“You’ve literally not taken your eyes off your chef the entire time I’ve been here.” Zee had taken a flight down in the middle of his honeymoon—a completely idiotic thing to do, but also not at all surprising given that Zee knew that Rico’s pathetic ass had no one else.

Rico turned to him. “There, I’ll only stare into your pretty face for the rest of the afternoon.”

Zee laughed, but before Rico could respond Song walked over with her mother and sister. Song’s sister had brought her baby and as soon as Zee waved to her and said hi in that high-pitched way people said hi to babies, she made a leap at Zee. Or rather she leaped at the huge solitaires in Zee’s ears.

The moment she was perched on Zee, she noticed Rico’s bun and decided that was more worth her time than Zee’s bling. Rico took her from Zee. Almost immediately, she wanted to go back, unable to choose between Zee’s rocks and Rico’s beard and bun. Song’s sister tried to take her back, needlessly embarrassed, because both Zee and Rico were just vain enough to love the attention. Not that it mattered what anyone wanted, because the determined little person refused outright to leave Rico and go to her mother.

This seemed to thrill Song and embarrass her sister some more.

“I’m so sorry,” this almost identical but somehow more put-together version of Song said.

“Please don’t apologize,” Rico said as the baby made a tight fist in his hair and tugged.

Being wanted this way by someone so tiny with a personality so huge was alarmingly satisfying. Rico would gladly take this uncomplicated, entirely self-assured love for as long as she wanted to give it.

“No wonder people have babies,” Zee said. “Is this one of those biological clock things for men no one told us about?”

Rico laughed, but he’d been wondering the same thing. Not that all that godfathering hadn’t softened him up for this. “Go on, I’m happy to keep her,” he told Song’s mother and sister. “You go ahead and mingle.”

The lovely little girl, who was named Rose but smelled milky instead of floral, squeezed his face with her chubby hands and slobbered all over his beard.

Song dropped a kiss on his cheek that did not escape her mother’s eagle eye and the three women headed toward Song’s chef, chatting away in Korean.

“You know they’re planning your wedding, right?” Zee said with all the amusement of someone who’d be flying back to his honeymoon in a few hours.

“Song and I are just friends,” Rico said.