Strange.
This has never happened outside the court before.
Shoving it down, I kill the engine, put my best game face on, and climb out so I can meet my daughter. The sooner I do, the sooner I can put this entire thing to bed and get back to life as it was always meant to be.
Chapter 7
Rossi
* * *
Two bright headlights flash into the sidelights of my front door three minutes before six.
“Okay, baby girl. He’s here.” I don’t say Fabian. And I certainly don’t say Daddy. Honestly, I don’t know what to say, not that she’d understand any of it anyway.
With the baby on my hip, I check my reflection in the mirror above the console table, tucking my hair behind one ear before placing it back.
My heart gallops, inching up the back of my throat before settling in my ears.
“Is it hot in here?” I ask my daughter, despite the fact that she can’t answer. A nervous dampness collects at the back of my neck, along my hairline. Sniffing my shirt, I ensure I smell just as lovely as the rose bushes outside, and then I fan my warm cheeks. It’s too late to open a window or change from this sweater to a t-shirt. It’s also too late to talk myself out of this weird little frenzy because the sexiest man alive is strutting up my walkway.
Six more steps and he’ll be ringing my doorbell.
Sucking in a long, cool breath, I close my eyes, gather myself, and let it go.
It’s not like I need to impress him …
It’s not like it matters that he’s the most beautiful human I’ve ever laid eyes on—second only to my daughter.
Smoothing Lucia’s shiny onyx hair aside, I make sure her pink satin bow is straight, and that her outfit is stain-free. As soon as I got off the phone with him earlier, I changed her from the spit-up scented onesie she was wearing into a flower-and-duck covered romper. Nothing frilly or Sunday best-ish, but a serious improvement nonetheless.
He’s so close I can hear his footsteps on the other side of the door.
I try to swallow, but I can’t.
The doorbell chimes.
Lucia claps in my arms.
I take one last cleansing breath, tell myself this is going to go wonderfully no matter what, and then I reach for the knob.
“Hey,” I answer with the feigned confidence of a woman who isn’t at all uneasy about this. Stepping aside, I say, “Come on in.”
“Hi there.” His voice is velvet smooth, and his casual infliction is the kind you’d use with an old friend. His dark eyes lock onto mine, holding them captive for a single, endless second. A heady rush blows through me, a spine-tingling burst of air that came out of nowhere.
“You find us okay?” It’s a dumb question to ask, especially given this GPS day and age, but my mind is spinning so fast I can’t come up with something better.
“Yeah.” He slides off his pristine tennis shoes, placing them perfectly on my door mat alongside three pairs of my own. “Nice neighborhood you’ve got here. Reminds me of the one I grew up in. Same kind of houses.”
“It’s adorable, right?” I motion for him to follow me down the hall and to the living room where I’ve already spread out Lucia’s blanket and favorite toys. “You can sit wherever you’d like. I usually hang out on the floor with her …”
His gaze drifts from me to the baby, and his expression straddles the line between intrigue and the way I looked when I used to window shop for rescue cats knowing I was deathly and tragically allergic. There are few things worse than being a cat person but not owning a cat—except for maybe being a baby person and not having a baby.
But I remind myself Fabian isn’t a baby person—he’s said so himself.
I’m imagining things, and reading into every nuance is going to do me no favors.
Keeping a careful distance, he perches on the center cushion of my gray sofa, elbows resting on his knees as he watches his daughter play with a Baby Einstein radio.
“So,” I say with an awkward chuckle. I’ve never formally introduced a baby to anyone before. “This is Lucia.”
“Lucia,” he says her name under his breath. “That’s a beautiful name.”
“I’ve been holding onto it for years,” I say. “Had a hundred names picked out for a boy, but this was the only one that ever felt right for a daughter.”
“When you know, you know.”
“Exactly.” I scoot closer to her, handing off a soft book that she promptly puts in her mouth. “She’s cutting some new teeth … everything’s a teething toy.”
He watches her with intention, hardly moving, studying her like she’s some kind of living photograph. Or maybe he’s trying to mentally capture this moment so he can lock it away forever, knowing there’ll never be another like it.