The scowl stays fixed on his face even after he’s settled on the couch. “I could’ve cleaned it up myself,” he informs me.

“I know.” I shrug. “But I think we made the right call sneaking out of there. For such a tiny little thing, your daughter sure is terrifying when she’s trying to get her way.”

His lips curve ever so slightly. Holy shit, did I almost make him smile?

But whatever shred of humor I might have induced disappears before I can blink. Mr. Hayes lowers his voice to a deadly pitch and asks, “What do you want with AJ?”

I shift in confusion. “I don’t understand the question.”

“I see the way you look at her, too.” His jaw begins to twitch, but I don’t know if it’s from anger, or the disease he’s battling. “You like her.”

“Of course I do,” I say awkwardly. “We’re friends.”

“Don’t feed me that bull. I’ve been alive a lot longer than you, pretty boy. You think I can’t tell when a man is in lust?”

And I thought the dinner conversation was uncomfortable.

“I get it. AJ’s a catch. She’s smart, pretty like her mom. She’s caring—too damn caring sometimes,” he admits. “If she loves you, she’ll always put your needs ahead of hers.” And I know he’s talking about his own relationship with Allie now. It’s obvious that because of his MS, she puts his needs first, not to mention coddles him more than he likes.

“She needs a man who will take care of her.” His voice goes soft for a moment, but then it sharpens. “You’re not that man, kid. You’re incapable of that.”

Insult prickles my skin. Who is he to make that sort of judgment?

He notices my frown and chuckles. “I was a hockey scout for more than twenty years—you think you’re the first cocky SOB I’ve met in my life? Cockier, too, because you grew up with money. You already have that entitled sense of importance that comes after a player signs his first seven-figure contract.”

I force my hands not to clench into fists. “Just because my family has money doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, sir.”

“Not saying that.” He shrugs. “But guys like you, you know nothing about real world problems. And if shit does go wrong, you throw a little money at the problem and poof—all fixed.” Blue eyes, a shade darker than Allie’s, sweep over me from head to toe. “You’re not what she needs, Dean. You wouldn’t step up and be there for her if it came down to it.” A pause. “I don’t trust you to take care of my daughter.”

With that final cutting remark, he shifts his gaze back to the football game.

22

Dean

Allie calls me at noon the next day with an update about her ETA. “Hey, I’m in a taxi. I’ll be there in fifteen or twenty, depending on traffic.”

I just stepped out of the shower, so I’m in a towel as I stride past the floor-to-ceiling windows in my bedroom, balancing the phone on my shoulder. “Why didn’t you take the train? Woulda been faster.”

“I felt like treating myself to a cozy backseat instead of a cramped subway ride.”

“Right on.”

“Any special instructions for when I get there? What floor are you on?”

I absently enter the walk-in closet and grab a pair of sweatpants off a shelf. “Just tell the concierge who you are and someone will bring you up. The elevator requires a key to get to the penthouse.”

She sighs. “You live in the penthouse of the Heyward Plaza Hotel?”

“Yup.” I drop the towel on the polished hardwood. “Hey, what do you think—will that make your dad hate me less, or hate me more?”

Her laughter tickles my ear. “Oh shut up. He doesn’t hate you.”

Yeah right. She’d be singing a different tune if she’d heard the shit he said to me in the living room last night.

I don’t trust you to take care of my daughter.

Fuck. MS or not, the old man is still delivering blows that sting days later.

I shove the angering exchange out of my mind and say, “I’ll see you soon.” Then I wander around my room collecting random items of clothing.

The cleaning staff already tidied up the place this morning—they show up twice a week like clockwork, whether or not anyone is staying at the penthouse—but I have a mystifying habit of accumulating a mess even if I’ve been somewhere for only a couple hours. Our housekeeper Vera calls me the Accidental Slob.

Twenty minutes later, after the front desk buzzes to let me know my visitor has arrived, I head for the elevator that opens directly onto the living room.

Only my prep school friends have visited me here before, and since their homes are equally…luxurious…none of them had ever batted an eye when they came over.

Allie bats an eye.

The second she emerges from the elevator, her jaw is on the marble floor and her eyebrows are higher than the fifteen-foot ceiling.

“Sweet mother of Moses,” she breathes. Her awed gaze travels around the parlor, living room and north-facing terrace, before returning to me. “Okay. I demand a tour.”

I offer a self-deprecating laugh. “It’ll be a long tour,” I warn her.

“I don’t care if it takes five hours. I want to see every inch of this palace, your majesty.”

As I show her around the penthouse, I find myself viewing it through her eyes. Every room we enter makes her gawk and gasp and curse in amazement—the walnut-paneled library, the modern chef’s kitchen, the gym, the wine cellar…okay, I guess this place is a wee bit over the top.

“Where are the bedrooms?” She looks confused when we wind up back in the living room and stop near the hand-carved mantelpiece of the massive fireplace.

“Oh, that was just the first floor,” I say sheepishly.

“This place has two floors?”

I mumble, “Three.”

“Three floors?” She stares at me as if I just stepped off an alien spaceship. “I think I want to punch you right now.”

“I think I want to punch myself.” I don’t like this unwelcome pang of self-consciousness. Or rather, I don’t like feeling like I’m the most overindulged prick on the planet.

Allie’s father’s voice suddenly buzzes through my mind. Disparaging and cold, mocking me about how I know nothing about “real world problems.”