Page 60 of The Daddy’s Girl

No, a crush. It’s just a young girl’s crush. Amelia is a hopeless romantic. She gets attached, and when she falls, she falls hard. So that’s all this was. A crush.

Then I remember the way she asked me to kiss her. Told me to touch her. Begged me to take her back to my place.

That didn’t sound like a crush.

I drop my head in my hands, and my cock twitches in my pants at the memory of that kiss. She truly wanted so much more with me, and now I understand why.

I wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the other. She wanted me as much as I wanted her.

How the fuck have I missed this for so long? Was I really so blind to her infatuation?

I scrub a hand over the stubble on my face. No matter how I try, I can’t deny the mix of emotions swirling inside me. Shock, mortification, regret…and delight.

Yes, she is my goddaughter. Yes, she is still obscenely off-limits.

But it feels good to know she feels for me the way I feel for her. No wonder that kiss was so passionate. No wonder the chemistry between us burns so brightly.

But as soon as my mood is lifted, it falls.

Because there is no room in this equation for hope. It does not matter if the feelings are mutual. It doesn’t change the fact that I cannot be with Amelia.

The love that could potentially grow between us is wasted.

She can never know that I know. It was her idea to find me a partner, likely to try and move on from this crush. So that is what we will do. We must.

The sun is already coming up when I finally strip out of my clothes and climb into bed. Believe it or not, I’m still not even tired. I can’t stop thinking about that dance in Trocadero or that kiss or the fucking scarf.

In the last few hours alone, my life has been turned upside down by a five-foot-three blond. I should be filled with regret, but instead, I feel something more akin to excitement.

Part of me considers reaching into my briefs and stroking my cock with the phantom memory of her ass in my hand, but I don’t. Instead, I close my eyes and lift her pale-yellow sweater to my nose, breathing in the scent of her the same way I’m sure she did with my scarf for years.

As I drift off to sleep, I do so with “La Vie en Rose” playing on repeat in my mind.

Rule #17: When he says we can’t, show him that we can.

Amelia

Ihate meetings. Most of my work with the club is done but I still have to attend the monthly meetings and, at the very, very least, the quarterly ones. For the most part, it’s just my brother, Jack, and Phoenix talking. Weston and I take up space next to each other in the corner until someone asks us a question.

Elizabeth shows up even less than I do, but no one gives her shit about it. But then again, Elizabeth does whatever she wants anyway, and being sort of a bitch, on purpose, gives her the liberty to. I guess.

I don’t know.

Maybe I should try to be a bitch, and no one will bother me as much. The thought makes me laugh.

At the end of the day, I’m really nothing like Phoenix or Elizabeth. If anything, I’m more like Phoenix’s twin sister, Austin, flighty and carefree, but I haven’t seen her in years. After they graduated from high school, Phoenix came here, and Austin became an internet star.

She’s some big travel and lifestyle influencer, traversing the globe with her hot rugby-playing boyfriend, Liam. And other than some birthday messages and comments on her posts, we sort of lost touch.

She left me here with the rest of them. The adults. Now I have to sit in meetings and listen to Phoenix talk about reports and revenue. She uses corporate jargon like leverage and synergy and bandwidth.

I’ll never forgive her for this.

“How was your date Saturday night?” Weston whispers while my brother gets in a mini argument with Jack.

Date? What date? All I remember is Matis’s lips and hands and the tune of an old French song I thought I didn’t even like. Now I love.

My shoulder lifts in a lazy shrug. “It was okay. The bar we went to was overcrowded.”