And even though it had been ten years and he should have put all of this behind him, her turning up had rocked him. Something he did not like.
“Daisy, I know you’re in there. Let me in.”
He could see the light on inside. Unless she’d changed, Daisy was a night owl. If things had been different and she’d been his, he’d have had a fight on his hands getting her poor sleeping habits under control.
Of course, a few good spankings would have helped reinforce his rules. He breathed out deep. He needed to get rid of this rage. Anger was never a productive emotion. He was always cool and calm. Always.
Except, it seemed, when it came to her.
He knocked again. “Daisy. Open up. Now.”
If anyone needed some boundaries it was Daisy. She’d never had that from her parents. Her mom wasn’t even sure which one of her clients was her dad. He’d certainly not stuck around, and that was even if he knew he had a kid.
Her mother had mostly been drunk or high. From a young age Daisy had to look out for herself. And then once her siblings came along, she’d taken care of them as well. He wondered where Bradley and Sylvie were. They’d be what, twenty-three and twenty now? Something like that.
“Daisy!” Bang. Bang. Bang.
The door suddenly opened and he stood there, frozen with his fist in the air. She stared up at him, her gray eyes wide and frightened, her face pale, her worn pajamas stained and crinkled. Her short hair stood up in tufts as though she’d been pulling at it or running her fingers through it over and over.
She had a smudge of something in the corner of her lips and he had to fight the ridiculous urge to lean forward and lick it off.
Not here for that.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Came to talk to you. Did you check to see who it was before you opened the door?”
She frowned, staring up at him incredulously. “You were yelling loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood. I knew who it was.”
Oh. Right.
“You should still check,” he grumbled, unable to let that pass, even as he told himself it wasn’t his place to lecture her. “And why did it take you so long to answer the door?”
“Umm, maybe because you were yelling loud enough to wake the neighborhood?” she replied sarcastically. “What do you want? I’m about to go to bed.”
“No, you’re not. You never go to bed before midnight.”
“Well, maybe I’m a different person than I was before. Maybe I go to bed early these days.”
He just looked at her disbelievingly.
“Why are you here, bashing my door down in the middle of a storm?”
He sighed. “First, this is just a bit of rain, not a storm. Second, if I wanted to bash your door in, then I would have. I’m coming in.”
He stepped forward but she didn’t shift out of the way, which honestly shocked him. He wasn’t used to not getting his way. He intimidated most people. And the way she’d reacted to him the other night, leaving without barely a word of protest, he’d figured she wouldn’t give him any trouble.
“No, you’re not,” she said stubbornly.
“It’s raining out here,” he pointed out.
“I can see that.”
“You want to have this conversation with me on your doorstep, standing in the rain?”
“You’re under a porch so technically the rain isn’t getting on you. And I don’t want to have any conversation with you.”
He ground his teeth together. Patience. Patience.