I Have Lived and I Have Loved - Willow Winters Page 0,333

table. “See you here tomorrow morning at seven thirty.”

Silently, people filed out of the room and I crossed my arms. Working with Harper would hopefully help my brain redefine her as a colleague, rather than someone I wanted to fuck—someone from whom it was my job to extract their best work. I needed those barriers between my worlds repaired and restored. Leaving Vegas Harper as part of my history with women would be the first step toward maintaining my distance.

First meeting down.

It would get easier to stop focusing on her neck, her legs, her ass, right? My dick would stop twitching at the thought of her hands spread against the glass of my office door while I fucked her from behind. Soon I’d no longer worry if her frown hid something I could ease or resolve. We were all business and that worked. It would have to.

Beginning the prep for the JD Stanley pitch had fired up the competitor in me, but the evening with my daughter and sister put things back into perspective.

“You can’t just ban me from wearing makeup,” Amanda whined as she twisted on the stool in front of the counter. Scarlett had brought Amanda to town so the three of us could spend Saturday shopping for Amanda’s dress. Hopefully it would be the last shopping trip for this dance, and Scarlett would back me up on the whole age-appropriate thing.

“I’m sure he’s not saying no makeup at all,” Scarlett said.

I ignored them both and continued to stir the spaghetti sauce. The Manhattan apartment had been something of a sanctuary to me over the years—everything was how I wanted it. My place in Connecticut was always overrun with my parents, Pandora’s parents, my sisters, and various friends of Amanda’s. I had no complaints. I loved that side of my life, but it was all the sweeter because I got to escape it every week and come to my quiet, modern New York apartment where I got to watch the game uninterrupted and fuck one of the women who seemed to drift in and out of my life.

“Are you saying that I can’t wear any makeup, Dad?”

“Of course he’s not.” Scarlett interrupted again and I took another opportunity to stay quiet. The less I said, the less of a chance there was to have an argument.

I loved my daughter and my sister, and it wasn’t as if there wasn’t room for everyone here in Manhattan. But it did mean I didn’t have any mental space—a beat after my working day. The edges of my separated worlds were softening, growing fuzzy.

Everything was changing.

“I’ll speak to your mother,” I said, grabbing the oregano from the counter.

“We’re not having pasta, are we?” Scarlett asked.

“You just watched me make the sauce.”

“I wasn’t watching. I was talking. You know I’m not eating wheat at the moment.”

I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, then looked at Scarlett. “Why would I know that you’re not eating wheat?”

“Because I’ve been whining about it non-stop for the last month.”

“Come on, Dad. You know she’s not eating wheat,” Amanda said.

Why did the women in my life have the ability to make me feel so hopeless? In my day job I was respected, some would even say admired. With my family, I was just some guy who forgot that my sister wasn’t eating wheat.

Jesus.

“So don’t eat it,” I snapped. “I have some popsicles in the freezer.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes in the exact same way Amanda always did. “I’m not five. I can’t have popsicles for dinner.”

“Good. So you’ll eat spaghetti,” I replied.

Scarlett hopped off her stool. “We’ll go out,” she announced.

“You’ve just watched me make spaghetti sauce.”

She shrugged. “It’ll freeze. Come on, Amanda. Get your shoes on. We can go to that place on the corner. I like the sea bass there.”

Unbelievable.

In the office if I shouted “jump,” a cacophony of voices would ask how high. At home I got an eye roll and a shrug, if anyone heard me at all.

But, as was becoming my mantra, some battles weren’t worth fighting. I turned off the stove and grabbed my wallet and my keys and followed them out to the elevators.

Amanda linked her arm into mine and instantly I felt better. She was fourteen going on twenty-seven most of the time, but every now and then she was happy just to be my daughter.

We stepped into the elevator. “Tomorrow, can we go back to the store we tried last time?” Amanda asked.

“The one where I hated everything you