Page 26 of Impressing Brett

He brushes my hair off my forehead and tips me back in his arms. “Feel better?”

I nod. My voice refuses to cooperate just yet.

His smile warms me from head to toe, and I’m grateful when he tucks me against him again and just rocks for a while. It’s peaceful and relaxing. I’m nearly lulled asleep.

Finally, he kisses the top of my head. “How about we get you dressed, brush your teeth, and then Daddy can fix your hair? Then you can play in here for a while. What do you think?”

I meet his gaze. “I probably need to face the real world.”

“The real world can wait another hour. Play, then lunch, then we’ll deal with your messages and your apartment. How about that?” He points toward the closet. “I even have some clothes in there that will probably fit you.”

I sit up straighter. “Why?” It seems strange to me that he has so many things. “Did you have a Little girl living here before?”

“Nope. You’re the first Little girl to spend the night in this house. I’ve been waiting and searching. But just like the rest of this room and the guest room, Eve and her friends were busybodies. They thought I should be prepared. Trust me. There are clothes in there. No one has worn them yet.”

“What if I’d been four hundred pounds?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Then we would’ve exchanged them, or Eve would’ve taken them, and we would’ve gotten more.”

I draw in a breath. He’s serious. He doesn’t even flinch at the idea that I might have been large. He doesn’t care about that kind of thing. This endears me to him even more.

I chew on my bottom lip for a moment and then release it. “You really think I can hide for another hour?”

“I know you can. If you’d like, I’ll make some calls and find out the status of the apartment building. How’s that sound?”

“That would be good.”

His brows furrow before he speaks again. “If you really hate facing the messages on your phone, I could listen to those, too, Little lamb.”

I blink and stare at him. He would do that? “I don’t know…” I try to think what kinds of things my father’s partner and his son might have said or texted. They might be mortifying. I just don’t know. “They’re pushy men. You might not like what you hear.”

“I probably won’t, but my obligation is to you, and if it takes some of the burden off you for me to go through the messages, I’m happy to do it.”

“There are things I haven’t told you.”

He nods. “I assumed so. Would you like to tell me some of them now?”

“I left ten years ago because my father wanted me to marry Max.”

Brett doesn’t flinch. “I kind of assumed that.”

“You did?”

He nods. “You’re estranged. You left town and never looked back. Those men are harassing you. It didn’t take rocket science to put that together.”

Well, that’s a relief. I lick my lips. “My father said his partner and he were like brothers. They had always intended for us to marry. Besides being barbaric, I didn’t even like Max. He was a smarmy pig. So was his father. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.”

“I’m sorry, Lacy. That must have been really hard.”

I shake my head. “Nope. Not hard at all. You asked me earlier if I was ever in a situation where I knew something in an instant. It was that moment my father told me I could either marry Max and join the family business like a good daughter, or he would cut me out of the will.”

Brett cringes. “Jesus.”

“It took me less than point-five seconds to make that decision. I think he was actually shocked. I marched into my room, gathered my few childhood possessions that meant something to me, and walked out the door. I didn’t even take my car. He’d paid for it. I had a few thousand dollars, a college degree in accounting, and a job offer in Seattle. I was scared, but I knew I could make it.”

“You were so brave.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

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