Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(21)

Is it possible to be utterly terrified and utterly turned on at the same time?

Because I think I’m there.

My grandmother watches me expectantly.

I swallow and start again. “If Mr. Jaeger is here, then Remy’s covered, and there’s no reason for me not to go to work. Or, I can take him to the daycare at the office.”

“There’s a large amount of uncertainty in your plans,” she says dryly. “Get Mr. Jaeger back here by dinnertime and convinced to stay through the legal proceedings. Learn how to take care of Remington. And then perhaps we can discuss your return to the office.”

“The Cairo deal—”

“I have it covered.

“And the Sydney spa—”

“Your employees will bring me up to speed.”

Dammit.

And it’s not just the projects. It’s checking on Anita in accounts payable, whose daughter is undergoing chemo treatments. It’s delivering cupcakes to human resources because Janette’s boyfriend broke up with her, but she doesn’t want to talk about it, so cupcakes are second best. It’s catching up with Juan in hospitality to make sure he’s taking his vacation time, because the guy’s basically brilliant at his job, but he’s prone to burnout if someone—namely, me—doesn’t nag him to use his vacation days and escape and refresh.

Who’s going to do all that while I’m out?

My grandmother rises. “Dinnertime, Daisy. Clock’s ticking.”

You wouldn’t know she was eighty-two years old by the way she carries herself out of my office.

But it lends more weight to my theory that she’s one of the undead.

Also, she doesn’t realize it, but she did leave me with a large amount of wiggle room. She didn’t specify which time zone for dinner, or even explicitly say today’s dinnertime.

Still, I’m grateful for Alessandro always being able to read my mind when he pops his head into my office almost as soon as she’s gone. “Problem?”

“We need to track down West Jaeger and beg him to move in for a while.”

He smirks.

Not frowns. Not growls. Not cusses.

Alessandro once scared the piss out of a landscaper who was supposed to be here simply by raising an eyebrow. He’s done the same to a few of my weekend flings. He vets every name on the guest list for every party or business meeting I have at home, and when he met Jude, Cameron’s approved-by-the-government-at-levels-so-secret-we-shouldn’t-even-know-he-exists fiancé, they had a staring match that lasted seventeen minutes without either of them blinking.

He doesn’t like having new people around.

But at the mention of West moving in?

He’s smirking.

I lift a brow—just like my grandmother would—and play it cool. “What?”

“You could tell her to pound sand.”

I don’t answer that.

Mostly because I don’t have a good response.

So I do the only other thing I know to do. “And get me a bucketload of quarters. Like half a truck full. We’re spreading some joy to some laundromats today, okay?”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Laundromats, huh?”

“Clean clothes make people happy. Free clean clothes make them happier.”

He pats me on the shoulder. “You’re gonna be just fine, Daisy. Both you and the little guy.”

One can only hope.





Ten





West



I manage to only think about everything that went down last night and into this morning approximately seven billion times while I’m working on the plumbing in the gym all day Friday. Blaring music helps. Watching YouTube videos of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines having surprise homecomings helps. Texting a few old buddies about random bullshit helps too.

By the time I’m washing up in the now-running sinks in the locker room, I know I’m going to be okay. There’s still legal crap to deal with—I need to get a copy of the will, but the attorney Ty recommended tells me it’s pretty cut-and-dried to step down.

So I’m moving on.

In all aspects of my life.

I’ve just downloaded a dating app when my phone rings.

Becca?

Aw, shit. She probably reads TMZ too.

I almost let it go to voicemail, but I’ve never been a chickenshit. “Hello?”

“West! Hey! I just saw the weirdest news,” she says way too brightly.

Mayday! Mayday! my balls shriek, because the last time I heard Becca that overtly and fakely happy was the night her ex-husband called to tell her his plans had changed, and he’d be taking their girls to his mother’s house for a week, where she knew they’d be plied with cotton candy and daytime soap operas and get to listen in on screaming matches between the mother-in-law and her neighbor, who’d been fighting since approximately the dawn of time, though no one could remember why.

“Yeah?” I stroll through the gym, looking at the painted cinderblock walls, the boxes of weights and equipment ready to be unpacked next week. I’ll have to hire short-term help to get it done, but I will, and then it’s on to the next job.

Whatever that job is.

It’ll land in my lap. Usually does.

“You inherited Judgy Julie’s baby?” Becca half-whispers.