Page 5 of Let Go My Gargoyle
“You are not paying my babysitter.” She strode up the walk and thrust cash into Clarice’s hand.
Clarice glanced at Griffin again and then said, “I’ll be back tomorrow at four.”
“You’re working again tomorrow?” Griffin said, looking to Sofia for an answer.
“Thanks, Clarice. Have a good night.”
The babysitter skirted around them and headed toward her car.
“I can’t decide if I should go with you to work or stay here and take care of the child.”
Sofia stared at Griffin as if he’d just turned into a dragon, dropped to one knee, and declared them fated mates. “Excuse me?”
“I said—”
“I heard you. I just don’t understand you.”
He frowned. “Seems pretty self-explanatory. Either I go with you or—”
She slashed her hand through the air, cutting him off. “You aren’t doing anything at all that has to do with me or Penelope. All you are doing is leaving. Now.”
“You kept her name.”
“Of course I did. My world was flipped on its side plenty enough with an infant abandoned on my bedroom floor without me trying to come up with a new name for the poor kid.”
He winced like she’d slapped him, which admittedly gave her a tiny bit of self-satisfaction.
“I probably could have handled that whole situation a little better.”
“Probably?” Was this man serious? Wait, it didn’t matter. She did not need to spend a single second longer thinking about him or what he did to her. With her nose in the air, she deliberately skirted around him and headed into the house, slamming the door and flipping the deadbolt.
A scant moment later, the lock twisted of its own accord, the door opened again, and Griffin stepped inside.
Sofia sighed. Gargoyles and their annoying magic. Penelope was starting to show signs of being able to create magic, although so far, she’d not experienced any sort of shifting capabilities. Sofia had no idea if that was normal, since she knew precious little about gargoyles. All she knew was that they were great in bed and they left you with their unwanted offspring when they were done.
“I want to see her,” Griffin demanded. He kicked off his shoes, dropped his bag by the front door, and moved deeper into the house.
Bringing an overnight bag was damned presumptuous of the man.
“Why now? Why are you back, four years later?”
He dragged his hand through his thick hair, setting it to standing on end. He looked like he had after their first round of rather energetic sex. Incredibly hot. Hot enough that she’d dived in for round two.
And three.
Ugh.
“I should probably explain a few things to you,” he said, taking in her tiny abode and probably finding it lacking. Well, too bad; it was hard to survive when one was ostracized from one’s colony and unexpectedly left to raise a helpless child, alone.
Sofia decided to go with honesty. Maybe it would convince him to leave. “You know, if you’d shown up six months later, maybe even up to a year, I would have been willing to hear you out. But that child has been fatherless for four years now, and I am not interested in rocking her world just because you suddenly decided to man up. You should never have left her, and as far as I’m concerned, you have no rights to her whatsoever any longer.”
He raked his hand through his hair again. She really wished he’d stop doing that.
“One thing I should have told you back then was that she isn’t mine.”
Chapter Three
Sofia staggered backward until her heels bumped into the couch, and then she dropped onto the cushion, her arms waving and bouncing like she was on a roller coaster.
