Page 224 of Guardian Daddy

Oh God! Panic flooded her. How could she have slept in? Why hadn’t she set an alarm? She should be in her office by now.

This wasn’t her routine.

No. No. No.

Wait . . . she glanced around. Where was she?

Everything rushed back to her.

She must have fallen asleep while Ethan drove them to the lake house. And he must have put her to bed.

Where was Ethan?

What should she do now? She had to set her office up. She already had two text messages from Oliver, so she should answer those.

But her stomach was rumbling. She’d like to eat first.

And she had to pee.

What to do first?

“Good morning, baby. I see you finally woke up. I made you some breakfast in bed.”

Glancing over at Ethan, she shook her head. “I . . . I can’t.”

He stared down at her, then he put the tray of food on the nightstand.

A plate with dividers sat on the tray. One section had scrambled eggs, another had bacon. And the third held pieces of toast with butter.

Oh. That actually looked good. But she usually ate a bagel.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

What’s wrong? Everything was out of sorts.

“I . . . I . . .” She could feel her breathing quicken.

No! She wasn’t doing this. This had been happening too much. If this kept going, she would give herself a heart attack.

“I slept in!”

“You needed the sleep, baby. You were exhausted.” He kneeled in front of her.

Cate shook her head. “You don’t understand. I have a routine.”

“Ahh. And you’ve been out of that routine awhile, but I’m guessing coming here is throwing you.”

“I love it here. But I need to set up my spaces. My work. My . . . safe space.”

“I understand.”

“I have to stick to my routine.”

“Which means long hours of work? Not stopping for breaks? No fun stuff?”

Oh.

She hadn’t thought of it like that. But she had always worked a lot.

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