She bit her bottom lip again, and Daniel barely suppressed a groan as he ran his tongue over the area of his lip she had bitten.

“I don’t mean to. I’m simply impressed.” As if she knew what he was feeling, mischief filled her eyes, and she released her lip into a small pout. “Very impressed.”

“Sara was learning to cook a bit. She was my helper.”

Annika nodded as she finished chewing. “She sounds completely amazing. And clearly you make a great dad. Decoupage is messy and time-consuming.”

Daniel nodded. Sure, he’d make a great dad. He ignored the pit forming in his stomach and started eating. Under Annika’s gentle prodding, he continued to share tidbits of Sara’s life, sometimes remembering a small detail he had forgotten, at which point Annika would prod him to remember more.

She laughed with him.

She cried with him.

Just when he didn’t think he could love this woman any more, he did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ANNIKA

ANNIKA WOKE TO the buzzing of her phone. She lunged at it, thinking it might be Daniel stopping by after his overnight shift, and all different parts of her body came suddenly alive with the anticipation of seeing him. Not the least of which was the rapid firing of her heart.

A pit formed in her belly when she saw it was her father. Ugh. She hadn’t really spoken to her parents since she’d hung up on her dad. But there was no point to putting it off.

“Hi, Papa.” She put the phone to her ear and lay back in her bed.

“Annika.” He spoke her name with the same clipped tone he had used when she was a child and had broken one of the strict rules he’d had for her. The pit in her stomach grew. “Your mother and I are on our way. We need to talk to you.”

Annika bolted up in her bed. This was new. They had always invited her to come home when they wanted to “talk.” She took a moment to be grateful that Daniel had not spent the night. She glanced at the clock. Five after eight. Her parents would be here in half an hour. She quickly freshened up in the bathroom, being careful to put away Daniel’s toothbrush. Oh, crap. What else of his was still here? She glanced around her small bedroom. Blue T-shirt thrown on the chair. Definitely a man’s. She shoved it into a drawer. She pulled on leggings and a sweatshirt and gathered her hair into a ponytail. She spent the next fifteen minutes tidying up and hiding any piece of Daniel evidence she could find.

Defiance or no, she just wasn’t ready to tell them about him yet.

Coward.

At the last minute, she knocked on Naya’s door. Better make sure Ravi hadn’t slept over.

“Mmm?” came the groan from the depths of Naya’s room.