Free Corporate Daddy by Arlene James Page A

sang, all smiles.
    Amanda Sue sat in the crook of his arm, her shining, auburn hair sticking out at odd angles. “Num, num, num,” she said, “hunky,” pointing toward the refrigerator.
    Logan chuckled and smoothed her hair with his hand. “I think that means she’s hungry.”
    “Egg,” she said clearly, nodding.
    Logan laughed indulgently. “If I’m not mistaken, she’s just ordered the breakfast special.”
    “I think I can manage an egg and toast,” Emily said, keeping her gaze carefully averted. She felt oddly stung by his sunny composure, which was absurd, of course.
    Amanda Sue nodded, happily amending her order, “Tose un grink. Grink!”
    Emily shook her head. “What’s a grink, darling?”
    “Grink! Grink!” She stuck out her tongue as if to show Emily that she had a bad taste in her mouth, and everything clicked. Emily took her into her own arms and moved toward the sink.
    “She wants a drink.” Opening a cabinet, she took down a plastic cup, filled it from the tap and lifted it to Amanda Sue’s mouth. For once, the child did not fight her for possession. Instead, she gulped and gulped and gulped.
    “She communicates really well, doesn’t she?” Logan asked proudly.
    “She certainly does.” Emily smiled as she dried Amanda Sue’s mouth and carried her to the high chair. He stood there a moment longer, beaming like an idiot, until Emily indicated the coffeepot on the counter. “I made some coffee.”
    “Oh! Excellent!” Hurrying to the cabinet, he took down a mug and filled it. “If, um, you two are all right here, I’lljust take this with me and slug some of it back before I climb into the shower.”
    “No problem,” Emily said evenly. “I’ll get Amanda Sue’s breakfast.”
    “Great.” He sipped his coffee and looked up. If anything, his smile brightened. “Good coffee. Thanks.”
    Something struck her as odd about the way he kept smiling, but she put it aside as he hurried from the room, concentrating instead on getting Amanda Sue into her high chair. It was then that she noticed Amanda Sue’s diaper had come loose and was bunched up in one leg of her sleeper. She couldn’t help laughing. Poor Logan. He wasn’t quite the model father—yet.
    Despite vociferous protest, Emily managed to fix Amanda Sue’s diaper, then gave the child a sipper cup of juice and some dry cereal to eat with her fingers while Emily prepared her breakfast. It was a busy enterprise, constantly righting the cup with one hand and scrambling the egg with the other and somehow catching the toast as the stainless steel monstrosity on the counter literally launched it.
    Yet, during it all, Emily found her mind wandering to last night’s kiss and this morning’s seeming indifference. Had it really affected him so little? Perhaps she ought to be glad about that, but somehow she couldn’t be. She was, in fact, a little disappointed. Apparently she wasn’t even worth pursuing when doing so wasn’t imminently convenient. Maybe he really had attempted that lackadaisical seduction just to keep from walking back upstairs! The idea was extremely lowering, and as determinedly as she tried to tell herself that it didn’t—shouldn’t—matter, somehow it did. It very much did.
    “No wub!”
    “I have to rub your face, Amanda Sue,” Emily’s voice explained patiently. “Otherwise, it will stay dirty.”
    Amanda Sue h-h-hubbed a phony sob, but Logan could tell that she was getting her face cleaned, the little faker. Nodoubt about it, the kid had a strong streak of theatricality, but it still tore him to see or hear her crying. He wondered if he’d ever be strong enough to really stand up to her the way Emily did. Emily, as it turned out, was far stronger than he’d ever realized, strong enough to close the door in his face after curling his toes with that kiss last night.
    He was still smarting from her easy rejection, but he’d be hanged if he’d let her know it. That kind of thing had never bothered