CEO Daddy (Crescent Cove 6.50)

“Never. I’ve never had a room upstairs here before.” His lips twitched. “And to be honest, I don’t have one now. I wasn’t planning on staying until I saw you. Writing so furiously in that.” He nodded to my abandoned journal. “What were you writing?”

“Where were you going after this?” I countered.

“To my grandmother’s. She was going to be who I counted down to midnight with.” He finally reached for his champagne and took a single sip. Easing back in his chair, he licked his lips, slowly and surely. “I’d much rather kiss you once the ball drops.”

“Which balls are we referring to?”

I didn’t know if he’d find me funny or crude. It was usually half and half, depending on my company. But his laughter was quick and appreciative. “You’re different than I expected.”

“Oh, really? What did you expect? A meek little mouse who’d trot after you and hop right into bed?” Okay, this had to be the champagne talking, because this was next level, even for me.

“No. I wasn’t even thinking about bed when I came over here. I just wanted to hear your voice. To see if you ever smiled. You still haven’t, you know. Not at me.”

“Smiles are earned. Keep trying. You might get there.”

“Luckily, I don’t give up easily. Why are you alone tonight? No family?”

“No.” The lie came easily, and sometimes seemed far too true when my sisters were busy with school and out of touch. My family was a fraction of what it had once been. “Let’s just say I live an isolated existence.”

It wasn’t that far from reality. I was alone too often.

I couldn’t stand another moment of it.

“No lover.” The word dripped off his tongue, laced with a sensuality that was far beyond my realm of experience.

“No.” I tilted my head. “So, what’s your story?”

His lips lifted on one side. “I’m a man who works far too much and spends New Year’s Eve with his grandmother. What more do you need to know?”

Indeed.

I nodded at the bottle of champagne. “Think we can get that to go?”

Two

Coming over to Hannah’s table hadn’t been in my plans.

I was supposed to eat dinner, read through the dry paperwork I’d brought to keep me company, and go spend the evening with my grandmother. That was all true.

What I hadn’t mentioned was the other reason I was headed to Gran’s. She was babysitting my daughter, Lily, who was just celebrating her six-month birthday and didn’t have a clue that her father was a workaholic. Thank God.

Her new father. I wasn’t her biological father. Technically, I was her godfather, the one who’d taken on an honorary role in her life thanks to my best friend. I was never supposed to be called into service.

And Billy wasn’t supposed to die two months ago with no other relatives, leaving me the sole support for his little girl.

Hannah also didn’t know that I was a single parent. Why hadn’t I told her? Maybe she wasn’t the only one who wanted to be someone else tonight. I didn’t doubt for a second she was lying about the no family thing. But sometimes even good people needed a respite from their lives.

I cared a lot about Lily. But tonight, I wanted to be someone other than Asher Wainwright, publisher and CEO of the struggling Wainwright Publishing Inc. Another man other than the equally struggling single father of the cutest baby girl ever.

Even if I didn’t quite know what to do with her.

At least where work was concerned, I’d once felt competent. Now I was drowning on both the professional and personal fronts, and I wanted a win.

Needed one.

For tonight, I would be the man Hannah perceived me to be while her big blue eyes ate me up as if she was equally unnerved and fascinated.

She wasn’t the only one.