Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(65)

Except Daisy doesn’t avoid conflict with her grandmother.

Not all the time.

Just selectively.

“You completely avoided my question about why you date single mothers,” she says through a mouthful of peanut butter and chip sandwich.

“Don’t think so.”

“You deflected.”

“Says the master deflector.”

“Am I technically a single mother now?”

“You’re complicated.”

She snort-laughs, and my heart stops for a half a second. We don’t need choking part two tonight.

Or ever.

“That,” she tells me after she steals another drink of my root beer, “was the most accurate thing you’ve ever said. High five, big guy. Nailed it.”

I oblige the high five.

And twenty minutes later, when she yawns and stretches, I reluctantly shoo her out of the kitchen and take over Remy duties.

She’s a mess. Nothing at all like the women I’m usually attracted to. But every little nuance I discover in her personality makes me want to know more.

And I can say as friends all I want, but I’ve never been good at lying to myself.





Twenty-Eight





Daisy



Unlike my highly organized vagillionaire friends, most mornings, I hit the snooze button until I can’t any longer, which inevitably results in me rushing through a shower, ignoring the clothes Tiana laid out for me the night before and grabbing something brighter or darker or shorter or longer depending on my mood. I spend thirty minutes too long on hair and makeup, which means Alessandro, Tiana, and I roll through Carbs ’n Coffee on our way to the office for me to scarf down fried deliciousness and caffeine before I wreak havoc on the world.

At least, ideally, that would be my usual morning.

There’s a lot less havoc-wreaking and a lot more fire-extinguishing—of the metaphorical variety—now that I’m a responsible businessperson. I haven’t actually wreaked regular havoc in years, and now, as Remy’s primary caretaker, I’m even less inclined to leap up and light the world on fire.

The good kind of fire, naturally.

But this morning, I get up before my alarm goes off, because there’s a ball of anxiety that’s making sleep impossible. I need to be on my A-game for the social worker—especially since the Rodericks are now claiming I keep rabid animals on-site and that Remy’s in immediate danger—so I surf the internet for random Go Fund Mes to donate a few million dollars to, then treat myself to some pampering before I have to be on for the day.

I’m stretched out in my zero-gravity water chamber in the home spa off my bedroom, cucumbers on my aching eyes, eucalyptus candles burning, audiobook playing softly. Technically, I should be meditating or soaking up the peace and tranquility of being in a sensory deprivation chamber, but I’m actually hanging on to every word of Fake Royal Bride, this awesome romantic comedy written by the coffee author from Drag Queen Brunch. I snagged the audiobook as soon as I overheard that it was available with Teddy Hamilton narrating, because I clearly have a problem.

Two, actually, because I suddenly realize I’m not alone.

I lift the lid and bolt upright, tossing the cucumbers aside and making salt water slosh onto the floor while Teddy narrates Rock Ludlow dirty-talking the innocent princess on their fake wedding night. “Who’s there?”

“No one who’s planning on saying that to you,” comes a familiar voice from the bedroom as Rock asks if he can lick the princess’s pussy. “Can you shut that off? We have a problem.”

It takes me a minute of fumbling to shut off Teddy’s voice and the princess suggesting she needs Rock to stroke his hard member while he eats her out, which would normally be fine, but West and I have been getting along amazingly well since the choking incident a week ago, sharing breakfast and dinner most days, and we even hung out together at the pool half the weekend, where I flirted with him without overtly flirting with him, and I think he actually flirted back. So I don’t want him to think that all I ever think about is sex.

Plus, he said the word problem.

“What? What is it?” I throw on a sparkly unicorn robe for his sake and dart into my bedroom. “Is Remy sick? Did the social worker get here early? Oh my god, the cats ate his face. Did the cats eat his face?”

West lifts a single brow, telegraphing that I’ve clearly lost my mind, and holds his phone out to me.

Headlines assault my eyeballs.

Playgirl Heiress Drops Baby On Head!

Daisy Carter-Kincaid’s Nanny Tells All!

The DICK’s New Marine Boy-Toy Actually A Woman!

“This is the problem?” I ask. “Tabloid stories?”

“They have pictures of my family.”

He’s not breathing fire out his nose or stomping his foot like an angry bull, but I realize this calm fa?ade is exactly that—a fa?ade.

His magic eyes are the color of pissed-off headstrong alpha male with all protective instincts activated, and it’s making that omnipresent pull in my nether regions stronger this morning.

I’m debating between reminding him that his mom is a celebrity—anyone with a Netflix show qualifies in my book—and offering him use of my legal team when he continues.

“Bad pictures.”