CEO Daddy (Crescent Cove 6.50)

“That’s his name, isn’t it?”

“It is, but I never called him that to you.”

“Oh, that’s right. You called him Snug.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Seriously?” I rubbed the side of my head and debated walking out on this whole conversation. If Lily hadn’t been asleep upstairs, I would’ve just left them to deal with the fallout.

Seeing Hannah again had been like being doused. Not with water, but with flames. And my previously disinterested cock agreed. Somehow being annoyed at her for not wanting to see me again—even if that had been our agreement—only made the fire burn hotter.

Except now I couldn’t even be irrationally pissed at her, because she hadn’t known I was the man my grandmother had called Snug.

Could I be any more emasculated?

Oh, yes, I could, by Hannah not wanting to see me again. She hadn’t even been uncomfortable about the possibility, since she’d had no clue I was the man she would be meeting today.

Just an unlucky booby prize.

And on top of that? She didn’t even have the dignity to look shocked or dismayed or something at the sight of me.

“I slipped, all right?” My grandmother stood up straighter. “Look, I’m not sure why there’s so much tension right now, if you two truly don’t know each other,” her dubious expression indicated what she thought about that, “but I think we need to sit down and have some sweet tea and cookies and figure this shit out.”

I opened my mouth to argue with her, but she’d already spun around to charge into the kitchen. So, I did what any man would’ve done in my situation.

I turned around and left Hannah standing alone in the goddamn hallway.

If she’d followed me, I would’ve at least had a target for my frustration. So, of course, she did not.

Hannah was hopping on all of my buttons with her beat-up tennis shoes.

Halfway back to my grandfather’s armchair, I frowned. Those were the shoes she’d chosen to wear to a job interview?

Then again, why not? She didn’t want the job.

Even in her battered shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt, with no makeup and her long hair in a ponytail, she was gorgeous. Possibly even more gorgeous than she’d been on New Year’s Eve when she was all dressed up. Not that I understood how that could be so, since she’d knocked me out then. And I obviously still hadn’t gotten all the way back up.

Leaving out my dick. Suddenly, that part of me was having no trouble remaining engaged.

I sat in the chair I’d just vacated and debated taking Lily to my office. Even dealing with her while trying to get some work done was better than this.

My grandmother hurried into the room with a tray containing a glass pitcher of sweet tea and a platter of her frosted lemon cookies. They weren’t bars at least, but even the lemon reminder from the night Hannah and I had spent together was too much.

With all that had gone on the last couple of months—how had it been two months already?—I couldn’t believe I even remembered. But it seemed as every detail from that night was etched into my memory.

Especially the intimate ones.

Annoyed at my manners, or lack thereof, I got to my feet. “Here, let me help you.”

Except I wasn’t fast enough. Hannah rushed into the room to assist my grandmother. Then my grandmother mumbled something about getting the glasses and vanished.

Hannah busied herself with fussing with the plate of cookies, tucking one or two that nearly slid off back into the center.

“Wondering if they taste as good as yours? I can assure you, they do not.”

I hadn’t had her lemon cookies. My grandmother’s were quite delicious. But I’d said the comment to be rude, although that wasn’t my typical nature.

Hannah’s lips trembled before she firmed them. She turned away as my grandmother entered the room with three glasses on yet another smaller tray.

“There we are. I have some lemonade if you’d rather—”