How to Resist Prince Charming(12)

“How’d your game go?” he couldn’t help but ask.

Tom looked up in surprise.

Braxton shrugged. “I ran into your daughter on my way to lunch.” It was probably going to leave a bruise too...and not just on his thigh. “She told me about your basketball matches.”

Tom’s face mellowed. “Lenna,” he murmured and smiled the proud-papa smile.

Braxton blinked. Had Tom Davenport just smiled at him?

“We play on Tuesdays, once a month,” Tom added, then shook his head and continued to grin. “God, that girl keeps me in shape, running all over the court to block her shots. She’s got a killer lay-up. I almost miss the days when she couldn’t make a basket to save her life. I sweated a lot less, anyway.”

Braxton smiled at the thought, imagining a young Lenna heaving a ball nearly as big as her toward the basket, needing both hands to shoot.

God, she must’ve been adorable.

“It was the cutest thing you ever saw,” Tom murmured.

Jerking himself back to reality, Braxton glanced at Lenna’s dad. Something about the nostalgic look on the older man’s face made him pause. The knot of hatred inside him loosened, and he couldn’t despise Davenport as much as he had thirty seconds before. But damn it, how could he when he was the very man who’d given life to the woman who’d been haunting his dreams since the night he met her?

Unsure if he wanted to hear more about Lenna, or if he wanted to find some kind of connection with Tom, he asked, “She’s your oldest, right?”

“She sure is. I have two others. After her, there’s Aaron, who’ll be a senior next year, and then Janette’s my middle school drama queen.” He sighed like a typical proud papa. “It’s amazing how fast they grow. My baby’s about to enter high school. But what really aged me was packing up Lenna and sending her to college.” He paused, looking a little lost. “And now she’s graduated.”

He met Braxton’s gaze and immediately narrowed his eyes as if he thought Braxton had tricked him into loosening up. Gruffly, he cleared his throat and made a move to leave.

“What degree did she graduate with?” Braxton asked, stalling.

Tom paused, indecision clouding his features. Then he replied, “Communications.” As Braxton nodded to show he was listening. Tom went on. “She’s been out for seven months now, and the dad gum girl is still working at that stupid restaurant, The Rockford Lounge.”

Braxton’s eyebrows rose. Oh, did she now?

Even as he told himself he might need to head to the Lounge one of these evenings to order a meal, his conscience warned him to stay away. Forget about her, bud. She’s forbidden, remember.

“That’s a nice place.”

Tom sent him a dry look. “She’s a waitress. She didn’t just work her ass off through four years of college to wait tables six days a week.”

Wanting to defend the woman he remembered talking to at the Christmas party, Braxton said, “Finding the right career takes time, Tom.”

Davenport scowled, not looking too receptive to receive any kind of advice from his kid superior.

Braxton knew he should’ve just kept his mouth shut. But there was something about Tom’s daughter that made him protective. It was more than how good she looked in any outfit, too. He might have only spent fifteen minutes in her company at the party but, in that time, they’d connected as he couldn’t recall ever connecting with anyone.

They fit. He knew they would fit together like—

Ahh...He should just get it out of his head already. Nothing was ever going to happen between him and Lenna Davenport.

Red in the face, Tom quickly gathered his papers and muttered, “Excuse me.”

As he stalked from the office, Braxton slumped into an empty chair and closed his eyes.

“Smooth move, ex-lax,” he muttered. He should’ve kept his big mouth shut. What right did he have to tell Tom how to treat his own daughter? He needed to befriend Davenport, not irritate him by sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.

Groaning at his stupidity, Braxton collected his things and forced himself to focus on work. As soon as he returned to his office, he began to read through the ideas from the meeting.

He was scratching out his own notes in the margins and circling things he liked as well as marking out bad ideas when his phone rang.

“Farris,” he answered.

“God, you already sound like some hoity-toity president, don’t you?”

Greg Scanlon, his buddy who’d started ProTech, loved to harass him about his new position.

Braxton grinned. “Man, I’m just trying to keep up with you. If you think you need to run your own company, then so do I.”

“Shit, if you’d leave those stuffy old auto parts and come back to me, I’d make you my partner.”

Braxton ignored the leap in his pulse at the very idea. But how cool would it be to help Greg run ProTech? The very idea made him salivate—

But he had obligations he couldn’t ignore.

Though his buddy couldn’t see his face, Braxton forced a grin. “And leave my cushy office here? Sorry, bud, but this is where the money’s at.”

Not that he’d been making nickels and dimes at ProTech, but yeah, he did get a higher salary at Farris. It was too bad money had nothing to do with his reasons for filling his father’s shoes. If it did, he’d be a lot happier about the decision he’d made.