by Grant, Pippa
I don’t take orders.
I give orders.
But the concern laced into his tirade has me pulling out my phone. “Are you kidding? It’d take more than a couple little sea urchins to bring all of this fabulousness down. Gimme your digits. I’ll text you.”
He rattles off the number, and I send him a quick note with both Alessandro’s and Tiana’s numbers attached.
His phone dings, which means that wasn’t his phone he sent flying into the pool.
I take a subtle glance to make sure he didn’t chuck Remy into the water.
Definitely not a baby in there.
I stifle a snort as I realize it’s one of my mom’s crystal dicks. Probably shouldn’t leave her artwork lying around the patio tables.
“How’s the little pipe organ? He didn’t get too nervous about Aunt Daisy being rushed to the hospital, did he?”
“He screamed in sympathy for hours.”
Oh, sarcasm at its finest. That shouldn’t be attractive, but it’s making me a little hot under the collar.
Side effect of the Benedryl, undoubtedly.
“Is he inside?”
“Yes. Found a bed. He’s happy.”
“I should go hug him and promise him I’m gonna make a full recovery. Except I don’t want to scare the poor kid.”
“Scare him how?”
“With my evil scar face.”
His eyes narrow again while he studies me.
I get my picture taken a million times in a weekend when I’m out having fun. I get stared down in boardrooms on a regular basis. And I have to deal with my grandmother’s scrutiny every waking minute of my life.
I get used to it.
But West studying the blotchy, saggy mess that’s currently my face?
It’s making me more self-conscious than that time an ass shot of me in a thong while I was on my period went around the internet.
Seventeen was a horrible age for wearing dresses that got caught in the wind.
And he’s going to tell me I’m beautiful just the way I am, and I’m going to have to punch him, because he doesn’t get to say nice things about me right now.
That would make me like him entirely too much when I might possibly already like him entirely too much simply for being here.
And also lose a little respect for him for lying to me.
I’m complicated like that.
“Probably a good idea to not let him see you right now,” he finally says, “but if you think you get to have an allergic reaction to get out of overnight duty, you better be prepared to lose custody of the kid.”
Oh, fuck.
He went and said the only thing worse than telling me I’m beautiful.
And I’m nothing if not impulsive.
Which is technically my excuse for what I do next, even if I would’ve done it anyway.
I’m impulsive like that.
Seventeen
West
One minute, I’m insulting Daisy’s appearance, and the next, she’s leaping into the air, wrapping her arms and legs around me, and pressing a hard kiss to my lips.
My dazed brain registers plump breasts pressed to my chest, curvy thighs nestled against my cock, a luscious ass in my hands—because yes, of course I’m going to catch her—and the sweet Kool-Aid taste of her lips, and my balls whoop and holler and ask someone to hold their beer.
I’m not going to kiss her back—except suddenly I am, because even while being so pissed at her for everything from Becca to the allergic reaction, I’m so fucking grateful she’s okay.
And now I’m slanting my lips against hers while relief courses through me that she’s alive and kicking and breathing, while simultaneously being pissed as hell that no one in her household would tell me how she was doing.
I’m going to kiss her until she never leaves me hanging and uncertain while she’s being rushed to an emergency room again.
That…made a lot more sense when my nuts said it.
She parts her lips and her tongue dives into my mouth and holy sweet fuck, is there anything she doesn’t throw herself into full-throttle?
I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t attractive as hell that she’s leaping into this motherhood thing without an ounce of complaint. And I barely know her, except this whole co-guardianship thing—it’s making me learn her fast.
That’s what I’m talking about! my nuts crow. Hump her! Hump her naked!
Christ.
I can’t make out with Daisy.
I’m only here to help her get custody of Remington. And apparently to piss her grandmother off. That striptease thing the other night was a joke from the universe that usually gives me window seats and green lights, and I need to remember my place.
My purpose.
Which is for a kid to get a good home with his family, not for me to have a weekend fling with a partying heiress who suddenly seems like so much more.
I wrench myself out of the kiss.
Wide, blood-shot eyes blink at me like she forgot where she was.
Or who she was kissing.
Impossible. We’re experts and unforgettable, my balls tell me.
Fuckers need to shut up.
She blinks once more, then she smacks me lightly in the shoulder.
“Don’t you dare use sarcasm to flirt with me again,” she orders, but there’s a twinkle in her eye that spells out D-O-O-M.
Specifically, mine.
She’s still gripping my hips with her thighs like I’m the pole and she’s the dancer, and it’s affecting my pole.
Blue.
Her eyes are blue.
“I’m not flirting with you,” I tell her.
“Yes, you are.”
I have to clear my throat to get rid of that frog suddenly croaking inside it. “No, I’m not. By the way, I told your grandmother we got married.”
“Did she have a stroke and die?”
“No.”
“That’s probably good, because a stroke or a heart attack would only make the dark powers inside her stronger. Also, you don’t tell someone’s grandmother you got married if you’re not planning to flirt with them. And you should flirt with me. It would make Becca extremely jealous.”
My jaw clenches, my ass bunches, and I’d curl my fingers into fists if they weren’t already digging into Daisy’s butt cheeks. “I don’t want to flirt with Becca,” I grit out.
She smiles. “And you’re welcome for me helping you figure that out.”
“Do not set me up with anyone ever again.”
Her smile gets bigger.
Fuck, she’s pretty when she smiles. Even with her face blotchy and shiny and still slightly swollen, and her eyes bloodshot, and her bright red hair lopsided and frizzy in its ponytail.
I’d blame sleep deprivation, but I got by just fine in my twenty sleep-deprived years in the military without fantasizing about any of the female Marines I occasionally came into contact with, which means whatever’s going on here is bad. “You need to get off me.”
“But we’re married.”
“That was a story.”
“You don’t strike me as the story type.”
“I’m full of surprises.”
“Or maybe my grandmother drove you to it, or maybe I’m rubbing off on you.”
She’s definitely rubbing against me. “If this temporary situation is going to work, we need boundaries.”
“Ah, there’s the Marine talking. I’ve been thinking. Normally, I don’t get involved with locals—you’ll understand when you meet my mother—but I think there’s a reason people have so much sex when they have babies. It’s a natural chill pill. So if you’re not having sex with Becca, and I’m not having sex with anyone else in Miami, then we should work off some steam while we wait for the legal dust to settle.”
“Did you just say chill pill?”
“I embrace all the happy words, hammer man. Doesn’t matter what decade they were popular.”
My sisters would love her.
And not a single one of those dates have ended well.
Some, in fact, have ended worse than others.
“You need to get off me,” I repeat.
“So that’s a no to working off steam?” She shrugs. “It’s because of the face thing, isn’t it? Give me ten minutes and my stylist, and you won’t know what hit you.”
“You’re not the first woman to have an allergic reaction on a date with me. You won’t be the last. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Ah, so it was a date. And with two women, you player, you. So. Tell me more about this other time you were on a date and a woman had an allergic reaction?”
“Are you ever going to get down?”
“You have nice hands. I’m not inclined to make you remove them from my ass anytime soon.”
I release her butt and lift my hands.
She doesn’t move.
“West?”
I sigh. My sisters will definitely love her. “What?”
“Thank you for being here. It was a big comfort to know Remy was taken care of while I was battling for my life.”
She leaps off me like she’s a freaking gymnast who didn’t just hide a truly sweet sentiment behind what I hope is a huge exaggeration, and turns and sashays her curvy ass to the pool house. “Is the howler in here? I need to see his cute face and snuggle him. Isn’t that weird how he barely registered in my life forty-eight hours ago, and now I can’t stop thinking about him?”
No.
It’s not weird.
But her saying it is provoking the kind of reaction that means I need a cold shower.
I already knew I was getting attached to Remy.
I don’t need my nuts suggesting we should get attached to Daisy too.
Even if watching her hold the baby is making my heart whisper that it might be too late anyway.
Eighteen
Daisy
West is avoiding me. He says he’s baby-proofing and cat-hunting, but I know he’s avoiding me. Since I got back from the hospital yesterday, we’ve spoken exactly thirty-four times, which is way less than I usually talk to houseguests.
Especially since he’s refused to take the bait to talk about anything other than Remy.
But the baby gifts are starting to roll in, and he definitely needs to see the frog urinal that the prince of Stölland sent, so Sunday evening, while Cristoff is in the kitchen muttering to himself about not being able to use shellfish in my dishes anymore, I go searching out my co-guardian again.
But first, I strap Remy to my chest with the new baby backpack that came from a former boyfriend who loves to take six-week hikes through the mountain.
I’m well aware it’s supposed to go on my back, but I don’t like not having Remy in sight.
He’s just so dang cute. And he only poops or cries when West is watching him, which means he’s basically the world’s best baby.
Three cats streak by as I make my way up the stairs to the guest wing of the house. I’ve named them Cotton Ball, Snickers, and Mr. Peabody, and I’m reasonably confident they’ll be permanent fixtures here, along with Elvira, who’s chilling in the pool on a unicorn floatie again.
“West?” I call as I make my way down the hallway and its row of arched windows overlooking the mangroves surrounding the hump in the D part of my house. “You up here?”
A muffled curse answers me from the Bahama Mama suite, so I backtrack to the mellow peach-and-yellow suite decorated with sunset pictures I’ve shot off my yacht in the Bahamas. Naturally.
The furniture is a vintage Queen Anne set that I had reupholstered with a pineapple patterned fabric, and the chandelier in the sitting room in here is my favorite—it’s a blown glass oversized drink umbrella lined with color-changing LEDs that rotate from orange to yellow to pink to orange.
I spent a fuck-ton of money to win that at an auction a couple months ago, along with a jewel-encrusted giraffe that I keep in one of my lounges. My friends thought I was crazy, but they love that about me.
Even Remy stops to stare up at it when we walk in. “Aaaooooo,” he coos like the adorable perfect little baby that he is.
“Aaaooo,” I agree.
He grins.
I grin back.
Like we’re actually communicating.
“Fucking cat,” West grunts deeper in the suite.
I follow his voice to the bedroom, where I find a picture-perfect view of his ass in black mesh shorts while he bends over and reaches under the bed.
“Get out here, you mangy beast,” he says.
“Aaaooooo,” Remy says again.
I coo back at him again and finagle us up onto the bed, then bounce.
“Aaaah!” West hollers.
A streak of black and white darts out of the room with a yowl, and my co-guardian sits back on his heels and gives me another of those looks he’s gotten so good at.
This one’s a green-eyed glare.
I am fascinated by his eyes. Mine change color because of my contacts—non-prescription, just for fun—but his, I’m certain, are a reflection of his mood.
On any other man I’d call them hazel with personality.
On him, they’re magic.
“That cat is puking up hairballs up and down the hall,” he informs me.
“Huh. We’ll have to send him back.”
He shoves his fists into his eye sockets. “That much puke means he’s sick. He needs to see a vet.”
I know, and I’ve already made a mental note to call the vet who sometimes checks in on Steve and ask for a house call. “You take me very seriously.”
“You—you’re wearing that backpack backwards.”
“I like it better this way.”
“I left you a schedule this morning. I’m busy until five, and you get the overnight shift.”
“Why are you avoiding me?”
“It’s called alone time, and some of us need it.”
“Did you get a lot of alone time in the Marines?”
“Yes.”
“Did you really go on a date with a woman once who only wanted to ask you to video call your brother? I swear Becca mentioned that yesterday.”
He mutters something about being a martyr and hoping Julienne and Rafe are rotting in hell—at least, that’s my interpretation—while he shoves to his feet and stalks toward the door.
Remy and I join him.
Cam, Emily, and Luna are all busy today either having sexytimes with their soulmates or saving the world at charity events. My housekeeper and personal assistant don’t work on Sundays. Neither does the pool boy, who’s actually a woman who runs Pool Boy Maintenance—she mostly hires eye candy to service rich cougars in the area, but I get her personally, since she’s freaking awesome and can handle everything from unbalanced pool pH to rescuing armadillos that fall in the pool, which only happened that one time in the dick pool, but I was still grateful.
I could grab Alessandro and head to the village, but my face hasn’t yet recovered from that theoretical boxing match with a lobster, so I’m homebound.
West turns into the Strawberry Daiquiri suite, which is his assigned bedroom suite for the duration of his stay. It doesn’t look lived in at all, despite all the stuff he brought over yesterday.
Clearly his Marine training is still with him.
Or maybe he’s plotting an escape from the room that Alessandro says has Pepto Bismol-colored walls.
Yes, yes, I should’ve given him the Piña Colada suite. It’s much more masculine with its off-white walls and coconut chairs.
But that wouldn’t have been as much fun as pushing his buttons.
You don’t really know a person until you know them under stress. And since I’m going to be living with him for a while, I really should know how he handles stress.
It’s for the good of the baby.
Seriously.
Also, I have a very good feel for when I’ve p
ushed someone too far after years of walking the line with my grandmother. Plus, knowing what stresses a person out helps me figure out how to do them favors that are better than arranging super-awkward group dates where I have allergic reactions to seafood.
So far, the only favor I can see that West needs is alone time, which isn’t helping me figure out how to really pay him back at all.
“Can’t you go read a book or something?” he says when we follow him into the suite.
“I can’t read.”
He swings around and looks me straight in the eye at that.
I blink coquettishly.
And his lips twitch.
Just the briefest amount, but I made the big bad Marine construction guy smile.
High fucking five to me.
I’ll dance about this later. Right now, I’m not sure Remy’s secure enough in this backwards backpack for me to risk it, which is unfortunate.
I love dancing.
“All these people are sending baby presents,” I tell West. “I shouldn’t open them alone.”
“So call your grandmother.”
He shoots. He scores. And I shudder before I catch on to the fact that he’s razzing me right back.
“She says the Rodericks are claiming there’s video evidence that Julienne and Rafe made their will while they were drunk, so their previous will should take precedence. They also claim I’m an unfit mother, and we’ll probably be getting a call about a visit from social services as soon as the office opens tomorrow. Just so you’re in the loop.”
He studies me again the same way he did yesterday at the pool when I got back from my little field trip to the hospital. “What does their previous will say?”
“According to my grandmother, something about their future hypothetical children being raised by Benedictine monks in the Italian foothills.”
His lips flatten for a moment before he lifts his head to the ceiling. “Why?” he mutters to himself. “Why do I keep falling for this?”
“Hate to break it to you, Westley, but that is literally what their previous will said. They made it while they were drunk on their honeymoon, which I know only because I keep security cameras on my yacht, which will actually make the Rodericks’ legal challenge more difficult if both wills were made while drunk. Also, they stole-borrowed my yacht for their honeymoon. Google it. That’s how Julienne became a trash blogger. She started by one-starring my ship for daring to—gasp—rock on the sea.”