Color Me Pretty: A Father's Best Friend Romance

Out of everything her active imagination could probably conjure I couldn’t help but tease. “You’d…cook?”

“Sure. Why not?”

It was hard not to grin. “Two minutes ago, you were swearing at me for calling your friend an asshole.”

“You called him a piece of shit,” she corrected instantly.

“Same difference.”

Her eyebrow twitched, a telling sign that I was getting under her skin. The chuckle escaped me before I could stop it, breaking her irritation and making her stare instead. “I’ve gotten better at cooking over the years,” she diverted. “Breakfast is my favorite to cook, though, so I prefer learning how to make different things. Even though Sophie told me I could just hire somebody to do it. She forgets I don’t live like her anymore.”

I was surprised by a lot of things she said at times, but now it was namely that her Aunt Sophie would even suggest she use money to hire somebody for a skill that women were supposedly meant to master. I was glad Della didn’t let her aunt brainwash her into believing anything. Sophie had an abundance of money because of her husband, and before that was well-off because of her family. She didn’t know a time when you couldn’t shake a Benjamin at somebody to get them to do work where she could have done it herself. Shit, I’d bet the money in my wallet that she didn’t even know how to boil water. “Why breakfast?”

Her eyes returned to me, bright blue like her father’s—almost cerulean. I’d remembered when she was little how much she complained about not having her mother’s eyes because she loved the gray color. I had to admit, Elizabeth’s eyes were unique. Like melted silver. Della wouldn’t be herself without her soulful baby blues though. “You can do a lot of different things. Eggs, pancakes, waffles. I prefer making sweeter things, like dessert plates. Remember those salted caramel pancakes I got during the trip me, you, and Dad took? We went to—”

“Denny’s,” I mused in fond remembrance. I’d had a similar stack that were meant to taste like cinnamon buns after she convinced me to order them just in case she hated hers. The ones I’d gotten were her favorite, but she wanted to branch out and was afraid she wouldn’t like the ones she opted to try. As always, I caved and agreed while Anthony shook his head at us. It never took much to be persuaded by the innocent-eyed doe when she wanted something. “Sophie had a conniption when you told her how excited you were to go there.”

She sighed lightly, a wavering smile on her lips. “I never understood why Aunt Sophie was so against going to places like that. It’s my personal favorite when I’m hungo—” Her words abruptly stop, like she realized what she was saying wouldn’t be something I approved of.

“When what?” I questioned slowly.

Her bottom lip drew into her mouth as she avoided my gaze. I knew the answer though. It wasn’t like I didn’t have eyes and ears on her. She went out, not frequently, but enough. She drank, again not often, but sometimes she’d walk away with a hangover and wind up at Denny’s to cure it at two in the morning with her friends.

“Please, do finish,” I prodded, setting my coffee down and cocking my head.

She managed to stifle a sigh, brushing her fingers through her long hair that rested in tangles past her breasts. “Like you don’t know. You were the one who told me greasy food helped hangovers.”

“And coffee,” I pointed out with a grin.

“Anyway, I like Denny’s. We should go there sometime since you spend most of your time eating out anyway.”

Her words went straight to my cock, making me bite back a groan when my mind took me to a place it shouldn’t have, one that involved the spot between those thighs of hers. There was no way to adjust myself without her noticing my hand disappearing under the table, so I shifted in my chair and cleared my throat to try focusing on anything else. “I do cook, you know.”

“With what food?”

Grumbling, I finished off my coffee and pushed the cup away. “What are you planning to do today? You’re going back to school on Monday, correct?”

Her eyes stayed locked on her coffee. “Yes. My professors are all expecting me bright and early. I’ve caught up on most homework, so it shouldn’t be so bad.”

Studying her while she stared off, I tried figuring out if she was as all right as she pretended to be. She was always too strong, too stubborn, for her own good. “It’s okay not to be okay, Della. Your professors won’t fault you for holding off considering the loss. The entire state is grieving. You can too.”

Her nose twitched, probably thinking the same thing I was about just how much the state was mourning the loss of her father. Maybe if he had made better choices, the statement would be accurate. “I need to go back. School keeps me busy, and I’m almost done. Dad wouldn’t have wanted me to take a leave of absence. We had…I had everything planned out perfectly.”

We. Anthony talked about her future more than she did. Her degree started in business just like ours, but her heart wasn’t invested. She loved to paint, to draw, to be creative. Once upon a time, she danced—the very thing that got her into Bentley U. Everything about her was about the creation of something beautiful. It was webbed into her existence for everybody to see it in how she walked, talked, and acted. The business world would eat her alive the second she stepped into it regardless of who she was related to—or exactly because of it. Tight skirts, high heels, and cleavage-revealing shirts wouldn’t save her from that scrutiny like it did for some successful women because her blood was considered tainted from the scandal.

“Perhaps it’s a good idea to start planning what would make you happy instead.”

Her eyes narrowed in on me. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Standing, once I knew my dick wasn’t tenting my pants, I grabbed my empty coffee mug and brought it to the sink. “Nothing, Della. I just know what you want to do, and it’s nothing you planned with your father.”

“That isn’t true.”

I simply hummed, not offering a verbal reply. Her chair scraped back, and she appeared next to me, her lips pinched down. “It’s not true,” she repeated.

One of my shoulders lifted. “Fine. It isn’t true then. What do I know? I only spend nearly every day with you.” There was an edge to my tone that passed disbelief, which I knew she could pinpoint easily.

“I get it, okay?” Her tone was softer, quieter than mine. “You’re trying to make a point. I get it. That doesn’t mean I want to believe it.”