Page 13 of Daddy's Unexpected Gift

I grunted. “Yes, I read to her.”

“Do you play with her?”

“I didn’t realize that was a requirement,” I admitted.

Cecelia’s eyes flashed to meet mine. “She’s a baby. Of course it’s a requirement. She needs mental stimulation. Do you at least talk to her when you’re feeding her?”

“What about? Market fluctuations in tech development? She’s not exactly an expert.” I crossed my arms and glared at the woman.

She made a pained expression, opening her mouth to berate me at first, but then she closed her mouth and sucked her lips in behind her teeth and closed her eyes. Was she counting to ten before speaking again? Had I pushed her to her limit?

If I had, her limits were very narrow. Why had someone like her gone into social services if she had no patience?

I watched and waited. Cecelia entertained me. Rude, I know, but her irritation with me was almost comical. I was tempted to poke at her just to see how she would respond. It was a juvenile response, a mechanism deep in the fiber of my being that had me acting out. Something inside drove me to pull on pigtails when I was a little boy and tease the girls with braces and training bras when I hit middle school. At some point, that need turned to something a bit more visceral.

I liked girls, and now I liked women. And there was something about Cecelia that brought out the little boy in me. It was as if I didn’t know how to behave around her, so I wanted to annoy her. Tease her. Get her angry. Anything to have her give all of her attention to me.

“Miss Cecelia.” I started speaking before she made it to number ten, or whatever she was counting to. “You are more than aware that I am out of my league here. Your agency knows this, but for some legal loophole my sister got her hooks into, I have custody of Georgie until her father can be located. Look around my place. I am not inclined toward children. My friends don’t have kids. I am relying on your assistance to help me through this. So, no, it hadn’t occurred to me to play with the baby.”

Maybe if I threw myself on her mercy, she’d look at me again? I found the way light refracted in her eyes to be quite attractive.

She blew out a breath. I guess she was done counting.

“You can’t be as hopeless as you’re making yourself out to be. I’ve read almost everything in Georgie’s file, and you would have been a teenager when her mother was born.”

“I wasn’t an integral part of Argene’s childhood,” I admitted. “My parents had strong opinions about what gender roles encompassed. They thought my masculinity would be damaged if I played with a baby.”

Cecelia blinked a few times. “Your father didn’t play with you? He didn’t change diapers?”

“Most definitely not.” I chuckled.

Cecelia stood, brushed off her curvaceous backside, and then picked up the baby. “Okay, show me around. Let’s see what you have managed to do. And I will try to think up a few crash course-style ways to get you up to speed with having a baby.” She held Georgie out to me.

I stared at the baby and then shifted to look at Cecelia.

Cecelia let out an exasperated sigh. “Take her. You need to bond with her, not simply be her caretaker.”

I took the baby. She fussed. We locked eyes. What was I supposed to do with this tiny human? She made the first move and grabbed and pulled on my nose.

“Ow.” I grabbed her hands and pulled them from my face.

She cried.

“See,” I complained. “She’s always like this.”

“Are you always like this?” Cecelia asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She was exploring your face. You don’t look like anyone she knows.”

“She grabbed my nose.”

“Yeah. She grabbed mine too. It’s kind of a thing babies sometimes do. If she hurts you, you need to be gentle.”

I let go of Georgie’s hands. She put them on my face again. This time, she ran them over the scruff of my beard before going for my nose.

“Why is it always the nose?” I grimaced.

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