Page 12 of Penthouse Prince
This can’t be happening. Especially not now, when I haven’t washed my hair in three days, and I probably smell like a dirty gym sock.
Oh God.
I look down at my oversize T-shirt, which is sticking to me in all the wrong places. Maybe my imagination is playing dirty tricks on me. I should just ignore it and keep walking.
“Corrigan, wait up.”
The voice is closer now, and there’s no denying it’s Lexington. Here, now, and quickly approaching.
I chew my lower lip, frantically weighing my options. I could brush it off, pretend I was just stopping to tie my shoe and didn’t even hear him. But one glance down at my feet reminds me that I had the foresight to go for a double knot. Shoot.
Sucking in a deep breath, I gather up whatever confidence I have and reluctantly turn around.
My heart hammers in my chest and my stomach ties itself in an intricate knot because there he is. Lexington Dane. All six feet, one inch of him, just a few yards away from me. In dark-washed jeans and a plain white tee, he looks every bit as unfairly handsome as I expected.
What I wasn’t expecting, however, is the fact that he’s not alone. His big, tanned hands grip the handles of a dark gray stroller, and as he slows to a stop in front of me, I get a peek at the precious blond-haired angel inside.
“Um, hello,” I manage to squeak out, my gaze fixed on the munchkin in the stroller, who is blinking curiously at me while chewing on the foot of a G.I. Joe doll.
She’s adorable but she’s also making me ten times more confused about this whole situation. I’ve played out dozens of scenarios in my head where I run into Lexington and tell him off for what he did to me. But none of those scenarios involved a child. Crazier yet, a child who totally has his hypnotic blue eyes.
“Hello to you too,” Lexington says with an easy laugh. Curse him for being so casual about this awkward as hell reunion we find ourselves in.
“What are you doing here?” I mumble, dodging his gaze as I fold my arms over my chest.
“We’re on a walk. It’s a public park. This is what parks are for.”
I can barely conceal my eye roll. “No, I mean what are you doing in Wilmington?”
His voice cracks slightly. “We wanted to be closer to my mom.”
“Who is we?” I brace myself for his answer. Here it comes, the name of the woman who replaced me. I can already picture her—tall and thin, and far more metropolitan than I’ll ever be.
“Me and this little munchkin.”
Leaning over the stroller, Lexington unbuckles her, and then scoops his little blond sidekick into his muscular arms. She giggles in delight as he props her up on his hip, but I’m not nearly so happy about her change in location. Unless I want to look like a complete psychopath, I can’t keep staring at an empty stroller. Which means I have no choice but to look Lexington Dane in the eye.
All right. Here goes.
Slowly, I let my gaze inch up from the stroller, passing over the fitted white T-shirt stretched tight across his muscular chest, and the dusting of stubble along his angular jaw, until my gaze locks with his electric-blue eyes. It’s my first real look at Lexington in over ten years, and although I hate to admit it, the man looks good. Like, really good. Almost too good for it to be fair. Especially considering how disgusting I feel and more than likely look at the moment.
Irony is a bitch.
“Is she your . . .” I gesture between him and the giggly little girl bouncing on his hip.
“My daughter.” With a big, proud smile, he presses a soft kiss into her white-blond hair before tugging at the ruffled sleeve of her tiny pink shirt. “Grier, can you wave hi to Corrigan?”
With some gentle urging, Grier raises one chubby hand and wiggles it at me. “Hi,” she squeaks, then pushes her face into her daddy’s shirt sleeve.
It’s way cute, but I’m too shell-shocked to so much as wave back. I’m busy trying to wrap my head around the fact that Lexington Dane is a father. I know I shouldn’t ask this question, but I can’t help myself. I’m too curious.
“Who’s her mom?” My voice is abrupt, and the second the awkward question leaves my lips, I wish I could shove it back inside. I’m curious, of course, but I don’t want him to know that. I don’t want him thinking I’m interested in him or his life. He can sleep with and make babies with whoever he wants. It shouldn’t matter to me. Yet, it does. Deeply. And now I’ve just revealed that to him.
The proud look on his face falls into a more somber one. “She’s not in the picture. It’s a story for another time.”
