Page 14 of My Ex’s Dad (Scandalous Billionaires #1)

I think it might be…might be going soft.

I’ve already told Amalphia things I shouldn’t have, and I kept going with it long past the point where I should have shut up.

Why not just let down my guard fully? It’s not like I’ve been emotionally stunted and found it impossible or anything.

It’s not as though I haven’t struggled with human connection my whole life.

After what happened, I waited until I was nearly twenty-six years old to lose my virginity.

Seriously. She was a few years older than me.

We met at a refrigeration convention. She relentlessly dropped hints about sleeping together throughout the whole weekend, and then finally, at the end of the convention, she was straight up about it.

She wanted something with no strings attached.

She was busy and had no time for a relationship.

I was pretty much terrified during the whole thing.

I pretty much laid there like a statue, even though she was incredibly vocal about it being what she wanted.

About me being what she wanted. Afterward, she kissed me, thanked me for the incredible time, wished me well, and suggested we attend the same conference the next year and see each other again.

It worked for me.

The next time, I wasn’t scared half to death. I wasn’t so stoic. I was actually able to enjoy myself.

The next year, it was better.

And so on, until she drew me out of myself.

Both of us knew it wasn’t love. It wouldn’t ever be love. It wouldn’t ever be a relationship.

She met someone and got married three years ago. I was genuinely happy for her when she brought her husband to the conference. I was happy she was happy. She’d found love unexpectedly, and it was a beautiful thing.

I’ve been okay with being on my own. I didn’t give up hope of ever finding someone because I never had that hope in the first place.

It was enough. For years, it was enough.

Until right now. Until Amalphia’s deep brown eyes and the gentle curl of her lips. Until she listened. Until her compassion.

“Warrick?” she asks softly.

I’m in my head, but that seems to be okay with her. She understands there’s a whole lot of sensory overload going on in places I’ve shut down completely.

“Sorry.” My chest is so beyond tight that my ribs are starting to hurt.

There are different kinds of pain, and I don’t think this is the bad kind.

It’s hope. No other emotion could be so beautiful or devastating, but Amalphia isn’t going to dash it.

She’s not going to make me believe something and steal it away.

I know she’s little more than a stranger.

Worse, she’s an employee and my son’s ex-girlfriend.

She could crush me now if she wanted to.

I’ve given her more than enough ammunition.

“Don’t be sorry.” Her lips curl up at the corners.

She barely smiles at all, but it’s enough to knock me back a foot like some crazy forcefield action just blasted out of her, as forceful as any cannon.

“I know you’re probably not pro-touch, but it’s…

it’s just my opinion…” She chews on her bottom lip, which makes something totally inappropriate come to life inside me. “I think you might need a hug.”

“A h-h-hug?” How can a one-syllable word sound like eighty-six point seven nine syllables in my mouth? Why does it feel like there’s a mouse doing incredibly enthusiastic mouse loops on a mouse wheel in my brain, except the wheel and mouse are both my brain?

“Yes. A hug. I know touching is a big deal, and I respect that you might not be ready for that, but it’s what my parents did for me when I was hurting. My granny too. Or sometimes we just…we just hugged for no reason at all except that it felt really darn good.”

The mouse wheel brain thing spins harder.

Faster. I’ve heard that people have to lubricate those wheels with cooking oil because other oils aren’t safe.

My brain could use some lubrication. Maybe then it would stop sending weird thrills followed by a whole lot of anxious anxieties spiraling through me.

Through me? It’s probably that I’m just spiraling. Period.

“I hug Booty Sue all the time, not just when she’s got wide eyes and is extra hooey. My mom hugs her crab, and she tries with her fish, though she’s not always successful,” Amalphia continues.

I don’t have to tell her that my life has been one giant black hole when it comes to affection. The story I just told her in the kitchen pretty much fills her in on that without me saying so. Not only is my heart going off in jerky rhythms, but my breathing is just as messy.

“My parents hugged each other. A lot. It’s a great way to communicate to someone that they’re not alone.

Some people might scoff and think a hug can’t actually do anything, but I don’t know.

Ask a sick child. Ask a crying friend who just needs to know you’re there and you get it, but they don’t want to hear any big, fancy words.

There’s a reason the whole shoulder-to-lean-on saying is so overused.

It’s a powerful thing, having someone there. ”

How is it even a thing right now that Amalphia feels like my safe place? Not my person, but a safe person. The only person in my life who has truly been a human being.

“Oh. Oh…no. Oh my god, Warrick, I’m sorry.” Her hands start flapping like they’ve sprouted wings, are the wings, and want to be the wings. She looks like she’s going to take flight, and two bright pink spots appear on her cheeks.

My mouse-wheel-muddled brain registers the fact that she’s beautiful.

I said she was pretty before, but I was wrong.

There’s nothing in this world that could make this woman anything less than gorgeous.

She’s all heart, and finding a person like that is like having a spaceship drop out of the sky and start belching out alien-sized toads with extra warts, which really only makes them extra cute.

“You don’t have to have the hug,” Amalphia assures me. “I’m sorry.”

Her hands are still flapping.

I have no idea what’s making her so upset until I reach up and brush at the itch on my cheek. Actually, both my cheeks are itching. They’re tight, pinched, crinkly, and crispy, like finding a used tissue in the bottom of your pocket.

Also…wet.

Doubly like the mystery tissue.

Shudder.

What the hell is going on?

I glance up at the ceiling to make sure the sprinkler system hasn’t somehow been activated, but I have it set to spray out this stuff that smothers any fire, and it doesn’t wet the area, so my robotics and all the other pricey things in my garage won’t be ruined in case of disaster.

“I’m sorry,” Amalphia whispers. Her hands stop flapping, and she stands immobilized.

“I’m a total turdbiscuit. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that you…

that you might be extremely wary of touch.

It’s way too personal, way too much, and way too fast. It was thoughtless, and the last thing I want to do is hurt you. ”

My face. It’s wet. It’s not the sprinklers, and it’s not the roof leaking. It’s not even raining outside right now.

It’s eye leakage.

My lungs are bad. Wrong. It’s like they’ve been sent through the washer, turned inside out, and replaced that very way.

I swipe the wetness away. “What if I want the hug?” my mouse wheel brain asks before I can snatch the words back and sew them up tight with stitches because my lips are snitches. I didn’t give them permission to express all my aching, angsty innards.

She lets out a snort-laugh that fizzles with relief. “If you want the hug, you can have the hug. All the hugs. Right now, too, or you can take a rain check and save them for later.”

It’s half terrifying when she leans in. The other half hits me hard, winding me when her arms wrap around my shoulders.

She’s much shorter than I am, and since I’m standing frozen and not bending down, she has to reach up.

Way up. It’s the most awkward hug. She does it without leaning in at first, letting me get used to her arms on my shoulders like she’s gentling something wild.

Her chest presses in next, her soft parts squishing up against me. Her arms tighten, and the hug happens.

Then, she lets me go and steps back before my brain can send all the wrong signals to all the wrong parts of my body.

But the mouse wheel does register that she smells good and that most of the scent clings to her hair, smelling like flowers and grilled cheese.

Who knew that could be the most intoxicatingly exotic combo?

My legs are shaky and solid all at once. The mouse in my skull is running the wheel so fast that he’s doing front flips and backflips and is about to send the wheel spinning right off its hinges.

“That was…it wasn’t the worst,” I admit with more than a small dose of honesty. It wasn’t the worst, even though she had seen me at just about that point or at least heard about it. Even before I told her, it was like she could see right through me.

I should be running because this is not usual, and it’s not cool.

I’m scared half to death, terrified of finding this treasure in the wild.

I’m used to the way my life is. I’m used to being alone and knowing that’s the way I’ll always be.

I’m used to loneliness, to having a world so full of people all around you and having no real connections, to a family that doesn’t have your back.

What I’m not used to is this .

All of this.

“Are you going to quit now? It would be perfectly understandable if you wanted to.”

Amalphia’s nostrils flare as she shakes her head. She looks at me like the alien toads are now making a landing, but instead of freaking out and running around, she’s more than okay with their extra toad toadiness because she loves big warty toads.

Without consciously doing it, I reach up and rub at the sore spot in my chest.

“Why would I quit?” She crosses back to the table full of robotic pieces and strokes one leg lovingly.

“I think you should get a real dog. Or…or a crab or something. Maybe a bird. A fish? Even if you weren’t allowed to have a pet in the past, you have your own home now.

You make the rules. I know you work a lot, but I could help out.

Besides, a fish or a crab is perfectly capable of being left on their own for short periods of time.

Cats are too. They’re pretty much masters of their own destiny who reward you for being in their life with purrs and headbutts and all their amazing cat wonderfulness. ”

This. Woman. Did I mention she has my number?

Literally. More than just what I gave her on the business card and texted her after.

She has numbers I didn’t even know I owned.

My throat closes up, and it’s all I can do to murmur a few words. “I’ll think about it.”

She’s not going to press. Instead, she gets her shimmering, fascinated, please tell me all the secrets of the world expression back. “Can you show me how the dog is going to work?” She points at the computer. “And explain everything, even if I don’t get it at all?”

After I just stumbled through the past painful hours, lost in the past, lost in everything I’m not good at, and tumbling forward like a blind man, this is something I can do. It’s something I can do well.

I can’t help but feel like this is yet another gift she’s giving to me.

“Absolutely. I’d be more than happy to.”