Page 30 of Single Dad's Second Chance

I’d been too busy to get a moment alone with her. I was working. She was working. Jason needed more attention from me. My dad did, too, with some paperwork getting snagged.

I wanted a chance to talk with Mia like we usually did. We were past due to discuss the kiss at Danger. And I was eager to hear what she had to say about Ann and Ann’s comments. I wasn’t blind. I knew Ann was a gold digger, too eager and pushy for my time. Though she might think she was hiding her expressions when my back was turned to her, I noticed the tail end of her sneers, scowls, and rolling eyes. Besides, she was too damn sugary with me for it not to be fake and forced.

Mia wasn’t available, though, also unusually busy. She always came in late, apparently because she had a habit of staying up late reading. Jen constantly praised her bookworm routine, but I wondered if that was true. If she read that much, wouldn’t she talk about books, too? She never did, not with me when I asked her about what she was currently reading. I’d given up on asking, getting a hunch that she actually did something else at night.

But if she’s not at home reading into the morning, what is she doing?I debated every day whether Mia was actually the homebody she appeared to be outside her working hours here at the office.

I hated the thought of her being busier than usual because of that kiss. I had yet to explain why I’d had to kiss her. It wasn’t only because I wanted that guy and everyone else at the club to see that shewaswith me. I also felt prompted to act on my question, when I put her on the spot and challenged her about why we couldn’t be out on a date at the club.

I’d asked her to come with me to scope out talent. For work. But it felt like so much more. Every second spent in her company felt supercharged and more exciting.

“But it couldn’t have been a date,” I mumbled aloud as I sat up and opened my eyes at my computer screen.

Mia and I couldn’t do anything so long as we both worked for Dunn Enterprises. While I couldn’t stop thinking about the sensation of her lips against mine and how badly I wanted to kiss her again, I couldn’t risk breaking the company’s policies to start something with her.

I sighed, looking at the photo on my desk. Picking it up made me feel closer to her, closer to that fun moment I’d had with her.

My dad wouldn’t understand it. He simply would not be able to believe me or accept it if I approached him and told him that I wanted to date Mia. That I dreamed about kissing her. That I fantasized about making love to her and learning if she was a quiet lover or a loud?—

“Goddammit.” I shook my head and looked up at the ceiling, annoyed with my train of thoughts. She so easily derailed me, just like this. All these what-ifs between us.

After the way Mackenzie duped me and abandoned me and Jason, leaving to go work for a rival company, my dad wouldn’t be able to understand that I’d want to risk it all again. Mackenzie and that other guy weren’t together any longer, either. She hadn’t leaked secrets or anything like that. She’d simply wanted to fuck someone else and not be a mom.

Still, the breakup phase was tense. I had been stressed with Jason, who got ill a couple of weeks after birth. My father had still been in charge as CEO then, and he’d faced a fair share of backlash from the media.

I got it. I understood that my mistakes in love and trust had caused difficulties. When it all fell apart, he’d scolded me about why I couldn’t have “just kept it in my pants”.

He’d think that again about Mia, regardless of his high opinions of her. If I was stubborn, I bet he’d tell me to fire her, then see if she wanted me. And I couldn’t do that. I refused to make her lose her job.

Once more, I lowered my head. I rubbed my brow, scanning through texts with Jen on my phone about a little fire she’d had to put out. All of the employees here were the best of the best, all treated fairly and welcomed for their skills. Mia, included.

“There’s just no way around it,” I mused out loud.

“No way around what?”

I looked up, catching Owen walking in. “Nothing.”

“No, no, no.” He sat, stretching his legs. “We’re too good of friends to play that crap. There’s no way around what?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I was fretting about there being no way around the no-fraternization rules barricading me from pursuing Mia like I wished I could. He’d caught us kissing. I knew he was more than curious. But so far, he hadn’t said a single word.

Perhaps it’d be wiser to not bring it up. “No way around that manager, Gina, to find that dancer,” I said instead.

While it was true, and I had been working on finding that dancer, it was far from what was really on my mind—Mia.

Owen chuckled. “She’s a tough one.”

“She’s protecting her employees’ privacy.”

He nodded. “Sure. And I applaud that. But hell, man. We stopped in there yesterday and told her to let that dancer know that we’d offer her five times what she was making at that club.”

“And still nothing.” I sighed, feeling defeated. “I can’t explain it, either. I know there are many other dancers, and the scouts are showing me résumés of others, but something about her just… drew me in.”

“I can tell. You’ve never chased after someone you wanted to hire like this before.”

The only other time that someone’s simple gaze captivated me like that was the first day I met Mia, when she was a secretary’s assistant here. One instance of eye contact, and I was magnetized to her.

We were stopped from discussing that mystery dancer any further. My dad walked in, all smiles. “Hey. Both of my favorite boys in one place.”

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