Page 34 of Falling for the Single Daddy

The five of us sit around the dining table. Emery seems happy to be with the grownups, although my heart breaks a little every time she looks at her mother. I know that look. I’ve had that look. She’s waiting for approval and love, which will never come. Sloane seems more interested in smirking at me than paying attention to her daughter. I’m almost certain she knows who Jorge is and his connection to me.

But I won’t rise to the bait. For Emery’s sake, for Gray’s sake, I won’t turn this into a drama.

“Hmm, burgers,” Sloane mutters derisively when Gray brings in the food.

Emery misses the sarcasm. She bobs up and down excitedly on the spot. “Can I have extra ketchy?”

“Ketchy?” Sloane mutters in a tone that makes me want to slap her.

“That’s what she calls ketchup sometimes,” I say, resisting the urge to add,You should know that.

“Oh, howkitschy,” Sloane says, laughing loudly at her joke. After a moment, Jorge-slash-Maxwell seems to realize he shouldbe laughing too. He lets out a loud guffawing noise. That, too, brings back an army of memories. I feel like I may be hallucinating. This feels so surreal.

“Nothing special,” Gray says, sitting opposite me. He’s dressed down in a polo and casual jeans. I want to grab his thick arms for support and press my face against his chest.

“It’s great,” I tell him, grabbing a burger.

“Do you like burgers, Callie?” Jorge-slash-Maxwell says.

I almost glare at him, but that’s what he wants. Once, he forced me to make the family burgers, then yelled at me for apparently overcooking them. He did this in front of the boys, delighting that he could treat me that way. It was sick.

“Yes, Maxwell, I love them,” I reply.

“I’ll have a nibble,” Sloane murmurs. “You know what they say. A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”

Gray is reaching for a plate, but when she says this, he pauses. Tension visibly pulses through him. He clearly doesn’t like her little digs about my body. I remember what he said when I was half-naked. He called meperfect.

I give Gray a look, a tight smile. He raises his eyebrows, telling me he’ll fight for me if that’s what I want. We don’t need to say anything. I don’t know how we’ve gotten to this place so quickly, where words aren’t required to understand each other. It’s just happened, and it feels so good, soright, somehow. I try to list all the reasons this is destined to fail again, but my mind won’t work that way.

“So, Callie,” Sloane says, staring at me. Crap. She definitely just saw the exchange between me and her ex. She looks pissed about it too. “How are you finding it working forthislump?”

“Gray is a great boss,” I tell her.

“What’s so great about him?”

“Daddy is the greatest!” Emery beams, looking at her mother as if expecting some praise or attention, but Sloane doesn’t even glance at her. Emery stares down at her plate, her eyebrows furrowing when her mother ignores her. The look of concern on her face is too grown up. It hurts. It reminds me so much of me.

“He compensates fairly.”

“Oh, yes, he’s rich,” Sloane says. “We can all see that.”

I smile tightly. “He doesn’t give too many rules. Just—be kind to his daughter and give her room to develop and grow.”

“That’s fantastic,” Sloane mutters. “Yes,reallyfantastic.”

She sounds furious. She’s trying to mask it, to pretend to be civilized, but she’s doing a crappy job. She looks like she wants to leap across the table and tackle me. And don’t even get me started on Jorge, sitting there with his classic sneer.Maxwell. That fake-name bull crap. What twisted game are they playing?

Soon, we’ve all finished eating. Emery sounds a little disheartened when she says, “Daddy, can I read, please?”

“Of course, you can, sweetness.”

Sloane, who has barely talked to or even looked at her daughter, chooses now to pipe up. “Make sure you say goodbye to Mommy.”

Emery looks at me as if for approval, which is a grave mistake. I can tell how much it pisses Sloane off. The whole purpose of this evening wasnotto give Sloane a reason to resent me, but so far, we’ve massively failed.

Emery dutifully walks around the table to her mother. “Bye-bye, Mommy.”

Sloane hugs her in the most over-the-top way—like she’s putting on a show. It’s gross. But it’s not my place to judge. I’m just the nanny. I have to keep reminding myself of that. Just the nanny, that’s all. I’m not part of the family. I’m not Gray’s girlfriend, and I never will be.

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