Free Millionaire Dad's SOS by Ally Blake

Unfortunately he was perceptive enough.
    As she slid her tongue back into her mouth her teeth scraped slowly over her lips and her nostrils flared as she let out a slow, shaky breath. He knew he wasn’t the only one feeling the impossible zing between them. He also knew she was wishing with all her might that he hadn’t noticed a thing.
    She tilted her chin up a fraction before shaking her hair off her shoulders in a move meant to distract him from the fact that for the first time since he’d met her she was no longer looking him in the eye. ‘How else would a party girl chip a tooth but on a glass of champagne? On the upside, it was truly excellent champagne.’
    He laughed softly as he was meant to do. Her eyes flickered to his and her smile was grateful.
    After a few long, loaded moments, Meg asked, ‘I just…I’d like to know one thing too. Did Ruby tell you I was there?’
    He shook his head. ‘Her nanny.’
    She nodded, then looked down at her paint-chipped fingernails with an all-new smile on her face. A secret smile. An honest smile. One reserved for Ruby.
    And from nowhere Zach felt something the likes of which he’d never felt in his entire life—the most profound kind of pride that a woman such as her thought so highly of his little girl.
    Meg’s tongue kept straying to the itty-bitty chip in her tooth.
    What had she been thinking, fessing up to all that guff in some great unstoppable stream of consciousness? Nobody wanted to see the workings behind the wizard. It ruined the fantasy. It seemed all she needed was a man who looked her in the eye and asked about the real her, and it was fantasy be damned.
    Thank goodness she’d been rational enough to pull back when she had. There were some parts of her life not for public consumption.
    If she wanted to continue volunteering at the ‘less trendy, less telethon-appropriate’ Valley Women’s Shelter she had to keep it underground too. Every woman needed her mystery, and every public figure needed their sanctuary, even if it meant she had to truss herself up in a blonde wig, red liptick, brown contacts, and tight second-hand acid-wash jeans circa 1985.
    If she was to remain Brisbane’s favourite daughter she had to pretend the part of her life in which she’d attempted to leave the spotlight had never happened. She felt lucky much of her memory of that time was a blur of flashing lights—from the nightclub, the police car, the hospital.
    As to the way she had finally taken control of her life? If she planned on going through life with a spring in her step and a smile on her face she knewit was best not to revisit the choices she’d made back then ever again.
    It was done. It was for the best. Move on.
    So Zach Jones—stubborn, pushy, scarily insightful Zach Jones; the guy who saw through her so easily that every time they met she had to chase him deeper into the darkest recesses of herself in order to drive him back out—could just take a step back.
    Besides, her big mission had been to sort him out, not the other way around. He was the one with the rebellious daughter. He was the one who’d lost someone close. He was the one who needed help.
    As she’d seen real social workers do, she started slowly, easing her way to the point so as not to scare him away.
    ‘So Ruby was home sick from school,’ she said. ‘Does that happen a lot?’
    Zach’s cheek clenched and the look in his eyes made her wonder if he might not be deciding whether Operation Dispose of Meg might have to be put into action after all.
    ‘I ran away from home once when I was a little older than her,’ she pressed. Though she kept back the part where she got to the corner of the street, sat there for a good hour before she went home, only to find nobody had even noticed she was gone.
    ‘She told you she had a sore throat?’ he asked, taking baby steps her way.
    ‘She sure did.’
    She bit her lip. Argh! Had she broken a confidence? No, she’d told Ruby she wouldn’t tell