Page 59 of Fierce-Dane

One of the front desk girls would have taken care of it. She’d have no clue.

“Seems to be working out for both of us,” she said. “Anything else we have to talk about in terms of Dane? Do you want to know my intentions? Because I don’t have any other than taking it as it comes and putting no pressure on either of us.”

“We are good,” Chloe said. “Dane likes to have things planned out and I’m glad to know he’s not now.”

“I’m a planner too. I like to have control over my life for obvious reasons, but like your brother, I’m letting this fall into place. Maybe that is why it’s working out as well as it is.”

“I’m glad he found you,” Chloe said.

“I’m glad he found me too.”

17

OPEN YOUR EYES

“Thanks for bringing this over last minute,” Mel said to him later that day after work.

He had plans to go to dinner at Sloane’s and now he’d be running late. She’d told him not to worry when he said he’d explain later.

“I don’t want Tiffani to not be able to sleep,” he said.

“Daddy,” Tiffani screamed as she ran down the stairs at the front of Mel’s house. “Thank you for bringing Stanley. I can’t sleep without him. I thought he was in my bag.”

He handed over the floppy-eared bunny that had been his daughter’s bedmate since she was a year old.

He’d wanted to get one for each house when he and Mel split, but she’d said Tiffani would know the difference.

“You’re welcome. We wouldn’t want you to not be able to sleep.”

Tiffani launched herself at him. “Thank you, Daddy.”

That was the second “Daddy” out of her mouth. She rarely called him that anymore. He lifted his eyebrow and looked at his daughter and then his ex to see if something happened he should know.

Mel rolled her eyes at him. “You can take Stanley to your room and tuck him in,” she said to Tiffani who went running up the stairs.

“She’s too old to need a stuffed animal in bed with her.”

Dane looked past Mel to see a man standing in the hallway. “Ethan, I’m assuming?” he asked and moved past his ex to see the new boyfriend for the first time.

He was here and he was going to damn well meet the guy that his daughter was dropping tidbits of information about.

That statement alone pissed him off and he rarely felt that way about much in life.

“That’s me,” Ethan said. The new boyfriend measured him up. He tried not to grin over the fact he was a few inches taller and probably had some more muscle on him.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking hands. Ethan seemed stunned by that.

“The same,” Ethan said, grinning.

Dane leaned in close. “In the future, let me parent my child the way I see fit without comments from you. If she wants to sleep with ten stuffed bunnies until she’s twenty it’s no concern of yours.”

He stepped back and turned away before Ethan could say another word.

“Can we talk for a minute?” Mel asked him.

He assumed by the look on his ex’s face it had to do with what he’d just said to her new boyfriend. He hadn’t lowered his voice so Mel didn’t hear but so that Tiffani couldn’t, though his daughter was upstairs.

“Sure,” he said. “Outside.”

---