Always, the shrug. “It’s fine.”
“Fine?” A thousand-dollar maternity tunic was fine?
“Not as good as my usual T-shirts. Which, by the way, you can buy three for ten dollars.” She tilted her head. “Is this the kind of market research you were looking for?”
Leonidas felt disgruntled. He’d hoped to impress her. Obviously it wasn’t working. The only thing that had made Daisy’s eyes sparkle was when the salesgirls brought over baby outfits that matched the postpartum clothes, cooing, “This will be perfect after your little one is born!”
Then Daisy looked at the price tag. “Three hundred dollars? For a baby dress that will be covered in spit-up, and probably
only worn twice before she outgrows it?” She’d shaken her head. “And it’s kind of scratchy. I want my baby to be comfortable and cozy, too!” Then Daisy looked around with a frown. “Don’t you have any winter coats?”
The salesgirls looked at each other sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Miss Cassidy,” one said. “It’s March. We cleared out all the winter clothes for our new spring line.”
“It’s still snowing, and you’re selling bikinis,” Daisy said, her voice full of good-humored regret.
“There might be a few coats on the sales rack,” one salesgirl said hesitantly.
Daisy seemed overjoyed when one puffy white coat fit her—if anything, it was a little too big. “And it’s cozy, too!” Then she saw the price, and her smile disappeared. “Too much!”
“It’s fifty percent off,” Leonidas pointed out irritably.
“Still too much,” Daisy said, but she continued hugging the coat around her tightly, as if she never wanted to take it off.
“We’ll take it,” he told the sales staff.
“I can’t possibly let you pay—”
“You won’t let me buy a cheap coat, from my own company? To warm the mother of my child? Are you really so unkind?”
Daisy hugged the coat around her, then said in a small voice, “All right, I guess. Thank you.” She looked at Leonidas. “Are you ready to go?”
Finally. He’d convinced her to let him buy something. But he’d wanted to buy her so much more. “Not quite.” He looked at the salesgirls. “She needs a ball gown.”
As the staff left the lounge to gather the dresses, Daisy looked at him incredulously. “A ball gown? You can’t be serious.”
“I’m taking you to a party on Saturday.”
She groaned. “A party?”
“It’s for charity.” He quirked an eyebrow. “A fundraiser for homeless children. Don’t you want to come and make sure they get a healthy chunk of my ill-gotten fortune?”
“Fine,” she sighed. A moment later, when the salesgirls rolled a large rack of maternity ball gowns into the lounge, she grabbed the closest one, which was a deep scarlet red. She went back into the private changing room to try it on.
Leonidas waited to see it, practically holding his breath.
But when Daisy pushed back the curtain a few moments later, she was dressed in her white shirt and black leggings. “I’m done.”
“But the gown?”
“The gown is fine.”
She wasn’t going to let him see it, he realized. Disappointed, he said hastily, “You must need new lingerie for—”
Daisy snorted. “I’m not trying that on in front of you. Are you ready to go?”
“Aren’t there any other things you want to try on? Anything at all?”
“Nope.” She turned with a smile to the salesgirls, hugging them. “Thank you so much for your help, Davina, Laquelle, Mary. And Posey—good luck on law school!”