Page 17 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

Dante drew his hand away from his eyes and stared at Michelle in complete astonishment. “How did you know about that?”

She shrugged. “The flower place calls the house number if they can’t get you on your cell. Sometimes they have to make substitutes for whatever you’ve ordered. I always tell them what changes to make.”

There were no words. “Is that right?”

She shrugged. “So, who is she?”

He opened his mouth and clapped it closed again. “Her name’s Aurora.”

“The woman you work with sometimes?”

“Seriously. How do you know all of this?”

Michelle gave him quite the look. “Dante, we live together, I listen when you talk. It’s not rocket science. Plus, I met her at an office picnic. Don’t you remember?”

“I guess I forgot.” He chuckled, slapped her spoon away from his ice cream with his own spoon and took another bite. “So, yeah, I work with her and…” He trailed off. Nowhere to go from there. How to explain this to Michelle? It was too advanced for a ten-year-old.

“And you have a crush on her,” Michelle filled in where he couldn’t.

“No,” he started, and then reconsidered. He didn’t think Michelle needed to hear him talk about being obsessed with Aurora. That one night worshipping at the altar of her body had only served to whet his appetite. Yeah, not the kind of conversation a guy has with his ten-year-old sister. “Well. Sure. I’ve got feelings for her.”

“But she doesn’t have them for you?”

Dante shook his head. “Doesn’t seem like it. But she let me kiss her one time.”

That actually wasn’t true. She purposefully hadn’t let him kiss her. But he wasn’t about to explain that she’d let him fuck the lights out of her. Four times. So, kiss it was.

“And now you send her flowers.”

“Yep.” He eyed her out of the corner of his eye. She’d had a small health episode with her Von Willebrand’s earlier in the week. It had required a short hospital stay. But she was looking a lot better now. She had her color back. He glanced at the clock. It was going to be time for her medicine in a few minutes.

“Did you tell her how you feel?” Michelle asked, sneaking one last bite of his ice cream.

“She knows.”

“No,” Michelle shook her head again. “In school, they say that you have to make sure you actually explain your feelings, or else the other person might not understand. You might think she knows but maybe she doesn’t.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I’ve been sending her flowers for six weeks. I think she gets the picture.”

Michelle shrugged and slid down from the bar stool. “Flowers mean a lot of things. ‘I’m sorry’, ‘Be my wife’, ‘Go on a date with me’, ‘Good luck.’ Who knows what she thinks you mean.”

Dante blinked at her. Michelle might have a point there. “Alright. Maybe you’re right.” He chucked his spoon in the tub and followed her from the room. “Time for your medicine.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled. But it didn’t stop her from reaching up and taking his hand. Just like she did when she’d first come to live with him four years ago.

Dante looked down at her head. The kid was growing up, that was for sure. But he was glad she hadn’t grown out of some things yet.

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