Page 12 of A Daddy to Love

“You like it?”

“Mm.” I rubbed my stomach. “Thank you for the drink, sir.”

“Do you think you might want to call me Daddy?”

For a few seconds I froze. But his eyes looked earnest. True.

As if from a far distance, I heard myself say, “Yes, Daddy.” Everything inside me fizzed at my very first time using that word.

He reached for my hand again and held it as he began to talk softly, asking me easy questions.

“I haven’t seen you around. Are you new in town?”

“I’ve lived here all my life.”

“What do you do? School or work?”

“Sometimes I take classes online.” That was the truth. But I’d never actually gone to school much. Homeschooling by private tutors hadn’t helped my social life at all.

As for the job question, I hadn’t thought ahead about how to answer that. I didn’t hang out with trust fund babies. I didn’t live that lifestyle. Not socially.

Finally, I came up with a vague reply. “I’m between jobs.”

“Sounds like you don’t have anyone to take care of you.”

Just a rich grandfather who passed away four years ago. And an incredible staff who never said a word about me still playing with toys and wanting Shrek sheets on my bed at the age of twenty-four.

“I do, though.”

Truce raised an eyebrow. “But not a daddy?”

I shook my head. “Not that.”

He reached out and stroked my cheek.

Before he could strike with another question, I quickly asked, “What do you do?”

“I’m with a finance company. I work from home. Sometimes I go into the office, usually on Wednesdays or Fridays. It’s a good setup for me.”

He was fast to answer. Finance, though? It worried me. Financial guys had their eyeballs on money all day. I had plenty finance guys working for me and they loved numbers. My numbers to be exact. Truce didn’t seem like the type. Especially not when I first saw him last night. But now that he was talking to me, I could see an intelligence gleaming behind his eyes that was part of his over-the-top personality. I liked it but I needed to be so careful here. Everything was about money for this world. Everything.

“Do you like your job?”

He gave me a half smile. “I do.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“You’ll find something you like, too, someday. I’m sure of it.”

“I already do. I like to color and draw and paint.” I paused. “But it’s not a real job.”

“Maybe it could be.”

I suppressed a sigh. “Maybe.”

My cheeks burned. He didn’t know I had no money worries. It was cool that he worried. I had an urge to put my arms around his neck and sit in his lap. Darn it all, as Grandfather used to say. Truce was too perfect to be real. Go slow, I told myself.

But I could already predict it was too late.