Second Chance Mess (Bad News Billionaires #1) - Lucia Jordan Page 0,62

as she ran across the yard and jumped up into my arms.

"And what is my little princess up to today?" I asked.

"Daddy, can we play? I want you to be the dragon, and mommy will be the queen, and I will be the princess."

"Then who will slay the dragon if there is no knight?" I asked.

"Daddy," Beatrice said as she rolled her little eyes at me. "You know that girls can slay dragons, too."

"Oh, silly me," I said dramatically. "Of course, they can." I set her down and got on my hands and knees and roared like a dragon.

Beatrice giggled into fits of laughter at the sound. "You make the best dragon sounds, Daddy," she squealed.

I pretended to run toward Brooke and grabbed her in my arms—or dragon claws, as the case may be—and Brooke let out a little scream as if she were being eaten.

"It's okay, Mommy!" Beatrice shouted as she climbed onto my back. "I will save you from this awful dragon!"

"Hey now," I said, acting as though she had hurt my feelings because I knew it always garnered me a kiss.

"Sorry, Daddy," she said as she gave me a little peck on my cheek. "You know I'm just playing."

"I know," I grinned. Then I gave Brooke a kiss on her cheek, too, just because I wanted to.

"Dragons don't kiss the queen," Beatrice said as if we obviously should have known better.

"Why not?" Brooke said.

"They just don't, Mommy." Just as she was about to slay the dragon and save the queen from certain death, a new threat emerged.

"Roar!" the voice startled Beatrice, and I had to wrap my arm around my back to catch her before she fell off and tumbled onto the ground.

"Uncle Max!" she giggled. "Are you a dragon, too?"

"Yes, I'm a very fierce dragon, and I've come to take the queen for myself."

"I'm not sure my husband will approve of that," Brooke teased.

I gently set Brooke down onto the ground and pretended to play fight with Max. Beatrice laughed and watched and then slyly snuck her mother, the queen, away, thereby saving her from both dragons and securing the kingdom.

"You are a very smart princess," I said to her after the game was done, and we were all laying around in the springtime grass, catching our breath again from an exuberant playtime.

"Thank you," she said, feeling very proud of herself.

I pulled Brooke next to me as I lay on my back against the ground and then wrapped Beatrice up between us. Max lay a little farther away; being a dragon really wore him out sometimes, and he was a little too stiff right afterward to move.

"Tell me again about how I'm made of stars," Beatrice said as we looked up at the late afternoon sky.

There were no stars visible in the sky yet, but it didn't matter to her. It was her favorite story to hear about how she was made of the stars in the sky. I think it was one of my favorite stories, too.

"One night, while your mom and I were laying here on the ground by the fire and looking up at the sky, one of the stars blinked at us."

"Show me!" she said as she looked at my face.

I made an overly exaggerated blinking gesture, and she giggled. "Just like that," I said. "And when it blinked at us, your mom knew that you were getting ready to be sent down from the sky and into her tummy."

"But how did it happen? How did I come all the way down here and get into Mommy’s belly so fast?"

"Oh, it wasn't fast," Brooke laughed. "It took some time. But stardust travels with magic time, so it didn't feel like that long at all."

"And when I was ready to be born, I glittered, right?" Beatrice asked. That was her favorite part of the story.

"Yes," Brooke said. "When we first saw you, you sparkled so brightly that we had to squint our eyes to see you because of how beautifully glittery you were."

Brooke smiled so wide that her mouth looked too big for her face.

Just then, a car pulled up, and Kate and Nick stepped out.

"Auntie Kate, Uncle Nick!" Beatrice shouted as she ran toward them to give them hugs.

"How's my favorite niece?" Nick said as he lifted her up and swung her around in the air.

"I'm your only niece," she reminded him.

"True," he said. "That must be why you're my favorite."

Kate gave Brooke and me both a hug and then bent over