Crazy for Loving You

by Grant, Pippa

  I try to cough, and I can’t.

  My head is getting hot.

  My face is swelling.

  It’s like the shrimp, but worse. Sixty zillion times worse.

  I’ll be the vagillionaire heiress taken down by a carrot stick.

  My lungs burn. My knees shake. Oh, fuck, I’m going to drop the baby.

  I am.

  I’m dropping the baby.

  I try to tell West to catch him, but I can’t see past the haze of panic, and I can’t talk, and I—

  Something hard jolts my ribs once, twice, and on the third thrust, a half-eaten carrot flies out of my mouth.

  I gasp and hunch forward while the island countertop swims back into focus.

  My eyes are wet, my limbs are shaking, and there’s a solid arm still wrapped around my waist.

  “Daisy? Fuck. Fork. Say something.” A large, solid, warm hand rubs my back while I wheeze. “Are you okay?”

  “Remy,” I gasp out.

  The hand stops.

  The arm tenses.

  Oh, god.

  I dropped the baby and killed him.

  I choked on a carrot, and that sweet, innocent little bundle of smiles and baby poop is the one who paid the ultimate price.

  I dropped him on his head. I silenced him forever.

  I have blood on my hands.

  My wheeze turns into a sob, and I spin away from West, who shouldn’t touch me, because I’m a murderer.

  My pulse ramps up so hot and hard that I go lightheaded and a scream forms deep inside my head, hollering just like Remy, like that precious little boy who will never scream again, because he’s—he’s—he’s—

  Squirming on the island in front of me.

  Wailing.

  Flinging his hands around, his face beet red, his legs kicking one of his tiny socks right off.

  “You didn’t die,” I gasp. I grab him and kiss his cheeks and lift him to look at him again while he squirms and wails and my eyes go hot and overflow. “I didn’t drop you. Oh my god, I thought I dropped you. I’m so sorry, baby. I’ll never choke on anything again. I’ll quit eating, and I’ll never choke on anything ever, ever again, and I won’t leave you, and I won’t ever let anything bad happen.”

  I can’t stop crying.

  The tears have started, and they won’t stop, and I’m standing in my kitchen making promises to my little orphan boy that I can’t keep.

  I can’t promise him nothing bad will ever happen. That he’ll always be safe. That I’ll always be here.

  “I’m sorry,” I choke out. “I’m so sorry, sweet boy.”

  Two massive arms encircle us both, and I don’t deserve them.

  I don’t deserve West’s warmth. I don’t deserve Remy’s smiles. I don’t deserve peanut butter and potato chip sandwiches.

  I’m a selfish asshole who parties too hard and pretends I don’t do terrible things in business because I do it with a smile and promise people they’ll be better off after they turn their buildings and land over to me, even if it’s not always as true as I want it to be.

  And I do it all to make my grandmother happy, when the truth is, I can’t.

  No one can make her happy.

  Because you can’t make another person happy any more than I can promise Remy that I can see into the future to where we’re all one big happy family without problems or pain or conflict.

  “Shh,” West says. “You’re okay, Daisy. Remy’s okay. You’re both okay.”

  “Please don’t leave me,” I whimper. “I can’t do this on my own. I can’t. I’ll gut my pool house and build you whatever you want out there if you don’t want to live here in my house with us, but please, please don’t leave me to do this parenting thing alone. I can’t. I can’t. And I can’t tell my grandmother, or she’ll take Remy from me too, and I—”

  “Daisy—”

  “Please.”

  Warm lips brush my hair. “Okay,” he whispers.

  I shouldn’t trust him. I’ve been burned by people I know a lot better, a lot harder.

  But all he’s done is everything he never should’ve been asked to do.

  I’ll make this up to him.

  I will.

  I’m Daisy Imogen fucking Carter-Kincaid. I can do anything.

  Apparently except parent a baby by myself without trying to self-destruct.

  Twenty-Seven

  West

  The rest of dinner is simultaneously more awkward than my failed date with Becca and almost as comfortable as a family picnic back home in Chicago, all while I do my fucking best to ignore that voice in my head whispering that there’s more to Daisy Carter-Kincaid than maybe even she knows.

  And that I am truly in over my head.

  “Movie dates or beach dates?” she asks.

  “No,” I reply, which sends her into a fit of giggles that ends with her coughing and me going tense and then her pointing to the bread.

  “More abomination sandwiches!” she orders.

  “Maybe you should drink some water instead.” Bantering is so much easier than letting myself think about the panic in her voice when she thought she dropped the baby.

  She’s got him.

  She does.

  She just needs the confidence to believe it, which is the last thing I ever would’ve thought someone like Daisy could need.

  But it’s all making sense. Big on the outside to shield the scared on the inside.

  “Quit being bossy and answer the questions,” she orders. “I’m profiling you so I know how to rebuild the pool house.”

  “You don’t have to rebuild your pool house.”

  “My pool house is my sanctuary. I go there when I’m tired of people, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, only rarely happens, but when it does, I need it. So I have to rebuild it so I don’t invade your space when you’re having private time with Mr. Pokey.”

  See?

  Awkward and comfortable.

  All at the same time.

  “You get tired of people?” I ask while I start making her another sandwich. On the second, I made the mistake of asking where she put all the food she was eating, and she grabbed her boobs, and I got a boner, which is another reason I’m happy to keep making her sandwiches.

  It keeps the island between us as a boner-deterrent. And also to keep me from reaching for her to pull her into a hug, just because I think she needs it.

  But she’s pretending she doesn’t, so I’ll pretend she doesn’t too.

  She eyes me suspiciously, like she’s not sure she should say what’s on her mind, and then just blurts it all out. “I love chocolate milk, but even I can’t drink it thirty-six hours a day, fourteen days a week. And there are different brands of chocolate milk, and some I can drink more than others.”

  “Huh. Would’ve pegged you for the tequila type over the chocolate milk type.”

  “I chase my chocolate milk with tequila.”

  “That’s disgusting. Carrot?”

  I hold up a carrot stick, and she chucks her metal water bottle at me.

  With the lid off.

  I duck easily, because she has awful aim, but I still get splashed with a flying arc of liquid when the bottle clangs to the tile floor behind me. “Are you insane?”

  She grins. “I didn’t have to miss. Maybe tomorrow for dinner, you should wear a white T-shirt.”

  “Daisy…”

  “I’ve been stifling myself for ten days for you. I think I’ve earned that one.”

  I can’t really argue.

  “In fact, I think I should get an inappropriate comment to you at least once a day,” she continues playfully. “If you weren’t so uptight, I could fully be myself. I’m censoring big-time here. So yes, you owe me one moment of being myself in an entire twenty-four-hour period.”

  “That…makes unfortunate sense,” I concede, though it doesn’t feel like a concession, and I’m actually smiling to myself at the thought of everything she might come up with.

  “When wer
e you involved with that woman with kids again? Doesn’t Becca have kids? Is that your type?”

  My shoulders hitch. “That wasn’t you censoring yourself. Again.”

  “I’ll tell you why I only date foreign men if you tell me why you only date single mothers. Is it your swimmers? Did they all go belly-up? Accident in the Marines or something? Were you sick as a kid?”

  I fold my arms over the wet spot on my T-shirt and try to glare at her, but it’s harder than it would’ve been before she choked.

  She sighs and rolls her eyes. “Fine. I only date foreign men because my father is terrified of flying.”

  “What?”

  “Also because they don’t usually recognize me and they tolerate my romantic ADD so much better.”

  “You’re making awful generalizations about people right now.”

  “And it sounds so much more exotic to say I spent the weekend with a Greek god than it does to say I spent the weekend with a farmer in Iowa.”

  She’s so full of shit. “If you’re not a big enough person to confess to having commitment issues, just say so.”

  Her cheeks go bright pink, and there’s that overwhelming urge to hug her again. But it’s accompanied by a need to google a therapist for her.

  “Fine.” She throws her hands up. “I’m not a big enough person to confess to having commitment issues.”

  I bite into a carrot and chew it slowly, watching the blush fade behind a growing scowl, like I’m intentionally showing her how to eat a carrot without choking and she doesn’t appreciate it.

  This is so much like being home. And I’m also relieved her embarrassment is fading. She’s welcome, though I’ll probably never tell her so.

  I swallow and go back to fixing her sandwich. “Single mothers are the only people I’ve ever survived a first date with.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “High school prom. I asked my little sister’s best friend. Year younger than me. Cute. Nice ass. She asked if we could double-date with another one of her friends. Turned out her friend was the girl who stole her boyfriend, who was the fourth person in our party, and she spent the entire night trying to make him jealous with me while her friend tried to talk me into slipping out the back door for a quickie.”

  “High school doesn’t count.”

  “Two years into the Marines. Met a woman at the gym. Asked her out. She said she’d only say yes if I could out-bench her. So we start benching, and she’s keeping up rep-for-rep, up to like one-fifty—”

  “Hate to tell you, but that’s a sign she didn’t actually want to go out with you.”

  “Yeah. Figured that out when I crashed at two-thirty and she kept going to two-fifty, then told me to try again when I grew a pair. She’d just been dumped by a guy who was on the bodybuilding circuit, who she trained with for like three years before that. Went on to be a pro wrestler and married this guy who looks like Santa Claus.”

  “No.”

  “Yep.”

  “Talk about opposites attracting.”

  I nod while she steals my root beer glass and tips it to her lips.

  “Her wrestler name was The Mrs. Clausinator,” I add casually.

  Daisy spews root beer out her nose.

  And I mentally thank my mother for teaching me the art of timing.

  “A while later,” I continue, refusing to be embarrassed, because my family has already helpfully relived these moments for me enough that I don’t care anymore, “my buddies set me up with a drag queen.”

  Her scowl is instant behind the napkin she’s wiping her face with. “That’s not funny.”

  “It was awkward for a few minutes, but we ended up shutting down the county fair, shoving our faces with funnel cake and winning this giant stuffed sloth in the ring toss. Had a fucking awesome time. Good lady. Still keep in touch—she’s a paralegal for a human rights attorney in LA now, still does drag shows on the weekends, and I kicked my buddies’ asses from here to Saskatchewan for embarrassing her.”

  She’s eyeballing me like she’s not certain that was enough punishment, and that’s exactly the problem.

  She cares about so much more than just herself. But she gets painted as nothing more than a fun-loving waste of oxygen.

  “Why do you always tilt your head like that when you’re listening to someone?” she asks.

  Huh. Didn’t realize I was doing it again.

  I tap my right ear. “Mostly deaf. Too close to an improvised explosive one time in Kabul.”

  Her frown isn’t going away. “Is that your worst injury? From the Marines?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You have nightmares?”

  “Used to. Rarer now.”

  “Therapy?”

  “Yep.”

  “Ever consider a hearing aid?”

  “That would be admitting it’s a problem, and it’s not.” I pass her another sandwich. “Why do you work for your grandmother?”

  And there goes the battle armor. It’s subtle, but her blue eyes shift from the color of the sky to the color of flame, and the ever-present smile goes brittle at the edges. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  I gesture to the gourmet kitchen that opens to an outdoor kitchen by her pool, and by extension, the massive mansion we’re standing in. “You could afford to quit. Must like the job.”

  “It keeps me entertained.”

  “Not like partying in Rio would.”

  “Gotta pay for my lifestyle somehow. Working for Gramalicious means a big payday for little work.”

  I snort, because I don’t believe for a minute that she doesn’t work hard.

  Imogen Carter has disinherited too many people to play favorites for a hard-partying granddaughter who doesn’t actually do anything at the office.

  She grins behind her sandwich. “Fine. I like my job. It’s fun, it’s different every day, and I get to meet people all over the world and travel to fabulous places. When I first started, I’d make deals because I was in all these meetings with men who never realized how easy it was to manipulate them with my clothing and a well-timed lipstick application.”

  A red haze creeps into my vision.

  She pats my fist, which is clenching the knife so tight I could probably melt the metal. “Cool your jets, Super West. I got bored with that after a year or two and started using genuine business tactics, much to my grandmother’s horror, because it slowed down the speed of acquisitions for a while. I do have a college degree in psychology. I know a few tricks other than pulling my blouse down and crossing my legs.”

  Christ, now I’m picturing her giving out blow jobs for business deals. “Not helping.”

  “Your sisters must love-hate you.”

  A week ago, this conversation would’ve ended with me demanding to know if she took anything seriously.

  Pretty sure we’ve covered that though, and I don’t have a single doubt that she takes Remy seriously as a heart attack. And that she’d do anything for him, and not just because she has the money to afford the world, but because she loves him. He’s sleeping happily in a baby swing by the arched windows overlooking the gently-lit courtyard, completely oblivious to how freaked out she was just an hour ago.

  “Tell you a secret?” she says softly.

  I tap my right ear. “Tell this one. I won’t hear it.”

  That smile. Fuck.

  Yeah! Ooh-rah! Commence with the fucking! my balls cheer.

  Swear to god, I’m not related to them.

  “Whenever someone in my family turns twenty-one, The Dame gives us a million dollars. Do something good with it, she gives you a job. Fuck—fork it up, and she disinherits you.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “It’s also why she’s basically disinherited eighty percent of her descendants. My cousin William tripled his million at the slots in Vegas, and she shut him down hard. Gambling isn’t the way to ensure the family business survives the next generation.”

  “What’d you do?”

  She clearly su
rvived.

  And if the way she’s shifting on her seat is any indication, she doesn’t actually want to talk about it. “I spent a quarter of it on initiation fees to the Sandbar Club, and—”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  She smiles, and it’s full of mischief. “It’s an exclusive club for Miami’s richest businessmen.”

  “Business…men?”

  “Formerly all men, yes. I spent a week playing spy on some of its rumored members, dropping hints in various places that Carter International Properties was expanding into hotels, but looking for partners in the venture, and then I applied for the club. I might’ve also gotten chummy with the membership chairman’s wife, who didn’t know he was sleeping with his secretary, but he knew I knew, so…”

  “You cheated your way into an exclusive club of assholes.”

  “Basically. Yes. And then I convinced ten members to give me a million dollars each as buy-in for the Mermaid Grand Resort.”

  “I know that name.”

  “All-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean.”

  “Ah. Allie. My sister. She went to one for her ten-year anniversary.”

  “I’ll have to thank her for her patronage.” She winks at me. “It didn’t exist when I was twenty-one. But I marched into The Dame’s office and dropped ten checks on her desk, told her I was buying oceanfront property in the Dominican Republic to open an all-inclusive resort, and she was either with me, or she was against me. Now, we have sixteen properties, and we’re expanding to add four more in the next year. I passed The Dame’s test. And every year, she buys out one more of the original investors, because they’re idiots who thought that handing a twenty-one-year-old party girl a check for a million bucks was a good idea.”

  “Why not open it yourself? You did all the work.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Every last one of those men would’ve sued me to get their money back the minute they found out I was in charge. I don’t make money. My grandmother’s name makes money.”

  “Alessandro says you make your grandmother’s money.”

  “He’s biased. Without the Carter family name behind me…” She trails off with a shrug.

  Like she honestly thinks she couldn’t do it on her own.

  I don’t know much about the business of running an empire, but I know that anytime I walk into her office to trade off Remy, she’s on the phone or on her computer. She makes phone calls to Japan in the middle of the night—yeah, he was up at three, but I was up anyway to talk to Tokyo—and the days she’s gone to her office, she’s taken night duty before and after since she’s gone from seven AM to nine PM.