38. Graciella
THIRTY-EIGHT
GRACIELLA
“IT’S RUDE NOT TO SAY.”
Staying was a horrible idea.
Worst decision I’d ever made in my life. Worse than breaking and entering.
Losing a job, I could handle.
But losing this? Going back to waking up alone without a little foot shoved into my ribs and the most beautiful man I’d ever seen silently handing me a perfectly prepared cup of coffee…how would I survive that?
Happiness didn’t feel strong enough to describe the feeling pounding in my chest. And that terrified me.
“Gracie.” Goldie patted my cheek with one sticky hand. She’d downed two chocolate chip pancakes, her appetite seeming to have recovered. “You’re not listening.”
“I am listening,” I lied.
“Nuh uh.”
Monroe made a sound from where he was cleaning up the kitchen. I’d nearly had a heart attack at seven in the morning when he’d slipped an apron over his bare chest, gray sweats slung low on his hips, announcing he was making his girls pancakes.
“Was too,” I said, doubling down.
Goldie shook her head slowly, like she was deeply and personally disappointed in me.
“No, I could tell. Your face was like this.” She went slack-jawed, staring at nothing.
I scoffed. The audacity of kids. “That is not what I looked like.”
Monroe rounded the couch, setting his mug down on the coffee table. “She’s not wrong.”
I pointed at him. “You stay out of it.”
He raised both hands, smile wide and uninhibited. He’d worn that expression more in the last forty-eight hours than I’d witnessed since meeting him.
It cracked my chest open a little wider.
I’d spent the last handful of years keeping everyone at arm’s length.
Setting every obstacle possible so people wouldn’t get close—wouldn’t even want to try.
And I hadn’t removed a single one for this man.
Not one. But it didn’t seem to matter. He made his way over all of them anyway, like they weren’t even there.
He dropped onto the couch beside me, draping his arm along the back behind me. I leaned in without deciding to, pulled by the warmth radiating off his skin and the clean soap smell of him.
“—and then the princess,” Goldie continued, undeterred even though I’d missed a solid chunk of the plot explanation, “rescues herself. Because girls are strong, too. Right, Daddy?”
“Right, Golds,” he said. “You can do tough things because you’re strong and smart and—”
“Cute,” she deadpanned.
His chest rumbled under my shoulder, deep and full. “Yeah, Golds. You’re also that.”
Monroe reached over and pulled his daughter across our laps, settling her against his other side. His fingers found my shoulder, thumb moving slowly across my skin, back and forth.
I stayed very still. Like if I didn’t move, none of it would change.
God, I would do anything to keep this.
Monroe shifted beside me. It took me a moment to register what was happening. The slight turn of his body, the dip of his head. He pressed a kiss to my temple.
And my damn lungs forgot what they were for.
Goldie’s head swiveled so fast I felt the air move. “You kissed Gracie.”
Monroe didn’t flinch. “Yep.”
“Told you.” She whipped to me, eyes impossibly wide. “Told you Daddy liked you. Right, Daddy?”
Monroe made a sound beside me that was almost certainly a laugh he was working very hard to keep contained.
“You have to say it,” Goldie informed him. “It’s rude not to say.”
A warm hand cupped my face, pulling it toward him. My heart beat at a completely unreasonable speed for someone sitting on a couch.
“Graciella.” The words danced across my lips. “I like you very much.”
He punctuated it with a kiss.