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I heard a knock on the door and got up from my chair. I unlocked my door to see Asher.
“Good evening,” I greeted, and his just-out-of-the-shower scent hit me immediately as he entered my apartment.
“How was your day?” he asked me, and I raised my thumbs, not wanting to bore him with the details. “Did you mistakenly try to open your door with the wrong keys?” he asked me, and I raised my eyebrows. “It’s a new lock and there are already scratches and dents on there.”
“Nope, but somebody from this building did find my old keys,” I told him as I grabbed them from the kitchen counter, and he nodded.
“Daddy, look at what I made!” Anne shouted as she ran to him with my plate of cookies, and Brady was right behind her, waiting to be acknowledged by his master. He was probably saying, “Dad, look, your daughter is still in one piece.”
“Princess, you baked these?” Asher picked up his princess, seeming pleased with her efforts as he asked her all the steps she took to bake such perfect cookies.
Ugh, Asher was such a great father, and it made me sick to think of how he was such a terrible person when his daughter wasn’t there.
Why did I even agree to babysit Anne if his behavior was never going to change toward me? I did it because I adored Anne; she was such a sweetheart to be around. I didn’t really like kids that much, but I loved Anne! She was the best child in the entire world; nobody would convince me otherwise!
“We put your cookies in a container,” Anne told him as he put her down, and she led him to the island. “Will you eat them?” She looked up at him with sparkling, curious eyes, and he smiled as he pressed a kiss on her forehead.
“We can eat them together,” he told her, and I smiled when I noticed her grin. Yeah, she was gonna learn the hard way about how teeth get cavities.
“Well, I’ll let you guys be. I have to go wash the baking smell off me,” I told them, and he nodded as they walked over to my living room. We had agreed that Anne would be sleeping over at my place because Asher had to leave for some tradition his team did every other Friday.
I showered quickly because it would be awkward to spend so much time in the shower. I got changed into my black silk two-piece pj’s and as I was drying my hair, I heard a gentle knock on my bedroom door, and I softly answered, “Come in!”
Asher pushed the door open with a sleeping Anne in his arms. “Oh, let me fix the bed for her,” I spoke softly as I peeled back my covers, and he placed her down before covering her.
Brady followed in shortly after and made himself comfortable on my rug, once again beside Anne.
“Can we talk for a second?” Asher asked as he stood up straight, and I nodded, following him out of my bedroom into the living the room.
“If you’re worried about coming back late, don’t worry about it. Anne and I will be fi?—“
“I don’t appreciate what you did.” He spoke coldly as he turned around to face me, his expression revealing just how pissed he was.
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t get to expose my daughter to such danger, Brooke. You don’t!”
“What danger are you talking about?” I laughed softly, confused. “Your daughter has been with me since I fetched her; I never let her out of my sight.”
“I don’t allow her to bake for a reason; we don’t bake at my place. You should’ve asked my permission before you did what you did.”
Why was he so pissed?
“Asher, it’s just baking!” I expressed my confusion, and he raised his hands before closing them into a fist.
“It’s not just baking. If there was a gas leak, it could’ve killed you both, Brooke.”
“Come on, that’s like a probability of less than one in ten, Asher. It didn’t happen,” I crossed my arms over my chest, ignoring just how much my boobs could be spilling from the top of my shirt.
“Don’t tell me about probability, Brooke! I just spent the last six hours putting out a fire at a bakery because of a gas leak in one of their ovens. They lost everything! Compared to them, Brooke, you’re an amateur, and they are professionals. If it happens to professionals, why can’t it happen to you?”
This man just always had to insult me any chance he gets!
“Listen, I know I don’t have baking qualifications, but I do know how to be careful. You have been judging me because of a single mistake I made, and it’s getting old. Your daughter didn’t get anywhere near the oven, she was by island the entire time, the gas didn’t fucking leak, and even if it did, it wouldn’t be my fault! Anne is fine; I would never intentionally try to hurt her. I am not a sadist! Stop being a dick, Asher. I’m getting tired of your shit.”
I was heaving by the time I finished getting all that off my chest. This man made me so mad! We stared at each other for a while, both waiting for the other’s response, but there was none.
I licked my lips and within a split second, Asher’s lips were on mine, pressing a hard bruising kiss on my lips as he grabbed my face, pulling me closer to him.
