Page 139 of Until I Find You

“You really don’t have to do that, Daddy.”

“Yes, I do.”

“But you’ve had a long day, and my feet are gross.”

“Well, first of all, we both had a long day, and second of all–” I take her foot in my hand and kiss the top of it. “Far from gross.”

She jerks her foot away from me, howling in laughter. “Don’t even start with foot stuff!”

We both laugh. Her foot dangles back into my lap, and I get back to work. “I don’t know how you’re even still awake after everything with Juana.”

“Me either. My head is still spinning.”

I keep working.

“You’re right. We look exactly the same.”

“Not exactly, but–”

“Pretty much,” Camilla says, placing the pad thai to the side and going for a bag of fries. “I’ve never had that before. Someone who looked like me.Like that.”

I pump some more lotion on my hand and go to her other leg. “Must have been strange.”

“Strange but comforting. The whole thing.” She is thoughtful as she eats a fry. Her other hand slides over her belly, errant and thoughtless. “It was so intense, Daddy.”

I flick my eyes up at her for a moment as I knead my knuckles into her calf. “How so?”

Camilla’s leg jerks. “Oh, my god!”

“Sorry.”

“No, keep doing that.”

I dig in again, and she lets out the kind of sigh I’ve only ever heard in the bedroom. “Yeah, that’s it, Daddy.”

“You’re so bad, you know that?”

Her eyes squint open. “You love it.”

“I love…everything about you.”

She blushes.

“Tell me what you meant. With Juana.”

“Oh, well, it was…it was the way I feel about our baby. But reversed. You know how there’s maternal instinct. It was the reverse of that. Like being her child, I have an instinct that she’s where I came from.” She cocks her head to the side. “It’s weird, my mom is still my mom, but Juana is…” She trails off.

I cup my hands around her calves and place my chin on her knee. “You’re so strong, Camilla.”

“No, it’s not–”

“You are.” I press a kiss to each of her knees and return my eyes to hers. “You dealt with me when I was a total jerk…”

“Jack…”

“And you whipped me into shape and made me make you a partner.”

She bounces her knee up, knocking me in the cheek. “I didn’tmake you, you–”

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