Page 9 of Enemy Ex's Secret Baby

“She can multitask,” I say dryly as I place the coins in my daughter’s hand.

She leaps up and then curtseys. “Any requests?”

I can’t help but giggle the tiniest bit. She’s got ice cream across her chin and lips like it’s lipstick and a huge splotch of it on the front of her shirt. Kids will be kids. “Whatever you like, Stella.”

“If they’ve got anything by the Rat Pack–” Axel pauses. “You know the Rat Pack, kiddo?”

Kiddo.

Stella snorts. “Of course I know the Rat Pack.”

“Of course she knows the Rat Pack,” Axel flashes a smile my way which makes me melt against my wishes. “Okay, make it count, then.”

Stella skips off, her ice cream cone tenuously balanced in her hand.

“She’s really darling, Gillian,” Axel says, watching as she goes off.

That’s about enough from you, Axel. I slam my hand down on the table. “Listen, Axel, and listen to me carefully.”

His eyebrows raise in alarm, green eyes snapping to me.

“I’m not backing down until the city council gives their verdict. And even then, I won’t back down.”

Axel is quiet for a moment. Then, he smiles lopsidedly. Jackass. “You’re so passionate, Gillian.”

“Don’t say that like I’m a kid, Axel. I might be younger than you, but I’m not a kid.” I look off in Stella’s direction. “Not anymore.”

“It’s just an empty lot, Gillian.”

“It’s not!” I say, trying to keep my voice low, though my emotions are red hot. “The kids who go to Seton have been playing in that lot since the nineteen fifties. It’s a community tradition.”

He tsks and tosses his hand in my direction as if trying to disperse me like I’m a bunch of marbles. “Gillian, Seton doesn’t own the lot. It never has. You know there are protocols and laws in place for things like this. And we own the property.”

“It’s not property! It’s land, it’s earth, it’s–”

“You know that hippie shit doesn’t work on me.”

My mouth tightens. Who does he think he is, speaking to me like that?

“I appreciate it, Gillian, I…really do, but business is business. And you’re making my work a lot harder for me than–” Axel stops suddenly and looks in the direction of the jukebox as a song starts to waft through the air.

A song we both know too well.

“Those fingers in my hair…that sly come-hither stare…”

“How about that, huh?” Axel says and then tries to laugh, eyes cast down on the table.

“That strips my conscience bare, it’s witchcraft…”

I shake my head. “She likes that song a lot. I had nothing to do with it.”

This is the most either of us have said in reference to our connection all those summers ago. A song that played that very first time. ‘Witchcraft’ by Frank Sinatra. I never forgot it.

I guess Axel hasn’t either.

Axel clears his throat. “Anyway. Back to business–”

“No,” I say firmly. “No more business. I’m done talking about it, Axel.”

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