Page 57 of Penthouse Prince
“Remember that time you dropped your ice cream in the sand the second we stepped out of here?” He gives my side a playful squeeze, and my mouth quirks up in an easy smile at the memory.
“I sure do. You turned around, went right back up to the counter, and bought me another one. Like the gentleman you are.”
He pauses for a moment, his brow furrowed, then snaps his fingers. “One scoop double-chocolate fudge, one scoop of cookies and cream. Right?”
“No way. You remember my exact order?”
A proud, wide smile breaks across his face. “Of course I do. I don’t forget the important stuff.”
“I’m not sure my ice cream order qualifies as important,” I say with an eye roll, but he just shakes his head in protest.
“I strongly disagree. I think everything about you is important.”
When it’s our turn at the counter, Lex repeats my order to the teenage girl wielding the ice cream scoop, adding on a double scoop of strawberry ice cream for himself. The same as Grier’s order when I brought her here, if my memory serves me. Like father, like daughter.
In exchange for our two sugar cones, Lex pulls a crisp fifty-dollar bill from his wallet and hands it to the girl behind the counter, insisting she keep the change. She’s just as wide-eyed with disbelief as I am, but Lex laces his fingers with mine and tugs us out of line before any of us can get another word in.
“That was quite the tip,” I murmur as we stroll out the door and toward the beach. It’s a gorgeous night, the gentlest breeze barely stirring the sand beneath our feet. Nights like this only come around once or twice a summer here in Wilmington. I guess even Mother Nature is on our side tonight.
“I always feel bad for teenagers working those kinds of jobs,” Lex says. “We were young, broke high schoolers once too, you know?”
I nod. “I remember all too well.”
“I spent so many years working those minimum-wage jobs, and now that I’m lucky enough to be doing as well as I am, I might as well spread the love around a bit.” He pauses to take a generous lick of his ice cream. “Who knows? Maybe that ice-cream scooper girl will be the next big thing in real estate.”
“The penthouse princess,” I say, grinning.
Lex chuckles, weaving one arm around my waist and pulling me in for a soft strawberry-flavored kiss. “Actually, that role is filled, thank you very much.”
As the sun inches toward the horizon, we wander down the beach, our fingers intertwined, laughing and kissing until both the daylight and the ice cream are gone. It’s the epitome of a perfect night, the kind of night I’d like to relive for the rest of the summer.
And I just might.
In fact, I might spend the rest of my summers like this from here on out. I may have let Lexington Dane slip away from me when he was just a boy, but he’s a man now, and I don’t plan to ever let him go.
We find our way back to the car, placing bets the whole ride home as to whether Dak will be passed out on the couch. Lex insists that he’ll be wide awake and raiding the fridge for sloppy joe leftovers, but I’m not so sure.
Turns out, we’re both right—when we get home, we find him snoozing on the living room sectional, a cold, half-eaten sloppy joe on the coffee table.
I gently shake him, and he startles awake, muttering something about Dinky the Dragon catching the ball. Yep, somebody has been introduced to Grier’s favorite board book.
“Toddlers, man,” he grumbles, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with one hand while digging his keys from his pocket with the other.
Once we’ve shooed Dak out the door, we tiptoe up the stairs and peer through Grier’s cracked door to check on our Sleeping Beauty. Despite his bemoaning how tough tonight was, Dak seems to have done a pretty good job. Grier is sleeping soundly in her favorite ladybug pajamas, her little chest rising and falling with easy breaths.
“God,” Lex says softly, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe I’m related to that angel.”
“And I can’t believe I get to be her mom.”
I press up on my toes, brushing my lips against his cheek. Lex holds me there, steadying one firm hand against the small of my back as he captures my lips in a longer, deeper kiss, the kind that sends quick pulses of heat shooting through my veins. It’s the kind of kiss that maybe we shouldn’t engage in with his daughter ten feet away, even if she is asleep.
Lex must be thinking the same thing, because the next thing I know, he’s scooping me into his arms, swallowing my surprised gasp with his lips as he carries me into his bedroom and drapes me delicately across the end of his bed.
