My dad cracks his neck side to side. “I think she will. You forget I’ve known her longer than you have.”
Asshole. “By three days. And I’ve taken her on more dates. Plus, zebras. Does your phone have photos of her petting baby zebras?”
My dad glares at me, looking midway between pissed and proud. “Gotta give you that one, son.”
No shit. “I don’t pull the quarterback card often, but when my girl says she wants to go to the zoo, I take my girl to the zoo.”
He holds his fist out for a bump, and I return it. Because that zoo move was gold. Pure gold.
Still though, this whole fucking plan is so crazy that I can’t even wrap my head around it. Never mind what my dick thinks.
“She’s a good girl. So good, Dad. You know it. I know it. That’s why we both want her so fucking much.”
Now my dad stands up, too. “Good girls can have two guys, can’t they?”
I rub my eyes with my knuckles. She’s gonna kill us. I just know it. Wrapped up in all that sweetness is so much sexy fire. I can almost feel the crack of her palm against my cheek when she slaps me for presuming she’d even entertain this fucking crazy plan.
And yet, deep down in my core, there’s a molten desire just to see her. To be near her. To see her eyes and watch her move. Even if it’s for her to come to Puerto Rico to slap my face.
It’s been a whole fucking week. Eternity. Even if we did have private security watching her the entire fucking time. Sending us pictures, updates, making sure she was safe and not getting some wild idea to think of spending it with any other potential suitor. We both agreed, we’d stay away until we worked things out, but hell if we weren’t going to make sure she was secured while we did what was necessary between us.
“She better get here soon or I’m going to fucking explode,” I grunt, the bands around my chest tightening.
Dad nods. “Exactly. So let’s just give her a chance.”
I run my hand down my stubble. “This is fucked up. You know it. Just wait until the press hears about this.”
My dad raises his eyebrow at me. He walks over to the bar and pops open two beers for us and a hard cider for her. “Were you thinking about what the press would say when you punched me in the face at that gala?”
I let out a groan. Not my best moment. At all.
I flash back to it, clear and vivid. We were standing between the ice sculpture and the chocolate fountain. Isabel had just left and Dad and I were toe-to-toe.
“Mine,” I said.
“Mine,” Dad said.
And wham, I landed a sucker punch right in his fucking face.
He returned it in kind. Formidable and equal in ferocity.
We both knew, we had it bad and there had to be a solution.
The press reported it as a family dispute. No charges were filed, thank fuck.
I snap back to reality. “I can’t fucking stand the idea of making her do something she doesn’t want to do.”
Dad narrows his eyes at me. “Is that why you look like you’re going to fucking devour her when she walks in that door?”
Goddamn it. Sometimes I don’t know if I love him or hate him. But he speaks the truth. Because there’s nothing more that I want than her, right here, right now. With us.
And that’s when there’s a soft knock at the door.
“Come in,” we both nearly yell in unison, our eyes meeting each other’s, then back to the door.
The hinges creak. The sound of her flip-flops on the marble floor cuts the tension as the white sunlight fills the space around her.
And there she is.
Isabel.
She’s wearing this little pink sundress, with Gucci sunglasses and dollar-store flip-flops. Fucking perfect as ever.
She blinks at me. And then at Dad. And then at me again.
She lets her purse slide off her arm and clatter on the floor as her other hand tightens on the handle of her small rolling bag. “What the actual hell?”
Dad walks up to her, smooth and confident. He reaches out and gently caresses her cheek with his thumb. “Hey, Baby.”
A wave of jealousy rips through me, seething and strong. I watch her eyes flutter shut as he touches her.
God, I want to fucking kill him for touching her sweet creaminess first. She’s mine. All mine. But then I have to remind myself—she isn’t mine. And she isn’t his. She’s ours.
Provided she agrees.
That night after I hit him, we talked it through over two glasses of tequila, frozen peas clasped to our faces. We were at an impasse. Nothing would come between us; neither one of us would give her up. We were between a rock and a very hard place.