Color Me Pretty: A Father's Best Friend Romance

“Why don’t I feel it then?” she doubted, moving closer to me. I wrapped her up and hauled her into my lap. Ramsay barked from the floor and watched me embrace Della on the couch. “He’s angry he’s not the one being held by you. Fairly sure he’s in love with you.”

I chuckled at that. “He’ll have to deal with being second.”

“Let me guess, Dallas is the first?”

The second I snorted, I heard a soft laugh against my chest. Her body loosened as I shifted us again, my back against the cushion with her side pressed against my front and her legs stretched across the cushion beside us. “You’re a smartass, you know that?”

“But you love me?” she asked.

“On a scale from one to Dallas?” I mused, kissing her head again as she leaned into me. “I can honestly say my life wouldn’t be the same without you in it. Now, you need to try eating something. Don’t let what happened throw off the progress you’ve made. Wouldn’t want Ripley to get after you again.”

She groaned, probably thinking about all the pamphlets her therapist had sent home with her after her last session a few days ago. “I know going to a group isn’t the worst idea, but it feels like sitting around a circle and exchanging stories about how we starved ourselves or made ourselves vomit is a bad idea. Like it’ll give us reason to start again.”

“It’s for support,” I reminded her, a conversation we had when she’d let herself into my office after the appointment and went on a thirty-five minute rant about how Ripley had wanted her to join a recovery group focused solely on eating disorders. I hadn’t gotten a word in edge wise the entire time she told me about it, only nodding so she knew I was listening. When she’d finally taken a breath, sat in the chair across from me, and politely declined Abigail’s offer to get her something drink, I said, “It might not be such a bad idea.”

She hadn’t said anything about it since.

“She cares about you, Della. It’s not a bad thing to have an army behind you. If we do choose to go somewhere else, imagine what it’ll be like to not have her in your life.”

I reached forward carefully and grabbed the plate, handing it to her. She wrapped her fingers around the edges and rested it on her lap, giving me a heavy sigh in return. “I appreciate everything she’s done for me. I’ll admit, I’m not sure what it’d be like not talking to her about life after so long. Do you think we’d go far? I mean, Sophie is still here. I know she’s a grown woman, but she and Lydia are the only family I have left.”

I rubbed her arm as she picked up the fork and sliced into the pancake stack after putting her syrup on them. “I think Sophie needs to accept you’re also a grown woman who can make her own decisions. Including where you want to live. Truthfully, I think getting out of the city is exactly what you need. What both of us need.”

She got quiet. Too quiet as she slowly ate a few bites of her food. If I could see her face, I’d bet she was staring off into the distance, or looking down at her plate but not really seeing what was there. I wondered if her tongue was poking out past her lips in concentration, or if her nose was scrunched over her thoughts.

Finally, she broke the silence. “What do you think Sophie is going to say when she finds out about us?”

Well, I knew she wouldn’t throw a party, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. Della was probably assuming the worst. “I’m sure it’ll be an adjustment for both her and Lydia. For a lot of people once they know.”

She squirmed slightly. “I think Lydia suspects. She told me…” Her faded words made me rest my chin on her shoulder in wait. “Did you save the artwork I’d given you when I was younger? The stuff that I drew on scrap pieces of paper.”

I smiled. “They’re in my office.”

Another pause. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Lydia knew that. She made it seem like she knew there was more to the story than I did. So, I don’t think she’d be all that surprised once we admit we’re doing this.”

“Because I kept your artwork?”

She turned her head slightly toward me, an amused smile on her face. “Well, they were pretty bad. I know my mother threw some of them out over the years.”

In Elizabeth’s defense, there wasn’t a lot of room left anywhere. She needed to make some room for the new pieces Della gifted her parents. “I kept them because they made me happy. Even if I didn’t know what the hell they were supposed to be half the time. I’d gone through a lot of rough patches that you helped me get through back then. Imagine what we’ll get through now.”

“All because of my pictures?” The disbelief in her tone was limited, awe taking over the faint inquiry.

“All because of you,” I answered honestly. She wiggled closer and picked at her food again, picking up a piece of bacon and, as I knew she would, threw it to the dog. “Wish you’d stop doing that.”

“I wish you’d stop telling me that like it’ll change. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you feeding him scraps when you think I’m not looking.”

Grinning, I pecked her cheek. “The damn dog is spoiled.”

All she did was hum out a reply and continue eating, until every piece was gone while I peppered kisses over the back of her head, her temple, her jaw, anywhere I could reach.

Eventually, she asked, “What happened the night you came here and kissed me for the first time? You said you were angry with somebody my father knew.”

I hadn’t thought about that in a while because I’d had the real thing right in front of me. I didn’t need to jack off to thoughts of that night like I had too many times to count. “It was shortly after the first time Richard Pratt had come to my office and started insisting we become partners. Interactive Marketing was doing well. We’d gotten new investors after a few others had dropped when the scandal made the news. Pratt made it sound like he could make others drop, which would have been a huge financial loss for IM and me.