Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(42)

The one time he takes me seriously, it’s about getting married.

“Kidding.” I laugh, which is easy, because I do this laugh seventeen times an hour when I’m partying with new acquaintances, which is basically every other weekend.

He slowly turns to face me again, still lit and glowing. “Why do you want this baby?”

Does he have to do that thing where he crosses his muscled arms over his chest while he interrogates me? Because I have a damn good air conditioning system, but I’m starting to sweat. “I—”

I have to stop and clear my throat. This is harder to say than I’m sorry was.

Why do I want Remy?

Because he’s alone and helpless. Because he deserves a fucking awesome life. Because he’s an orphan. Because he’s my responsibility. Because my grandmother will disinherit me and yank away the only thing I’ve ever been marginally good at if I don’t take on this challenge too.

But I can’t say that.

“You’re going to have to tell a judge,” he points out. “So you might as well tell me.”

“I don’t know you well enough to trust you,” I manage to say, just barely over a whisper.

“You’ve trusted me with your cousin’s baby for the better part of the last two days.”

“That’s completely different than trusting you with me.”

“Is that what you’re going to tell Remy when he asks you personal questions? That he doesn’t have the right to know you? How’s he ever going to learn to have real relationships with other people when his mother figure won’t let him in?”

Heat is creeping over my scalp and down my neck. I’ve been naked and felt less exposed than I do right now.

“I don’t know what google told you about me, but it only tells you what I want it to tell you. So go ahead. Judge me. Make assumptions. Draw your conclusions. Everyone does. Why shouldn’t you too?”

“Going on the offensive only works if your offense is better than your defense.”

I blink twice, because I’m not sure what he means, but I think he just called me out on avoiding the question.

Again.

“I’ll never have a bigger bank account or house or legal team than you,” he says, “but I also don’t have family that threatens and bullies their way into being in charge. Don’t know shit about raising kids firsthand, but I know they need unconditional love and a whole hell of a lot of work if they’re going to grow up to not be shitheads.”

Shit. Am I swooning? I think I’m swooning again. “Having money doesn’t automatically make someone a shithead.”

“No, but being related to your grandmother seems to.”

I actually can’t argue with him. Also, I swear the man is getting sexier by the millisecond.

And if that smirk as he turns and walks away again is any indication, he knows it.





Nineteen





West



Confucius once said, there’s nothing like feeling like an asshole to encourage a guy to try to rescue an idiot cat from a swimming pool.

So maybe I’m paraphrasing Confucius, but I do feel like an asshole for putting Daisy on the spot. It’s not her fault I have a fucking hero complex. Not her fault her cousin married into a family of assholes and then named me in her will.

And it’s not her fault I said yes when she asked me to come back.

That’s all on me.

So I need to quit taking it all out on her and make the most of being here.

Nicely.

Also, this damn cat does need to be rescued from the pool, since it stuck a claw through the pool floatie it’s been chilling on since yesterday.

“C’mon, kitty kitty,” I mutter. “You don’t look like you can swim, so just let me grab you and get you to shore, okay?”

The gray tabby meow-squeals and prances in place on the deflating unicorn, which is not only wilting, but also taking on water, which the cat is freaking over.

Apparently it doesn’t like getting its paws wet.

Or maybe it’s terrified that whatever happened to the unicorn will happen to it.

But when I wade closer in the four-foot-deep water in the middle of the D-shaped pool in the courtyard, it arches its back and hisses, its tail going fluffier than my sister’s Pomeranian at the height of summer humidity.

“All right, all right, I’ll just pull you over to the side and you can climb off with your prissy little self.”

Another three minutes, and it’ll be swimming for it, but this one seems to have enough demon in it that it could probably levitate to shore. I should leave it to its own devices, but if it can’t swim, I’ll be the asshole who let a cat fall off a deflating unicorn and drown.

“Pussy problems?” a familiar voice calls.

My shoulders bunch, and I order them to relax. Me being an ass to her won’t make any part of the next few weeks to months any easier.

“Where’s the baby?” I try to keep my voice casual, but I don’t know if I hit it.

“Steve’s babysitting him.”

I twist around, not sure I heard her right. “Steve—the alligator?”

She laughs, and dammit.

She’s incapable of uttering a single true sentence, and here I am, wanting to actually laugh at both her audacity and the fact that I’m sixty percent tempted to believe her.