Let’s go, boys!” I shouted to my team as I exited the church. Even though the fire alarm had been tripped intentionally, we still had to do a full sweep.
The alarm had interrupted a wedding, so I approached the bride and groom, giving them a sympathetic smile. It was hot as fuck outside, and our gear wasn’t exactly breathable, so I pulled off my helmet and wiped my brow with my forearm. “It was a false alarm. You’re cleared to enter the building.”
“Of course, there was a freaking false alarm right in the middle of the ceremony.” My eyes were immediately drawn to the person who’d made the comment.
My body roared to life as I took in the sight of the petite woman with auburn hair and the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen. It had been a long damn time since I’d even bothered to look at a woman, much less be sexually attracted to one. I was as stunned by my response as her beauty.
Her gaze met mine, and I felt as though my world turned right side up—as if it had always been upside down, and I simply hadn’t realized it.
She was the one. I knew it in my soul.
Then my gaze dropped to see that she was holding a little girl, no more than one. My jaw hardened right along with my cock. The sight of her with a baby in her arms was enough to have my dick weeping come. But the knowledge that she belonged to another man
slammed into me like a freight train. A muscle jumped in my cheek as I ground my teeth together, telling myself to walk the fuck away and forget all about her.
It was really fucking hard—no pun intended—when she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from me, any more than I could from her.
“Mommy! Mommy!” The little girl my beauty was holding started to reach wildly as she reached for another woman.
Relief blew through me as I realized this wasn’t her child—not that she would be childless much longer—and I didn't see a ring when she handed the little girl over.
Mine.
“C’mon, Jack,” called Caffrey, the pipeman on the truck and a good friend, yanking me out of the fog this woman had me wrapped in. I glanced over at Caffrey, and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the truck. “We can’t leave without you since you’re the one driving the rig today. Quit gawking at the pretty girl and get your butt over here.”
I shot him a scowl that would have had anyone except Caffrey shaking in their boots. But one of the reasons we’d become such good friends was because I couldn’t intimidate him since he was unimpressed with my wealth.
He waved at the bus again, and I realized that everyone was ready to go and waiting for me. With everything going on, now was not the time to delve into my new plans for the future.
Gritting my teeth in frustration, I silently promised my girl I’d see her soon and jogged back to the rig.
When I returned to the firehouse, I immediately pulled out my laptop and began to research until I finally found out who she was.
Kate.
She was the daughter of Kate, which could prove to make things a little difficult. Jonah owned a world-renowned tech and security company, the one that everyone wished they could work with. He was also known for being one of, if not the best, hackers in the world. And he had a reputation for being extremely possessive of his wife—and overly protective of his daughters.
Not that this information deterred me one bit. But the next detail I dug up put a slight wrinkle in my plans.
Age: Seventeen.
I was eighteen years older than her. Perhaps that should have made a difference, but the truth was, her age didn’t change the outcome, just the timeline.
Iran an impatient hand through my short dark-brown hair and leaned back into my chair, setting one ankle on the opposite knee. “Where is she?” I growled into the phone.
“Relax, Jackson,” Noah said. My best friend was the only one who knew about my obsession with Kate.
“Would you relax if this were Helene?” I muttered.
He was silent for a moment, then grunted, “You have a point.” Noah had some idea of what I was feeling because he had his
own woman he was making plans for. Although, he’d been waiting a little longer since he’d met Helene when she was still sixteen. It was an odd coincidence that our situations were so similar, but it turned out that the universe had an even fucking weirder sense of humor than we thought because Helene and Kate were practically cousins.
“The security company you hired is almost as good as your future father-in-law’s,” Noah reminded me.
His attempt to reassure me only further annoyed me because I hated that I didn’t have the best to watch over Kate. But walking into Jeall Weller’s office and asking him to help me keep tabs on his teenage daughter seemed like a great way to end up sinking to the bottom of the East River in concrete shoes.
I certainly couldn't blame him, not when it was what I would do in his place. Nevertheless, he’d have to eventually come around to the idea of Kate being mine. I wasn’t going to give him a choice.
“Then why haven’t I heard from them?” I grunted. It was just after twelve, and Kate had made plans to have lunch with her friends at this diner at noon. Sometimes, when I couldn’t stand to stay away any longer, I would arrange to “bump” into her somewhere.
