CEO Daddy (Crescent Cove 6.50)

“Yeah, that too in a few minutes. But how do you feel about some foosball first?”

I followed the direction of his gaze toward the row of tables in the back. There was a pool table, a couple of dart boards, some video game machines, and the aforementioned foosball table.

“Closing time is in twenty,” Miss Personality called.

I pushed away from the bar. I debated slipping the whiskey bottle in my jacket pocket but decided against it. My quota of bad decisions had already been reached. “Sure. Maybe I can win one out of two.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. I was foosball champion two years running at Syracuse.”

“You went to SU too?”

Austin nodded and removed his ball cap, revealing a disordered mop of short brown hair. “Dropped out two years in. I wanted to party, and it was expensive to get a degree in that particular occupation.” He laughed and moved to one side of the foosball table. “Might go back though, if it’ll help me move up. Or maybe just for personal enrichment.”

I took my side and gripped the edge of the table. My buzz had faltered briefly, but it was back now. I was going to hang on to that fleeting feeling of bliss for as long as I could. “Party for as long as you can. Adulthood lasts the rest of your damn life.”

“Ain’t that the truth, brother.” Austin flipped a few rows of his foosball dudes and flashed me a wolfish smile. “Let’s play.”

Sixteen

“Shh, shh, that’s a good girl.”

I rocked Lily as she whimpered softly and wondered how I’d gone from being painfully solitary to a mother of two in a matter of months.

Two-word answer: Asher Wainwright.

I wasn’t Lily’s mother, just the nanny. Her mother was gone, and now she had a father who was afraid to love her and a great-grandmother who loved her enough for half a dozen people.

Maybe I wouldn’t be Lily’s nanny anymore. It wasn’t as if I’d gotten used to the job yet. But before I’d told Asher I was pregnant, I had never really considered the possibility he might not take part in the kid’s life.

Might not want me to be part of Lily’s life either, once he knew.

I smoothed a kiss over Lily’s sweaty brow and smiled as she clutched my shirt in her chubby fist. I hadn’t wanted to put on any of Asher’s clothes, and I didn’t have any of my own there except what I’d worn that day.

A quiet rage simmered inside me, layered under the hurt and fear. I’d worked so hard to build a sense of stability for myself, both financially and emotionally. That had meant pulling away a bit from the world, as I grieved and tried to figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Now everything was in flux.

The only thing I knew for certain was I wanted my child. Wrong timing or not, we’d make a way for ourselves.

If that was without Asher, then it just was. I wasn’t going to beg. I also wasn’t going to tolerate being an emotional punching bag while he processed his own shit.

I swallowed deeply as I gazed down at a now sleeping Lily in the light from the moon. I didn’t want to lose her from my life. It was nuts I could’ve become this attached this soon, but somehow we’d bonded.

As I’d thought I had bonded with her asshole of a father. The man who was currently running the streets doing God knows what.

I wasn’t looking at the clock. Wasn’t fretting at all.

Liar.

I didn’t know where he was. If he was okay. I did know this behavior was not like the Asher I’d come to know. Whether this fit of pique would last or just be a passing moment, I wasn’t sure.

Either way, I’d have to shore up my defenses. He had a way of sneaking under them.

Down the hall, a door closed. Softly this time, not with all the bluster of a couple of hours ago. I sat

up straighter in the chair, drawing Lily close. She didn’t stir beyond nuzzling her drooly little chin underneath my neck.

I stared at the open doorway, waiting. Barely breathing. Even so, I wasn’t prepared when Asher appeared in it, looking so big and rumpled and…male.