Page 14 of Tempted By her Daddies

However, there was some research to suggest that getting outside and walking could boost your creativity and problem-solving.

Which was something he could use.

It was grating at him that Pinky always seemed to be one step ahead of him. They’d nearly had him, though, before Alexei’s cover was blown. However, since then, he’d grown even more careful.

There had to be a way of tracking him . . . of figuring out his movements. Anticipating where he might be.

The ideas swirled in his head, and he was so preoccupied that he very nearly missed her. In fact, he was several steps past her before he stopped and let his brain compute what his eyes had just seen.

Swinging around, he gaped down at her in shock.

“What are you doing?”

“Um, well, I thought I’d just lie on the footpath and wait for someone to step on me. You very nearly did, you know. You must have been deep in thought. Or maybe you need glasses. You do kind of squint.”

“That’s because it’s sunny outside!” he protested indignantly.

He didn’t squint, did he?

“It’s not that bright,” she pointed out.

“It is to me,” he muttered.

She rolled onto her bottom with a groan. He suddenly realized that he was standing here arguing about the brightness of the sun, when she’d just fallen over and possibly hurt herself.

Roman rushed over to kneel next to her, being careful not to touch her. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was just skating along and then suddenly, I was flying forward. There must have been a pothole or something.”

She glared down at the pavement as though she thought a pothole was going to suddenly appear and suck her down it. Roman glanced around, but it all looked smooth and flat to him.

Hmm.

“You could have seriously injured yourself,” he scolded her. “This is why you need to wear safety gear. How long have you been roller skating for?”

He ran his gaze over her, his frown deepening as he took in the scrapes on her knees. They weren’t bad but one of them was bleeding. She was holding her palms toward her chest, so he couldn’t see if she’d scraped them too.

“About twenty minutes.”

“No, I mean, how much experience do you have? How long have you been roller skating in general?”

“Twenty minutes,” she repeated, sounding sheepish.

Disbelief filled him. “You only started roller skating twenty minutes ago? And you didn’t think that safety gear was a necessity? Do you know that you could have landed on your head and cracked it? Do you want a concussion? To get hurt?” he demanded in a stern voice.

She was silent, her mouth slightly open as she stared at him in shock. He’d surprised himself too. He didn’t think he’d ever sounded stern in his life.

“I, uh, I don’t think anyone ever wants a concussion, right? And I did get hurt. Look.”

Her lower lip wobbled as she held out her hands for him to look at.

It was the lip wobble that did it.

How could he stay upset at her when her lip wobbled? It was impossible. Then he caught sight of her wounds.

“Oh, you poor love,” he murmured. “Look at your hands.”

They were scraped raw. It was a wonder she wasn’t in tears. Any thought of scolding her flew from his head.

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