to be near me.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind if you think I’m driving to Jersey today.”
It was only a forty-five-minute commute to the city. If I could do it every damn day, this guy could do it once.
I was pointedly silent.
“Okay, okay. Fine. Two fifty. Twenty-five percent and I’ll drive my ass to Jersey. However, I need you to bring a gun because if I catch the suburb bug and start looking at houses while I’m there, I need you to kill me immediately.”
Victory sang in my veins. “Noted. I’ll text you the address.” I didn’t give him the chance to get another word out before I hit the end button.
I typed out a quick message to Ian before shoving my cell in my pocket. Then, drawing in a deep breath, I patted down the inside of my jacket to make sure the black velvet box was still inside and prepared to face the music.
“Rosie. My baby,” I purred as I exited the hallway. She was easily the most beautiful thing I had ever and would ever see, even when her angry, green glare landed on me with the attitude of a scorned woman in her twenties.
I shot her a wink as I made my way to the table. When I got close, I reached for one of the muffins.
She slid the plate away. “You’re late.”
“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry.” I straightened the lapels on my navy-blue suit.
While I was in the shower, she’d slipped a formal handwritten—in crayon—invitation under the door, inviting me to her royal birthday breakfast. Or at least that was what I’d thought it said. It was really just her name, a birthday cake, and a stick figure drawing of the two of us holding hands. As I was drying off, she’d yelled, “I’m hungry, so dress like a prince!” through the door before I heard her feet scurrying away on the wood floor. This was the second year of princess birthday breakfast, so I’d thankfully prepared with chocolate chip muffins and pink-sprinkle donuts. Ya know, the breakfast of royalty everywhere.
I stopped halfway to my chair and gave her a once-over. “Wow, you look incredible.”
Her hair was a messy nest of red waves, a silver crown precariously perched atop her head, and her baby-blue ballgown was straight out of Cinderella, complete with elbow-length gloves and plastic gemstone bracelets.
She harrumphed and looked away, begrudgingly muttering, “Nice tie.”
I toyed with the end of it. “Yeah? You like it?” It was the most hideous monstrosity I’d ever seen. Bright yellow with slopes of brown on the top and bottom, it was a giant silk banana. No prince would ever be caught dead in it. But she’d bought it for me when Ian had taken her shopping for Father’s Day, so I wore it when I didn’t have to leave the house. “Mind if I sit down, your highness?”
Her glare turned into a full-on scowl, and I had to bite my lip not to laugh.
When I got settled across from her, I made another attempt at a muffin, and this time, she let me have it. I jerked my chin toward the full platter. “I thought you said you were hungry?”
“I know you were working.”
I slapped a hand to my chest. “Who, me? Working? Today? It’s a Saturday. That would be strictly against the rules.”
“It’s not just Saturday,” she huffed. “It’s Rosie-Posie day.” Her eyes narrowed into a powerful glare a four-year-old should not know how to possess. “I heard you on the phone.”
I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “You mean just now in the hall? Pssh. That wasn’t work.”
“Now, you’re going to make up a story,” she said before leaning back in her chair and linking her fingers like she was sitting in a boardroom rather than a breakfast nook. “Go ahead. Let’s hear it.”
Clearly this was not the first time she’d caught me working. She knew the drill.
And so did I. “See, when I took the trash out earlier, there was a baby seal in the middle of the road with a bunch of plastic straws stuck to his flipper.” I leaned toward her. “See why we have to recycle?”
“We don’t live near the water.”
“Right? Which was why I was so surprised to find him there.”
Her scowl became more scowly, but I’d committed, so I had to see it through.
“I was only late today because I stopped traffic, carried him to safety, and removed all the fishing net.”
“You said straws.”
“Yeah, but when I got closer to him,