Page 68 of The Daddy’s Girl

My heart falls.

Olivia turns to see what I’m staring at so appalled and spots Amelia. Then she turns back toward me.

“Oh…my God,” she mumbles as realization washes over her.

“What?” I ask as if she didn’t just see that entire interaction.

“It’s her.” Olivia sits upright, putting distance between us as she laughs to herself like I’m not in on the joke.

“What about her?”

She stands with a huff. “I think you know, Matis.” When I stare at her dumbly, she practically shouts. “Amelia! I’ve been throwing myself at you, and you would have been all over me too, but now…” Pacing away, she shakes her head with frustration. “I had a feeling there was something between you two.”

My gaze rakes over the club to be sure no one heard her just say that out loud. “There is nothing between me and Amelia,” I lie as if I didn’t just have my tongue down her throat moments ago.

Olivia freezes and levels a glare at my face. “You’re a terrible liar.”

That’s not what I want to hear, because if I’m a terrible liar, it’s only a matter of time before everyone in Paris knows.

Standing from the couch, I pace toward her. “Listen, Olivia. There is nothing between me and”—I lower my voice—“Amelia, because there can be nothing between us. She is my goddaughter.”

Her face screws up in disgust. “She’s practically a child, Matis.”

“You don’t think I know that?” I whisper-shout, leaning toward her.

“I have to tell my brother. He has to end things with her,” she says, grabbing her purse in frustration.

There’s an instinctual part of myself that wants to stop her, but then I think… What’s the harm? There is really nothing between them anyway. Amelia was never going to be his.

Because she’s mine.

No. That nagging voice at the back of my mind was wrong.

“Olivia, wait.” I reach for her but it’s futile. She’s already gone, marching out of the club. The second woman this month who left me because of my infatuation with a girl I shouldn’t be attracted to.

Defeated, I rake my hands through my hair.

But I can’t go upstairs to confront Amelia, and I can’t stay here. So with nowhere else to go, I walk out front and call a cab to go home.

My bed proves to be just another torture chamber. I toss and turn, hearing Amelia’s words in my head. Everything she said echoes in my mind like a song I can’t get out.

I don’t want someone else.

I am a woman with needs and desires like everyone else.

And then my lovesick admission to her: I ache for you.

I’ve opened a door I can’t close.

My only options now are to move far, far from here in hopes that I could find some relief from this torturous desire.

Or…the unthinkable. To give in. To indulge in everything I want with Amelia.

But like I said: unthinkable.

And yet…leaving her forever…unimaginable.

Whatever we decide, it won’t be solved here, lying alone in this bed. It’s time Amelia and I put this ridiculous thing between us to rest. We need to face it head-on. Have a hard conversation and decide together that we cannot let this go any further.