Tessa smiled, covered his hand with hers, and turned her head to kiss his palm, trying to savor the moment. There weren’t many opportunities left. “I just hope Sophia makes it without melting down.”
“It’s still early. She’ll be fine.”
Famous last words.
Sophia sat on a towel and played with the sand while they packed up. When he took the beach bag from Tessa, he slid a hand around the back of her neck in a gentle show of affection. In a low voice, he asked, “When can we tell her?”
Tessa met his gaze. “Tell her what?”
“That I’m her dad.”
Tessa’s mind darted from “When can we tell her?” to what she anticipated his next question to be “When can she live with me?” and some future fear that leaked into her consciousness from nowhere, the anticipated “I’m getting married, and she wants to adopt Sophia.”
She forced her mind to toss out the future fears for the moment. “Oh.” She looked down at Sophia, who now had sand all over her dress. Tessa shrugged. “Anytime, I guess. Just to warn you, she probably won’t understand the concept. She’s never had one, so she doesn’t really know what it means. I don’t want your feelings to be hurt if she doesn’t—”
He shook his head. “I understand.” His mouth turned in a silly smirk that made him look vulnerable. “I
just really want to hear her call me Daddy.”
Tessa’s heart flipped and fluttered.
“Hey,” he said. “If that’s not okay with you—”
“No, no. It’s fine.”
“Then why did you just look green?”
She huffed a laugh and closed her eyes a second. “Everything’s happening so fast. I just…I’m—”
“Scared,” he said. “I know. I’m trying really hard to minimize—”
“You are.” She stroked a hand down his warm muscled arm. “You’re great. It’s not you.”
Zach clasped her hands. “We should figure out the details of how we’re both going to see Sophia. I think that will ease your stress.”
No, that wouldn’t ease her stress. Because answering that question led to a million others. Questions she didn’t feel like she had the strength to answer. She tried to smile. “I’d really just rather stop time—”
Her words cut off as two women approached with surfboards under their arms. They were young and not just pretty, but Sports Illustrated gorgeous, complete with killer bodies in string bikinis. And they stopped a few feet from Zach.
“Hey, Zach,” the honeyed blonde said, but her speculative gaze was on Tessa. “Who’s this?”
That hit Tessa as bold and territorial. And the brunette was frowning at Sophia as if the sight of her was distasteful, raising Tessa’s hackles.
“You have a kid?” the brunette asked.
“Don’t be stupid,” the blonde told the brunette. “Zach with a kid? What a joke.”
Tessa was uncomfortably aware of the tension coiling through Zach’s muscles, jumping in his jaw. “No one asked your opinion,” he told them. “So stay out of my business.”
His abrupt backlash over the women’s approach zinged shock through Tessa. He definitely had an intense side that showed under pressure, bringing back Abby’s “What if he loses his temper with her…?” and making nerves hum along her shoulders.
He tossed the beach bag over his shoulder, and when he turned, Sophia lifted her arms to him. “Up?”
Zach bent and effortlessly lifted Sophia into a seat on one forearm, sparkling Pegasus and all.
“No way,” the blonde said with a snotty laugh, her gaze tracking between Zach and Tessa. “You had a kid with her?”
Anger broke over Zach’s face. The same anger Tessa had seen that night she’d told him about Sophia, when he thought she’d been lying.