Page 74 of The Daddy’s Girl

Not me.

“Everything all right?” The young bartender, Weston, lingers around me as I sip my wine with a melancholy radiating from beneath the surface of my skin.

Of course, I can’t reveal anything to him. He’s one of Amelia’s best friends.

He probably already knows.

“Tout va bien,” I mutter while raking a hand over my overgrown stubble.

Weston sucks in a breath through his teeth. “I don’t speak very much French, but judging by the look on your face, I’m guessing that everything is not all right.”

My brow furrows as I look up at him. For some reason, I just hear Amelia’s voice and her perfect French. She is as native to this city as I am although English was her first language. When she speaks French, the sounds roll off of her tongue like music, more beautiful than anyone else I’ve ever heard speak my language.

God, why can’t I get her out of my head?

I down the rest of my wine and shove my empty glass toward Weston. “Another please.”

Dutifully, he picks up the bottle from under the bar, pops off the cork, and fills the glass, a little higher than normal. Good boy.

When he turns his back to help another patron, I run my finger along the rim of the glass. Why am I here? I walked through those doors an hour ago with the intention of proving to myself that I am not attached to Amelia.

I could still fuck anyone I want in this place. Glancing back at the booths around the dance floor, I remember my younger days when this club was my playground. When I had men and women fawning and grappling for me, and even I’ll admit, I was a smooth talker back then.

Still am, really. If I’m in the mood to put in the effort.

I remember the night Ronan brought Amelia’s mother here. The first time I saw real love in his eyes. And I still tried to seduce her away from him.

Why? To prove a point? That sex was more powerful than love. That I was still desirable even without the emotional intimacy?

I failed. And thank God I did. Because just a few years later, Amelia came into the world.

I am not the same man I was back then. If that’s any saving grace for my position now. The man who first met those children, Ronan’s children, is not the same man who sits here today. He was feckless and wild. He left for months at a time, treated the world like a playground, committed to no feelings or people.

Fifty-three is a pathetic age for an existential crisis. But that seems to be what I’m in the middle of.

Who am I now? What do I want out of this life?

Part of me has written off living altogether, convinced I’ve done the bulk of it already. I have partied and fucked and worked and traveled. What more could I really expect?

Then I picture that bed, her curled up on the pillow, giving me a look like she wanted to invite me in. I have no business wanting the dreams of a man in his twenties. That ship has sailed. I am too old for these dreams.

A soft hand trails across my back, pulling me from my thoughts. “Uh-oh. What’s wrong?”

I glance up from my wine as Geo takes a seat on the barstool next to me. One look in those warm green eyes and I can tell what brought my old friend over.

Geo is my age, or near it at forty-nine. He’s one of many friends with benefits I have kept over the years. When he first moved out to Paris nearly fifteen years ago, he flocked instantly to my side, out of both sexual interest and a desire for a sort of promiscuous mentorship.

The man probably could have settled down a decade ago if he hadn’t spent so much time trying to be like me. Now he owns a bar of his own and has grown into a bit of a Dom. Nothing like me anymore, really.

I know why he’s here now. He’s bored or lonely, and I’m a sure thing.

Pasting a fake smile on my face, I sit upright and turn toward him. “What makes you ask that?”

He chuckles, leaning backward against the bar with his elbows propped on the surface. There has never been any romantic chemistry between Geo and me. It was always just sex, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes not.

“You can’t fool me,” he says with charm. “That smile is faker than the tits at table three.”

My lips stretch across my teeth in a grin as I peer over my shoulder and see the busty woman leaning over the table with her large, definitely fake breasts out.