CEO Daddy (Crescent Cove 6.50)

Stubborn like her father.

Both of them.

I sighed and dug out a banana-flavored applesauce pouch. “How about this? You like this, don’t you? Gran said you always grab for it right away.”

Sure enough, her tears dried in a flash. She stuck out her hands, whining a little until I handed over the goods. She frowned at the twist top and tried to stick it in her mouth before I took it back, once again unleashing more tears.

Short-lived this time, thank God. They stopped as soon as I undid the top and pushed the applesauce pouch at her puckered mouth. She grabbed it and started to suck eagerly.

I exhaled. See, I could do this parenting thing.

Good thing, since Hannah was still MIA.

Rising, I pulled out my phone. Almost an hour late. She wasn’t making the best impression, that was for damn sure.

I glanced back at Lily, blissfully sucking on her applesauce and swinging back and forth to some inane children’s song. Then again, what options did I have? My grandmother was leaving for a few days, and I shouldn’t lean on her so much anyway. It wasn’t fair.

Today, I might have no choice.

I’d just tapped the speed dial button for my grandmother when the doorbell rung. A quick glance out the front window indicated Hannah had arrived.

Finally.

I tugged open the door. “You’re late.”

Hannah was facing away from the door, her long dark sweater pulled tight around her in deference to the clear cold day. Later, snow would come, but for now, everything was calm, and the sky was streaked with the faint colors of a growing sunset. Pinks and golds and blues that washed over her face as she shifted toward me and I locked in on her red-rimmed eyes.

My chest seized. “You’ve been crying? Why? What’s wrong?”

She didn’t bat a single dark eyelash. “Why didn’t you tell me you lived in a mansion?”

“It’s hardly a mansion, and even if it was, that isn’t why you’ve been crying.”

“You’re right.” She rubbed her thumb over the corner of her mouth. “Did you hear Supernatural is ending?”

“What’s Supernatural?”

She rolled her eyes and brushed past me to enter my mansion—uh, house.

I’d barely had a chance to shut the door behind her and flip the locks before the excited squeals and giggling began. I stepped into the living room in time to see Lily fling her applesauce pouch like a projectile and thrust her arms out toward Hannah, who was already acting a hell of a lot happier to see the baby than she’d been to see me. Hannah wasn’t smiling, not quite, but she was talking in that cooing voice that most seemed to employ when speaking to small humans.

She unstrapped Lily from her swing and scooped her up into her arms before bending to retrieve the applesauce pouch. At least it hadn’t spilled. “Some aim you have on you, little girl. You gonna play baseball and put up your dad in a fancy nursing home someday?”

Lily laughed while I frowned. “I’m nowhere near needing a nursing home, thank you.”

“Good to know.” Hannah’s gaze swept over me in a way that didn’t match how she was cradling Lily.

What had gotten into her? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but she was acting different. Weird. How I could tell that just from our few moments of interaction, I didn’t know. It wasn’t as if I knew her very well. Or at all, really.

Except biblically. I remembered every minute of that particular night.

“But if that’s a crack about our age difference, I’ll remind you I have no trouble telling time. You, on the other hand—”

“Why don’t you have any furniture?”

I glanced around the room. I barely noticed how little it contained because I didn’t spend much time here. I’d just moved in. As it were. I probably should hire some decorators.

Then again, why bother? Who did I have over besides my grandmother? Lily surely didn’t mind.