Color Me Pretty: A Father's Best Friend Romance

“You’ve insisted for years that I should use him to get around the city, even though you made it seem like he was hired by Sophie.” She rolled her eyes and slid backward to mimic my position, crossing her arms over her chest. I hadn’t told her Sophie hired him I just hadn’t denied it when she’d asked me as much. “I always suspected he was watching after me a little too much for him to be Sophie’s employee.”

“Why would you say that?” It wasn’t like Sophie had anything against Della. She was too headstrong about how she wanted her niece to live, but she loved her.

“She’s Sophie,” came the response I wasn’t surprised about. “She usually doesn’t do anything without it being in her best interest.”

I could have tried arguing, but I didn’t. “I hired Dallas years ago. Wanted to make sure you were looked after when I wasn’t around.”

“Is that how you see me?”

I was silent, confused as I watched her face twist in horror.

“As your responsibility? Because that kind of sucks to think about, Theo. I don’t want to be treated like some ward—”

“Stop.” Shifting, I moved the blanket away from her and readjusted myself, so my body was fully turned toward hers. “I was more than willing to have this conversation over dinner, but now works too.”

I refused to let her say anything before I got out what I had to say first. It was clear she wanted to interject, but after our conversation that morning, I wasn’t about to let her imagination run wild over what was going on here.

“When I told you that I didn’t want to go back to what we were, I meant it. It’s impossible to be who we were when you were just little Della and I was only your dad’s friend. You were never my responsibility even if I wanted to believe you were. When you got older, when you started walking and talking with a newfound sass that made people laugh and turn their heads, I wished you were only that. Honest to God, Della, I wish sometimes I looked at you like I did then. As this adorable little girl who looked at the world with such innocence and hope. That meant that I didn’t fail you and your family by letting corruption sink in.

“And before you tell me I wouldn’t have been able to stop it from happening, I know. I’ve thought about it countless times and drove myself fucking crazy. You know what I realized after drinking myself into a fucking stupor over it?”

Slowly, she shook her head.

I took her hand and draped it on my thigh, squeezing it. Maybe a little too tightly, a little too aggressively, but she didn’t pull away. “You wouldn’t have been the person you are today if it hadn’t been for everyone else’s choices. I’m not saying I don’t wish your father would have taken a different path, or that I wouldn’t go back in time and change anything if I could. But you wouldn’t be the amazing woman sitting here beside me if he hadn’t fucked up.” Ignoring her flinch over the blunt statement, I weaved our fingers together. “I don’t how many times you need me to tell you that you’re beautiful, inspiring, and the exact kind of woman I need to ground me, for you to understand, but I’ll tell you over and over again until you get it.

“The truth of the matter is you don’t need me to. You don’t need me to tell you that you’re anything because you already know it. You wouldn’t have gone back to school, painted those paintings, or let your friend convince you to dance if you didn’t know you were a strong woman, worthy of the kind of love I’m going to give you for a long fucking time. Not because I’m obligated to, but because I wouldn’t know what else to do with myself if I couldn’t.”

I didn’t miss the way her lips parted, how that breathy little exhale escaped them, or how her fingers gripped mine like she couldn’t quite believe what I’d said.

I swallowed. “We’re going to have bad days, Della. The both of us. It’s not only you, sweetheart. We’ll have to figure out how to navigate them together.”

She blinked. “Because…”

I raised her hand to my lips and pressed a kiss against her warm skin. “I love you, Della. Plain and simple.” Her eyes closed when I pressed another kiss against her ring finger, making a point. “Think you can stick with me while we figure this out? It’s not going to be easy. There’s a lot between us that people may or may not understand. I don’t want them to dictate what we do, to make their opinions part of the relationship I want to explore with you.”

Every day since the first time Anthony and Elizabeth asked me to watch Della, I’d been wrapped around her finger. Every day was a new adventure—something to learn. Her quirks, the things she hated, the things she liked. When she asked me to dance with her, I danced. When she asked me to hang up her pictures, I hung them up. Shit, how many hours of YouTube tutorials did I watch to learn how to braid hair because she wanted me to braid hers? There was nothing I wasn’t willing to do to keep a smile on her face, and that hadn’t changed. If anything, the need to make her happy grew into something all-consuming.

“You’re an idiot.” I froze at her words, keeping a firm hold on her hand as I watched her eyes flutter closed for a moment before cracking back open to study me carefully. “You’re such an idiot, Theodore West. Do you know how long I’ve loved you? How many times I’ve said it as something more than your friend’s daughter who looked up to you? If you can promise me that you’ll be by my side during my worst days, then how could I not be there for you during yours?”

My throat bobbed as she rose on her knees and swung one leg over my lap, straddling me. Sinking down, she sat there and stared like she was afraid I’d change my mind and leave. If she thought that, then

she was the idiot.

She ran a palm across my jaw, thumbing my bottom lip before leaning in, hovering over them with hers. “I know people won’t understand right away, but they’ll see.”

“And what is it they’ll see?”

Her lips brushed mine as she said, “That I love you too much to let you go.”

Pressing her closer into me, I wrapped an arm around her waist as my other hand cupped the back of her head to deepen the kiss. She parted my lips and slipped her tongue inside, but it was me who took it farther. Rolling my hips upward, I listened to her telltale moan before flipping us over, so she was on her back with her bare legs spread for my body to slip between.

When her arms snaked around my neck to pull me closer, my cell rang. Ignoring it, I bit her bottom lip. Trailing my mouth down her neck and nipping it as I moved my hands to the oversized tee she wore to strip it off her, the phone pinged in my pocket.

“Fuck.”

“You should check that.”

“It’s probably Dallas. He’s outside waiting for us.” Momentarily, I’d forgotten about our dinner plans. I liked the thought of spreading her legs and eating her out instead.