things with Lil to end.
“I…”
His heart went into overdrive at how soft her voice was. Sounded like a squeaky little kitten caught in the rain.
“Where are you? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Daddy,” she said, followed by a sweet giggle. “Daddy, I’m okay.”
Oh. That was definitely better than her not being okay but could she lead with that next time?Fuck. But the sound of her calling him Daddy made his heart melt. Best sound in the whole world.
“Good, I’m glad. I was just surprised you called, that’s all. You never call. I thought… Well, doesn’t matter. What’s up?”
“Um…”
Curious. Lil was rarely shy. Sometimes evasive when there was something she didn’t want to say but bashful his little girl was not.
Vance reached his office and closed the door behind him before he dropped into his desk chair. It’d been a day and he was ready to head home even if he’d have to do more work once he got there, but he wouldn’t risk the distraction of heading to the parking garage when Lilith clearly had something important to say.
“Lilith Shea, you’re worrying me. Please tell me what’s going on. You can tell Daddy anything, you know that.”
He hoped she still felt that way. Was that what yesterday’s retreat had been about? She’d been feeling raw after telling him about Damien? For him it had been a crack in the ice that he wanted to jump into, swim around in like a polar bear. Maybe for her it had been demanding more intimacy when she’d already handed over more than she was ready to. A further rip in a seam when she’d already felt like she was falling apart. He was such a dumbass sometimes.
