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“You’re kind of boring sometimes,” she muttered, guileless. It was hard to get mad at a face like that. “Maybe having friends would be fun.”
“Of course they would be fun!” I exclaimed. “Think of all the fun games you could play with them. Which toys in here would you share with them first?”
“My art station,” Collins said proudly, puffing up her chest. “And we could make a corpse together.”
“A body,” I corrected gently. Because that was nowhere near right, and as cute as it was, I didn’t need anyone questioning this kid’s entertainment.
“The exquisite body. Where you fold the paper and pass it around, and everybody draws a different part.”
“Let’s do it now,” she said, grinning widely, and even though it was getting late, I had no choice but to comply.
Ten minutes in, and well after I thought I would be on my way, Graham called.
“What the hell, Graham?” I demanded, shutting myself in the bathroom to take the call on my cell. He was more than an hour late, and I had already been forced to reschedule one of my teleconferences. Collins had taken everything in stride. I had her finishing up another art project before dinner—a dinner I thought her father was going to be there to serve.
“I’m sorry, Heather.” It wasn’t Graham’s usual brusqueness. He actually seemed genuinely contrite. “It’s a work-related emergency.”
“Is everything okay?”
“It’s…” He sighed heavily. “It will be. Hopefully. I’ll be home within the hour.”
“We’re here,” I said, puzzled and worried instead of pissed off. “Don’t worry.”
“Thank you.” Graham ended the call, and I had to wonder a little at myself. Earlier, when he had called me about the possibility of being home late, I had been furious. Now that he was actually late, I was more concerned than anything else. Where had these feelings ambushed me from? Why was I worried about a billionaire? The man could take care of himself. Barring that, he could hire someone to take care of him.
* * *
“All done,”Collins chirped, brandishing a collage that’s literally dripping in glitter.
“Awesome!” I said, swooping in to try to salvage the housekeeper’s freshly mopped floor. “Let’s put this somewhere safe so your dad can see it when he gets home. Are you hungry?”
The chef’s assistant had just appeared in the doorway to beckon us to dinner, which made me doubt my concern for Graham anew. Even his chef had someone to help them. An army of people kept this place running, and I was just a cog in the machine.
“You’re staying for dinner?” Collins asked, her little face scrunching up in confusion. I hadn’t been in charge of her for very long, but she recognized that this was not a standard procedure.
“Just this once,” I said cheerfully. “Let’s go wash our hands.”
“Yay!”
Dinner was a delicious pasta dish that would have been at home on the menu of any fine dining establishment. I was surprised to see Collins eat it with gusto, especially since lunch was usually a simpler affair. She was an adventurous eater, which was just another thing that set her apart from other four-year-olds.
After dessert—a refreshing watermelon and mint sorbet that I was certain had been concocted from scratch—Graham still wasn’t home. My mild concern grew into full-blown worry. What kind of work emergency ran this late? I only half-watched a movie with Collins as I glanced at my phone every few minutes, afraid I would miss a call or text. When the kid conked out shortly before the credits rolled, I carried her to bed, opting to let her sleep instead of waking her up to brush her teeth and put her pajamas on. It wouldn’t hurt her, and I didn’t want to screw up a bedtime routine I wasn’t sure of.
The thought of what Graham might do during such a bedtime routine softened me perhaps more than it should have. Picturing him reading his daughter a story made me smile. Sure, the man could be infuriating, but he was good with his daughter, even if somewhat overprotective.
I settled myself onto a plush chaise lounge positioned in an alcove just outside Collins’ room, scrolling on my phone and wishing I had my laptop with me to do a little work. I had to console myself by clearing out my email inbox, which was full of requests from my stupid online dating profile. I was nowhere near ready to date again—I’d only set it up to convince my mom to do so, too.
It was a morbid sort of curiosity that led me to open the messages instead of flushing them all directly into the trash folder.
What kind of man could I see myself with after Charlie? It wasn’t as if the men vying for my attention online were unattractive. It was just that it made my stomach turn to imagine opening myself up to being hurt again.
Having sex with Graham had been a clear rebound move—something to get the ball moving forward, so I didn’t stew in my despair and heartbreak. He didn’t factor into the future I imagined for myself—as hot as it would be to have access to the kind of mind-blowing pleasure I knew he could provide me every time we had sex.
That unbidden thought made me pause on one request to connect—this guy didn’t seem so bad. Just a couple of years older than me, and he did consultations for a living, whatever that meant. It took me a full minute to realize what had attracted me to him in the first place. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Graham, right down to the green eyes. I looked closer at the profile picture. I doubted there would be the same golden flecks in them. Or that Graham would ever be caught dead on an online dating website.
“I knew it was a date you were missing out on tonight.”
I gasped, slapping my hand over my mouth as I simultaneously jumped out of my skin. Graham stepped out of a shadow beside the chaise lounge, surprisingly sneaky for his height.
