Hot Item (Hot Zone 3)

His daughter nodded.

“Does that mean she loves you any less? That you’re any less important to her?”

She shook her head, her eyes round and huge. “Are you saying you’re gonna marry Sophie?”

Though he’d set himself up, the question still caught him off guard. As he sometimes did in a big game, Riley decided to wing it. He’d talk to Lizzie as the words came to him and hope for the best.

“When your mom and I divorced, I never thought I’d get married again. We loved each other, but we couldn’t get along well enough to make it work. I didn’t want to go through it again.” She was too young to understand lust not real love, and she deserved to believe he’d loved her mother. He had, in a young sort of way.

Lizzie sniffed. “That’s not an answer.”

“Eventually, if Sophie agrees, yes, I’d want to marry her,” he said slowly, realizing he was speaking from the heart. “But you will always be my number-one girl and anybody I marry would know that. Sophie already knows that, honey. You just need to give her a chance.”

Lizzie glanced at him, her lashes damp, her eyes shimmering with tears, and his gut cramped painfully. This was the little girl who always looked at him with love and adoration in her eyes. He’d promised himself he’d never disappoint her, yet here he was, doing just that. He’d never felt lower and yet he’d never been more sure that he was doing the right thing for them both.

“She’ll never be my mom.” Defiance tinged Lizzie’s tone.

Riley gave her a grim smile. “She’ll never try to be. Assuming things work out the way I’d want them to, she’d be just like Ted is for you—someone you can trust with anything you need.” That was how much faith he had in Sophie.

“This sucks,” Lizzie said, and crossed her arms over her chest in that obstinate way of hers.

Riley chuckled. “All things considered, I’ll let you get away with that.”

His nerves were on edge, his emotions frazzled from dealing with Lizzie and from realizing how he really felt about marrying Sophie. Despite how often he thought about her, he’d never followed the notion to its logical conclusion.

Now that he had, he was overwhelmed with a sense of rightness. “Sometimes,” he said to his still-upset daughter, “a person realizes he needs more to be happy. And to be a good father to you, I need to be happy.” And Sophie, with her big smile and bigger heart, her neuroses and need for order, made him happy.

Who would have thought it?

Lizzie swallowed hard. “I still don’t like it.”

“You’ll learn to like it,” he said, laughing.

Whether or not Sophie came around to his way of thinking was another story. But thanks to Yank’s ridiculous impulses, Riley had a chance to get his daughter to understand what Riley needed.

He was willing to give his daughter time to get used to the idea, but he wasn’t willing to give up Sophie while Lizzie mulled it over.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SOPHIE MET UP with Cindy at Cake ’n’ Bake, a little hole-in-the-wall bakery in SoHo. Together they were going to buy the pièce de résistance of Lola and Yank’s party, a cake to end all cakes and a surprise for Uncle Yank and Lola. The only catch for Sophie was that she hadn’t seen Cindy since their confrontation ove

r Miguel Cambias. Still, Sophie took Cindy’s willingness to meet her today as a good sign. Otherwise she’d have to wait until Monday of next week, when her friend returned to work, to see if Cindy had forgiven Sophie.

She waited for Cindy on the sidewalk. A beautiful April day, the wind blew with a definite hint of spring. Sophie wanted to enjoy the beginning of the season, but she was preoccupied with too many things, like the possibility of losing a friendship and a top-notch publicist. Then there was her unresolved situation with Riley.

“Sophie? I’m sorry I’m late. I just had to stop at the dry cleaners on the way over.” Cindy ran up to her and screeched to a halt.

“I’m sorry,” Sophie said, wanting to get the heart-felt apology out immediately. “I’m sorry you overheard what I said about Miguel and I’m sorry I said it. But things were in complete chaos and somebody had to be responsible and—”

“It’s okay.” Cindy met her gaze, only compassion evident in her eyes. “I understand why you’d think he had something to do with the crazy things happening around the office. I thought so myself. That’s why I took my anger out on you.”

“You thought Miguel was guilty?” Sophie asked, surprised.

Cindy swallowed hard. “It crossed my mind. I thought about the sudden attention, the constant e-mails. I wondered. But when I asked him about it…”

“What’d he say?” Sophie asked.

“Basically that either I trusted him or I didn’t.” She bit down on her trembling lower lip.