Page 132 of Little Bits of Daddy (Montana Daddies)

“Sunny,” Duke groaned. He straightened and started pacing back and forth. “A wedding present is towels or an air fryer. Not to pay for half the damn wedding.”

She chewed her lip, watching him worriedly. She knew that this was a real sore point for him.

“We don’t know that it was the Fox,” she offered. “Could be a long-lost uncle I don’t know about. I mean, Serenity and Phoenix never took me to any family reunions. I could have a generous uncle.”

“Great, so now you have two mysterious men going around and paying for things for you?”

She winced. “When you put it like that, it sounds bad. I’m sorry, Duke.”

Duke stilled and ran his hand over face. He picked up the chair and sat before lifting her onto his lap. “Don’t say sorry, Little Rebel. None of this is your fault.”

“It feels like it is.” She twisted her fingers together in her lap.

He placed his large hand over hers. “It’s not. And I apologize if I made you feel like it was.”

“I know you hate this.”

“That’s on me. And the Fox. Because I’m pretty certain he does half of this stuff to rile me up and I gave him that ammunition.”

Yeah, that sounded like the Fox.

“He is a bit of a shit-stirrer,” she admitted.

“I thought he might have disappeared out of our lives.”

Sunny had a feeling that would never happen. But she didn’t say that. Duke was stressed enough.

“Wait. How did he know what caterers and florist we used?” Duke asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe he hacked my email?”

Duke groaned.

“To be fair, my password is Wonderland.”

“Yeah, you need to change that.”

She nodded. She guessed so. “Are you really upset?”

“I’m not happy. But I guess I’ll have to get over it. However, we can’t trust the Fox. I know you want to think the best of him, but you can’t. He betrayed Markovich. We have to be careful, Sunny. I won’t risk you.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I know. I’ll be careful. Promise.”

7

Two days until the wedding . . .

“Sparkle Pony,don’t eat too much cake,” Sunny fussed. “You’ll vomit it all back up. Unicorns shouldn’t eat that much sweet stuff. Wait, unless cake is a staple of a unicorn diet? Now, that is something to think about. What do you think, Moody? Oh, you think that Sparkle Pony should leave some cake for everyone else. Good point.”

A throat clearing in the doorway had her leaning out of her fort and glancing up at Duke with a smile. “Daddy!”

He studied the fort that she’d built, then crouched down, looking in at where she was having a tea party with Moody and Sparkle Pony. “I only put the trash out. I didn’t think I was gone long enough for you to build a fort.”

“I started building the fort this morning while you were in the shower.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is that so? And is this a private tea party, or is there room for one more?”

“There’s always room for you in our threesome, Daddy! Oh, wait, that sounded wrong.”

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