This was, with the exception of nakedness, just about the most casual I'd ever seen him. And it was bizarrely hot.
He picked up speaking as though he’d never stopped. “This is all my fault, because if I had mentioned it to Sue, she would have made something else for breakfast, but I forgot what day my only child would be returning from London. Let me reiterate: I forgot that my daughter would be zooming across the North Atlantic in a flying metal death trap.” He sat on the sofa, thumb and fingers spread across his eyes to massage his temples.
“So...” I sat beside him and rubbed his back absently. “So, the talking didn’t go great then?”
“Not at all.” He stretched his face down with his hands. “And I have to go back in there.”
"Oh my god." I coughed a disbelieving laugh. "You want me here for this because you're afraid."
"I- um." he stammered. "Yes, I suppose I am. It’s going to be insufferably awkward. And I don't want to go through it alone."
"Don't you think it's only going to be worse if I stay?" I asked, getting to my feet.
"Perhaps, but..." he sighed. "I like being with you. I don't want to cut our time together short. And your presence generally improves my life, so if I’m going to endure the most uncomfortable father-daughter breakfast ever, I might as well do it with you beside me for moral support."
"Fair enough. I helped make the problem." I leaned down and kissed his deliciously rough cheek. I felt a momentary twinge of disappointment that we wouldn't be putting that stubble to better use today, after all.
Back in the kitchen, Emma was sitting at the breakfast nook, staring intently down at her phone.
Neil cleared his throat, and when she looked up, lifting one eyebrow in an eerie impersonation of her father, he said patiently, "Emma, I didn't have a chance to introduce you before. This is my girlfriend Sophie. Sophie, this is my daughter, Emma."
Excuse me, girlfriend? What? Now was definitely not the time for that conversation, though. I really didn't want to have to explain to this stranger that I was involved in a no-strings, friends-with-benefits relationship with her father. Oh, no worries, we’re just having hot, meaningless sex is all. Doesn’t that sound so much better, Emma?
"Nice to meet you, Sophie," Emma said, but she didn't try to shake my hand. “I didn’t know my father had a girlfriend. So soon after his divorce.”
Neither did I. I slid onto the seat opposite her, and scooted down the bench to make room for Neil. Emma looked immediately back at her phone, and Neil was busy taking the quiche out of the microwave, so I distracted myself by examining the framed photos on the wall above the breakfast nook. There was a much younger Neil, holding a smiling, pink-cheeked toddler in his arms at what appeared to be a polo match. In another, the same girl, older, with pigtails in her hair, stood proudly in front of a sign that read "Llewellyn Academy". In the next one, Emma at age six or seven held a springer spaniel puppy in her lap.
"That was Merry," Neil explained, and when I looked to him, his eyes were on the photo. He slid the quiche onto a trivet in the center of the table then turned to get some plates. "I bought her for Emma for Christmas one year. You should have seen the look on her face when she came downstairs and there was a real puppy, sleeping in its bed right in front of the Christmas tree."
"And that is exactly the kind of charming tableau we try to discourage, dad." Emma set her phone aside at the sound of the toaster. She slid from her seat and retrieved her bagel, returning to the table with it and a jar of cashew butter.
"I think it's terrible when people buy an animal to celebrate a holiday, then just get rid of it," I said, trying to sound as totally in agreement with her as possible. "But I'm sure Neil knew it was going to a good, responsible owner."
"I don't believe in owning other sentient beings. That’s slavery." Emma smiled at me as though I'd just said my alphabet out of order or something, but she felt I was very brave for trying.
Neil returned with plates and forks and took a seat beside me. "Emma works for the Animal Protection Fund."
"Oh! I've heard of them." I beamed at her. "You guys do some really cool work."
“I'm glad you like it.” Emma nodded. "Now, Sophie... what grade are you in?"
"Emma..." The warning tone in Neil's voice didn't go unnoticed by either of us. I'd hated to listen to my friends fight with their parents in front of me, and this was eerily reminiscent of that exact scenario. It really creeped me out.
"Oh, dad, I'm only teasing. She knows that."
I was one hundred percent certain she was not joking.
She continued, “I have to break the ice a little. This is a rather disturbing morning all around, isn’t it?" Emma leaned on her elbows and fixed me with a reasonable facsimile of polite interest. “So, how did you two meet?”
Was this a trick? What did I say? I highly doubted Neil had discussed past one-night stands with his daughter, but we didn’t really have a cover story in place for something like this.
"Sophie and I met a few years ago," Neil answered for me. "We recently reconnected."
"So I heard." Emma paused with her bagel halfway to her mouth. "You know, if you need me to stay somewhere else this week, I can. Michael’s, or Elizabeth's - "
"That won't be necessary. And I would appreciate it if you would not mention this to Elizabeth, should you see her during this visit." There was a tick in Neil’s jaw when he spoke his ex’s name. In the brief mentions he’d made of her to me, he hadn’t sounded quite so irritated. Was Neil’s daughter close with his ex-wife? Or soon to be ex. Was the divorce final? Should I have figured that out first? I mean, it didn't matter if he was legally married, the relationship was over, right?
Oh my gosh, no wonder Emma had taken such an immediate dislike to me. If she was close to her stepmother, of course she would be offended when her father seemingly moved on so quickly. That Neil and I didn’t have a serious relationship didn’t matter; Emma didn’t know the details, she had only heard the world “girlfriend.”
"Don't worry," Emma said lightly, not even looking up at Neil as she delivered her next barb. "I'm not going to tell her you have a woman staying over within days of her moving out. It would destroy her."
I wished I had a super power that allowed me snuff myself out like a match and reignite somewhere else.
"I'm sorry, this... this is too weird. I'm going to go." I shook my head and stood, trapped between the wall and Neil, hoping fervently that he would move and just let me escape.
He did, thank god. "Let me walk you out," he said, sliding from his seat and shooting his daughter a very terse look. I had been on the receiving end of just such an expression many times from my mother.
I didn’t take any of it personally. All of this, absolutely every single bit of it, was between Emma and her father. It had nothing to do with me. I was just a convenient catalyst.
"I'm sorry, this was a total disaster," Neil said as he followed me to the bedroom.
"It's okay." I collected up the D&G dress from his closet and carefully folded it into my overnight bag. "I would probably be pretty grossed out to find my mom with a guy my age."
That was the worst possible thing I could have said. Neil looked like I'd slapped him. "Grossed out?"
"You don't gross me out," I stated firmly. I went to him and stood on my tiptoes to put my arms around his neck. He hesitated a moment, clearly wanting to be grumpy with me, but he couldn't resist my patiently upturned mouth. His lips brushed mine and his arms tightened around my back briefly.
"But think about it from Emma's perspective," I said quietly when I stepped out of his embrace. "You have parents. You must have been uncomfortable with the idea of them having a sex life.”
"I fear it may be a little more complicated than that." Neil sat down on the sofa. He glanced up at me, guilt in his eyes. "Emma isn't happy about my divorce. She grew quite fond of Elizabeth. Emma was one of the bridesmaids, actually."
"I kind of guessed that she was Team Elizabeth
." I went to his side and sat down, my hands on my knees. It was a good thing Neil and I weren’t serious, because I couldn’t imagine Emma ever putting on a bridesmaid dress for me. Not after the introduction we’d had. "Maybe the 'girlfriend' thing just surprised her. I know it shocked the hell out of me."
"Sorry about that." He gave me a sheepish sideways glance. "I never thought we'd have to explain our relationship to anyone. Secrecy has kept us in a bit of a bubble this whole time. The only person in my life who knew about you was Rudy. I was unprepared, and I didn't want to tell my daughter that you're the woman I'm casually fucking."
I nudged his knee with mine. "It sounds like she'd be more comfortable hearing that, than thinking you were in a relationship."
"And I didn't want to hurt you," he added, looking into my eyes. "You mean more to me than just casual sex."
My newly in-love heart squeezed super hard at that, and I had to give myself a split-second mental toughness talk: I was not, under any circumstances, going to scream out, “I-love-you-lets-go-to-Las-Vegas-and-get-married-right-now!”
The best thing I could do was make a joke out of it.
"The sex is pretty fantastic, though." I leaned against him, rocking him slightly to the side, and he laughed.
"Next weekend?" he asked hopefully.
"Um... yeah." I felt a weird pang at the thought that I wouldn't see him until then. "Do you have a really busy week?"
"Not particularly, but with Emma here..." he grimaced. "I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine." It wasn't. I wasn't fine with it at all. I was jealous and bitter, and I felt shitty because I knew I had no right to be. Neil was Emma's dad, and if he were the kind of guy who would give his kid the brush off - no matter how old the kid was - I wouldn't have had any interest in him, anyway. "I love that you have a good relationship with your daughter. At least, most of the time. You're both really lucky."
“Do you want to go home in the car?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Call me old fashioned, but I kind of enjoy the so-called ‘walk of shame.’ It’s really more a ‘walk of pride because I got some.’”
“That you did,” he agreed.
He walked me to the elevator, waited for it to arrive, and gave me a thoroughly sweet kiss. And I let it be sweet. Because it was foolish to fight what I was feeling. He obviously cared for me, he’d said as much. But we were both happy with what we had. We didn't need to pretend it was anything more or less than it was. The elevator dinged, and I stepped out of his arms. Frowning, I reached up to brush my fingers over a smudge on his neck.
"What is it?"
Oh man. Now I really felt bad. "I think I gave you a little hickey last night."
He clapped his hand over his neck, and he was actually blushing. "Bloody hell, woman, I have to go back in there and have breakfast with my child!"
Grinning, he leaned down for one last kiss, and I gave him a quick peck before I darted into the elevator. We could drag the goodbye out all day, and I knew it was because neither of us wanted to be apart.
I felt amazing. I felt like the Grinch must have felt when his heart grew three sizes.
Except, when I stepped out of the building and onto Fifth avenue, I missed Neil already.
Crap. I really had fallen for him, and hard.
* * * *
I was glad to have taken the train, instead of Neil's offer of a car home. It gave me time to think about the morning in a neutral space.
Neil's daughter was an animal advocate. All of the changes to the beauty department suddenly made sense. And the cuts to Jake's story. Was this something Emma was asking Neil to do? He had to know it was a bad idea.
I considered what I knew of Emma. It wasn't a lot, beyond the fact that she was Neil's daughter, and she would now hate me for the rest of my life. I dropped my head in my hands, grateful that this train car was mostly empty. Listening to the tinny noise from other people's headphones or being stared at by some creepy dude who was trying to see under my clothes would not have helped my mental state at all.
So, Emma was big time into animals. Which meant she probably hated the fashion industry altogether. After all, it wasn't exactly like designers and cosmetic companies were falling all over themselves to protect animals. And now Emma's father owned Porteras. How much influence did she have over him?
I had no idea how a father/daughter relationship worked. My own dad had cut out when I was a year old. He'd picked me up for visits now and then until I was about six, but it wasn't until I was a teenager that I'd realized the driving force behind those daddy-daughter days had been my mother's desire for them to happen. He'd come to my high school graduation, given me a card with twenty bucks in it, and then gone back home to his wife and other children, whose names I couldn't quite remember. That had been the last time I'd seen him. It seemed completely unlikely to me that if I woke up tomorrow caring deeply about animals, he might alter his personal - and professional - behavior in any way to honor my convictions. Clearly, that wasn't the case with Emma and Neil.
The puppy under the Christmas tree was my first clue that she might be a little spoiled.
But Emma had seemed so antagonistic toward Neil. Because of the divorce? Was he trying to make up for her disappointment in losing a stepmother? Making unwise business decisions didn't seem to be the best way to handle that.
By the time I got to the apartment, my brain was spinning. I was so caught up in my speculation that Neil was trying to buy his daughter's love by running Porteras into the ground - and my guilt over the fact that I was speculating anything about Neil's relationship with his daughter at all - that when I unlocked the door and stepped inside, I didn't bat an eye to find Deja standing in the kitchen in nothing but a t-shirt.
"Oh. Hey." She looked super embarrassed, and I waved her reaction off.
"Don't worry, literally the same thing just happened to me." I hung up my coat. "Well, not literally. Wait... you're out of context."
"Yeah." She drew out the word with a comical grimace, her eyes sparkling.
Holli emerged from her room, wrapped in her sexy, short black satin robe. The back had an amazing art nouveau peacock embroidered on it, and I had massive wardrobe envy on the rare occasion that I saw it. Holli reserved it almost exclusively for wowing overnight guests.
"Hey there. I thought you weren't supposed to be back until tonight," she said, heading to the kitchen sink. She filled the coffee pot with water while she waited for my answer.
"I wasn't." It was totally inappropriate for me to be angry with Emma for spoiling my Sunday. But I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my tone. Hey, I'm only human. "His daughter dropped by. It did not go well."
"Oh god. How 'not well'?" Holli's nervous gaze darted to Deja. "I mean, if you can tell us."
There were millions of men in New York, so I figured I was safe so long as I didn't name names. "Um, she heard me and her father having loud, aggressive sex. That 'not well.'"
"That'll screw a kid up," Deja noted with a lift of her eyebrows.
"No, she's an adult," I answered before I thought to stop myself. Okay, there was more than one rich middle-aged man in New York City I could be involved with.
Deja nodded. "Ah. And would she happen to be a condescending blonde who can't keep her travel itinerary current with her father's personal secretary? Because I got a very terse email from one of those about fifteen minutes ago."
I opened my mouth to say something, but all I could really do was gape at her.
"Hey, your secret is safe with me." She looked from me to Holli and back again with a kind of deer-in-the-headlights expression. "I figured it out on my first day at the office. I don't care who you have sex with. And I definitely prefer it if my boss is getting laid. I find it makes my job a lot easier."
"You can't tell anyone," I warned.
"Never." Deja crossed her heart, then did a full-body shiver. "I'm sorry you have to deal with the ice maiden, though."
I didn't feel comfortable resp
onding to a slam against Neil’s daughter. Even if I kind of agreed with the description. I changed the subject. “You know, Deja, this whole pantsless thing kind of ruins your super cool rock-chick image from the office."
"Yeah, um. I wasn't really planning on staying over but..." Deja looked like she physically couldn't help smiling at Holli. The long, sweet moment that they held each other's gazes made me feel like a definite interloper, so I headed toward my room to give them privacy.
"I'll get out of your hair. I think I'm going to try and catch up on the sleep I didn't get." That was as close to a salacious remark as I could summon at the moment, but I had to give them something.
In my room, I grabbed my laptop off my nightstand. I opened Chrome and paused, my fingers hovering over the keys.
I'm really not a fan of the whole "Google your romantic interest" trend that has become so commonplace, but I wanted answers about the situation. Granted, I wasn't about to find results for, "Does Neil Elwood get along with his daughter and if so, why would she want to tank my job?" but I hated feeling so damned impotent and in the dark.
Fuck it.
I typed "Neil Elwood" in the browser's address bar, and braced myself for results.
Can I just say how weird it is to be dating someone who has a Wikipedia page devoted to him? I clicked the link and looked over my shoulder, like someone was going to be standing there, waiting to catch me. I read the bold top line, and my guts churned. Neil Charles Leif Elwood, MBE (born 24 March 1964). Okay. He's a fucking knight apparently. That's heavy.
I almost covered my eyes as I scrolled through the intro paragraph. Businessman, I knew. Philanthropist, what? Land mine victim charity, what? This was the guy who was spanking my ass raw on the reg?
The gist of things seemed to be that I was in way over my head. My eyes scanned the section about his early life - Born to Rose (nee Arden) and Leif Elwood, youngest of four children, lived in London until he was seven, family moved to his father's native Reykjavik - you know, all of the stuff you do when you're not the child of a poor single mom from Michigan. I dropped my head to my hands.