“Is mommy your queen? Are you going to get married? I want a pink dress, Daddy,” she says with a serious look on her face.
Carter picks her up as he raises to his full length. “I’ll buy you all the pink dresses you want, but first I have to talk to your mommy, okay.”
Danny sighs heavily. “Okay.”
He presses a kiss to her chubby cheek before he reluctantly hands her over to Jamie.
“I want pink milk,” she says to Jamie as they walk to the kitchen.
***
CARTER
“She’s going through a pink phase right now,” Della says as she nervously starts to play with her watch.
“Is it okay if we talk here?” I ask.
“Sure, let’s sit at one of the tables.”
I follow her to the nearest one and pull a chair out for her to sit. When I’ve taken a seat myself, I say, “I spoke with Rhett last night and with Charlotte this morning. The reason she ignored your letter is because she gets constant demands that I’m someone’s father and that I should pay up. She dealt with your letter the same way she dealt with all the others.”
“But I wasn’t making any demands. I just wanted you to know,” Della quickly starts to defend herself.
“I know,” I sigh. “I never told Charlotte about you. There was no way for her to know who you really were.”
“Oh.” Della slumps back in her chair and her eyes drop to her hands. “I suppose it makes sense with me just being a one night stand.”
I cross my arms over my chest and frown at her. “If my memory serves me correctly, I was the one the one who fucking spilled my guts all over the place and you were the one who just walked over it.”
“What?” she breathes.
“I made it pretty fucking clear that I wanted more. I was ready to give you the fucking world and you just walked away from it.”
“You’re still an alpha asshole!” she hisses at me.
She actually just fucking hissed at me.
“Don’t fucking hiss at me,” I growl.
“Don’t accuse me of things I didn’t do!” she shrieks. “And don’t growl at me.”
Anger takes over and I stand up. “Don’t tell me what to do. No one fucking tells me what to do.”
“Guys,” Jamie suddenly snaps from the entrance that leads to the back. “There’s a little girl in there that can hear all of this.” She looks to Della. “Shit happened and you need to get over it. Danny is all that matters right now.” Then her eyes fall on me and somehow this teenage girl has the power to make me feel ten inches small. “You’re not some big shot CEO here. You’re just a father and you need to start acting like one. You can’t use that language around her.”
Jamie walks up to me and holds out her hand. “Money, please. I’ll take your daughter out to buy something pink while you rip each other apart.”
Guilt washes over me as I give her one of my credit cards.
“What do you expect me to do with this?”
Fuck, this girl has balls.
“Swipe it,” I grind the words out. “If my little girl wants something then you fucking swipe the card.”
She grabs the card from my hand but instead of walking away, she takes another step closer t
o me. She only reaches my shoulder but that doesn’t intimidate her.