Page 48 of Delinquent Daddy (Banks/Kincaid Family 2)

"You can't run from this," he murmured, his voice a little too coaxing for comfort. "We need to figure out what we're going to do."

At the moment, she hated him for acting so rationally. She still wanted to rail, and scream, and cry. How dare he make her feel even more unhinged with his calm, collected demeanor?

" We're not going to do anything," she growled, putting more weight into trying to shut the door. But the man must have an iron foot. He'd didn't budge.

"I can't just turn around and leave, El."

"Yes, you can. You've done it before."

He sighed. "Will you at least let me come in to apologize?"

She cracked off a harsh laugh. "You don't want to apologize."

"Yes, I do. My mother was right. I didn't think today.

I...hell. I guess I assumed you already knew I was taking her to Chuck E. Cheese's. Please believe me when I say I never meant to scare you...or your neighbor."

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Delinquent Daddy

by Linda Kage

"Apology accepted," she said quickly. "So, now you can go."

"Ellie, I'm not going to leave. Not this time."

"Then what do you want?" she said with a shaky voice.

"For starters, I'd like you to stop crying."

"I'm not crying," she muttered and wiped at her wet cheeks.

She could actually hear his amused smile. "There's more than an apology I need to give you," he murmured. "I had my sister Helena work up a custody agreement today. She's a lawyer too."

For a moment, Ellie stopped breathing. Custody agreement?

"I...here," he said, sounding suddenly uneasy. There was a sound of crinkling paper, and then a legal sheet was thrust through the three-inch crack in the door. "We wouldn't have had the problem we did tonight if we'd come up with some kind of agreement. So, look it over and tell me what you think."

Ellie spent a minute just staring at his hand, the same long, talented fingers that used to touch the most intimate parts of her body but were now handing her a legal battle.

Slowly she reached out and slipped the sheet from his grasp.

Her chest physically hurt as she dropped her gaze to the document. After glancing over it, which was fairly easy for her since she worked in a law office and understood such forms, she lifted her eyes.

"Every weekend?" she uttered. "You want her every weekend?"

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Delinquent Daddy

by Linda Kage

Why didn't he just demand one of her lungs? Actually, those might not be such a difficult organ to give up. At the moment, the damn things seemed to be malfunctioning; she found it nearly impossible to breathe.

Blue eyes peeked through the open slit. "I thought that was more than fair. You'd still get her a majority of the time."

"But every weekend?" Ellie repeated in horror.

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