Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(59)

Love isn’t about blood.

And blood isn’t always about love.

But Daisy—she loves that baby. Not because she has to. But because how could she not?

Hell, who am I kidding?

I don’t recognize the glow because of my sisters. I recognize the glow because of me. I’m fucking glowing just watching the two of them. Standing here grinning like a sap. Getting a little choked up when she pulls his fists to her lips and kisses them.

Yeah.

I’m a little attached.

“Who’s the most perfect baby in the whole wide world?” she coos.

Remy shouts a big ol’ “Aaaaoooooaa!”

“That’s right. My Remy’s the very most perfect baby in the whole world.”

My eyes get hot.

She doesn’t need me. She’s got this.

Fuck.

“Oh, hey, West. You wanna try some three-way peekaboo? You’re going to lose, just so you know, because Remy is the peekaboo champion. I already ordered his trophy too, so you basically have to lose, because I’m not re-doing it to put your name on it.”

I clear my throat. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic.”

“Ha! So you admit Miami drivers aren’t all angels. Finally, he sees the light. Miami drivers are shirt-heads, aren’t they, little man? Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Peekaboo!”

Remy squeals.

Daisy laughs.

And my heart twists and soars at the same time.

This is a dangerous, dangerous path. But it’s not one I can resist.

It’s not one I’ve ever been able to resist. “You mind sitting here another few minutes while I grab a shower?”

“Stealing a few more minutes with the most perfect baby in the whole wide world? Torture. Utter torture.”

She boops Remy on the nose, he coos, and she laughs again. “Go on, stinky butt. You’re polluting the air.”

Her smile is the last thing I see before I step out of the sitting room, and it’s making me hard as rebar.

I tell myself it’s just a side effect of seeing a woman with a baby—clearly, they’re my kryptonite—but when I step in the shower, I’m not picturing Daisy with Remy.

I’m picturing Daisy in the pool. Tossing her swimsuit top onto the cat. Draping her arms around me. Gripping my hips with her thighs.

Christ.

She’s snuck into my brain, and I don’t know how to get her out.

We can’t get involved, because when it ends—and it will, because I’m rules and straight lines, and she’s chaos and heart-shaped bubbles floating in the sky—I’ll be facing the same path I’ve walked too painfully before.

I can walk away from a woman.

I can’t walk away from a kid. Not again. Kids don’t deserve to pay the price for adults not being able to work shit out.

That’s why I avoided Becca’s kids before asking her if we could date. So none of us would get attached.

I don’t miss Sierra. Time heals wounds, and in retrospect, it’s easy to see where the cracks were in our relationship. But her kids?

There’s still a hole there.

Nina would’ve graduated eighth grade this past May.

Baxter’s probably taking his ACTs and SATs and talking about where to go to college.

And it’s none of my fucking business anymore, because all I was, was the man who dated their mother for two years. It didn’t matter how many times I picked them up from school. How many band concerts I went to. How many lines I helped rehearse for the school play.

I wasn’t their father.

I was the guy who got orders across the country, and the guy who didn’t mean enough to their mother to justify uprooting everyone to go with me.

Or even enough to wait for me.

I was the one who left.

My boner’s creeping away on its own, which is good, because Daisy’s the kind who’d pop into the shower here, and the last thing I need is her catching me rubbing one out.

She’d think I was thinking about her.

She’d be right.

And we’d be headed for disaster.

But there has to be a happy medium. A place where we can be friends, without being anything more.

And since I told her to back the fuck off, it’s up to me to set the stage to get us there.

Can’t hurt.

Especially with a social worker coming next week to make sure we’re good parent material.

Yep. We can be friends.

We should be friends.

This attraction? It’s a fluke because of stress, and the fact that Daisy is an attractive woman. It’ll pass.

And if it doesn’t, I’m still a Marine at heart.

I’ll fucking make it pass.





Twenty-Six





Daisy



Remy’s gnawing on a board book and looking sleepy when West emerges from the bathroom in gray sweatpants and a black Marines T-shirt that’s hugging his chest in all the right places.

I stifle a sigh that he’s so intent on having nothing to do with me, because we really could both use some frustration relief, and he’s sexy as fuck basically twenty-four hours a day.

“You had dinner?” he asks gruffly.

My mood goes from sad panda to leaping llama in a flash. “Just cotton candy and the crushed dreams of ever getting enough sleep again.” And a donut from Carbs ’n Coffee, because today was my monthly buy-everyone’s-coffee-and-donuts day, which didn’t feel like enough, so I also sent sub sandwich platters to all of Miami’s elementary schools for the teacher lounges.