Never Bargain with the Boss: Chapter 22

“Okay, now what?” Grace asks after flouring the countertop and rolling pin—the rolling pin she’s holding in the air like a weapon of mass mess-making with a dust of white powder in the air surrounding her.

Riley glances over, holding her place at the stovetop where she’s stirring a big pot of chicken stock. “Lay a biscuit down and roll it out flat and thin like a pancake.”

Grace nods, instantly getting to work.

Riley seems a bit lost in thought compared to this morning, but that’s only natural given everything that’s happened. We both have a lot to think about.

I’m supposed to be making the salad, but I find myself simply staring at Riley as I replay last night… and this morning… over and over. And not only the sex parts, but the conversations, the way Riley looked at me, and how it felt to wake up with her in my arms.

I wasn’t looking for this. Certainly wasn’t looking for Riley, but that doesn’t seem to matter. She barreled right into my life, and into Grace’s, and made a space for herself. A perfect Riley-sized spot right in the middle of everything, and now it seems like it all revolves around her.

Like now.

She flits around the kitchen—here, there, and everywhere at once. Her bracelets jangle as she stirs the pot, swipes a cherry tomato from my salad, and pops it in her mouth before glancing over Grace’s shoulder approvingly at her progress with the dumplings. It’s amazing.

I’ve always thought this house was a home, with Grace and me as a complete family. But Riley brings so much life to it, making me realize exactly what was missing before her.

I meet her eyes in the window’s reflection, giving her a happy smile. There’s a moment, maybe not even a full second, where she doesn’t return it, and my heart drops, but then her lips mirror mine. And though my heart beats again, I’ve seen every smile in her repertoire enough to know there’s something off about her expression. She’s forcing it, slapping on a smile she doesn’t feel inside, and if there’s one thing Riley’s not, it’s fake.

I move beside her at the sink, washing my already-clean hands too, just so I can be close to her, and quietly, I murmur, “You okay?”

She finds my eyes, then glances back worriedly at Grace. She might’ve called me an overthinker, but it seems Riley’s the one doing too much thinking right now.

“Everything’s good,” I tell her. Though she doesn’t seem certain, she nods. “Salad’s done. Where do you want me now?”

“Can you help Grace with the dumplings?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I’ll do anything she wants me to do. As it is, I’m fighting hard to not sweep her into my arms and reassure her that it’s all going to be fine and she doesn’t need to freak out.

My, how the tables have turned, I think to myself.

Before, I was the one panicking. Now, she is.

I move next to Grace and see a smudge of flour on her cheek. Part of me wants to wipe it off, but I don’t dare interrupt her biscuit rolling when she’s taking it this seriously. I don’t think I’ve seen her this hardcore with a rolling pin since she was playing with Playdoh as a toddler, and she’s made eight big, flat, thin circles of dough.

“That’s good,” Riley tells her. “Now, slice them into squares, about this big.” She holds up her finger and thumb to indicate pieces about an inch or so, and Grace and I do her bidding, making a mountain of doughy squares from the circles.

Riley adds them to her pot slowly, stirring and staring into the creamy chicken base like it’s a crystal ball, and though I desperately want to ask what she’s thinking, I don’t. I can give her the time and space she gave me. I just hope she isn’t as slow as I was.

Because now that I’ve had a taste of her, now that my blinders are off and I can see what’s been right in front of me, now that I’ve made up my mind… there’s no slowing down for me.

I want Riley.

And I’m a man who gets what he wants.

I’ve worked my ass off over the years, first building a career, and then a family. When life went sideways, I had to work my way back to some sense of normalcy, and I’ve kept that stability through blood, sweat, and tears. Okay, maybe that’s a tad dramatic, given there hasn’t actually been blood, but there has definitely been some sweat and tears as I’ve raised Grace into the young woman she’s become.

I won’t mess up what I’ve built for Grace. She is still, and always will be, my number-one priority. But I can see a future with Riley seamlessly added to our family. She’s basically already there, and that feels more right than I would’ve ever dreamed.

Over dinner, Grace gives us a very detailed and animated report of her night with Bella and Trinity. “And then Bella said…”

I listen to every word. I swear I do, but the ins and outs of teenage conversations can go over my head sometimes, especially when Grace starts slipping in slang I don’t understand. What in the world is a skibidi? I don’t know, but she acts like it’s a perfectly normal word.

“I texted with Liam.” Grace grins when she drops that bomb, even as she shoves a dumpling in her mouth.

Riley leans toward her, her smile wide and excitement palpable. “You did? What did he say? What did you say?”

“We talked about school, mostly.” Grace shrugs like that’s all there was to it, but a moment later, she reveals, “But he said Hannah has been texting him. He told her to leave him alone, unfriended her, and then blocked her.”

“He blocked her?” Riley gasps.

Apparently, that’s important, but I have no idea why it’d be gasp-worthy, so I continue listening, hoping clarity will come.

Nodding, she says, “She was being all ‘heyyy, Liam.’” Grace gives her voice a high-pitched, flirty tone that I instantly hate, but then in her usual voice, she continues, “So he told her that he was talking with me. She did not like that and started badmouthing me, Bella, and Trinity.” Grace tuts out a sound of disbelief.

“What did Liam do?” Riley’s hanging on Grace’s every word like it’s a soap opera playing out in front of her. But she’s not looking for drama. She seems truly interested in what’s going on with Grace.

She cares about her.

I already knew that, but it warms my heart to see it so obviously in their interactions, especially as I’m imagining mine and Grace’s family expanding by two combat-booted feet.

“That boy understood the assignment when I told him that Hannah was being mean to us,” Grace continues. “He told her that she was an NPC and I was the main character.”

“Savage,” Riley says.

I clear my throat. “Could I get a Dad translation, please? I’m not sure if I like this Liam kid now, or I want to have a little chat with him. Preferably in English.”

Grace laughs like I’m being silly, and Riley grins at me.

My daughter’s eyes are lit with glee as she explains, “Hannah tried flirting with Liam, he told her that he’s involved with me, and she had a temper tantrum. So he hit her where it hurt, telling her that she didn’t matter and I was all he’s interested in.”

She stares at me expectantly, but I’m still not sure what to think. Mostly, I just wish Grace wasn’t at all interested in boys. Not now, not ever. Maybe when she’s like thirty-five and done with college, grad school, and has her career started. I might be ready for her to date then.

“So, we like him?” I guess.

Grace rolls her eyes. “Yeah, Dad. I like him.”

“Okay, but schoolwork first,” I remind her. “No boy-craziness.”

“There’s no school. I’m out for Thanksgiving break,” Grace reminds me.

Shit. I knew that. The Fall Ball was the kickoff for Grace’s week off school, so we’re only a few days away from the holiday. “You’re coming to dinner with us, right?” I blurt out to Riley. Admittedly, I assumed Riley would be, though I hadn’t actually asked… or told Mom to expect another guest.

Recently, the Harrington boys have had a tendency to show up to family dinners with surprise guests, and I’ve given every single one of my brothers shit about their rudeness when they did it. I will not make that mistake, so I make a mental note to text Mom that I’m bringing a plus-one. I don’t think she’ll be surprised after the spa day.

“Oh, uh…” Riley stammers. Her eyes are ping-ponging from Grace to me uncertainly. “I don’t want to intrude.”

I hold my hand up. “You’re invited, so it’s not an intrusion. I want you there.” Riley’s eyes flare, and I rush to correct myself. “We want you there.”

Whew, that was a close one.

The truth is, I do want Riley at my side at the family holiday dinner. But saying it that bluntly would definitely bring up questions in my too-smart daughter’s mind, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

“Okay, I would love to go to dinner,” Riley answers, her eyes full of questions.

Questions I intend to answer as soon as Grace goes to bed.

“I have all sorts of things planned this week,” Riley informs me that evening as she puts our mugs of water into the microwave. “I’m coloring my hair in the morning and Grace asked to watch—don’t worry, I won’t do anything to hers without permission.” She sends me a knowing smirk, already easing the concerns she correctly assumed were on the tip of my tongue. “And then we’re hanging out until it’s time for her riding lesson. It’ll be her only one this week because the barn is staff-only the rest of the week. Tuesday, we’re going to Janey’s to play with Emmett while she goes to the Thanksgiving luncheon at the nursing home where she works. Worked?” She shrugs like she’s not sure which is accurate, which is valid because Janey’s been on maternity leave for a while now, and I don’t know if she plans on going back. Honestly, I don’t know if Janey knows. “I have a cute little craft thing we’re going to do with him to surprise Janey. It’s a handprint with each finger a different color, so it looks like a turkey. Me and Grace might do one too, just for fun. And Wednesday, we’ll probably have a lazy day here unless there’s something you need me to do?”

She’s rambling, the words tumbling out at rapid-fire pace.

I tune in upstairs, making sure I don’t hear a sound, and then I grab Riley, jerking her into the embrace of my arms. “Breathe. It’s okay. We’re okay. Everything’s okay.”

She sags into me, her cheek pressed to my chest, and I run my hands up and down her back soothingly. “Talk to me. What’s going on in this head of yours?”

I move one palm up to smooth her hair back from her face, then rest it at the nape of her neck, cradling her as I bring her eyes to mine. She takes a soft, relieved breath. Still, she doesn’t say anything.

“Riley.”

My tone is different and we both hear it. I’m not in Dad Mode anymore, not trying to sound polite and professional because Grace is listening. This is me, Cameron, talking to her, demanding that she tell me what’s got her so worked up.

“I was wrong.”

The three words are a sucker punch to my gut that sends me reeling. Thankfully, there’s more.

“I promised you I could handle ‘enjoying the moment’ and that being all there was, but…” She tries to shake her head, but my grip is too strong, so instead, she drops her eyes. “I was wrong.”

“Wrong how?” I grit out, and her eyes fly back up to mine, nearly begging me to understand whatever it is she’s trying to say.

“I want more. I want all of it—you, Grace, your family, holiday dinners… I mean, you probably eat turkey and dressing around a big table and play silly games until football comes on. I’ve never had that, don’t you see?” Her voice drops off to a whisper, even as her gaze stays boldly locked on mine. “I want all of it, more than anything I’ve ever wanted.”

Relief washes through my entire body. Fuck, I think it washes through my soul. The soul I would’ve sworn, just a few months ago, that I didn’t have.

She’s not rejecting me. She’s settling in deeper. She’s just not sure I’m ready for that. But I can alleviate that worry right now. “Me too,” I tell her. “I want you. I want more too.”

A soft smile blossoms slowly across her lips, lifting them in tiny increments until she’s beaming. “Really?”

The microwave beeps its annoying alarm, and in the four short minutes it’s taken to heat our water for tea, my whole life has changed once again. There’s a before-this moment and an after-this moment.

Before, there was no Riley. Well, she existed, but there was a boundary between us. After, she’s mine and I’m hers. And we both know it.

“Yes, really.”

The microwave beeps again, and she moves away from me to quiet it. I jerk her back, not finished with this moment and definitely not ready to move on to something as unimportant as hot water. She lands against me, her chest bumping mine, and I place a kiss to her lips.

“Cameron!” she whisper-shouts, her eyes jerking to the doorway behind me.

“I needed to taste that smile,” I explain. A flush of pink covers her cheeks, and I want to taste that too, but I let her carefully pull the mugs out and set them on the counter, where I drop the waiting teabags in. “Grab a blanket,” I tell her, heading out to the patio for our nightly tradition with our tea in my hands.

Outside, she spreads the blanket over both of our laps and then takes her mug from me. As she blows on the steaming liquid, she murmurs, “Are we doing naughty things under the blanket tonight?”

My cock surges in my pants. Fuck yes, I want to do naughty things everywhere with Riley. But I shift in my spot on the couch, willing my eager dick to calm the fuck down. Now is not the time, not with Grace upstairs. And not with Riley needing reassurance that this goes well beyond mere fucking.

Truthfully, I’ve come to enjoy our evenings on the patio and look forward to them all day, wanting to hear about her day, watching the sky turn black and stars come out, and slowing down in a way I don’t think I’ve done for a long, long time. I think these moments of stillness with her at my side are where I feel most thankful that I’m still alive, a concept I don’t think I’d considered a short while ago.

“You said you’re coloring your hair in the morning. I love the pink. Honestly, I hate how much I love it,” I confess, twirling a soft lock around my finger and staring at it appreciatively. “Like cotton candy I want to suffocate in.” She laughs as I press my nose into the strands and wiggle back and forth. “What color is it naturally?”

I’m not sure why I want to know. Maybe because it feels like a piece of the Riley puzzle and I want to accurately picture her through every phase of her tumultuous life.

“I don’t even know anymore.” She laughs. “When I was young, it was dirty blonde, but it’s been so many colors. Pink, black with white tips and white with black tips, every color of blue from pastel to navy, blonde, red. Don’t get too used to pink. I’ll change it at some point.”

As she lists out every color in the crayon box, I try to picture each and every one but fail. “When I met you, I thought the pink was strange. Now, I can’t imagine you any other way,” I confess. “But I think your hair could be rainbowed all over and I’d think it was perfectly Riley.”

She snuggles into my side, wiggling happily. “What else did you think about me?”

I chuckle. “That sounds like a trap.”

She peers up at me, her eyes earnest. “It’s not. Really, I’d like to know.”

I swallow thickly, amazed at how much has changed in such a short period of time. “I thought you were young, interesting looking, and your entire presence virtually shouted at me from across the room. Your hair color, the cute little fang-toothed smile, the frayed edges of your jeans puddled on your shoes, and the bracelets. Fuck, the damn bracelets drive me crazy,” I groan, teasing a fingertip over the stack on her wrist.

“So I’ve heard,” she teases with a sexy smirk. She twists her wrist back and forth, making them clink and clang, the sound virtually a song to me now. Looking at them thoughtfully, she says, “When I was younger, I survived in two ways—by being helpful and by being quiet. The helpful part I told you about, how I went from taking care of the other foster kids to taking care of kids as a nanny. The being quiet was a harder lesson to unlearn.”

She presses her lips together, but I can tell it’s not the end of her story, so I wait patiently for her to find her way back to the past she’s tried so hard to leave behind.

“One day, I met a woman with the coolest style. She was wearing bright red lipstick, thick black framed glasses, and loads of jewelry, more than I could ever dream of. I told her I liked them but asked her how she could manage being loud like that because you could literally hear her coming down the street. Like bells tinkling.” Riley smiles softly like she’s remembering the woman fondly. “She gave me this sad look and said, ‘Who told you being quiet was a good thing?’, and when I answered, ‘Everyone,’ she got so mad. She said a few choice words but mostly told me it was okay to be loud, to take up space, and to be seen. That blew my mind.” She shakes her head, and I hate that something so basic seemed beyond her at one point.

“She was so confident and sure of herself and her place in the world. I wanted to be like that too, so I started looking for things I liked at thrift stores and slowly began collecting. Jewelry is also easier because it doesn’t take up much space in my suitcase, and if I don’t take it off, I don’t even have to worry about packing it in a hurry when I leave.”

“Jesus, Riley,” I hiss, horrified at how awful that sounds. No, not awful… fatalistic. Like leaving is a surety. I understand why she’d feel that way given we’ve both had people leave, but the cavalier manner in which she discusses it makes me want to destroy everyone who’s ever hurt her.

She shrugs, unbothered by it. “It makes me feel like that woman—confident, seen, important. So I always wear them. Especially since you never know who might be watching and thinking they’d love to be that seen too.”

“I love them even more now that I know what they represent to you,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her inner wrist and several metal bracelets at the same time.

“Do you want to know what I thought of you at first?” she asks, a fiery glint in her eye.

I frown hard. “I’m sure I can guess. Old, uptight asshole?”

She tilts her head, unabashedly saying, “Yeah, but I could tell you loved Grace. That’s the only reason I considered this job. I’ve never worked for a single dad before. Always families, and Bianca was a single mom, but never a single dad. Until you.”

“And look how this turned out,” I joke, pulling her tighter against me and burying my face in her cotton-candy hair again.

We talk late into the night, and I’m painfully tempted to bring her back to my bedroom again, but the idea of her sneaking out in the middle of the night or in the morning before Grace wakes up feels disrespectful. I don’t want to hide her. I want to walk into every room with her at my side, proud to be with her.

But that requires a conversation with my daughter. A private, one-on-one conversation so I can see what she thinks and how she feels about my finding someone because that’s something we’ve never discussed. I never thought I’d need to talk about that with her since it wasn’t going to happen.

Until it did. Until Riley.

So for now, I’ll play the part of the good dad the way I have so many times before and deny myself for Grace’s sake. But feeling confident that it’s late enough that Grace is snoring away in her room upstairs, I pause at the back door.

Unable to stop myself, I wrap Riley in my arms, holding her tight. I tilt her chin up and steal a kiss. Her lips are soft, and when she opens for me, I slip my tongue inside to tangle with hers. But it’s not a kiss with a mission. We’re just enjoying the moment the way she’s taught me to.

Too soon, we both pull back.

“Good night,” she whispers. She understands, even without us saying it. It’s just another sign of how perfect she is.

“Good night,” I whisper back.

We put our mugs in the dishwasher and then stand at the kitchen doorway, delaying going our separate ways. “It feels weird to kiss you and then go upstairs,” she confesses.

“For me too. But it’s only for a little bit. We can figure us out, and then talk to Grace. For now, we can do this… for Grace’s sake.”

She leans my way and pulls me down to growl into my ear. “I seriously love that girl, but she’s a cockblocker.”

I laugh, the too-loud sound coming from deep in my chest, and I can’t help but nod. “That, she is.”

But I didn’t miss the most important part of what Riley said… she loves my little girl.

The little girl who deserves a mother figure. Not one to replace Michelle. That could never happen, and I wouldn’t want it to. But a woman to be here when she’s struggling with friendships and boys and who sets an example for her as she’s becoming a young woman who’s confident enough to be loud in every space she occupies.

And that’s Riley for sure.