Free Millionaire Dad's SOS by Ally Blake Page B

bossy older brothers and a father who thinks everything I do is a complete waste of time.’
    Meg’s eyes slammed shut and she bit her lip, but it was far too late. She’d said what she’d said. Somehow he’d done it again—given her all the rope she needed to hang herself.
    She opened one eye to find him sitting ever so still, the oars resting lazily in their slips, dripping lake water over the bottom of the old wooden boat.
    He was quiet for so long Meg could hear the sound of wings beating in the forest, the soft lapping of water against the side of the boat, and her own slow, deep breaths. Then he put the oars back where they were meant to be and pushed off.
    He said, ‘Ruby attends a local weekly boarding school.’
    Meg could have kissed him. Right then and there. She had no clue why he’d let her off the hook when she’d been pressing herself into his personal life with barely concealed vigour. All she knew was that if he looked her in the eye rather than at some point over her shoulder she would probably have gone right ahead and kissed him.
    ‘Where Felicia used to teach,’ she encouraged, her voice soft, her words clearly thought out before she uttered a single word.
    The muscle beneath his left eye twitched. Then as he pulled the oars through the water he said, ‘It’s barely a ten-minute drive from here. The same one she was attending before her mother passed away a few months ago.’
    And there it was.
    Meg’s hands clasped one another so tight her fingers hurt. Ruby’s mum had been gone only a few months. Oh, that poor little creature. No wonder he wanted to keep Ruby wrapped up in cotton wool. The fact she was able to go back to school at all was amazing. As for Zach…
    She opened her mouth to ask how he was doing, when he cleared his throat and pushed the oars deeper into the water, sending them spearing back towards shore.
    He said, ‘This isn’t the first time since she moved in with me that she’s had a sore throat, a finger that twitches so hard she can’t write, a foot so itchy she can’t walk. So far all she’s needed is a day at home and she’s been right for another few weeks. So all in all I think we’re doing okay.’
    Doing okay? He cared. He considered. It was important to him to be a good father. In her humble opinion Zach was doing everything in his considerable power to do right by his little girl. And just like that all sorts of bone-deep, neglected, wishful, hopeful feelings beat to life inside her.
    ‘Zach, I had no idea,’ she said as she tried tocollect herself. ‘Truly. I’m so sorry about your wife—’
    He cut her off unceremoniously. ‘Ruby’s mother and I knew one another for a short time several years ago when I was visiting with a view to building this place. I didn’t even know Ruby existed until after Isabel died.’
    ‘So you weren’t—’
    So you’re not still in love with her , was what she was trying not to ask.
    ‘We weren’t,’ he said, insistent enough Meg had the feeling he’d heard all too clearly nonetheless. ‘I was in Turkey when my lawyer contacted me with the news. After much legal wrangling I met a social worker here, at the house. And I met Ruby. She had one small suitcase and carried a teddy bear wearing a purple fairy dress under one skinny arm. I never expected her to be so small—’
    Zach came to an abrupt halt, frowned deeply and glared down into his lap.
    The backs of Meg’s eyes burned. It took her a few moments to recognise it was the sharp sting of oncoming tears.
    She never cried. Ever. Never sweated, never blushed, never cried. The moments she’d let herself succumb to her emotions were the times she’d been most deeply hurt—by careless whispers of envious types, by stories of horrendous depravity at the Valley Women’s Shelter, even by herself. But thisguy tugged shamelessly at hidden parts of her that didn’t know the rules.
    She blinked until the sensation went away.
    ‘We’re both trying to get used to