“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject, Mr. Allen.”
He shook his head and smiled. “You can call me Nico, Tia. I know you think I’m as old as Methuselah, but I don’t require you to call me Mr. Allen. Really.”
As he joked about how old I thought he was, referring to my snappy comments from yesterday, he winced. I shouldn’t have been so mean. No matter what he did or said, I didn’t need to be that way too.
Looking down toward my book, I closed it and pushed it off to the side. “I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean to be so hurtful.”
“You had every right to be. I acted like a goddamned monster when Grace gave me that pasta art she made me. I deserved everything you said and about a hundred things you didn’t say but were probably thinking.”
I looked up, surprised to hear him say that, and saw an expression of contrition on his face. He genuinely seemed to be sorry for acting so terribly toward Grace.
With a smile, I tried to make him feel a little better since that was my nature. “You know, I think if you showed her this side of you, she’d love to see it. She really only wants you to like her. She said that to me just the other day.”
He nodded and sighed again. “I’m not really good with kids. I never have been. Maybe when I was a kid, but since then, nope. When I heard Fiona had given birth, all I could think of was why. She’s no better with kids than I am, and even worse, she doesn’t work at home where she can see the child whenever she wants. I mean, she didn’t.”
Nico stopped talking for a moment and ran his hand through his dark hair as a look of anguish settled into his chiseled features. “What a mess. Then they come to me and say I’m her only family since her father is God only knows where. Probably catching some wave on the coast of wherever. I don’t think he was more than a fling to begin with, so I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody even tried to locate him before they brought her here to me. As you have seen more than clearly, I’m not good for her either. Thank God DeVille Staffing found you.”
“Anyone can be good for a child. You just have to open up a little.”
I didn’t know if I was overstepping my bounds, but I wanted to do whatever I could so Grace would know her uncle didn’t hate her. He just had trouble understanding what children needed.
For a long moment, I held my breath and every muscle in my body tensed as I waited for him to lash out or bark at me, but nothing like that ever came. He simply sighed again, blowing the air out of his lungs even harder that time, and nodded.
“She seems like a nice kid.”
“Oh, she is! She’s incredible. You can have entire conversations with her, and don’t think you need to do any of that baby talk with her because Grace is very bright. Your sister must be an exceptionally intelligent person because her daughter is so smart. I think you’d really enjoy talking to her if you took the time to have a conversation. And she’s fun. She likes to laugh and tell stories and run around after leaves when they blow in the wind. She really is just the sweetest little girl.”
I knew I was gushing about Grace, but not a word I said wasn’t the absolute truth. In only a couple weeks, she’d become one of my favorite people in the entire world.
“I’m happy she has you around, Tia. Everyone deserves to have a fan like you are of Grace,” he said, and underneath his words I sensed a hint of sadness.
Was it that he didn’t have anyone to be a fan of him? Was that why he didn’t know how to relate to his own niece? Was that why he seemed so cold and distant all the time?
Well, until now.
Something about the sound of his voice made me want to be nice to him, so I smiled and said, “You and your client yesterday seemed very much fans of one another. It’s a lot like that for me and Grace.”
My suggestion made him laugh, and he shook his head. “Not at all the same. You genuinely like her and she obviously feels the same way about you. Amanda is my ex-girlfriend, and while it looks like she actually likes me, that’s not how it is at all. As for what I feel for her, let’s just say that I don’t need to touch a hot stove twice to know I’ll get burned if I do it again.”
I watched as he forced himself to smile and quickly stood up from the table. “Well, enough time off for me. My boss is a slave driver, so off to work I go.”
“You should tell him you deserve time off,” I said with a smile.
That made him laugh again. “I’m my boss, Tia. That was my attempt at a joke. Not very good, I guess.”
Instantly, my cheeks felt like they were burning up. How embarrassing. I must have sounded like the dumbest person in the world. Of course, he’s his own boss. What a dolt I could be sometimes.
“Oh, yeah. Duh. Sorry. Your joke was fine. I was just off in another world, I guess.”
Grabbing his coffee cup, he looked over at me and in his dark eyes I saw he didn’t seem unhappy anymore. “Thanks for the talk. Maybe we could do it again sometime.”
“I would like that. And as for Grace, just give yourself a chance with her. You’ll see. It will pay off.”
Nico smiled, and for the first time, he looked like a different man. A kinder man. A nicer man.
A sexier man.
“I’ll do that. Thanks.”