Page 19 of Warming Up Coco (Santa Daddy)

Lucas Star, the world’s worst boss and bosshole extraordinaire, was actually capable of blushing! Who would have guessed?

“It’s nothing. Just some pillows and blankets and—" I reached for his hand, and his wrapped around mine immediately.It feels so right.

“Thank you,” I whispered, unable to hide the emotions in my voice and probably on my face.

My dad always said, if my mouth didn’t say it, my face would definitely show someone how I felt. I thought I’d learned how to school that after working for Lucas the last year with how crazy he drove me, but it seemed I was an easy nut to crack. Not even an entire twenty-four-hour period, and he was tumbling down the walls around my guarded heart.

“This is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me,” I confessed.

“How is that possible?” His voice seemed to vibrate against my skin.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged.

“You really telling me there was never…” His voice drifted off, and he made a face.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Ask,” I pressed, knowing very well I was about to put myself in the hotseat.

“There was never anyone? A guy? Boyfriend or other…”

“Daddy?” I guessed and watched as his jaw shifted from right to left, clenched so tightly, I had to lean in and touch it to sooth the tension away.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” I whispered. His eyes connected with mine. His gaze was steady and intense, silently pleading with me to share a little bit of myself.

“There was someone. Once. In college.” My eyes moved to the floor-to-ceiling window and stared at the snow falling, coating the ground in what looked like white fluff. “He wasn’t very nice. He thought the whole daddy/baby girl dynamic was a power move. A way to make himself better than me.” I kept staring at the wooded space outside despite feeling his gaze on me like a warm caress.

One that made me brave enough to talk to someone about what happened with my ex for the first time other than Serena.

“At first, it was little things I shrugged off thinking it wasn’t a big deal or nothing but a poor choice of words on his part. But slowly, if you hear you’re worthless or stupid or, I don’t know, how you don’t measure up to other girls or that you’re lucky you found him because otherwise, you’d be living life alone because there is no way anyone else would want you… you kind of start to believe it.” I swallowed and felt him shift.

Lucas moved to sit behind me. his long legs bent at my side as his front covered my back, engulfing me with his body heat. My eyes fluttered shut.

“After that, he’d do things that… left marks in places no one else would see but me. When Serena, you know, my friend who works up on the top floor with the sports agents?” He grunted. “She had to leave law school, and when she did, it got worse. He didn’t care if anyone saw the marks.”

“Fuck,” he cursed. Wrapping his arms around me tighter.

“A week before graduation, I realized I was late, and when I stared at myself in the mirror thinking about having his baby, I felt so… hopeless. I was about to finish law school. I was so close to living, you know? The thought of having a little girl and one day, whether he changed or not, she’d find out how her dad treated me, how I’d let myself be treated…” I shook my head.

“Thankfully, I started my period the next day. Turned out stress and losing weight mess up your menstrual cycle.” I smiled, trying to lighten the mood. But Lucas just kissed my satin-covered shoulder.

“Anyhow, one night when he came at me and I was so tired of being scared, I fought back.”

“What? Really?” I could hear the concern in his voice.

“Yeah,” I laughed at the memory. “I still have no idea how I let him do the things he did to me. I pushed him back, picked up one of my heels from the floor, and threatened to stab him in the balls if he didn’t leave. It wasn’t until I opened the door to my dorm, with other people around, that he believed I would do just that. I shouted at him that we were over, that I didn’t love him, that what we had wasn’t love. Not when he hurt me the way he did.”

“And he did? Leave?”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “I think he knew the end was coming. That we didn’t have a future. Not a real one.”

“That couldn’t have been easy, fighting for yourself the way you did.”

“I was the stupid one who put herself in—" His fingers touched my chin and turned me so our gazes connected.

“Don’t do that,” he demanded almost sternly. “Don’t put yourself down. You took a chance on love, put your heart on the line and trusted someone else to protect it. Fucking that up was on him for.” My nose stung while I blinked away unshed tears.

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