“Give me just a sec to find a vase for the flowers and put on my earrings, then we can go. I don’t want to miss our reservation.”
Chase waited in the living room while she rushed into the kitchen to find a vase big enough to hold the huge bouquet. It really was sweet of Chase to buy things for her. They’d never done the whole dating and getting to know you thing the conventional way, and she appreciated that tonight he was giving her a little of the experience.
She unwrapped the bouquet, dropped it into a vase with water, and separated the flowers a bit to give them room to fully bloom. She carried them back into the living room and set them on the coffee table. “We’ll have to come back here tonight so I can take them to your place, and I can enjoy them there.”
“It’sourplace,” he reminded her as he stuffed something into his back pocket.
“What’s that?” She lifted her chin to indicate whatever he’d hid from her.
“What?”
She raised a brow. “Seriously?”
He held his hand out toward the door. “Let’s go to dinner.”
“Chase.” She stood her ground even as he opened the door.
“Please,” he implored. “It can wait.” He stepped close and slipped his hand up under her hair at her nape. His touch centered her and eased the building anxiety making her tense. “I want to put what just happened out ofour minds for a little while. I want to take you out on this special day and spend time with you where we talk and think about only us. We’ll celebrate with good food and a decadent dessert, then go home and kiss our girl good-night. Then I want to slip that sexy dress off you and get my hands on you because damn, sweetheart, you just make me feel lucky.”
She couldn’t help but smile and fall a little bit more in love with him.
She leaned into his touch. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kyle burst through the front door of the house and didn’t even consider going up to see his parents. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of rubbing it in his face that Shelby had denied him what he wanted most.
She actually yelled at him and called him a monster.
And that boyfriend of hers stood between him and his daughter and kicked him out.
He didn’t get to spend Shelby’s birthday with her. He hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of Eliza.
He walked into the living room, furious beyond belief, and shoved the sofa over in a fit of rage, sliding it along the hardwood and toppling it. He went into the kitchen and knocked everything off the table with one swipe of his arm. Cereal scattered across the floor, along with some cookies that exploded from a bag that hit the wall. Most everything else survived.
He kicked a can of stew across the floor and right into a cupboard door. It cracked down the middle.
His mother would have a fit about his outburst, but he didn’t give a damn.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the dozens of photos he’d taken.
Gentler than how he actually felt, he brushed histhumb over Eliza’s pretty face in one of his many photos of her playing at the park. She looked so sweet and innocent and kind.
She’d love him.
She’d be happy to see him.
He switched the picture to one of Shelby. She’d defied him today. She refused to let him be a part of her birthday. He’d missed so many, and now she wouldn’t even let him make it up to her.
She wanted him to stay away.
She’d forced him to use the law to get what he wanted.
He deserved to see his granddaughter.
She wouldn’t keep him away.
Not now. Not ever.