Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(12)

“No,” I answer curtly.

“We could still play pretend.”

I scowl.

She sighs, grabs a handful of napkins from a dispenser, and turns in a circle while she tries to wipe the orange frozen yogurt off the white and gold sparkle dress holding her tight, round ass. “Let’s start over. Hi. I’m Daisy. Welcome to my house. Thanks for feeding the baby. Who are you and how did you know my cousin?”

I know how this ends. They have more money and access to better lawyers than I ever will. This kid isn’t my insta-family, and my rapidly cooling temper is making me regret that ballsy move in telling off her grandmother. “Redid the kid’s nursery. Never met her—Julienne—before the job. Haven’t—didn’t talk to her after.”

“You’re the guy she one-starred because you wouldn’t take out a wall to put in a marble statue and fountain?”

I give a single nod, because I have no idea if it’s actually normal for rich people to think taking out a fucking exterior wall—and raising a ceiling eight inches—in four days with a crew of two is no big deal.

“Don’t take it personally. She gave my driveway one star because she would’ve picked starfish instead of crushed seashells, and she once one-starred my mom’s boobs for being too boob-like. How’d you get the job?”

“My brother.”

Her brows pull together briefly. “Wait. Tyler Jaeger? That asshole who knocked us out of the play-offs this spring with that buzzer beater?”

“You follow hockey.”

“I follow a lot of things. How’d Tyler get you the job?”

“Knew somebody who knew somebody who said she couldn’t get a contractor to take the job. Just retired from the Marines. Needed the work.”

She rolls her eyes. “That makes unfortunate sense. Why did Julienne put you in her will?”

“No clue.” I should put the baby down, but I don’t want to. He’s a tiny little thing. Can’t be more than twelve, maybe fifteen pounds.

My parents’ cat is bigger than this child.

More loved too. Not a single other person has tried to take him from me.

Daisy’s face is morphing as I bounce in place with the sleeping baby, and I don’t like it.

It’s not lust exactly, but it’s not not lust either. It’s dark-eyed, heavy-lidded interest warring with body language that says stay back, danger, danger, and this isn’t the first time that look has taken over her face tonight.

If life has taught me anything in twenty-plus years of dating, and then reinforced it tonight, it’s that dating single mothers doesn’t work.

Time might heal all wounds, but the one poking me tonight needs more than six years, apparently.

“Why’d she name you as a guardian?” I ask Daisy.

“Either she had a sick sense of humor, or she thought she was just as immortal as The Dame and that it would never actually be an issue.”

I lift a brow.

“Gramalicious. The Graminator. Gram-grams. Grammykins. My grandmother. Call her a Gramogenarian if you really want to get her panties in a twist. She says she’s eighty-two, but I suspect she’s actually the original Dracula.”

My eyeball is twitching. If she keeps talking, it might never stop. “And you do…what, exactly, for your grandmother?”

“Apparently whatever she tells me to do.”

She flashes a billion-dollar smile again, but I’m well aware that Imogen Carter just put a fuck-ton on her shoulders. The Carter family matriarch doesn’t strike me as the type to trust anyone else to fill her lawn mower with gas, much less raise a child she has vested interest in.

“So I could google you, and that’s what it’d say? Daisy Carter-Kincaid is an heiress who asks how high when her grandmother says to jump?”

“Oh, no. Google says I’m a partying heiress with a penchant for causing the occasional scene and getting into sticky situations.”

“And your grandmother is trusting you with…the first in the next generation of the Carter family?”

“You’re here too, Mr. Jaeger. My grandmother is doing what she legally needs to do to make sure Julienne and Rafe’s final wishes are carried out.”

“Before she removes me from the situation once the Rodericks are dealt with.”

She winces. “You could take her a sacrifice of the still-beating heart of her enemy in a crystal goblet forged in the fires of hell, and she might go easy when she has her lawyers chew you up in court. But…do you actually want to raise a baby right now?”

“Do you?”

“Westley.” She winks. “What kind of question is that? I have ovaries and mammary glands, don’t I? Obviously I’d want to raise a baby anytime.”

In other words, no. Possibly with a side of, this is a conversation for not tonight.

Am I going to raise this kid?

No.

But am I going to leave him with someone who doesn’t have a fucking clue what she’s doing?

Also no.

“Do you have a crib?” I ask.

Her whole face transforms into pure joy. “Yes! We just redid the butterfly lounge and turned it into this epic—oh. Baby crib. Not party crib. Sorry. No.”

This is going to be the longest night in the history of long nights, and I once pulled a forty-eight-hour shift in the desert kicking in doors looking for a terrorist.