CEO Daddy (Crescent Cove 6.50)

I was forever worried I’d come in too late and she’d break an arm or her freaking neck.

But this time with her? The afternoons where we sat and read half a dozen books? This was our favorite time. Her fluffy reddish-brown hair was getting curlier by the day, and her eyes were so often wide with fascination.

She’d burrowed inside my heart so quickly. The place she’d made would be hers forever, I was sure.

She curled in close, her thumb in her mouth. She wasn’t a thumbsucker by nature, but when she was tired, it seemed to be the first thing she looked for. I read Winnie the Pooh to her for the third time and didn’t make it through the story before both of us were asleep.

I woke to Asher slipping the baby out of my hold. I was so exhausted I’d fallen asleep sitting up. His soft singsong voice almost immediately soothed Lily back to sleep.

If I was smart, I would’ve told him to wake her. When she napped too much in the afternoon, it was impossible to get her to go to bed, but they were so sweet together that I couldn’t pull the trigger on sense.

He set her down and leaned over the crib rail, his large hand stroking her back with such gentleness that my chest tightened. When he backed away and turned to me, it was almost as if he was embarrassed to be caught tending to her. But then he reached his hand out to me and helped me to my feet.

Instead of letting me go, he drew me closer, touching his forehead to mine. He always seemed to smell of leather and ink, a soothing combination of old and new.

As his large hand smoothed over my back, there was a distinctly different flavor to the emotions rolling through me.

Sweet Asher was something I didn’t quite know how to deal with. That he did such a quick and distinct turn into the physical man I still dreamed about left me breathless. He didn’t ask for anything more than closeness. The air was charged between us and I didn’t think I would have said no if he’d leaned down and kissed me.

The indecision swirled in his hazel eyes, but then he brushed a soft kiss over my temple and slipped away from me.

I was about to chase after him to ask what the hell I was supposed to do with these feelings when Lily stirred. Asher paused in the doorway, but I waved him off and scooped her up. We’d slept most of the afternoon away.

And my schedule was now a hot mess.

I got her dressed and we went into the hall. I shook my head

at the closed door to Asher’s office. “Come on, little girl. Time to pack up dinners for Gabby to pick up.”

After we went downstairs to the kitchen, instead of finding a mess, I discovered Asher had done all the dishes. He’d even put them away. Frankly, I was shocked he knew where they went. Then again, I’d find out just how little he knew when I went looking for pots and pans.

But it was the thought that counted. And he’d saved me about thirty minutes of cleanup.

I dragged in the pack and play from the living room and set Lily up with her favorite toys as was our routine. She was an avid fan of Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, which was the brunt of my current favorite playlist. Sometimes a woman just needed some angst and happily ever afters mixed together.

The rest of the day was a blur. Gabby didn’t have enough time for a visit, so it was just the two of us for the duration of the day. Asher didn’t even come down for dinner. Then again, I didn’t go up and invite him down.

But we had a schedule and he knew it. At least that was what I kept telling myself when I was cleaning strained carrots off of Lily’s face.

Maybe it was just as well he’d stayed locked away. It was probably for the best we stayed to our own spaces for a bit.

I left a wrapped plate on the counter for Asher and went upstairs to do our nighttime routine. For once, Lily went down without any issue.

At a loss with what to do with myself, I tried to curl into the chair in my bedroom with my journal. It had become more of a work and recipes catch-all these days, but it wasn’t holding my interest as it usually did. I was restless in the extreme. Part of me wanted to march down to Asher’s office and ask him what the hell was going on between us, but the other half of me didn’t really want to know.

Answers meant I’d have to face all this…stuff. Raising a baby with a man I barely knew but ached for. A traitorous body that was growing a human but didn’t really feel that different.

In all of the baby books I was reading, they talked about changes and hormones and so many different aspects of pregnancy. Me? I just wanted to strip down to nothing at night. Spring fever or pregnancy? Who was to say?

I hadn’t had nausea since the first day. For all I knew, that could’ve been nerves.

Sore boobs and increased sex drive were the only signs I could really identify with. I didn’t even know if that was because of being pregnant or having good sex that I hadn’t realized I’d been missing.

I couldn’t settle all evening. In the end, the only thing that sounded good to me was ice cream.

I peered down the hallway. Both Asher’s bedroom and office doors were shut. Well, his upstairs office. He also had a library downstairs, a room I tended to love to hide out in. I didn’t want to analyze if he was working more upstairs to leave me to the library.

Some things were better left alone.