Page 8 of RomeAntically Challenged
“Your voice mail is apparently full, so they started calling here. All hours of the night, ringing and ringing, so I began jotting down messages. And you emasculated him when you stuck his head on your wall as a trophy.” She took the stack and flipped through it, huffing the entire time. Then handed a sticky note to him. “Here it is. Sweet P.”
“Bull isn’t real, and he was a gift. Now, could you read it aloud to me?” There went the stubborn set of her chin again. “I don’t have my contacts in and I don’t know where my glasses are,” he lied.
With an exasperated sigh, Annie took the note.
“She’s called a million times—her words, not mine—about this dress she’s just got to have, again her words, not mine.” To his relief, she didn’t do some kind of sex operator impersonation. “She’s saving you the first dance. How sweet.” She looked up. “Although, I bet Tiffani will have a problem coming in second.”
Shit. He’d been looking forward to this dance for a long time, and he would be pissed if he missed it. “Did she say when the dance was?”
“No. Now, is that all, or do you want me to recite her number too?”
“I know it.”
She considered that. “Do you know all of their numbers?”
“Nope.” He smiled. “Just Sweet P’s.”
Paisley’s was the only one that mattered.
“You might want to tell the others so they stop calling. It only leads to misunderstandings,” she said, all kind of hoity-toity in her tone.
“So does pigeonholing,” he said without further explanation, impressed by the way she managed to look both accusatory and apologetic.
It wasn’t his fault Annie had jumped to conclusions. Emmitt worked hard to ensure that when it came to the most important person in his world there were zero misunderstandings—Paisley Rhodes-Bradley was his everything. His beautiful surprise of a daughter who owned his heart.
“Is the woman who’s holding a bridal dress hostage judging me?”
“It’s. My. Dress!” She stuck the message to his chest.
“So you said earlier. I don’t think Clark got the memo.” He pulled off a blank note and stuck it to her collarbone. “Maybe you should write it down for him.”
She looked at the sticky note, then up at him through her raised brows. Neither gave an inch until the tension between them became murderous. Then she smiled, abite-mesmile that was surprisingly a turn-on.
“That’s great advice, Emmitt.” She grabbed a pen, scribbled something, then held it up.
“Fuck off?” He read with a chuckle. “Simple, straightforward, and leaves zero room for misinterpretation. I approve. Do you need an envelope and stamp?”
“It was meant for you.” She tried to stick it to his forehead but she was too short, so she settled on his chin. His five o’clock shadow was too much for the glue, and they both watched it flutter to the floor. “I would never say that to a friend.”
“Maybe you should try. Because from where I’m standing, he isn’t a very good friend.”
“Just because it turned out he’s not my guy doesn’t make him a bad guy,” she said, trying to defend something that, in Emmitt’s opinion, was not defendable. But he’d learned from experience, and she was going to have to come to that conclusion on her own.
“All I’m saying is, exes can’t be friends.”
“How about all of those.” She pointed to the stack of sticky notes. “They seemed ready to get friendly.”
“Those aren’t exes. They’re friends.” He wiggled a brow and she smacked his hand, sending to the floor the notes he was holding.
“Then why don’t you give one of them a call, see if they want to share a bed with you? Because I don’t, and yours came as part of the rental agreement.”
Emmitt choked on the residual bubbles stuck in his throat. “What?”
“Oh yeah,” she purred. “If you want, I can write down the day my lease is up. That way you’ll know how many friends you need to have lined up. I’ll even read it to you.”
Emmitt rarely spent more than a few weeks in Rome at any one time. In fact, since he’d purchased the house a decade ago, he’d spent more time overseas on assignment than in his cabin. So he’d sometimes rent it out as a rustic Airbnb, splitting the profits with his buddy Levi, who managed things while he was gone.
“How much time left on your vacation? Morning snuggles for a few days won’t be so bad. I’ll even let you be the big spoon.”
