Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Daniel
I need my daughter out of my face. As much as I love her, she’s ruining Rosie’s birthday. All I can think about right now is getting packed up so I can take Rosie anywhere but here.
Mel is about to open her mouth to chastise me again—enough already—when we both hear a scuffle in the living room. She turns, and I see Rosie heading for the door with her suitcase over her shoulder.
Fucking hell.
“Rosie,” I bark.
Mel raises her eyebrows at me.
My little lover doesn’t stop moving. She opens the door, not looking back.
I swear under my breath and grab my room key. “We won’t make it to brunch,” I snap at Mel. “And this isn’t over. I love you but get out of my suite. Now.”
Then I take off after Rosie.
She’s not at the elevator, and it doesn’t look like one just left our floor. I spin around in a circle. We’re thirty floors up. Could she have taken the stairs? I run to the nearest stairwell and push the door open.
Sure enough, an angry, dark-haired girl is stomping down the concrete steps a floor below me.
She’s carrying her suitcase. This is madness.
“Rosie, stop.”
“Go away.”
“Listen to me.”
“I heard what you said.”
“Obviously not the whole thing.”
“You said we were a mistake,” she yells up the stairwell. “So fuck off.”
Oh, she’s going to regret that language.
I don’t bother to tell her to stop again. I pick up speed and meet her on the next landing, getting in front of her.
Her face is streaked with tears, and now I’m the one who wants to swear.
“We are not a mistake,” I growl, catching her as she tries to push past me. “Listen to me, goddamn it. Mel knows I love you. You didn’t hear that part, did you?”
She freezes in my arms. “What?”
“I told her it was a mistake that I kept my feelings from her. I should have told her as soon as she arrived. That would have given her two days to process the news before the wedding.”
She huffs in protest. “What the fuck, Daniel? No, that’s not—” She grunts and tries to push away from me.
I spin her around and press her against the wall. “Stop that. We will talk about this like grown-ups.”
“You didn’t try to talk to me about what the better option was before telling Melanie it would have been better if we’d ruined the days before her wedding. You didn’t include me as a grown-up in that part of the conversation. So don’t fucking lecture—”
I crash my mouth against hers, needing her to stop swearing at me. It’s that or take her over my knee, and I’m not prepared to do that in a public stairwell.
When we get back to the room, maybe.
She gasps against my mouth, then kisses me back, desperate little sips like she can’t quite believe it.
I grunt as I haul her up the wall, fitting my body against hers. Her legs wrap around my waist, her arms tight around my neck. “Say it again.”
“We need to talk about this like grown-ups.”
“Not that part.” She’s shaking. “The other part.”
“The bit about the fact that I love you?”
She lets out a shuddering sob and nods. “I love you, too. I’m sorry I ran from you.”
“You were scared. That’s on me. I was so annoyed, and I wasn’t thinking about what it was like for you to be on the outside of a Mel and Daniel snap fest.”
“I don’t like that I came between you.”
“You didn’t. Oh, baby, if you had just heard everything I was saying to her. She’s mad at me, not you. And she’ll get over it. You’re fine. You’re perfect and so sweet. Still in trouble for telling me to fuck off, though.”
“I was mad.” She says it indignantly, like that makes it okay.
I’d have been mad, too, in her shoes. “Is it too soon to ask you to trust me?”
“You said it was a mistake!” There’s still a tremor of fear in her voice, and I get it now.
“You could never be a mistake. I know we’ve only had this special connection for a few days, but I’ve been waiting my whole life for you, and I didn’t know it.
You’re my everything, Rosie. I never want to let you go.
” I set her down and step back. I take her suitcase and hold out my hand. “Come on.”
Her eyes are big and wary, but she takes my hand and lets me lead her back to the suite. Mel is long gone. I’ll sort that mess out another day.
Right now, all I care about is the tight grip she has on my fingers.