Crazy for Loving You A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy - Pippa Grant Page 0,67

he coos, and she laughs again. “Go on, stinky butt. You’re polluting the air.”

Her smile is the last thing I see before I step out of the sitting room, and it’s making me hard as rebar.

I tell myself it’s just a side effect of seeing a woman with a baby—clearly, they’re my kryptonite—but when I step in the shower, I’m not picturing Daisy with Remy.

I’m picturing Daisy in the pool. Tossing her swimsuit top onto the cat. Draping her arms around me. Gripping my hips with her thighs.

Christ.

She’s snuck into my brain, and I don’t know how to get her out.

We can’t get involved, because when it ends—and it will, because I’m rules and straight lines, and she’s chaos and heart-shaped bubbles floating in the sky—I’ll be facing the same path I’ve walked too painfully before.

I can walk away from a woman.

I can’t walk away from a kid. Not again. Kids don’t deserve to pay the price for adults not being able to work shit out.

That’s why I avoided Becca’s kids before asking her if we could date. So none of us would get attached.

I don’t miss Sierra. Time heals wounds, and in retrospect, it’s easy to see where the cracks were in our relationship. But her kids?

There’s still a hole there.

Nina would’ve graduated eighth grade this past May.

Baxter’s probably taking his ACTs and SATs and talking about where to go to college.

And it’s none of my fucking business anymore, because all I was, was the man who dated their mother for two years. It didn’t matter how many times I picked them up from school. How many band concerts I went to. How many lines I helped rehearse for the school play.

I wasn’t their father.

I was the guy who got orders across the country, and the guy who didn’t mean enough to their mother to justify uprooting everyone to go with me.

Or even enough to wait for me.

I was the one who left.

My boner’s creeping away on its own, which is good, because Daisy’s the kind who’d pop into the shower here, and the last thing I need is her catching me rubbing one out.

She’d think I was thinking about her.

She’d be right.

And we’d be headed for disaster.

But there has to be a happy medium. A place where we can be friends, without being anything more.

And since I told her to back the fuck off, it’s up to me to set the stage to get us there.

Can’t hurt.

Especially with a social worker coming next week to make sure we’re good parent material.

Yep. We can be friends.

We should be friends.

This attraction? It’s a fluke because of stress, and the fact that Daisy is an attractive woman. It’ll pass.

And if it doesn’t, I’m still a Marine at heart.

I’ll fucking make it pass.

Twenty-Six

Daisy

Remy’s gnawing on a board book and looking sleepy when West emerges from the bathroom in gray sweatpants and a black Marines T-shirt that’s hugging his chest in all the right places.

I stifle a sigh that he’s so intent on having nothing to do with me, because we really could both use some frustration relief, and he’s sexy as fuck basically twenty-four hours a day.

“You had dinner?” he asks gruffly.

My mood goes from sad panda to leaping llama in a flash. “Just cotton candy and the crushed dreams of ever getting enough sleep again.” And a donut from Carbs ’n Coffee, because today was my monthly buy-everyone’s-coffee-and-donuts day, which didn’t feel like enough, so I also sent sub sandwich platters to all of Miami’s elementary schools for the teacher lounges.

His lips quirk again in more of a smile than I’ve seen since he moved in. “I had road exhaust and a pack of peanuts.”

“Cristoff left egg rolls and chicken bacon avocado paninis in the fridge.”

His nose wrinkles. “Got any bread?”

“Probably. Alessandro is a total bread freak and I have to keep him fed if I want to stay safe.”

“Peanut butter?”

“Hello, peanut butter of the month club subscription.”

“Potato chips?”

“Westley Jaeger, you need to stop talking dirty to me if you’re not interested.”

He drops his head with a wry grin. “Fair enough. I’m gonna go fix something. Welcome to join me if you want.”

“So very kind of you to think of the poor starving heiress putting a temporary roof over your head. I accept.” I lift Remy and kiss his cheek. “C’mon, little man. Let’s go torture you with all the food you can’t eat yet.”

He whimpers when I take the book away, but I pop a pacifier in his mouth, and