Page 59 of Daddy's Unexpected Gift

“What. How? It is rude o’clock in the morning. I’m never awake this early,” I said.

“You were yesterday,” he reminded me.

“That was past me. Present me would like to be asleep.”

“She’s just happy to have you in bed with us. I know how she feels.” He was gorgeous and sexy, and my insides did a little flip. I loved the way his hair was a mess, and the stubble on his chin was a little thicker and heavier. And his morning voice was deep and rumbly.

“Yeah, but you aren’t jumping on me and biting my face.”

“No, that was last night. And never with present company.” His wicked grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, and I really wanted to kiss him. But he was right, not with Georgie in bed.

I sighed and wanted to fade back to dreamland, but Georgie was entirely too enthusiastic. I needed to get up and go home so I could get ready for work. I very purposefully did not bring work clothes with me so that I would be forced to leave Sterling’s bed in a timely fashion.

With great effort, I forced myself to roll onto my side, giving Georgie my back. She thought this was great fun and used me as some kind of springboard. At least that’s what it felt like.

“Gotcha,” Sterling said. And Georgie giggled.

I sat up and twisted to look at them. My heart clutched at this moment. This wonderful, precious moment of the three of us, sleepy, together. It felt like family. It felt like home. I blinked because I knew what love looked like. This was it.

I didn’t want to leave and go to work. My priorities felt all wrong. I really needed to rethink this job. It wasn’t fair that I had to choose between work and love, or that I had to be deceptive in order to have both. The night before, I laid everything out for Sterling, how we could make certain that I never was here close to working hours to avoid any possible run-ins with my colleagues, and any date nights, he came to me, so no overlap with the nanny. And on weekends, we could go away.

It was possible to sneak around. And when Georgie was his with full custody and the agency had no more interest or responsibility for her, we could stop sneaking. We could openly be together. Sterling seemed to have liked the plan so much that he carried me to bed to celebrate.

Part of my big plan was that when I did spend the night, I would never leave for work from his place. And that meant this morning. I knew our time was limited. He would have to return to work soon. We didn’t talk about it, but standard family medical leave was twelve weeks at the most. He only had about three weeks left.

At that point, I wouldn’t be spending work nights with him. I knew this was a rare moment for so many reasons, and I wanted to hold on to it.

“You off?” he asked.

I nodded. A lump in my throat made talking without crying hard. I didn’t want to cry in front of Sterling right then.

I got up and got dressed. I returned to his side of the bed to give him and Georgie, who had finally settled down and was looking sleepy, kisses goodbye.

“Are you coming over tonight?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I haven’t gotten a whole lot of sleep the past few nights. I think I’m just going to go home after work and go to bed early,” I admitted.

“Call me,” he said before cupping his hand around my neck and pulling me back for another kiss.

Going home and getting ready for work felt like a chore. I didn’t want to go. Maybe my attitude would have been different if I weren’t headed into the office first thing. I liked helping my clients. I did not like the antiquated office situation.

I put on my little grey suit and slicked my hair into a bun. I felt like I was donning armor. I didn’t expect work to be particularly challenging. I just didn’t want to be there. Once there, my bad attitude made me feel worse because I knew it was all mental. I was playing head games with myself. If I could convince myself that I worked for the bad guys, then I could also convince myself that I worked for the good guys.

I stored my stuff away in my desk, pulled out a pad of paper, and made my way into the copier-slash-breakroom. I needed coffee and I needed the report forms.

“Oh, what’s this?” I asked no one in particular when I got there and there was a stack of new forms in the slot. They were practically fancy and high-end compared to what we had been using. The forms were already in triplicate. The top sheet was white, and the next two pages were yellow and pink.

I hadn’t seen forms like this in a long time. They worked best with typewriters, something we didn’t have, and they did not work in printers, which was fine, since I still hadn’t been given a laptop.

I was practically giddy. I couldn’t be sure if I was actually happy with the forms or just going slightly mad because I had a carbonless form but no real technology to accomplish my job. I took my coffee and a few copies of the form back to my desk.

Greta leaned on my desk looking bored when I got back.

I held up the forms. “We’re getting fancy. Any updates on the computer system?”

“We need to chat,” she said, completely ignoring my question. She stood up and began walking away.

That was my cue to follow her. So, I did. Her office was suspiciously clean. The surface of her desk was void of the piles of files I was used to seeing. Instead of folders, in the middle of her desk was a folded shirt. It was mine

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