Chapter 1
Chapter
One
VES
“She’s not coming.”
I frown as I pour coffee into my thermos. “She’ll be here, Cali. I’m sure she’s just running behind.”
She better fucking be here.
I just paid her, handed the damn check over yesterday, and that idiot didn’t say one word about not showing up today. As a matter of fact, Morgan didn’t say shit to me, just dropped Cali off, took her paycheck, and practically ran down the hall toward the elevator.
Maybe that was my sign.
The bimbo doesn’t usually run out of my apartment like her ass is on fire, but she did yesterday, and I can’t help but think there might be one or two reasons for it.
“Morgan isn’t coming back, Daddy. I heard her on the phone with her mom.”
“Eavesdropping isn’t very polite,” I mumble as I give her my back, scowling until my face hurts because my daughter is probably right. “We’ve talked about that.”
“Well, maybe, but she told her mom you broke up.”
I cringe as I screw the lid on too tight, knowing damn well I’m not going to be able to get my thermos open once I’m at the office.
That’s one reason Morgan won’t be coming back.
She’s fucking delusional and fabricated some story about the two of us dating, and despite the number of times I’ve attempted to set her straight, that girl didn’t seem to get it.
Until recently, anyway. As if living her own warped narrative wasn’t bad enough, two days ago, I got home from work late, so late I asked her to stay and put Cali to bed for me and when I walked into my apartment, that twenty-year old beta was naked as the day she was born, spread eagle and waiting for me in my den.
Needless to say, I lost my fucking shit.
Not only was my daughter in the room down the hall and could have walked in on that mess at literally any second, I’ve made it abundantly clear that nothing was ever going to happen between us.
The last fucking thing I want is to come home from one of the longest days I’ve had in a while only to find some random vagina gaping at me from across the room.
It was like staring into the Grand Canyon.
Her legs were so wide I bet if they were still open when I started yelling, there would have been a goddamn echo.
Besides, I’m done with that kind of shit.
I’ve written off relationships, I don’t have time for no strings attached or a friends-with-benefits situation.
I think the last time I had sex was when Cali was conceived, and I can’t even remember the last time I jerked off, that’s how little I think about that sort of thing.
And while she is kind of pretty, Morgan is not my type, if I was inclined to have one.
I don’t even know what my type would be at this point, I just know it isn’t someone twenty years younger than me, or a person who’s playing with a few cards short of a full deck.
I’ve been there before, I have no plans on going back.
Dating is out of the question, relationships even more so.
Kind of hard to get back in the game when the last partner I had ran me over with her goddamn car and tried to kidnap our daughter.
“Are you going to take a sick day?”
“I can’t, baby,” I say with a sigh as I turn to face my little girl. “Work has been really busy lately.”
“‘Cause you’re trying to go out with a bang. I know.”
“Something like that.”
She isn’t wrong, not really.
My boss—and former partner—has been aggressively trying to get me to retire for at least two years now, but he started pushing when Cali was a baby and I had to go out on medical and delayed paternity at the same time.
I’ve fought the idea just as long as he’s been trying to force it on me, primarily because it was hard as fuck for an omega to get the title of special supervisory agent, one I’ve worn proudly since I graduated from the academy, and I’m not about to give it up because Craig Butler thinks I’m too old to keep working for the behavioral analysis unit.
Unfortunately, the fucker had me transferred from Quantico to Los Angeles two years ago in a sorry attempt to get me to retire, and that means I’m technically not working for the BAU anymore.
Instead, I’m pushing paper at the LA FBI office, essentially coming up with interview and interrogation techniques, and devising loose, generic profiles I can share when they make me go on my next lecture tour.
Nothing like having a middle aged omega standing in front of a room full of young, egotistical, roided out alphas with badges and guns, trying to tell them how to do their jobs as if they’d actually be receptive to it.
All part of Butler’s plan, though, and I know that.
The transfer, uprooting my life and my daughter, forcing us across the country for what is basically a demotion that could have made my life a living hell. It was supposed to make me beg for retirement, but instead, I’ve made the best of things. We’ve made the best of things.
We don’t have to worry about Cali’s mom pulling some bullshit since we’re thousands of miles away from her, and he didn’t know it, but dropping us in Los Angeles actually put me closer to my family.
So, when I have long lecture tours, my daughter gets to stay with her grandparents, and spend time with her aunt and uncle that she never really got to see much of before.
It hasn’t been an entirely awful experience, but I can tell Butler is gearing up for another big play, and I want to try to do something to get out ahead of it if I can.
I’m just not really sure how I’m going to be able to go out with that bang my daughter mentioned.
I scrub a hand over my face as Cali pushes her eggs around on her plate, a sad smile curving my lips as I watch my six year old play with her food instead of eating it.
The move has been a little harder on my girl.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s never complained, not once, and she goes with the flow better than most adults, but I know she had her heart set on starting school with the kids she’d known since our Read, Music, and Play group at the library a few blocks from our place in Virginia.
They were babies then toddlers together, and I know Cali was looking forward to starting kindergarten with them, but we moved before it could happen.
That made the transition easier, in my opinion, moving before those friendships were set in stone and harder to walk away from, but I understand how that’s made things a little hard for my daughter.
She’s making friends, though, and she loves seeing her extended family. Cali likes spending time at the beach and all the sunshine.
I don’t have to ask to know, she wishes I was home more, though.
That’s ultimately why she’s struggling a bit more than I thought she would, and that’s exactly why I’m seriously considering retirement.
I just hate the idea of ending a rather decorated career catching serial killers sitting behind a desk writing up lesson plans to be delivered to the least captive audience known to man.
“I told you she’s not coming,” Cali says as she slides off the bar stool and carries her plate to the sink.
“Morgan said so.” She scrapes her food into the garbage disposal then waits for me to run it before she rinses the plate off and puts it in the dishwasher.
“She said she was never coming back to a dickhead who uses nannies like kleenex.” I choke on nothing but air as my daughter looks up at me and says in the most deadpan way possible, “She couldn’t be with a man who blows his load then throws them in the trash.
Or something like that, but Bluey came on and I stopped listening. ”
Thank god for that.
And while I never, ever want to hear my daughter say anything like that again, that’s one of the other reasons Morgan might have decided to disappear after getting her last check.
We’ve been out here for two years and that idiot made nanny number seven. Or eight. I can’t remember exactly, but we’ve had our fair share, and I’ve earned a rather tyrannical reputation amongst the temp services and daycares in the area.
I don’t think it’s warranted, not entirely.
I pay well, always compensate for emergencies and holidays, and make sure to pay overtime when I run behind.
They get free run of the kitchen and living room, full use of our streaming services and wifi.
I don’t ask them to do more than what the job entails; taking care of my daughter and making sure her needs are met when I’m at work.
Keep her safe, fed, clean, cared for and happy.
If they do any housework, or cook enough for me to have a meal as well, I pay them extra.
The only time I’ve ever yelled at one of the nannies was when Morgan presented herself to me like an omega in heat, and while I know I’m not exactly warm and fuzzy as my daughter says, I’m not terrible.
And Cali is so easy.
She loves to color and draw, or listen to music.
Cali loves being outside and is always up for playing at the park or beach, or doing some window shopping at the local stores.
She reads at a third grade level so she’ll sit and do that for hours, getting completely lost in other worlds if you don’t bring her back to reality from time to time, and she’s all for putting on a good movie and staying in for the night.
Cali is clean and neat, maybe too much so for a six year old, and she never really puts up a fight when it comes to extra chores or hygiene.
My girl is super laid back, she’s smart and funny, and she really does go with the flow.
I’d think most nannies would jump at the chance to work with a kid like mine, which is definitely why I’m the main factor when it comes to our turnover rate.