Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 53462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
“Bailey can’t see you like this,” I whisper, reminding him that his focus needs to be on his daughter.
He meets my gaze, his dark and solemn and grateful, and he nods. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“I’ll give you time alone.” I reluctantly release my grasp on him and step aside so he can speak to his daughter.
“Mia, stay. Please. Bailey needs you.” He pauses. “I need you,” he says, the words obviously not easy for him to admit out loud.
How can I say no to him? Why would I want to? He doesn’t know, but being needed is my Achilles heel and being needed by Austin? I’ll be there for him, for whatever he needs.
“Of course.”
He draws in a deep breath, clearly tamping down on his rage, pushing it somewhere his daughter can’t see or feel as he joins her at the table, where she plays with her juice box straw, not drinking.
I linger in the background, sticking close but not wanting to intrude.
“Hey.” He settles into the chair next to Bailey, looking at the little girl who is so obviously his whole world. “Mia told me you saw your mom today.”
Bailey swings her legs back and forth beneath her but doesn’t answer.
“She said you remember her?” Austin continues, his tone gentle.
She tips her little chin up and down. “She scares me,” she whispers.
And isn’t that an awful thing for her to live with and think about her mother, no matter how deserving, I think.
Austin smooths a hand over the back of her head. “That’s okay, baby girl.” He pulls her into a tight embrace.
I admire him for how well he is handling this situation and his daughter’s pain.
Bailey, however, remains silent.
“Believe me?” he asks.
“Yes, Daddy.”
He sighs at her soft, defeated attitude.
I know, for both their sakes, Bailey needs to put today’s episode out of her mind and let her father shoulder the burden, but she is too young to understand.
“So I was thinking,” Austin says. “What if you, me, and Mia went for pizza and ice cream for dinner?”
My heart beats a little faster at how easily he includes me in the outing, chiding myself at the same time for thinking it means any more than doing my job as Bailey’s nanny. Blurring the lines by sleeping with Austin is not going to be easy.
At the mention of pizza, or more likely ice cream, a little smile finally curves Bailey’s lips. “With sprinkles?” she asks.
“Lots and lots of colored sprinkles.”
I grin. He obviously doesn’t care how big the sugar rush or how late Bailey’s bedtime ends up being because of it. He just wants his daughter to be happy.
And I fall a little harder for Austin because of it.
* * *
Austin
Tomorrow is National Chocolate Cupcake Day, so Bailey and Mia are in the kitchen baking enough cupcakes for the class, because, of course, Bailey volunteered for cupcake duty. As I walk to the kitchen, I listen to my daughter’s chatter and Mia’s laughter and something inside me eases.
These last few days I’ve been a ball of stress. I just got off the phone with the private investigator who is looking into my ex-wife. So far he hasn’t found any dirt on Kayla, but she does have a man in her life, and I tell the investigator to put his focus there. The good news is she hasn’t returned to cause trouble or bother Bailey. I have no doubt her first attempt outside the school was a warning to me because Kayla wants cold, hard cash. I wouldn’t put it past her to try something else to upset Bailey and piss me off in her quest to get me to buy her off.
We both know the court date looms at the end of the year, and something has to give before then. I am counting on the PI to find something incriminating on Kayla, because I’m not going to put my daughter through any more stress by being forced to relive past events. She is going through enough, courtesy of her mother.
The night after she saw Kayla, Bailey began having nightmares. She woke up crying, coming to me and disrupting my eight hours because it takes her too long to fall back to sleep… in my bed.
With Bailey’s life in turmoil, Mia steps up even more. She keeps Bailey’s schedule busy with friends and special projects so she has no time to dwell on the mean lady at school, as she called Kayla one night while crying herself to sleep and breaking my heart.
Mia fits into my life so seamlessly and on so many levels it scares me, and for a man who used to use a gun in my daily job, that strikes me as ridiculous. But look at the situation I am in thanks to letting myself be manipulated by Bailey’s mother. I am finished with marriage and happily ever after, and Mia still wants those things. Hell, after the childhood she had, she deserves those and more.