Page 22 of The Single Dad Project

But hadn’t that been the theme of their evening? She’d wanted nothing more than a way to blow off steam, and at every turn, he’d pushed for deeper. For...more.

Damn. Him.

And damn her for surrendering to that weak need formore. That need was a careless, reckless step down a slippery, well-intentioned slope to pain, loneliness and abandonment. All she had to do was look at the base of that slope to see the debris of her past as a reminder.

“Not to be rude, Flo—” She choked back a snort. Because whenever someone started with that opener, chances were they’d be rude. “But what are you doing here?”

His gaze dropped to Jussy, who still stood next to Flo, and thewith my daughtermight’ve gone unspoken, but Flo heard it loud and clear.

“Stopping by for a visit,” she said, purposefully keeping her answer vague. “But then I saw Jussy out hereby herself—” she threw some grit behind those two words “—and decided to stick around a little while.”

“You were planning, Daddy.” Jussy’s voice took on a bit of a whine, and call it intuition, but Flo had the sense the two of them might’ve had this conversation a time or two before. “And I wanted to see the ’sebo.”

It took Flo several moments, but she translated’sebotogazeboand glanced toward the run-down structure with its peeling white paint. The skin tightened across his cheekbones as his mouth flattened. Probably thinking the same thing as she was. While the gazebo stood, it wasn’t very stable or safe.

“Jussy, what did we say about you walking away from me without letting me know where you’re going? And doing this without asking for permission first?” he asked his daughter, his tone gentle but firm.

Hell, she wasn’t even his child, and she wanted to apologize and confess all her sins.

Was that as dirty as it sounded in her head?

Damn this man and his lingering effect on her.

“Not to do it and to always ask you,” Jussy mumbled, head bowed and little foot twisting in the scruffy grass. “I’m sorry.”

“Jussy.” He waited until she lifted her head, tilted it back and looked at him. “It’s okay, baby girl. Just be more careful next time, all right?”

“Yes, Daddy.” Her downtrodden expression immediately brightened with a wide grin that exposed the gap where her bottom front tooth had been. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby girl.” Adam—eventhinkingthe name sent an unwanted and resented shiver coursing through her—returned his attention to Flo, and she steadily met it, hoping all those times Moe had made her attend Sunday school had copped her some points with God. If so, none of her thoughts about shivers, heat and naked, sweaty skin pressed against naked, sweaty skin would reflect on her face. “So why are you here again, Flo? Since the house has been vacant for at least the last four years, who exactly did you stop by to visit?”

So he wasn’t allowing her to get away with her vague reply from earlier. Another thing she should’ve remembered from their night together. He pushed and pushed, not backing down until he was satisfied with an answer...or an orgasm.

Good Lord, she had tostop. There were kids—orakid—present, for God’s sake. Flo couldn’t just be out here lusting after the child’s daddy like she had zero home training. Though, to be fair, Moe’s talks about sex had never coveredthissituation.

“Notwho,” Flo corrected, proud of her cool, even tone. “What.In a few days I’ll be here working. So I decided to stop by and see the place.”

“Working?” he asked, his big body stiffening and his chin snapping back toward his neck.

At the same time, Jussy bounced on her toes and clapped her hands.

“Daddy, too! He works here, too! Right, Daddy?” Not waiting for her father’s reply, she grabbed Flo’s hand again and swung it back and forth. “My friend works here!”

He works here, too.

Those words, yelled in such childlike exuberance, echoed in Flo’s head like a death knell, deafening her to everything else Jussy said.

He works here, too.

Holy.Shit.

Had she said Fate couldn’t be this cruel? Oh no. No, no, no. She severely underestimated the bitch. She wasn’t only cruel.

She was downright vengeful.

“So.” Flo paused, cleared her throat. Tried again. “So you’re here for the renovation, as well? You’re not the new owner?”

A tiny muscle ticked along the line of his jaw and, for a long moment, he just studied her. If that hard glint in his eyes was anything to go by, this news had thrown him as hard as it had her. Thrown, hell. Catapulted.

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