He couldn’t believe he was getting a hard-on watching her eat. Her mouth, the way she flicked out her tongue, the obvious enjoyment. She’d had the same expression last night with his cock between her lips, as though it had been the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. He shifted in the seat. Now was not the right time to think about blow jobs. He started eating.
When her plate was clean, she put down her utensils, sat back, and sighed. “That was wonderful. I don’t get to eat out much, so it’s a treat.”
“No dates?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes. Not for a while. I’ve been busy. And it’s hard when you have to look at men as potential fathers as well as boyfriends.”
“Well, that’s not an issue now. Jenny has a father.”
“Hmm. But we don’t want your money.”
A part of him liked that—his fantasy girl had never been mercenary. “Hard luck. I’ll pay maintenance. It’s up to you what you do with it. And she starts secondary school this year. I’ll pay school fees.”
“She’s going to the local school. It’s good and it’s what she wants.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she didn’t have any other options. She does now.” He sat back took a sip of wine, studied the mutinous tilt of her chin. “You asked how rich I am. I’m very rich. My father signed the nightclub side of the business over to me when I was twenty-two, and I’ve increased the value twenty-fold in the years since.”
Probably more than that. He might not have Declan’s business training, but he had a flair for making money, making the right decisions at the right time, and the business had flourished.
“Was that when you came out of prison?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Rory reckoned I needed a challenge, something to keep me busy and on the straight and narrow.” He grinned. “He needn’t have bothered—I’d already decided I was never going back to prison. But I enjoy it and I’m good at it. So my point is, I have the money, and I want to pay my share. Jenny is my daughter. You might not like that, but you have no choice but to accept it.”
For a moment she looked like she was about to argue some more—her eyes stormy, her face tense—then she took a deep breath and her expression smoothed out.
“You call your father Rory? Why’s that?”
He shrugged. “Actually, he suggested it. We didn’t really know each other until I was ten. I was a little…precocious, and wasn’t quite ready to believe he wasn’t the monster my mother had made him out to be. Wasn’t ready to call him dad.”
“But you get on okay.”
“Yeah. We clash a lot—we’re too much alike—but he’s great. I was screwed up when I came to him, but he straightened me out.”
“Not very well.”
It took him a second to realize she was talking about his spell in prison. He thought about trying to defend himself, to explain to her what had happened. Tell her it wasn’t his fault. But he was betting as a police officer, she’d heard that a thousand times and wouldn’t be impressed. Besides he wasn’t ready to try to justify anything to her. She had to make her own decisions about what sort of man he was.
“That wasn’t my father’s fault.” Time to change the subject. “So, I’ll talk to my lawyer and get the paperwork set up. You talk to Jenny about schools.”
“Okay.”
That had been too easy. On to the next thing. “I want to see her alone. I want to get to know her.”
She nodded. “I think she’d like that.”
So far so good. “I want her to stay over. Every other weekend.”
Shock flared in her eyes. She hadn’t been expecting that. His little sergeant thought he was going to calmly accept the crumbs she let him have. She needed to learn otherwise. And fast. All part of understanding who he was.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said. “Maybe we can talk about it when she’s older.”
“What? Like twenty? Never going to happen.” He ran a hand through his hair wondering how far to push. But they needed to get this settled between them. “I talked to my lawyer. If I take this to court, I will get access. You want us to go down that route?”
“You wouldn’t.”
He sat back in his chair and eyed her lazily. She was becoming a little unraveled. He liked that. “Try me.”
She bit her lip and a jolt of awareness ran through him, settling in his cock. He’d been doing well at keeping his mind off sex. Now his head filled with images of Abby in various fantasies, pressed up against the wall, her legs wrapped around his waist, his dick buried deep inside her.
He shook his head to dispel the vision. Had she bitten her lip on purpose, to distract him? He didn’t think so. For such a sensual woman, she seemed sublimely unaware of the effect she had on him. Well, until they were both naked, then she noticed. It was probably just as well she didn’t understand exactly how far he would go to get inside her panties again. Not that he was budging on his decisions about Jennifer. But anything else was negotiable.